More Colorado college students are taking remedial courses once they arrive on campus, according to a report released today. In the 2010-11 school year, 31.8 percent of recent high school graduates were placed into a remedial course, as opposed to 28.6 percent in 2009-10. The remediation rate for students over…
Last month, defense attorneys for Louis Hampers filed a motion asking that the former doctor be sentenced to probation for the crime of writing phony prescriptions to feed his pill addiction. This week, prosecutors filed their own motion, arguing that he should instead be sentenced to the previously agreed-upon twelve…
Colorado’s film industry is a bit like Billy Crystal, whose 1991 hit movie City Slickers was set in the modern-day Wild West and largely filmed here. It used to be a leading man, roping cattle and scoring starlets. Now it does voiceover work for cartoons. Despite our state’s scenic beauty,…
Is Marcos Martinez, principal at the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy and the subject of our recent feature “A Hard Line,” on his way out as head of the Westminster charter school? Westword just received word that Martinez, chess instructor Dominic Martinez and director of curriculum and instruction Gabriela Guzman are…
GOP lawmaker Laura Bradford has been making headlines lately — and not for her adorable “cottage food bill,” also now being called the “sweet bill,” which would allow bakers and cake-makers to sell their delicious wares directly to consumers. Will the future of House Bill 12-1027 be affected by Bradford’s…
Nancy Werkmeister, a former assistant principal at North High School involved with the problem-ridden credit recovery program, is now working at Montbello High School. Denver Public Schools spokesman Mike Vaughn says Werkmeister “has a part-time contract to help with scheduling to make sure students are matched with the right classes,…
If you think the Super Bowl and sexy men’s underwear have nothing in common, you’d usually be correct. But this year, there’s a connection — and a local one at that. Pampered Passions Fine Lingerie in Englewood is running an ad in USA Today’s glossy preview publication for Super Bowl…
Today, Mayor Michael Hancock unveiled a new economic development strategy — the NASCAR-y sounding “JumpStart 2012: Revving Up Denver’s Economic Engine.” It includes a host of specific initiatives in seven broad areas, including a plan to develop a $20 million “pot of money,” in Hancock’s words, to loan funds to…
Five years ago, teachers at the Emily Griffith Technical College Language Learning Center, which offers free English classes to refugees, recognized a problem: Even when refugees landed jobs, they had trouble holding onto them. “We noticed that they were lacking in American workplace skills,” says dean of instruction Slavica Park…
Home cooks are rallying at the State Capitol today in support of a bill that would make it legal for bakers and cake-makers to sell their goods directly to consumers. The bill would require certain information to be printed on the products’ labels — and would exclude baked goods of…
Should bakers and cake-makers be able to sell delicious wares made in home kitchens at farmer’s markets and roadside stands? That’s the question lawmakers will debate today when they take up House Bill 12-1027, the so-called “cottage food bill.” Sponsored by Republican Representative Laura Bradford, the measure would allow counties…
A group of parents associated with the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy is airing its concerns about the charter school, which was the subject of our recent feature story, “A Hard Line.” They’re circulating a petition to remove the school’s leader, Marcos Martinez, and have sent a list of concerns to…
Bodhi the elephant has a new buddy. The Denver Zoo has welcomed its second male elephant, a 41-year-old named Groucho who came from the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas to live in the Denver Zoo’s new mega-exhibit, Toyota Elephant Passage. He’s a big boy: At 11,000 pounds, Groucho is now…
The sentencing hearing for former ER doc Louis Hampers has been delayed once again. Charged with writing 654 phony prescriptions in 2009 and 2010, Hampers pleaded guilty this past July to much less: fourteen counts of prescription drug fraud. His sentencing hearing was rescheduled from October to tomorrow, but it’s…
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about New Mexico’s $2.5 million effort to rebrand the state “as a place of charm and character, adventure, excitement — and really good green chili cheeseburgers.” It seems that the Land of Enchantment isn’t perceived as very enchanting; focus groups…
Last month, we told you which of the 928 participating nonprofits raised the most money during Colorado Gives Day. This year, technical difficulties caused the 24-hour online charity blitz to be extended to 36 hours, during which folks donated a total of $12.4 million…
Preliminary numbers show that about 15 percent of the 7,923 immigrants whose cases were reviewed as part of a Department of Homeland Security pilot project in Denver will be allowed to stay in the country, says Laura Lichter, the president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Those include local student…
The school children shall melt no more! Or if they do, they’ll do it later in the summer. The Denver Public School board of education has voted to push back the school start-date this coming fall, after a mid-August heat wave caused students to sweat and their parents to petition…
An increase in the number of home foreclosures has led to another housing-related phenomenon: the rise of the accidental landlord. These are the folks who buy foreclosed properties and instead of moving in, rent them out to tenants as a way to make money. But sometimes, says Nancy Burke of…
Denver’s graduation rate is on the rise. Statistics released today show that 56.1 percent of seniors graduated “on time” in the spring of 2011, as opposed to 51.8 percent in 2010. “On time” means they graduated four years after entering high school as freshmen. Meanwhile, the dropout rate stayed the…
In 2010, Colorado welcomed 2,367 refugees from around the world. That’s more than in 2009, when 2,157 refugees were resettled here, but fewer than in 1980, when 4,200 refugees made Colorado their new home. So where do these refugees come from — and why? As explained in the cover story…
Colorado is seventh in the nation when it comes to the quality of its charter school laws, according to a ranking released today by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. That’s actually a downgrade from last year, when Colorado ranked fourth in the country. Why the slip? The folks…
