No free pass to next grade at Randolph

Students earn way by sweat of brow in new program

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Judy Dehaas / The Rocky

Teaching fellow Pam Eisenmesser, right, cheers as Josefina Banuelos, 15, a ninth-grader at Bruce Randolph School, answers a question correctly Thursday. Teaching fellows Andrew Hepler and Andrew Vitek talk at left.

Just before noon Thursday at Bruce Randolph School, science teacher Rebecca Katsch Singer counted up the points on Sheila Silva's test and wrote the result at the top - 24 out of 30.

Then Singer added a quick smiley-face.

Silva passed the test and, on the next-to-last day of summer school, she caught up with her classmates who will enter the 10th grade this fall.

Count one more Denver Public Schools student on track to graduate on time.

"It's never too late," Silva said, pledging next school year, "I'm going to be here, I'm going to pay attention, I'm going to make it."

Bruce Randolph on Thursday wrapped up two weeks of intense summer school, a time when students in grades six through 10 can attempt to catch up to grade level.

It comes at the end of a school year that included twice-weekly after-school tutoring sessions and three hours of classes nearly every Saturday.

All of that effort accompanies Bruce Randolph's bold decision last fall to end social promotion, to inform parents that students who fail core academic classes will not be passed on to the next grade.

"We're changing the culture," said Principal Kristin Waters. "You can't not pass anymore; you have to do the work."

Freshman year fallout

It's an unprecedented stance by a neighborhood school in Denver.

DPS, unlike other metro districts, allows parents to decide whether their children are held back a grade until they reach high school. Few choose to hold them back.

Not until grade nine, the freshman year of high school, do students have to earn a certain number of class credits to be promoted.

But by then, it's too late for many. About one in four DPS students falls behind in their freshman year. That means they've failed enough courses that they have to repeat ninth-grade classes as 10th-grade sophomores.

Of those who fall behind, a Rocky Mountain News analysis found, nearly half, or 45 percent, later drop out of school altogether.

Waters, who took over Bruce Randolph when it was one of the lowest-performing schools in Colorado, decided students should face tougher standards before they hit high school, in grades six, seven and eight.

So last fall, she and her staff called in parents and set contracts before them, asking for signatures.

The terms: If a student does not achieve grade-level proficiency in core academic subjects, the parent agrees he or she will repeat that grade.

At an evening meeting attended by a Rocky reporter, hundreds of parents applauded the plan. And they signed on.

Students monitored

Bruce Randolph's part of the bargain was to closely monitor student achievement and to step in as soon as teachers saw a child struggling.

So they launched tutoring Mondays and Wednesdays after school in the fall. They began Saturday school in October. They launched a week of intense remediation, which came to be known as "F-land," in December.

At the year's midpoint, letters went home notifying parents if their children were facing retention. Letters went home again three-quarters of the way through the school year. In April, staff started weekly monitoring for failing grades.

"All year long, we've talked to the parents," Waters said. "And every time, parents have been supportive."

In May, teachers began calling homes to tell them the bad news. In some cases, the message was, "Your child is being retained." In others, it was, "Your child will be retained unless they go to summer school."

As of Thursday, the retention tally was relatively small. Two of 90 sixth-graders are being held back, as are 13 of 150 seventh-graders and 16 of 170 eighth-graders.

Those families could decide to change schools, Waters acknowledged, and their children likely would be promoted.

"We'll see what happens," she said. "We'll have to say, 'OK, that's your prerogative.' "

Another dozen students in grades six, seven and eight escaped retention by attending summer school. And 21 students in those grades came to summer school just to get some extra help.

Setting a standard

Among ninth-graders, 16 of 18 Bruce Randolph students told they must attend summer school have shown up. They've made up or recovered credit in 11 classes.

In grade 10, 17 of 18 students required to attend summer school have done so. They've made up 14 classes.

Another six students are expected to complete recovery of high school courses.

