DENVER — East High School students will be back at school this week, and parents want to know what will be different this time around.
A group of East High parents created the Parent Safety Advocacy Group in order to keep the school district honest.
Steve Katsaros said he and other parents started the group just days after two East High staff members were shot, police say, by a student who then died by suicide.
"We now stand 560 strong in our member group," Katsaros said at a news conference Monday. "We just want to restore the East that we know, and we're going to get there."
Dozens of parents joined Katsaros for the first Make-Change Monday. They plan to meet every Monday outside of East to demand transparency and support.
This week the group demanded the district release a school safety plan before East High students return to school Wednesday.
"Our community has been transformed by these recent traumatic events," parent Sri Viswanath said. "Our children are afraid to go to school this Wednesday and we're still afraid to send them to school."
While the group started with East, the problem doesn't end with East. Amy Murch, a parent of a McAuliffe International School student, also joined the group.
"If they have to pat down the student every day, that tells me that it’s not safe," she said.
Murch kept her kid from school Monday out of safety concerns. Parents were recently made aware that a student charged with attempted first-degree murder was attending McAuliffe.
"It was terrifying after what happened here at East the exact same thing could happen at McAuliffe and it could be worse," she said as she held a sign that read "safety first." "We just don’t want to have our kids to have to go through this type of trauma."
These parents know there is not one answer, but they'd like a seat at the table with those searching for solutions.
"If some people don't have a sense of urgency, we do, because we are the ones who will miss them at night when they cannot come home, and that is not the way that you're supposed to grow up, here or anywhere," parent Astrid Ruiz said. "In two days our kids are coming back. What is going to be different?"
Among the group's demands was that the Board of Education stop its practice of holding meetings in executive session. Executive session is fairly common for school boards when they discuss legal, safety or personnel matters.
"Executive sessions are crucial to elected governing boards as they allow for the private discussion of sensitive and confidential issues which are unable to happen in a public setting," school board president Xóchitl Gaytán said in a statement in response. "Without executive sessions public boards would be unable to discuss privileged information which would hinder their ability to effectively govern their organization. While we understand the desire for further transparency, eliminating the use of executive sessions is not currently under consideration."
Denver Public Schools released the following statement:
"East High School will be returning with an additional campus safety officer (CSO) and school resource officer (SRO) presence. In addition, Dr. Marrero and several other school administrators have been working intimately with East HS faculty to address personal safety concerns and the internal safety climate of the school. We are currently working internally to provide more resources to address these recent trauma events with our mental health team and an expansion of mental and emotional health opportunities (at school, in the district and remotely via telehealth) to ensure that our students and faculty remain supported at this time.
"We look forward to the community feedback tonight with our families and more faculty as we collaborate and problem solve for a better, safer East High School and DPS."
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