Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero can’t disassemble homeless encampments next to his schools, but one of the goals for the new Superintendent is to dismantle “oppressive systems” according to a new story this morning from Chalkbeat Colorado.
Apparently, part of the criteria that Denver’s school board will use to evaluate Marrero’s job performance in his upcoming October review is a demand that:
“The district will be “free of oppressive systems and structures rooted in racism.”
In response, Marrero has clarified that he will, “identify at least two “enduring systems of oppression” within the district to be dismantled.”
Marrero recently complained that he himself was being oppressed by only earning $260,000 in his new job and that it was making it difficult for him to live in Denver’s high-rent neighborhood known as the Highlands.
“I’m telling you, it’s difficult to stay in the Highlands. I’m saying that,” Marrero told Denverite in February.
Marrero’s $260,000 salary is $155,200 more than the area median income for a family of four according to the same Denverite story.
As Campfire Colorado recently reported, Denver Public Schools recently said they were “optimistic” a new homeless encampment that moved in next to Polaris Elementary School “will be good neighbors”.
A local parent was not as optimistic, telling KDVR News, “We walk through piles of human excrement I mean, there is feces, there is trash, there’s urine, and that’s going to school and I never say a word. But when I get to school and it’s there, it’s you know, it’s not safe. It’s not clean.”