FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 4, 2005	CONTACTS: Denise Hudson Director of Development (Direct) 303-320-5570 (Cell) 303-249-0455 (E-mail) denise.hudson@scienceandtech.org
Governor Owens Led Students in the Official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the Denver School of Science and Technology Stapleton Site
(Denver) Governor Bill Owens joined students, parents, faculty and administrators from the Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST) in the ribbon cutting ceremony for the first high school built at the Stapleton redevelopment site. DSST is a public charter school within Denver Public Schools (DPS) for grades 9-12 and opened its doors to 125 ninth-graders in fall 2004 at a temporary location. Exactly 11-months after Governor Owens and Mayor John W. Hickenlooper presided at the groundbreaking for the school, students returned from their holiday break to begin classes at the brand new state-of-the-art facility on January 4, 2005. The innovative 425-student charter high school is located on a 10-acre site at Stapleton along Montview Boulevard at Valentia Street, and will serve students across the city. Any student who lives in Denver and will be entering the ninth-grade in the fall of 2005 is eligible for admission into the next class of freshmen. DSST will continue to add a new class of freshman each year and will be fully enrolled with grades 9-12 by fall 2007. The Denver School of Science and Technology is dedicated to providing an outstanding liberal arts high school education with a science and technology focus to a diverse student body. The student population of DSST’s entering ninth-grade class is made up of 46% low-income students, 22% are Hispanic, 42% are African American, and 29% are Anglo. As a result, DSST is truly a diverse school with no majority economic or ethnic group. Unfortunately, Colorado is last among the 50 states in terms of sending its low-income students to college. In 1999, 13.7% of Colorado’s low-income students attended college, compared to a national average of 24.5%. DSST has been created to help reverse this troubling trend and create an academic program where 100% of its students earn college acceptance and are prepared to successfully earn a college degree. The unique focus of DSST is to create a community of learners and a school culture that fosters academic and personal success for each student by emphasizing a set of six core values that students, faculty, and staff are expected to live by everyday. The core values of Respect, Responsibility, Integrity, Doing Your Best, Courage, and Curiosity merge academic learning and character development into a common endeavor that serves as the foundation of DSST’s mission, vision, and guiding principles. “DSST is dedicated to being an extraordinary school and we are working hard to create a new blueprint for student success in Denver that provides enduring and significant changes in the role and results of public high schools,” said William “Bill” Kurtz, the Head of School at DSST. “Our new campus will provide a learning environment that matches our academic commitment and we are excited to be in our new home.” Additional information about DSST and the admission process is available on the school’s web site at www.scienceandtech.org.