Not only did Denver Public Schools kick cops off campus a couple of years ago – but it now turns out the district hasn’t bothered to track the number of kids with criminal records who attend class.

Which is to say Denver police aren’t welcome in the state’s largest school system, yet kids who have committed crimes – are. And no one at DPS has a clue how many.

It’s a startling revelation uncovered by The Gazette’s news team after it sought public records from the district recently for the number of students who had been in the juvenile justice system and had graduated, dropped out or still were attending school on an individual support plan. The plans are used in theory by teachers and school administrators to keep kids who have broken the law on the straight and narrow once they return to class.

It was one such student who carried out last week’s shooting of two administrators at Denver’s East High School. Both victims survived. Shooter Austin Lyle, 17, had been expelled from Cherry Creek Schools and was on probation for a gun charge. His individual support plan included daily pat-downs each morning as he arrived at East to make sure he wasn’t armed.

Authorities say it was during his morning pat-down by school administrators that he pulled out a gun and opened fire. Lyle then fled – there were no cops around, right? – and his body was found hours later in Park County, an apparent suicide.

But don’t expect DPS to know how many other kids attend class with criminal records. A district official told The Gazette via email, “The district does not maintain a report or a reporting system that could provide you with a responsive document.” Might some cases involve juvenile criminal histories similar to Lyle’s – with gun charges and other actions pointing to the potential for violence? Who knows? Not the district, that’s for sure.

The Gazette’s news staff had made its original records request prior to the East High School shooting. In response to a follow-up inquiry after the shooting, another district official reaffirmed DPS, “does not have a running tally.”

If the expulsion in June 2021 of 18 Denver police serving as school resource officers didn’t make parents fear for the security of their kids at Denver’s public schools, this latest development – in the wake of last week’s shooting – pretty much cinches it.

At least one member of Denver’s famously feckless school board – forced to eat crow and invite back Denver police amid public demand following last week’s shooting – seems oblivious to the enormity of the district’s information void on students with criminal histories. The board’s Auon’tai Anderson offered bureaucratic blather about how the district has to balance safety concerns with the right of students with criminal records to an education.

“It is an opportunity for us to reflect on how we are looking at all students who come in,” Anderson, the board’s vice president, told The Gazette.

Reflect? Not act immediately to tally up kids with criminal records who are in class?

Of course, it was Anderson who, in a fit of political posturing, had spearheaded the board vote in 2020 to oust Denver police from DPS schools in the first place. To Anderson, police are the threat – evidently more so than students who imperil their classmates.

While Anderson and other board members gaze into their navels, voters should take notes for next fall’s school board races. Denver’s school leadership is inept at keeping our kids safe. The district urgently needs a reboot.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board