It was more than rusty drinking fountains, textbook shortages and vanishing electives that killed Manual High School.
In fact, there was no predominant reason for the school’s demise. That’s what educators from across the country learned Wednesday at a Denver symposium held by leaders tied to the school’s closing.
“We want today’s reformers to learn from the experiences of those who have gone before, what works and what doesn’t,” said Lewis Cohen, executive director of the Coalition of Essential Schools, which co-sponsored the symposium with the Colorado Children’s Campaign.
Manual was on the cutting edge of converting large high schools into equitable small schools when it received a grant in 2000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant helped Manual officials section the school into specialized schools while remaining in the same building.
But as educators learned Wednesday, Manual’s reform effort ran into a number of challenges, including high turnover among superintendents, a lack of support from the district and a community that was not completely on board.
Eventually, everyone from the students to the district turned their backs on Manual. Students bailed for other schools at alarming rates, test scores plummeted, and resources vanished.
“It’s like this school was destined to fail,” said David Kesel of Charlotte, N.C.
Former Manual teacher Santo Nicotera charted the start of the school’s downward slide to the end of busing in the late 1990s.
“All the affluent neighborhoods were taken away and given to East (High School),” Nicotera said.
Former Manual valedictorian Candi C de Baca, 20, said the district closed the school because its student body was primarily minorities.
“Manual began to fail when a black kid and a Mexican kid was no longer sitting next to a rich white kid,” C de Baca said. “Any school-reform transition needs to build on reform that is culturally proficient.”
Marsha Pointer, an assistant principal at the time of the school’s conversion, noted that not everyone was on board.
“The district has to know that small schools were going to cost more and that everyone in the district had to have buy-in,” she said.
Denver Public Schools shut down Manual this year with a plan to reopen it gradually in the fall of 2007 with new goals and a new perspective.
“What was the solution? We thought it was to give Manual a fresh start,” Happy Haynes, assistant to the superintendent, told listeners. “We are rebuilding a culture of high expectations at Manual High School.”
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