But Waters said another 10 high school students will be moving to other programs or schools this fall. Each of those students failed more than six classes this past school year - far more than the two classes that could be recovered in summer school.

"Some kids in high school failed every class," Waters said. "We are talking with them about, what is a program or a school that could work for you?"

Most students being held back have attendance problems. This fall, Bruce Randolph has hired a second aide to focus full time on attendance.

In addition, the school has hired three - and hopes by fall to hire a fourth - intervention teachers to monitor students who struggled this past school year.

"Socially and emotionally, I don't know if retention is always the best thing for students," Waters said. "But you have to set a standard or expectation for what has to be accomplished before you can move on."

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245

Bruce Randolph School

* Location: 3955 Steele St.

* Enrollment: 680 students in grades six through 10. Grade 11 is being added this fall.

Demographics:

* Hispanic 87 percent

* Black 11 percent

* White 2 percent

* Students eligible for subsidized meals, an indicator of poverty 95 percent

* Of note: Once the lowest- performing middle school in Colorado, Bruce Randolph now leads DPS in innovation. It is widely seen as reshaping how a traditional neighborhood school can serve an impoverished community.

Ending social promotion

The practice of passing students from one grade to the next - regardless of whether they can do the work - is known as social promotion. It's common, if controversial. Here's how one Denver school is setting itself apart:

Bruce Randolph School

* Students in the school, which served grades six through 10 in 2007-08, must pass 70 out of a possible 80 annual course credits before they are promoted to the next grade. That typically means they may fail only one core academic class. The school offers after-school tutoring, Saturday school and summer school - all in an attempt to keep kids at grade level.

Denver Public Schools

* Promotion policy requires parents of students in kindergarten through eighth grade to agree to hold their child back a grade. The policy ends at high school, when students must accumulate a certain number of course credits to move up a grade. For many ninth-graders, however, it's a rude awakening. About one-quarter of DPS students fall behind during their freshman year.

Leaving no child behind

Bruce Randolph School has adopted a tougher standard for promoting students from one grade to the next. Here are some results of the effort:

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Summer School in

Grade Retained lieu of retention

* Sixth 2 6

* Seventh 13 7

* Eighth 16 3

HIGH SCHOOL*

* Ninth N/A 18

* 10th N/A 18

* An additional 10 students in grades nine and 10 will be attending another program or school this fall after failing more than six classes each this past school year.

• June 13, 2008

  7:10 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  inyourownwords writes:

  Thanks for reporting on good news in our schools! This principal is a hero.

• June 13, 2008

  8:23 a.m.

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  gunner writes:

  Too bad more schools don't have more stringent standards. What's really too bad is that more parents aren't involved at other schools.

• June 13, 2008

  8:29 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Heidi writes:

  "So last fall, she and her staff called in parents and set contracts before them, asking for signatures.
  The terms: If a student does not achieve grade-level proficiency in core academic subjects, the parent agrees he or she will repeat that grade.
  At an evening meeting attended by a Rocky reporter, hundreds of parents applauded the plan. And they signed on."

  I think this is a great tool to get the parents more involved at the beginning of the school year. Being proactive is a great benefit in the education system. All DPS schools should adopt similar standards.

• June 13, 2008

  8:38 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  rickg19611 writes:

  "DPS, unlike other metro districts, allows parents to decide whether their children are held back a grade until they reach high school. Few choose to hold them back."

  And then idiots wonder why most Denver Public Schools are a failure.

