Alma Meraz’s eyes welled when her daughter’s name was pulled from a cookie jar during an enrollment lottery for the high-performing West Denver Prep charter school.
“I’m so happy,” said Meraz, who cleans houses for a living. “I need her to go to this school for better opportunities. For a better life.”
West Denver Prep — which some parents have come to view as a first step toward college and possibly a lifeline out of poverty — is rated the second-best school in Denver.
The school’s college-preparatory curriculum and swift interventions for struggling students have been touted for helping at- risk kids beat the academic odds. West Denver Prep now posts some of the best academic growth in the state.
The middle school also draws nearly double the number of applicants it can seat, meaning waiting lists are long and disappointments high during the annual school- choice enrollment period.
It’s a scenario played out across the state each winter, as parents battle to get their kids into popular, high-performing schools during the choice period.
The Colorado Department of Education estimates about 38,000 children are waiting to get into Colorado charter schools. One such school, Classical Academy in Colorado Springs, has 7,800 students on its wait list.
School choice, enacted in Colorado in the early 1990s, remains controversial. The system was designed to encourage districts to improve all of their schools and build programs tailored to student desires.
It also created winners and losers.
Winning schools, with high academic growth and test scores, tend to draw a flood of applicants, leading to lotteries and waiting lists.
Schools on the other end of the performance spectrum face declining enrollments and often calls for closure.
The federal government is spearheading a movement to close the lowest-performing charter schools and implement turnaround strategies for district-run schools.
At a recent meeting in Jefferson County, residents demanded that the district eliminate choice and focus on improving neighborhood schools. But choice is a state law and is supported by the federal government.
And if the number of kids on waiting lists is any proof, parents want the freedom to choose.
About 220 families applied for 120 spaces in West Denver Prep’s fall sixth-grade classes on the South Federal Boulevard campus. About 200 families applied for 120 spots at West Denver Prep’s Harvey Park campus.
Valerie Espinoza, a 10-year-old who is in fifth grade at Castro Elementary, cried after seven of her classmates were chosen during the enrollment lottery last week. Her name was No. 207 — impossibly far down the wait list, said Chris Gibbons, head of the school.
Last year, the school had at least 50 students on a waiting list.
“We’d love to be able to have more families in,” Gibbons said. “That’s why we are opening more schools.”
Two more West Denver Prep campuses will open in the fall in northwest Denver. Both already have received as many applications as spaces.
Denver Public Schools this year has 1,812 students on waiting lists for all but three of its charter schools.
It’s not just charters that are turning away students. Denver’s high-performing traditional schools, such as Bromwell, Denver School of the Arts and Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, are in high demand.
For the 2009-10 school year, DPS received 10,539 choice applications. Of those, 8,013 students got into their first-choice school.
The remaining 24 percent either went to neighborhood schools; attended their second-, third- or fourth- choice schools; enrolled in charter schools; or left the district altogether.
“It makes clear how deeply parents care about having good choices for their students,” said Superintendent Tom Boasberg, who has led an effort to bring more options to the district.
Soon, DPS will put out a call for proposals for new schools, seeking more charters or performance schools that will draw students and lift achievement. Last year, the school board approved 11 new schools.
Denver School of Science & Technology — which will be opening four new schools — is currently the district’s top school, according to DPS’s annual scorecard. Last month, the high school received about 700 applications for 140 slots for next fall’s ninth-grade classes.
“They are coming from all over the city, all incomes,” said Bill Kurtz, head of school.
Nevertheless, the demand for some schools and the neglect of others reveals a chasm in public education, said Katie Holz-Russell, principal of West Denver Prep’s Federal campus.
“I feel it should be a given that a kid can wake up on his fifth-grade graduation day and know that he is going to go to a great school next year,” she said. “The great injustice is that simply is not the case. I’m reminded of that when we stand here in a lottery.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
Numbers
10,539 Students who applied for choice schools in Denver Public Schools for the 2009-10 year
8,013 Students who got their first choice
38,000 Students on waiting lists for charter schools statewide, including 7,800 for Classical Academy in Colorado Springs and 1,812 in DPS
