Denver Public Schools is investigating the use of a “seclusion room” at McAuliffe International School, with Board of Education members demanding to know whether students of color were locked inside the room by themselves — a violation of district policy.
Board members Auon’tai Anderson, Scott Esserman and Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán held a news conference at DPS headquarters Thursday at which they called on state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate the middle school’s use of the room as a potential disciplinary tool.
“Our schools are places of learning — not prisons,” Anderson said at the news conference.
The board members shared photos they said were taken Wednesday, and one captured from an undated video, that showed locks placed on windows and outside of the door to the seclusion room at McAuliffe, measures that would prevent anyone inside from leaving.
They also shared a document that they said was a work order that described the room as having “multiple holes in drywall due to student rage and incarceration.”
DPS spokesman Bill Good confirmed the district is investigating the school’s use of the seclusion room.
The investigation comes about a month after DPS fired McAuliffe Principal Kurt Dennis after he spoke publicly in a television interview about district employees being required to check students for weapons after a teen undergoing such a search shot and injured two deans at East High School in March.
The district has said Dennis shared confidential student information in violation of state and federal laws and cited other reasons in his termination letter, including that he violated policies by repeatedly trying to remove a student of color from the school despite district officials telling him such a move “was not available or appropriate.”
DPS also alleged in the termination letter that there have been multiple complaints and investigations into McAuliffe’s use of discipline in recent years, including one that found an “overuse of out-of-school suspensions” were disproportionately affecting students of color, according to his termination letter.
The seclusion room at McAuliffe, the board members alleged, was created under Dennis’s leadership.
“This is utter and complete (expletive) from DPS,” said David Lane, an attorney representing Dennis, who called the room in question a “de-escalation room.” “They are trying to paint (Dennis) out as a racist, which is utterly and completely false.”
The school district’s Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, which McAuliffe is a part of, issued a statement saying it is “aware of a possible allegation of misconduct at our school.”
“The allegation is concerning, and we take it very seriously,” the statement said. “We will participate openly and transparently with the investigation of the school district. We will also maintain the integrity of the investigation by refraining from comment and speculation.”
AdvocacyDenver, a group that works with children with disabilities, plans to file a complaint with the state education department against McAuliffe for violating state law and secluding students with disabilities, said Pamela Bisceglia, the organization’s executive director.
“Clearly that room was not appropriate,” Bisceglia said. “That kind of practice is not sanctioned by the district and/or by the state.”
Statewide, there is little oversight into how schools use seclusion, which is the practice of placing a student who exhibits violent or dangerous behavior in a room alone, according to a 2020 investigation by Chalkbeat Colorado.
At DPS, school staff are not allowed to place a student in a room by themselves. Instead, district policy states that at least one employee must be with the student at all times. Staff must also notify parents within one school day that “monitored seclusion” was used on a student.
A seclusion room must also have adequate lighting, ventilation and size, and “to the extent possible” it should also not have any “injurious items,” according to the district’s policy.
“Acting violently in a classroom”
Anderson, the school board’s vice president, said he received an email Tuesday evening from a McAuliffe employee who said students of color were locked inside a room at the school multiple times during the last academic year.
The email included a video showing a door with a lock on the outside, which Anderson said would prevent anyone inside from leaving.
Anderson said he asked Superintendent Alex Marrero to confirm that the room existed, which he did. But the district had “no prior knowledge of this room,” Anderson said.
“We have an obligation to teach and keep all of our students safe,” Esserman said during the news conference. “Incarcerating them is not a way to do so.”
But Lane called the room at McAuliffe a de-escalation room — a characterization that board members pushed back on.
“When a student is acting violently in a classroom, such as turning over a desk, throwing books at teachers or fellow students, engaging in fights, they are sent to the de-escalation room,” he said.
A de-escalation room is only used if a student with disabilities is acting out and their parents and the district have agreed it’s a tactic that can be used, according to DPS officials.