• June 13, 2008

  8:42 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  BO writes:

  PP-
  1) What do you do for a living?
  2) Who do you care about more-you and your cushy job or the people you serve while doing your job? Teachers should, and most do, care about their kids. However, love of the job doesn't pay bills. The kid living in my house is way more important than the ones in my classes, and I don't feel ashamed in saying so. Am I concerned about my pay and benefits? Absolutely. Aren't you?
  3) Do you have a degree? If so, in what? My point to this question? You may be partially right. My degree is in education with a field endorsement in social studies (7-12). That means that I have had very little math since I graduated from HS 17 years ago because most of my time has been devoted to history, geography, and politicial science. Math wasn't my favorite subject. So, you're right-if I was given the 10th grade CSAP Math test, I may not do very well on it. Could I have passed it back then? Probably. Here's the interesting thing about the Math CSAP- most of the state doesn't do well on it (at least that was the case when I last taught in Colorado in 2004-05). We had a class that scored very poorly on the CSAP as sophomores, and yet as juniors did very well on the math component of the ACT. Explain that one. All I can tell you is that when I give a test in which the vast majority fail, one of the things I look at is what I could've done wrong in terms of my methodology. Apparently, CDE can't do the same.
  4) What responsibility do kids and their parents have in all this?

• June 13, 2008

  8:44 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Heidi writes:

  rickg,

  It's too bad it has come to this, right? If parents really cared about their children and their future, they would not allow their failures to be accepted. Just another fine example of lack of personal accountability being passed on from one generation to the next.

• June 13, 2008

  8:44 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  BO writes:

  PP- I forgot.
  5) Have you ever seen a CSAP Test?
  6) Since you feel that teaching is sucha cushy job, you should get your license and get hired on with DPS. They're always looking for fresh meat.

• June 13, 2008

  8:51 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  BO writes:

  Rickg-
  Despite what the article said, most districts have to have parental permission to hold little Johnny back. Most teachers don't like it either. This has been the case with every district I have worked in. The flip side- do you want 16 year-old Johnny roaming the halls of middle school with your 13 year-old daughter?

  When I taught in Colorado, I had 9th graders that literally didn't pass a single class in middle school, including PE. I guess they had bad teachers for all their classes.

• June 13, 2008

  8:51 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  steel writes:

  "If a student does not achieve grade-level proficiency in core academic subjects, the parent agrees he or she will repeat that grade."

  Wouldn't it be better if the student repeated the failed grade than if the parent did?

• June 13, 2008

  8:52 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Heidi writes:

  BO,

  I will defend you on this one. Apparently, you had passed similar tests and received a college degree. What is important now is your knowledge of the subject(s) you teach, as well as your writing and speaking skills and compassion for your students.

• June 13, 2008

  8:56 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Heidi writes:

  BO,
  "The flip side- do you want 16 year-old Johnny roaming the halls of middle school with your 13 year-old daughter?"

  I hadn't thought about it in that respect! But I feel that as the students are held to these standards, they may try harder to excel so as not to suffer any humiliation of being held back.

• June 13, 2008

  9:12 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Heidi writes:

  steel, maybe the parents would hold their children more accountable if the parents had to take the class!

• June 13, 2008

  10:35 a.m.

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  Cobra_Commander writes:

  PajamaPulitzer: Well Said. After reading this article, I said the same thing to myself. Sure it's great that someone is actually taking the initiative to get our students up to par with where they should be, but isn't the concept of the schooling system as it is now to actually asses the skills of the students to determine whether or not they meet certain basic requirements to succeed at the next level? Kids can go to school, do nothing, get rewarded by moving on to the next grade, and when push comes to shove (CSAP, actually earning credits in highschool, ect...), they are that far behind. And we wonder why?

• June 13, 2008

  10:47 a.m.

  PI writes:

  (This comment was removed by the site staff.)

• June 13, 2008

  11:07 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  PI writes:

  In 1989, on the heels of a hard earned degree in economics from the Devry Institute, pajama pulitzer began to work towards his future career of full time right wing blogger. Back then Al Gore hadn''t yet invented the internet, so he was forced to leave nasty anti-union, hate filled propaganda on little slips of paper in public library books throughout the city. He only really became inspired when he fell in love with an upstart senator from Arizona, who at the time was only 85 years old. He has gone on the dedicate his internet existance to John McSame. It really is a beautiful thing.

