Emily Griffith Opportunity School is a public technical college in downtown Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

. Founded by Emily Griffith in 1916 as Opportunity School, it was renamed in her honor in 1933. The school is affiliated with Denver Public Schools

Denver Public Schools

The Denver County School District No. 1, more commonly known as the Denver Public Schools , is the public school system in the City and County of Denver, Colorado, United States.-History:...

, offering an alternative high school program, and is part of the Colorado Community College System

Colorado Community College System

The Colorado Community College System consists of 14 community colleges across the state of Colorado. Created by legislation in 1967, it serves more than 116,000 students annually...

.

History

Denver educator Emily Griffith (1868–1947) shared her dream of opening a school to serve people of all ages and interests with a Denver Post features writer in 1915. Following its publication, she persuaded the Post and local trolley cars to promote the idea. In May 1916, Griffith received the condemned Longfellow School at 13th and Welton Streets from the Denver Board of Education. Opportunity School opened on September 9, 1916.

By 1954, the school served 10,000 students annually and had over 400,000 alumni. Public television in Denver

Rocky Mountain PBS

The Rocky Mountain Public Broadcasting Network, known on-air as Rocky Mountain PBS, is the Public Broadcasting Service member non-commercial educational Public television station in Colorado. It reaches one million viewers in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and New Mexico...

, directed by Jim Case

James W. "Jim" Case

James W. "Jim" Case is a University of Denver graduate who worked for NBC, CBS and various other media organizations throughout his career. He is most notable for his involvement in the 1959 KRMA-TV series, The Ragtime Era, which he directed during his time with the station...

, signed on January 30, 1956 from a studio in an auto body shop at the school. Funding from Denver Public Schools gradually declined over the years, leading the school to begin charging Denver residents tuition in 1991.

Courses also changed with the needs of the community, adding more English as a Second Language and health care courses and closing programs in shoe repair, audio/visual electronics, and precision machining in the mid 1990s. Over 30 years after being based at Stapleton International Airport

Stapleton International Airport

Stapleton International Airport was Denver, Colorado's primary airport from 1929 to 1995. At different times it served as a hub for TWA, People Express, Frontier Airlines and Western Airlines as well as a hub for Continental Airlines and United Airlines at the time of its closure.In 1995 Stapleton...

, the airport's closing sent the school's aircraft mechanics program seeking a new location for five years before moving to Front Range Airport

Front Range Airport

Front Range Airport is a public airport located on the northeastern edge of Aurora, Colorado, 19 miles east of the city's central business district and three miles southeast of Denver International Airport. It is owned by the Front Range Airport Authority, and serves the Denver area...

in 2003.

Campus

The school's campus is an urban campus, across the street from the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver. The auto shops, custodian training classrooms, and tutoring labs are located behind the main building in what is known as the Glenarm Building.

The current building actually consists of three buildings. The aforementioned Glenarm Building was built in 1958, while the main building was erected in two parts; the older, west part in 1916 and the newer, east part in 1956.

Organization

In 1990 the Emily Griffith Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, was founded to provide financial support for the Emily Griffith Opportunity School. The foundation is governed by a board of directors. Board members are business and industry leaders, educators, and community representatives.

Academics

Emily Griffith Opportunity School is organized into nine college areas of study: the Apprenticeships Training Division, the College of Business and Technology, the Corporate Training Division, the College of Health Sciences, the College of Trades and Industry, the College of Design Industries, the Extended Learning Division, the Language Learning Center, and Emily Griffith High School. The Language Learning Center is the largest English as a Second Language program in Denver and serves 3,000 students a year.

External links

• Emily Griffith Opportunity School official website
• Denver Public Schools History: Emily Griffith Opportunity School
• Emily Griffith Opportunity School 2005-2006 School Accountability Report (applies to the high school program)