Denver Public Schools have a lot of pans in the fire.

Three low-performing schools could be shut down, the performance of our charter schools are being closely watched by those in Washington, and now they're going to have to push back the recommendations for what to do about Stapleton.

There have already been meetings and focus groups and census taking with Stapleton residents, but we're not close to a final decision.

In a letter to the Stapleton Community Education Coalition, Ethan Hemming, the DPS/Stapleton project lead references the above and states:

"The district recommendations for Stapleton that were scheduled to be presented to the Board of Education on November 2, will now be presented on November 9. Therefore, the Stapleton community meeting originally scheduled for November 4th will be held on November 10th at 6:30 pm at Bill Roberts School...

"We have listened to this community with the help of your state, city and school leaders along with many tireless volunteers and have taken the census data, survey data, focus group data, CSC meeting results and the many individual communications into consideration to develop a plan that is best for the children of Stapleton and the surrounding areas...

The objectives for the community meeting on November 10th are to provide an update on the funding status and development of the 3rd Stapleton school and to describe the near term (2010-11) capacity solutions recommended to the Board of Education. In addition, we will describe the process going forward for continued parent and community involvement in shaping our shared educational plan."

Some of the short-term fixes include:

-Some reduction of Early Childhood Education service (highly likely that service for 3 year olds will not be provided at Westerly Creek and Bill Roberts);

-Relocation of Early Childhood Education service (in some manner, likely via an “ECE center”);

-Use of modular classrooms (highly unlikely for 2010-11 but likely in subsequent years);

-Use of a seed school.

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To read the entire letter and see what else is going on, join the Facebook group "Stapleton Community Education Coalition".