Chalkbeat

Feagins is fired as Memphis schools superintendent after stormy 9-month tenure

2025-01-22T03:30:04+00:00

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Marie Feagins was fired Tuesday as superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, setting the district back to where it has been repeatedly in recent years: searching for leadership.

A bitterly divided school board voted 6-3 to oust Feagins less than 10 months into her tenure, approving a resolution that cited allegations of professional misconduct and poor leadership.

Feagins, a former Detroit school administrator hired by a previous board to lead Tennessee’s largest school district after a prolonged and problem-plagued search, vehemently denied any wrongdoing. She described herself as a target of “false accusations and political maneuvering.”

Board chair Joyce Dorse Coleman introduced the resolution to fire Feagins and was joined in voting “yes” by members Stephanie Love, Natalie McKinney, Sable Otey, Towanna Murphy, and Keith Williams. Michelle McKissack, Tamarques Porter, and Amber Huett-Garcia voted no.

The board voted to name Roderick Richmond, a longtime district administrator now serving as the district’s transformation officer, as interim superintendent.

In a statement issued later Tuesday night through a public relations firm, Dorse Coleman said Feagins “has not demonstrated the transformational leadership that is critical to the success” of the Memphis district.

“At this pivotal moment, we need a transformational leader who will collaborate effectively with the Board and respect governance protocols, keeping students at the center of every decision,” she said.

The board will hold a news conference at noon Thursday at the district’s central office, the statement said.

According to multiple media reports, Feagins told reporters after Tuesday’s vote that her firing is “exactly the opposite” of what an educational institution stands for. She said many members of the board “chose chaos over children, and it looks like they’ve chosen litigation over leadership.”

She added: “I’ll see them in court.”

After a tense and at times chaotic special meeting, the board approved a resolution Dorse Coleman first introduced Dec. 17 to fire Feagins. The resolution claims that Feagins:

Failed to provide evidence of her statement that district employees were paid $1 million in overtime for time not worked.
Accepted a donation of more than $45,000 without board approval, then misrepresented what happened.
Misled the board and public about a federal grant and its missed deadline.

Feagins’ hiring was supposed to bring stability and rebuild trust after a turbulent 18-month superintendent search, and as the district navigated serious academic and financial challenges, including possible school closures. Instead, months of simmering tension between Feagins and the majority of board members led to a hasty divorce with potentially significant ramifications.

If the decision amounts to a firing for cause the board would avoid paying Feagins in severance — it was estimated at $487,500 as of last month — but potentially open itself up to other costs if Feagins follows through on pursuing legal action. Feagins began work last April on a four-year contract that was to pay her $325,000 annually.

Lawmakers concerned about the prospect of Feagins being fired also were poised to take action.

State Rep. Mark White, Republican chairman of a House education committee, has floated reintroducing legislation he drafted last year that would give the state the power to appoint up to six new members to the nine-member Memphis board. White on Tuesday wrote a letter to the school board urging members to retain Feagins. Another lawmaker, Democratic Rep. G.A. Hardaway, has already filed a bill that would create a process for recalling school board members.

Huett-Garcia and community members who spoke during Tuesday’s public comment period raised the specter of greater state intervention to warn board members against voting to fire Feagins.

A long line of speakers come to Feagins’ defense

More than two-dozen speakers — including teachers, alumni, and community organizers — lined up during public comment to support Feagins and criticize the attempt to oust her.

Among them was Justin Pearson, a Democratic state representative from Memphis who drew national attention in 2023 after Republicans expelled him from office over his participation in a disruption at the Capitol. Pearson, who was quickly reappointed and then reelected to office, called the process targeting Feagins unfair and urged the board to “slow down.”

Pearson used sharper language in an interview with Chalkbeat, calling the process “horrendous.”

“I got expelled in an unjust and unfair way,” he said. “I know what it looks like and that’s what’s happening now.”

The meeting grew heated when the board’s outside counsel, Robert Spence, said his review found the allegations against Feagins were true. McKissack interjected, accusing Spence of acting like he was in a courtroom giving “Perry Mason editorializing.” Dorse Coleman threatened to “clear the room” repeatedly as audience members booed and heckled.

When the room quieted, Spence said Feagins violated her contract and deviated from board policy, and that she exhibited a pattern of untruthful statements. The board then voted to release Spence’s 209-page report to the public.

Before voting to terminate Feagins’ contract, the board rejected a counterproposal from board member Huett-Garcia to keep Feagins and attempt to repair her relationship with the board. Under that resolution, Feagins would have had to provide monthly updates to the board, and board members would have been required to complete board governance training.

Even the superintendent’s most vocal board supporters said Feagins bore some responsibility for the deterioration of her relationship with the board since she started.

Still, McKissack pleaded with her colleagues to listen to community members and adopt the counterproposal to retain Feagins, which she described as fair and balanced.

“We can hit the reset button on all of this,” she said. “We absolutely can do this together.”

It was clear last month that at least five board members were inclined to sever ties with Feagins. But Dorse Coleman hit pause, casting the deciding vote on a proposal to delay the discussion until this month to allow for more deliberation and a response from Feagins.

During a board committee meeting last week, Feagins shared a point-by-point response to the allegations against her. She said some school board members presented misleading and false information, calling the effort to fire her “politically motivated” and vowing not to resign.

Board member McKinney leveled additional allegations at the committee meeting, accusing Feagins of “a pattern of failed leadership” and citing graduation issues, inadequate staffing, and cutting student support systems.

That prompted McKissack to say some of her peers were “hell-bent” on dismissing Feagins, and Huett-Garcia said McKinney was “crossing the line of governance.”

When it came time to finally vote on the resolution to fire Feagins at Tuesday’s special meeting, the discussion was more procedural than emotional. The board members in favor of ousting her did not make speeches explaining their vote. The roll call was taken, and the votes were tallied.

“The resolution was adopted,” Dorse Coleman said. “Thank you.”

Superintendent drama has been running for more than two years

A different board took a markedly different approach in parting ways with Joris Ray, who resigned in August 2022 in the midst of a board-ordered outside investigation over claims that he abused his power and violated district policies. That board approved an agreement that gave Ray a severance package equivalent to 18 months’ salary — about $480,000. The agreement also ended the investigation into Ray before any findings were made public.

District administrator Toni Williams then took over as interim superintendent. She went back and forth on applying for the job on a permanent basis, and ultimately withdrew from consideration. The district restarted its national search in June 2023, after the board agreed on a fresh set of job qualifications and criteria. That eventually led to Feagins’ hiring.

Feagins lasted a little over nine months in the role, not even as long as Williams served as interim superintendent.

Before coming to Memphis, Feagins was an official in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which, by contrast, has experienced a long period of leadership stability under Superintendent Nikolai Vitti.

Vitti, who was hired in 2017 as the district emerged from state control, received a second contract extension in March that will keep him in the post until 2028 and make him one of the longest-serving leaders in district history. He said at the time that working with the board on a succession plan would be one of his top objectives.

One of Feagins’ harshest critics in recent weeks has been board member McKinney, who unseated then-board Chair Althea Greene as District 2’s representative in the August 2024 school board election after campaigning as an advocate of leadership change. She signaled in her campaign that she would emphasize communication and community involvement, telling Chalkbeat: “Family and community engagement must be meaningful, genuine, inclusive, and responsive to truly support our students.”

Memphians are “tired of watching their students graduate but not be prepared for postsecondary opportunities,” McKinney said on election night. “At some point we have to decide who will be responsible for this. If things haven’t worked under that leadership, it’s time to try something new.”

McKinney was one of four newly elected board members last year. But Feagins’ board opposition included a mix of veteran and new board members: Dorse Coleman, Williams, and Love joined with McKinney and two other newcomers, Murphy and Otey. The other newly elected board member, Porter in District 4, sided with Feagins, along with McKissack and Huett-Garcia.

As the meeting room emptied Tuesday night, Overton High School Spanish teacher Noah Nordstrom said he felt shocked, heartbroken, and betrayed by the vote to fire Feagins.

Nordstrom, 26, said he fears ripple effects in classrooms, with teachers returning to a feeling of low motivation that was prevalent before the superintendent position was filled.

“For the last year under Dr. Feagins there’s been this new hope, this new sense of motivation, like our district is going somewhere,” Nordstrom said. “And now it feels like we’re going back.”

Correction, Jan. 23, 12:26 p.m.: A previous version of this story referred incorrectly to the number of days Feagins was in her post.

Federal review of Memphis school district cites dozens of cases of alleged sexual harassment and assault

2024-08-30T19:17:13+00:00

Memphis-Shelby County Schools violated federal civil rights law by not adequately responding to complaints of sexual harassment and assault of students over a three-year period, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced on Friday.

The office said that the state’s largest school district has agreed to a number of corrective steps to resolve the office’s compliance review, which began in March 2020.

According to the agency, district documents reflect reports that teachers or substitute teachers sexually assaulted students in seven incidents across three school years at all school levels in the district: elementary, middle, and high school. District documents reflect 53 more cases of reported staff-to-student sexual harassment, not including sexual assault, as well as a total of 88 cases of student-to-student sexual harassment during the same time period, the OCR said.

