Teacher Kenneth Wright pretty much scrapped his lesson plans after arriving to work Monday morning at Amesse Elementary School in Denver.
Instead of his usual class of 25 third-graders, he had five, which was more than the teacher across the hall had.
“You can’t really introduce new material if you only have five students,” said Wright, who teaches English to students whose first language is not English.
Metro-area schools with high Latino populations were quieter than usual Monday as thousands of students joined family and friends in the We Are America March downtown or simply stayed home as part of a national day of action.
Throughout Denver Public Schools, attendance ranged from normal at Thomas Jefferson and South high schools to 98 percent absent at the Arts and Cultural Studies high school, one of three schools within the Manual Educational Complex, district spokesman Mark Stevens said.
In the Sheridan School District, which has about 1,770 students, Superintendent Michael Poor said one-third attended.
In the Adams 50 School District, which serves 10,775 students, elementary schools ranged from two-thirds to 94 percent attendance. In the middle and high schools, attendance ranged from 57 percent to 77 percent, district spokeswoman Deb Haviland said.
At Foster Elementary School in Arvada, principal Leigh Hiester lost about a third of her students. “We just continued with instruction,” she said. “We’ll catch them up” when they return, she said.
The Boulder Valley School District reported nearly 1,400 absences, or about 5 percent of students. Most absences were rally- related, according to district spokesman Briggs Gamblin.
At Denver’s Bruce Randolph Middle School, the halls seemed abandoned. Assistant principal Cesar Cedillo – who showed support for the rally by wearing a white shirt – said 118 attended classes. An additional 485 were absent, he said.
Chrisanne LaHue, a literacy coach at Bruce Randolph, said two to 14 students were in each class, instead of 32.
“The thing that was heartwarming was in every class, there was teaching and learning going on,” she said.
She said seventh-graders continued with their poetry class, while eighth-graders read the novel “Fahrenheit 451.” Because the books can’t leave the school, those students who missed class will have to find a way to catch up, LaHue said.
Cathy Johnston, a language- arts teacher at Bruce Randolph, said teachers weren’t upset about the missing students. “We pretty much looked at it like they’re participating in democracy,” she said.
For Wright, however, the huge absences at Amesse were disturbing.
“It’s really kind of discouraging because a lot of the kids who are not here really need to be here,” he said.
Foster Elementary’s Hiester said that as long as the students are caught up, the one-day absence won’t harm the students, and she plans to use the opportunity to teach students about the immigration debate.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-820-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