Such rooms often have soft mats or beanbags for students and adults stay with the children while they are in the room, Bisceglia said. The door is never closed in a de-escalation room or locked and a student is never left alone, she said.
“This was not in compliance with what we currently ask for in our district policy,” Anderson said of the room at McAuliffe, noting locks on the windows, door and damage to the walls.
“We must investigate it and make sure that any students that were placed into this room were not placed in there against their will or have any sort of serious or emotional harm,” he said.
A locked door
Dennis put a latch on the door in January because he was afraid someone would get hurt if a student tried to open the door and an administrator tried to re-shut it, Lane said.
But Dennis removed the latch after DPS officials told him he couldn’t have a lock on the door, Lane said.
There wasn’t a districtwide policy on how to keep a child in the room, Lane said, adding that it was also decided the school should remove the latch in case an employee was accidentally locked inside with a student.
“If a student was still violent, it wasn’t safe for anyone to be in the room,” Lane said, adding, “These are violent kids — out of control. That’s why you have a de-escalation room and, no, they are not free to leave.”
Anderson said the latch was removed in April.
“This was all done without DPS training, no guidance from DPS,” Lane said, adding, “Kurt Dennis was never disciplined ever by DPS for any of this.”
Two students were put in the room during the last academic year for what Lane called “violent” behavior. The use of the room had been approved by both the children’s psychologist and their parents, Lane said.
He did not know whether the children were students of color, saying, “It doesn’t matter if they were or were not.”
Discipline at McAuliffe
McAuliffe staff have a history of using punitive discipline practices, notably giving students in-school detentions, according to a 2019 study by the University of Denver.
Most of the students suspended or sent to detention were Black, according to the study
The study found that students placed in in-school detention were not given consistent social-emotional supports or academic instruction. And while the district’s discipline policies promote using restorative practices that keep students in the classroom, the researcher found “very little evidence” that such an approach was used at McAuliffe.
AdvocacyDenver has filed more complaints against McAuliffe than any other school in the city, Bisceglia said.
In 2022, the Colorado Department of Education found that DPS systematically violated the rights of Black boys with disabilities by sending them to specialized programs without full evaluations and then failing to monitor their progress.
Bisceglia said Dennis once assigned a Black boy without a disability to the school’s affective needs program, which is only for students with emotional disabilities. The student was struggling with his parents’ divorce and he had at one point been admitted to Children’s Hospital Colorado, she said.
When the student returned to school, Bisceglia said, Dennis assigned him to the affective needs program, where a paraprofessional called the student “Children’s.”
“And when the student refused to do something, the paraprofessional would say, “Children’s, what would the white coats say if they saw you doing that?’” Bisceglia recalled during Thursday’s news conference.
The same student was sent to the principal’s office one day and, while there, he threw his backpack at Dennis. The principal called the student’s parents, saying he would expel the boy, Bisceglia said.
In the end, DPS paid for the student to go to a private school and provided training to McAuliffe’s staff after AdvocacyDenver intervened, Bisceglia said. Dennis was not reprimanded, she said.
“After-the-fact excuses”
AdvocacyDenver also filed a complaint when Dennis placed the “affective needs” program in what Bisceglia characterized as a small office.
The 12 students, mostly Black boys, were not provided with books, technology or access to the general education curriculum or activities, she said. The students also had to “earn the privilege to eat lunch or participate in any school activities,” Bisceglia said.
Dennis was required to move the program to a standard-sized classroom and provide technology and educational materials to the students, she said.
Lane, the attorney representing Dennis, said DPS never disciplined the former principal for any of the situations described by Bisceglia at the news conference.
“These are all after-the-fact excuses they are using,” he said, “because they are actually firing him for going to the media.”
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Updated 11:10 a.m. Aug. 3, 2023: This story has been updated to clarify that Denver school board members are seeking to learn whether students of color were locked inside McAuliffe International School’s seclusion room alone.