The violations occurred over three years starting in 2017-18, according to the OCR’s letter to Superintendent Marie Feagins, who took the helm of the district earlier this year.

Those records and witness interviews “reflect clear district violations” of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, and raise “serious concerns” about the district’s response, which is subject to the same law, the OCR said.

“Students in the Memphis-Shelby County School District deserve the safety and freedom from discrimination that Congress promised them in Title IX, and the District now commits to fulfill its Title IX obligations to these students,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon said in a statement. “The Office for Civil Rights will monitor the school district in the coming years to be sure it complies with Title IX.”

A statement issued later Friday by the MSCS media relations department said the district is “committed to ensuring the safety, dignity, and equal educational opportunities for all students” and recognizes the importance of Title IX compliance. The administration is addressing issues identified by OCR while “actively collaborating to establish corrective actions regarding past reports,” it said.

The school board, meanwhile, is in transition and without a chairperson as four new members were sworn in on Thursday.

“Any time a person is violated, the school board is very concerned,” Stephanie Love, who was reelected to the board this month, said Friday. “I want to talk to the superintendent and our general counsel to see what we can do to right the ship.”

The Office of Civil Rights, which according to its letter to the district began its investigation in March 2020, determined that the district violated Title IX by:

Not having a designated Title IX coordinator for substantial portions of the office’s compliance review period.
Not coordinating its response to reports of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, through its Title IX coordinator as required during the time that a coordinator was designated.
Not involving the Title IX coordinator in the majority of sexual harassment files reviewed for the investigation, including not involving a Title IX coordinator in any of the incidents involving staff.
Not maintaining a nondiscrimination statement and harassment policies that comply with Title IX.
Not fulfilling the Title IX obligation to maintain records sufficient for the district or for the Office of Civil Rights to make compliance determinations, including inconsistent reporting to the office for its Civil Rights Data Collection and for the compliance review itself.

The OCR’s 20-page letter to the district says files generally showed that staff members overseeing employee relations approached the cases primarily as personnel matters, focusing on whether the accused employee violated a school board ethics rule or engaged in conduct that implicated state laws regarding education, rather than on whether there was a potential Title IX violation.

The OCR spotlighted one case in particular involving an elementary school teacher who was ultimately convicted of soliciting sexual exploitation of a minor and who was reported to have encouraged boys and girls to touch each other inappropriately during class, in addition to other alleged misconduct.

The agency said the record does not reflect any involvement of the Title IX coordinator in investigating the teacher’s conduct, any support provided by the district to affected students to ensure their equal access to education, or any notice to the parties regarding any district determination under Title IX.

The resolution agreement requires the school district to take a number of steps, including: to adopt and publish a compliant notice of nondiscrimination; revise its policies; review all sexual assault cases from the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years to make sure each were resolved or, if not, take steps to do so; conduct district staff training; survey parents and students on how sexual harassment in schools is handled; and “designate, train, and publicize the contact information” for its Title IX coordinator.

The district has taken some steps already. In the budget for the 2024-25 school year, the district general counsel’s list of priorities start with two bullet points.

One is to “establish a strong team” to handle Title IX issues and revise policies and workflows as appropriate.

The second: to implement training in student and employee civil rights “to ensure compliance with duties to respond to, investigate, and decide complaints” concerning federal laws.

Eric Gorski is Chalkbeat’s managing editor for local news. You can reach him at egorski@chalkbeat.org.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Educators rebuke Hillsdale College for soliciting donations to ‘put the Constitution back in Tennessee schools’

2024-08-13T23:21:47+00:00

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A conservative Christian college involved in classroom culture wars is suggesting that the U.S. Constitution is absent from Tennessee schools, drawing a public rebuke from a member of a Republican-appointed committee that developed the state’s social studies standards.

A recent mailer from Hillsdale College in Michigan warns that K-12 education is at a crisis point. “Activists and bureaucrats,” it reads, are pushing to “replace individual rights with the destructive idea of unequal rights based on identity using critical race theory and other Marxist ideologies.”

A mailer Hillsdale College sent to Tennessee residents.

The mailer solicits tax-deductible donations ranging from $15 to $100 to help the college continue to send pocket-sized copies of the Constitution to schools that request them.

“Will you help put the Constitution back in Tennessee schools?” it reads in bold print.

But according to the state’s social studies standards, which lay out what students should know at each grade level, the Constitution has a prominent place in Tennessee schools.

Students are expected to be introduced to the Constitution in second grade. By fourth grade, students are to examine constitutional principles such as the separation of powers, federalism, and checks and balances. Three constitutional amendments are covered in eighth grade.

The mailer isn’t sitting well with two former social studies standards committee members and others who advocate for the subject and develop resources for educators to teach it well.

“When you see a flier like this, you realize that a lot of people believe it. If something goes uncontested, people believe it,” said Bill Carey, executive director of Tennessee History for Kids, a nonprofit that produces resources for educators on state history. “It’s not true, obviously. Tennessee may do a better job of any state at teaching civics and the U.S. Constitution.”

Carey, who served on a 10-member committee that revised the standards in 2016 and 2017, voiced his criticism in an opinion piece published in newspapers across Tennessee. He received the mailer at his suburban Nashville home and shared a copy with Chalkbeat.

Asked to comment on Carey’s op-ed, a Hillsdale representative said the college’s main concern is curriculum, or the lessons and instruction students get to learn material in the standards.

“Despite the best intentions of good, even excellent, state standards, some teachers and administrators can and do deviate from them,” said Labin Duke, the school’s associate vice president of national donor outreach, in a written response. “Recent legislation in Tennessee aimed at restricting inappropriate materials in schools suggests as much.”

Duke did not cite evidence of schools or teachers deviating from Tennessee’s social studies standards.

In 2021, Tennessee became one the first states to adopt a law restricting what educators can teach about race, gender, bias, and other concepts. The law has led teachers to exercise caution when teaching about school segregation and raised concerns about a chilling effect on authors speaking to Memphis high schoolers about their book on George Floyd’s death.

William “Freddy” Curtis, a retired government and civics educator who also served on the 2016-17 social studies standards committee, agreed that social studies gets short shrift nationally but took umbrage at Hillsdale’s characterization of what’s happening in Tennessee.

The committee, which he vice-chaired, added standards about the history and application of the Constitution, he said. He does not think deviating from standards is a problem in Tennessee, citing as evidence a requirement that districts give every high school student a civics exam.

Curtis was an elementary school teacher, high-school government teacher, principal, and district superintendent in Cannon County, a rural area between Chattanooga and Nashville. He’s also a self-described conservative, Republican primary voter, and ordained Church of God minister who served as an adviser on Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s first gubernatorial campaign.

“To be told I am a Marxist activist … I didn’t like that at all,” Curtis said. “I am probably a proponent of some of the things Hillsdale does. But this is so crazy, it’s off the charts.”

He added: “A lot of teachers are conservatives, particularly in Tennessee.”

Kira Duke, state coordinator for the Tennessee Council for History Education, which promotes the importance of history and supports teachers, said Tennessee’s social studies standards are fairly specific about what to teach about the Constitution compared to other states.

For example, she said, “North Carolina standards are written to be broad, to address more themes, and you can make an argument there is a place for that.”

Hillsdale has gained a higher national profile in recent years for championing a classical liberal arts education, including pushing to expand its affiliated charter schools in Tennessee. The mailer appears to use boilerplate language that could be sent anywhere in the country, and it states that donations may go to other causes along with pocket Constitutions.

Mark Finchum, executive director of the Tennessee Council for Social Studies and a former National Council for Social Studies board member, said the mailer uses scare tactics.

“I don’t really care for propaganda,” Finchum said. “Words are so important, and we need to choose them carefully.”

Duke, of Hillsdale, said in the statement that the mailer “simply aims to support educators who want all students to meet Tennessee’s high standards.” The college has distributed more than 5 million free copies of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, including more than 700,000 to teachers and students nationwide, he said.

Carey said students need context, not just copies of primary source material. He pointed to a number of ways the country’s seminal document is being taught in Tennessee, including with free online curriculum produced by the Secretary of State’s office.

When the committee was revising the standards a few years ago, members had sometimes heated debates on how to word standards that cover the origins of world religions, how to teach Tennessee history, and when students should learn about the Holocaust.

The U.S. Constitution, he said, was not a contentious topic.

Eric Gorski is a managing editor for local news. Reach Eric at egorski@chalkbeat.org .

Latino community coalition calls for delay in Denver schools superintendent vote

2021-06-02T04:28:36+00:00

A group of Latino community leaders called Tuesday for the Denver school board to delay its vote to confirm Alex Marrero as the next leader of Denver Public Schools after he was named in a lawsuit filed against his previous district.

The board’s sole Latino representative, however, told Chalkbeat the board is confident in its choice and has not discussed putting off the vote, saying it would be unfair to a qualified, competent Latino candidate who also has strong support in the community.

