Black and Brown Families Feel "Ignored" By DPS, Say Safety Plan Caters to White Students

With Denver Public Schools set to make significant updates to its district-wide security and security policies ahead of the 2023-24 academic year, Black and brown neighborhood members state their ideas and voices are falling on deaf ears, and that the city is just dealing with white students and households.

" In basic, this process has actually been very discouraging, because it has neglected Brown and black voices," stated one woman throughout a May 9 neighborhood feedback session for the initial draft of the DPS Long-Term Safety Plan, held at Abraham Lincoln High School and hosted by DPS Latino Education Advisory Council representative Valerie Bustamante.

Households of Brown and black students throughout DPS are currently rushing to have their issues about the policy modifications heard in a discussion that has centered around East High School, according to advocates. Some neighborhood members feel that both suggested and current security modifications have come about despite hesitation and opposition from Black and brown residents.

Another assertion made by local neighborhood members is that the push to implement the new security plan has actually been driven by "white moms and dads" in the wake of the March 22 shooting that decreased at East High, while violence in other parts of Denver-- where higher varieties of Brown and black trainees go to school-- has actually long been overlooked.

Bustamante says. And why not northeast Black and brown families?"

Among Bustamantes greatest challenges today has been to search for a way to set up the concerns she has spoken with her neighborhood with the DPS security strategy and citys decision making. Shes in charge of providing the feedback she gathers to the superintendent.

The primary source of contention is the plans proposed security modifications, along with updates that have already been put into place.

One day after Austin Lyle shot and hurt East High deans Wayne Mason and Eric Sinclair and later devoted suicide, the Denver Public School Board sent out a memo to Superintendent Alex Marrero, directing him to "develop a systemic Long-Term Safety Operational Plan." According to the memo, Marrero must likewise "engage in extensive community engagement with students, instructors, parents, families, school leaders, and others in cooperation with the Board."

Marrero launched a first draft of the plan on May 1. The final version needs to be supplied to the school board "no later than June 30," enabling two months of community engagement and feedback.

Bustamante, one of the people entrusted with gathering community feedback to require to Superintendent Marrero, says she needed to act quickly in between the draft being launched on May 1 and a Superintendent Advisory Council feedback session on May 11.

" I think its hard to get authentic neighborhood feedback when we only have a week to prepare an occasion," she informs Westword.

Bustamante represents the Latino Education Advisory Council on the Superintendent Advisory Council, which is comprised of agents "from the district's existing advisory councils, Denver School Leaders Association, Denver Classroom Teachers Association, Students Demand Action, the charter collaborative council, Parents Safety Advocacy Group and the Transition Team that supported the production of the Strategic Roadmap," according to DPS.

Bustamante says she sees the advantages of DPS trying to implement change rapidly due to the continuing security issues the neighborhood deals with. She praises East High moms and dads and the continuous activism theyve been showing, saying that since of them, "DPS resembled, Yes, we need to get on something."

She has actually likewise seen the outrage from people in her neighborhood who believe DPS is being reactionary in its decision making, especially when it comes to school resource officers, or SROs. She keeps in mind that LEAC formed just recently, in the start of April.

" We have actually not established bylaws; we have not developed management," she says. Im simply a representative thats doing the safety strategy."

Groups like the Black Family Advisory Council and Asian Education Advisory Council currently existed in the district; LEAC was formed to represent the a great deal of Latino community members. And while it was not created particularly to provide the Latino community a voice in the development of the district-wide safety plan, it happened at a suitable time.

In 2022, Hispanic students made up a clear majority of all DPS trainees at 51.7 percent of the registered population, according to DPS. White trainees make up the second-largest population block with only 25.3 percent of the population.

Had actually LEAC not been established before the creation of the Superintendent Advisory Council, it would not have a representative for the present community feedback process. Bustamante says the Latino neighborhood would have discovered another way to be included.

" I think organizations would have stepped up and would have made their voices heard," she states.

Bustamante, who works a full-time job and is a new mom in addition to her brand-new role as a representative for LEAC, says the brief timeline is the most difficult part of the process.

Prior to the March 22 shooting at East, sixteen-year-old student Luis Garcia was shot and fatally wounded in his vehicle simply outside the school on February 13. The occurrence reignited a discussion around the Denver school boards 2020 decision to eliminate school resource officers (SROs) from the district. After the Lyle shooting, the superintendent and school board made the questionable decision to bring SROs back into DPS high schools.

Black and brown homeowners feel the relocation was a "slap in the face" to neighborhood members who had been working for years to keep armed officers out of class.

" For thirty years, the neighborhood has arranged to remove SROs," said the woman who commented at the neighborhood feedback session on May 9 at Lincoln High School.

One student in the crowd stated that she has white buddies who go to other schools who support the return of SROs. "We from low-income neighborhoods understand we are going to be criminalized," she preserved.

The draft of the citys security plan proposes that SROs be permitted to stay in DPS schools completely, however states that it must be up to each individual high school to decide whether they want one on campus.

The consensus of the space on May 9-- jam-packed with students and households from the Latino community-- was clear: no SROs.

Many people likewise differed with the reality that the citys security strategy proposes a number of different kinds of armed security officers to be present, including DPD police officers, SROs and DPS Department of Safety officers. They want to see the money for those positions instead be put towards mental health resources.

Bustamante pushed back as well, keeping in mind that the basic feedback she had gotten during the outreach shed done prior to the meeting revealed a wariness regarding the extreme amount of proposed security. She warned that the district might implement the security measures anyhow, and asked that locals come up with ideas for what they want services to look like if that ends up being the case.

Reviewing the meeting, Bustamante discusses, "Its very simple to be in this area and say, Yes, we will advocate for that"-- referring to the clear opposition to SROs that she has actually heard. But "we need to team up with all the other agents," she includes.

" Its difficult," she concludes. "Its hard because at the end of the day, it does look like something that occurred in one central area is affecting the entire district."