• June 13, 2008

  11:38 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  BO writes:

  PP-
  1) Good for you.
  2) Are you honestly going to tell me that you put customers ahead of everything?
  3) I appreciate you having worked as a sub. However, that's not the same. I know nowadays that subs just either hand out an assignment or pop in a video. They don't have to plan, grade, deal w/ angry parents, pull extra duty w/ no pay. As a parent, you have to (should) care about one child. I have to care about all of them.
  4) We agree. However, I don't think you grasp how big an issue parents have become. When I was a kid, as far as my parents were concerned, it was my fault until they talked to the teacher and decided otherwise. Today, its the teacher's/school's fault. Rules don't apply to their kid. That's not true of all aprents, but it is much more the case now than it was 20 years ago.
  5) You may or not be right about why DPS got rid of ITBS. However, you are painting all public schools to be like DPS. Believe me, they aren't. DPS (and probably most large city districts) may be failing. What do most of them have in common? Higher crime, drugs, single/no parent homes, gangs, violence, teen pregnancy. How can you teel me with a straight face that these issues don't play a role in DPS? I think it's unreasonable to expect educators to conquer those problems. I first see a kid at age 15, for 45 minutes a day. What happened the previous 14 years, or what goes on the other 23 hours and 15 minutes of the day is beyond my control. And it's not like my 45 minutes is all one-on-one time, either. I have worked in smaller schools (9-12 enrollments of 50-500), and I would have to say that none of them are failing. Neither was the school with 1300 kids in which I student-taught. The difference? That school was in a town of 28,000 with lower rates of crime, drugs, etc.
  6) I would bet that teachers in DPS in 1989 weren't making $40k, either. Besides, is $40k really that great for the DEnver area these days?
  As far as competing- they already do. However, you do realize that most kids in private schools have parents that actaully care about what their kids do? They can also get rid of anyone and selectively choose their students. Public schools don't have that luxury. Give public schools the same rules as far as selecting kids and being able to expell w/ less red tape, and they would be just as good. Besides, vouchers are just a government handout, which any true conservative should be against. I don't get a voucher to buy a fancier car, do I?

• June 13, 2008

  12:13 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  PI writes:

  PP
  It was actually Jane Fonda and Dennis Miller who met at studio 54 and the rest is history, as far as the love child thing goes. Since you enjoy it so much, let's get back to your life story. Pajama Pulitzer got his first computer after winning the NRA's annual endangered species hunt in 1994, he took the prize by blowing the beak of of the last ivory-billed woodpecker in North America. The Independence Institute saw that with his combined love of killing rare animals, union bashing via post-it notes in random books and love of the the youthful John McSame who had just turned 90.....that they had something special in pajamapulitzer. They invested in a super-computer for him and a bunker in Golden where they filled the room with murals of famous conservatives and fascists alike, jerry falwell, the Coors family, Reagan, Oliver North...you get the point. It is from there that he is still entrenched, spreading ignorant right-wing jargon throughout the web on blogs all over the nation under various internet identities. He is fed with TV Dinners that are dropped into his bunker three times a day and only given one pair of pajamas a week to blog in. His favorite PJ's are camouflage and were said to have been given to him as a gift from his idol John McSame....but he yearns for more. His skin is pale because he hasn't seen the world for years and is beginning to feel like an overworked pawn of the Republican party, his posts are a cry for help. He is thinking about voting for Obama. Send me your coordinates and we will save you from this miserable life pajama.

• June 13, 2008

  12:33 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  chief writes:

  What an odd concept...you hae to successfully complete the work to get a good grade. Wow...revolutionary! How long did it take for the school to figure out that this makes sense?

• June 13, 2008

  12:35 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  PI writes:

  Touche! The haliburton connection comes in later in your life story, when we find out that you are the love child of VP Cheney and Katherine Harris. I have to go now, I will roast you next time you put up more un-informed right wing crap...you are kinda spooking me out with you 'love thine enemy' approach, once again, send me your coordinates and we will save you. Not all of us have the financial backing to blog all day, and not even my union will save me if they find out I am spending all this time going back and forth with the elmer fudd of the internet. Peace be with you.