The Denver school board announced last Wednesday that Marrero, most recently the interim superintendent in New Rochelle, New York, was its choice to serve as the Denver district’s next superintendent. On the same day, the New Rochelle board selected an outside candidate, Jonathan Raymond, to be that district’s next leader, passing over Marrero.

A vote to finalize the Denver decision is scheduled for Thursday.

Latino community leaders had previously expressed concerns about the experience level of the superintendent candidates and called on the district to pause and reopen the search. In particular, they worried that none of the finalists had enough experience serving English language learners. After Marrero was named, those leaders said they were willing to work with him.

But the lawsuit raises new concerns, they said in an open letter Tuesday.

“Now that we have learned about the impending lawsuit in New Rochelle, New York, we are once again asking the board to halt the confirmation of Dr. Marrero pending a more thorough investigation into this lawsuit,” they wrote. “Without commenting on the merits of the case, this is especially important given that the lawsuit relates to the way in which Dr. Marrero allegedly handled the response to the COVID-19 [pandemic] in his previous school district.”

The letter is signed by Kathy Escamilla of the Congress for Hispanic Educators, Virginia Castro and Milo Marquez of the Auraria Historical Advocacy Council, Elsa Bañuelos of Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, Tania Hogan of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, and Mike Cortes of the advocacy group CLLARO.

Brooke Balchan, the former medical director of the New Rochelle district, filed the lawsuit Friday in federal court in New York and names a number of top administrators, including Marrero. She accused them of overlooking her medical expertise in their COVID response, sidelining her, and retaliating when she complained. The Denver Post first reported on the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for the New Rochelle district said officials are aware of the lawsuit but have not yet been served. Officials are not yet in a position to respond to every allegation, he said, but they deny any wrongdoing.

“The district categorically denies any current or former district employees have been silenced or retaliated against, in any manner, in connection with the district’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement from the City School District of New Rochelle said. “The district takes great pride in the manner in which its leadership team has handled all aspects of this unprecedented crisis. Any assertion that district representatives have acted in an unlawful manner in responding to the pandemic is simply false.”

Many of the allegations in the 50-page lawsuit are aimed at New Rochelle’s previous superintendent, Laura Feijoo. Marrero replaced Feijoo as the interim superintendent in September.

In the lawsuit, Balchan alleges that Marrero chose a different health screener than the one she recommended, changed plans for on-site COVID testing and in-person services for special education students on short notice, and didn’t acknowledge her efforts.

In January, Balchan learned that Marrero planned to transport school staff on buses to a local hospital to be vaccinated. This was before most school staff were eligible under New York’s guidelines, and she reported the situation to local health authorities, according to her lawsuit. The appointments were canceled, and the hospital faced state sanctions, according to the Journal News.

Balchan alleges that she was pushed out of her job due to these disagreements.

Denver school board President Carrie Olson and Vice President Jennifer Bacon said in an statement Tuesday that they continue to have confidence in Marrero after reading the lawsuit and talking to Marrero and the New Rochelle school board president, Rachel Relkin.

“The board is assured that the primary concerns about medical guidance were directed at the former superintendent of New Rochelle and other employees of the New Rochelle leadership team — who were also named in the lawsuit,” Olson and Bacon said. “The board president of New Rochelle stands by the actions of Dr. Marrero as appropriate and with the best interests of the district, its students, and its community in mind.”

Bacon and Olson said they expect that in Denver, Marrero would work in close consultation with local health officials, as the district has done over the last year. One of Marrero’s top priorities will be pandemic recovery.

In an interview Tuesday, board member Angela Cobián, who represents southwest Denver, also voiced strong support for Marrero. She said that she and Bacon previously met with the coalition of Latino leaders, and she takes their concerns seriously.

Cobián said she agrees the district needs to continue to prioritize multilingual students and especially students of Mexican and Chicano heritage, “because it is the majority of the school district.” However, she added, “I have full confidence in the process we ran, the finalists we chose,” and Marrero’s selection.

Cobián’s support for Marrero is significant because she is one of two remaining board members who was a supporter of previous district policies to improve schools that the current board majority campaigned against. The other board member, Barbara O’Brien, did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

The firm the district hired to conduct the superintendent search, Alma Advisory Group of Chicago, had flagged local news coverage that detailed some of the allegations laid out in the lawsuit, so it was not all a surprise to board members, Cobián said.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Cobián said she felt a “deep wave of sorrow and empathy” for Marrero, in part because of her experience being targeted by political opponents when she was running for public office as a young Latina.

“A leader of color is never going to be good enough for somebody,” she said. “You are in an impossible situation because there are going to be people who are not going to think you’re Latino enough. There are people who are going to say you are not qualified enough. There are critics who are going to come after you because of their own political position.”

“When your life’s work has been dedicated to the advancement of Latinx students and students of color, and people can just get away with the things they say about you … He is at the end of the day a qualified, competent Latino leader,” she said.

Welcome to high school in pandemic times: Introducing a new Chalkbeat series

2020-09-16T21:10:13+00:00

It wasn’t supposed to start like this.

The 13- and 14-year-olds who make up the Class of 2024 did not expect to begin their high school careers clustered in Zoom rooms or passing temperature checks and shuffling past masked classmates at a safe distance.

The pandemic has rewritten the script of a traditional rite of passage — the beginning of the end of a long K-12 journey for students growing into young adulthood.

It is a story Chalkbeat will be following over the next several months as the 2020-21 school year unfolds. Our reporters will introduce you to a cast of ninth graders across the country trying to figure it all out in this most challenging school year.

We chose to focus on this grade for a number of reasons. For one, it’s when school truly starts to count. A student’s grades, attendance, extracurricular activities, and relationships with classmates and school staff will leave a lasting mark.

In fact, there is little margin for error.

How a student fares in ninth grade goes a long way toward determining academic, and life, success. Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research found that students who failed more than one semester of a course during their freshman year almost always dropped out. Other studies have found that students struggle to maintain their grades and friendships as they transition to high school.

Many schools — including some we will feature in this series — have taken this to heart by launching ninth-grade academies and other efforts to rein in high dropout rates and steer ninth graders toward academic success. Now they face pulling it off in a pandemic.

The stakes are especially high for students of color and those whose families live in poverty, the communities hit hardest by COVID-19. As classes resume, these families face hurdles, rooted in longstanding inequities, that influence how students learn — the digital divide, food and housing instability, transportation challenges, and more.

Our first installment, which publishes Thursday, will bring you into a corner of a Memphis living room that student Jalan Clemmons has carved out as his remote classroom.

A relative newcomer to Memphis, Jalan joined students from across Shelby County Schools in logging onto school and receiving live instruction from teachers after a spring of learning lessons though paper packets and televised instruction.

The first day of school brought unexpected choices for Jalan — like whether to turn on his laptop camera and face classmates he had never met.

No matter whether students are learning at home, together in small cohorts in classrooms, or experiencing some of both, this is high school at a distance.

Students are either separated from their teachers and friends by sometimes shaky Wi-Fi signals or kept physically apart in school buildings in keeping with health department recommendations.

We hope to still bring readers close to these students — sharing their hopes, fears, victories, and setbacks in a year unlike any we’ve seen.

COVID Diaries Colorado: A day in the pandemic

2020-04-26T06:02:00+00:00

A teacher greets her students. An imam counsels his congregants. A firefighter reports for duty. New parents take their baby home from the hospital.

These are routine moments in the lives of Coloradans. But the coronavirus has transformed the routine into the remarkable, upending how we live and interact with each other.

As a heavy spring snow blanketed the state on Thursday, April 16, journalists from news organizations across Colorado set out to chronicle a day in the life of the state’s residents during this extraordinary time.

It happened that this day was the deadliest to date in the U.S. for the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 4,500 people died. Colorado’s state health department reported 17 more deaths, and that the death toll had hit 374 — a figure that the state would later determine was more than 560 as more reports of COVID-19 victims surfaced.

The statewide order to shut down non-essential businesses — issued a month before to the day — had taken a toll. In that month-long period, more than 231,000 people filed for unemployment, just short of the 285,000 unemployment claims filed in all of 2009 during the height of the great recession.

The Colorado stories of April 16 show how much has changed in such a short amount of time. Teachers now instruct students over screens. Doctors speak to patients through masks and face shields. Newborn babies are quarantined from sick parents.

But the journalists also chronicled how, even as Colorado stares down uncertainty, death and illness, life goes on. Birthdays are celebrated. Prayers are said.

And in what feels like a dark hour, there are moments of hope.

7 a.m.

Venture For Success Preparatory Learning Center, Denver

Dressed in purple scrub pants and a coordinated print top, Catherine Scott started her work day with a spray bottle of bleach solution, wiping down door handles, tables and a laptop keyboard.

Scott is not a health care worker, but a preschool teacher — often tasked with opening the child care center where she works in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood.

Preschool teacher Catherine Scott starts her day by cleaning classrooms before caring for children at Venture for Success Preparatory Learning Center in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood.

When children began arriving with their parents, Scott met them at the front door, thermometer in hand. After temperature checks, parents logged their child’s arrival on the laptop, and everybody washed their hands in the sink up front.

