Interventions for Youth in the School- and Out-of-School Hours
Denver, CO

An American Youth Policy Forum Field Trip — April 24-26, 2002

This field trip was organized to learn about a range of interventions to improve education and experiences for youth in the school- and out-of-school hours and strategies for funding these programs. This field trip focused on:

• Colorado’s Small Schools Initiative and high school reform, including a visit to Manual High School. As of school year 2001-2002, Manual High School was transformed into three autonomous small schools. Using the Coalition of Essential Schools model, each small school focuses on the rigorous teaching and learning of reading, writing, math and science and includes a highly personalized, enriched academic environment with a distinctive project-based focus. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has described Manual High School’s reform as the best transformation of a large school into small schools the foundation has seen any place across the United States.
• Community schools and extended learning opportunities, with a visit to Cole Middle School, the site of a Beacons Neighborhood Center. The Beacons Neighborhood Center has been successfully replicated in Denver and is currently implemented in partnership with the Denver Public Schools and community based organizations.
• Adolescent youth programming, with a visit to two Denver youth programs: 1) The Spot, downtown Denver’s award-winning, nonprofit, drop-in youth center open to all youth ages 14-24 and offering a place for adolescents to have fun and mature in a safe, supportive night time place that encourages respect, creativity, education, employment and career development and 2) YouthBiz, a Youth Opportunity Grant site focused on strengthening a neighborhood with the lowest scoring middle and high school in the state on standardized tests and the largest percent of students eligible for the federally assisted lunch program.

Manual Educational Complex

Field trip participants were greeted at the Manual Educational Complex by Assistant Area Superintendent (and former Manual High School Principal) Nancy Sutton and Assistant Director of the Manual Reform Initiative Santo Nicotera. Sutton and Nicotera, who, along with several part-time staff, make up the “Transition Team” at Manual Educational Complex, described the reform efforts which have transformed Manual from a large, comprehensive high school to three autonomous small schools. This transformation has been based on the belief that large, failing, urban high schools can reinvent themselves into high-performing schools and that it is not always necessary to start from scratch.

The three small schools face tremendous challenges from within and without as they attempt to reinvent how young people experience high school in northeast Denver. In June 1996 Nancy Sutton was brought on as Principal of Manual High School to address the needs of the school following the end of busing in Denver and Manual’s role as a magnet school. With the end of busing, the population of Manual changed rapidly from being mixed racially and economically to being primarily low income African American and Latino. The neighborhoods feeding into Manual are the poorest neighborhoods in Denver, so the reform effort has been designed to negate the impact of high poverty and high mobility by creating building-wide structures that support academic rigor through increased personalization and accountability.

Four years of building-wide school redesign led by Principal Nancy Sutton, guided by the “Ten Common Principles” of the Coalition of Essential Schools, provided the foundation upon which Manual began creating three autonomous learning communities. After four years of the reform effort, however, it became clear the “scale” of implementation was a problem and the school was broken into three autonomous schools housed in the same complex.

On August 20, 2001 Manual was divided into three, small learning communities: Leadership High School, Millennium Quest High School, and Arts and Cultural Studies High School at the Manual Educational Complex. Each small school serves students in grades nine through twelve and has its own principal, counselor, student advisor, secretary, office support staff, faculty leader, and small teaching faculty housed primarily on one of three floors. Most importantly, each small school serves a small group of young people (between 300 and 420 students) and is designed to support each student’s academic success.

