Read the story, School officials, others cite prevalence of medical marijuana as drug violations spike on K-12 campuses. Here’s a look at the data behind the findings:

• Spreadsheet showing all incidents, including drug violations, reported to the Colorado Department of Education over the past 10 years. Here’s the CDE report.
• Spreadsheet showing suspensions resulting from drug and other violations reported to the state over the past 10 years. Here’s the CDE report showing suspensions, expulsions and referrals to law enforcement for the past ten years – click on 10-year Trend Data.
• Chart showing expulsions resulting from drug and other violations reported to the state over the past 10 years.
• Chart showing referrals to law enforcement resulting from drug and other violations reported to the state over the past 10 years.
• Spreadsheet showing Denver Police Department arrests for drug violations at Denver Public Schools in 2010-11. Police began separating marijuana incidents from other drug incidents in 2010. Only schools listed in police records as the locations of drug arrests are shown here. Here are the reports compiled by Denver police for Aug. 1, 2010 – Dec. 31, 2010 and for Jan. 1, 2011 – June 30, 2011.

In addition, this spreadsheet shows a listing of all K-12 public schools located within 1,200 feet of a medical marijuana facility licensed by the state. This story about the recently announced federal crackdown includes an explanation of how the spreadsheet was created.

You can also look up your school’s drug violation history for the past four years on our database and check our interactive map to see any school location and any medical marijuana facilities located nearby.

As it is, the Roaring Fork High School sophomore has just completed a stint in juvenile detention, is back in school and eager to get his life back on track. He’s hoping to join the military after high school, and he knows a drug conviction could scuttle those plans.

“But the DA worked out a deal where, as long as I don’t get in trouble for the next six to eight months, I’ll be fine,” he said, referring to the district attorney or prosecutor. “I’ll be allowed to go in the military.”

Much has changed for the one-time honor student, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that his last name is not used.

A year ago, he’d never smoked pot. But then came the night of the party. Someone offered him a joint and, when he didn’t know what to do with it, showed him. “I took a hit,” he said. “I felt the high. I wasn’t in love with the feeling. But I liked it.”

A week later, the older brother of a friend made Charles an offer. “He told me ‘Hey, if you’re willing to sell for me, I’ll give you money.’ I go ‘All right.’ So he’d go down to the dispensary once or twice a week and get his marijuana, then give it to me and I would distribute it.”

The brother, who is in his 40s, had sold marijuana for decades, he said, but began selling medical marijuana exclusively after obtaining a state-issued registry card for back pain.

“They’re really easy to get them around here,” Charles said of the cards. “You can get them for headaches.”

Far from the Front Range population centers, Colorado’s resort communities are dealing with their own medical marijuana dilemmas.

The number of drug-related incidents in the 5,000-student Roaring Fork School District, which includes Glenwood Springs, Basalt and Carbondale, spiked at 61 during the 2009-10 school year, up from 11 the year before. Last year, drug incidents were down to 36.

Other indicators of drug usage have not trended downward.

In 2010-11, the number of teens with marijuana charges referred to Youth Zone, a diversion system for young offenders, was up 58 percent over the year before, said Lori Mueller, program director.

“It could be that judges just decided to send more kids to us,” she said. “It could be that police officers are more focused on stopping the kids smoking marijuana. I don’t want to assume that the only reason is because more kids than ever are smoking pot.”

But whatever the reason, Mueller sees teens’ attitudes toward marijuana changing rapidly.

“Marijuana is no big deal to them,” she said. “And it’s very hard to work with kids who truly believe – or whose parents believe – that marijuana is medicine. If it’s medicine, how can it be wrong? When they see a medical marijuana shop on every other block, and they have friends or parents of friends who have medical marijuana cards, it doesn’t feel to them like there’s anything to worry or be nervous about.”

Based on what referred teens tell her, she said, marijuana seems to be everywhere in the Roaring Fork Valley. Getting it is as easy as helping yourself to the stash your parents or a friend’s parents keep.

Or you could have called Charles, one of the teens referred to Mueller’s program. He would get it for you.

“A kid could call me and say ‘meet me here.’ Or would say ‘I left some money under the front left tire of my dad’s truck.’ And I’d go and get the money and leave the marijuana,” Charles said. “There were unlimited ways for me to distribute it.”

Sometimes his clients asked for marijuana-infused candy or other edibles. But mostly, the smoke-able kind was what they wanted.

It’s certainly the kind he wanted. And he smoked a lot.

