DPS Skews Denver Schools Into Sorry Spaces For School Kids

by Valley Gadfly | Sep 30, 2022 | Main Articles

Student-Teacher Ratio, Salaries, School Board Squabbles

Drop Denver District’s Learning To The Lowest Level Ever

by Glen Richardson

Brimful Classes, Bickering Board: Crammed classrooms and squabbling schoolboard has plummeted Denver schools to the lowest level of academic learning ever.

Parent Protest: Parents are confused and angry as DPS teachers and principals leave or are replaced at schools. Principals at 46 of the district’s 134 non-charter schools were new to their position, their school, or both this year.

With Denver’s new school year now in full-swing, the turbulent return for students has been a rollercoaster of feelings, from worry and uncertainty to apathy. Despite reuniting with friends and peers bringing joy, the process of reentry is jarring and chaotic due to the short supply of classroom teachers coping with larger class sizes, fewer aids, a lack of supplies, and a dysfunctional school board. Comprised of nearly 200 schools — including traditional, magnet, charter, and pathways — the Denver Public School System has an enrollment of more than 92,000 students.

A total of 440 teaching positions were unfilled statewide as the 2022-23 classes started. Sorrier yet, another 1,128 or 20% were filled by hiring long-term substitutes, retired educators, alternative licensure program candidates, and “emergency authorization” candidates. The previous year (2021-22) 235 teaching vacancies remained unfilled for the entire school year and another 13% were filled by shortage mechanisms.

Board Bad Boy: School Board’s Tay Anderson continues to create chaos and erode community support. He is shown here refusing to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance. Photo: Kevin J. Beaty, Denverite

When it comes to public education, Colorado is at the bottom of the barrel: The state has the eighth lowest average teachers’ pay of all states. Furthermore, it has the 11th highest student-to-teacher ratio in the nation at 31 students per teacher. The Outcome: Colorado’s high school graduation rate is the sixth lowest in the nation at 79.1%.

On The Ropes

Schools in Denver and statewide are at a critical point: Teachers are stressed, overworked, and exhausted. After the tremendous pressures of the past two years, many have reached the end of their rope, tied a knot, and are barely hanging on.

Meanwhile, second graders need to learn kindergarten and first grade academic and social skills while sixth graders are grappling with fourth and fifth grade concepts. Even if classes weren’t huge, teachers feel triple the workload within each child.

A survey by the Colorado Education Association found that 40% of licensed teachers statewide are considering leaving the profession. For those teaching this year, pandemic burnout, low pay, and rising housing costs are the driving factors as they contemplate leaving the classroom. The kids are the only thing that makes that decision hard.

Learning Plummets

Academic learning in Denver has plummeted relative to other school districts in the state. In 2021, Denver Public Schools recorded the lowest level of academic learning ever, performing worse than all other large Colorado districts. Heretofore, Denver’s growth scores were beyond 50 every year for over a decade, outperforming nearly every school district in the state.

Among worrisome Denver scores were 22nd percentile growth for sixth-grade math, and 40th percentile growth for fifth-grade literacy. Denver’s fourth-grade students math achievement in 2021 was 7% proficient. In 2019, fourth-grade students were at 18% proficiency. Another troubling trend: For at least the past five years, the percentage of kindergarten-through-third-grade students who scored “significantly below grade level” on fall reading tests has hovered around 22%.

On the whole, Denver’s CMAS scores rebounded from last year, though not back to pre-pandemic levels. The one positive exception was third-grade reading, where the percentage of students meeting expectations — 39.9% — was slightly higher than in 2019. On the PSAT and SAT, however, Denver’s scores were lower than in 2019 or 2021. Students struggled the most in math. Just 29% of 11th graders met expectations on the math SAT. It’s long overdue for Denver’s district leadership to drop the magical thinking and honestly address the challenge of educating more than 92,000 students, submits Van Schoales, a Senior Policy Director at the Keystone Policy Center and former President of A+ Colorado.

