Manual High School will have the longest calendar year in Denver Public Schools starting next year, the school announced Tuesday.
Next year classes will begin July 9, 2012 and end on June 14, 2013, with 25 of those days allocated to off-campus learning experiences.
That will be a school year of 210 days — compared to the current traditional DPS calendar which has students report to school 171 days.
Manual’s director of engagement Vernon Jones said the goal is to have off-campus days that include travel across the state and the country — but the school is still trying to arrange funding.
“There will be no expenses for our families,” Jones said. “Money shouldn’t be an obstacle.”
The changes in the coming school year will also include a plan to increase the number of community-led classes.
“We really understand a successful school is supported by a successful community,” Jones said. “We’ve been doing this since we re-opened, but now we have a more formal way of organizing that component.”
Current similar partnerships with YMCA staff housed at the high school have provided a weekly health and nutrition class offered through the physical education course.
Similar partnerships would provide more class offerings next year.
In 2009, Manual was the first school in Denver Public Schools to apply for, and earn, innovation status, which allows it freedom from several union rules and greater financial autonomy.
This year, 11 schools in far northeast Denver, part of a turnaround plan, also received innovation status, and used it in part to increase their school day and school year.
Those schools have extended their school year by six days and each school day by an hour.
Another proposed change Manual has previously discussed to add middle school grades to convert the school into a 6 through 12, has been postponed.
Jones said the school needed more time to better plan that component.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com