“Kids are always looking for something to do, and smoking marijuana is something to do,” he said. “It calms you down, and it’s fun. Most kids won’t refrain from it. But what that leads to – I never got any of my homework done. None of it. I would rather be out with friends. I stopped really caring what people thought about me”

Charles’ fling with marijuana didn’t last long. He’d only been smoking – and selling – for about six months when he was busted. “A kid told on me,” he said. “His parents found the marijuana and they asked where he got it, and he told them it was me. Three days later, I was getting in a car and police cars pulled up and said ‘Come with us.’ ”

He spent a month in juvenile detention, has been on home detention since before Christmas and went back to school Jan. 23. He’s got a court date in February, but he’s hopeful that his record will eventually be expunged if he can stay clean.

Charles says his days dealing marijuana are behind him – “It’s not worth spending a month in detention to make $20 a day” – but smoking is another thing.

“I have court-appointed (drug tests) for now,” he said. “But it’s so widely available. After I finish those, I’ll try not to use again because I don’t want to go down that road, but I can’t say for sure I’ll be 100 percent clean.”

Charles refused to identify his supplier to police and said he hasn’t talked to him since his arrest. He said he didn’t know of any other students dealing drugs for him.

A man advertises medical marijuana Feb. 2 on Leetsdale Drive, a few blocks from George Washington High School in southeast Denver.

“It was the hardest day of my life,” he said.

The man’s son, an East High School freshman, had been busted with baggies of marijuana at a Colfax Avenue parking garage adjacent to the school.

His arrest was one of 18 at East for marijuana possession last year and among the 179 arrests for marijuana possession or sale at 43 Denver schools during 2010-11, according to Denver police records.

The boy said he purchased the marijuana from a senior at school. He was naïve enough to divide it into smaller bags and write friends’ names on them.

“His whole intention was to sell it and make some money. There are quite a few kids there with a lot of money,” the boy’s dad said. “He was trying to fit in and make some money.”

The names of the father and son are being withheld because the boy is still a juvenile.

While Colorado schools report an increase in drug-related incidents and both national and state surveys show a rise in marijuana use among young people, this father has a message to other parents and kids.

“The stakes are a lot higher than you think,” the dad said. “You’re doing something illegal and you’re playing with fire. Sooner or later, you’re going to get burned.”

He believes young people are confused by mixed messages that bombard them. On the one hand, medical marijuana dispensaries are located near schools and advertise their products as “healthy” on storefronts, online and on radio stations with young audiences.

On the other hand, East officials are taking a proactive stance against the use of marijuana by students and federal law enforcement officials in January announced a crackdown on medical marijuana shops within 1,000 feet of schools.

The 36-year-old father said he never had a strong opinion on the marijuana debate before, but now thinks medical marijuana dispensaries should be illegal.

“Nobody thought about the kids,” the dad said. “How do you tell your kids this is wrong when you’ve got a guy with a sign dancing around and saying, ‘Come get this’?”

On the day the boy was caught, school resource officers hauled the 15-year-old back to East, arrested him, and charged him with two felonies: attempted distribution and attempted distribution to a minor.

The dad couldn’t bear to watch as the officers loaded his son into the police car and drove him to the Gilliam Youth Detention Center.

Because of a holiday, the boy ended up spending four days locked up before a judge in Denver’s juvenile court could hear his case. He experienced some bullying that led to a fight and some minor injuries.

Ultimately, he was confined to house arrest for two weeks, expelled from East and later harassed online for being a snitch. He had rocks thrown at his car and had to miss weeks of practice for his elite club sports team.

“It’s been devastating for him,” the dad said.

The boy transferred to another Denver high school and his grades plummeted.

“He had never been in trouble before. He had great grades. He went from a 4.0 to a 2.5” grade point average, the father said.

The boy is now on probation. If he can stay clean for two years, the felonies will be expunged from his record. He returned to East this year and is doing well again in school.

“I don’t want to see other kids go through that,” the dad said. “You don’t realize how this impacts the rest of your life. It impacts him getting into college and getting jobs. This has affected both of us pretty heavily.”

Signs like this adorn many U.S. schools.

Colorado schools reported a 45 percent spike in drug violations over the past four years, a trend that occurred even as the total number of other violations reported to state officials declined.

Interviews with school and district officials, health care workers and students statewide depict the proximity of medical marijuana dispensaries and the saturation of medical marijuana in communities as key factors behind the increase.

Read the related story: School officials, others cite medical marijuana as drug violations spike on K-12 campuses.

What’s happening at your school? Click in the boxes below to see a four-year history of drug offenses and their disposition, from suspension to expulsion to referral to law enforcement.

A student walks past a sign advertising medical marijuana on Denver's Colfax Avenue Jan. 20. Photo by Joe Mahoney / I-News

A handful of students from Denver’s East High School recently spent a warm January lunch period huddled against a brick home two blocks from the school, passing a joint and discussing the merits of medical marijuana.