Unproven Principals

Denver Public Schools opened its doors this year to more new principals than it has in at least six years. Principals at 46 of the district’s 134 non-charter schools — or 34% — were new to their position, their school, or both this year, according to district information. Sixteen of the new principals moved into the position from that of assistant principal.

If the 11 principals who simply moved laterally — jumping from the leadership of one Denver school to another — are not counted in the total, DPS still has 35 new principals. More: Twelve of the principals are external hires, new to DPS.

Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, believes the district should focus on encouraging experienced teachers to enter its principal pipelines because he believes candidates with a strong background in instruction and curriculum development are needed. He’s also concerned that the DPS Ritchie Program for School Leaders at DU draws too much from a young, inexperienced pool of prospects.

School Board Squabbles

Even if DPS wasn’t already boiling over with troubles, the current Denver School Board may be the most counterproductive and contemptuous ever. Creating chaos, confusion, and uncertainty, members have eroded community support while sidetracking student and teacher problems and concerns.

Responsible for setting policy for Denver Public Schools, members in work sessions disagree on matters as small as whether to call each other by their first names and as big as how to gather feedback from the community. The board spent much of this winter-spring debating a single policy related to school autonomy and teachers’ rights. That, according to critics, left little time to talk about important issues such as helping students learn to read and improving their mental health.

At a meeting to fill a vacant board seat, it took nine rounds of voting and several heated and emotional exchanges for a majority of members to agree. A consultant specializing in conflict resolution was asked to attend a mid-June retreat. She reported the group’s energy was filled with “mistrust, fear, and hesitation.”

RTD Teeters As Bus, Train Travel Tumbles

by Valley Gadfly | Aug 26, 2022 | Main Articles

Free August Fares Sought To Clear The Air, Lift Ridership, But Weekday Rides Jump Just 16% Due To Drug, Crime Worries

by Glen Richardson

Reeling from the pandemic, changing work patterns, and lingering worker shortages, while grappling with drug use and crime, RTD is facing a ridership crisis that threatens to cripple or collapse the transit agency.

RTD’s month-long August “Zero Fare for Better Air” promotion drew only 16% more weekday boarders during the first week when “free” was expected to double ridership. The weekend — with live theatre, Broadway shows, and baseball — did double rides. The agency estimates it will lose $9.2 million in fare revenue during the month. The state approved an $8.7 million grant — Senate Bill 180 — for the fare free program. RTD is responsible for picking up the balance.

Whenever you say free, many contend, “It’s not free, someone is paying!” In RTD’s latest free foray, many expressed concerns that making it free would attract homeless riders, plus increase unruly behavior and criminal activity. Some said it was likely to attract drunk-disorderly riders. “It’s an awful idea and will chase away paying patrons, if it hasn’t so far,” others intimated.

Slow Start Scramble

Crime Clogs Air Campaign: Drug, crime worries clogged RTD’s August Zero Fare for Better Air campaign as the transit agency’s buses, trains can’t find the combustion to attract commuters.

At the start of Zero Fare’s second week — safety and security issues were clearly crippling ridership. A series of outreach events with RTD Transit Police and Denver Police were quickly added. The four events — the first on Aug. 10 — were coffee chats designed to engage with potential customers and the community about security, service, and the Zero Fare incentive.

In March the agency hired Steve Martingano as RTD Police Chief. He has 22 officers to cover 2,300-sq.-miles. In June, RTD also approved a one-year contract extension with Allied Universal Security Services for up to $20.3 million.

RTD impact teams try to head off problems before customers board. Bus operators are asked if there are any problems on buses, seeking to ensure trips operate safely. At Union Station — where customers, employees, and visitors say they feel unsafe, and at least one business closed over crime — RTD is working with police, who have stepped up patrol. Denver Police made more than 800 arrests in and around Union Station in the six-months between November 2021 and April 30 of this year.