• June 13, 2008

  1:02 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BMat writes:

  At Bruce Randolph School -

  Formerly the worst performing school in DPS (before the paint and caulk on the brand new building was even dry):

  95% free lunch

  87% Hispanic

  11% Black

  2% White
  _____________

  Can we PLEASE identify which students among the blacks, whites and hispanics are here illegally? They should be disenrolled IMMEDIATELY!

  Instead, Bruce Randolph hands out more free lunches than the Denver Rescue Mission. Our education professionals are working overtime which has already caused one work stoppage at another DPS school this year.

  Denver officials should be looking for any way possible to reduce class size and re-allocate resources for educators and students alike. Keep American schools for American kids!

• June 13, 2008

  1:02 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BMat writes:

  At Bruce Randolph School -

  Formerly the worst performing school in DPS (before the paint and caulk on the brand new building was even dry):

  95% free lunch

  87% Hispanic

  11% Black

  2% White
  _____________

  Can we PLEASE identify which students among the blacks, whites and hispanics are here illegally? They should be disenrolled IMMEDIATELY!

  Instead, Bruce Randolph hands out more free lunches than the Denver Rescue Mission. Our education professionals are working overtime which has already caused one work stoppage at another DPS school this year.

  Denver officials should be looking for any way possible to reduce class size and re-allocate resources for educators and students alike. Keep American schools for American kids!

• June 13, 2008

  2:29 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Cobra_Commander writes:

  Bmat: Are you suggesting that the reason we have such high drop out rates, and the reason kids in the United States at-large are behind the rest of the developed world academically is because of illegal immigration?

• June 13, 2008

  3:51 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  LiveWell writes:

  I applaud Randolph for taking a stand against passing kids without skills. I also admire those staff members who took the time to help those kids who were willing to work in the summer to gain the skills in order to move on. Great job!

• June 13, 2008

  4:09 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  LiveWell writes:

  PajamaPulitzer-

  Since you seem to be a proponent of vouchers, would you happen to have the statistics for D.C. since they started their federally funded voucher experiement? Just wondering, as I am curious about the success rate.

• June 13, 2008

  4:17 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BO writes:

  "You cannot honestly be pro-student and anti-voucher."

  Another shortcut to thinking that has become popular these days.

  Yes, I honestly can, since tax dollars taken away from one school does in fact hurt the other kids at that school. Like I said- I think the difference is the fact that you concerned about your children; I have to be concerned with all of them. We both know that there are some parents that would use their vouchers to bounce from school to school based on parents feeling that teachers were out to get their kids, work was too hard (i.e. their kid wasn't cuttin the mustard), whichever school was going to have the better basketball team that year, etc. As a coach, I can tell you that there seems to be way more kids switching schools based on sports and extracurricular activities than there are for academic purposes. I could get behind vouchers if there were some strict rules that would keep those w/ vouchers from abusing the system. Or, better yet, allow the voucher to be used only for another public school. No tax $ should go to private schools, unless the school agrees to operate under the same rules as the public schools do.

• June 13, 2008

  4:23 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Heidi writes:

  PP,

  I also am curious how it is working in DC. And has the cost to the taxpayers increased for the program?

  You said "It is patently ridiculous to refer to vouchers as "handouts". Vouchers are tax dollars paid by homeowners many of whom don't even have kids in school. "

  How is that not essentially a handout from homeowners with no children? Will this be costing them more?

• June 13, 2008

  4:40 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BMat writes:

  June 13, 2008

  2:29 p.m.

  Suggest removal
  Cobra_Commander writes:

  Bmat: Are you suggesting that the reason we have such high drop out rates, and the reason kids in the United States at-large are behind the rest of the developed world academically is because of illegal immigration?
  ________

  Nope. But BTW this story wasn't about the American school system's position in the world. It was specifially about Bruce Randolph's position among other DPS schools. So try to stay on point please.

