About 40 students at Lake Middle School in Sloan Lake demonstrated outside their building Thursday to protest the possible co-location of another school there. The students say they are afraid putting another school inside their own will stop the academic progress Lake has made over the last five to 10 years.
"I will be the generation that stops the low treatment Brown and Black schools receive," said Esme Prado Cruz, a sixth grader. "If we were a white school, DPS wouldn't even consider putting another school inside of Lake." About 90% of Lake Middle Schools students are students of color.
The students said their press conference and protest is a warning to DPS.
"We do this with all due respect, but we really don't want to share the campus anymore because we're growing and we're just a wonderful community," Prado Cruz said. "We love this place. It's a second home."
Denver Public Schools is considering moving a program called Next Steps to Lake. DPS considers Next Steps a separate school that provides therapeutic services to students with intensive social and emotional needs. With the closure of dozens of day treatment facilities in the Metro area, more pressure has been placed on school districts to serve those students. The program is currently located in Barrett Elementary, near City Park. Next year, elementary students not in the Next Steps program from Barrett will be sent to the Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy in northeast Denver.
District officials said the Next Steps program is expected to have 10 to 15 secondary students enrolled in its program next year. The Colorado Department of Education recently found systemic failure against Black students with emotional disabilities in Next Steps as well as other parts of DPS.
"We are committed to ensuring this population of students has a quality learning environment to thrive," the district said in a statement.
DPS says Lake is being considered as a new home for the program because it is centrally located, is a secondary school, and has a separate hallway or wing that allows some separation for participants from other students.
Lake students have housed other students in their building for the past decade.
The students at Lake said Thursday that it's time that they have their building back as their own in order to grow their school programs and the school's culture. Over the past several years, the district has held up Lake as an example of a school that has worked diligently to build enrollment, academic achievement, and a culture of pride and community strength despite having to share its building.
The school has had to co-locate with a public charter school, STRIVE PREP-Lake, which at times caused tension between the two schools, according to students and staff. STRIVE announced last year that it was closing its middle school next school year. Lake students said they were looking forward to finally being able to occupy -- on their own -- the entire historic building located on the edge of Sloan's Lake. They say they hoped to expand the roster of classes available to them to include woodshop and aeronautics. The school will also take over a center for students with affective needs (social and emotional disabilities) that was previously housed at STRIVE Prep-Lake.
For many students, Lake is a second home. They said the teachers at Lake are more involved with the students, more interested in their lives, and genuinely care more than teachers they've had at other schools. They say they don't want to put that in jeopardy.
"We've already shared our time with STRIVE," said eighth grader Dylan Smith.
Smith noted that many other middle schools haven't had to co-locate with other schools.
District data show STRIVE Prep Sunnyside, West Middle School and the Denver Center for International Studies are nearby schools with declining enrollment - and more space. There are nearly 50 DPS schools -- not all of them secondary schools -- with more open capacity than Lake Middle School, according to a document acquired through an open records request. That document shows that Lake Middle School is at 62% capacity. The district anticipates even if Next Steps is located there, it has capacity for 200 more students.
"There is plenty of space for Lake Middle School even if they share the campus with a small program," DPS officials said.
But that doesn't square with students' observations. Lake's enrollment has steadily increased from 342 students in 2017 to an expected 625 next school year.
Student Maya Sanchez said having two schools in one building makes for jam packed hallways.
"It gets very crowded and very noisy and it's very hard to stay on task and do basic things," said Sanchez.
"We barely have enough space as it is right now at Lake .... We have three classes that are being taught at the library," added student Mateo Lara.
In the past, co-location in Denver Public Schools has been controversial
Originally, co-location was part of an education reform strategy intended to accelerate achievement at the host school. When communities weren't involved in the co-location decision, they pushed back, concerned that different schedules, rules and philosophies would interfere with efforts to turnaround academic achievement at the host school. It created uncertainty and logistical obstacles in schools with different enrollment criteria and student bodies.
Lake Middle School students said Thursday that animosity has arisen between students of Lake and STRIVE. "It causes a lot of problems in the eighth grade against different students because it's so many personalities mixed together in one school, it causes a lot of drama," said eighth grader Judiah Rhodes.
The students say they have asked DPS why Lake was being considered for another co-location but said the district hasn't responded.
"That's not fair," said a student named Talia. "If you're going to move another school into our school unfairly then please tell us why."
Lacy McDonald, who volunteers at Lake, where his wife is principal, said the community would like to be consulted about any possible co-location. He emphasized he has nothing against the Next Steps program, he just wants students in the program to be nurtured and not "warehoused."
"Why would you warehouse them in a place where you think the community is not going to rise up and say anything about it," McDonald said. "It is a pattern that DPS continues to show that they're going to shoot first and ask questions later, and there's no involvement of the community."
