S10E13 – Local Stories of Desegregation: DENVER (Part 3)

S10E13 - Local Stories of Desegregation: DENVER (Part 3)

Andrew: Welcome to the Integrated Schools Podcast. I'm Andrew, a White dad from Denver.

Dr. Val: And I'm Val, a Black mom from North Carolina.

Andrew: And this is Local Stories of Desegregation: Denver, Part Three. We are back with the final installment of our three part deep dive into Denver's court ordered desegregation case called The Keyes Case.

So if you have not listened to the first two episodes, go back and check those out. And we're gonna dig into Part Three today.

Dr. Val: Yeah. So in, in Part One, we learned from a local community member who is the daughter of the plaintiff in the Keyes Case, Christie Keyes, Romero, who was able to ground us in what it was like to be a young Black student at that time.

And then in the second episode we got a chance to hear from Andrew's mom, who served on the school board and was a part of the conversations around what happens once the court system has released us from the desegregation orders.

And in this final episode, we get to speed up a little bit to present day, what the numbers are now, and we get to hear from rock stars and young people.

Andrew: Absolutely. Yeah, so the event was four hours. So we had what you've heard so far in parts one and two, and then we had some community conversation. People were sitting at tables together and talked about what they had heard and jotted down notes on sticky notes.

And we put those up around for everybody to see. There'll be a link in the show notes to comments that people came up with then.

Then we had a little break, and then the second half of the day, which you're gonna hear today, was 1995 through today. So, yeah, we start with a little bit of history of the district, it's worth digging in a little bit to some of the things about Denver. You know, Denver is unique but also similar to places all around the country. So, coming out of the decisions that the school board made in ‘95/’96 has a school choice plan in place. It's actually part of the state constitution that says you can go to any school that has room for you, assuming you can get yourself there. That started in the late ‘90s, then we moved to a universal choice process in the early 2000s, which a lot of districts use where there's sort of one application and that gives you access to a whole bunch of different schools.

And that was done with equity in mind to try to make it easier for families to participate in the school choice process. But never adding transportation means that the options that are available to people are still somewhat limited, even if the access to the system to participate in school choices is better.

Denver also uses something called Student-Based Budgeting, which means the more students you have, the more money your school gets. Student-Based Budgeting, you know, I think came out of this kind of mindset that we were gonna have schools compete for students and that that was gonna lead to school improvement. And that has certainly not worked in Denver to improve outcomes for all kids.

That is something that also goes on in Denver that you'll hear talked about in this episode.

Dr. Val: So, what kind of context can you share around current demographics?

Andrew: So Denver Public Schools is about 90,000 kids, 200 and something schools. And the district as a whole is somewhere around 63% free and reduced priced lunch/low income students, and about 75% students of color. So the other thing that you'll hear in this conversation is researcher Dr. Kim Strong who came to present some of her recent finding around the resegregation of the district. And they had an interesting approach to that, which was to sort of create “four buckets” of segregation. So, do you have an overrepresentation of students of color, or do you have an overrepresentation of White kids?

Do you have an overrepresentation of free and reduced price lunch qualifying students? Or do you have an overrepresentation of kids who don't qualify for free and reduced price lunch? And sort of, you know, a deviation from the district average, with a good amount of wiggle room in their data as well to say, you know, not every school is gonna be exactly like the district average. But, the schools that are way outside, you know, how many of those schools are there and what do those schools look like?

And, she found some pretty compelling data about just how segregated Denver Public Schools is today.

Dr. Val: Were you surprised by what you heard, what you learned?

Andrew: I don't know anybody who's involved in Denver Public Schools who wouldn't say that our schools are segregated, but the degree of segregation and the impacts that come from that was, was a little bit surprising. And to have it all kind of laid out clearly with the research that Dr. Strong shared was pretty compelling, I thought.

Dr. Val: Okay, and so, as we teased in the first episode, this is a multigenerational conversation as well.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Val: And so, you also had the honor and privilege to have some young people join the conversation.

Andrew: Yeah. Four, well, three current high school students and one, one recent graduate from Denver Public Schools. There's a number of high schools in the district that have a student voice and leadership class, or SVL, where they have students, they come together, they pick a large policy issue and write policy recommendations around it.

Dr. Val: Nice.

Andrew: Some really amazing things come out of it. And students from a couple of different high schools in town joined us to talk about, kind of, the current degree of segregation and the impact that that's having on them. And they were, yeah, I think everybody who came said that they were the best part of the day. So,

Dr. Val: Nice! I believe it.

Andrew: All right. Should we take a listen?

Dr. Val: We should!

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Andrew: I'm gonna try to, try to do a really quick overview of DPS in 1995 to today, basically. Really high level. I'm gonna, I'm gonna skip over some stuff. Some people are gonna have some complaints, I'm sure. But the point is we gotta get to the day so we can talk about “What now?” Right? So as Mrs. Lefkowits mentioned, in 1995 the district was court ordered to redraw boundaries.

They had to because they were in violation of the state constitution. So they redrew their boundaries right? In 1995. Since then, there has been no thoughtful redesign of boundaries. So schools open, schools closed, there's a shift of boundaries, but no meaningful “Let's look at the whole city” and say, “What should the boundaries look like?”

Right? So the desegregation efforts that the board took in ‘95/’96 are, are largely meaningless today. I mean, anybody who's been here for three years knows how quickly the city is changing. Certainly, if you go back to 1995 the city is a wildly different place, right?

We also had school choice and the evolution of school choice. So the policies around school choice, “If there's room and you can get yourself there, you can go to a school,” were put in place in ‘96. We had the move to universal choice, which I think was an improvement in many ways. It moved away from the idea that you had to know somehow when a school's application was gonna be or what they wanted on their thing that really favored people with information.

But, we still have a school choice process that I would argue favors people with privilege. As, as Pat so, so eloquently said, if you don't have transportation, is it really a choice? Right? The options that are available to you are limited based on your resources. And so, the fact that everybody can participate in the system doesn't mean that everybody has an equal choice.

