Metro-area facts

• Over the past 10 years, the number of students enrolled in ELL programs in metro school districts had increased 120% percent (source: CDE).
• ELL enrollment in APS has doubled, from 21% to 40% of the student body. APS has a graduation rate of 48.5% for all students and 31.5% for students with limited English language proficiency. In 2011 APS/DPS combined make up 24% of the metro school districts enrollment, but have 51% of the ELL students (source: CDE).
• In the seven county metro area, roughly 32,500 school-age kids (age 5 to 17) live in linguistically isolated households, which means no one over age 14 speaks English “very well” (source: American Community Survey, 2010).
• Every single metro school district had an increase in free and reduced lunch participation over the past 10 years (source: CDE).
• Three suburban school districts surpass DPS in FRL participation: Adams County 14 (in Commerce City), Sheridan and Westminster. Those same districts, along with APS, also surpass DPS in ELL enrollment (source: CDE).
• Boulder Valley has the largest performance gap between FRL and non-FRL students, but DPS and St. Vrain have gaps that are nearly as large (source: CDE).

Corridor facts

• There are 54,131 kids under 18. The school-age population breakdown: Elementary (age 5-10), 18,873; Middle (age 11-13), 7,636; High (age 14-17): 9,838 (source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).
• The Corridor is “younger” than Denver and the metro area: 29.7% of people in the Corridor are under 18, compared to 21.5% in Denver and 24.6% in the metro area (source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).
• Racial/ethnic demographics for youth: 56.5% Hispanic, 20.8% black, 14.5% white, 2.8% Asian, 5.0% other/two or more races, 0.4% American Indian (source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).
• An estimated 35,450 kids (two-thirds) are at risk, based on free and reduced lunch participation and births to low-education and teen mothers (sources: CDPHE, APS, DPS).
• Of the 36,755 Denver Public Schools and Aurora Public Schools students living in the Corridor, 78.7% – 28,940 kids – participate in the free and reduced lunch program (sources: DPS, APS).
• In the Corridor, less than half of third-graders are reading at grade level and less than half of sixth-graders are proficient or advanced at math (source: CDE).