Abraham Lincoln High School is so full, the principal ordered 100 new desks, asked for six more teachers and had the district cap its enrollment.
Now 1,923 students in grades 9 through 12 are assigned to the southwest Denver school, 700 more students than it had four years ago.
Students now trying to register for Lincoln will be directed to West, John F. Kennedy or South high schools. Bus passes will be given only to students who enroll at West.
The official count that determines how much per-pupil funding the state sends schools comes on Oct. 1.
But the preliminary numbers show that Lincoln likely will be Denver’s second-largest school, behind East High School, where enrollment is projected at 2,061. Montbello is expected to be third at 1,658.
“We’re busting at the seams,” said Antonio Esquibel, Lincoln’s principal, who credits the enrollment surge to the school’s focus on safety and college readiness.
The number of Lincoln students graduating in 2008 more than doubled from 2006 — increasing to 315 from 120. The school’s graduation rate also improved to 67.9 percent in 2008 from 47.6 percent in 2006.
And the school is a safer place now, Esquibel said.
The number of fights documented in the school dropped to nine last year from 24 in 2005.
“We have done a lot of things to ensure we have a safe learning environment,” he said. “Adults are visible at all times.”
Students have a uniform dress code. The school won the state basketball championship two years in a row and word got out about Lincoln’s high expectations, Esquibel said.
Yet, like most Denver high schools, Lincoln still struggles on achievement tests. Its 2009 scores from the Colorado Student Assessment Program show 5 percent of Lincoln’s freshmen and sophomores were proficient in math, 16 percent were proficient in writing and 30 percent were proficient in reading. The school had above-average growth only in writing.
“It is true that they are not demonstrating growth at a rate they would like to and we would like them to, but they are keeping kids in school and helping them graduate,” said DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg — adding that he did not know of a neighborhood school in Denver that has had to cap its enrollment.
“This is simply a school that several years ago, many families didn’t want to go to,” Boasberg said. “The school has established itself as a place with a strong culture and optimism and school spirit, and a place kids can graduate from. Sometimes those intangibles are tough to capture.”
Uniforms may be a key, said Van Schoales, program officer with the Piton Foundation.
“It is a school that looks more like a charter school or private school and one that has a focus,” Schoales said. “That is an indicator for a lot of parents, and that looks attractive. They have definitely gotten clearer about an academic focus. More kids are taking college classes and AP classes. But the numbers of kids being college-ready isn’t much of a change.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