And the district has grown as well, right? We, we were at around 65,000 kids in 1995. We were about 90. We've started to decline again, as everybody's aware of one of the hot topics today. And so you would, you would say, “Well, all right, maybe we, we, like, brought some kids back. This seems like a good thing,” right?

And, and demographically, that hasn't shifted dramatically from 1995, for the district as a whole. Right? We've, we've lost some Black students for sure. We've lost a few White students. The Latino population (as, as Dr. Escamilla mentioned) has grown. But, we don't have massive shifts in demographics. But what we do have is a massive growth of segregation. A resegregation of the district. We currently have schools with 96, 97, 98% low income students and schools with 10 or 11% low income students.

We have several schools that are a hundred percent students of color, and we have several schools that have 20 or fewer percent students of color. The segregation in the district is massive. And back in, I guess August, the Latino Education Coalition at the Bueno Center at CU released a report on the resegregation of DPS.

And one of the researchers is here, the co-author of that report, uh, who wrote it along with Craig Peña, who was also one of the, uh, children/plaintiffs in the Keyes case. They wrote this report together and Kim's gonna give us a little overview of what they found. So, Kim Strong!

Kim Strong: Thank you so much for having me here. And, uh, Andrew, as you mentioned, this report was commissioned by the Latino Education Coalition, and I specifically want to thank Milo for protecting this data. He encouraged us to follow the data wherever it led without, uh, bias or favoritism.

And I would also like to thank the administration of Dr. Morero for engaging in this study and the findings. Even though they're findings that make us uncomfortable, and it's not what we wanted to see, but the facts are what they are.

To give, um, a little bit of overview about the study and how it was conducted, this is just a snapshot of where we are today. It's not prescriptive saying why this has happened or what we should do now. It’s just, this is the state of the districts currently. How we conducted this study, just so you know, the, the methods, and I won't spend too much time on this, we looked at the average per school population of students of color and students receive, receiving free and reduced lunch.

And we said, “Let's define segregation as, schools that are really far outside of that average,” right? We wanna account for diversity between schools. We know that not everyone's gonna be exactly average. So we created buckets, and we said if on average, 79% of students in the school are students of color, if a school has between 63 and 95% students of color, there's no segregation.

You have to really be on far ends of, deviations from the averages. So we said, if you have 95% or more students of color in a school, it's segregated by students of color. If you have 63 or fewer percent students of color in a school, it's segregated by White students. So those are the categories for racial segregation.

Uh, likewise, we said if on average 66% of a school, uh, receive a free and reduced lunch, if a school is between 79% and 52% free and reduced lunch, no segregation by class. But if a school has 79 or greater percent free and reduced lunch students, we call it segregated by free and reduced lunch.

And if, uh, 52% or fewer free reduced lunch students, we call it segregated by wealth, by non-free and reduced lunch, or class privilege. And so, these are kind of our four buckets of segregation. And the way we designed the study is we wanted to leave open the possibility that segregation wasn't happening.

It's not a fishing expedition. Maybe it wasn't an issue anymore. We designed it to leave open that possibility. That is not what we found.

Currently, 80% of schools in DPS are segregated by at least one measure. Uh, and many schools are dually segregated. 22% of schools are segregated by both wealth and White students.

And 28% of schools are segregated by both students of color and free and reduced lunch students. We found that schools are not only segregated as deviations from the averages, but extreme concentrations specifically of White and wealthy students.

So, in the district, 22% of students are White. And we said, “Well, to be categorized as being White segregated, they have to have more than 37%.” In our study we found that in White segregated schools, on average, 60% of students were White.

Likewise for wealthy students. In our study, we found that in wealthy segregated schools, on average, non-free reduced lunch students were 73% of the student population. So 73% of students in schools segregated by wealth in a district where on average only 35% of students are non-free/reduced lunch.

We also found that schools are segregated on multiple axes. It's not just race or class. Also unrelated student populations of special education, English learner and gifted and talented. And we know that these, uh, other designations shouldn't reflect racial or class designations, but they very much do.

For example, in schools segregated by students of color and free and reduced lunch students, those schools had on average, 1.3 times higher special education populations compared to schools segregated by White and wealthy students. In schools segregated by students of color and free and reduced lunch students, on average, those schools had five times higher rates of English learners than schools segregated by White and wealthy students. Specifically, in those schools segregated by students of color and free and reduced lunch students, on average, about half of the students are English learners, 45%. In school segregated by White and wealthy students, 8.5% are English learners. And so we see that it's not just a, again, a, a racial or class thing, but these other student characteristics.

And finally, and this is, uh, one of the data points that this is distressing to me personally, in schools segregated by students of color and free and reduced lunch students, on average, only 4.5% of students are given talented and gifted designations, compared to school segregated by White and wealthy students, where it's 11%.

So as students attending schools segregated by White and wealthy students are two and a half times more likely to have their students recognized for having talents. And to be clear, this does not say that Black and Brown students are less likely to have gifts and talents. It means they're less likely to have those gifts and talents institutionally recognized. And that is a failure of our school system

[Applause]

About half of Latinos attend segregated schools. Between 50 and 60% of English learners attend segregated schools. Non-free and reduced lunch, or wealthy students: 56% attend White segregated schools, and 65% attend school segregated by wealth. Gifted and talented students: 59% of all gifted and talented students in the district attend White segregated schools.

64% attend schools segregated by wealth. And of White students, 70% of White students in the district attend White segregated schools. And 76% of White students in the district attend schools segregated by wealth. It's not a small problem just affecting a few students, it's the majority of these student populations.

We also know, and I think it's a valid point, that it's not just the numbers that are showing us the quality of education, right? It has a lot to do with the curriculum, the feeling seen and heard and loved. The, the experience of teachers.

So, regarding outcomes of students in these segregated schools, when we're measuring four year average high school completion rates, in every single student category, students could not defy the advantages or detriments of attending segregated schools.

So in every single student category students in school segregated by free and reduced lunch and student of color status had lower average high school completion rates than the district average.

There's no student category that could defy whatever's happening in these segregated schools. And likewise, in every single student category, students attending schools segregated by White and wealthy students had average four year high school completion rates that were above the district average.

And so, that really exposes the myth of meritocracy. There's no student group that gets beyond whatever's happening or not happening in these schools.

