Denver Public Schools

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Denver Public Schools is the public school system in Denver, Colorado, United States.

The first school was a log cabin on the corner on 12th street between Market and Larimer streets that opened in 1859. Currently, DPS operates 73 elementary schools, 15 K-8 schools, 17 Middle Schools, 14 High Schools, and 19 Charter Schools. They also operate magnet programs and schools including the Denver School of the Arts, the Center for International Studies, the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, an International Baccalaureate program, a Highly Gifted and Talented Program, CEC Middle College of Denver, and others. DPS also operates the Balarat Program, an outdoor education, western history, and environmental studies program at a 720 acre site in the mountains northwest of Boulder [1].

In total, DPS educates approximately 73,000 students. The ethnic/racial composition of these students are:

American Indian: 1.2%
Asian: 3.1%
Black: 19.1%
Hispanic: 57.3%
White: 19.3%

The graduation rate of DPS students is 76.9% according to DPS' website. [2]. Other sources report far lower graduation rates, for example with a rate of 42.6% being reported for the year 2002 [3] by Harvard's Civil Rights project. The difference is explained in that the numbers reported by DPS use a cohort system that tracks a specific group of students from 9th to 12th grade (including students that leave the district) whereas the other statistics only report students that graduate within DPS. Thus, 76.9% of DPS students graduate from high school, but only 42.6% of DPS students receive a diploma from DPS.

There are 13,452 employees of DPS. 4,061 of them are teachers. [4]