Free Denver pilot program helps bus transfer students from Adams CountyTom Hellauer
tom.hellauer@denvergazette.comTomHellauer
tom.hellauer@denvergazette.com
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Twelve-year-old Leilani Villagomez takes ride share from Commerce City into Denver every morning to attend school.

On the drive, she plays on her cellphone.

She chats her friend, Carolyn Galicia, who is also commuting from Adams County 14 School District.

The sixth-grader attends Conservatory Green Middle School in northeast Denver, even though her Adams County 14 school in Commerce City is within walking distance of her home.

She’s not alone.

More than 400 students within the Adams 14 boundary attended Denver Public Schools last school year, according to the most recent state data.

Not all of these Adams County students qualify for a program that makes a ride share free.

Only students attending the lowest-performing schools in Adams 14 qualify for Bright Rides, said Nicholas Martinez, executive director and co-founder of Transform Education Now (TEN).

TEN helps to daily shuttle about 20 Adams 14 transfer students into Denver.

The need, though, is greater.

Adams 14 has struggled with low academic student performance since at least 2010, when the state first started using its accountability system.

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Last school year, Adams 14 lost about 3,120 of its students to other school districts, earning the unenviable distinction of having the seventh highest rate of student loss in the state, Colorado Department of Education (CDE) data shows.

“I think the biggest thing we see as a problem in Commerce City, in Adams 14, is that any change effort is going to take a long time, Martinez said. “We’ve got to come to some sort of solution today.”

Nathan Boughton, an Adams 14 spokesperson, declined to comment for this story.

‘I was at my wits end’

TEN is a subsidiary of the nonprofit, 50Can, a network of local leaders that collaborate to improve education systems.

Last summer – in partnership with RootED, which helps fund community-based organizations – TEN was awarded $1.2 million state grant. TEN began shuttling Adams 14 students into Denver in the fall.

Villagomez’ grandmother, Leona Pacheco, just stumbled on the program.

“Nick found me,” Pacheco said, tears welling in her eyes. “It was literally a sign from God. I was at my wits end.”

Pacheco is raising Villagomez less than a mile from Adams City Middle School, one of the five campuses that qualify for the program with Transform Education Now.

Pacheco felt helpless.

Her granddaughter, Pacheco said, drew the ire of some schoolhouse bullies and was too afraid to walk to school.

“The girls were brutal,” Pacheco said.

For weeks, she watched her granddaughter’s grades gradually slip.

“The school just got worse and worse,” Pacheco said.

She and her granddaughter looked at three different Denver schools before settling on Conservatory Green.

Villagomez has been attending Green since February.

“They teach better,” Villagomez said of her new Denver teachers.

And then Villagomez added, “They don’t quit on us.”

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‘We help to fill gaps’

For the past decade, Adams 14 has received the state’s lowest performance ratings.

Last year, the state board last year voted to reorganize the district – stripping it of its autonomy – and remove its accreditation, which was later reinstated because of the additional challenges removing it had created.

Adams 14 is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against CDE over whether the State Board of Education has the final say when directing low-performing improvement.

This is the first case that seeks to block state intervention.

In the meantime, Martinez with Transform Education Now, worries about what happens to the Adams 14 students caught in the middle.

That’s the genius, Martinez said, of the Bright Rides program using drivers with HopSkipDrive.

Based in Los Angeles and formed in 2014 by three working moms, HopSkipDrive partners with school districts and counties to provide an alternative to school transportation.

HopSkipDrive has facilitated 2 million rides in roughly a dozen states, including about 50 partnerships in Colorado, said Campbell Millum, a company spokesperson.

“We help to fill gaps in student transportation needs,” Millum said.

Reversing the Adams 14 trend, Martinez said, will take years that today’s students don’t have.

“Turn around is going to take years,” Martinez said. “If you’re a student today, what happens to you?”