Enough Is Enough: My Grandchildren Deserve Better Schools

As a parent or grandparent, nothing breaks your heart like watching your children struggle while the school system meant to support them continues to fail. As a longtime resident of Commerce City, it is infuriating to have seen the school system fail my own children, only to watch that same system deny my grandchildren the opportunities they so deeply deserve. Instead of lifting our children up, it’s holding them back.

The data confirms what our family has experienced firsthand: Adams 14 has received low state ratings for an astounding eleven consecutive years. Since 2010, it’s been one of the worst-performing school districts in the state. Despite numerous improvement plans and millions of dollars spent on consultants and lawyers, no meaningful progress has been made. Last year, the district once again received a “priority improvement” rating — the second-lowest possible designation by the state.

Adams 14 serves nearly 6,000 students across thirteen schools in our historic Commerce City community. Yet it continuously fails to meet the needs of its students and support them in making adequate academic progress — across all grades, student groups and subjects.

My children and grandchildren each had individual and unique needs, but the failure of Adams 14 schools was a constant. The schools didn’t serve the academic needs of my son, the special needs of my grandson, or the social needs of my granddaughter, and they suffered as a result. It’s time to stop condemning families to a system that has failed children for decades and refuses to take the necessary steps to improve. We need to give Adams 14 families the ability to choose the education that works for them.
My story is a common one: With my granddaughter struggling, I searched high and low for other options. Colorado gives families the right to choose a school that meets their child’s needs, but a “choice” without real access to high-quality options is no choice at all. A choice without resources to access that choice isn't real, either. As a grandmother, I couldn’t provide transportation to a better school, nor would anyone else. I was desperate — ready to sell my home and move closer to a school that would give my granddaughter the education she deserved.

Eventually, I found a transportation program that provided service out of Adams 14 to high-quality schools outside the district. With that support, my granddaughter chose an exceptional, diverse charter school in Denver. For a year and a half, she thrived. She was engaged. She was challenged. For the first time in years, I saw the true potential of the young woman I knew she could be.

But then, transportation funding ran out.

I refuse to send her back to an education desert that has repeatedly failed my family. She now attends an online school, but she’s the first person to tell you it’s not the same. It doesn’t challenge her. It doesn’t excite her. Every day, she wishes she could go back to her school in Denver.

Families like mine can't afford to wait another decade for promised improvements that never materialize. Adams 14 serves a community where 85 percent of students live in poverty; it has the highest percentage of English language learners in the state. These children deserve quality education now, not vague promises for the future.


If we truly believe education matters, and that parents should have the right to send their child to the school that works for them, as promised in Colorado, then we must prioritize high-quality public schools in and for every community. Attending a school of your dreams shouldn't be just the privilege of Colorado's wealthier residents.


The state requires districts to maintain an "improvement" rating for two consecutive years to exit intervention. After more than a decade of low performance, Adams 14 hasn't achieved this even once. Meanwhile, real children — like my grandchildren — continue to slip through the cracks.

Enough is enough. Our children's futures hang in the balance. The choices we make today will reverberate for generations to come. Will we continue to accept failure as inevitable, or will we finally stand up and demand that every child has access to the education they deserve? No child, no grandchild, should have to settle for less. The time for empty promises has passed. The time for action is now.

Leona Pacheco is a longtime resident of Commerce City and Adams 14, and is the grandmother of two incredible grandchildren.

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