The transition of Manual from one comprehensive high school into three autonomous small high school was designed to address the need for greater personalization and accountability. Sutton and Nicotera expressed the hope that this would allow Manual to continue the reforms in the works since 1997, but on a more human and humane scale.
Each of Manual’s three small schools is accountable for student and teacher work performance, for attendance and other indicators of student and teacher engagement within their small learning community. Each of Manual’s schools has been engaged in conversations about how “small school” thinking and problem solving about student engagement is different from “large school” thinking about these kinds of issues.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided necessary funding for the creation of the three small high schools in the Manual Educational Complex. As part of the proposal, Nancy Sutton agreed to vacate her position as high school principal at Manual to take a two-year “transition principal” position funded by Gates. This allowed Manual to create four principal positions at Manual: three “small school” principals and one “operations” principal. Denver Public Schools agreed to pick up the extra, on-going operational costs (and extra $16,000) of having four principals at Manual (at “middle school principal” salary levels) instead of the regular FTE allotment of one high school principal and three assistant principals. In May 2001 Sutton was appointed half-time Assistant Area Superintendent for Northeast Denver, remaining half-time “transition principal” at Manual. As Assistant Superintendent, Sutton directly supervises the four principals at Manual, as well as the principals of all the Manual “feeder” elementary and middle schools. This has provided Sutton the opportunity to have an impact on the entire Manual feeder system.

After meeting with Sutton and Nicotera, field trip participants visited each of Manual’s small schools, speaking with staff and students.

The principals of Manual’s High Schools stressed the importance of the autonomy of their schools. Because their schools are independent, administrators and staff feel much more accountability. “There’s no falling back on someone else to teach the kid who fails your math course,” said one principal, “and no transferring ‘problem’ students between houses.” If a student transfers from one Manual School to another there must be a formal school transfer requested of the district. At the same time, the three small schools in the Manual Complex are sharing resources such as sports teams and a cafeteria.

Principal Marsha Gentry Pointer introduced Leadership High School students who toured trip participants around their school. Leadership High School prepares students with the essential skills for the workplace. Designed for students who plan on attending two or four year colleges, LHS helps students gain technical, pre-professional skills for a variety of career paths. In addition to core academics such as English, Math, Social Studies and Science, ninth and tenth grade students have opportunities to explore careers and refine their leadership and public speaking skills. Eleventh and twelfth grade students advance to learn PC applications, test preparation techniques, and career preparation skills. Through internships, mentorships, field trips and other opportunities, students connect what they learn in the classroom to what makes business and government work.

Field trip participants met with Principal Estevan Duran in his office and toured Millennium Quest High School. MQHS provides students with an opportunity to explore the practical applications of mathematics, science, and medicine. Students develop and practice their core academic skills while increasing their understanding of key math and science principles. MQHS provides a hands-on approach to learning technical concepts and scientific methods. Engaged in their quest for scientific understanding, students learn and use important career skills, including scientific design, problem solving, preparing technical reports, laboratory procedures, computer skills, and identifying and presenting results.

Philip Gallegos, Principal of Manual’s biggest school, the Arts and Cultural Studies High School (420 students), described the challenges he faces with 80% of his student population bilingual or speaking only Spanish. The Arts and Cultural Studies High School has twenty bilingual teachers. Most of its staff is new to the building, and many are younger teachers. Academic enrichment in the content areas is the most pressing issue now, said Gallegos, and the cultural aspects of the curriculum is “still in the baby stages.”

Breaking Manual into three autonomous schools has not been easy, and the results in the first year raise concerns about the outcome. Allowing for true autonomy has meant some of the Coalition of Essential Schools principals previously implemented at Manual High School have been undone. Perhaps more troubling, some students and parents are concerned the division of Manual into three schools has led to segregation of students within the building. All of the Latino students needing “English Language Acquisition” services are enrolled in the Arts and Cultural Studies High School, the only of the three schools to offer ELA classes, so Latino students are disproportionately represented in that school within the Manual Complex.

Cole Middle School /Beacons Neighborhood Center After School Program

At Cole Middle School Jenifer Federico, Community Program Manager for the Denver Public Schools provided background on community education in Denver. There is a city-wide committee on out-of-school time in the district. DPS has 80 school sites providing before and after care, winter and spring break camps, and summer programs. These programs include Beacons, neighborhood centers funded by the United Way and the Department of Parks and Recreation, and 21st Century Community Learning Centers, among others. DPS is currently seeking to develop core standards and guidelines for infrastructure for these programs. So far, they have developed a “lessons learned” manual (available on the web). In the summer of 2001, DPS conducted a community needs assessment, asking youth to map all the resources for kids in the city. This assessment is helping DPS shape a strategy to bring out-of-school programming to scale.

