JaMese Stepanek reads poetry with first-grader Citi Hejab last week at McMeen Elementary. Stepanek went through DPS training in how to make the classroom culturally inviting for all students. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post )

As the number of minority students has grown in Colorado schools, the number of minority teachers has declined — spurring districts to address the disparity.

School districts in Aurora and Denver are trying to manage the widening gap by offering cultural-sensitivity training to all teachers.

But some local activists say training can't compensate for too few minority teachers in the classroom.

"What we have argued for the last six years is that there has been no significant effort to keep some balance in a district with a high percent of kids being African-American," said Lawrence Borom, a former teacher who is now chairman of the Black Education Advisory Council for Denver Public Schools.

In the Denver system, 80 percent of students and 21.9 percent of teachers are minority.

In the past decade, the number of black teachers in DPS has declined as the population of