Scott, who the youngsters call “Miss Cathy” or “Miss Cappy,” had just three children in her classroom — a 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old — two of them new to the center. It was a far cry from the usual 15 she would have on a day without coronavirus.

After many child care providers closed last month, state officials made a recommendation that caught some by surprise: Stay open, with precautions, to care for the children of working parents.

Scott and her co-teacher recorded morning “circle time” so the video could be posted to a private YouTube channel for children whose parents kept them home. They sang their good morning song in English and Spanish and read the book “Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons.”

One of the biggest challenges of preschool in the coronavirus era is social distancing. Instead of the usual snuggles and hugs, Scott has switched to distance hugs, air high fives, and pats on the back. One student spontaneously jumped into her lap, then quickly realized her mistake.

“I sorry,” the girl said. “Air high five.”

— Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat

8 a.m.

COVID-19 unit, St. Joseph Hospital, Denver

Dr. Peter Stubenrauch reviewed patients’ charts with his medical team during morning rounds and once again weighed the tradeoffs of long-term ventilator use.

Dr. Peter Stubenrauch and team review the charts of ICU patients at St. Joseph Hospital. Nearly every patient was on a ventilator, forcing medical staff to reckon with limited supplies, experimental treatment, and ever-evolving guidance on COVID-19.

Patients getting high levels of oxygen usually are placed on their stomach to ease pressure on the lungs. But that leaves them vulnerable to skin damage as they rest on tubes and equipment.

“Unfortunately, it comes down to an intellectual discussion between how sick are their lungs and how worried are you about the skin,” said Stubenrauch, a critical care pulmonologist with National Jewish Health, which staffs and manages the ICU. “But ultimately the skin wounds should recover (and) we need people oxygenating well enough that they’ll hopefully recover from this from a lung standpoint, too.”

Nearly every patient in the unit was on a ventilator, that precious piece of equipment that can be the difference between life and death during the coronavirus crisis.

The medical guidance on COVID-19 is evolving fast. Stubenrauch said doctors use the “tried and true” approaches to respiratory illness and are eyeing experimental treatments being developed. He recommended that one of his patients be added to a promising drug study. If she’s accepted, she could get the drug or a placebo the research requires. He can’t know.

Consultations with families are done by phone. Discussing life and death matters but not face to-face, with family members who can’t even be together with their loved one, is heartbreaking. And the uncertainty about COVID-19 means preparing families for the worst.

“You by no means have any interest in giving up on a patient, particularly someone who came into the intensive care unit relatively recently,” Stubenrauch said. But he must “also set the expectation that we’re observing a lot of patients who remain on mechanical ventilation for prolonged periods of time and can quite suddenly take turns for the worse and pass away.”

By his shift’s end, the news in the unit was brighter. There were no new admissions for the day.

— Kelley Griffin, CPR News

9 a.m.

Office in the former Morris Elementary School, Yuma

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner on a conference call with President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. The subject: How to begin reopening America’s economy. Gardner took the call from a private office in a coworking space carved from the elementary school he attended.

The president of the United States was on the line again.

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, elected in 2014 as a rising star in the Republican party, joined other senators on a conference call with President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The subject: How to begin reopening America’s economy.

Gardner took the call from a private office in a coworking space carved from the elementary school he attended, and his parents attended before him, in this Eastern Plains town.

It’s close enough to his house that he can get there for lunch and, on this day, make chili for dinner.

Later in the day, Gardner spoke to Gov. Jared Polis about a letter they and Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet were sending to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell informing him of Colorado’s needs. He spoke to banking leaders about nagging problems with the federal Paycheck Protection Program. He conducted a pair of TV interviews.

“Constant calls,” Gardner said. “There are constant calls, scheduled and unscheduled.”

Gardner is up for reelection in November and his seat is considered one of the most vulnerable for Republicans in 2020. His relationship with Trump is central to the campaign, and in recent months the pair have been closely aligned and supportive of each other.

Gardner has been speaking regularly with Trump throughout the crisis. He said the president recently called late at night to pick his brain about trying to bring America back to normalcy.

“I talk to him about what I’m hearing,” Gardner said of the conversations. “He’s asking, ‘How do you think we should reopen the economy, get out of where we’re at right now?’”

— Jesse Paul, Colorado Sun

9:10 a.m.

Denver City and County Building

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock meets with Emergency Operations Center staff in the basement of the City and County Building.

Speaking in a basement room of a mostly quiet City and County building, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock told a dozen Emergency Operations Center staff gathered before him and others watching online that citizens need the safety and security only they can provide.

Hancock’s days are filled with meetings. Questions and concerns pile up with each one.

More residents are ignoring the stay-at-home order he put in place through the end of April to control the spread of the virus. How can Denver ease restrictions equitably? Will businesses hurt more if they open at half capacity? Should there be a curfew?

Hancock’s rollout of the stay-at-home order was not smooth. He initially announced that liquor stores and recreational marijuana shops would be closed before reversing course after long lines formed outside of both across the city, undermining social distancing guidance.

The city government, like public agencies across Colorado, faces a dire loss of tax revenue from virus-prompted shutdowns. Hancock, on a conference call with other metro area city leaders, heard of planned furloughs and open positions left dark, which Denver is considering, too.

“In every challenge, the people are looking for that group of people who are going to stand up and fight on their behalf,” Hancock said. “We’re the people. We’re the ones.”

— Conrad Swanson, The Denver Post

11:15 a.m.

Avery Parsons Elementary School, Buena Vista

The vehicles pulled into the parking lot on the west side of the school.

Michelle Cunningham was there in a surgical mask and gloves, greeting parents and students by name and giving them thumbs-up signs and smiles in lieu of high-fives and hugs.

School Counselor Michelle Cunningham prepares for meal distribution at Avery Parsons Elementary. The Buena Vista school was closed for learning, but distributes nearly 400 meals a day to students who need them.

The school counselor has been struck by the volume of families showing up for free meals. Though nearly one-third of the school district’s roughly 1,100 students are eligible for government-subsidized lunches, a measure of poverty, only about 40 children a day typically take advantage, she said. Now the district is handing out 400 meals a day, she said.

“As counselors, we know brains work best when physiological needs are met,” Cunningham said. “Its benefits go beyond food. I’m out where I connect with families. We give them a warm smile, a ‘How are things going?’... It’s a highlight of the kids’ day — a daily field trip to go get your lunch! This check-in connection can make it easier for them to ask for help.”

In communities across the country, school buildings closed for learning remain open for meal distribution, extending a social safety net during the crisis. That holds true in Buena Vista, a tourism-dependent community set amid the majestic Collegiate Peaks.

With retailers, restaurants, and other small businesses closed, hundreds of families are out of work. Many just received their last paychecks. The virus caused the cancellation of a summer whitewater festival in nearby Salida, part of a $75 million rafting season for the local economy.

Even so, Cunningham said she is proud of how the community has rallied.

“The school board, the business owners, the community leaders, the churches, the school’s lunch ladies … Everyone is stepping up in so many ways to support each other.”

— Jan Wondra, Ark Valley Voice

Noon

Parking lot of the El Jebel Laundromat, Eagle County

Fabiola Grajales waited for the nose swab that would tell her whether she was finally free of the coronavirus and able to be near her family again.

In one of Colorado’s COVID-19 hotspots, a coalition of Eagle County Public Health, MidValley Family Practice and the Mobile Intercultural Resource Alliance has set up this free mobile testing site. Most patients waiting at the open-sided tent were screened in advance and recommended for the tests after showing symptoms consistent with the coronavirus.

Fabiola Grajales consults with a healthcare worker at a free mobile testing site at El Jebel Laundromat in Aspen. Eagle County was one of Colorado’s COVID-19 hotspots.

Grajales, 27, a medical assistant at a Glenwood Springs clinic, said she started feeling sick March 2 and tested positive for the virus March 6. Over the next week, her cough worsened and she experienced shortness of breath.

“You know when you step on dry leaves? I could hear that sound coming from my lungs.”

“You get really bad headaches,” Grajales continued. “You feel like your eyes, they’re going to pop out. I couldn’t smell or taste anything.”

Doctors at Grand River Hospital in Rifle confirmed she had pneumonia, which is common among COVID-19 patients, and treated her there but didn’t admit her, she said.

She self-isolated for 10 days before symptoms disappeared. But a follow-up test showed she still had coronavirus. After more rest, Grajales felt “90% better, maybe 95,” she said.

Waiting her turn for yet another test, Grajales said the knowledge and contacts she’s gained working in health care helped her acquire tests and treatment, with some effort.

“It was hard for me,” she said. “I can’t imagine how hard it would be for other people.”

She would need to wait a bit longer to learn whether she was finally well.

— Scott Condon, The Aspen Times

12:20 p.m.

St. Joseph Hospital emergency room, Denver

Dr. Ramnik Dhaliwal makes his rotations through the St. Joseph Hospital’s emergency room, where patient volume is down due to stay-at-home orders.

