While much attention was paid to the board’s final decision on new programs for the 2015 school year, the board took a few votes on other key issues at their meeting last night. Here’s a rundown:
- The city’s new high school campus in the Northfield Stapleton neighborhood, north of Interstate 70, will be named after the late civic leader and politician Paul Sandoval. More than a dozen friends and family members — including former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar — spoke in favor of naming the new campus, which will be built with 2012 voter-approved bond money, after Sandoval. Sandoval died in 2012 after battling pancreatic cancer. One family who plans to attend the high school spoke out on the naming process. They accused the board of ignoring the community’s input in favor of honoring one of their own.
- The board also approved the attendance boundary lines for the high school on a 6-1 vote. Board member Arturo Jimenez said the boundaries don’t go far enough in creating equal opportunities for the city’s students of color — which is what the committee that drew the lines set out to do.
- Passed with unanimous support was an agreement between the district and the city’s teachers union. The update to the teachers contract includes two extra workdays to be added to the calendar by the 2015 school year. The district agreed to a 1.2 percent bump in compensation. Denver will also provide its teachers with a $750 health subsidy and match the first $250 a teacher contributes to a health savings account.