It smells better than what you get on the street, they say, and is more potent. The buds are whole, not ground up like oregano.

“I get top shelf,” boasts a 16-year-old boy. “My cousin works at a dispensary. So he brings maybe two zips (plastic bags) a day that they’re just going to throw out.”

Across the street is a medical marijuana dispensary that advertises “a trip to the moon” for customers. It is exactly 753 feet from East, according to the school’s former principal, who has measured it several times. Another dispensary is 1,010 feet away.

“This is not in any sense healthy for our young people,” said John Youngquist, the former principal who has pleaded for years for help in protecting schools from the proliferation of dispensaries.

Federal prosecutors echoed those concerns in January when they targeted medical marijuana dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools for their first crackdown since hundreds of shops with names like “Dr. Reefer” and “Ganja Gourmet” began spreading across the state in 2009.

U.S. Attorney John Walsh cited a “dramatic increase in student abuse of marijuana” in warning 23 dispensary operators to move within 45 days or face criminal action and seizure of their property. That deadline expires Feb. 27.

Scores of other dispensaries can expect shutdown notices soon. In all, Walsh now says he plans to target over 100 Colorado dispensaries located within 1,000 feet of a school, relying on federal law that creates stiffer penalties for any drug use near schools, playgrounds and places where young people gather.

The federal Drug-Free Schools Act applies to public and private schools from grades 1-12, along with both public and private colleges and universities. For now, Walsh says he is committed only to cracking down on dispensaries near public and private schools and higher education campuses, and not other gathering places.

An investigation by Education News Colorado, Solutions and the I-News Network shows the number of drug violations reported by Colorado’s K-12 schools have increased 45 percent in the past four years, even as the combined number of all other violations has fallen.

The statewide data do not distinguish between marijuana and other drugs but interviews with school and district officials, healthcare workers and students across Colorado depict marijuana as the overwhelming cause of the increase.

Some school officials used descriptions such as “drowning” and “under siege” to portray their battle with the increase in drug violations and what they view as a seismic shift in student attitudes about marijuana.

“When I grew up, it was horrible if you got caught with pot,” said East teacher Matt Murphy. “Now there are little green medical signs everywhere. It seems healthy. We’re at the front lines of this huge shift where kids think it’s OK.”

Among other findings of the investigation:

• Suspensions for drug violations in Colorado schools rose 45 percent between 2007-08 and 2010-11 while expulsions for drug violations increased 35 percent and referrals to police increased 17 percent. In contrast, the overall suspension rate for all other violations was down 11 percent while expulsions and police referrals for other violations dropped 25 percent.
• In Denver, the increase in referrals to law enforcement for drug violations was particularly high, spiking 71 percent in four years. Denver police in 2010 began listing marijuana arrests at city schools separately from other drug incidents – their records show 179 arrests for marijuana possession or sale at 43 Denver Public Schools between Aug. 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011, with a third of those arrests occurring at elementary, middle and K-8 schools.
• Suburban and rural areas are not immune. Grand Junction schools saw a 55 percent increase in drug violations in four years while they’ve doubled in the St. Vrain Valley district. Thornton High School in Adams 12 Five Star reported three drug violations per 100 students in 2007-08 and eight violations per 100 students in 2010-11 while Cherry Creek’s Overland High School saw its rate per 100 students rise from two to more than five in four years.
• Up to 53 medical marijuana dispensaries are within 1,000 feet of Colorado public schools. Statewide, 95 elementary schools are within a half-mile of a dispensary while 27 middle schools and 23 high schools are that close.

Located along downtown Denver’s busy Colfax Avenue, a hotspot for marijuana businesses, East is among the schools statewide surrounded by multiple dispensaries. But East is far from alone.

No clear trend for schools near multiple marijuana dispensaries

The investigation found some of the schools with the biggest increases in drug violations have multiple medical marijuana dispensaries within a mile or closer.

East, seen by many as Denver’s premier public high school, has had up to five medical marijuana dispensaries within a three-block radius of its campus. The number of drug violations at the school has tripled since 2009.

Palmer High School in downtown Colorado Springs is within a mile of as many as eight dispensaries. The school reported one or two drug violations in 2007-08 and 2008-09, then 75 violations in 2009-10 and 45 violations in 2010-11.

But not all schools with nearby dispensaries saw an increase in drug violations and some reported their numbers of drug-related incidents declined.

Brian Vincente, director of Sensible Colorado, an advocacy group pushing for the legalization of marijuana for adults, said dispensaries are not to blame for increases in student drug violations.

“There’s never been a recorded case of dispensaries selling marijuana to high school kids,” he said. “That is not the problem. Dispensaries are a highly regulated industry.”

