School sharing possible in DPS

Buildings can't be 'half empty,' DPS trustee says

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Carlos Javier Ortiz / Special To The News

Tyrone Jenkins, a freshman at Collins Academy High School in Chicago, talks with Parker Baxter, a Denver Public Schools administrator who has been visiting schools in Chicago and New York. Baxter visited Collins, which shares a building with two other high schools, on Wednesday.

For principals in Denver Public Schools, the message is clear: Fill up your school or you may soon be sharing your building with another school.

"We can't afford to leave our buildings half empty," said DPS school board vice president Michelle Moss. "So really, the options are for the existing schools to fill those buildings or they will have to share with other programs."

School Board President Theresa Pena said the message wasn't intended as a threat.

"But it wasn't a conversation either," she said of meetings earlier this year with middle and high school principals.

Today, those principals will meet with officials from Chicago and New York City school districts, where school sharing is common.

Both districts are in the midst of efforts to close large, low-performing schools and open, in their place, several smaller high-performing options.

It's a path that DPS appears poised to follow. Denver schools could be sharing buildings as early as fall 2009.

Lawrence Pendergast, who runs one of six small high schools on a campus in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, told DPS board members Thursday that it can be a hard change for traditional principals.

"It's tough at first," he said. "However, it really is about school choice. It's about creating opportunities for families."

Empty seats

DPS board members voted in November to close eight elementary schools, a move expected to eliminate 3,000 empty classroom seats.

But that barely makes a dent in the excess capacity of a district that once served nearly 99,000 students and is now serving fewer than 74,000.

White flight contributed to that decline, but a 2007 study by the Rocky Mountain News and the Piton Foundation found nearly one in four school-aged children living in Denver do not attend DPS.

Pena said the board would prefer to fill its half-empty schools with quality DPS programs to bring back some of those families.

If not, they're ready to give space in DPS buildings to charter or contract schools. Those are publicly funded schools that are governed by independent boards.

Examples include some of the city's most successful schools, such as the Denver School of Science and Technology and West Denver Preparatory Charter. Both schools have waiting lists.

Pena said the third option for underperforming, underenrolled schools is closure.

"That's not an option any of us wants," she said.

Calling new schools

In March, DPS also followed in the footsteps of the Chicago and New York City districts by issuing a call for new school proposals.

By the April 18 deadline, the district had received 19 letters of intent from those eager to start schools or expand existing programs, such as West Denver Prep.

Pena said at least some of those approved to launch schools in fall 2009 likely will be located in DPS buildings.

Details such as rent and how space will be shared will be addressed in a "facility sharing" policy being created by DPS staff.

Some charter school operators have long tried to negotiate using DPS buildings. But several said their reception has been less than warm.

Most recently, the newly approved Denver Venture Charter School sought space at West High School. West Principal Pat Sanchez, given a choice, said no.

"It was competing with our programming," he said. "It would be like opening a Starbucks within a Starbucks."

But if told to make it work, he said, he will.

"Any principal is a public employee and if I'm told I'm to share space, we'll work it out," he said. "I think there's a lot we can learn from charters."

DPS has one shared building, housing Westerly Creek Elementary and Odyssey Charter in Stapleton.

But Denver's most public example of a shared school - the effort breaking up historic Manual High School into three smaller schools - was disastrous.

DPS leaders admitted it was a mistake, closed it for a year and reopened it last fall with freshmen only.

Principals offer how-to

Chicago and New York City principals, though, say they've proved shared buildings can work.

When they meet with DPS principals today, they'll share lessons learned:

* Create separate identities for each school, complete with different logos, school colors and bell schedules.

* Endow each principal with equal say in building use, even if one school has 500 kids and the other has 70.

* Require principals to meet regularly and talk, talk, talk through building or scheduling issues.

"The up side is quality options for kids and that makes the challenges worthwhile," said Joyce Caine, principal of Chicago's Collins Academy High School, which shares a building with two other high schools.

In New York City, spokeswoman Melody Meyer said last year's graduation rate for the 47 new small schools was 78 percent - double or triple the graduation rates in the large schools they replaced.

It's a cultural shift, said Peter Dillon, with the New York City Board of Education.

Traditional principals may feel "you're coming into my house, why are you putting your feet up on my table?" he said. "It's not your table anymore and really, it never was. It's the city's table."

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245

Sharing school space

New York City and Chicago school district officials are meeting with DPS principals to talk about how sharing space has worked in their districts. Here's a snapshot:

New York City

* 1.1 million students

* 1,456 schools

* Of those, 600 schools share space. Combinations include a single large building serving 2,200 students in five small high schools of 300 to 500 students each and a program for 70 students with special needs. Of 78 charter schools this fall, about two-thirds will be sharing space in district buildings.

Chicago

* 435,000 students

* More than 600 schools

* Of those, 71 separate schools are housed in 41 Chicago Public Schools buildings. Combinations include three high schools - a charter school, a contract school and a more traditional district school - that share space in what was formerly one traditional high school.

Empty chairs in DPS

Denver Public Schools' emptiest middle and high schools, based on numbers compiled by A+ Denver, the community group that advised the district on school closures last year:

Fall 2007 School Capacity Enrollment Gap

* West High 2,145 967 1,178

* Manual High School 1,325 163 1,162

* North High 2,165 1,080 1,085

* MLK Middle College 1,982 1,150 832

* Rishel Middle 1,115 532 583

* Merrill Middle 1,107 548 559

* Hill Middle 1,125 651 474

* International Studies 875 416 459

* CEC Middle College 825 371 454

* Lake Middle 1,020 603 417

* District Total empty seats estimated at 20,000-25,000