  I'm simply suggesting that all the free lunches, books, buses (gas for the buses), playground monitors, lunch ladies, teachers and administrative resources now dedicated to coddling foreign nationals ducking US law could be diverted to full fledged US citizens (immigrant citizens and natural born).

  To eliminate them from the public school system would reduce class sizes, reduce the per capita cost of educating a child from K-12 in the DPS system and help teachers teach.

  Also the money saved by restricting admission to DPS schools could be used to improve the capital investments at the schools including the buildings themselves.

  The savings could also be used to bargain with the teacher's union which as I said above already called a work stoppage once this year b/c of long hours, low wages and crowded classrooms (this, according to the union).

  Keep American schools for American kids.

• June 13, 2008

  4:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BetterEducated writes:

  Kudos to Bruce Randolph and to DPS for letting them try something new and different....like having to actually pass from one grade to the next.
  Call me old fashioned, but I thought this was always the case until recent press reports set me straight. :-)
  I even remember a clock on the wall of a science class:
  "Time Will Pass...Will You?!"

• June 13, 2008

  4:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  bethechange writes:

  ALL students deserve an excellent education like the one offered at Randolph. There are NO excuses for students not to be met with only high expectations IN the classroom even when there are so many daunting issues at hand OUTside of the classroom. Randolph is maintaining that no excuses mentality and it is obvious their focus is on student achievement.

• June 13, 2008

  6:36 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  American100 writes:

  The voucher program is a bust in Miami and it will always be a bust.

  Certain cultures do not appreicate education. You can take the under achievers to any school you wish and they will still be under achievers.

  One of the most adamant arguments against vouchers is that some parents move to neighborhoods specifically to get away from gangs, crime etc and then meet up with it face to face when those types get off the bus with a voucher in their hands.

• June 13, 2008

  7:21 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Heidi writes:

  American100,

  I can understand their feelings. And they are indirectly paying for those gang member types to transfer to the schools they put their children in.

• June 13, 2008

  7:59 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  tata writes:

  Bruce Randolph is a magnet school. Part of it's proposal to the Board of Education was that they would admit students based on their grade level achievement. No one is comparing apples to apples. Some poor school is absorbing all of those woefully underperforming students that Bruce Randolph does not admit. They are not growing students multiple grade levels, they are taking students that were already there. This is an important point. What to do with the schools that don't have the option of turning students away. The principal and teachers are taking credit for something they are not responsible for.

• June 14, 2008

  12:56 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  LiveWell writes:

  Tata-

  I believe you are incorrect about the students admitted to Bruce Randolph. It is the neighborhood school for middle school and accepts all students in the neighborhood, (Swansea, Garden Place, etc.) regardless of test scores. How about checking the test scores of those schools and those of Bruce Randolph to see if students are progressing. As far as the high school, it is a school of choice where students apply to stay, but the article states that "students have to earn a certain number of credits to be promoted" just like any other high school in the district. Perhaps you need read the article and do your research a little bit better before making assumptions.

• June 14, 2008

  6:02 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  tata writes:

  My research was the autonomy proposal that Bruce Randolph presented to the School Board. It clearly lays out that students may not be more than one grade level behind before being accepted to Bruce Randolph, including middle school students. Forgive me for using a primary source or suggesting that the Rocky Mountain News may not have all of the facts.

• June 15, 2008

  1:24 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  LiveWell writes:

  Tata-

  Thank you for your reference to the autonomy plan. I appreciate your perspicacity. Believe me, I am very well versed in the autonomy plan at Bruce Randolph School and of it's implimentation (as well as the "Challenge 2010" plan that has been in place since Dr. Waters became principal).