It was another quiet day in the E.R., and the nurses gathered as they do every afternoon to discuss adjusting their schedules. This is a ripple effect of the pandemic: While parts of the health care system are stretched to the limit, emergency rooms are less busy.

“Not gonna lie,” said Dr. Ramnik Dhaliwal, who started his shift at 8. “A little bit bored today.”

More people than ever before are staying home, which means fewer accidents and injuries, Dhaliwal said. He had a patient who suffered a heart attack at home and didn’t go to the ER for three days. He said it’s part messaging — people heeding calls to avoid the hospital unless it’s a true emergency — but also fear of contracting the virus at the hospital.

Like all health care professionals, Dhaliwal wears personal protective equipment, or PPE. That means scrubs, a mask, protective glasses and a scrub hat. He understands the need, but he’s bothered that it takes away from the personal nature of his interactions with patients.

Nurses at St Joseph (From right to left: Kristi Legaarden, Katie Greer, Angie Romero, Jenn Fisk, Sarah Bailey, Wyn Chen)

“Hopefully this doesn’t stay like this forever,” he said. “Just waiting for that vaccine.”

The slower traffic to the E.R. compounds the financial pressures facing health-care providers. To make sure resources are adequate to battle the virus, hospitals in Colorado and nationwide have postponed elective medicine including non-emergency surgeries and procedures.

The meeting of the nursing staff ended with the decision to send some home early.

— Claire Cleveland, CPR News

1:30 p.m.

Self-storage locker, Grand Junction

Dawna Numbers lost her job and has tried hundreds of times to get through to unemployment, meanwhile she’s lost her place to live, and can’t afford to care for her chihuahua’s serious illness.

The self-storage yard was empty when Dawna Numbers arrived.

The rain had paused, so the 48-year-old moved quickly to load her clothes in plastic bags into the back of her red Kia for the long journey on a mostly empty interstate.

With no money for rent, Numbers was headed for her mother’s house on the Front Range.

Numbers has been out of work since March 25, when the coronavirus outbreak eliminated her night shift job at a fishing-line factory in Grand Junction. Like many Americans, she had tried fruitlessly to file for unemployment benefits. The state unemployment office had been slammed with more than 231,000 new claims in the last month, slowing services to a crawl.

Numbers had taken the night job so she could attend physical therapy appointments during the day. She’s worked in the past as a utility locator, a caregiver, and a Lyft driver. She had few options in Grand Junction. Many employers are shut down because of the virus.

“I’ve never just felt so alone,” she said. Maybe this crisis would bring out something better in people, she hoped. Maybe she’d have better luck in Denver.

“We just need to do the best we can and hopefully this ends soon and somehow we can go back to some kind of normal life,” she said. “Or hopefully better than it was before.”

— Andrew Kenney, CPR News

2 p.m.

On the road from Steamboat Springs to Oak Creek

Nolan Christopher Dreher’s parents tucked him into his car seat in the back of their Toyota Highlander and drove snowy roads from Steamboat Springs to their home in Oak Creek. Nolan, cozy in a white onesie with bears on it, was two days old and on his way to meet his brothers.

Lauren Dreher and her newborn son, Nolan, arrive home from UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center. She and her husband Christopher are both furloughed. Concerns about safety and potential exposure during delivery worried them both.

Lauren Dreher was hoping she had been careful enough, that the nurses and doctors and the woman who came in her hospital room to take out the trash were not infected with the virus.

“At the end of the day you have to know that you did everything you could do,” she said. “I’m just hoping that that’s enough. I was trying so hard not to touch my face. You’re in labor and you brush your hair out of your face and wipe your brow.”

What a weird time to bring a new human into the world, she thought. Will Nolan get a vaccine to protect him against the new coronavirus? What if social norms change so much that her third son never knows a world where people shake hands?

Dreher, who had a complicated second pregnancy, planned to give birth to Nolan in Denver with an at-risk pregnancy specialist. She changed her mind as she watched the number of COVID-19 cases climb in the city. Plus, UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center isn’t nearly as busy.

“It was just kind of eerie how quiet it was,” Dreher said. Adding to that surreal feeling was the fact that “everyone you came into contact with was wearing a mask, from the security guard to the nurses and doctors.” Dreher’s delivery team wore N95 masks and face shields.

She was allowed one visitor: her husband, Christopher.

The Drehers are both furloughed. Lauren works for an orthodontist, and Christopher works at a French restaurant in Steamboat. They are trying to look at the bright side — more time with their new baby and sons Calvin, 6, and Landon, 4.

By late afternoon all were back in their warm home with a fresh blanket of snow outside, the first time together as a family of five.

— Jennifer Brown, Colorado Sun

2:30 p.m.

Home of Arapahoe County coroner Dr. Kelly Lear, Centennial

Arapahoe County coroner Dr. Kelly Lear was at home, in jeans and a turtleneck instead of her usual scrubs, handling the administrative tasks that go along with the job since she and her fellow pathologist must stagger days in the office to maintain social distancing.

But she was thinking about a case from early February: The death of a man in his 40s who had been seemingly healthy — with no serious pre-existing medical conditions – before falling ill with a cough a few weeks earlier. When she examined him then in the sterile autopsy room at the coroner’s office, she discovered lungs ravaged by an infection.

More than two months later, Lear was still searching for answers to why the man died.

The forensic pathologist suspected a virus and had ordered tests to prove it. The results came in mid-March. No flu. No other viruses. Nothing pinpointing what attacked his lungs.

“I was basically ready to sign his death certificate as severe lung disease – unknown infection,” she said.

But emerging news of the novel coronavirus got her thinking.

“He showed all the symptoms and had very severe lung disease – and it looked at autopsy like what we are hearing, you know, COVID-19 lungs look like,” Lear said.

A week later, Lear got the results of specimens she sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The man’s test was negative.

— Kevin Vaughan, 9NEWS

4:44 p.m.

Masjid Al-Shuhada, downtown Denver

In a building that can hold up to 200 praying together, Imam Muhammad Kolila was alone as he prayed the Salat al-’asr, one of Islam’s five daily prayers.

“One of the things I really miss about community, before coronavirus, is that sense of belonging and that sense of human, physical interactions,” he said afterward. “If we have good intentions, and we lack all the resources and we do our best to pray and make sure we pray in a group, we get the same reward as we would as if we pray in the mosque. And that’s one of the things I’m trying to highlight.”

Imam Muhammad Kolila of Masjid Al-Shuhada, discussed how his mosque, and other places of worship, struggled to foster comfort and connectivity for congregants during the stay-at-home order.

Kolila has highlighted such teachings online. Like religious leaders of all faith traditions, Kolila has been streaming services — in his case, since March 16 — to provide spiritual direction at a trying time and keep his congregation connected as best he can.

“One of the main objectives and one of the main missions of this mosque is to provide a safe space for people to come and pray, and connect with God, but right now we cannot create that safe space—physically,” he said. “This is why our biggest challenge is to create the space virtually.”

In addition to providing spiritual guidance digitally, Kolila has helped members in need. He regularly delivers food, supplies and money to members. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan was about to begin, providing another test for the imam and his temporarily virtual congregation.

The easing of stay-at-home orders will raise additional questions for Masjid Al-Shuhada and other places of worship: What does praying together look like in the new normal of 2020?

— Victoria Carodine, 5280

5 p.m.

Fire Station 52, Brighton

Capt. Colin Brunt and colleagues from Brighton’s Fire Rescue Station 52, extinguish a car fire on April 16. Brunt and other emergency response workers bring masks on calls to prevent exposure to the virus.

Capt. Colin Brunt climbed into Brighton Fire Rescue Tower 51, a 46-foot long fire truck with a ladder. Trailed by his colleagues in Engine 52, Brunt traveled to Bason Kramer’s house to wish the 5-year-old a happy birthday. When they arrived, the crews switched on their lights and honked their horns while a firefighter stepped out to hand the boy a certificate.

This was not a typical day for the Brighton Fire Department, but it was a welcome one.

Since COVID-19 began to spread, Brunt has worked six 48-hour rotations. Each day of every rotation, he’s responded to multiple COVID-19 medical calls.

When his six-person firefighter and EMS team shows up to a house with a presumed positive case, a paramedic enters the house for reconnaissance while Brunt and his team prepare an ambulance for the patient by wrapping the inside of the cabin with thick plastic.

Before the birthday party, Brunt’s unit extinguished a car fire, helped out on a call of a tractor-trailer hanging off the side of a highway and responded to a fire alarm. Brunt took a mask and worries about exposure to the coronavirus.

“That’s our worst-case scenario that goes through all of our heads, bringing something back to our family,” said Brunt, who is married and has two daughters in kindergarten.

Birthday drive-bys — which more fire departments are doing to lift the spirits of isolated children — and other non-coronavirus calls were a nice change. “It’s a morale booster,” Brunt said.

— Liam Adams, MetroWest newspapers

6:30 p.m.

Home of Cat and Zach Garcia, Aurora

Cat Garcia had been waiting for the call from the nurses at the neonatal intensive care unit, hoping to hear good news about her baby twin boys she had yet to meet.

