A Wall Street investment fund manager has an ambitious plan to double Denver’s parkland — along with the parkland in other cities such as Atlanta and Cleveland. Called Red Fields to Green Fields, the project would use loans from the nation’s banking system to buy distressed properties such as shuttered…
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has renewed its promise to focus on serious criminals for detention and deportation. “A new policy directs ICE officers and attorneys to use appropriate discretion to make sure victims and witnesses to crimes are not put into deportation proceedings,” the Associated Press reports. But that’s…
Outdoor city pools have been open since June 4 — but not the much-loved pool at La Alma Rec Center, 1120 Osage Street. Instead, the La Alma pool is a construction site and will likely remain so until school starts again in the fall. According to Parks and Rec spokeswoman…
Update: The proposal to increase rec center fees will be heard by the full city council on June 27, after being okayed by a council committee earlier this week. The Land Use, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee unanimously approved it Tuesday. To watch video of the discussion, click here — and…
Denver Public Schools has asked the Colorado Department of Education to investigate the credit recovery program at North High School, in light of concerns raised in the Westword cover story “Passing on Education,” DPS spokesman Mike Vaughn confirms. That move pleased Jennifer Draper Carson, chairwoman of North’s Collaborative School Committee,…
The prairie dogs of Peña Boulevard are getting evicted. As the Denver Post reports today, RTD is attempting to relocate hundreds of critters living along the route of the future train to Denver International Airport. If they can’t find new homes, another option is to kill them and make them…
Is there really a good way to tell someone you may have given them an STD? Maybe not, but there are certainly some ways that are less embarrassing and/or horrifying than others. Sending an e-card isn’t one of them, according to a recent study conducted at the Denver Metro Health…
“Passing on Education,” a recent Westword cover story, questions whether North High students were allowed to cheat in online credit recovery courses designed to help them make up courses they’d failed and ultimately, graduate. Denver Public Schools has now responded with a long editorial posted on Education News Colorado that…
Even though Denver public schools are out for the summer and most graduation ceremonies are over, the debate over DPS’s increasing graduation rates continues. For more, read our feature, “Passing on Education.” Today, Education News Colorado contributor Alexander Ooms weighs in with an opinion piece that includes two helpful charts…
The Scarlet Ranch swingers club has revealed its new location, and it’s a meaty one: the former Northwoods Inn steakhouse in Littleton, as first reported on our Cafe Society blog. The launch is tonight and the grand opening party — nicknamed The Hunt for Ranch IV — is tomorrow. It’s…
Four months after President Barack Obama shouted out Denver’s Bruce Randolph School in his State of the Union Address, lauding the fact that the formerly low-performing school graduated 97 percent of its seniors last year, education writer Diane Ravitch gave the school a different kind of shout-out in the New…
Colorado has chosen its first child protection ombudsman: Becky Miller Updike, whose résumé includes sixteen years of child advocacy, most recently at the Tennyson Center for Children in Denver. As ombudsman, she will review complaints about the state’s child welfare system — a job that was born of a long…
The Positive Project — tagline: “HIV+ stories for the greater good” — is a Denver-based nonprofit that’s home to the world’s largest collection of videos of people infected with and affected by HIV. Reliant on grants and donations for funding, The Positive Project will host its first-ever Sunshine Tomorrow Cabaret…
“Passing on Education,” this week’s cover story, examines rising graduation rates at North High School and questions whether part of the reason is because students were allowed to cheat in online credit recovery courses designed to help them make up classes they’d failed. In the wake of the story, Denver…
“Passing on Education,” this week’s cover story, questions whether students at North High School were allowed to cheat in online credit recovery courses in order to make up classes they’d failed — and ultimately, graduate. In the three years that North has used credit recovery, graduation rates have increased. And…
A Face to Reframe is an organization out of Fort Collins that uses photography to empower marginalized populations by giving them cameras in order to capture their world — as they see it, not as others do. Last week, the cameras were in the hands of five homeless youth in…
North High School has long suffered from abysmal graduation rates — so, in 2008, Denver Public Schools added credit recovery, which allows students to retake courses online. Since then, grad rates have skyrocketed. But some North teachers wonder whether the gains are legit, and whether credit recovery is doing more…
In 2008, North High School had the lowest graduation rate among Denver’s eleven traditional public high schools. Just 46 percent of its seniors managed to graduate that year. And the problem was nothing new. North has been the target of reform efforts for years, prompted by low test scores, a…
Update: Two weeks ago, we told you that the Scarlet Ranch swingers club is moving from 424 Broadway in Denver to a secret location. And while owner Kendall Seifert is still mum about where it’s heading, he has released some details. An e-mail to members revealed that the new facility…
Denver PrideFest has announced the theme of this year’s festival: “These Colors Don’t Run: Honoring our LGBT Servicemembers and Veterans.” Organizers were inspired by Congress’s vote to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which would allow openly gay men and women to serve in the military. “We wanted to celebrate what…
The Denver Public Library is in financial trouble. Since 2003, city budget constraints have caused the system to cut hours, reduce staff and spend less money on new books. And it may only get worse: Next year, the library has been instructed to cut another $2.5 million from its budget…
The wives of Denver’s mayoral hopefuls entered the fray this week, sending out dueling e-mails to promote their husbands as the June 7 runoff election approaches. But though Laurie Romer and Mary Louise Lee Hancock are on opposite sides, their notes had a common theme: My husband is a dork…