Vincente says students are getting marijuana the same way they’ve gotten it for the past 50 years – illegally.

Others see a clear link between the dispensaries and increased student use of the drug.

“Of course there’s a correlation,” said Rebecca Hea, executive director of the Denver Children’s Home, which provides a drug and alcohol counselor at East.

“It’s a lot easier to get access to marijuana,” she said, noting the number of referrals to the East counselor “is growing so astronomically, she’s unable to meet the need.”

“There is a perception that if it’s medically sanctioned, it can’t be that bad,” Hea added. “It seems condoned because the name medical is in front of it.”

Nicole Veltze, principal at Denver’s North High School, which also has a number of dispensaries nearby, said the actual location of the dispensaries doesn’t matter as much as the fact they’re widespread.

“The kids aren’t going to the dispensaries,” she said. “The kids have access to other people who have access to dispensaries. So whether you live near or far from a dispensary, if you have a friend, you can get it.”

Veltze is particularly concerned about long-term repercussions for kids.

“When marijuana is found on students, we have to call law enforcement,” she said. “Due to the rise in availability of marijuana, we’re making more and more calls to law enforcement for this, and so we’re contributing to the criminalization of our kids.”

Students say medical marijuana cheaper, easier to obtain

Youngquist, who was principal at East for five years until getting a promotion in December, is convinced that dispensaries near schools increase use.

John Youngquist

“They create a context for students that is all about marijuana, a context that says this is healthy,” he said. “There’s just a very, very large amount of marijuana present in our community and there’s easy access for young people.”

The school has taken a proactive stance, with administrators frequently patrolling nearby Colfax Avenue during lunch. It’s then, and driving to and from the school, that Youngquist noticed students hovering near some dispensaries.

“It’s as easy as standing outside,” he said. “If you keep your eyes open and drive by, kids will be out front waiting for the possibility” to buy.

Some East students have a term for it. They call it “shoulder-tapping.”

“You stand there and when someone goes in, you say, ‘Hey, will you get me some weed in there?’” explained a 17-year-old boy.

Some older students, older siblings and recent graduates have medical marijuana cards, the boy said. There are even coupons to sweeten the transaction.

“Buying through dispensaries is cheaper than buying on the streets,” he said. “You call people who have a card. There are buy-one, get-one free deals.”

A group of Denver East High School students on a lunch break Jan. 19 display a package of wrappers used to roll marijuana. Photo by Joe Mahoney / I-News

Managers of dispensaries near East did not return calls for comment.

East students are divided over whether nearby dispensaries are fueling an increase in marijuana use.

“The fact that they’re close by makes it easier for it to happen at school,” said one 16-year-old girl, but she added, “If kids really want to do it at school, they’ll find a way to do it.”

Another boy, 16, said he thinks the sheer number of dispensaries may make the drug more attractive.

“That’s probably the effect that dispensaries have,” he said. “It’s like Starbucks. You think what’s so good about Starbucks? And you’re going to go try some.”

More than a dozen students interviewed said they see a growing number of their classmates using marijuana.

“It’s become more of a thing to do at school, to rebel or if you don’t like a class,” a 16-year-old girl said. “It’s a way to not skip class, but not be there in a way.”

Some communities ban dispensaries, others disregard schools’ buffer

Schools are singled out in contradictory local, state and federal regulations governing the use of marijuana.

While Colorado voters have approved the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and voters may consider an initiative this fall to legalize it altogether in this state, federal law still views it as illegal.

State laws regulate medical marijuana businesses to some extent, including creating a 1,000-foot buffer around schools, but they also allow leeway for local authorities. So while 85 municipalities have banned dispensaries altogether, others have allowed them as close as 400 feet to schools.

In Denver, City Councilwoman Jeanne Robb said city officials acted only after the dispensaries began proliferating – so they compromised in allowing dispensaries already less than 1,000 feet from a school to continue operating.

Robb supports the federal crackdown but isn’t sure it will make a difference.

“Once medical marijuana was accepted in the dispensary form, it can be 1,000 feet from a school or 1,005 feet from a school. The youth who are inclined to find it will find it,” she said.

“Our society has said it’s medicine. I’m afraid it removes the idea that it’s still a drug. Now the question is how do we deal with the fallout on our youth? I’m not sure we can really go back.”

Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown, a key sponsor of city’s medical marijuana regulations, said he was “shocked and disappointed” by the increase in drug violations in schools.

“We need to get the people out of the business who shouldn’t be in the business,” he said. “Our job is to clamp down and make sure they don’t abuse it and if they are, we’re going to close them down.”

The federal action is likely to shut down only one dispensary near East. But for Youngquist, that’s a start.