Three weeks earlier, she lay in St. Joseph Hospital about to undergo an emergency cesarean section. Garcia wasn’t due for another six weeks but her doctors felt like they had little choice: She had tested positive for COVID-19, had pneumonia, and was having difficulty breathing.

Bright lights filled the room. Doctors and nurses were covered from head to toe in PPE. The drugs began to take hold, and everything went dark.

When Garcia woke up, she had a breathing tube in her mouth. A nurse held up her phone to show pictures of her newborn sons, Kal and Bruce. It was the closest she was going to get to them.

Her husband, Zach, who works for the Transportation Security Administration at Denver International Airport, had begun to show symptoms of COVID-19 on March 19. Cat Garcia developed a violent cough not long after, and the couple were suddenly facing the prospect of becoming parents in frightening times.

Released from the hospital while Kal and Bruce gained strength in the NICU, Garcia returned home. She pumped milk and unpacked baby clothes while hoping for good news.

When the call came, the news wasn’t good. The twins — both of whom have tested negative for the coronavirus — still weren’t feeding well enough. Watching them on the NICU webcam would have to be good enough for a while longer.

“We haven’t been able to hold them or see them,” Garcia said.

Three days later, the twins were sleeping in car seats on their way home, dressed in matching powder-blue pajamas and hooked up to oxygen to help them breathe.

— Adilene Guajardo, Denver 7

11:30 p.m.

Dr. Mercedes Rincon’s home office, Aurora

Dr. Mercedes Rincon is a professor of Immunology & Microbiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. She hopes her research on the molecule frequently produced in inflammation could shed light on possible treatments for COVID-19. This is her office in the dining room of her Aurora home.

For nearly three decades, Dr. Mercedes Rincon has studied a molecule so obscure and unremarkable that even her colleagues tease her about it.

The Spanish-born professor in the University of Colorado’s Department of Immunology and Microbiology was doing postdoctoral work at Yale when she stumbled upon an article about interleukin-6, or IL-6.

She became fascinated with the molecule commonly produced in inflammation, which is familiar to arthritis and cancer researchers searching for treatments.

When the coronavirus began wreaking havoc on human lungs, Rincon saw a familiar microscopic face in the mix: IL-6 is consistently present in the lungs of the most severely affected patients.

Whether IL-6 is a cause or a consequence of the coronavirus, Rincon isn’t sure. But she hypothesizes that drugs like tocilizumab, traditionally used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, could possibly target IL-6 and prevent it from producing more damaging inflammatory molecules.

Early results from studies in China, as well as research in Europe and at the University of Vermont, show some promise.

“We can’t conclude anything yet,” she cautioned. “We have to be careful. We need more data.”

With the clock approaching midnight, a long day coming to a close, Rincon got to work crafting a grant proposal. She wants the University of Colorado to be at the forefront of this research.

With a little funding and a little luck, Rincon and her obscure molecule might just provide Coloradans — and the rest of the world — with a reason to hope.

— Jay Bouchard, 5280

This story is powered by COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative. Chalkbeat joined this historic collaboration with more than 20 other newsrooms across Colorado to better serve the public.

Meet Spock and Panda, classroom rats who needed a home during the COVID-19 crisis

2020-04-14T18:02:42+00:00

The text from my wife arrived shortly after 9 a.m.: “How do you feel about rats?”

It was Friday, March 13. I had just dropped off our 10-year-old son, Ben, at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, his Denver school, for what would turn out to be the last time this year.

Back then, we knew he wouldn’t return to Room 153 for at least three weeks. The school district, like countless others across the country, had reached the painful decision to temporarily close school buildings and put learning on pause because of the coronavirus health crisis.

But before the 92,000-student Denver district went on what it called “extended spring break,” there was this one last day. At Sandoval, a dual-language Spanish/English Montessori school in the Highland neighborhood of northwest Denver, that meant self-directed learning time, watching part of the film “Life of Pi,” lunch, and recess.

It also included a call for volunteers: Would anyone be willing to provide safe harbor to the classroom rats, Spock and Panda, while schools were closed?

That’s what the text was about.

My son Ben is no amateur. He’s put in shifts as classroom rat-keeper, cleaning their cages and checking their food and water. But it’s one thing to look after animals at school and another to take responsibility for them 24/7. This request for at-home rodent care also came at a time when I already had been working long hours on a story that was only just beginning.

About two minutes after getting that text, I responded: “No (expletive) way.”

Ben’s teacher offered use of the school landline for students who were interested in contacting their parents about the adoption opportunity. I’m pretty soft. It didn’t take me long to flip.

Later that afternoon, I drove the few blocks to school to pick up Ben, Spock, and Panda.

They’re all living together in Ben’s room now, the rats in their three-story rat apartment near Ben’s bed.

We’ve learned a few things in our four weeks together. We learned that the rats are girls (only because Danette, the teacher, told us). We contacted her because Spock was breathing heavily and we were worried, but we learned Spock is older and always breathes like that. We’ve learned that Panda likes to run on her wheel in the middle of the night, and that it’s really loud.

We experimented with making rat food from dried fruit, Rice Krispies, and oatmeal, and we bought Kaytee Clean & Cozy Extreme Odor Control bedding (four-and-a-half stars on Amazon).

Taking in a classroom pet is an incredibly small gesture in the scheme of things. Health care workers and first responders are putting in heroic work to save lives and ease suffering. Teachers, principals, and administrators are hustling to reinvent school on a dime. Students and families are adjusting to a new reality with no idea of what lies ahead.

Last week, with spring break over and in-person school canceled for the rest of the year, Ben and his classmates began remote learning. Just after 9 a.m., when the kids normally would be sitting next to each other on the carpet to start the day, Ben was staring at a prompt on a computer screen asking him how he felt on a scale of 1 to 5.

We know we’re in it for the long haul with these rats. We don’t know when we’ll be able to return them to Room 153, or what school will look like across the country when that happens.

I’m sure we’ll miss having them around. We’ll miss Panda scurrying to say hello and sticking her pink nose through the cage when someone walks into the room.

But we’ll be happy to return them to their corner of the classroom because it will mean everyone is back where they belong.

Do you have a story about adopting a classroom pet during the COVID-19 pandemic that you’d like to share with Chalkbeat? Please send photos and a few words to pets@chalkbeat.org.

Coronavirus has upended traditional school board meetings — and put transparency to the test

2020-04-03T22:57:29+00:00

It was business as usual in school board chambers across the U.S. just a few weeks ago.

Board members would take their seats. Parents, students, teachers, and curious citizens would file in, sitting or standing shoulder-to-shoulder if the evening’s agenda was meaty. During time for public comment, speakers would line up and take turns at the same microphone.

That would be unthinkable now. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended most aspects of American life, including how the public’s business is conducted.

School boards and other governing bodies have moved to virtual meetings to maintain the social distancing considered crucial to slowing the virus’s spread — and, in some cases, are operating under looser rules made possible by hastily crafted executive orders and board motions.

The transition has been smoother for some school districts than others, and open government advocates say the vast majority have attempted to abide by state public records and open meetings laws. But a few situations have raised questions about transparency, including a closed school board meeting conducted by videoconference in Memphis, Tennessee, and a school board decision in Newark, New Jersey, granting the superintendent sweeping authority.

“Even a crisis as profound as this one cannot be an excuse to start doing business in the dark,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a California-based nonprofit. “Transparency is more essential now than it has been in a very long time.”

So-called “sunshine laws” vary by state, but they generally require public agencies to publicize board meetings in advance and make them accessible to the public. The COVID-19 crisis has forced many states, however, into the uncharted territory of trying to conduct business meetings virtually.

Before COVID-19, public board meetings in Tennessee essentially required a physical quorum — enough members had to attend in person for a meeting to proceed. As the virus’s spread limited public gatherings, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order March 20 allowing public bodies to meet electronically through video or telephone conference call.

Agencies are supposed to make “reasonable efforts” to give the public live access to meetings and make recordings available within two days if that isn’t possible.

One week after Lee’s order, the Memphis school board met privately by Zoom video conference, its first gathering since the COVID-19 outbreak closed school buildings.

Contacted after a Chalkbeat reporter learned of the meeting, a Shelby County Schools spokesperson said the meeting involved an attorney-client matter related to adhering to federal laws on educating students with disabilities during the crisis. She later said that information was incomplete and did not include all of the meeting topics.

A lawyer for the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, representing Chalkbeat through a new legal initiative supporting local news organizations, wrote a letter to the school district Monday saying the private meeting appeared to have violated state statute.

The district rejected that claim in a response late Thursday, saying it did not need to notify the public of the meeting in advance and that it had legal grounds to keep it private.

Not referring specifically to the Memphis school board meeting, an open government advocate said school districts struggle more than other public entities in Tennessee with knowing the rules for going into a closed session. In normal times, school boards discuss sensitive matters involving the rights of minors and concerns of teachers and parents, and emotions can run high, said Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.

Fisher predicted difficulties for school boards as they carry out their duties during the epidemic, which is already wiping out in-person schooling at districts nationwide this year.

