Volume 52, Issue No. 1
January 2013
A Greater Park Hill Community, Inc. Publication
Smiley Middle School Program to Begin Two-Year Phase-Out 5 Choice Schools for Boundary 6th Graders, 2014 Programming Undecided By Erin Vanderberg Editor
Mixed Emotions About Community Engagement Process
On December 20, the Board of Education for Denver Public Schools voted 6-0 to close Smiley Middle School by 2015 through a phase-out process that will immediately curtail the school’s sixth grade program in the 2013-14 school year, 85 years after Smiley opened. The affected sixth graders will have a guaranteed place in and transportation to one of five middle school programs for the next three years: Denver School of Science and Technology–Cole, DSST–Stapleton, McAuliffe International, Morey and Bill Roberts. The seventh and eighth graders who will stay on at Smiley during the phase-out have been assured no change in instruction, electives availability, and will be provided additional support services. The 80 Percent “Over the years, Smiley has had a rather erratic performance,” DeVita Bruce, DPS Deputy Community Engagement Officer told a meeting on SchoolChoice at Park Hill Elementary. “Some years have been better than others. They’ve gone through years of school leadership changes, but over those years has been a consistent decline in enrollment, which signals to us that what is currently being offered in the Smiley building is not necessarily what families in the community are looking for.” Currently, Smiley is rated orange, or “Priority on Watch,” on the School Performance Framework rating due to issues of declining or flat test scores, declining enrollment and student and parent satisfaction. The previous year, Smiley was one point away from a green, or “Meets Expectation,” rating. According to the district, the community voted to shut down Smiley when it stopped sending its kids there. “80 percent of students aren’t going there,” DPS Assistant Superintendent Antwan Wilson told the GPHN. “It’s not a matter of us arbitrarily ending the program. We put in resources, provided additional teachers, supported the leadership there. Unfortunately, many parents have decided that there are other options already, whether we made a decision or not.” To Gary Sulley, a social studies teacher who is retiring from Smiley at the end of this school year, enrollment figures have more to do with geography than with school performance. “The issue is that all the choice schools were put in northeast Denver and they recruit out of Park Hill,” said Sulley. He was part of the effort to bring the IB program to Smiley, the application for which was paid for by a PTA fundraiser, not by the district. Recruiting resources were not something allocated to the school either.
Parents in Park Hill and Stapleton got a hint that change was coming to area schools last spring, when they were invited to participate in the DPS Greater Park Hill/Stapleton Community Committee, a facilitated six-meeting series held at the Odyssey School. The committee’s stated intent was to examine feeder patterns in the northeast region. “When DPS comes into your community and starts a process, something is going down,” said Mandy Hennessey, a Park Hill Elementary parent. “We were very skeptical but we went to every single meeting, did every single exercise and wasted a lot of time doing that.” Some in the community are drawing phase-out process parallels between Smiley and Montbello High School in 2010. Former DPS teacher, educational activist, and NAACP member Mary Sam is one of them. To her, in both instances, the district had a predetermined plan that was masked in community engagement. Happy Haynes, School Board Vice-President, said the hope for the process was that the Greater Park Hill and Stapleton communities would find common interests and see mutually-beneficial solutions for their area schools. “I think a lot of people felt that we weren’t addressing first the underlying issues of concern before we tried to leap to a solution or a set of shared goals that everybody could embrace,” Haynes told a meeting of concerned neighbors on the subject at the offices of the GPHC. “The Park Hill folks were much more focused about what was happening at Smiley. And the people at Stapleton were asking why should we go to a school when people in your own neighborhood don’t go to it.” While the format of the next community committee, this one focused specifically on deciding what program will come to the Smiley campus in 2014, has not yet been decided upon, the Office of Community Engagement is expected to announce and begin the process in January. In response to a letter from the GPHC stating its concerns that Greater Park Hill’s Registered Neighborhood Organization and other stakeholders outside the schools were not brought to the table, Superintendent Tom Boasberg responded with assurances that newly-hired Chief Community Engagement Officer Verónica Figoli, formerly with the Piton Foundation, will work to give all community stakeholders an “equitable opportunity to have their voices heard.” Future of a Historic Campus Designed by George Williamson, architect of East High School and the Daniels & Fisher Tower, Smiley was named for Dr. William H. Smiley, beloved 20-year principal at East (1892-1912) and school superintendent
