During the gleeful graduation ceremony at Denver’s Challenges, Choices & Images charter school last month, a few somber moments played out for the audience. The school’s 32 graduates had taped testimonies about their struggles to get diplomas.
Most were from single-parent families. One student was a new mother and another had been abandoned by his mom at age 3. Four grads were grieving recent deaths of family members.
“This is real typical of these kids,” said Carolyn Jones, the school’s founder and principal. “All these kids were a handful when they started. Nobody thought they would make it.”
Now, many wonder whether CCI will make it.
Denver’s school board will decide by June 30 whether to reapprove the charter contract or it may vote to close the school of 600 students or demand radical changes.
Denver Public Schools officials are concerned about the school’s academic record, its troubled finances and problematic hirings.
Forcible closures of charter schools are rare. In Colorado, only one has been forced to close in the past decade — a school in Jefferson County that was immediately reopened as a traditional public school. Districts may choose to cancel the contract, but the state can overturn the decision.
“The bottom line is, from my perspective, we are very concerned about the 600 kids in the building,” said school board member Kevin Patterson last month. “The thing that is concerning is the two years of (academic) decline.”
CCI high schoolers have shown little to no academic growth in the past three years, according to state test scores.
District officials also wonder whether the school has the revenue to pay off $25 million in bonds, and officials are investigating whether the school improperly lent $500,000 in public money to a privately operated preschool.
That loan now haunts CCI officials, who must pay back the money by June 30 in order to balance the school’s budget as required by state law.
School officials expect to learn today whether a bank will lend them the money.
CCI also has been criticized for hiring people with criminal pasts, including a vice principal convicted of having a crack pipe, a night janitor with felony convictions, and a registered sex offender who worked as a day laborer.
Jones said the school followed district rules for hiring — including running criminal background checks.
She said the school is “financially healthy,” and has hired Oscar Joseph from the Community College of Denver to help with staff academic development.
“I’m not going to roll over and fall into a hole,” Jones said. “The district is going to do what they need to do because they are looking out for the kids. I hope they look at the complete picture.”
In the waning days of school last month, Jones walked the halls of CCI.
Students beamed as their principal approached, hugging her, thanking her and pledging support for their “grandma” or “J.E.”
The initials stand for “Junior Elder,” an age classification in the Maasai tribe of Kenya that comes after “senior warrior.”
Jones created CCI in 1991 for poor, minority students who had limited success in other settings.
It began with a Saturday program in Aurora, then a private school in 1997 for 25 kids. Three years later, Denver accepted CCI as a charter school.
Curriculum focused on African-American culture, and the school was modeled after an African village, with male teachers called “brother” and female teachers “sister.” The enrollment is 95 percent African-American.
Students read ethnic literature, such as Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” and perform plays such as “A Raisin in the Sun.”
Enrollment grew nearly 200 percent between 2002 and 2006, and Jones expanded the school to the old Lowry Air Force Base. By 2005, CCI had 369 students.
But the school’s scores on standardized tests fell. Students began enrolling in online schools offered through black churches, and CCI’s enrollment in 2006 slipped for the first time.
A growing crime problem near the school on Colfax led Jones to relocate CCI.
She got two bonds totaling $25 million through the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority. She bought the old Samsonite headquarters off Interstate 70, remodeled the building, and added a private preschool.
CCI opened in September with 637 students — doubling its enrollment from the previous year’s 319 students.
The state had rated the school “low” and in significant academic decline two years in a row.
Denver’s new academic performance framework found the school’s elementary, middle and high school programs had not met standards.
Denver school board members suggested at a February meeting they might close the school, which brought out a crowd of angry protesters.
Swayed by the display, the board voted to approve the contract for a year — with stipulations. The school’s financial reporting, academics and leadership needed to improve.
About the same time, a former employee told district officials the school had hired staff members with criminal pasts, that students’ transcripts were inflated to help them get into college, and the school used public money to pay for the preschool.
The district launched the investigation that is underway.
Before the eighth-grade continuation ceremony last month, CCI parents were asked to sign a petition stating they were happy with the education at the school and they trust Jones to bring up the standards.
Success, said Jones, can be seen in the school’s low dropout rate and in the fact 32 of 34 seniors graduated this spring. All but one plans to go to college next fall, and that student is going to beauty school.
The state’s most recent graduation rates from 2006-07, showed 60 percent of CCI students who started as freshmen graduated — lower than the state’s average of 75 percent, but higher than Montbello High School’s 56.9 percent and North High’s 52 percent.
Jones proudly points to such grads as Fleniecia Caldwell, who received a full scholarship to Jackson State University in Mississippi.
“I wouldn’t be going to a historical black college without J.E. . . . ” Caldwell said. “I learned a lot.”
“To me, the school has got to survive this,” Jones said. “This is bigger than us. This is about the kids.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
