Parents marched in anger on 19 January (Thursday) over the decision to close a school in Denver.
The Gilpin Montessori school, which is located at Five Points will be shut down at the end of this academic year and nearly 200 students will have to change their classes to somewhere else.
Denver Public Schools have blamed the poor reviews of the school’s performance. While parents are accusing the district for manipulating those reviews.
Tom Boasberg Superintendent for Denver Public Schools said that the district has no hands in influencing Gilpin’s review and said it was all done independently. But it was not enough for the families who said 170 kids are being uprooted from the school they know so well.
On Thursday evening outraged parents over the decision marched from the school to the district’s main office.
Katherine Murphy said that “they have homeless, low income and minority students and it was a distortion decision taken by the District”.
The decision to close the school, came after so many years of under performance. The school ranked lowest in the city.
In 2014-2015 district has invested an additional $429,230 and $577,000 in 2016 upon school’s progress.
SchoolWorks group made an individual evaluation and gave Gilpin a low rating, which met the threshold for the school board close it by the end of the year.
Boasberg said that the students were not learning at the rate they were required to learn in order to catch up and have the kind of opportunity in the future that they and their parents care about.
Bianchi, who had helped to organize the Thursday’s march said that “they live in a neighborhood where property is at a premium and a person cannot find that kind of space anywhere else, which is their biggest concern and they all had their own plans in that place.
Sixteen schools were independently reviewed, among which three schools Gilpin, Greenlee and Amesse Elementary were on the list to be shut down or drastically be improved.
As for the students studying in Gilpin, they have the option to transfer to other schools next academic year.
Based on low enrollment and how close Gilpin is to other schools, it was the only one voted to shut down.
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