“It’s going to be a rough road ahead,” Fisher said. “It’s going to be a challenge culturally — in terms of a commitment to transparency — and technologically. Governing bodies already oriented to transparency are going to probably figure something out, as weird and as clumsy as it can be. Those who are not committed to transparency are going to get into problems.”

In Newark, school district leadership has a spotty track record communicating with the public and the press, and that has continued during the pandemic.

The school board voted unanimously March 27 to grant Superintendent Roger León power to take any actions he considers necessary to continue operating the district during the crisis. The board motion states that León’s actions are still subject to board approval, but it’s not clear how that has been or will be put into practice.

The school district has not provided a written copy of the motion or responded to questions from Chalkbeat about its implications.

Walter Luers, president of the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government, said school boards and other public agencies can’t take shortcuts and ignore open records and meetings laws even if they suspend certain policies during an emergency like COVID-19.

“We’ve yet to see how this plays out, but this board of education must not relieve itself from complying with the law,” Luers said. “It’s very concerning.”

The coronavirus crisis has raised other transparency issues in school districts across the country. Among them:

With states giving public agencies more time to respond to open records requests because of the crisis, a number of school districts are taking longer to respond and fulfill requests, citing closures of schools and administrative buildings. Some are taking longer than others. The Denver school district’s open records officer responded to a Chalkbeat request saying it “may take up to the full 10 business days allowed under the statute.” The Memphis district responded to a request related to COVI19 by saying that “we hope to complete your request on or before June 5, 2020.”
The crisis has prompted some districts to rein in meeting requirements. In New York City, the city Department of Education issued a waiver to a requirement that parent teacher associations in each school meet nine times per school year.
In Indianapolis, criticism and threat of legal action over how the Indianapolis Public Schools board ran its first virtual meeting prompted the board to re-take some votes at another meeting this week.

School districts can take additional steps to adapt to the new virtual reality forced by the coronavirus outbreak, said Francisco M. Negrón Jr., chief legal officer of the National School Boards Association. School boards are considering budgets for the next school year and many are urging the public to send in questions ahead of meetings, he said.

Replicating public comment periods has proven more difficult, even for more technologically-savvy school districts that regularly stream public meetings. Some states recognize a public right to comment during open meetings, while others don’t require it.

In Colorado’s 21,000-student District 49, which spans 133 square miles including northeast Colorado Springs and the surrounding area, the board last month experimented with holding a work session via Google Hangouts.

No one took up the district’s offer to submit questions ahead of time, and the platform did not allow for the public to tune in live, said John Graham, the school board president. After resolving some audio glitches, the district publicly posted a recording of the session.

Graham said the District 49 school board has long been committed to transparency. Typically, its in-person meetings are streamed on Facebook Live. Next week, the district plans to conduct its regularly scheduled board meeting on Zoom, which will allow the public to watch.

“At this time and place, with what is going on in our communities and the nation as a whole, the more transparent you can be … it’s very, very important,” Graham said. “The more we can make families feel secure and reassured about their students’ education, and how important and valuable their children are, the better they feel about things.”

Colorado governor orders all schools closed to stem spreading coronavirus

2020-03-19T04:01:00+00:00

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday evening ordered all Colorado schools closed starting Monday and extending through April 17 in a bid to stem the spread of the new coronavirus.

School districts that altogether serve more than 95% of the state’s students had already announced closures in the past week, with some small rural districts the remaining holdouts. The closure order extends to private K-12 schools, as well, but not to private preschools or child care centers.

Polis’s executive order holds significant implications for public school districts that already have closed their doors. While previously announced closures ranged in length, many districts announced plans — in retrospect, hopeful — to return before the end of March.

Now the existing closures — Denver Public Schools called its three-week stoppage “extended spring break” — will stretch well into the spring. As the crisis deepens, no one can say when or if Colorado schools will open again this academic year.

“We are acting boldly and swiftly together to protect the health and safety of all Coloradans,” Polis said in a statement. “The science and data tell us this will get worse before it gets better. We are in this together and the state is taking the necessary actions to slow the spread of this disease.”

Earlier in the day, the Democratic governor said that it was increasingly unlikely that students would return to school buildings this school year.

Colorado is relatively late to the game in deciding to shutter schools. At least 36 states have closed all schools, with a number of additional governors urging or recommending closures.

Polis’s order directs Education Commissioner Katy Anthes to issue guidance to support school systems with plans to help families and students access alternative learning, provide students with subsidized lunch and breakfast, and offer waivers for instructional time as appropriate.

The order says school districts and charter schools authorized by the state through the Charter School Institute must make every effort to provide alternative learning opportunities “while taking into account the needs of local communities.”

Districts have so far taken varying approaches to offering remote learning opportunities. Jeffco Public Schools, the state’s second-largest district, just finished its second day of remote learning. School officials in Denver and other districts have made schoolwork optional during this time off, while saying they are coming up with more concrete plans.

Denver students will begin remote learning on April 7, the day students were originally scheduled to return to school, Superintendent Susana Cordova said in a letter Wednesday night, a few hours after Polis’ announcement.

Remote learning will continue until at least April 17, Cordova said. To prepare, the district is buying additional computers and “options for internet connectivity.”

“I know that in my lifetime, I have never experienced anything like this,” Cordova wrote. “We will continue working hard to provide the best learning opportunities we can to all of our students as we adjust to the changing conditions and take the necessary steps to prioritize the health and wellbeing of our students and staff.”

State officials said they are already working on providing guidance for school districts to roll out remote learning plans. There are several challenges to doing so, including making sure all students have adequate devices and support at home. Other states have previously advised districts that it might not be the best approach.

Jeffco Public Schools released a statement Wednesday night saying it supported the governor’s decision and highlighting its extensive remote learning efforts.

“We know that this information brings both certainty and uncertainty for the weeks ahead,” the district said. “We’d ask that we allow each other a measure of grace, as we develop plans for what school looks like in the weeks ahead.”

For now, the district told families it will continue its remote learning through April 17, with time off next week for spring break.

The Douglas County school district also sent out a note telling families it would move to remote learning next week, as well as start a grab-and-go meal distribution plan.

Getting meals to students while schools are closed is a critical challenge for districts serving low-income families. Some districts began feeding students this week, and Chalkbeat developed this resource that rounds up school-based meal sites across the state.

Chalkbeat reporter Melanie Asmar contributed to this report.

Denver school district cancels classes March 19, citing expected mass teacher absences during rally

2020-03-04T01:07:28+00:00

The Denver school district, the state’s largest, announced Tuesday it is cancelling classes on March 19 in anticipation of widespread teacher absences during a union-organized rally at the Capitol pressing for more school funding.

Click here for a full list of Colorado school districts cancelling classes March 19.

The approximately 92,000-student district joined Jeffco Public Schools in calling off school because of the large number of teachers expected to take part in the “Educator Day of Action” starting at 8 a.m. that Thursday.

“Please know that we understand that this unexpected change is inconvenient for families, and this decision was made due to the large number of teacher absences expected,” the Denver district wrote in a letter to families. “We would not be able to provide academic programs even if we were to call in as many substitute teachers as possible. Please understand that we took the time to explore all resources and options before making this decision.”

All schools will be closed to students, including preschools, the district said. Charter schools — which receive public funding but are operated independently — may not be closed, and the district urged families to contact their schools to check.

Three other large Denver metro area districts — Aurora, Cherry Creek and Douglas County — will not be affected by the rally because they are off for spring break that week.

In 2018, several districts canceled classes or dismissed students early on three different days in April when Colorado teachers rallied at the Capitol.

The state teachers union, the Colorado Education Association, is organizing the “March on the Capitol” to push for increased school funding. Specifically, the union is promoting legislation that would create a special pot of money to raise pay for teachers and other school district staff based on the cost of living in a particular district. The Senate Education Committee approved that bill in January.

The Denver district said before- and after-school Discovery Link programs will be open to current Discovery Link and Enrichment families at all 44 district sites on March 19, and the district will not charge families camp fees for that day. It asked families to fill out an intent-to-attend information if they are currently signed up for the program and would like to use it March 19.

Final-hour union-backed Denver school board mailers evoke Trump, DeVos, and teacher strike

2019-11-02T23:02:28+00:00

In the final days before Denver’s high-stakes school board election, a union-backed political committee has unleashed negative campaign mailers leveraging pro-teacher sentiment from this year’s strike and linking an opponent to President Trump and his education secretary.

The mail pieces are the latest from Students Deserve Better, an independent expenditure committee funded by the Denver and Colorado teachers unions. These mailers repeat claims about charter schools, Republican donors, and school closure that have appeared in previous attack ads from the union-backed committee. Some of these claims are accurate, while others mischaracterize the candidates’ positions and Chalkbeat reporting.

Even in the social media age, campaign mailers remain a favored strategy for grabbing voters’ attention in what are generally low-turnout off-year elections. This is the latest in a series of Chalkbeat stories examining what’s landing in voter mailboxes before Tuesday’s election.

