Denver, April 11, 2014….The Mountain States Office of the Anti-Defamation League designated 49 schools from across Colorado as No Place for Hate® after the schools completed a year-long effort to create equitable, safe and respectful environments. Schools from Denver, Aurora, Boulder, Cherry Creek, Colorado Springs, Evergreen, Fort Collins, Greeley and Loveland attended the designation ceremony in Aurora on April 8, 2014.
Teachers, administrators, students and ADL volunteers gathered at Aurora Public Schools Professional Learning Conference Center to celebrate achieving their goal of being designated No Place for Hate®. ADL presented each school with a designation banner to display in a prominent place, and Governor Hickenloooper’s proclamation declaring April 8, 2014 “No Place for Hate® Day” in Colorado was given to each school. Winners of ADL’s No Place for Hate® Imagine A World Without Hate Student Art Contest were also presented with their awards.
ADL honored three schools, Aurora’s Gateway High School, Boulder’s Nevin Platt Middle & Choice School and Academy District 20’s Rampart High School with five-star banners for their five years of success implementing the No Place for Hate® Initiative. For the first time, ADL presented blue banners to six schools that have continued No Place for Hate® for six years in a row. They include:
- Cherry Creek High School (Cherry Creek District 5)
- Durango High School (Durango 9-R)
- Miller Middle School (Durango 9-R)
- Prairie View High School (Brighton 27J)
- Rangeview High School (Aurora)
- Southern Hills Middle School (Boulder Valley)
The No Place for Hate® Excellence Award was presented to Rampart High School and their students for involving new students and staff, including KRAM, the school’s television production classes and teachers, to create a powerful video of real life experiences of Rampart students. The video includes powerful statistics, quotes, poems and students asking their peers to choose inclusion and respect, and pledge to confront acts of bias and prejudice.
“Rampart students continue to hold each other accountable and continually remind each other that treating one another with care and respect is truly the Rampart Way,” said Assistant Principal Kyle Chamberlain. “We are so proud of the work of our student production team on this brilliant video, but most importantly, we are proud of them for truly inspiring change.”
Terrance Carroll, former Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, shared his thoughts on what it takes to stop bullying and hate. Displaying a black sweatshirt proclaiming “Under Every Hoodie Is A Human,” Carroll commented, “Hate goes away when you start to understand who the person really is. Just like we need elbow grease to really get into cleaning properly, we need elbow grease to get rid of hate.”
No Place for Hate® is underwritten by the David and Laura Merage Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Fund of Colorado, and is supported by the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation, Comcast, the Curtiss-Lusher Family, John G. Duncan Trust, the Heyman Family Fund, JEWISHColorado, The Jonas Family, Gary Kleiman and Elisa Moran, Rose Medical Center, Professional Periodontics and Implant Dentistry, Connie Burwell White and William W. White Foundation, and the Melvin and Elaine Wolf Foundation. The Mountain States Office of the Anti-Defamation League has offered the No Place for Hate® initiative to schools since 2007. This year’s program reached over 50,000 students across Colorado. Register your school today at our new No Place for Hate website: www.adl.org/noplaceforhatedenver.
The following schools earned banners recognizing their efforts in the 2013-2014 No Place for Hate® campaign:
Adams City High School (Adams 14)
Aspen Creek PK-8 (Boulder Valley)
Aurora Frontier K-8 (Aurora)
Aurora Hills Middle School (Aurora)
Aurora West College Preparatory Academy (Aurora)
Boulder High School (Boulder Valley)
Centennial Elementary (Weld County SD 6)
Cherry Creek High School (Cherry Creek District 5)
Conrad Ball Middle School (Thompson R2J)
Cottonwood Plains Elementary (Thompson R2J)
Dalton Elementary (Aurora)
Denver School of the Arts-Middle (Denver)
DurangoHigh School(Durango9-R)
Emerald Elementary School (Boulder Valley)
Escalante Middle (Durango 9-R)
Evergreen High School (Jefferson County)
Evergreen Middle (Jefferson County)
Falcon Creek Middle School (Cherry Creek District 5)
Franklin Middle (Weld County SD 6)
Gateway High School (Aurora)
Grandview High School (Cherry Creek District 5)
Iowa Elementary (Aurora)
Isaac Newton Middle (Littleton)
J. Evans IB Middle (Weld County SD 6)
Lesher Middle School – An IB World School (Poudre)
Lincoln Elementary (Thompson R2J)
Lucile Erwin Middle School (Thompson R2J)
Madison Elementary (Weld County SD 6)
Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts (Mapleton)
Miller Middle (Durango 9-R)
Monarch High School (Boulder Valley)
Monarch K-8 (Boulder Valley)
Montview Math & Health Sciences Elementary (Aurora)
Murphy Creek P-8 (Aurora)
Nederland Middle/High School (Boulder Valley)
Nevin Platt Middle (Boulder Valley)
North Middle School Health Sciences (Aurora)
Northridge High School (Weld County SD 6)
Paris Elementary (Aurora)
Prairie View High School (Brighton 27J)
RampartHigh School(Academy District 20)
RangeviewHigh School(Aurora)
Sarah Milner Elementary (Thompson R2J)
Southern Hills Middle (Boulder Valley)
South Middle School of Expeditionary Learning (Aurora)
Teller Elementary (Denver)
Tollgate Elem., School of Expeditionary Learning (Aurora)
Turner Middle (Thompson R2J)
Vista PEAK Campus (Aurora)