For example, across the district on average, 81% of gifted and accounted students complete high school in four years. In White and wealthy schools, that jumps to 96/99%. And in school segregated by students of color and free and reduced lunch, it drops to 74%.

So there's something happening in these schools that is not working for students beyond just the numerical disparities that we're seeing.

To conclude, the main points: segregation is pervasive. It's not only deviations from averages, but extreme concentrations of students. Schools are segregated along multiple axes.

The majority of some student populations attend segregated schools with 70 to 75% of White students attending segregated schools. And segregated schools reflect the disparate achievement outcomes between schools segregated by students of color for reduced lunch, and those segregated by privileged White/wealthy status.

We don't know what the cause is. This isn't, you know, we don't recommend a policy recommendation, but there's something that's not working in schools and something needs to change.

[Applause]

Andrew: Thank you. Thank you so much. Kim Strong.

The one thing I just want to put on the table right here, I, I wanna highlight that one more time: 80% of schools in Denver public schools are segregated by at least one of these measures. The other thing just to name is that what the research is talking about is the overall student population, which also ignores in-school segregation, right?

We know that schools that look desegregated from the outside often are very segregated from the inside, between tracking for honors, AP classes, magnet programs located within schools, et cetera, et cetera. So, so, you know, we're really just sort of scratching the surface of the degree of segregation that's going on.

So thank you, Kim, for, for sharing that. And I'm gonna turn it over to Mike here.

Mike Atkins: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kim, for sharing all that quantitative data. And the numbers don't lie, right? Where our affluent White families go, the resources seem to follow. The mindsets of the educators seem to follow,

And we know that representation matters so much, right? We also understand that we have to build the capacity of one another, to be able to serve children differently and at a higher level.

The system in itself is going to bring forth implicit and explicit biases, because the system tells you you need to dictate and move within it in a certain way if you're an educator.

I remember my first year as an AP. I was part of a team that suspended 57 kids.

Most that look like me! I've dedicated my life to making sure that the babies in our classrooms don't have the same experiences that I had. And even with that mindset, I was part of a team that suspended 57 kids, most that looked like me.

So that summer I said, and I had to reflect, and it was my “A-ha” moment that I won't do this work if I couldn't do it in a way that aligns with my why.

So I shifted. I needed that “A-ha” moment. But it is a reminder that the system in itself tells you to walk past White students in the hallway, to go see what the Black and Brown children are doing. Regardless of your background, regardless of the color of your skin, regardless of your socioeconomic status.

The numbers don't lie.

The resources seem to follow our affluent, White babies.

We all said earlier that our babies aren't born with an achievement gap. What are we doing to make sure that we are illuminating the gifts that all of our babies come into these buildings with, not just our White students?

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Give it up for that!

[Applause]

Um, you know, to, to that point, to go back to, you know, the four things that the Keyes case asked for, right?

It wasn't just moving kids around, it was: desegregation of students and teachers, equalization of resources among schools, elimination of tracking, and racial sensitivity training for teachers. Certainly the teacher who said, “Here come the bus kids” did not receive a sufficient amount of racial sensitivity training, right?

What the district did was fight tooth and nail. And so, the thing that the federal government could control was say, “Let's look at the racial breakdown of each school we're gonna control,” and the other stuff got pushed to the side. And so what would it mean to do that thing? What would it mean to to, to take seriously all of those requests from the original Keyes case

Data, it's amazing. It doesn't lie. And, you may ask, you know, “What does it matter?” You could reasonably argue, I think, that the adults in the district, it doesn't matter enough for either us as a community or the people in charge to do something about. But it's not really about the adults, right? It's an education system.

It's about students. And so, it's why we felt it was incredibly important to have a student panel. So I'm very excited to bring up four incredible students. We have Jade Thompson, Kyrie Romo, Betty Madrigal, and Abraham Munoz.

[Applause]

Alright. Let's start, let's just go, let's just go down the row. Maybe each tell us your name, where you go to school, and grade.

Abraham Munoz: Um, my name is Abraham. I go here at Manual and I'm a junior.

Andrew: Yeah!

[Applause]

Jade Thompson: Oh, My name is Jade Thompson. I’m also a student at Manual and I'm a senior.

[Applause]

Leticia Madrigal: My name is Leticia Madrigal. I use she/her pronouns and I'm currently a third year at Colorado State University.

[Applause]

Kyree Romo: Hi, um, my name is Kyree Romo. I attend West High School and I'm a senior.

[Applause]

Andrew: So, Abraham, to kick us off, I know you have done some work, around, uh, professional development for teachers about student voice and curriculum. There are people who will say, “You're just students. What do you know?” Why, why should we listen to you? What's the importance of bringing students to the, to the table here?

Abraham Munoz: So, yes, I have done some work around the Student Voice curriculum. I have created two policies so far. I have created “Low Enrollment as a Product of Institutionalized Racism.” And another policy I collaborated with three friends called “Redefining School Choice.” We should be listening to these students 'cause we're the ones here, 24/7.

We're the ones in the building, learning the curriculums in the classrooms. Yes, there may be students who are indifferent, who don't care what’s going on around them. But there's students like us who are here, committed to making a change, 'cause we see the flaws and we see, um, the ways we can correct them. Because this system and everything else was not made for us to succeed.

And yes, I hear every time “You're too young, you don't know enough.” But, we have the same resources. We're digging deep into data. I'm here from eight o'clock to 8:30 at night. I don't, I'm here five days a week, a long time. I'm here as much as anyone else.

I'm a student who knows this stuff. I have a lot of leadership roles here. I want to make a change because it's not just for me, it's for upcoming generations, for my sisters, for my brothers, and my baby cousins. And so I want to make it a fair place.

I want to improve a lot of things here.

Andrew: Yes sir! Thank you.

[Applause]

Uh, Leticia, I turn to you. You graduated from West. Your whole education career was spent in the segregated school system of DPS, predominantly Latino schools. And now you find yourself at a PWI, which I think people usually refer to as a “predominantly White institution.” Somebody recently referred it to me as a “persistently White institution,”

[Audience chuckles]

which I think is a nice way to indicate that that is a choice that institutions make is an ongoing choice, it is not a fact of nature. But, what, what has that transition been like? What have you noticed in making that change?

