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Big names turn out to welcome DPS students back to school

Locations that moved up on state exams highlighted

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 19, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated August 19, 2008 at 2:13 a.m.

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Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet, from right, Gov. Bill Ritter and DPS Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino greet students during the first day of classes at Whittier School in north Denver on Monday.

Photo by Preston Gannaway © The Rocky

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet, from right, Gov. Bill Ritter and DPS Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino greet students during the first day of classes at Whittier School in north Denver on Monday.

Kindergarten teacher Lisa Moe comforts 5-year-old Rosetta Coleman, who suffered from first-day anxieties in her class at Denver's Whittier K-7 School on Monday.

Photo by Preston Gannaway © The Rocky

Kindergarten teacher Lisa Moe comforts 5-year-old Rosetta Coleman, who suffered from first-day anxieties in her class at Denver's Whittier K-7 School on Monday.

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Mayor John Hickenlooper gave his other "green" speech Monday, targeting a line of second- graders as they walked into Whittier School in north Denver.

"If you go to college, over your whole life, you'll make an extra million bucks," Hickenlooper told them. "I'm not making that up."

"Whoa!" one boy yelped, staring. But the mayor wasn't done.

"If your family doesn't have the money to pay for college, we'll pay for it," Hickenlooper said. "The Denver Scholarship Foundation will pay for it."

That wasn't nearly as exciting to his audience of 7-year-olds. Still, his words jolted awake kids on the first day of school after a heat- record summer.

"Welcome back!" an exuberant Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet told parents, staff and students at Whittier - and at another half-dozen schools he hit in quick succession with Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino.

The schools - including East High, Hill Campus of Arts and Sciences and Castro Elementary - were chosen to celebrate their growth on state academic exams.

Another school, Cole Arts and Sciences Academy, was added to the tour to show reporters who'd heard otherwise that the school was indeed ready to open.

Ritter lauds results

At Whittier, stop No. 1 of the day, Bennet and Hickenlooper were joined by Gov. Bill Ritter, who praised DPS' recent results on state tests.

"This district made the most progress in reading scores of any in the state," Ritter said, "and that's because of buildings like this."

Ritter touted his plan to use severance tax dollars to increase financial aid for college, expanding Denver's college promise to students across Colorado.

"Both the mayor and I are working on a way to make sure every kid in Colorado who wants to go to college has a way," he told one classroom of students.

For some, though, despite the phalanx of TV cameras and reporters dogging the politicians, back to school was an intensely familial affair.

Felicia Davis watched her daughter, Tiki Rasberry, settle into kindergarten at Whittier and then hoisted Tiki's younger sister, Kyjah, into her arms and fled.

"I am overwhelmed," she said of her oldest child's first day of school. "I am fighting back tears."

At Cole, Evan Icolari carried a camera as he and wife, Letty, walked outside after dropping off daughter Rachel, 9.

'Here and ready to go'

They chose the newly reopened school partly because Principal Julie Murgel made them feel welcome.

So they were OK with the fact that some "odds and ends" of renovation - molding around student lockers, for example - are still being done.

"Her teacher's here and ready to go," Evan Icolari said. "That's the important thing."

Bennet and Aquino's cross-city tour also provided a glimpse of what's new and heated in DPS.

At Whittier, which serves preschool through middle school, students in the upper grades are being placed in single-gender classes.

At Bruce Randolph, all 81 high school juniors are enrolled in college prep Advanced Placement language classes.

And at East, Bennet stood with a dozen teachers and debated the pay proposals put forward by the district and by the teachers' union. At one point, he whipped out a piece of paper and began drawing graphs.

Talks over the teachers' contract resume Wednesday.

But if Bennet appeared a bit deflated when he left East, he revived quickly.

At Hill, his next stop, a teacher grabbed his hand and pumped it up and down:

"Mr. Bennet, thanks for what you're doing here."

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245

Comments

  • August 19, 2008

    9:54 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    rpcvmars writes:

    Yea politics! The kids I’m sure didn’t care who was at the school they just hoped to get to wave on camera. And that’s the way it should be.

  • August 19, 2008

    10:46 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    fifty writes:

    Our leaders are doing what good leaders do.

    My daughter and I recently had the opportunity to hear Hickenlooper and DA Morrissey speak along with other speakers from across the nation and they were among the best. They made us proud to be Coloradans.

    So, often we focus on the fumbles at the national level. It is always rejuvenating to read a story that illustrates the high quality of our local leaders.

  • August 19, 2008

    3:57 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mayor_Quimby writes:

    Parents should be held for child endangerment and criminal neglect for sending their kids to DPS.

  • August 19, 2008

    4:06 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    PI writes:

    Thank god the teachers at east took on the ever charming bennet and his foot-out-the-door academic front aquino, it is the teachers that are responsible for any gains made, give them credit with a fair contract that pays as much as other local districts..... and someone tell bennet to wipe that phony smirk off his frat boy rich kid face and move on to higher office as has been his plan all along, the teachers will remain and serve the kids of denver. I hope he gets a pie in the face at the DNC, he better watch his front cause he is due an embarrassing incident.