For years, he said he felt nobody was listening as his staff struggled to respond to the growth in medical marijuana dispensaries around the school.

“I’ve gone and spoken with members of city council and state legislators and asked the question regarding the impact on youth,” Youngquist said. “They told me, ‘It’s not something we thought about.’

“I’m disappointed that young people weren’t considered when our government decided to implement a law and make medical marijuana legal.”

Burt Hubbard of the I-News Network and Rebecca Jones of Education News Colorado contributed to this report.

Hutchinson Elementary teacher Corey Lynn at the front of the line of Hutchinson teachers supporting their instructional coach at Thursday's school board meeting in Lakewood.

“If this position is taken away, then our team dissolves,” pleaded a dozen or so staff members from Parmalee Elementary in Indian Hills, echoing numerous others. “Remember our voices. We are Jeffco.”

With 90 people signed up to speak and predictions of a pending blizzard, school board president Lesley Dahlkemper resorted to negotiations to keep an efficient flow to the microphones.

“Can you do five, five and five?” she said, encouraging three groups representing instructional coaches to keep their comments to five minutes each.

Instructional coaches are among the groups threatened by the $50 million to $60 million in cuts facing the state’s largest school district over the next two years.

So are school librarians, guidance counselors and elementary music teachers, along with the district’s gifted and talented program and its outdoor lab. Those and numerous others are contained in a prioritized list of suggestions for cuts created in December by a citizens’ advisory group.

Thursday was the school board’s second public comment session since the list was released and the second to draw hundreds of people to a meeting to urge board members not to follow its contents.

After an audience packed the board’s meeting in January, where the possible elimination of elementary instrumental music teachers was the focus, district leaders decided to move Thursday’s meeting to the more spacious auditorium.

Another sign of public interest in the process came Saturday, when about 600 people participated in five community budget forums at high schools across the county, said district spokeswoman Lynn Setzer.

Board members, who will make the final budget decision in May or June, have emphasized that the prioritized list is not binding. So they’ve become the targets of emotional appeals.

School librarians appeared to be the biggest group at Thursday’s meeting, with many audience members wearing stickers on their shirts that read “Support School Libraries.” The prioritized list calls for reducing all 92 elementary librarians to half-time and eliminating middle school librarians altogether.

But guidance counselors and instructional coaches, along with their supporters, also were out in large numbers.

Sandy Austin, a counselor at Green Mountain High School in Lakewood, said district counselors have handled 88 suicide risk assessments this year.

“It’s a matter of life and death,” she said. “Please save our counselors’ jobs so we can save our kids.”

The list of suggested reductions includes cutting up to 17 middle and high school counselors and as many as 20 instructional coaches.

Several schools, such as Parmalee, Powderhorn and Hutchinson elementaries and Carmody Middle School, turned out in force to give moving testimony to the power of their coaches.

Corey Lynn, a sixth-grade teacher at Hutchinson, said the school’s instructional coach, Christina Larson, helps him with a class of 34 students.

“With the class sizes so huge, these kids are like flowers competing for the sun and many of them get lost,” Lynn said. “I can’t reach every single kid without someone there to look at the data and to pinpoint the needs of the kids and to reach those kids who are overshadowed.

“I can’t do it alone. I am overwhelmed.”

Audience members quickly dwindled throughout the evening as speakers made their comments and left, eager to avoid the coming snowstorm.

Tomorrow, two school board members and two district officials will meet with representatives of employee groups for Jeffco’s second annual employee summit, where they’re expected to talk about pay and benefits for next year.

Jeffco employees, along with many others in Colorado school districts, are in year three without cost-of-living raises. This year, all employees also took a 3 percent pay cut and two furlough days.

Shortly before public comment began Thursday, board members voted 4-1 to close employee negotiations to the public. Board member Laura Boggs was the only “no” vote.

A principal explains why his school needs an instructional coach

In outlining highlights and challenges for the coming year’s roughly $750 million operating budget, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg emphasized that the district will not be seeing teacher layoffs, furlough days or increased class sizes.

And he underscored that the district’s economic balancing act, particularly with cuts at the state level, is not an easy one.

“Over the last four years, we have lost $1,000 per kid” in state funding, Boasberg told board members. “It’s an extraordinary challenge that districts are facing.”

Board member Nate Easley said he appreciated Boasberg’s use of the word “investment” in presenting his overview of where district dollars should go in the coming year.

“We’ve really got to start using in the state of Colorado the word ‘investment,’ which implies that there’s going to be a payout,” said Easley.

District staff is forecasting state K-12 funding cuts of about $48 million will reduce the district’s per-pupil funding by 2 percent, or $140 per pupil, to $6,733.

