McAuliffe principal firing creating chilling impact, Denver educators say

Natalie Barrios mentioned her colleagues have been apprehensive about her taking the microphone at a rally Tuesday in help of fired McAuliffe Worldwide Faculty Principal Kurt Dennis.

“They’re apprehensive that talking out will backfire on us,” mentioned Barrios, the athletic director and evaluation coordinator on the Denver center college, who mentioned she considers Dennis a buddy and mentor.

Dennis was fired final week within the aftermath of a televised March interview he did with 9News expressing issues about gun violence and college security.

Present and former Denver Public Faculties employees say Dennis’ removing displays a brand new lack of tolerance for dissent at a time when self-discipline and security insurance policies are beneath intense scrutiny after a capturing inside East Excessive Faculty this spring. 

Dennis, in the meantime, is gearing as much as battle his dismissal with a grievance and a lawsuit. He’s most upset, although, that the timing means a faculty neighborhood he cherishes has little time to discover a new chief earlier than the college 12 months begins. 

“Ready till the center of July to do that was actually punitive,” Dennis mentioned in an interview Wednesday. “It’s not truthful to the children or our employees. That half actually bothers me. It’s one factor for those who’ve bought a bone to select with me and also you need me gone, however to take it out on the children and my lecturers simply to me feels prefer it’s not a really student-centered method.”

In a letter to employees final week, Superintendent Alex Marrero mentioned accusations that Dennis was fired for talking up have been “100% false,” in accordance with a duplicate of the letter obtained by Chalkbeat. Reasonably, Marrero mentioned, Dennis was terminated for sharing non-public scholar data. 

Dennis had expressed issues within the 9News interview about McAuliffe Worldwide employees being required to pat down a scholar who was accused of tried homicide.

In his letter, Marrero referenced a 2022 district memo that mentioned principals ought to hold any issues about district insurance policies or selections inside and report them solely to their supervisors.

“As a company devoted to steady enchancment, we cherish the suggestions we obtain from our leaders, even whether it is typically onerous to listen to,” Marrero wrote within the letter.

The impression of Dennis’ firing is being felt past McAuliffe Worldwide. Two not too long ago retired DPS principals mentioned they fear it’s going to have a chilling impact on the speech of different DPS employees. 

“I really feel like everybody must be on watch,” mentioned Suzanne Morris-Sherer, a longtime DPS educator who retired earlier this 12 months as principal of McAuliffe Guide, the sister center college to McAuliffe Worldwide. “That’s not a great way to really feel.”

John Youngquist, the previous principal of East Excessive who’s now working for a seat on the Denver college board, mentioned the timing of Dennis’ firing “lends to leaders having much less confidence in what their standing may be and what their state of affairs may be. We retain management after they believe that individuals consider in them they usually’re being invested in.”

In a press release, DPS mentioned it adopted its regular course of for terminating an worker. “It is very important be aware that not all worker self-discipline knowledge can be publicly recognized or shared with different college leaders,” the assertion mentioned.

The principals union has filed a grievance

The Denver Faculty Leaders Affiliation filed a grievance Tuesday alleging that Dennis’ termination violated the method outlined in an settlement between DPS and the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, which oversees McAuliffe Worldwide and two different faculties, in accordance with a duplicate of the grievance obtained by Chalkbeat.

Innovation zones are teams of semi-autonomous public faculties. The colleges are ruled by a separate zone board of administrators, however their lecturers and principals stay DPS workers, which might create confusion over who’s in cost. An settlement between the zone and DPS says the district received’t take away principals with out searching for the zone’s approval.

However zone leaders mentioned they have been blindsided by Dennis’ firing. Along with the grievance, the zone’s board of administrators despatched a letter to DPS Tuesday. It says that if DPS doesn’t admit it acted improperly, the zone board will invoke its proper beneath state regulation to have a impartial third social gathering evaluate the firing, in accordance with a duplicate of the letter obtained by Chalkbeat.

Ulcca Joshi Hansen, a McAuliffe mother or father and zone board member who’s additionally working for a seat on the Denver college board, mentioned Dennis’ firing is “a sign that the district will not be working because it ought to. That issues are arbitrary. That issues could be capricious. That we are able to’t belief the processes. The neighborhood — this says to them, ‘Properly, yeah, you don’t matter.’”

A Denver Public Faculties spokesperson mentioned Wednesday that the district can’t touch upon the grievance as a result of it’s a personnel challenge. 

Dennis’ lawyer, David Lane, mentioned he’s planning to file a lawsuit on Dennis’ behalf after the grievance performs out “alleging retaliation for First Modification free speech.”

The Denver college board is ready to vote subsequent month on whether or not to simply accept Dennis’ termination. Such votes are often routine and advantage no dialogue. However this one might be completely different.

District alleges disparate self-discipline

In March, Dennis gave the televised interview to station 9News wherein he expressed issues about his employees having to look college students for weapons, together with the coed who was accused of tried homicide. He mentioned the district had blocked McAuliffe’s makes an attempt to switch the coed to a web based college or expel the coed.

Just a few days earlier than the interview, an East Excessive scholar shot and injured two deans throughout a seek for weapons. The search was a part of a security plan developed as a result of directors feared the East scholar, Austin Lyle, may pose a menace. Lyle had a previous weapons cost. 