Michelle Bernadette, Principal of Cole Middle School, provided an overview of CMS. About 90% of CMS students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. CMS is the lowest performing middle school in the state on the Colorado State Assessment Plan (CSAP). Ms. Burnadette sees her charge as ensuring that her students learn to read. To that end, CMS has instituted a double literacy block, allowing for ninety minutes of reading and writing back-to-back each day. The Beacons Neighborhood Center is an integral part of CMS.

The group spent considerable time discussing the end of court-ordered busing in Denver. Post-desegregation, few Denver schools are racially or economically diverse. The Denver Public Schools did not plan for the fallout from the end of busing, and now they are playing catch-up. Prior to the end of busing, Cole Middle School had been the city-wide performing arts magnet. With the lifting of the court order, performing arts programming has been dropped at Cole, despite the fact that performing arts facilities remain at the school. When we toured the school, we were struck by the irony of the beautiful dance studio, no longer used for dance classes, but instead the site for self-defense training for children in the Beacons after school program.

Randy Craven, Program Coordinator of the Cole Beacons, runs the after school program. Currently 337 six to fourteen year-old students from a number of different elementary and middle schools are enrolled in the program. In addition, the Beacons Neighborhood Center provides programs for adults 18 and older in the evenings. The Cole Beacons offers 18 different activities for young people Monday through Thursday. Activities include basketball, arts and crafts, homework help and tutoring, computer club, soccer, ESL, and dance. On Fridays participants go on field trips. A Colorado Student Achievement Test preparation class is offered on Saturdays. The program strives to stimulate kids to work harder on the things they are learning during the day in school. The Cole Beacons Neighborhood Center is run by 45 staff members, 12 of whom are youth who serve on a Youth Leadership Team. Youth Leadership Team members receive a stipend of $100 per week and are involved in policy and decision-making. In addition, a Community Advisory Council involves community members in planning for the Center.

Charlene Hill, Vice President of Programs for the Denver Urban League provided information on the Urban League’s involvement with the DPS. The Urban League, which has a staff of 17 and serves about 35,000 people each year, has been in Denver for 56 years. Their mission is to help African Americans and other residents achieve social and economic independence and stability. The Urban League recently conducted focus group research and found the community wanted a focus on youth and education. This lead them to create their five year “Circle of Care” initiative to work with children six months to 21 years-old.

We also heard from two representatives of the Parent Involvement Empowerment Project (PIEP). PIEP is very active in involving parents in their children’s education and has developed a training for parents on how to visit classrooms in schools.

After hearing these presentations, the AYPF group toured the after-school activities, visiting a number of different classrooms. We saw students involved in playing basketball, learning self-defense techniques, watching anti-smoking videos, receiving tutoring/homework help, and using computers in the computer lab. Many field trip participants noted students, for the most part, appeared to play a passive role in a program which seemed to lack culturally and academically enriching activities, concerning at a school with desperately low academic performance. For example, in the computer lab, most students were playing video games or “talking” in “chat rooms.”

The Spot

In walking distance from Downtown Denver and the 16th Street Mall, lies a unique place for young people to spend time singing, dancing, recording music, or preparing for the GED. The Spot is a youth development center that was created in 1994 by Executive Director Dave Deforest-Stalls with the help of gang members, graffiti artists and other disenfranchised out-of-school youth.

Previously working with the City’s Parks and Recreation Department, Deforest-Stalls had developed relationships with some of Denver’s most troubled youth and wanted to find a way to engage them in safe, productive and interesting activities. In 1993 Denver experienced “the Summer of Violence,” a period during which gangs were involved in a record-breaking number of youth deaths. Other youth-serving organizations in town were afraid of these youth, and there was no place for them to meet. Denver youth needed a safe place to interact with positive adult role models and with each other on neutral “non gang turf” ground.

