Editor’s note: This is the March piece from Boardhawk columnist Alexis Menocal Harrigan. A podcast episode on new boundaries will be published on Boardhawk on March 5.
Last month, the Denver Public Schools Board of Education began discussions on a new policy that would require the superintendent to analyze and adjust enrollment boundaries and zones at least every 10 years.
The draft Executive Limitation 19 has the potential to be a major disruption -* dare I say for the better* – in the socio-economic and racial demographics of school communities.
The first draft is simple and straightforward. In conjunction with census data, and informed by community engagement, the superintendent will create enrollment boundaries with safe and accessible routes to school, and avoid enrollment boundaries that further socioeconomically segregated schools.
When board member Scott Esserman opened this discussion, it appeared the addition of the word “further” was added after receiving preliminary feedback from members of the community. The addition of the word further is likely the first of many attempts to dilute a policy that has the potential to be a radical approach to creating a more equitable, just, and culturally rich education ecosystem.
Unfortunately, to truly desegregate schools, the district would need to sacrifice the other part of the proposal that seeks to minimize the walking and rolling distance and reduce the need for district-provided transportation. And this is where many of us will be reminded of DPS’ complicated history with court-ordered busing (aka The Keyes case), which ended in 1995 after a federal judge ruled that DPS had made progress in desegregation and lifted the ban. Thirty years later, we are back to highly segregated schools.
In 2023, the Latino Education Coalition (LEC) commissioned a report to investigate the extent to which schools have re-segregated after busing ended and the consequences of that segregation.
The study found school segregation is pervasive in the district and that many schools experience triple segregation by race, class, and language. The following bullets are pulled directly from the report.
- Schools segregated by race (student of color status) have above-average rates of students in poverty, English Learners, and Special Education students, with below-average rates of Gifted and Talented students.
- Schools segregated by poverty have above-average rates of students of color, English Learners, and Special Education students, with below-average rates of Gifted and Talented students.
- Schools segregated by race (white student status) have above-average rates of Gifted and Talented and wealthy students, with below-average rates of students in poverty, English Learners, and Special Education students.
- Schools segregated by wealth have above-average rates of Gifted and Talented and white students, with below-average rates of students of color, English Learners, and Special Education students.
I became acutely aware of this when I was touring middle schools for my incoming sixth-grader.
Enrollment boundaries and segregation
I was in search of that unicorn school with strong academic outcomes (both in closing equity achievement gaps and overall student progress) and rich diversity. I created a spreadsheet with individual columns for enrollment, % minority, % specifically Hispanic, school performance rating, Academic growth, academic enrichments, GT programming, and sports.
I made this spreadsheet specific to me and my child and the things I value (academics, strong Latino representation & culture, and diverse school overall) and the thing my kid values (basketball).
Once I started digging into the data I quickly became aware that in the part of the city I live in (southeast Denver) and the distance I am willing to drive to (no more than a 15-minute commute), I was stuck. My neighborhood middle school (Hamilton) was diverse and had a large Hispanic population, but was lacking in academic outcomes.
The middle school closest to us (Slavens) was academically above the rest but had 9% Hispanic population and only 22% minority overall. The school that my child was magnet eligible to attend (Morey), was a 20-minute commute, and while it had high academic achievement and 40% minority students, I knew anecdotally that the HGT program my child would have enrolled in was not only less racially and ethnically diverse, but I found out during the school tour was also overrepresented of male students, who tend to be identified as high gifted more often than female students. Don’t get me started, that could be a whole other article.
The second closest school (Highline Academy Southeast charter school), had 61% minority students, 83% academic growth, 81% academic achievement. It didn’t score as academically high as Morey or Slavens (very few schools in the district do), but it was still in a strong academic position, strong cultural position, and yes, it has basketball.
So where did I land? While I think Highline Southeast was the true unicorn that met all of my needs, I ultimately put DSST Cedar at #1 on the top of our school choice application. For me, a few key factors outweighed the longer commute.
I loved the idea of my kid staying on the same campus for high school. The open house did a great job of highlighting both teachers and students and I had the chance to chat with many of them one-on-one.
I work in edtech, and I value STEM education. It was a goldilocks size (not too big, not too small), and lastly I felt my child would be served well. shared my child’s academic needs. The educator I spoke with addressed the importance of advanced learning plans and how the school would work to bring my kid up to grade level in areas he is struggling.
Should we eliminate school boundaries altogether?
I don’t think it is a fluke that the schools at the top of my list in both diversity and academic achievement were charter schools with no geographic boundary.
It makes me wonder what would happen if we truly solved the transportation issue, (electric buses across the city), removed school boundaries altogether (gasp!), and made choice truly equitable (not equal), by prioritizing students with lower academic outcomes.
These are some of the issues I hope the school board and administration will entertain over the next several years as they re-evaluate how we set school boundaries.
The discussion of school enrollment boundaries and zones should not be isolated and instead should be considered in the context of school choice and the type of schools we offer and where those highly desired schools like Denver School of the Arts and Morey are located or replicated.
