The battle cry is “558 to Graduate.”
That’s how a student group labeled the challenge for the Denver Public Schools once it decided to close Manual High.
The 558 freshmen, sophomores and juniors who went to Manual last year will spend this school year someplace else as DPS hopes to retool a failed school and reopen it as a model of urban education.
Trying to do that without hurting the displaced kids will be the district’s trickiest juggling act.
As school starts today and tomorrow, DPS is already in danger of dropping a critical ball. The school system hoped to have an adult mentor assigned to almost every Manual student required to transfer. The idea was to keep track of the kids and make sure they had the support they needed to stay in school.
As of Friday, only 328 of the 558 Manual transfers had been assigned mentors, according to figures provided by school-
community liaison Happy Haynes. “We don’t have good numbers on how many have made contact,” Haynes said.
Even if all of them have made contact, that’s a 59 percent participation rate – not the stuff of which 100 percent graduation rates are made. The Manual mentors program reflects the bedeviling frustrations of poverty and expectations in inner-city schools.
The reasons why the mentors program missed so many Manual students are varied. Simone Williams, a member of the Manual Youth Leadership Team that coined the phrase “558 to Graduate” got a mentor. Her brother did not.
“I tried to get a mentor to help me with resources and who to talk to at schools,” said Williams, a 17-year-old who will spend her senior year at Thomas Jefferson High. “My brother is a sophomore. He didn’t think a mentor could do any more for him than my mom could do.”
Another problem with the mentors program is communication. Many student phone numbers were bad, said Haynes.
Also, background checks of possible mentors kept people from getting together. Until she passed her background check, mentor Kristin DePizzol said, she could not meet with or contact Manual student Courtney Madison outside the mentoring program’s official functions.
Now, they talk regularly, and Madison is registered at Montbello High, where she is scheduled to start classes tomorrow as a junior.
Madison was motivated to seek help. So were two of the three Manual students that Nubia
Martinez-Caro volunteered to mentor. The third never called her back.
“Throughout college, I had a mentor,” Martinez-Caro said. “I know what it meant to me. It kind of gave me direction. My mentor, Grace Lucero, gave me focus to look for something in the future.”
That is exactly what every Manual transfer needs. It is what four in 10 won’t get.
Late Friday afternoon, DPS could confirm the registration of only 230 of the 558 Manual students at other high schools, said Haynes. Two schools hadn’t reported. So Haynes figured the number of registered students was closer to 300.
That’s 300 of 558, or 54 percent.
“We were worried until we talked to school counselors who said a lot of kids don’t register until the first day of school,” Haynes said.
“I’m registering the first day of school,” Williams said. “If the number hasn’t gone up by Wednesday, it will be a big worry.”
Big enough to forgo printing any “558 to Graduate” bumper stickers.
Relying on nearly half of Manual transfers to register on the first day of school is at least as optimistic as expecting success from a mentoring program with a 59 percent participation rate.
It may all signal self-sufficiency. But given the high dropout rate and the lack of academic performance that forced Manual’s closure in the first place, it forebodes something else:
A lack of motivation or aspiration.
The biggest problem with the Manual mentors program is not a lack of volunteers, although some, like Martinez-Caro, had to double up. The real trouble is that hundreds of kids didn’t ask for mentors. The same goes for kids who put off registering at a new school.
Helping teenagers who don’t understand that they need help might be the toughest part of the Manual mission.
Mentor Mike McCubbin said he listened and offered advice to a Manual student who “was not sure if he wanted to continue with school or drop out.”
“I told him the opportunities would be there if he stayed in school,” said McCubbin, who works for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Colorado.
McCubbin followed through by taking the student to see South High School, where he eventually decided to enroll. Now, McCubbin will help the student with transportation from the Manual neighborhood to South, several miles away.
“Mentoring is important to everyone,” McCubbin said. “But it’s especially important for people in transition. And it’s especially important for people at risk who may not have as many resources.”
Denver Public Schools is providing resources. But the school system must find a better way to connect with kids and parents. Those kids and parents, meanwhile, must take advantage of what’s being given to them. Unless that happens, the Manual rallying cry “558 to graduate” will be nothing more than an empty promise.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
