Manual High School, one of the city’s most academically troubled schools, will undergo a drastic reform that includes opening a “premier” high school in 2007, district leaders announced Thursday.
Manual has been operating as three small schools within one building – one school per floor – since 2001. Denver Public Schools Superintendent Mich ael Bennet told teachers in a private meeting Thursday that he hoped to make it one school again this fall for sophomores, juniors and seniors.
Freshmen would be assigned to West High School next year. In 2007, the school would open with just freshmen, district leaders said, and grow from there.
“What we really want is that school (Manual) to be a bright light in northeast Denver,” said Brad Jupp, senior policy adviser to Bennet. “We want to get all people in the neighborhood clamoring to get to that school.”
That’s not happening now. Manual has lost 47 percent of its students in four years. That has meant fewer teachers and fewer college- preparatory classes.
Bennet began his meeting with teachers with an apology.
“It clearly reached an untenable situation,” he said later. “It’s very difficult because we had to balance a lot.”
He said that during the planning process for the “new” school in 2007, he didn’t want to lose sight of the students currently attending Manual.
“We want to make sure there are options for them,” he said.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, all Manual students have the choice of going to one of five Denver high schools that made “adequate yearly progress.” Students would get transportation to one of these schools: East, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Kennedy or South.
Because some of the schools are at capacity, Manual students trying to get in may be thrown into a lottery with other students, Jupp said.
Many students Thursday said they had heard of changes coming to the school. “I’ve been hearing that we would maybe become one school again,” said Chris Muniz, a junior at Manual’s Leadership Academy. “I think that would be a mistake.”
Many teachers walked away from the meeting concerned about the students.
“It breaks my heart,” said Leadership science teacher Pattyanne Corsentino. “We have kids sometimes who wouldn’t make it in another school, I know it. And I worry about how many will want to stay. It’s like, ‘Do I want to go to a school that’s going to close?”‘
Manual is among the very lowest academically performing schools in the state. Not a single student has scored “advanced” in reading, writing or math CSAP tests in 2003, 2004 or 2005, according to district data.
In the 2001-02 school year, Manual started with 475 freshmen, yet only 95 students graduated four years later.
What went wrong at the school since foundations sank approximately $1 million into Manual has been studied extensively by advocacy and parent groups in the past year.
Much of the criticism has been aimed at the district’s lack of support of the idea from the start.
“There was not clarity about what these schools should be, and there wasn’t support,” said Van Schoales, president of the Colorado Children’s Campaign. “It’s time to put the old three schools in what I would describe as hospice care for the next year, and then move into something that really works.”
Bennet said he wanted Manual to be a “premier” high school but that it was “important to plan.”
“And it’s important to take time with the community to design something that will work.”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-820-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
