Pat Sanchez is stumped.
The principal of West High School, Sanchez is walking in circles around the third floor of a southwest Denver subsidized-housing building, looking for a lost soul named Vanessa. He checks one hallway, then another, then back to the first hallway. But the apartment simply does not exist.
“You know,” he finally concedes, “it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a false address. We have that from time to time.”
On Tuesday, Sanchez was one of about 30 staff members and volunteers from West High School to hit the streets in an effort to find some of the approximately 120 kids that, by district records, should be attending the school but aren’t.
The effort is partly to combat West’s sagging enrollment in advance of the annual October count, which determines how much money a school gets from the state.
But the canvasses are mostly about connecting with students and getting them in class before they fall behind.
“To me, it’s trying to rebuild those relationships with kids who have drifted away,” said Eddie Armijo, a volunteer who went out with Sanchez on Tuesday.
“Sometimes,” Sanchez added, “they get disconnected and they get themselves into such a hole they can’t get out of it. And then they get frustrated, and they start getting into trouble.”
The program is similar to campaigns at other Denver public schools in past years. Ken Seeley, president of the Denver-based National Center for School Engagement, which encourages schools to track attendance better, said these kinds of canvasses can prove especially effective in getting students back in the classroom.
“Home visiting is a very good way to make personal connections with kids so they feel the school cares whether they are there or not,” Seeley said.
But the search for Vanessa only hints at how difficult it is to connect with the lost students.
At the second address, Sanchez is told the family doesn’t live there anymore. At the third, he’s told the student moved to Arizona. At the fourth, he’s told the student has enrolled at Jefferson High School. And at the fifth address, there is no answer.
He knocks on the sixth door, and two suspicious faces soon peer out from behind the screen door. Sanchez learns one of the faces belongs to the girl he’s looking for and that she, too, has enrolled in Jefferson High School. After asking her some questions about how school is going, he leaves.
Later, Sanchez admits to being frustrated by the day’s results.
“We found two out of six,” he says. “But that makes me wonder, where are the other four? I worry about those kids.”
Still, he says, he isn’t giving up until he finds West’s lost souls.
“We’re pretty much going to keep the pressure on until we save our school,” he says. “That’s the bottom line.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
