A year after East High School shooting, some parents concerned Denver Public Schools hasn't made policy changes public
For years, East High School's reputation has attracted students. Ken McDonald moved his family to Denver so his son could attend.
"You know, we certainly knew that East had a great academic reputation, we'd heard good things about the sports as well. And just, you know, the teacher involvement," McDonald said about their decision.
In his son's first year, there were several violent incidents.
East High student Luis Garcia was shot and killed just outside of the school.
There were multiple swatting calls and on March 22, 2023, a student shot wounded two deans in a shooting and later killed himself.
"I mean, we never expected to learn so much about security at you know a major public school. But as we dug in. We certainly were dismayed at some of the things that seemed to not be happening," McDonald said.
Heather Lamm, whose son was a senior at the time of the shooting, was among the parents who asked questions and raised concerns about the district's discipline matrix.
Those policies allowed students with violent offenses, which include weapons violations to return to school.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing has changed on the discipline matrix," Lamm said.
While Superintendent Alex Marrero announced they would be forming a committee to help create a new discipline matrix, but Lamm says parents have been given no updates on what that looks like.
"We have the same number of kids who are going through pat-downs, we have the same number of kids who are in a big general population high school, who have documented history of weapons violation or criminal history," she said.
Denver Public Schools did return armed school resource officers to some of their buildings, but still parents say they've seen many students and families leaving.
A look at enrollment at East High School shows at the start of last school year, the number of students enrolled was at 2,565 students and has dropped to 2,421 in just one month after the shooting.
One year later, enrollment is down another 75 students.
"That has been hard. My son, he was just blown away by how many decided to change schools over the summer. So yeah, that was certainly difficult. And you know it did put a little seed of doubt of like, 'why am I coming back?'" McDonald said.
For Lamm, the last year has left her questioning the district.
"We didn't trust that it was going to be getting better, we thought it was going to get worse and so we pulled our daughter out," she said.
When asked about the declining enrollment numbers at East and the status of the new discipline matrix, a spokesperson for DPS said they have not looked into the reason for the decline and couldn't comment but said:
"The work on the discipline matrix is still ongoing. It is expected to be completed this summer."