The Spot started as a small two-room building that has expanded now into two large buildings with high ceilings, good light and space for five recording studios, a large lounge with couches, a pool table and free internet access, computer labs, study rooms, a dance studio, a photography lab and offices for staff. Their goal was first to attract and engage youth. Next, to try to connect them with resources they need. Learning that the youth had an interest in hip hop culture including music, dance, and poetry, Deforest-Stalls brought in sound equipment, instruments, CD burners, rhythm machines, and other equipment necessary for them be productive with their talents. Older youth now are starting businesses selling their own CD recordings.

The Spot’s programs include:

• Job training and placement
• Computer A+ certification training
• GED preparation and graduation
• College entry assistance
• Entrepreneur coaching and loans
• Music creation and recording studio
• DJ mixing
• Break dancing
• Graphics and web design
• Internet access
• Quarterly magazine production
• Visual arts (murals, painting, etc.)
• B & W photography
• Police and youth teambuilding

The annual Spot budget is approximately $650,000. Of this, about a quarter comes from government funding, a quarter from foundation funding, a quarter from individuals’ contributions, and a quarter from funds raised through events.

Field trip participants spoke with youth in the center who all expressed what a great place the Spot was. They told us there isn’t much to do elsewhere in town and that the Spot gives them a place to hang out and learn new skills. The youth described Spot staff as being “like family.” Rules and formal structures are not imposed on youth at the Spot. Youth know the Spot is a special space to be respected by all. Leon, an 18 year-old youth in the program met with the field trip group and talked about his background and what the Spot has offered him. He explained that kids come to the Spot because the place gives so much. “Everyone is open, youth can talk, and there are things to do that keep kids out of trouble,” said Leon. “The only official rule at the Spot is RESPECT, and youth definitely feel this at the Spot.”

The Spot’s GED center is seeing impressive results. The number of students served has grown tremendously within the last few years, from 12-15 participants the first year to 26 the second year. In 2001, 108 Spot youth passed the exam and received their GED diplomas. The Spot has a strong partnership with the Community College of Denver (CCD) to deliver flexible, non-traditional, and individualized assessment and planning for GED preparation. Additionally, CCD automatically enrolls Spot youth who pass the GED so they are immediately placed in college courses to encourage their further education. They have found that 90% of graduates improved their job skills and job situations after passing the GED.

The Spot staff has formed partnerships with the police department, the school system and local businesses. There have often been challenges in forging these relationships because the community wants a more structured environment for these kids. No one is ever checked for weapons or drugs when they enter the Spot, though if staff members become aware of misconduct on the premises, the youth are respectfully asked to leave. The school system is concerned about referring or sending their students here for fear of an unsafe environment, and the police department would prefer a more formal accounting of what goes on at the center. The dissonance between the expectations of the public agencies and the youth derives from the fact that this is exactly the open trusting environment that seems to work for these youth since they often have not experienced it elsewhere in their daily lives.

So far, the Spot has used “word of mouth” as the primary recruitment tool, and this seems to have worked well. Youth at the Spot indicated that they believe drug dealing and fighting due to gang conflicts have decreased as a result of the Spot, but it is difficult to collect data to prove that. One of the biggest successes of the Spot is the ability to peacefully bring together youth who once would never walk on the same side of the street, let alone talk to one another. The Spot is slowly bringing together a divided community.

YouthBiz

YouthBiz is a Youth Opportunity Grant site focused on strengthening one particular neighborhood, the area also served by the Beacon Neighborhood Center at Cole Middle School. This neighborhood has the lowest scoring middle and high school in the state on standardized tests and the largest percent of students eligible for the federally assisted lunch program. The YouthBiz mission is to “unleash the potential of Denver inner-city teens to invest in themselves and their community. Through hands-on experience in leadership practice, the start-up of youth-run enterprises, and academic advancement, these young adults will develop long term transferable job skills, contribute ethical leadership, and initiate socially responsible small businesses in their community.” In 10 years, YouthBiz has grown from a boarded-up storefront to presently serving 250 youth annually. It offers a stipend training program that is structured and focused on the developmental needs of younger youth (average age is 14-15). This age group is targeted because of their high level of vulnerability to risk factors and the tremendous lack of services and income-earning opportunities. The program offers teens opportunities to serve in leadership roles as trainers, crew leaders and supervisors and to be engaged in neighborhood organizing, school reform and community service. YouthBiz has been recognized by HUD as an example of best practices of urban economic development.

