A new charter middle school will open at Lincoln High School next fall, despite weeks of protests from students, parents, community activists and teachers and letters from City Council members.
The Board of Education for Denver Public Schools, however, did not approve all the district’s original recommendations Thursday night: It voted to put two middle schools — rather than just one — in the Henry Middle School building.
Board members who supported the placements, all but Arturo Jimenez, cited the need for more high-achieving schools in the neighborhood.
“This is a proposal that is coming from this board,” said board member Mike Johnson. “We have a responsibility to use district facilities, to use district money in a way that’s best for the greatest number of students. I think this is a fantastic program. I think it’s going to work.”
Southwest Denver community activists had started asking the board to showed the only schools in the area with the highest performance rating of “distinguished” are three charter schools, which have fewer than 1,000 students combined.
The board on Thursday took a different approach than staffers when it came to the district’s new policy on school placement decisions.
Using the policy, the district’s staff had ranked the schools in order of priority they should be given at each of the available locations. However, board members questioned the way the staff applied the policy, particularly the way academic records of schools that had not opened were compared with schools such as Denver School of Science and Technology.
So while the DPS staff had recommended placing a new DSST at the Lincoln building, board members said it made more sense to place Compass Academy there because of programs for the English learners in that neighborhood. DSST instead will open at the Henry building, along with Bear Valley International.
Compass provides English learners native language instruction and will give those students the opportunity to . Compass also committed to sharing some resources with Lincoln, such as .
Students, teachers and community activists disputed claims that there was room in the Lincoln building for a middle school, citing crowded hallways that made some students late for class, and teachers having to work from pushcarts because they had no assigned classroom.
“We have enough issues. How dare you make decisions about us without us,” Patricia Cardenas, a senior at Lincoln, said at a past board meeting, citing a lack of space for teachers and a lack of books and saying students always run short of toiletries in the restrooms. “Invest in books, invest in classrooms, and invest in music. Invest in my education in Lincoln, and fix Lincoln first.”
The School Board election for three of seven members, including two incumbents, is weeks away. Some protestors had suggested they wouldn’t re-elect board members who supported the middle school placement at Lincoln.
Just before Thursday’s vote, City Council members Paul Lopez, Debbie Ortega and Rafael Espinoza asking DPS to abandon the Lincoln plans, in response to the community’s concerns.
The school board previously , including two charters and two programs designed by the district.
Compass, which is one of those charters, opened this fall in a temporary at Kepner Middle School.
Three other approved schools asking to be placed in district-owned space have not opened. DPS officials believed there was only enough space, and only need, for two middle schools.
In other board action, the Denver board also approved at the end of this school year. The students of Barrett, currently about 150, are going to be absorbed into the Columbine Elementary School next fall.
The student population has been declining at both schools. District officials said Barrett did not have enough funding, which is based on number of students, to keep up the program.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372, yrobles@denverpost.com or @yeseniarobles