  I am also quite sure that middle school students from the neighborhood are accepted regardless of their grade level standing unless for some reason the school is at capacity. (It is, after all, a numbers game where finances depend on enrollment and being selective leads to budgetary cuts.) The reference to grade level ability is for students who desire to transfer in from out of the area, rather than those who live in the neighborhood. (If you would like to look at selective schools, I suggest you look at the HGT program at Morey Middle School or IB at Smiley.)

  The work and progress of these students, therefore, is genuine. Perhaps it would be a more effective use of your time to look at what is working at Randolph, rather than begrudge them their success.

• June 15, 2008

  1:32 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jennabelrios writes:

  Tata, you are wrong and I am sorry for this. I am a parent leader at Bruce and I know for a fact that this does not happen and that Livewell is correct. You can get Dr. Kristen Waters email off of the DPS website and ask her yourself. Then you are getting it straight from the horses mouth. So to speak.

  As for Bmat, all I can say is what did these undocumented, as this is the correct term, kids ever do illegally? Or more to the point what did they ever do to you?

  Why punish the child for the sins of their parents?

  I, for one, would much rather have them in school doing something constructive with their time. The only other option is that they are running the streets bored and getting into trouble at our cost. Hmmmm, which is the lesser of two evils?

  Who knows, maybe they can take their American education back to Mexico and fix everything that is broke over there.

  Then we can put all the bums and the people who manipulate the welfare system to work in the fields, restaurants, and construction of homes. We all know in the end that won't happen. Not when begging for a hand out is so much easier and effortless. Tell me, how many illegals, as you call them, do you see on our street corners begging?

  Besides, chasing them out of the schools and wishing they would go away because of this is not going to better the immigration situation.

  Maybe we should start looking at ourselves and try to fix our weakening nations problems first. You would be amazed at how easily everything else would just naturally fall into place and fix itself.

  COME ON PEOPLE...............THINK MORE CONSTRUCTIVELY

• June 15, 2008

  1:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jennabelrios writes:

  I agree with Livewell. He must be a teacher there.

  The only time that students are denied a spot is when they reach capacity.

  This only happens in high school. Middle school are gauranteed a place there no matter what. As for high school, as Livewell said, is a choice school. The previous DPS school board had the bright idea, and I mean that in the wise assiest of ways, to make all high schools choice. All of them are like that. If you want your kid in a certain school you need to have your choice application in by January when the first round of choice is turned in. That is just how it works. My sons was turned in on the very first day.

  As I said I am a parent leader there and I see the positive changes that I helped to create there every day.

  I so strongly believe in this school that I will continue to be a parent leader there consistently until 2023 when my three year old graduates from there. They are such a positive force in these kids lives and futures.

  I know that by the time my 8 year old is a freshman there it will be one of the top DPS schools with people from everywhere wanting to choice in. Bruce Randolphs successful implementation is already being looked at and studied by other states such as Massachusetts and California. I know because I have played a key role, as a parent, in the education of these ideas to the other school systems.

  These kids are our future leaders and will make the desicions that will affect how well our future is for us. We need to support them in every way possible.

  It is sad, I agree, that an age old idea is considered innovative. But it appears to be working so lets give credit where credit is due. At the very least Dr. Waters deserves kudos for having the balls to start doing something that no one else was brave enough to do.

  You just wait and watch all of you nonbelievers!

• June 15, 2008

  4:19 p.m.

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  LiveWell writes:

  jennabelrios-

  You are to be commended on your obvious dedication to your children and their school. I have no doubt that your children will be highly successful at Bruce and that your participation there will have a positive impact on children for years to come.

  YOU ROCK!

• June 15, 2008

  10:19 p.m.

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  BetterEducated writes:

  Yes, I feel the same way. :-) You go, girl.

• June 15, 2008

  10:57 p.m.

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  LiveWell writes:

  BetterEducated-

  I meant to tell you that you have inspried a new poster in my room with your "Time Will Pass...Will You?" Can't wait to put it up by my clock! ; )

• June 15, 2008

  11:32 p.m.

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  jennabelrios writes:

  What school are you a teacher at Livewell?