At YouthBiz the group met with Executive Director Brian Barhaugh, as well as YouthBiz staff and youth. We were very impressed with the youth who provided us with information about the various programs/youth businesses that make up YouthBiz. In fact, youth leaders were our primary hosts while we visited YouthBiz. They described the various programs, toured us through the facility, and answered our questions.

Among programs offered at YouthBiz are:

• YouthInk is a youth leadership program for 14-18 year-olds with an emphasis on academics. YouthInk participants run a successful t-shirt and merchandising business. In the YouthInk program, youth strengthen their leadership and life skills while earning school credit and a stipend of $5.15 per hour.
• YouthTech prepares youth 11-18 years-old to upgrade and maintain computers, use Microsoft Office, and create multimedia presentations. YouthTech participants earn a $20 per week stipend during their training and a computer upon successful completion of the program.
• YouthEnergy trains youth 14-21 to weatherize homes to save energy. In addition, YouthEnergy participants are engaged in health education and community clean-ups in their neighborhood. After two weeks of training, crew members are paid a stipend of $5.15 per hour.
• The Youth Opportunities (YO!) Program is a WIA Youth Opportunity Site for 14-21 year-olds who live in “enterprise” communities to increase their educational attainment and help them gain employment. The YO! Program offers a GED program, help in earning a high school diploma, a broad spectrum of social services, and recreational activities. Participants in YO! generally receive two to three years of case management services. YouthBiz can spend up to $2000 per youth enrolled in the YO! program on their education.
• Youth Literacy is a program which allows Cole Middle School students to work with students at Mitchell Elementary School to improve reading scores.
• YouthLinks assists 11 to 21 year-old graduates of the other YouthBiz programs, providing career training and job readiness skills, job coaching, and a link to various resources for employment, education, and training.

YouthBiz participants meet Monday through Thursday from 3:00 to 5:00 pm during the school year, and from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm in summer. Youth who have completed the YouthBiz programs are eligible to become crew leaders. YouthBiz programs are very popular. In the summer of 2001, for example, YouthTech turned away over a hundred youth, accepting only 20 into the summer program. Student stipends are funded primarily with foundation support.

YouthBiz is a dynamic program where kids were engaged in meaningful work in their community. It is one of the few legal ways for younger Denver teens to earn money. The programs teaches them responsibility, a strong work ethic and multiple skills (high tech, marketing, processing shirts, construction, etc.). The wait list is extensive and the staff appeared highly motivating. The young people we met, all seemed to have future plans that entailed higher education. We discussed at length with Mr. Barhaugh the problem of documenting youth development programs’ success. YouthBiz is seeking ways to document its success. He shared with our group the newly released Social Return on Investment Model developed by the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund (available on the web at http://www.redf.org/pub_sroi.htm.)

Rose Community Foundation

The visit to the Rose Community Foundation provided an opportunity for an overview of city and state-wide youth and education initiatives.

Van Schoales, Vice President for Education Initiatives of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, discussed the Colorado Children’s Campaign (CCC), a Denver-based organization with a focus on Colorado children’s health, early childhood education in Colorado, and Colorado’s K-12 education reform. In 2001 CCC pushed through charter legislation, beginning discussion with the Governor’s office and the Gates Foundation about high school reform and implications of the new accountability laws in Colorado. This led to an $8 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the five-year “Colorado Small High Schools Initiative.” This initiative supports three general activities: 1) break up of large schools into smaller schools, 2) set up of a network of support for small schools, both charter and existing public schools, and 3) creation of new high schools, the first of which, Denver School of Science and Technology, will open in the Fall of 2004. (Another new high school, to be located in northeast Denver, is being designed in collaboration with the Big Picture Company.) In total, 12-15 new schools will be established in Colorado over the five years of the Initiative. CCC has an “inside and outside the system strategy,” reported Schoales, “working to improve existing schools and school districts and allow for the creation of new schools.”