Leticia Madrigal: Yeah, I wanna separate that question into two different experiences, 'cause that's seven years of experience, both in high school at Denver West High School, and also at a predominantly white institution.

Um, and I guess I wanna start with my experience at Denver West High School. I remember when I first learned about segregation and how it impacted students around me and me. Um, I didn't really believe segregation was a thing. I think most of that was because our education systems don't really teach us to have these hard conversations.

They teach us that we're there to learn because our teachers are there to teach us, and that's it. They don't teach us to fight the system. They don't teach us that the system wasn't built for us to begin with. And they definitely do not want us fighting those systems. Right?

And then when I joined Student Voice and Leadership, I think that's where I met one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Wally, right? And he started talking to us about the segregation of Denver Public Schools. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about my experience as a White Latina compared to my Brown brothers, I started to understand how deeply rooted systemic oppression is in these schools and how deeply rooted it was in my experience, compared to the experience of my brothers.

And then I started to think of what is now Denver West High School, what used to be West Early College compared to West Leadership. And West Early College. It went through, like, three different names when I was there. 'cause they tried to keep shutting us down and we just refused to get shut down.

[Applause]

Um, and, and the claps, yes. But that also came at the expense of criminalizing and oppressing Black and Brown youth from our schools and taking them out of our schools, so that they can fit into the stereotypical White standard.

I remember when they told us that we were higher in standards compared to other schools with more, um, “troubled kids,” I want to say (which is racist isn't actually correct). I remember that I was really proud of going to West Early College. It wasn’t what it was then. But then I was, I started thinking, and I was like, well, I saw all these kids who had just as much, much as potential as me who had just, were just as intelligent as me, but they got criminalized and I didn't.

And that was just on our, on West Early College. Right? And then you went over to the other side of the building. It was the exact same building, but it was a different end to the school. And we saw how they predominantly focused on English language learners. And how they didn't have the same opportunities that West Early College students did. Because if you went to West Early College Summit, you met, you met the criteria to go and get a higher level education and meant that, but the White standards, you were worthy of it, and the other students weren't.

And, I think that that goes into what students are deemed “acceptable” and what students are deemed “beyond a cause” and “We're just gonna send them someone else so that we don't have to deal with.” And our school gets the praise of having good ratings, even though we didn't really do that good of a thing for those students.

And I think that experience then shaped my experience of going into a predominantly White institution, where I focus on political science. But, I think when people hear political science, all they think about is policy and politics. And let's be for real, the state of politics is not very good right now.

[Audience chuckles]

And it's kind of really depressing as a young adult to go into those fields.

But, I remember taking a class in inequalities of education and I remember everything they were talking about, at least one of my friends experienced it, right? They were talking about the oppression of Black and Brown youth.

They were talking about the criminalization of Black and Brown youth. They were talking about different test scores. Who gets on probation, who doesn't. Who ends up in the criminal justice system, who doesn't. What's on justice system? So the Carceral system, and who doesn't? And I remember sitting there and I was like, “Well, I feel like I've lived all these things.

These are a reality to me.” But to all my White peers, they were just learning about it. Like, and that's like the essence of privilege, where we have to live it for you to have to learn, right? And it was so disheartening. And I think the more, and now that I'm in my third year, the more I see it, the more I learn it, the more I want to change the system.

And obviously attending a predominantly White institution, as a first generation, as an immigrant student, and as a Latina, it has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. But I think I wouldn't be who I am now and I wouldn't wanna do what I want to do now if it wasn't for the continuous uplifting of all the teachers at Denver West High School.

Human rights matters and education is a human right. And I think if we don't start prioritizing human rights as a whole, we don't start prioritizing teaching our students’ humanities, and also teaching our students how to have empathy for one another, I don't think we're ever gonna change for the next generations to come.

[Applause]

Andrew: Kyree, I want to turn to you. You made sort of an opposite leap. You transferred from Bear Creek, which is, what, I think about 50% low income, 50% students of color to West for your senior year. West is currently over 95%, both students of color and free and reduced price lunch. What motivated that move and what did you notice in, in those two different institutions?

Kyree Romo: Yeah, so I, I grew up in Genco schools my whole life, and my mom and my dad actually worked at West, and they would always tell me to go West and I was just like, “No, and I'll stay, I'll stay where I am.” But, there were definitely, like, things that I noticed where I just felt alienated, not with me, but um, also to experiences of my friends.

I was mostly friends with people of color. It was predominantly White and it was very, like, an intimidating kind of experience. But, I did notice, like, little things. Like, uh, my freshman year we had a Black Lives Matter, a small little Black Lives Matter poster in the hallway, and there was, like, a video of a girl and she just, like, ripped it off and then laughed and thought it was funny.

And that was, like, kind of it set me back a lot. And, during my sophomore year, I would say, um, you say the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning, and I just, I choose to sit down. That's just what I choose and that's my right. So I'm allowed to.

[Audience snaps in agreement]

But, um, I had a teacher come up to me and she handed me a note sheet and she was like, “Do you mind, uh, writing down why you don't want to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance?”

And she asked me again the next day, and I, and I just wrote down the, the case of saying that “We don't have to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance.”

[Applause]

And, and, and, my best friend who is, Black and she's a Latina, she got harassed by a teacher every morning, almost, uh, was pulled out of class.

And, you know, why does that student have to be picked on, especially being a Black student? And so, yeah, that was, those were like, just some personal experiences.

Also, there was no staff of color. There were three staff of color. They were Latinos and two of them were teachers. And I'm very grateful for them. They, they definitely really helped with my high school experience. So that was, like, kind of a thing that I noticed that really, like, I saw no representation, you know, there was, there was no people that looked like me.

There was no student voice in leadership. There was, um, like a leadership meeting kind of thing? And me and my best friend, we attended it together and we were the only people of color there. So it's like, why is that the voice of the school yet who was speaking up for us? You know? So, um, we, we did try and say our opinion.

