Emily Griffith Opportunity School

Emily Griffith Technical College is a public technicalcollege in downtown Denver, Colorado, United States.Founded by Emily Griffith in 1916 as Opportunity School,it was renamed in her honor in 1933.[3] The school is affil-iated with Denver Public Schools, offering an alternativehigh school program, and is part of the Colorado Com-munity College System.

1 History

Denver educator Emily Griffith (1868–1947) shared herdream of opening a school to serve people of all ages andinterests with a Denver Post features writer in 1915. Fol-lowing its publication, she persuaded the Post and localtrolley cars to promote the idea. In May 1916, Griffithreceived the condemned Longfellow School at 13th andWelton Streets from the Denver Board of Education. Op-portunity School opened on September 9, 1916.[4]

By 1954, the school served 10,000 students annually andhad over 400,000 alumni.[5] Public television in Denver,directed by Jim Case, signed on January 30, 1956 from astudio in an auto body shop at the school.[6] Funding fromDenver Public Schools gradually declined over the years,leading the school to begin charging Denver residents tu-ition in 1991.[7]

Courses also changed with the needs of the community,adding more English as a Second Language and healthcare courses and closing programs in shoe repair, au-dio/visual electronics, and precision machining in themid-1990s.[8]

2 Campus

The College operates across three campuses. The maincampus, located at 1860 Lincoln Street in Denver, housesmany of the school’s Continuing Technical Education(CTE) programs, along with Adult Basic Education(ABE) classes for those seeking their GED, as well as theEnglish Language Acquisition (ELA, also know as ESL)programs. A second campus at 1261 Glenarm Placehouses the College of Trades and Industry, while a thirdcampus at 200 E. 9th Ave. houses the Video Productionand Editing Program.

3 Organization

In 1990 the Emily Griffith Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, was founded to provide financial sup-port for Emily Griffith Technical College. The founda-tion is governed by a board of directors. Board membersare business and industry leaders, educators, and commu-nity representatives.[9]

4 Academics

Emily Griffith Technical College is organized into sev-eral different areas of study: the Apprenticeships Train-ing Division, the College of Business and Technology, theCollege of Health Sciences, the College of Trades and In-dustry, the College of Creative Arts and Design, the Con-tinuing Education Division, the Adult Basic Educationprogram, and the Language Learning Center. The Lan-guage Learning Center is the largest English LanguageAcquisition (ELA) program in Colorado and serves 3,000students a year.[10]

5 Notes/references[1] “Feature Detail Report - Emily Griffith Technical Col-

lege”. Geographic Names Information System. U.S. Geo-logical Survey. 1992-08-31. Retrieved 2007-11-08.

[2] “Emily Griffith Technical College 2011-2012 CourseCatalog” (PDF). Retrieved 2011-12-07.

[3] Noel, Tom (2006-02-25). “Griffith’s life, not death, en-dures”. RockyMountain News. Archived from the originalon 2007-08-27. Retrieved 2007-11-08.

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2 6 EXTERNAL LINKS

[4] “You Can Do It”. TIME. 1946-07-08. Retrieved 2007-11-08.

[5] “Giant Classroom”. TIME. 1954-11-15. Retrieved 2007-11-08.

[6] Saunders, Dusty (2006-02-25). "'Frantic, fascinating,crowded' start for public TV in Denver”. Rocky MountainNews. Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. Re-trieved 2007-11-08.

[7] “Founder saw special school needed for adult education”.Denver Post. 1997-07-20. ...in 1991, Emily GriffithTechnical College, now open to non-Denver residents,ceased being free, but tuition has been kept low....

[8] Chotzinoff, Robin (1995-06-07). “Tool and Die”. West-word. Retrieved 2007-11-08.

[9] “Emily Griffith Opportunity School: History and Pur-pose”. Emily Griffith Foundation. 2008–2009. RetrievedJune 18, 2011.

[10] Aguilera, Elizabeth (2007-04-01). “English classes over-flow”. Denver Post. Retrieved 2007-11-08.

• Brink, Carolyn. Class Acts: Stories from the EmilyGriffith Opportunity School ISBN 0-86541-079-8

• Faulkner, Debra. Touching Tomorrow: The EmilyGriffith Story ISBN 978-0-86541-078-7

• Lohse, Joyce. “Emily Griffith: Opportunity’sTeacher” ISBN 0-86541-077-1

6 External links• Emily Griffith Technical College official website

• Denver Public Schools History: Emily GriffithTechnical College

• Emily Griffith Technical College 2005-2006 SchoolAccountability Report (applies to the high schoolprogram)

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7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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