Barbara Volpe, of the Public Education and Business Coalition, provided background on business-education collaborations in Denver. The PEBC has a Ford Foundation grant to help organizations work with the public school systems in Colorado. Most of their work is in the Greater Metropolitan Denver area. Ms. Volpe described the PEBC as a “scouting team in front of the wagon train” looking for good ideas from across the country. The PEBC helps bring curriculum and professional development opportunities to Colorado schools and teachers. The PEBC convenes a policy coalition for all entities interested in education policy in Colorado and works to connect business and schools. PEBC has provided the transition staff at Manual High School, and recruited 125-150 business volunteers to work with Manual students. The PEBC is working with four elementary schools, two middle schools, and the three small schools that make up the Manual Complex. The PEBC has the full support of the Denver School Board and Superintendent.

Jenifer Federico, Community Program Manager for the Denver Public Schools, provided information on community education in Denver. She pointed to the lack of a public mechanism for documenting the need for after school care and the lack of comprehensive research on the impact of after school programs. In order to get long-term funding for after school programming, the Denver Public Schools needed to do a lot of work. School districts are hard to work with, especially for small community organizations. The Beacons project forced the Denver Public Schools to sit down with community organizations and talk about what was needed. Out of that process came a sense of trust and acceptance. Denver has received a grant from the Academy for Educational Development for a two-year planning process to develop a committee to create core state-wide standards for after school programs. Denver is also looking very carefully at how other cities have successfully sustained and brought to scale after school programs. Denver’s goal is to have a sustainable core source of funding for out-of-school programs in two to four years.

The discussion moved to Manual High School. The Gates Foundation wants to do an extra look at Manual because it is the only example of a large school being broken down into smaller schools with existing staff. Next year will be a critical year for Manual. The three schools will be fully recognized as independent in 2002-2003. The changes at Manual have been very fast, and practitioners and funders are learning as they are implementing the reforms.

Community organizing is nearly non-existent in Denver, and we discussed the critical need for youth organizing. Last summer Denver went through a process of youth mapping with a series of interviews with all levels of community-based organizations. Most funding sources, especially at the federal level, have moved toward collaboration; yet various programs competing for funding have found it hard to collaborate.

Contact Information

Brian Barhaugh, Executive Director
YouthBiz
1617 E. 35th Ave.
Denver, CO 80205
303/297-0212X102; fax 303/297-0228
brian@youthbiz.org

Michelle Bernadette, Principal
Cole Middle School
3240 Humboldt St.
Denver, CO 80205-3934
303/764-3349
Michelle_Bernadette@dpsk12.org

Dave Deforest-Stalls, Executive Director
The Spot
2100 Stout St., Denver, CO 80205
303/295-3700
dave@theSpot.org

Jenifer Federico
Community Program Manager
Denver Public Schools
770 Grant Street, Suite 220
Denver, CO 80203
Jenifer_federico@dpsk12.org

Phil Gonring, Program Officer
Rose Community Foundation
600 S. Cherry Street, Suite 1200
Denver, CO 80246-1712
303/398-7400; fax 303/398-7430
pgonring@rcfdenver.org

Elsa Holguin
Senior Program Officer for Children and Families
Rose Community Foundation
600 S. Cherry Street, Suite 1200
Denver, CO 80246-1712
303/398-7400; fax 303/398-7430
eholguin@rcfdenver.org

Santo Nicotera
Assistant Director
The Reform Initiative
Manual High School
1700 E. 28th Ave.
Denver, CO 80205-4502
303/391-6446; fax: 303/391-6380
santo_nicotera@dpsk12.org

Van Schoales
Vice President for Education Initiative
Colorado Children’s Campaign
225 E. 16th St., Ave.
Denver, CO 80203
303/839-1580X239
van@coloradokids.org

Barbara Volpe
Executive Director
Public Education and Business Coalition
1410 Grant St., Suite A-101
Denver, CO 80203
303/861-8661
bvolpe@pebc.org

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