News Release
September 28, 2005
Austin Visitors Will Visit CEC Middle College Of Denver Oct. 3 To Learn About Reinventing High School Education
A delegation of more than 100 elected officials, business and community leaders from Austin, Texas, will visit the CEC Middle College of Denver high school from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3 as part of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce InterCity visit.
The chamber selected the Mile High City because Austin and Denver often are compared with each other. Delegates will learn how Denver already has addressed issues that Austin currently faces.
During their visit to the CEC Middle College, delegates will hear about the unique partnership between Denver Public Schools and Community College of Denver (CCD) - a partnership that is pushing students to succeed and to finish at least one year of an associate's degree before they graduate from high school. DPS and CCD also partner at Southwest Early College, a charter school co-located on the Teikyo Loretto Heights University Campus with CCD Southwest.
CCD President Christine Johnson, DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet and CEC Principal Scott Springer will describe how CEC became one of the top-performing high schools in Denver based on test scores and graduation rates, which were 100 percent in the 2002-2003 school year.
CEC juniors and seniors started taking college classes at CCD last year and now have become a regular part of the student body. They have their own classroom space on the Auraria Campus, where students take some of their high school curriculum when they are not in their college classes.
Middle college students must have a minimum 2.5 grade point average and good references from several teachers before they can apply. In 2003-2004, 52 percent of middle college students were Latino, 31 percent were white and 13 percent African American. At least 42 percent qualified for free and reduced-price lunch.
To learn more about the middle college, visit www.dosomethingreal.com.
The CEC Middle College of Denver is located at 2650 Eliot St. The school's telephone number is 720-423-6600.