Melanie Asmar

Melanie Asmar covers Denver Public Schools. Asmar previously worked as a reporter for Westword newspaper in Denver and for a daily newspaper in her native New Hampshire. She joined Chalkbeat Colorado in 2015.

Kids board the school bus outside of Stephen Knight Center for Early Education as the school closed early due to extreme heat on September 7, 2022, in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

Some Denver Public Schools still don’t have air conditioning. Seventeen will close early Wednesday because of it.

August 23, 2023 at 10:24 a.m.

Record August heat forced the district to release students early from 14 schools on Tuesday, and 17 principals announced early closures for Wednesday.

Police officers secure the student parking area of Denver's East High School after a shooting at the school on Wednesday, March 22, 2023. Police said a student shot two adult male faculty members, and that a known suspect had left the school. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

Tickets and arrests didn鈥檛 increase when SROs were reinstated at Denver schools, police data shows

November 27, 2023 at 6:07 p.m.

When SROs were reintroduced on 13 Denver Public Schools campuses for the last two months of the 2022-23 school year, after a shooting inside East High School, the monthly average...

Charter school centering Black students misses enrollment target, won鈥檛 open in Denver this fall

November 27, 2023 at 6:07 p.m.

5280 Freedom School, a charter elementary school centering Black students, won鈥檛 open as planned in Denver this fall, and the school board isn鈥檛 considering giving it more time.

Police officers monitor the East High School campus in Denver on Wednesday, April 5, 2023. Officers were reinstated in April after a shooting at the school. The district's board had voted to remove them from campus in 2020. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

Denver Public Schools has lacked a safety chief for 6 months amid rising gun violence

May 17, 2023 at 11:21 a.m.

The district attributed a delay in filling the position to several factors, including media coverage of the school board, whose infighting has been widely reported, and a desire to find...

Erin Schneiderman and her 13-year old son play with the family dog, Ernie, on May 3, 2023, at their home near City Park in Denver. (Olivia Sun/COLab/The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

The schools that take Colorado鈥檚 “most vulnerable” students are disappearing. Can they be saved? Should they?

May 15, 2023 at 6:00 a.m.

Meager state funding, dire staffing shortages and changes to federal law have pushed the system to the brink. Lawmakers hope a cash infusion and regulatory changes will spur the opening...

A school bus parked outside of Martin Luther King Jr. Early College High School and Middle School in this 2015 file photo.

DPS failed to provide speech therapy to more than 1,000 young students due to staff shortages, state says

March 30, 2023 at 11:05 a.m.

The problem is widespread. A state complaints officer found that 28 Denver elementary schools did not have speech language pathologists for some period of time between January 2022 and now.

Students in Michele Baer's fourth and fifth grade art class at Denver's Stedman Elementary School poses for a portrait on Jan. 11, 2023. This year marks the 50th anniversary since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court order for Denver Public Schools to desegregate. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)

A once-segregated Denver school fights to stay integrated 50 years after historic court order

January 22, 2023 at 6:00 a.m.

The segregation of the city's public school system spurred a group of families, led by Wilfred Keyes, a Black father and chiropractor, to sue Denver Public Schools in 1969. The...

Students Alana Mitchell, Jenelle Nangah, Dahni ...

Video sheds new light on “Know Justice, Know Peace” podcast dispute

October 5, 2022 at 2:38 p.m.

Three weeks before a group of current and former students聽sued Denver Public Schools聽over their racial justice podcast, they met with district officials in an eighth-floor conference room at Denver Public...

Alison Yocum Johanson, a fifth grade teacher at Trevista at Horace Mann elementary school in northwest Denver, said not offering fertility benefits 鈥渇eels a bit like a betrayal.鈥� (Melanie Asmar, Chalkbeat)

Despite new state law, Denver Public Schools is exempt from covering employees’ IVF procedures

September 26, 2022 at 3:34 p.m.

The new state mandate is a law passed by Colorado legislators in April. Starting Jan. 1, it requires large employer health benefit plans to cover the cost of fertility treatments,...

DENVER, CO - March 16: A Denver Public Schools emblem and sign on the Evie Garrett Dennis Campus that houses five separate schools with 1,600 students in Pre-K through 12th grade in Northeast Denver, Colorado on March 16, 2016.

Denver school board approves charter school centering Black students that was initially rejected

September 23, 2022 at 9:28 a.m.

After the state ordered Denver Public Schools to reconsider a charter school centering Black students and culture, the school board Thursday approved the school to open next fall.

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