For Denver City Council member Rosemary Rodriguez, the moment she decided to push for an overhaul at North High School came when school-board members closed Manual High.
Before that vote, Rodriguez and many advocacy groups in northwest Denver had been behind a schoolwide effort at North to boost test scores and graduation rates. They had served on reform committees. They had listened to the principal talk about teacher training and intense focus on student achievement.
But the February decision by Denver Public Schools’ Board of Education to close Manual’s doors for a year reverberated through northwest Denver, where rumors began spreading that North was next.
And now, that part of the city is polarized about what to do with North: One camp wants a major overhaul, maybe even a charter school in its place. Another hopes to stay the course with $300,000 invested in professional teacher development and reform that started in the school’s classrooms just a year ago.
“Manual was a wake-up call. We don’t want North to close,” Rodriguez said. “The parents are saying it’s just not happening fast enough. We need some momentum now. In 15 years, maybe we’ll get it, but what about the kids now?”
Those shifting alliances mean that North may become the next battleground in the multiyear effort to dramatically reform – and improve – Denver’s city schools under Superintendent Michael Bennet.
Bennet, who said he likes that the community has started conversations about student achievement, has been listening to the debate this summer, but has not made any decisions about what to do at North.
In the wake of Manual’s closure, he hopes to move toward community-driven school reform – rather than a top-down approach.
“We’re all taking a paycheck from the public,” Bennet said. “Everyone in this district is a public servant, and we need to find out what the public wants here.”
Ideas for North – tossed around in e-mail exchanges and neighborhood coffees with community leaders – include a school “redesign,” which means that all teachers and the principal would have to reapply for their jobs.
Some have also called for turning North into a charter school.
“Reform shouldn’t be that hard, nor should it take that long to implement,” said Ricardo Martinez, co-director of Padres Unidos, or Parents United, a northwest Denver advocacy group. “We think it’s just too slow, the increments are too small.”
Both options for change – a redesign and a charter – are unpopular with teachers at the school.
“I can understand the frustration that things aren’t moving quickly,” said Melissa Underwood, a teacher who supports the school’s in-house reform effort. “But in fairness, we’ve only been doing this for a year, and we are moving quickly.”
Two years ago, principal Darlene Ledoux launched a reform effort with The Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.- based advocacy group that helped write the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Ledoux and leaders from Padres Unidos received about $300,000 in grants to carry out teacher training and reform.
The training was supposed to align teachers’ instruction with state standards.
North’s scores on the 2006 Colorado Student Assessment Program tests jumped for ninth-graders. In 2005, 11 percent of the students were proficient writers, but in 2006, that number jumped to 18 percent. In reading, 20 percent of ninth-graders were proficient in 2005, and that number was 27 percent in 2006.
“I’ve been holding my breath for the CSAP scores,” Ledoux said. “But we’re not done. We have a long ways to go. I’m extending my arms to say, ‘Help us.’ … We are now visibly making progress, we’re doing things that are moving us.”
The school’s enrollment, however, is falling, which means fewer teachers and fewer resources.
In 2002, more than 1,500 kids went to the school, and this fall enrollment is projected at around 1,100 students.
Students have walked away from the school after hearing rumors that North would be the “next Manual,” Ledoux said.
“Our kids deserve the very best,” she said. “It’s not fair that they have to worry about their school closing.”
Ledoux said she wants all community voices – including students and parents – at the table for reform discussions.
Lucia Guzman, who represents the area for the school board and has only a year left in her term, wants “dramatic” change at the school “immediately.”
“It’s almost immoral what’s happening at North High School,” she said. “I want major changes. I want to see more than two students scoring advanced in mathematics.”
North graduate Diane Medina wants a school that regularly prepares students and sends them to college.
“It cannot stay the same right now. I feel like it’s a little too late,” said Medina, executive director for the Northwest Parents for Excellent Schools. “Sometimes within a system, it’s hard to see outside the box.”
But Underwood said many of the teachers, with their new training, are looking at their jobs differently. This summer, they brought 50 incoming freshmen, who struggled academically in middle school, to the school for a boot camp.
“What’s happening is very exciting,” said Underwood, who has taught at North since 1988. “Teachers are talking about what’s working.”
Stephanie Robinson sees both sides. She calls the upward CSAP scores encouraging, but, as principal partner for The Education Trust, she doesn’t blame parents and community residents for impatience.
“If I were on the other side of the fence, I’d be pushing for faster results for my kids,” said Robinson, who has worked with teachers at the school. “I wouldn’t want to wait. … I don’t think the education system changes by itself without outside agitation.”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-820-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