I did tell them, I was like, you know, “You guys are majority White. I feel like you guys don't really have a lot of say on how we feel here in the school.” And I got a lot of, like, pushback. And they kind of just didn't really see my point of view. And I was really struggling, to really get my opinion out there.

So, I just felt really alienated and, you know, I got along with my peers really well. You know, I got along with my teachers, as I said, but still, I felt like there was something missing.

And, I would complain to my mom about this and she, kind of, told me about West. And so, yeah, I made transfer to West and it was the best thing for me academically, um, for representation. And it felt right. So, I'm really glad that made that, that move to West.

And being in West, I noticed more people of color teachers. Obviously I noticed people of color, students. Every, they're everywhere, you know? So that's, that's what they’re saying, over 95%. So it was nice seeing people who were like me have the same/similar experiences and, you know, the teachers there, you know, you have some that spoke Spanish. You have some that are Black, you have some that are Brown.

You see every, every type. Um, SVL also was a nice foundation for me (Student Voice Leadership) to really, you know, it was, there was action. I think that's what lacked in my old school was action. Was that they, they wanted to say that we had this little thing going, that there was no action.

But, um, that was just my experience.

[Applause]

Andrew: Thank you. Uh, Jade, I want to turn to you. You, I know you're heavily involved in the theater here at Manual. You seem to be thriving as a Thunderbolt.

[Audience laughs]

But, you know, as, Kim's research showed, there are segregated schools in Denver Public Schools. Manual is certainly one of them.

84% low income, 95% students of color here. What's great about Manual and what are the challenges that come from that segregation?

Jade Thompson: Okay. There's a lot of things that's, like, amazing with this school. I remember my first day, March 8th, 2022, when I first came to Manual. Um, within that, that first week, I knew like, this is, this was home.

And I, like, I could be myself and like self-advocate, which is like one of the skills that I really appreciated. Because, in middle school I used to go to a PWI, and I remember one time a student had came up to me and I had my braids in.

She would come and like, squeeze my braids and be like, “Do you feel that?” I'm like, “Well,”

[Jade and Audience chuckle]

“There's, there's boundaries that's needed for you to respect me.” And the fact that was allowed within that school with like, no consequences. Of course it seems small, but that's tradition for me. And my hair is my crown.

And that's why I really appreciate what Manual, not only for respecting me as a person, but respecting us as a community whole. We are proud to represent, and I'm really, like, I'm really happy to be here in this building and to know that my teachers, they look like me, and they can relate to me in some ways. Not having just White teachers. It's just one of those things that it can help you build, like, your self-confidence and like who you want to be and who you would want to, like, represent as for your community.

One of the challenges that I think is really hard for people to understand is that we need people that look like us to be there for the change.

[Applause]

Andrew: What other challenges do you see from, from the segregation? Manual is, is certainly not as enrolled as it would like to be, and, and I'll open up that to you as well, Abraham, if you want to jump in.

Jade Thompson: Um, one of our problems right now is, like, for buses for our sports to, um, go to away games right now. And so I think that's one of those factors that limits us to, like, enjoy being in school. Or to, like, do after school activities. That's something that we're really passionate about. And just, we have limited sports that, we don't have tennis anymore.

I don't think we have a girls softball no more. There's just a lot of sports that's, like, taken away from us as time went by.

Abraham Munoz: Yeah. One of the big struggles we have here at Manual is funding and resources.

We make do with what we have. We try to make it a good school with what we have and, and you know, it's amazing. But, you know, there's things that we wish we could have, like certain sports. We wish we could have certain clubs. We wish we could go do certain things with classes, but we can't. And so, you know, we do what we have and we make it a great school.

We may be a small school, but it's definitely a community here, 'cause you know, everyone knows each other. Everyone respects each other. It’s like, you're friends with everyone one way or another. You're respected. And so, it's just biggest struggle we have here is just, like, the resources.

If you want to go to, like, a school with the community, there's no resources. If you want to go to school with resources, there's no community. And so, you have to choose between those. And so, it's that sacrifice. And I've always wondered to go to another school, but I won't because I love Manual and the community here, it always made me feel like home. Especially just the friends I have here and everything I do here, I feel home here.

[Applause]

Andrew: That's beautiful. Yeah. Why, why should you have to make that choice? Anybody want to jump in on that? Just that question in general. Kyree?

Kyree Romo: No, that was a perfect example. Even that's exactly how I felt. You know, Bear Creek is a bigger school that has twice the amount of kids at West and, you know, we typically have more resources. We have more business classes, we just have a wider class selection and elective selection.

And, um, a lot of sports teams, we do get proper funding and things like that. And that's something that, you know, since moving to West, I've noticed that they, that they lack. And, it's a problem of with funding, enrollment and things like that. So, it's hard picking and choosing, 'cause you know, when, when I moved and I was telling my friends, uh, some of my peers, they were just like, “Oh, like, West? Like, West is ‘ghetto’”. And, you know, since, since moving to West, I was like, hmm. I've, I've seen some more ghetto stuff!

[Audience laughs]

Uh, that's the Upper Creek for sure. But, um, yeah, there, there's just like a negative connotation around DPS schools and things like that.

And, and it's sad to see.

Abraham Munoz: Adding to that around segregated schools, there's a lot of negative stigma as we try to eliminate that with, like, social media. We try to post things. We try to eliminate these ideas that people have for our schools, 'cause it's simply not true. It's simply not true.

We do so many great things here. Like we just earned a grant, $50,000 to make a STEM lab from the Broncos.

[Applause]

It’s very exciting, very exciting! We do a lot of stuff here. Like, these things, it's not that negative stigma. It’s so much positive here that people need to know and need to see to finally eliminate that stigma. That “Manual's ghetto, Manual's a bad school.”

Manual will give you the things we have here, 'cause we have college classes here. A lot of our students take college classes here, concurrent enrollment classes here. That's the thing with the resources, we lose a lot of things and it takes away from our student experience, our high school experience. And that's a thing that I wanna experience in high school. And that's what Manual's been doing with just my friends and students here.

