A committee aimed at increasing diversity, easing overcapacity and addressing under-performance in Park Hill and Stapleton schools has left some parents feeling “confused,” “frustrated” and “used.”
The Greater Park Hill/Stapleton Community Committee was created by Denver Public Schools in January to make a recommendation to the Board of Education by June about the future of 14 neighborhood schools.
But five months and six meetings later, all that the parents and community members involved can agree on is they were unhappy with the committee’s process. More meetings are scheduled.
Lynn Kalinauskas, a Park Hill resident and mother of three children who attend Park Hill Elementary and Smiley Middle School, said the committee’s first few meetings were full of busy work.
Kalinauskas said parents spent a large amount of time defining terms such as equity, quality and diversity.
During the final meeting May 22, members of the DPS staff wrote the names of four schools on a board: Ashley Elementary, Smith Elementary, Venture Prep Charter School and Smiley Middle School, Kalinauskas said. They then started polling attendees on possible changes to some of those schools, including strategic intervention, closure and relocation.
“There was no real explanation or understanding of why these schools were being talked about, if these programs would work at these schools or why these schools weren’t doing well in the first place,” Kalinauskas said.
Landri Taylor, a Stapleton resident and one of the committee’s four co-chairs, said the schools were discussed because of their low performance but “simply the problems were discussed” until the poll brought up specific solutions.
According to Taylor, the staff orchestrated the poll to see whether they were reading the months of discussion correctly.
They weren’t.
“They (DPS staff) wanted to do this poll, but they kept calling it a vote, which really put people on edge,” said Susan Gamble, a Park Hill resident and parent of students at Park Hill Elementary and Polaris at Ebert Elementary.
“In the last meeting, the stress kind of bubbled over, and (the co-chairs) couldn’t even get through the agenda. People were just immediately saying, ‘I don’t trust what you’re doing.’ “
Mary Seawell, president of the DPS board, attended most of the meetings and said she thinks the final meeting was the result of “a push and pull of people wanting to see something more definitive.”
“What happened at the meeting — I think it was challenging but good,” Seawell said. “People were more centered on what they wanted to see. The chairs did a really good job of stepping back and admitting that they needed more time.”
A few weeks after the last meeting, the four committee co-chairs sent out a letter to community and committee members saying there will be three more meetings starting in August.
According to Taylor, one of the committee’s mistakes was trying to approach the issues as a region. He said the key to being productive in future meetings is focusing on one school or area at a time and giving the proper attention to discussion, dialogue and input.
Taylor said if he continues as a co-chair in August, he would want to hold the first meeting with Stapleton and Park Hill parents before splitting them up into separate groups.
“Park Hill parents want to be the ones talking about Park Hill schools, just like Stapleton parents want to be the ones talking about Stapleton schools,” Taylor said.
“They (Stapleton and Park Hill parents) have exactly the same priorities — quality of education, diversity and choice of programs and capacity issues,” Taylor added. “The problem is that, while they have the same priorities, the challenges at Smiley (in Park Hill) are different than the challenges at DSST (Denver School of Science and Technology in Stapleton).”
With more meetings on the way, Taylor said the committee hopes to offer a recommendation to the Board of Education in November.