(1912-1924). The school opened in 1928 with 350 students, a little over 100 more than currently attend the school today. Area schools seeking to grow their school’s enrollment levels and facing space constraints, have begun to set their sights on the newly available historic building. The school has the capacity for over 1,000 students, though Venture Prep’s small high school program, which graduated it’s first class of 17 seniors in the 2011-12 school year, is currently slated to continue on at the campus. Two schools made public their interest in the campus in December: McAuliffe International, an innovation middle school in its first year of International Baccalaureate accreditation currently sharing a campus with Swigert International elementary in Stapleton; and the Denver Language School, a K-4 language immersion charter school currently residing in Montclair which is seeking to add grades 5-8 to its program. McAuliffe Principal Kurt Dennis formed an exploratory committee in late November to get feedback from the Park Hill and Stapleton communities. At a December 17 meeting at Montview Presbyterian Church, led by Dennis, that discussion turned practical: What if both communities were guaranteed equal minimum seats at the school? Could Park Hill boundary students continue to feed to East High School, even if Stapleton boundary students did not? Should McAuliffe maintain its innovation status, but amend it to include a broader preference for the new boundary students? How would people feel about Venture Prep being relocated so that McAuliffe could expand to 840 students and maintain its IB program? Could parents organize to make a decision happen sooner? In a conversation with the GPHN, Dennis outlined the reasons that McAuliffe is courting Smiley: “33 percent of our families currently live in the Park Hill neighborhood so we already have strong ties to the community; Park Hill has a diverse student population and it has always been our goal to have a diverse student body that reflects all of northeast Denver; the Smiley Campus is a beautiful facility that would allow for McAuliffe to deliver a rich middle school experience for all students; and Park Hill needs a high quality middle school program and Stapleton needs additional capacity for its growing student population. If we do this right, it could be a win-win situation for both neighborhoods.” The Denver Language School took a different tack. Principal Dr. Sara Amodio, DLS PTA president Dr. Dan Baack, and a large group of DLS parents made a presentation directly to the Board of Education, the same evening public comment was accepted about the recommendation to phase-out Smiley. Like McAuliffe, DLS has a number of Park Hill and Stapleton children at the school already. While their program isn’t a middle school yet, See End of Smiley Era on page 3
City Council: 2012 Accomplishments, 2013 Priorities Park Hill’s district and at-large representatives discuss the issues with GPHN By Erin Vanderberg Editor
Denver’s City Council kept busy in 2012. In addition to the tasks of general city and county governmental administration, including everything from land use to sanitation, economic development to urban planning, council passed an urban camping ban, secured the National Western Stock Show, took Walmart out of the equation for the TIF-funded redevelopment at 9th & Colorado, and saw
Denver voters resoundingly passed its referred measure, 2A, which freed up $68 million to restore city services. Said Robin Kniech, At-Large, “It feels very affirming that the people of Denver love this city and want this city to be moving forward. We can actually talk more about governing and what our priorities are instead of simply stemming the losses, trying to go from one crisis to another.” While redistricting changes decided in 2012 will unify Park Hill under one council member in 2015, for the next two years, the neighborhood will continue to have
january 2013
Inside this issue next GPHC meeting: thursday, Jan. 3 at 6:30pm
three district representatives: Council President Mary Beth Susman, District 5; Councilman Albus Brooks, District 8; and Council President Pro-Tem Chris Herndon, District 11. Additionally, Denver has two At-Large representatives, Debbie Ortega and Robin Kniech. The GPHN met with these five City Council representatives to discuss their reflections on the year behind and their priorities for the year ahead. The common theme among them was a desire to work together on making Denver a better city for their constituents. See City Council Priorities on page 9
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The sculptor behind the Art Garage sculpture
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Ann Long retires as the GPHC Blockworker Coordinator
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Pary’s says goodbye to regular service, hello to catering, events