DREAM CITY: Teens have big plans for Springs

Safer schools with smaller classes, better graduation rates and fewer gang-bangers. A more inclusive community that reinvests in older neighborhoods even as it builds up its newest, wealthiest subdivisions.

Saturday afternoon, high school students from across the Pikes Peak region delivered their take on how to transform the greater Colorado Springs area and leave it a better place for the generations that stand to inherit it.

At a town hall meeting held as part of The Gazette's Dream City 2020 initiative, a group of 30 young people urged community involvement, shared responsibility and hard work during wide-ranging talks on how to improve the community.

Nobody was exempt from the criticism - even their peers.

"All kids do is sit around and play video games," Letrisia Chambers, an 18-year-old senior from Fountain-Fort Carson High School, said before calling for young people to get more active in community planning.

Getting teenagers involved - and taking their input seriously - was the goal of the Urban League of the Pikes Peak Region, which requested the "youth speak-out" out of a concern that young people were being left out of a community-wide effort to assess the challenges and the opportunities that lay ahead in the next decade.

"No one has given high school students the chance to participate," said James Proby, a youth coordinator for the Urban League.
The two-hour meeting began with a survey of the group's impressions of Colorado Springs.

According to the results, the teenagers were predominantly fans of rap music who shared mixed feelings about the quality of their education, wanted more youth-oriented activities throughout the day, and who felt overwhelmingly that minorities have a tougher time getting along in the mostly-white community.

After breaking out into several discussion groups, they praised what they love about the region - the mountains, outdoor activities and less congestion than larger cities - while calling for better public transportation, more entertainment options and, overwhelmingly, improvements to public schools.

"Schools are getting so crowded that people can't get their time with teachers," said Michael Morgan, a 15-year-old sophomore at Doherty High who also worried that parts of south Colorado Springs and Fountain were being allowed to deteriorate as developers increasingly move to the north side.

Chambers, a member of a youth group sponsored by the Urban League, called the event "worthwhile" and said she'd gladly return for similar sessions.

"I feel like they don't hear the youth voice," she said.