Cherry Creek launches summer leadership academy for at-risk students with goal of curbing youth violence

AURORA | As the city of Aurora continues to grapple with a rise in youth violence, the Cherry Creek School District has launched a summer leadership academy designed to provide support to at-risk students.

The Summer Leadership Academy and Anti-Violence Initiative came out of conversations with students and community members about what the district could do to help curb an increase in shootings. The academy will serve about 50 incoming 9th through 12th grade students who have been identified by their principals as having attendance or behavioral problems or known involvement with gangs or guns.

The six week program began Monday and will run through July 21, excluding the week of July 4. After that, the students will be given jobs or apprenticeships in different Cherry Creek departments so they can earn some money before the start of the school year.

The initiative is part of a more holistic approach to curbing youth violence that recognizes that solving the problem will require much more than simply arresting the perpetrators.

The Aurora Public Schools district has had the most high-profile incidents of youth violence this past school year, with two shootings just days apart in November outside district schools that injured nine students. But Cherry Creek has not been unaffected. In March, a 16-year-old Overland High School student was shot and killed just blocks from the school.

“We can’t police our way out of this problem,” former APD Chief Vanessa Wilson said at a November community meeting addressing the APS shootings. On Monday, the Aurora City Council allocated almost $200,000 in grants to community organizations working to combat youth violence and gang activity.

The approach also represents a shift in how schools have often responded to students who are struggling, district superintendent Chris Smith acknowledged.

“We in education have a tendency to take away things from students who are not engaged in our system, and we are looking at opportunities to re-engage them instead,” he said.

Smith said the academy is intended to be just the first step in Cherry Creek’s ongoing work to support students, and that the participants will serve as a “think tank” for the district. Next school year, the participating students will serve on an advisory committee, and as a capstone project will come up with recommendations for the district on strategies for reducing youth violence.

“We’re going to be asking them to really lean in and tell us what it is that they need and how we can best serve them,” Smith said.

Some of the inspiration for the academy came from conversations Smith had with the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council, a group of high school students from across the district who meet with Smith on a regular basis to provide feedback on issues affecting students.

Smith credited Kanye Herron, a member of the council who graduated from Endeavor Academy this May, with providing valuable insight into the kinds of things the district could do to help stop youth violence. He encouraged the district to put kids in contact with people who had similar life experiences, and to help provide them alternative opportunities for creating connections.

“Kids are looking for opportunities to build relationships, and they’re looking for opportunities to engage with other kids and sometimes it’s not always in the most productive ways,” Smith said of part of what pulls some teens towards gang activity.

Located at Horizon Middle School, the academy will teach students life skills such as time management, long-term goal setting and strategies for navigating high school.

“These are all things that have to be taught,” said Jasper Armstrong, a partner in the district’s department of Equity, Culture and Community Engagement who manages the academy. “We assume students show up with this automatically but these are actually skills and learned behaviors.”

The academy will include opportunities for credit recovery for students who need to catch up academically, and each Friday will bring in a different community organization to speak with students. Those will include anti-gang activist Jason McBride’s McBride Impact, Life-Line Colorado and Make a Chess Move, a Denver nonprofit organization that teaches kids life skills through the game of chess. On Friday evening, Compound for Compassion will create a “safe zone” with games and a DJ.

Beyond earning money and learning new skills, Herron said that he hopes that the biggest thing students take away from the program is that there are people who love them and are invested in their success.

“I look forward to motivating them to do better, encouraging them and showing them that they can make a change,” Herron said. “I’m there for them to walk out with a big heart and wanting to be a leader in the community.”

Smith concurred.

“People care about these kids,” he said. “And if they know it, they’ll do better. But first we need to prove that we believe that they are of value and we love them.”