[Applause]

Andrew: Alright. You are all so inspiring. In just sort of a closing from each of you, you know, we started the day, talking about the ripples. That the choices that impacted Mike and I, that impacted so many kids and, uh, shaped our lives in so many ways. Is, is there a message, something that you would want to leave for all these adults in the room here about what you want us to do in order to have a similar sort of ripple that might affect the rest of your lives?

Abraham Munoz: It's not more of what I want you to do. It's a question I have for you is, we talk about not wanting to talk about it and want to make more change, but is it the adults that are gonna make the change or is it the students that are gonna make the change? Or is it gonna be both of us?

Because, we're committed to making change. We're creating policies, we're implementing stuff for other schools. Taking this school board members, presenting it at other things. As a community, we could be collaborating together instead of just one-on-one, it could be a collaboration of both.

And I ask you as the question is, will you connect with us and collaborate with us?

Andrew: Absolutely.

[Applause]

Jade, what do you want us to leave with?

Jade Thompson: Um, I would like to also go off what Abraham said. We are still kids. Whether that,

[Jade & audience laugh]

Just because we turned 18 doesn't mean that we're able to, like, just go off on our own and just, you know, solve it by yourself.

Like, we are trying to finish school, and there's all these stigmas that says, “Oh yeah, finish with good grades, be involved in school.” However, we, we can do all that, but how are we able to function mentally and physically to make sure that we live up to society’s standards? Like, what more do you expect for us?

And then everyone's voice matters, and I think that some people forget is that one, like, yes, it is your voice alone. However, if you and others, like, agree that as a, as a group, that y'all can make that impact as well, that would be very helpful.

[Applause]

Andrew: Leticia, what do you want to leave us with?

Leticia Madrigal: I guess I'm considered a young adult now because I’m 21.

[Laughter]

So I think attending a predominantly White institution and attending White academia, I think they center themselves so much on freedom of speech And yes, I agree, everyone has an opinion, everyone has the right to say what they feel and say their opinions, quote, unquote.

But I think as we head into this new election, I, I center myself on how much tolerance are we willing to accept and at what point do we stop tolerating so much bigotry, right? 'Cause, yes, you have the right to say what you feel and your own opinion, but your opinions shape the policy and shape our future.

And I don't mean you guys, I just mean, like, as educators you guys,

Mike Atkins: Us too.

Andrew: Us too.

[Audience affirms]

Leticia Madrigal: Well, I’ll take it! I just wanna leave it off as stop tolerating so much bigotry, because we each as individuals have the right to how much we tolerate. And the minute we stop tolerating the dehumanization of all of us, that's the minute we actually stand up and fight our own liberation.

[Applause]

Andrew: Kyree.

Kyree Romo: Um, I know we're here because it's integration, about integration and equity, but we were discussing at my table that “integrated’ does not equal equality.

[Applause]

Um, I guess some would consider, like, my old school, I guess somewhat integrated 'cause we were 50/50. But, to have an integrated school is, and to have an equal school is to have all resources shared across the board. You know, there shouldn't, there shouldn't be a reason for some schools to lack a significant amount of resources. And I think that, like, we should remember that. We can integrate as much as we can, but we need to make sure everybody has an equitable level of education to have the same resources.

[Applause]

Andrew: Thank you all. Uh, yeah, you're, you're incredible.

And we're just so grateful to you all for, uh, for coming and participating in this conversation. Thank you!

Mike Atkins: I told Andrew, I'm inspired by them and should not be, because the things I'm inspired about is the things that they are doing that we should have done! Right?

So I shouldn't be inspired by them doing the work that we should be doing.

[Applause]

Andrew: I know there has been a lot of material, a long time. The chairs are not comfortable, but everyone hung out and went through it. I think that’s amazing. A couple of things, just some business before we wrap up. Again, thanks to Holland and Hart. Um, Ed Khan is here, he was a partner of Holland and Hart at the time. Can we give a round of applause to Ed?

[Applause]

He wanted me to mention, it is important to know that Holland and Hart took on the case at a time, they took on the Keyes Case pro bono, first of all. And they did it at the time when they were really the only that could and was willing to do it. So, they, they fought the case for 25 years, all for pro bono. They lost clients because they took the case, and they really set a standard for what other law firms in the state should do, when it comes to doing the right thing. When it comes to getting on the right side of history. So, they were also generous enough to help support this event, so we’re really grateful to them for, to work with Keyes and for their help today. So, let’s hear it for them.

[Applause]

Um, all of our speakers that we’ve heard from. Just, such incredible people, um, one big round of applause for all of the people–

[Applause]

But, mostly thank you to all of you for showing up. Right? You took time out of your Saturday. It’s snowy, it’s cold, you could have been doing anything else and you’re here. You’ve engaged in conversation. We are deeply grateful to you for doing that. So what are we hoping to take away from today? Mike?

Mike Atkins: I, I think that is up to, to, to you, right? I think we've heard from people who have put their livelihood on the line, their lives on the line, all for the betterment of our babies. All for what we call our most prized possession: our kids.

Again, inspired by the voices of kids. Where oftentimes, they're right in front of us. And we never asked them, what's your opinion? So often times we're not doing school with babies, we're doing it to them. And me, that's the narrative I'm walking away with. So you have to find and define your own narrative and what you're walking away with.

I will say that the conversation needs to extend beyond the walls of our education settings, and they need to extend beyond conversation. So you need to ask yourself, “What skin do I have in the game?”

And “What is my own purpose and call to action to make sure that these babies aren't lifting up the mountains that we said we would.” Lift up for them. All right, thank you for being here.

---------------------------

Andrew: So Val, what'd you think?

Dr. Val: I'm thinking a lot of things. I think I wanna start, because it always, the numbers can be sobering, and I think it's important to look at the data pretty squarely in the eye and, and be honest about what we're learning from it. And I, the, the part that stopped me that I just wanna process a little bit, and maybe this is, I don't know, survivor's guilt that I'm processing.

Um, no student group gets beyond whatever is happening or not happening, in these schools. And I don't want to send the message that there's no value in the schools because they are segregated by class or by race.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Or that there's greater value in some schools because there's more wealth there.

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: We shouldn't automatically assume that the better education is happening because the school has more wealth. And it's really easy to do that when you look at traditional achievement data.

