By Eric Hübler
Denver Post Education Writer

Post / Lyn Alweis Students leave the Westerly Creek side of an elementary school building that also houses the Odyssey Charter. The DPS campus, which opened in August, is across from homes going up in the Stapleton area.

The developers of the former Stapleton Airport are embarking on a grand social experiment to reverse suburban flight and encourage people of different ethnic groups and income levels to mingle in the city.

First, they need to do something educators have been trying to accomplish for 30 years: transform Denver Public Schools from sore point to selling point.

With $4 billion of housing on the line, Stapleton's master developer, Forest City Inc. of Cleveland, wants to persuade people to move back to the city for the schools.

"We're not aware of anything (else) that incorporates a whole social agenda. It's very unique," said Brian Weber, who heads education initiatives for the Stapleton Foundation.

Forest City and Denver-based Gary Williams Co. created the foundation to turn northeast Denver into a laboratory for improving existing public schools and creating new ones. The models planned or already in use read like a dictionary of school-reform buzzwords: Big Picture. Core Knowledge. Expeditionary Learning. Tri-Academy.

The schools offer something for everyone, whether the person wants small classes, help for at-risk kids, an extra-challenging academic program or an emphasis on science.

"Forest City has an incentive to sell houses and make money, and they know that families are interested in high-quality schools, and so I think for them, it impacts their bottom line. And I think that helps," said Van Schoales, vice president of education initiatives at the Colorado Children's Campaign.

Nor does the effort stop at Stapleton's boundaries. The foundation is reaching into what it calls the "ring schools" of the largely African-American areas nearby.

"While Stapleton provides great housing and recreational opportunities, the interest of the foundation is connecting those opportunities to the surrounding neighborhoods so that Stapleton is not a gated community," said Mary Gittings Cronin, chair of the foundation's education committee.

One consistent theme is smallness of scale. Stapleton's high school will be the first in DPS created as a campus of small schools rather than one big structure.

Even existing schools, built when bigger was assumed to be better, are embracing the new emphasis on smallness. The Stapleton Foundation and others gave $140,000 to help Smiley Middle School become a "tri-academy" of three focused academic tracks.

One of them, International Preparatory, offers some competition to the south side's Hamilton Middle, which is one of Denver's highest-rated middle schools largely because of its IP magnet, which prepares students for the rigorous International Baccalaureate program at George Washington High.

The foundation also helped open Skyland Community High School, which is modeled on The Met, a school for at-risk teens in Providence, R.I.

Skyland is in the Urban League building in a warehouse zone about a mile from Stapleton, and it feels more like a clubhouse than a schoolhouse, with students dropping in to use computers and talk with advisers.

Skyland ninth-grader Aaron Sanders, 14, views the foundation's role in starting his school as a sincere effort to aid black and Hispanic Denver.

"I think everybody in Park Hill does see it as something that's bringing some good back to the community," he said.

Skyland helped Aaron get an internship with the Denver Police Activities League that, he says, changed his life. He calls himself a "junior junior cop" and plans to become a police officer. He's sure he couldn't have navigated the big-school atmosphere of East High, his home school.

"If I was going to East, I wouldn't be going to East," he said. "I'd be at home."

Most of the schools planned for Stapleton haven't broken ground yet, but the first two opened in August. All schools will be part of the DPS district.

DPS made educational history by erecting a single building to house both a district-run school, Westerly Creek Elementary, and a charter school, Odyssey, which relocated there. School officials say it's the only such combo in Colorado and possibly the country.

Westerly Creek principal Trish Kuhn calls it the "Dharma & Greg" school, a reference to the odd-couple sitcom, because her side uses Core Knowledge, which emphasizes facts, while Odyssey Charter down the hall uses Expeditionary Learning, which incorporates outdoor adventures.

The schools - together called the Westerly Creek Campus - are being closely watched as a gauge of whether Stapleton's vision of genuine integration can come true.

"We favor economic integration, and that usually means racial integration," Weber said.

This year, 35 percent of kids at Westerly Creek and 51 percent of students at Odyssey are white. That means the new schools more closely represent Denver than the average DPS school.

While Denver's population is about half white, a bit less than 20 percent of DPS students are white.

School board member Elaine Gantz Berman has criticized Odyssey for not recruiting enough nonwhites, a charge Schoales - once Odyssey's principal - rejects.

"I'd even make the argument that the school is one of the most diverse schools in Denver," he said.

The campus' relative integration can surprise parents. Kuhn said "one or two" white parents removed their kids because they had black classmates and put them in nonpublic schools.

"To go to a private or parochial school out of racial reasons is just shocking," she said.

The parents didn't hide their motivation, Kuhn said. "They said, 'We're not comfortable with the diversity.' They didn't couch it. They came out and said it."

Most local parents, by contrast, moved from old neighborhoods such as Park Hill or Montclair so they could live in a new house but send their kids to integrated schools, Kuhn said.

"Most of the people here are here because they love diversity," she said.

Nine-year-old Sedona Rigsby said that at Westerly Creek - where, being white, she is in the minority for the first time - everyone gets along.

The fourth-grader's parents, Jody and Wayne Rigsby, moved to Stapleton from Evergreen hoping she could attend Denver School of the Arts in the sixth grade.

"Up in Evergreen, the focus is nature; here the focus is people," Jody Rigsby said. "That's a huge difference for us. I like it. And the kids where we came from are more sheltered."

Gliding home on her push scooter with her mom at her side, Sedona could be a commercial for Stapleton. She said she feels comfortable in Denver, even though her Evergreen friends listened to Britney Spears while Bow Wow is in vogue at Westerly Creek.

"Everyone's nice to me, and I'm nice to everyone," she said.

NEW AND IMPROVED NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS

The Stapleton Foundation is coordinating grants to help start or improve public schools in and around the former airport site.

'Ring schools' near Stapleton:

Ashley Elementary: New computers to aid literacy instruction.

Hallett Elementary: Revive school's focus on science.

Philips Elementary: Expand early-childhood education.

Smith Elementary: Revive school's focus on arts.

Smiley Middle: Converted to "Tri-Academy" of International Preparatory, science and arts tracks.

Skyland Community High: Small charter school for at-risk teens.

Schools at Stapleton:

Westerly Creek Campus: Structure shared by Westerly Creek Elementary and Odyssey Charter opened in August.

Denver School of Science and Technology: Charter high school backed by private funders to open in August 2004 at Montview Boulevard and Valentia Street. Forest City donated the land, and Denver voters approved $5 million for construction in a recent bond election. Must enroll 40 percent poor students and 45 percent girls.

Second DPS school: A K-8 school to open at Montview Boulevard and Yosemite Street in 2006. No program chosen yet. Will incorporate 'sustainable' architectural elements, such as a windmill, geothermal heating and daylighting.

DPS high school: A cluster of three small schools (with shared gym, lunchroom and library) to open north of Interstate 70 in 2008. Voters approved $4 million for land acquisition in November; construction funds may be sought in a 2006 bond election.

Depending on Stapleton's growth, three more elementary or K-8 schools may be built over the next 20 years.