A Denver Public Schools graduate who went on to Harvard University and then to run one of the city’s toniest private schools will run the “new” Manual High this fall, school officials said Monday.
Robert Stein, who heads Graland Country Day School, will become the new principal of the historic northeast Denver high school that was shut down last year for chronic poor performance.
Before its year-long closure, Manual had a dropout rate of more than 60 percent and had lost 354 students in four years. It will reopen this fall with only ninth-graders, and will add a grade each year to eventually become a full-grown high school.
Stein, who was forcibly bused to Manual in the 1970s during desegregation efforts, said he will bring “all of my knowledge, all of my experience and all of my energy” to creating a new school.
He will make $113,000 a year and will officially start July 1, though DPS is paying him for some time before that so he can hire staff and create a school design and mission.
Stein announced last year he was leaving Graland, telling his staff he wanted to “heal the world.”
“I think … my own life mission has been more oriented to meeting needs and solving problems for the public good,” said Stein, who has taught in South America and can speak Spanish. “Certainly, I did no harm at Graland … but I’m not sure I felt every day that I was doing what needed to be done to make it (the world) a better place.”
Superintendent Michael Bennet said that among the three finalists, Stein was the “best overall leader for the school.”
“He’s joining a group of principals who are becoming some of the best-trained principals in the country,” he said.
Stein, 46, said he hoped to create a school culture at Manual that gives students individualized attention and parents a sense of customer service.
He said when he attended Manual in the 1970s, he was aware of a wide achievement gap between the students who were bused into the school and neighborhood kids, and that a disproportionate amount of resources went to more affluent students who already were in Advanced Placement classes.
Pastor Ralph Beechum, the head of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, said he would press Stein on how he would make Manual a school “the students can be proud of.”
The association of black clergy members included some of Bennet’s staunchest critics when Manual closed.
“Our hope is that Manual opens as a viable high school,” Beechum said. “A school where our kids will receive the kind of education that our community wants them to have.”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