RTD’s System, Riders

Bus Boondoggle: RTD’s bus network is adequate, but bus stops often aren’t more than a pole with a small sign. Sometimes there’s a lonely bench, but only 5% have shelters.

RTD’s metro service includes six light rail lines, two commuter rail lines, and 84 local-regional bus routes. There are more than 340,000 daily transit trips. Approximately 230,000 of the trips — or about two-thirds — are within Denver.

Annual ridership in 2021 included 6,585,500 commuter rail, and 10,016,300 light-rail riders. That compares to 4,954,167 on commuter rail in 2020, and 10,464, 678 on light rail. Bus boardings in 2021 were 31,598,000 compared to 32,932,000 in 2020.

In 2019 there were 9,711,377 commuter rail and 24,585,300 light rail boardings. Bus boardings in 2019 totaled 59,685,653.

Cars In Control

Cars Dominate Commute: Traffic on Valley highways and arterials at near-normal levels whereas RTD is still struggling to attract ridership for commuter trains and buses.

RTD hoped its Zero Fare for Better Air would attract customers by saving them money and reducing stress. It aimed to limit air pollution and ground-level ozone. The agency has added a 36 battery-electric sub-fleet on the 16th St. Mall and purchased an additional 17 zero-emission buses, as its better air commitment.

Nonetheless, RTD struggled despite free fare. Federal monitoring of traffic on the state’s highways-arterials, shows traffic at near-normal levels. Volume, at times, actually exceeds 2019 monthly totals. That’s true, even as the Valley’s weekday rush hours have changed.

Based on several studies, for Denver drivers to switch from their cars to riding buses and trains would require frequencies of every 15 minutes. That is far from the 30-minute standard here and in other cities.

Fab Hub Fades Fast

Fall Of Great Hall: Opening in 2014, Union Station’s Great Hall initially attracted 10 million people annually. Today it is depicted as a hotbed of violence and drug dealing.

Union Station — the $54 million renovation of the 1914 Beaux-Arts train station that opened in 2014 as RTD’s transit hub — was initially an amazing place. Located at 17th and Wynkoop, it included the historic, station house, a modern open-air train shed, and a 22-gate underground bus-light rail station.

It encompasses the Great Hall and Crawford Hotel plus dining-retail space. A popular weekend and holiday getaway spot for locals and travelers, it attracted more than 10 million people and featured dozens of free community events annually.

Eight years later it is depicted as a hotbed of violence and drug dealing. The Union Station neighborhood was consistently Denver’s 2021 second most crime-ridden neighborhood, according to Denver’s crime mapping. RTD has shut down bus terminal public restrooms and may corner-off a section of the terminal for those with paid fares.

X-Factor: Commuters

Even prior to the pandemic, RTD confronted several years of gradual and puzzling ridership drops. Ridership fell about 5% from 2014 to 2019, with a bigger 2019 bump.

Ridership bottomed out at 30% of normal in the spring of 2020. Even as riders slowly return, recovery remains uneven. Buses attracted just 56% of the riders in November of last year as it did in the same month of 2019. Even with fewer trips, train ridership is performing at 37% to 48% of 2019.

The struggle to attract riders continues, with monthly data through last November indicating that about 53% of riders have returned.

Bus, Train Troubles

Crime Crisis: Not only did security worries cripple the better air campaign, RTD’s transit hub has been the scene of more than 1,200 arrests and tickets in the last six months.

Where RTD’s bus network has frequent service, it correlates well to population density. Service, however, is less reliable and stop amenities are lower quality. Thus, ridership lags despite buses going where people want to go. Meanwhile, RTD and Denver Police are literally trying to reclaim Union Station’s bus terminal. Planned security upgrades should help.

Denver’s light rail focuses on suburban-downtown trips. Service and amenities are decent, albeit stops often aren’t in useful spots and trains don’t show up on schedule.

A series titled “Ghost Train” is the focus of a CPR podcast miniseries that contends the ambitious, costly rail lines “have done relatively little to shift people around the region and is a story of disappointment and betrayal.”