The ‘Choice’ Of Being Pushed Out of Park Hill

In a recent memo to parents and staff, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg equated a 10 percent jump in School Choice participation with a growing interest in DPS great schools.

“Our schools have shown significant improvements and this is driving our large increases in enrollment,” Boasberg wrote. “We saw very high participation in School Choice by families in shared middle school boundaries – west and southwest Denver, far northeast Denver and Greater Park Hill/Stapleton – and we expect this fall significant enrollment increases in these zones.”

Notwithstanding the great schools, the fact that DPS now requires parents and guardians to fill out a choice form – even when they opt for their neighborhood schools – makes the above statement misleading. Indeed, when “choosing” our neighborhood’s East High School for my child, I had to fill out all the Choice paperwork by the appropriate deadline to enroll, even though we live within its boundary.

Also, because an increasing number of neighborhoods have “enrollment zones,” as opposed to neighborhood schools, this means parents must use the Choice system to access a preferred school.

The superintendent also stated, “We always recommend families look first to their neighborhood schools.”

But the enrollment zones take away neighborhood schools by including them in larger boundaries. That is exactly what has some Park Hill parents upset this year.

Bused out of the ‘hood

In June 2013, the DPS Board approved a Stapleton-Greater Park Hill Enrollment Zone for middle schools.

Included in the boundary are McAuliffe, DSST Stapleton, DSST Conservatory Green, Bill Roberts, and the Denver Discovery School. Parents in both Park Hill and Stapleton are guaranteed a spot in one of these five schools, if they so choose. Only one – McAuliffe – is located in the Park Hill neighborhood. McAuliffe is housed at the Smiley Campus at 26th Avenue and Holly Street, and replaced Smiley Middle School, which DPS closed last year as a failing school.

Last year, all Park Hill residents who picked McAuliffe as their first choice got offered a seat at the school. This year, at least 58 Park Hill students did not get a seat at McAuliffe, even though it was their first choice. If they stay in the “enrollment zone,” they will probably be bused to one of the other four schools in the Stapleton neighborhood East of Park Hill.

Lucy Dwight is the mother to one of those students. She listed three of the zone’s schools on her Choice form, but did not get a spot at any of them – including McAuliffe, her first choice.

She is upset that, after spending his elementary years in a neighborhood school, her son will be bused to a school where he knows maybe one other kid and will need to forge new relationships at a time when social interactions between teens are important to their development.

“I would like the Board to change the current policy moving forward so that Park Hill children are not displaced from our neighborhood school when we select it as our number one choice,” Dwight says. “I suggest giving Park Hill kids first priority, and then Stapleton children second priority over other district students.”

At a meeting with DPS representatives at the Greater Park Hill Community office on March 11, 2013, then-GPHC Chair LeAnn Anderson brought up the issue of Park Hill families not being able to attend a school in their own neighborhood without a set perimeter around the school, or a percentage quota that would ensure enrollment for families who live close to the school. Veronica Figoli, Chief of Family and Community Engagement for DPS, acknowledged the concern.

‘It makes zero sense’

This year, only 64 percent of Park Hill families who picked McAuliffe as their first choice got into the school, compared to 73 percent from Stapleton.

“I am very disappointed in DPS and the choice system that is forcing students out of their own neighborhood,” says Park Hill resident and parent Anne Koshio, who lives on the 2300 block of Holly a block from the school. On her block alone, Koshio noted, there are 12 kids who will come of middle school age in the next decade or so.“Every one of us fully intends to send our children up the street to McAuliffe. That they might be denied entry to the school that those of us with good throwing arms could throw a rock at from our front yards, is ludicrous. Thinking that we have to get in our cars and drive our children to school in Stapleton, when we live 200 yards from an amazing middle school, lacks any common sense.”

Koshio continues, “I realize that the argument from DPS is that Smiley was a failing school and that none of us in Park Hill would have sent our middle schoolers there. But this is an argument that simply doesn’t hold water for two reasons:

“One, if you have a failing school, the focus should be on strategies to improve it to better serve that community, not to make it better and then crowd out the community it was originally there to serve. Two, it is incredibly presumptuous to say that we wouldn’t have taken our kids there when it was Smiley Middle School. We chose to live in this neighborhood and be part of this community, and it is incredibly frustrating that our neighborhood kids can’t attend our neighborhood school not because it lacks capacity, but because it’s been filled with students from another [neighborhood]. It makes zero sense and speaks very loudly of DPS’ massive mismanagement of the school choice system.”

The problem will only grow as Stapleton’s population, already experiencing the highest growth in the near northeast region of Denver, continues to increase and children begin to enter the middle school years. Some Park Hill parents fear that the trend will make it harder to access the only middle school in their neighborhood.

Do More Schools Equal More Choice?

Every year, DPS puts out a Call for Quality Schools – a process by which entities or individuals can apply to establish and run a school in the district. According to the DPS website, to date, the following have put in letters of intent to submit a proposal to open a school in the fall 2016 in the near northeast part of Denver:

• Banneker Jemison STEM Academy, a charter elementary school with a focus on science, technology, engineering and math

• University Prep, a charter elementary school to replace Pioneer charter school

• Denver School of History, Speech and Debate, a middle school to be a feeder for Manual High School

• McAuliffe International School, a replication of the current school with the same leadership as the current school

• Denver Dual Language Academy, an ECE-8 English and Spanish immersion school

• Lycée International de Denver, a middle and high charter school offering preparation for the French Baccalaureate or British A-level exams

• REVO Learning, a birth to 8th grade expeditionary learning charter

Not all these schools would directly impact the Park Hill neighborhood, but some would. Noteworthy is the potential of a new McAuliffe at an unknown location. Kurt Dennis, McAuliffe’s principal, has not yet determined if he will put forth an application at this time.

In addition, the Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST) is intending to put applications for eight new schools (four middle and four high) within DPS. These would open their doors in 2017. This would be in addition to the current nine schools – and others that have already been approved and will be opened in the near future, bringing the whopping total to 22 DSST schools.

“If this plan is approved by the Denver Public School Board, DSST will serve over 10,500 Denver students at full build-out in the year 2025,” DSST officials noted on its website.

The total impact could represent as much as 25 percent of DPS’ middle and high school students, and would greatly impact choice. If one in four secondary students attends a DSST, what will the choice lottery outcomes look like?

— Lynn Kalinauskas