Denver school board members gave a nod Thursday to a new charter middle school in southwest Denver that will keep kids for eight hours a day with no summers off and keep English-language learners almost entirely in English-only classes.
The school, West Denver Preparatory, will be loosely modeled after the Denver School for Science and Technology, with schoolwide morning meetings and optional school on Saturdays, said Chris Gibbons, the school’s future principal.
“We will make a contribution to the district,” he said after the board voted 6-1 to let the school open next fall. “I’m happy to be here.”
Board member Lucia Guzman voted against the proposal after expressing concern about the school’s planned English- language program.
“Unless it’s really a dire need, we ought to try and continue instead to improve ELA (English language acquisition) programs that we already have out there,” she said.
The school plans to use a “sheltered English” program for Spanish-speaking students. This means all students – no matter how well they speak English – will take rigorous English-only writing and reading classes.
The school will have bilingual support staff, and some students who speak only Spanish will take reading classes in Spanish their first year, Gibbons said.
“Our mission is about preparing kids for college at the middle-grade years, and to do that, kids must be fluent in English at that time,” he said.
West Denver Prep will eventually have 300 students in grades six through eight.
It will compete with Kepner, Rishel and Kunsmiller middle schools for students.
To Denver, each student is worth roughly $6,600 in state and federal funding. When those students go to charters, Denver Public Schools loses most of that per-student funding.
Denver City Council President Rosemary Rodriguez, who represents the area, threw her support behind West Denver Prep after parents said the neighborhood middle schools weren’t scoring high enough on state tests.
Last spring, only 20 percent of eighth- graders at Kepner Middle were proficient readers.
That number was 17 percent at Rishel, and at Kunsmiller, 23 percent of eighth- graders were proficient readers.
“I think we need to raise the bar a little in southwest Denver,” she said.
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-820-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
