A Denver charter school catering to high school dropouts was shut down Thursday because Denver Public Schools board members said it failed to meet its mission of serving at-risk youths.
The Life Skills Center of Denver has about 260 students and will likely be closed this spring. DPS officials say the school has failed to show improvements in school performance since the 2003-04 school year.
“The adults have failed the students,” said board member Jeannie Kaplan, before voting to close the school. “There’s a … company here that has not been paying attention.”
School officials dispute that conclusion, saying some students have shown progress.
The school has the lowest attendance rate of all DPS alternative-education schools, with only 45 percent of students going to school. The average attendance rate at other alternative schools is 76 percent.
Charter schools are public institutions that are privately operated under contract with school districts. Life Skills Center is run by an Ohio-based for-profit company, White Hat Management.
Life Skills students and faculty, sitting in the audience of the board meeting Thursday night wearing yellow ribbons, held up framed pictures of a graduation ceremony. During the 6-1 vote to close the school, tears streamed down the faces of several faculty members.
A few students held up a sign in the back that read, “We don’t want Life Skills to close because it’s our last chance … We have to do something right with our lives … It’s our only hope.”
The school’s mission to serve students who don’t fit in traditional high schools means its population is transient, said White Hat superintendent Benjamin Valdez.
“We have not failed the students,” he said. “We’re hoping for an alternative solution.”
Valdez said he will appeal the decision to the state’s Charter School Institute, which can grant permission to run a charter school even if a district says wants it closed.
Board member Kevin Patterson, who represents northeast Denver, was the sole vote to keep Life Skills open.
He said he didn’t feel there was a “viable alternative” for many of the Life Skills students, who had already dropped out of other schools.
“I feel like we’re punishing the child more than the adults,” he said.
Life Skills Center student Jaydeina Martinez said she liked the school because it accommodated her needs as a teenage mother.
“I was afraid of going to a regular high school because with the assignments you have to do them when they say,” she said. “I knew I’d fail. At Life Skills, when you get it done, you turn it in. … It’s better for me.”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
