Denver School Board urged to postpone school year over 2008 DNC security concerns

Fearing the worst, security officials from Denver Public Schools and the city and county of Denver urged the Denver school board Monday to postpone the start of the school year until after Labor Day when the Democratic National Convention will be over.

"We want to hope for the best but we have to plan for the worst," said Ed Ray, chief of DPS security. "It would be very prudent if we could accomodate the delayed start to the school year."

The school board will set next year's calendar Jan. 24. The district has delivered surveys to parents and teachers, asking for their input on two separate calendars -- one that begins before Labor Day and one that begins after.

On Monday, Ray and Justin DeMello, director of Denver's Office of Emergency Management, asked the school board to postpone the start.

The Democratic National Convention is Aug. 25-28 at the Pepsi Center. A number of schools are within a mile of the Pepsi Center, and the Emily Griffith Opportunity School is in the immediate downtown core area that will be affected by the convention.

For seven years, DPS has started school in mid-August. The early start allows students more time to prepare for standardized tests and finish the semester at the winter break, officials say.

But Ray and DeMello said there will be increased auto and pedestrian traffic downtown. Plus, if any problems result, students could be affected, Ray said.

"We don't know the threats," he said. "But there is going to be disruption. Any DPS facilty in the area will have disruption."

Any major incident involving the convention would affect the schools, because evey city resource would be called in to assist, Ray said. That could leave the schools vulnerable. Plus, parents would likely rush to their children's schools, which would create even more problems, he said.

Schools also would be offered as alternate care sites if there were mass casualities, he said.

DeMello and Ray said they had developed plans if school was in session or if it was out.

"We're going to be good either way," DeMello said.

Some school board members wondered if having students in school would be a better because they would be in a safe and secure space, rather than possibly being in harms way if they were in the convention area if a problem occurred.

Board member Jill Conrad wondered whether student achievement would be impacted by the late start. But board vice president Michelle Moss said safety should be the No. 1 concern.

"I can't imagine we would ever put our kids at risk," she said. "We've got to be sure we are keeping our kids safe."

Board member Bruce Hoyt countered saying that the risk is too low to even be a factor in considering a delay.

"You can overreact," he said. "The safest option is to home school everybody. We just have to balnce it a little bit and find out what other districts are doing."

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