Dennis informed 9News he was talking out as a result of dad and mom deserved to know that the weapons searches occurring at East have been occurring at different faculties, too, and that “it must cease.”

The East capturing sparked intense debate and requires change. The college board voted final month to reverse its ban on police in faculties, and Marrero launched a brand new security plan that requires armed security officers to assist college employees with weapons searches.

Dennis’ lawyer Lane informed 9News that DPS put Dennis beneath investigation after the televised interview, which didn’t title the coed accused of tried homicide. 

However a DPS investigator concluded that Dennis “divulged confidential scholar and authorized data” within the interview, which violated district coverage, put DPS at authorized danger, and triggered the coed to be singled out and ostracized, in accordance with a doc offered to Chalkbeat.

The investigator additionally concluded that Dennis “repeatedly tried to take away a younger scholar of shade from McAuliffe Worldwide,” regardless of being informed removing “was not out there or applicable.” Within the wake of the East capturing, district leaders have repeatedly defended a coverage that college students going through prison prices can attend their common faculties so long as a choose has determined the coed could be out locally and never behind bars.

A July 3 letter informing Dennis that he was terminated cited these findings, in accordance with a duplicate of the letter offered to Chalkbeat. The letter additionally cited “a sample of administrative actions” that had a damaging impression on college students with disabilities and college students of shade. 

Extra particularly, an investigator discovered that McAuliffe Worldwide’s “overuse of out-of-school suspensions … was having a disparate impression on college students of shade,” the letter mentioned.

Information reveals McAuliffe not alone

McAuliffe Worldwide is the district’s largest center college with practically 1,500 college students, and one among its most numerous. Within the 2022-23 college 12 months, McAuliffe issued 106 out-of-school suspensions for a fee of seven%, in accordance with knowledge obtained by Chalkbeat in a public data request.

That’s a decrease fee than many different giant Denver center faculties. Hamilton Center Faculty had a suspension fee of 26%, whereas Skinner Center Faculty had a fee of twenty-two%. Lake Center Faculty had a fee of 12%, and Merrill Center Faculty had a fee of 10.5%.

Racial disparities in self-discipline did exist at McAuliffe Worldwide final 12 months. The info reveals 14% of McAuliffe college students have been Black, however 30% of the suspensions have been issued to Black college students. 

The identical kind of disparity existed for Black college students at Hamilton and Merrill, although not at Lake. Skinner had too few Black college students to calculate a proportion.

Colleen O’Brien, the chief director of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone and Dennis’ direct supervisor, mentioned McAuliffe was conscious of the self-discipline disparity and was taking steps to handle it, together with hiring a brand new part-time employees member to mentor boys of shade.

She additionally identified that college students of shade at McAuliffe Worldwide scored increased than college students of shade districtwide in each literacy and math on state checks final 12 months.

O’Brien referred to as Dennis’ termination “a shock” and mentioned the timing “is unbelievable to me.”

O’Brien mentioned that in her opinion, because the particular person chargeable for conducting Dennis’ annual evaluations, his efficiency as a principal didn’t warrant being fired.

“I might not have terminated him, no,” she mentioned.

Supporters need Dennis again at McAuliffe

On Tuesday night, a whole bunch of oldsters, college students, and neighborhood members gathered exterior McAuliffe Worldwide earlier than a wall of tv information cameras to rally for Dennis’ return. The rally was organized by Denver college board candidate Kwame Spearman. A lot of the crowd was white. However a number of audio system have been employees or alumni of shade. 

Shemar Magee was a scholar when McAuliffe Worldwide opened in 2012. He mentioned Dennis, the founding principal, all the time promoted doing the proper factor and “swiftly corrected” any unkindness. Magee mentioned he left McAuliffe a stronger scholar and have become the primary particular person in his household to graduate school and go on to graduate college.

“With out Kurt, the little small boy who walked by these doorways in 2012 wouldn’t be standing right here at the moment doing massive issues that he by no means thought he may do,” Magee mentioned.

Barrios, the college’s athletic director, mentioned it was Dennis who inspired her to take a job within the public faculties 20 years in the past when she was a younger single mother. 

“It has been my aim to ensure my youngsters are higher than me,” Barrios mentioned. “However I had to try this by displaying them you must work onerous and have integrity. Kurt taught me that.”

Barrios’ daughter, Cecilia Pablo, additionally spoke. A former McAuliffe Worldwide scholar who now works on the college with college students studying English as a second language, Pablo mentioned Dennis — who she calls “Nice Uncle Kurt” — has been a job mannequin for her.

“I’m proud to say I broke the cycle of teenage being pregnant and am the primary in my household to graduate school with a level in social work,” Pablo mentioned. “If it weren’t for the alternatives and doorways Mr. Dennis opened for my household and I, we’d not be the place we’re at the moment.”

Prateeti Khazanie, whose son shall be in eighth grade at McAuliffe Worldwide this fall, stood within the crowd and listened to the speeches. She mentioned she disagrees that the college is an unwelcome place for college kids of shade like her son. Dennis’ firing, she mentioned, was flawed.

“This appears like retaliation,” she mentioned.

For his half, Dennis mentioned in an interview that he needs one factor most.

“I’d like my job again,” he mentioned. “I need to be with my youngsters and my employees. I need to get this college 12 months off to an awesome begin.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, overlaying Denver Public Faculties. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.