UAS - Hill Campus of Arts and Sciences
Hill Campus of Arts and Sciences
A High-Performing Urban School with a Commitment to Learning
Location: 451 Clermont St., Denver, CO
Principal: Don Roy
Background
One of the city’s most ethnically balanced, high performing middle schools, Hill Campus of Arts and Sciences is located just east of the Cherry Creek neighborhood in East Denver. The school is a feeder school for East and George Washington (GW) High Schools. Hill includes an honors program designed to prepare students for GW’s International Baccalaureate (IB) program and for advanced placement courses at East. The school offers many electives including photography, video production, orchestra, dance, woodshop and others. Extracurricular opportunities abound on campus and range from MathCounts and Destination Imagination to involvement in the district’s annual Shakespeare Festival.
Hill gives students access to three state-of-the-art computer labs as well as portable, wireless laptops. Students are expected to use computers in all core subjects for research, reports and science/math applications. Through their studies, students learn to prepare PowerPoint presentations, iMovies and Web pages.
The school makes available both before and after school programs. Transitional language and special education programs are also available along with a special program for the hearing impaired.
Hill Campus for Arts & Sciences is clearly focused on maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment while challenging each student to achieve up to their potential.
Partnering to Prepare Urban Teachers
Hill is one of the schools served by Metro State College’s Urban Teacher Partnership. Metro State’s pre-service students conduct their field and student teaching experiences at Hill. They provide support to classroom teachers, reinforce instruction by working with students in small groups and one-to-one, and assist at school events as needed.
School Community
Student Population: Hill is a school with a population of 651 students that is quite evenly divided between Hispanic (39 percent), White (28 percent) and Black (30 percent) populations. There is also an Asian population of 2 percent and an American Indian population of 1 percent. The percentage of the population eligible for free or reduced rate lunch is approximately 69 percent.
Staff: The average students per teacher ratio in Hill’s classrooms is 16 to 1, which is comparable to the 17 to 1 average for the state as a whole. There are 37 classroom teachers in the school.
Community: The forging of a new Parent/Teacher pact has clearly outlined areas where parental support is vital to student success. Parents now have a better idea of where home reinforcement of learning taking place at school will make the greatest difference in their children’s education.