The expected drop in state per-pupil funding will be offset for DPS by the fact enrollment is expected to jump by 2.1 percent, or by 1,500 students, in the coming school year.

However, still to be factored into the budget mix is the March state revenue forecast, as well as legislative debate over retaining or eliminating the senior homestead exemption, a $100 million property tax break for senior citizens.

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper’s budget proposal calls for the continued suspension of that exemption while House Republican leaders have said they want to restore it. Restoring it could force K-12 cuts in exchange.

The budget that was outlined for board members Thursday night highlighted these major operating budget changes on the horizon in the next fiscal year, totaling about $25.6 million.

• $10 million – Backfill the loss of state per-pupil funding
• $9.9 million – Pay for $400-per-pupil funding for beginning and intermediate English language learners, plus $3.2 million for increases in ELL support
• $2.5 million – To “provide extended learning opportunities,” primarily through adding an hour to the school day on a pilot basis at up to 15 elementary, middle, innovation and 6-12 schools
• $1.7 million – Instructional support service priorities
• $1.5 million – Increased pension costs

The bulk of the money to pay for this new spending, about $20 million, is proposed to be drawn from district reserves. Another $4 million will come in a decrease to student-based budgeting (from $3,931 to $3,872 per student), with another $1.5 million paid for by a reduction in operating costs.

Boasberg has said that drawing $20 million from DPS reserves for 2012-13 will leave $52 million in unallocated reserves heading into 2013-14.

‘Cuts are disproportionately hurting our higher poverty kids’

The district is contending with a decrease in both federal and state contributions to the DPS budget. Federal Title I funds, which are directed toward low-income students, are decreasing by $2.7 million.

Accordingly, schools with poverty rates of 66 to 89 percent will see the Title I contribution drop from $433 per pupil to $400 per student. Schools with poverty rates of 90 percent or more will see the contribution drop from $525 to $450.

The budget preview also highlighted that DPS faces a $7.2 million annual funding shortfall to maintain early childhood education and full-day kindergarten programs at their current levels.

“Cuts are hurting everyone badly,” said Boasberg. “But the cuts are disproportionately hurting our higher poverty kids.”

Board members responded favorably to the proposal that nearly $10 million is proposed to be devoted to students who are not native English speakers – $6.7 million would fund the extra $400-per-pupil “weighted” funding for English language learners, with another $3.2 million in increased support for English language acquisition programs.

“You’re doing a lot of good work around both sides,” said board member Arturo Jimenez, speaking to DPS chief academic officer Susana Cordova. “This really does make sense, and this is a weight that we’ve been needing … I’m very happy and glad to hear that kids are going to get these services, which will bring up expectations and achievements for all of these kids.”

Board member Jeannie Kaplan said, “I just want to make sure that we’re going in the right direction in teaching these kids. They deserve better. I hope that it’s not just about the money, but about running a good program.”

Some board members unhappy with extended day plan for some schools

The potential extended school year for roughly a dozen more schools next year carries not only a $2.5 million price tag, a figure Boasberg conceded is not etched in stone. It has also stirred controversy, on the part of some parents who feel their opinions on the proposal have not been adequately heeded.

Also, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association has filed a class-action grievance, claiming a “mishandling of a process.” DCTA president Henry Roman contends the extra time is being considered without properly applying the “due process of collective bargaining” called for under the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the district.

Kaplan was critical of the proposal in its current form.

“This to me is not such a pleasant conversation,” said Kaplan, who said she’d heard nothing of the plan until two days ago. “It seems very top-down, not collaborative and an issue that really should be a negotiated issue.”

As for the schools that may be included in the extended-day program, Kaplan added, “I’ve heard that ‘invited’ is a very nice way of saying, they were told to do this … I have a whole list of parents I need to call, who have contacted me about, why weren’t they involved?”

Jimenez, although terming the extended school day as “good-intentioned,” was troubled at the prospect of committing to a possible $2.5 million expenditure when it isn’t known yet how many schools will be adopting the longer school day. Boasberg is expecting proposals from 12 to 15 schools; the DCTA, in filing its grievance on the issue, cited 14.

“You’re asking us to allocate a significant amount of money for proposals we haven’t seen yet, and maybe just a handful of those schools will come forward with appropriate proposals,” said Jimenez.

“I’ll let you deal with the DCTA over whether this is a contract issue or not,” he added. “The real issue is about the budget, and details like transportation and the parents, in this process. For me, it’s kind of a blank check to do our own little Race to the Top and I can’t support that allocation.”

Others call the longer day a “win” for families and schools

Easley was one of several board members who were more supportive, calling it a “win” for parents, students, teachers and principals.

