REFUSE TO GO BACK

Community,

I encourage a “no” vote tonight on the staff recommendation to close Montbello Career and Technical High School because today and every day, I refuse to go back.

I refuse to go back to an era where a school board governs without the community and, more importantly, without our educators and students. I refuse to go back to an era where communities are ripped apart by the actions of seven, and by top-down approaches from the Superintendent and staff. I refuse to go back to an era where we say we value Black leaders but consider votes like this that would yet again rib another Black female leader without her ever having a seat at the table to define the problem and co-create a solution.

I am a pathway kid. My story is the story of those who currently attend MCT. When TJ closed its doors on me, PREP Academy opened theirs.

I understand the value of a pathway school that is small by design and having 1:1 support on core subjects. It was a pathway school that introduced me to my first Black core subject teacher. It was a pathway school that introduced me to Student Voice and Leadership; it was a pathway school that prepared me to serve on this Board and shatter the glass ceiling for people my age. This is why I refuse to go back.

When staff first posted its recommendation onto BoardDocs in October, I provided feedback to the Superintendent privately at that point. Several Board members, including myself, provided more feedback to the staff publicly when they formally presented the recommendation to us last week.

Part of the staff presentation revolved around the care DPS was providing for teachers, other employees and students at MCT. However, after listening to the MCT community at public comment on Monday, it became clear to me that those supports were identified by central staff alone, not with MCT educators or students.

Yesterday, Dr. Olson and I had a joint school visit where we could see the facility and meet with over 30 students and staff. These students shared with us why they decided to enroll at MCT. Each of them shared that their comprehensive traditional schools failed to meet their needs as individual students. Many of these students shared stories about wanting to drop out of school, before they knew about MCT.

One of the unique things that MCT offers is its automotive pathway, something that is not offered in any other school in the Far-Northeast. One gentleman we met is a new business owner and recent graduate from MCT and stated that this pathway saved him from dropping out of school. Because of this, I will be using his services in the future.

These are stories we did not hear in the staff presentation; these students are more than dollar signs, seat counts or data points, and they are why I refuse to go back!

Another part of the staff presentation revolved around the prior Board decisions that got us to this place: the Board voting to approve the school that is now Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy, the Board voting to support a temporary placement of the STEAM Academy alongside MCT. The definition of temporary is: lasting for only a limited period of time, not permanent. Each of those Board votes provided ample notice to staff that Robert F. STEAM Academy was a priority for this Board, given what is supposed to be a collective commitment to lifting up Black Excellence in the Denver Public Schools, which is why I refuse to go back.

Further, at no point did this Board vote that our support for Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy should be interpreted by staff as a lack of simultaneous support for Montbello Career and Technical High School.

A tool of white supremacy culture is encouraging people of color to fight with each other over the scraps a system decides to make available to us. It broke my heart on Monday to watch teachers, students, and families from MCT come before this Board, proverbially sing and dance for us, and try to convince us that they are worthy of scraps.

Let us not forget: all of the facility challenges the STEAM community raised with us on Monday — no library, no full kitchen, no bleachers in the gym, etc.. — is what the MCT community has lived with all along. And MCT is a school community filled with Black and brown students who are at MCT because our traditional schools did not serve them well.

As the staff presentation from last week showed, staff had nearly two years — from November 2020 until now — to work with these two school communities to co-create a solution not based in white supremacy mindsets.

The Denver Public Schools must be better than this.

I expect that staff will return to these communities, work shoulder-to-shoulder with them in a culturally appropriate and responsible manner, and come back to the Board with recommendations that do not employ or perpetuate tools of white supremacy culture because we all must REFUSE TO GO BACK!

Vice President Auon’tai M. Anderson