West High School has a new addition to its airplane hangar. (How many of you knew West even had an airplane hangar?) Yesterday, the U.S. Air Force Academy donated a jet engine to DPS’s Aircraft Maintenance Program, which is offered through the Emily Griffith Technical College but taught at West…
A third-grader at Foothill Elementary in Boulder brought a couple of unusual items to school yesterday: two live bullets. He’s still alive, too, even though he pounded one of the bullets with a rock. But is he looking at mandatory punishment under post-Columbine zero-tolerance policies a state panel wants to…
Inspired by the 1999 assault on Columbine High School and the horrific roster of school shootings since then, officials developed a “zero tolerance” approach to disciplining students whose actions touch on violence, no matter how tangentially. Now, a panel appointed by the state legislature has decided that the policy isn’t…
Denver Public Schools board members — and their credit cards — have been making headlines ever since Education News Colorado uncovered that more than one overspent their $5,000 annual budget, with Westword cover subject Andrea Merida leading the pack. This week, the board is poised to take the next steps…
Update below: Today — gloriously breezy today! — Denver Public Schools students will finally get a respite from the oppressive heat that has marked the end of August. And since most city schools don’t have air-conditioning, many parents and school district officials have been left wondering: Should school start in…
Andrea Merida, Denver Public Schools board member and Westword cover subject, has been making headlines once again. Education News Colorado was the first to report this week that Merida had overspent her $5,000 DPS-boardmember budget by more than $7,000. More than $4,000 of the $12,637 she spent from July 2010…
Overheated parents of children who attend Denver Public Schools can now cool their calls for air-conditioning. Instead of demanding that the city raise property taxes to fund a $400-million bond issue to install air-conditioning in older schools, panicky parents can now just include a few freezer packs when shopping for…
Nine candidates are vying for three seats on the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. That’s two more than the last time we wrote about the race, in early July. Of those nine candidates, eight have turned in petitions with fifty valid voter signatures…
A few of this year’s back-to-school supplies are hot collectibles… No-Poop-Fairies #2 Pencil and Sharpener: Jefferson County’s thicker-diameter pencils keep tiny hands from cramping, so student’s can continue to pick up pest waste during after-school dog walks. The dog-shaped sharpener, illustrated above, also promotes proper pick up and disposal of…
Today, most Denver kids head back to school. And since this is 2011, they’ll probably all rush home, vlog about it and upload said vlogs to YouTube. So to celebrate the first day of school, we bring you five of the best back-to-school YouTube videos. Volume Two. (Click here to…
Summer is over, and school is back in session. While the bell rang a few days ago for some kids and won’t ring until tomorrow for others, today is the big day for Denver Public Schools — the day when the mayor shakes the hands of grubby first graders, the…
“School Vouchers on Hold” read a weekend headline in the print Denver Post. But while plaintiffs, including the Colorado branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, technically requested a preliminary injunction to stop the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program, Judge Michael Martinez’s ruling (read it below) will be permanent if…
Why would any student throwing a college party give the very people who might bust it a heads-up in advance? Seems counter-intuitive, right? But the folks behind a University of Colorado at Boulder party-registration program argue that the approach can stop beefs before they start — and they’ve got statistics…
Representative Doug Lamborn capitalizes on a remarkable skill for creating sticky situations by introducing his new Tar Baby race paste. Developed by crafty congressmen for budget-burdened back-to-school students, Lamborn’s Tar Baby race paste sticks faster, and longer, than the leading white power adhesives…..
Update: Greenway University, which specializes in marijuana-related instruction, was closed by the state in part because owner Gus Escamilla didn’t disclose a 2000 conviction on a license application. We’ve now obtained documents showing another conviction, this one in 2003 — and a Department of Higher Education spokesman says GU has…
North High School is old school — 100 years old, to be exact. And to celebrate its century-ness, the northwest Denver community is throwing a birthday party tomorrow that will double as a celebration of the school’s $24.7 million makeover — which includes a complete renovation of the castle-ish 1911…
Last week, we told you about a fake webpage masquerading as the home base for One Chance Colorado, a coalition of school reform-minded organizations that actually launches today. Here’s former Lieutenant Governor and coalition member Barbara O’Brien’s take on what it’s after and how it plans to get there…
Manual High School, home to super-debaters and Westword cover siblings Teague and Theron Harrison, could expand to include grades 6, 7 and 8. According to Education News Colorado, Denver Public Schools staffers are crafting a plan to grow the once-shuttered, now-reborn school — and the school board could vote on…
A super-coalition of reform-minded education organizations, including Stand for Children Colorado, Democrats for Education Reform and A+ Denver, is about to launch. Called “One Chance Colorado,” its message will be this: “Every child has only one chance at a great K-12 education. That’s why we need to improve Colorado’s schools…
American schoolchildren don’t know Alaska from their elbow. That’s the news today from the NAEP, dubbed “The Nation’s Report Card:” Fewer than one-third of students tested proficient in geography in 2010. Education gurus blame a shrinking curriculum — but that could change in Colorado…
Ed Salem, who recently resigned as principal of North High School, has been hired as a teacher at a new school in central Denver aimed at helping struggling students graduate. Salem’s decision to leave North came just before the district asked state officials to investigate the school’s credit recovery program,…
One of the odd quirks of the social media explosion has been the proliferation of folks pretending to be someone else — a phenomenon that no doubt annoys the typically notable person being identity-jacked but can be entertaining for the rest of us. As an example, let us juxtapose the…