Andrew: Yes.

Dr. Val: And I think that's, you know, what we operate with! And I, I do think we obviously need some accountability to what is happening, in schools and with young people. We should have high expectations for all young people.

Andrew: Yeah. So a couple of things come to mind. I mean, one is (like you mentioned), the traditional achievement data that we use is deeply problematic. I mean, this is a fine line to walk, right? Because, on the one hand, if we say “Schools aren't accountable to anything,” we know that they will continually fail all kids, but especially Black and Brown kids. And so we have to have some degree of accountability. And the accountability structures that we use currently are also deeply rooted in White supremacy and have all sorts of problems and flaws with them. And so, when we look at things like graduation rates, we know that that is not simply about the capacity or ability of students–

Dr. Val: Right!

Andrew: –to, to graduate, right? That there are systems and structures in place that are doing that.

And so, it's important data to look at, and it's important to contextualize that data, because what that doesn't say is “Are those kids coming out whole?” Like you talked about, right? What that doesn't say is, “Do those kids have a sense of belonging?”

What that doesn't say is, “Do those kids have a sense of their own self-worth and self-efficacy that they can go on and be contributing members of society in a positive way?” Which are things that are much more important, to me, at least, than “Do they do well on the SATs or did they do well on their state tests,” right?

I think the other thing that I think about is, is the, the challenge of using averages. So yes, on average students at these schools may or may not have, you know, higher or lower graduation rates, but nobody's kid is the “average kid.”

Right? And we know that so much of what determines the likelihood of your success in school is not about what actually happens in that school, right? That the school is contributing a small piece of that.

Dr. Val: Yeah. I love what you said around, what feels important to you, right? Your child having a sense of belonging and, and feeling whole. And for me, like, can you think critically? You know, can you advocate for yourself? Have you learned how to learn?

Because you know, you'll be in positions as an adult to have to figure things out. Can you communicate with others? There's lots of things that feel important to me. And, you know, I'm right at this high school age where we're thinking seriously about SAT prep or ACT prep, because there's this game that you end up trying to decide, like, how much of it you're going to play, you know?

And, I know White and affluent parents can get scared by some of those statistics, right? If you say that a student can't get beyond what the school has, like, typically produced, I mean, that's, that's scary. You know?

If you're affluent or educated, does it, are you immune from that?

Andrew: I mean, yeah, I think there definitely is some immunity, you know, I struggle with Dr. Strong's framing of that. I think, you know, the data, the numbers, the averages look that way.

To say that on average schools with higher concentrations of poverty are not creating the same academic outcomes for all groups of kids, it's not the same as saying that your kid will not have a positive experience at segregated school. You know, my kids have both been at segregated schools. I think they are getting positive experiences out of that.

Both academically, and socially, and emotionally. And I try to lean on is, both the, the knowledge that my kids do have a cushion of privilege that provides, you know, not perfect immunity, but some immunity from some of the harm that could come from, from schools that are not serving all kids as well as they could.

And the, and the recognition that there is so much more to what I'm hoping my kids get from education than just the, the academic measures that we use.

Dr. Val: Yeah. I think I always wanna be clear that I believe that majority Black and Brown schools are places where young people can thrive and learn. And that just feels important to say over, and over, and over, and over again. And again, there's obviously work that needs to be done in all of our schools that have high expectations for all young people.

I, I just get, I just feel really sensitive about it's seeming like we're ever saying that majority Black and Brown schools just aren't serving our young people, in ways that they can thrive. It feels in part like a community, right? It feels like we need to talk about oppressive practices amongst communities of color to children of color. You don't have to be White to not believe in, in children of color! Right? And so, I just wanna emphasize like, we know kids can get a high quality education in Black and Brown spaces. We know that to be true.

And so how do we make sure all of our schools are more equitable and that we have schools where we can be together across racial difference, across socioeconomic status? Because we know that in addition to having a great education, we can also get better at humanity.

[Val laughs]

Andrew: Yeah.

Dr. Val: Right? That we can get better together. Because I think you and I probably believe the goal is more than just graduating and being able to get a job.

Andrew: Definitely. Right.

Dr. Val: Right? It's about creating the world in which we wanna live, where we can have a strong democracy. Where we can build together, right? Those are all additional benefits of being in a shared space. And so, yeah, sure, at your fancy affluent school, you can get all the things. But if, if it's missing that opportunity to connect with others who are different from you than I, that's a flaw.

Andrew: Right.

Dr. Val: We need to fix that one too.

Andrew: Absolutely. Yes. And I mean, to turn to the student panel, you know, they all spoke about the power of the community that they found themselves in, the power of their schools. All, you know, either currently or having recently graduated from very segregated schools.

Almost entirely Black and Brown kids at, at their schools. And they found real community and real comfort and real educational excellence in all of that, right?

And so that was a place where they really found both belonging, but also educational excellence. And so, I think to your point, those schools themselves are proof that they can get a great education there, and

doesn't absolve us of doing something about the structural issues. The systemic issues that mean that, you know, like Abraham said, “I feel like I have to choose between resources or community. I can't have both.” And so, how is it that we have created a system and this is, something that Mike said as well, you know, “These students are so inspiring and yet I feel bad for being inspired because they’re addressing the problems that we said we'd solve for them,” right? And so, like, we're inspired by their grasp of these issues, we're inspired by their advocacy for these issues, and yet we should feel guilty, because what they are highlighting are the, the ways that we continue to fail all of our kids.

And so, to your point, like, they're, you, they are getting a great education at segregated institutions and they don't have the same access to resources that they should have. They don't have the same ability to take AP classes or have sports activities or all these other things that come along with the resources that follow White kids.

And so, you know, that's the kind of system and the structure that we need to undermine. And as Leticia said, like, schools don't teach us to fight the system, right? So, so who is going to teach these students and their student voice and leadership class I think is a pretty cool class.

Dr. Val: Yeah, it is!

Andrew: Starting, starting to get at that. And the teachers who run those classes are, just, like, so inspiring to me.

But, you know, who is going to fight the system? And like Abraham said, , is it gonna be the grownups? Is it gonna be the kids or are we gonna come together to fight it? And so, how do we come together to fight that system that says “You can either have belonging or you can have resources,” but you can't have both.

