Why we’re here

Central Park Education News (CPEdNews) was created to ensure families in our northeast Denver neighborhood have the information they need to make informed education decisions for their families and stay engaged with our local schools. CPEdNews aims to serve as a trusted resource for news and information about our neighborhood’s diverse school community by:

• Bringing relevant news to you. Through our free weekly e-newsletter, we provide journalistic coverage of Central Park schools, with a particular emphasis on topics that our community cares most about (i.e.  safety, funding, school choice, district leadership).
• Helping you make great choices for your family. In an ecosystem that’s saturated with opinions, complicated data and an overwhelming amount of information, we’re here to share unbiased information  and resources that help you make great education choices for your kids. (As a start, check out our Central Park School Guide.)
• Fostering productive dialogue. Public schools only work when the community stays engaged. We aim to catalyze conversation among educators, leaders, parents and students by amplifying local voices and opinions - all in service of building a thriving school network for our community.

CPEdNews is run by Brian Weber, a former vice president of education and communications initiatives for the Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities. Prior to joining the foundation, Weber was a newspaper reporter for 20 years in Colorado, the last 10 at the now-closed Rocky Mountain News where he covered Denver City Hall and Denver Public Schools for five years each. Brian was the lead developer and founder and Founding Executive Director of Denver Language (charter) School. DLS is Denver’s first and only public full immersion school (Mandarin/Spanish) which opened in 2010. DLS, a K-8, has gone on to become one of the highest performing schools in DPS.

About Central Park

The Central Park community is situated on 4,700 acres that was once Denver's Stapleton airport. When the airport closed in 1995 to make way for Denver International Airport, the land was slated for redevelopment in order to provide more housing opportunities for families in the rapidly-growing city.

Central Park is served by 14 schools in the Denver Public Schools (DPS) district (four are charters), including six that are part of the Central Park Elementary School Enrollment Zone and five in the Greater Park Hill/Central Park Middle School Zone. Nearly 10,000 students attend school in the neighborhood - equivalent to 12% of total enrollment in DPS. The majority of the neighborhood is served by DPS, but there is also a small section in the southeast part of Central Park that is in the Aurora city limits and is served by the Aurora Public Schools (APS) district. Several charter schools also are located in and near the community, including the award-winning Rocky Mountain Prep-Fletcher (RMP) and four in the Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST) network.

We’re fortunate that schools in Central Park are generally strong. Several of our schools have won recognition at the district, state and national levels, and they enjoy strong parental involvement and support.