subject: Oprah Reveals Huge $1,000,000 Donation To Denver, Colorado Public School [print this page] On the Monday telecast of her show, Oprah Winfrey revealed that she is donating $1 million dollars to the Denver School of Science & Technology charter school. The donation will help the school open three new campuses over the next ten years. The announced donation was made during Winfreys promotion of a documentary titled Waiting for Superman.
Waiting for Superman, a film by Davis Guggenheim who directed An Inconvenient Truth, is about the nations lagging education system. The movie surveys drop-out factories and academic sinkholes and dissects the system and its many problems. Advocates for the film hope that it will evoke the same emotions for social change that the films An Inconvenient Truth and The Cove evoked. Bill Kurtz, the Denver School of Science & Technologys chief executive says that "[t]he movie is going to strike a national conversation that needs to happen about the fact that we all need to do better to create high performing schools".
The Denver School of Science & Technology is a free, open-enrollment, public school. It was founded in 2004 and currently has 728 students in grades, 6,7 and 9-12. It is a liberal arts school with a focus on science and technology. The goal of the school is to prepare all of its students for college. With that goal in mind, the school requires that all students complete pre-calculus, five years of high school science, and complete an internship and a senior project for graduation. The school was awarded a silver medal in the U.S. News and World Report's issue ranking the nation's top high schools. The school's website, www.scienceandtech.org, provides the following statistics on the demographics of its students:
45% of DSST students are economically disadvantages
60% of DSST students are Hispanic, or African American
50% of DSST students are first generation college bound
Most students enter DSST at least one grade level behind in math and English
The attorneys at Frankfurt & Trani, P.C. applaud Ms. Winfrey for her very generous donation to Denver, Colorados public education. We are a criminal defense and personal injury law firm providing service to clients in Denver as well as all other Colorado jurisdictions.