“It’s saying to students, at a time when a lot of the country is cutting back, and districts are going to four-day school weeks, this district is saying we’ve got bad times but you know what, we don’t want to cut our commitment to students,” Easley said.

The discussion about an extended day on a pilot basis overlapped with the district’s announcement that all DPS offices and schools will be closed today due to predictions of heavy snow. Boasberg said many questions raised by board members will be answered by the schools’ proposals, which are due today.

“We’ll be getting those by snowshoe and sled dog tomorrow,” Boasberg said Thursday night. “This is a learning experience, much as we have seen with innovation schools and other innovations. It’s a learning curve.

“I’m extremely excited about where we are, and as those proposals get mushed in, we will get them sent out, by electronic sled dog, to you.”

Board member Andrea Merida was absent from the session. According to board president Mary Seawell, Merida was attending a meeting at a school in her southwest Denver district.

The finalized budget is due to be presented to the board on April 19, and to be formally adopted at its meeting the following month.

Grant Beacon Middle School teacher Kevin Croghan and DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg at today's press conference.

The extra time would add spending of about $2.5 million in 2012-13. Boasberg said the district also would spend roughly $8.5 million on additional per-pupil funding for English language learners – a boost of about $400 per student.

Despite generally tough economic times, Boasberg said the DPS community needs to think about what more can be done instead of talk about “less, and less, and less, and less” investment in students’ futures.

“In this next budget year, the 12-13 school year, we will be increasing money for our schools and our classrooms,” Boasberg said during a morning press conference at Grant Beacon Middle School in southeast Denver.

“That is the most important thing we can do, to maximize our dollars in schools and in the classroom, to allow us to hire more teachers, to offer more opportunity for more kids, more enrichment, more activities, more elective courses, more tutoring, more intervention, all of the kinds of things that we can do by putting more money in our schools, and in our classrooms.”

He added, “Money in our classrooms. That is the name of the game.”

Boasberg said he expects proposals within the next two weeks from 12 to 15 schools, demonstrating how they would make use of an added hour to the school day.

At the middle school level – from which a majority of the proposals are expected – the day currently runs from 7:30 to 2:30 p.m.

Grant is one of the schools seeking to add the hour. Social studies teacher Kevin Croghan said staff members have been developing plans for a longer day since last year.

“Within our school, I’d say we have a lot of support for this idea, and of course we have been looking at this for nine months, well before it became a bit of a hotter topic for the district,” said Croghan, who is particularly excited about the potential for adding electives.

“Everyone in our school has already been committed to staying added time. This will just be adding a structure to make it more effective.”

Some parents at other DPS middle schools have said an extended school day is being thrust upon them against their wishes. But Nick Bottinelli, whose daughter is a seventh-grader at Grant, insisted he has not heard that sentiment from parents there.

“We’ve been working with (Principal) Alex Magaña and his staff there, and we are very comfortable with the initiatives that they think are best for our students,” said Bottinelli, a member of the steering committee for the Grant Parents Group.

The press conference was attended by DPS school board president Mary Seawell and board member Anne Rowe, who represents the area. Neither participated in the presentation and, afterward, Seawell was measured in her response to what she heard.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk about this as a board,” she said. “There are some potentially complicated issues. We need more from the superintendent, whether it’s related to the labor contract, are there issues with the cost and what that is, realistically, and how is a school going to be eligible for this?”

DPS board members will get their first detailed 2012-13 budget presentation Thursday. They’re expected to approve the budget in May or June.

“Generally, I am very much in favor of extending the school day and the school year,” Seawell added, “if it can be shown how it’s going to have a positive effect on students.”

State K-12 funding cuts have cost DPS about $80 million in recent years, Boasberg said, and the anticipated loss of another $140 in per-pupil funding in the next fiscal year would mean DPS has lost nearly $1,000 per student over a three-year period.

But he said tapping the district’s reserves and cuts in administration leave DPS able to spend $40 million over the next two years on initiatives such as the extended school day and increased funding for English language learners.

State K-12 funding cuts have cost DPS about $80 million over the past three years, or roughly $1,000 per student, Boasberg said. But he said tapping the district’s reserves and cuts in administration leave DPS able to spend $40 million over the next two years on initiatives such as the extended school day and increased funding for English language learners.

As other districts have done in recent years, DPS has pulled money from its reserves – $20 million this year and an expected $20 million in 2012-13. That would leave about $52 million remaining in reserves, Boasberg said.

He said the district will be launching a “community conversation” in coming months about a proposed tax increase for operating dollars on the November ballot. District leaders already have said they may propose a tax increase for building dollars.