We are all called to, to act on that.

Dr. Val: Yeah, for sure. I, I had the, the privilege of seeing the Epic Theater students perform live. And once they were done with their performance, I just found myself completely overwhelmed. And I was just crying uncontrollably. It was good. But one thing I remember thinking while I was crying is like, they shouldn't be responsible for fixing this.

Right? And after listening to these powerhouse students who are writing policy and, and saying, “Here's what we believe we deserve and here's what we're willing to fight for, and here's how we're gonna navigate the system,” I'm feeling super receptive to us coming together to do this, right? And I think what the work looks like intergenerationally is making room for the young people who are the most impacted by these decisions to find and use their voice. And to say, you know, “You belong in this conversation with the elders. With the… currents!”

[Val laughs]

Andrew: Yep. Yeah

Dr. Val: You know? We should all be here. We all have equal voice in this. We all have some perspective, and hopefully we can learn from one another as, as we continue to do this. And, and I think that's what makes the work feel possible, is that we can all come together and learn faster and better together about how to create this change.

Andrew: Right. Yeah. We can't put it on the current students to fix all the problems that we should have, right? And we can't fix it without them. Without their voice, without their perspectives, without their direct experience of what's happening and their vision for what could be. We can't actually fix it. And so, we have a responsibility to them. We, it's our, you know, it's our leg of the relay to do the work, and we can't figure out where we're supposed to be running without their input and their guidance.

Dr. Val: That's right. That's right. So sir, you had an amazing event.

Andrew: It was good.

Dr. Val: It allowed you to continue to build these connections in your local community. What, what happens now?

Andrew: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, the first thing that happened afterwards was we took a break because it was a lot of work to put on the event.

But the kind of next steps that we're thinking about now are, you know, how do we keep the conversation going? So always continuing to have conversations. So after the students spoke, we also had another round of, kind of, circle conversations with people and we had a facilitator at each table to capture notes and help keep the conversation on track.

And so, all of the thoughts and notes that came out of that, you can find a link to those in the show notes. There's some really powerful stuff that came out of that.

The Student Voice and Leadership class has a big get together, coming up here in a month or so. And many of them are gonna be talking about issues that they are seeing. At least one school is really deeply interested in the question of boundaries. So the boundaries in DPS as as we mentioned, haven't been changed since 1995 when they were mandated to be changed. And so, what does it look like to actually take a serious look at the school boundaries?

We know from Tomás Monarrez, who was on the podcast way back, that, you know, there, there are many places where shifts in school boundaries, certainly shifts in district boundaries, but even in school boundaries within districts, can make a real impact on the degree of segregation that we see in schools.

And anytime you bring up some potential solution to a challenge like segregation, people will look to the place where it won't work and use that as an excuse to not do anything about it. And I think we have to push back on that and say, yes, you look at a city like Denver, like many cities around the country, residential segregation is a real issue and there is no way to draw school boundaries that would actually result in all of our schools being desegregated.

And that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it where we can do it. And so, uh, you know, I hope that these students, and we will certainly be lending our support to them, can kind of raise their voices and demand some change from the district, because it's really hard for the district to ignore them.

And then yeah, thinking about how do we keep conversation going and community, how do we keep bringing people together to share a meal. At the end of the event we had an amazing group of sponsors who had provided, we had so much food. It was,

Dr. Val: Love it.

Andrew: But, you know, just bringing people together to share a meal, to have conversation and to really be present with each other is always so powerful. So,

Dr. Val: I, I know yours was a big event, but I wanna let our audience know. Again, this can be a conversation with your parents, you and your kid.

Andrew: Yep.

Dr. Val: Right? And you can still have really good food!

[Val & Andrew laugh]

Andrew: Yep! Absolutely.

Dr. Val: And you can still have really good food. And while you might not have a local community that's already started, there are still opportunities to do this work.

And so, I just wanna encourage folks to understand that you do have a, a choice. And like, Mr. Atkins shared, he recognized that he was part of the problem and he said, how can I change myself to recognize this and do some change around it?

And I think that's all we hope for! For one another in this work. Learn. Change some things. Do some things! But you're not alone. That feels important. Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, so hopefully this has felt interesting, it has felt educational that you've been able to make ties to your own community. Your own local story, your own local context. I think it was Dr. Linda Darling Hammond who said, every city has its bird, and its flower, and its desegregation case.

[Val laughs]

And so you probably have a local story where, wherever you are.

Hopefully this gives some perspective on what the sort of interesting stories might be. I think I was struck in preparing for this event and having conversations with people that there are many people who here in Denver who are deeply committed to educational equity.

Many teachers, many staff members, facility members, even school board members. I mean, we had the superintendent of the school district in attendance at the event, and he said he learned a whole lot. So this history is here, but it needs to be uncovered. It needs to be told, the stories need to be retold over and over again. So we remember them so that we know what work has been done and what things people have, have fought for in the past to help inform what things we might fight for in the future.

Dr. Val: Absolutely. So please, as we always ask, listen, share, talk about it, continue the conversation. In your own homes, in your communities, please call us with your stories. We want to hear them. We know that this work has been going on, as Andrew mentioned, in every community. And we wanna elevate those, 'cause we think they're important to share.

Andrew: Yeah. Integratedschools.org. Hit the “send us a voicemail” button on the side of the page, or just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to us podcast@integratedschools.org. We would be grateful to hear what you're thinking. What did this story about Denver make you think about your own local context?

What stories do you have there? Your family, your kids, your city. Send us your stories. We want to hear them. And, of course, always grateful for your ongoing support, patreon.com/integratedschools. We would be grateful for a few dollars every month to help us keep making this podcast!

Dr. Val: Or a million dollars, just one time.

Andrew: Or a million dollars one time! We would also take that, absolutely!

[Val laughs]

We are not ones to say “no” to any amount of money. So whatever you've got, we would be grateful for. This work is not without its costs, but it is also with a great deal of joy and learning, and something that I am always grateful to be in with you, Val, as I try to know better and do better.

Dr. Val: Until next time.