Denver Public Schools administrators talked tough Thursday night to a group of northwest residents about beleaguered North High School.
Superintendent Michael Bennet called the academic performance at North High “intolerable.” Last year’s 10th-grade class had only 69 students proficient in reading. In that same class, only 14 kids were proficient in math.
More than 700 neighborhood kids go to school somewhere else.
“Northwest Denver is known for its divergent options … and known for its independent spirit,” Bennet told 40 people at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval school. “What we really want is to leave these meetings with a sense of aspiration.”
Thursday’s meeting was the third of 19 scheduled “community conversations” DPS leaders will have with northwest Denver residents about what to do with North High. The historic school has lost hundreds of students in the past five years and has extremely low Colorado Student Assessment Program test scores.
Bennet hopes the community drives the reform effort. Ideas include a dual-language kindergarten through 12th-grade campus or a college preparatory school that has a seamless transition from middle schools.
By the end of November, officials will put together a plan for a new North. A new principal was appointed this fall.
Resident Patrick Shaw has three young kids and lives on West 32nd Avenue near the high school. He called North a disaster and said that at “this stage,” there wasn’t a chance he would send his kids there.
He said the dialogue with the community needs to be honest, not just about what parents want but also about what the school lacks.
“You can talk about all the lofty things,” Shaw said. “But you also have to talk about what (doesn’t work).”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