“There are still unacceptable achievement gaps in our city,” Boasberg said, “and we need to invest more resources in the programs that will eliminate those gaps – early childhood education, extended time, enrichment opportunities, new technology, and more teachers to lower class sizes.

“We look forward to discussing with the community how we can end this cycle of cuts and make these vital investments in our kids.”

Denver teachers’ union leaders on Tuesday filed a grievance over the proposed extra time and released a list of 14 schools they say may have a longer school day starting this fall.

The schools on that list are Barrett Elementary, Cole Arts & Science Academy, Bruce Randolph Middle, Denver Center for International Studies Middle, Grant Beacon Middle, Hamilton Middle, Henry World School, Hill Middle School of Arts & Sciences, Johnson Elementary, Manual High School, Merrill Middle, Morey Middle, Skinner Middle and Smiley Middle.

Boasberg today said the total number of schools with longer days this fall could be as high as 15. But he said the number will ultimately depend on how many submit applications and are approved.

A screenshot from ColoradoSchoolGrades.com.

The CASE letter to principals, assistant principals and superintendents went out late last week, about six weeks after the debut of ColoradoSchoolGrades.com. The website, funded by a coalition of foundations and advocacy groups, grades the state’s public schools from A to F.

It was developed by Colorado Succeeds with help from the Center for Education Policy Analysis at CU-Denver’s School of Public Affairs. Tim Taylor, who heads Colorado Succeeds, said it’s an attempt to make it easy for parents and others to see how schools are performing.

A screenshot from the state's SchoolView.org.

But CASE gives the site less than a passing grade.

In his letter, CASE executive director Bruce Caughey wrote, “Schools were graded on a curve that arbitrarily determined that 10 percent would receive A’s no matter how well the schools performed.

“In addition, they decided that 5 percent of schools must receive F’s regardless of how well they did. And their process will always make that happen even if all schools perform well.”

Caughey added the site’s approach “shifts attention toward a single measure, away from the broader, and much more accepted, presentation of information” offered by the state. And he directs CASE members to encourage parents to instead use the Colorado Department of Education’s SchoolView.org webpage.

The state system divides schools into four broad categories of Performance, Improvement, Priority Improvement and Turnaround. It places 60 percent of schools in the top Performance category.

Taylor, who described parts of the letter as “a little misguided,” said the website already has received 200,000 visitors.

“We would have appreciated an opportunity to comment and even correct,” he said.

Taylor takes issue with the CASE critique about slicing the state’s schools into narrower bands for ranking. Only 10 percent of the schools – the 186 that earn 90 percent of the points possible – earn an A rating. And only 38 schools, those with 98 percent or above, receive an A+.

“We did that because we wanted to recognize the top performers, whereas the state wants to recognize the top 60 percent,” said Taylor.

Giving 60 percent of schools the top rating “means that a school in the 42nd percentile and a school in the 98th percentile are called the same thing,” he pointed out.

“That seems outrageous to us,” Taylor said. “Are they saying it’s better that we recognize the top 60 percent as the ‘top performers’?”

Caughey said last week’s letter results from principals turning to CASE for more information about the school grades website.

“We had gotten a request from our board of our principals’ group saying, ‘Could you provide some context and information about School Grades? Because we didn’t receive anything, and we are the ones getting the questions about this.’

“There was no communication with school principals about what this was intended to do,” Caughey added.

Taylor provided Education News Colorado with an email about the new ranking system sent to CASE and others on Nov. 16, about four weeks before the site launched.

“There was no ‘gotcha’ here,” he said. “There was advance notice we were doing this, and we explained our rationale for doing it.”

Both SchoolView.org and ColoradoSchoolGrades.com are just the latest in a long line of public and private efforts to help parents and others navigate the state’s 1,500-plus schools. Prior to SchoolView, former Gov. Bill Owens initiated letter grades for schools from E to U, or excellent to unsatisfactory, and the state sent out annual School Accountability Reports or SARs.

Caughey said the state’s most recent initiative, SchoolView.org, is “comprehensive” with “lots of different points of information.” But he conceded, “If you’re looking for a single label, it’s not quite as easy to find a single label. You have to look in there, and look at more than one indicator. That’s its beauty and also its drawback.”

He said it would have been more helpful for Colorado Succeeds and its partners “to focus efforts on improving that system, than on creating an alternative system.”

Denver school board member Andrea Merida, who has criticized the school grades website for failing to properly account for schools with more English language learners, expressed a slight preference for the state’s webpage.

But she believes parents generally place lower emphasis on statistical rankings and more on a school’s commitment to “the whole child approach” and its ability to prepare children for college.

“Most parents aren’t really interested in overall think-tank speak,” said Merida. “They want to know how the school is going to prepare the child according to their own values and to what they think is important.”