"Highlands High School: Build it and they will come...BACK"

Denver Public Schools superintendent Michael Bennett spoke to a throng of interested parties last week.  In attendance were teachers-fighting for their professional lives, students-fighting for their teachers, parents-visibly frustrated, and community members looking for answers.  Mr. Bennett talked about making "bold moves" and about attracting folks back to old North High School which has seen plummeting enrollment numbers and equally dismal achievement stats in the last decades.  I applaud Mr. Bennett for confronting the problems head-on although that is what he's paid to do.  His bold moves of "redesigning" the faculty of North and overlaying a dual-language curriculum I'm afraid are not nearly enough.  "Redesign" is only part of the solution, if indeed forcing an entire faculty to reapply or get canned is an effective use of time at all.  And as for pulling through the dual Language model to capture the Sandoval parents and students- it was an obvious decision from the day that elementary school opened with a triple-digit waiting list.  Michael Bennett has missed the obvious solution: build North Denver a new high school.

Surprised?  Can building a new high school really accomplish anything?  After all isn't it just four new walls surrounding the same old low-achieving teachers and students?  Not exactly.  A new, state-of-the-art high school will meet Bennett's goal of attracting back the parents and students of Highlands who have fled to the suburbs, charters, and magnets.  With a more socio-economically balanced enrollment, test scores and achievement will rise.  Better educators will apply to teach in the district's first new high school in decades.  And realtors around Highlands will again have something to crow about to folks moving to the area with high school bound kids.

Building a new high school is the obvious solution because it's how Denver solves it's problems.  When the city's economy crashed in the 1980's, we invested in a new airport; abandoning the perfectly usable Stapleton.  Since then we've built two convention centers- the latest just landed the biggest convention in the nation: the DNC in 2008.  In a move to simply bring in major league baseball, taxpayers built Coors Field and electrified an entire section of the worst part of Denver- bringing in millions in development.  How about the new library and new art museum for civic center plaza?  And the new Opera House?  Pepsi Center.  Six Flags.  Invesco Field.  And our grand Light Rail initiative.  Sadly, in this flurry of rebuilding old Denver we've forgotten about our future: our High School students.  Invest in a new high school for North Denver to complete our community rebirth.

And let's settle the naming issue immediately: this should be Highlands High School.  As a North High grad and former North High teacher, I can say that North High School is a name that only denotes city territorial lines- the kind that divide-the kind that rappers glorify in gangster videos.  The new high school should embody the spirit of the rebirth of North Denver, and during the last 15 years that name is "Highlands."  It's the original town name and it's the name embraced by the community.  Time is too short to squabble over this activist or that ethnicity in naming the new school.

So an historic preservationist is calling for the demolition of our community's beloved landmark?  Never.  Retire the 1911 Beaux-Arts beauty to a future of mixed use loftdom and raise a few bucks for the district.  Build Highlands High on the adjacent fields, at Viking Park, or in a whole new location.  The 1911 dinosaur is sucking district tax dollars away from educating kids-we all just spent $10 million in new windows and paint on the building and not a penny will raise achievement.  Let the private sector take on the preservation challenge and let the district focus on delivering the best education possible to our kids.

Yours,

Walter Keller

owner, Lumber Baron Inn & Gardens

walterkeller@comcast.net