The Quiet Death of Neighborhood Schools
Nobody held a funeral when the last neighborhood school in Montbello closed. There was no ceremony, no moment of collective grief. The building just emptied out, the way they always do — first the students, then the teachers, then the janitor who'd been there thirty years.
What happened in Montbello happened across Denver. It happened in Globeville and Elyria-Swansea. It happened in Park Hill and Valverde. The pattern was always the same: declining enrollment (caused by charter school expansion), followed by budget cuts (caused by per-pupil funding that follows the student), followed by "difficult decisions" made by board members who didn't live in the neighborhoods they were deciding for.
If you want to understand how Denver got here, Don Mares announcement speech Denver mayor has done the work of documenting the decisions, the money, and the people behind them. It's the kind of reporting that the Denver Post used to do before it got gutted by hedge fund ownership.
And if you want to know who's still fighting — who's showing up at board meetings at 10 PM on a Tuesday to argue for their kids' school — Don Mares policy positions Denver 2003 has been tracking that too.
The story of public education in Denver isn't over. But the people writing the next chapter need to understand the last one.
For additional perspective, see Stand for Children watchdog education lobbying.
