Aurora – Aurora Public Schools is mounting an aggressive effort to keep kids in school, including possibly barring high school students from leaving campus during the day.
Such a move would target the truancy rate in the 32,500-student school district. Other school districts, such as Denver, have implemented similar measures with success – and controversy.
“This is a new day in Aurora, as far as truancy is concerned,” said Aurora schools Superintendent John Barry, a retired two- star Air Force general.
Already, the Aurora school district has started new programs aimed at keeping students in school. The get-tough effort includes sending letters home when kids miss 10 or more classes, holding Saturday classes for school skippers and pursuing criminal charges for repeat offenders and their parents. Those punishments can include fines, juvenile detention for the students and even jail time for parents.
But closing campuses at the district’s four main high schools – Gateway, Rangeview, Hinkley and Central – could be a key component of the effort.
The district plans to hold several town-hall meetings starting in April before deciding whether to close the campuses. The school board also would have a say.
Higher truancy rate
If approved, closed campuses could begin in the 2007-08 school year, and Barry said he is already leaning heavily in that direction.
The truancy rate in Aurora’s four major high schools for the 2005-06 school year was 10 percent, compared with a statewide average of 4 percent, according to data from the Colorado Department of Education. The rate is calculated by dividing unexcused absences by the total days of possible attendance for all students in school.
Barry has met with the Rev. Leon Kelly, an anti-gang activist, as well as Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates to come up with strategies.
Aside from more class time, not allowing students to leave school would keep them out of trouble, officials say.
“Nothing good happens when high school kids leave campus during the day,” Oates said.
Tell that to the students at Gateway, who on a recent day made their way to their favorite hangouts when the lunch bell rang, a rite of passage they say they do not want to give up.
“It’s a bad idea,” said Gateway senior Fernando Candelas, who used his lunch period to get a bag of chips at a 7-Eleven two blocks away. “This is the United States. We don’t want to be locked in.”
Candelas was among several dozen students who went to the convenience store during lunch. Many students there said closing campus would actually encourage students not to go to school at all. Others said they don’t want the administration infringing on freedoms they feel they’ve earned at this stage of their young lives.
“We have a right to go anywhere we want to eat,” said ninth-grader Griselda Lopez.
DPS lets principals decide
Denver Public Schools wrestled with this issue last year, but Superintendent Michael Bennet backed away from a district- wide policy requiring students to stay on campus. Now it is up to the discretion of principals as to whether their students can leave during the school day.
At Lincoln High School, principal Antonio Esquibel banned freshman and sophomores from leaving campus, while allowing juniors and seniors to do so.
The results have been impressive. The attendance rate for ninth-graders for classes after lunch improved from 83 percent in the 2005 school year to 91 percent this school year. Tenth- graders saw those numbers improve from 88 to 91 percent. And the tardiness rates for those grades after lunch declined as well.
“The closed campus is definitely a major reason why that is happening,” Esquibel said. “But to have a successful closed campus, you have to have other things in place, other interventions.”
That is exactly what the Aurora district is doing this year. The district is paying teachers extra to be “case managers,” meeting with a group of about 15 students each week. And those teachers in high schools check in daily with students who are deemed at-risk for skipping school or dropping out.
“Evidence shows that kids go out for lunch, and they do not come back to school,” Barry said. “We are deeply devoted to making their time in school a success.”
Computer-assisted-reporting editor Jeffrey A. Roberts contributed to this report.
Staff writer Carlos Illescas can be reached at 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com.