The Denver school board election is a big money affair. More than $1.5 million had been spent in the Denver school board election as of late October, with the majority of that money coming from independent committees. Groups associated with education reform have spent more than $770,000 to date, while groups affiliated with the teachers union have spent almost $400,000.

Most of the mailers from pro-reform groups have been positive, touting the candidates they have endorsed — Alexis Menocal Harrigan, Diana Romero Campbell, and Tony Curcio. But not all of them. According to last-minute campaign finance filings, at least one more negative mailer is coming from this side before the Nov. 5 election.

While the strike is providing new campaign fodder this year, Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are making return appearances in union-funded mailers.

Pictures of the two Republicans — easy targets in heavily Democratic Denver — appeared two years ago in a mailer alongside one of candidate Angela Cobián. Cobián, who is Latina, denounced it as “baseless and cruel assault” on a young woman of color. She won the election.

We’ve seen only one mailer so far this year evoking DeVos and Trump: a Students Deserve Better mailer this week juxtaposing a photo of DeVos with one of Curcio, a parent running to represent northwest Denver. He has the endorsement of outgoing incumbent Lisa Flores.

According to available campaign finance filings, the union-affiliated committee does not appear to be planning similar mailers linking Menocal Harrigan and Romero Campbell specifically to DeVos or Trump — though other mailers, including one featuring a prominent elephant, have attacked the candidates for receiving money from Republican donors.

The mailer targeting Curcio claims he wants to bring Trump, DeVos, and Republican ideas to Denver schools — sounding many of the themes from other union-backed mailers about Republican donations and the strike’s circumstances, and citing Curcio’s support for charter schools.

Curcio on Saturday told Chalkbeat he expected to be linked to DeVos at some point, calling it consistent with what he described as irresponsible tactics from the union-funded committee.

“I was endorsed by Obama’s former education secretary Arne Duncan, not anyone in the Trump administration,” Curcio said. “I can’t wait till Betsy DeVos is gone. I am super-excited for 2020 when we have a new president who is going to get rid of Betsy DeVos and who can put someone else, someone with actual experience in a classroom.”

Curcio said that he does not support private school vouchers or for-profit charter schools — in contrast with DeVos — but does support school choice because the community does.

Union officials have said they do not coordinate with Students Deserve Better. Representatives of Students Deserve Better did not respond to an email Saturday. A teacher representing the committee, Aaron Lowenkron, who teaches math at East High School, has defended previous mailers’ content.

It should come as no surprise that messages framed around February’s three-day teachers strike would surface in the race. “Flip the board” became a rally and picket-line slogan for opponents of the brand of education reform that has won Denver national attention.

Strike-themed mailers from union-backed candidates have struck positive notes, with endorsements and photos featuring teachers clad in red T-shirts familiar from the strike.

Campaign mailer from Students Deserve Better, a union-funded independent expenditure committee.

The mailers from Students Deserve Better — which as an independent expenditure committee is barred from coordinating with candidate campaigns — take a different tone: “Can you really tell your kids you voted against their teachers?” reads one side of the mailer over a black-and-white photo from the picket lines. It goes on to say certain candidates are supported by “the same team that caused the teacher strike.”

None of the three candidates targeted by the piece — Menocal Harrigan, Romero Campbell, and Curcio — are incumbents. All three are supported by some current Denver school board members who were in office at the time of the strike. School board members did not negotiate directly with the teachers union during the strike.

One notable detail in the mailer: It uses Menocal Harrigan and Romero Campbell’s full names. Students Deserve Better faced accusations of racism for a mid-October mailer that omitted their Hispanic surnames. Speaking for the group, Lowenkron apologized soon after and promised that it would not do it again in future yet-to-be-produced mailers.

Another mailer about school closure policy uses stark imagery. It shows a dilapidated school building under an orange-red sky under the call, “Save Our Neighborhood Schools.” It repeats claims that Menocal Harrigan, Romero Campbell, and Curcio “want to close our neighborhood schools.”

All three have said school closure should be a last resort, and a decision made alongside parents, teachers, and students. That’s in contrast to the teachers union-backed candidates who have said they would not close schools under any circumstances.

Union-endorsed candidates have not been heavily targeted by negative mailers, but they have not been immune. One, from an independent committee tied to Ready Colorado, a conservative education reform group, claims at-large candidate Tay Anderson “led a radical protest where an American flag was torn down and desecrated, then shrugged the incident off on social media.” Anderson was at the protest but not part of the small group that took down the flag. Anderson, who is black, framed the mailer as an attempt to portray him as angry.

And Facebook ads and mailers from a political committee connected to the national education reform group Stand for Children said Anderson blamed Denver students and parents for causing pollution by exercising school choice, a claim he refutes.

Campaign finance filings indicate at least one more negative ad, this one targeting Scott Baldermann, the union-endorsed candidate in the District 1 race, is on its way from Students for Education Reform.

Teachers union challenges improvement plan for Pueblo school, calling it bid to ‘privatize’

2019-05-11T01:10:40+00:00

Colorado’s largest teachers union filed a legal challenge Friday seeking to halt plans to turn over management of a struggling Pueblo school to a for-profit firm and a university partner.

The Colorado Education Association’s complaint against the State Board of Education and Pueblo City Schools could be the first volley in an extended court fight. The same private firm set to work in Pueblo, Florida-based MGT Consulting, is in line to play a similar role in improvement efforts for the Adams 14 school district and an Aurora school.

The State Board on April 10 approved plans to install MGT and the University of Virginia Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education as external managers of the Risley International Academy of Innovation in the southern Colorado city of Pueblo.

“The state has overstepped boundaries with a public school takeover that usurps the will of the Pueblo community,” CEA President Amie Baca-Oehlert said in a statement announcing the complaint and request to put the management plan on hold filed in Pueblo District Court. “Power is taken away from the people when schools and districts are handed over to private companies without any connection to the community or responsibility to the taxpayers.”

MGT started in Florida in 1974. The company has consulted for local governments, school districts, and universities, including many in Colorado. MGT often hires retired educators like superintendents to help run its day-to-day work. Its work in Gary, Indiana, has proven divisive.

The university program has a considerable track record, and more evidence of success. The program trains principals and district leaders to become better managers and to assess what works and what doesn’t. Both the Adams 14 and Pueblo plans include the university partner.

This week, the State Board voted 6-1 to approve MGT as external manager of the Commerce City-based Adams 14 school district for the next four years, despite some misgivings about its scant record managing entire districts. The State Board previously signed off on a plan for the firm to help lead improvement efforts at North Middle School in Aurora.

A Colorado Department of Education spokesperson said Friday state officials had yet to see the union’s complaint against the Pueblo plan. Here’s a link to 168-page complaint, along with the union’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

‘Nothing makes me feel safe.’ How Colorado educators and parents are processing yet another school shooting

2019-05-09T17:55:00+00:00

Teachers recalled painful conversations with their students, and parents described tears during morning drop-off. One educator confided that friends are buying her a Kevlar vest to store in a cupboard at school, in case of an active shooter. Others dedicated class time to reassuring students that their schools, on the whole, are safe places.

In the wake of Tuesday’s shooting at a Douglas County charter school that left one student dead and eight others injured, Colorado school communities are again grappling with how to respond when violence shatters a place of learning.

We want Chalkbeat to be a place where teachers, administrators, parents, students, and community members can come to reflect and sort through tough questions at times like these. We put out a call Wednesday to make your voices heard.

More than 150 people have responded to our survey questions, covering everything from the police and security presence on campuses to how gun violence touches their school communities. Below is a sampling of what we’ve heard. And if you’ve read an earlier version of this post, we’ve put previously unpublished and more recent replies at the top of each section:

What was the mood in school today after the shooting? What conversations did you have about it?

“I am checking on my daughter frequently. She and [slain student Kendrick Castillo] were Study Hall buddies who played cards together. She plans to attend the vigil … I will let my daughter do what she feels she needs to, but my preference would be for her to not go back to the STEM Campus this year and just do her work from home since they are 1:1.”

— Wendy Loloff Cooper, parent of student at STEM High School Highlands Ranch

“It’s hard to separate others’ mood from mine. One of my best friends was Castillo’s elementary teacher. She’s devastated. I’m devastated for her.”

— Judy, high school teacher in Jeffco Public Schools

“I started my day in a circle with my fifth graders, as we start every day. Today, though, we talked about the news. … I thought they would say they were sad or worried or scared — but instead they said, ‘why again?’ ‘why this?’ and ‘OK’ and ‘meh.’ They aren’t upset about this anymore. They expect it as a fact, and that’s even more unacceptable. These kids are growing up in a world where school shootings are routine.”

— Kendall Reiley, 5th-grade teacher, Roaring Fork School District

“Today seemed surreal. My students’ moods varied quite a bit, and I just tried to be what and who they needed today. That meant business as usual in some classes, brainstorming ways to improve school security in others, and tears in almost all of them.”

— Rebecca Jonas, educator and parent, Douglas County School District

“I saw at least one parent and one staff member talking about it and they were emotional. I also became very emotional after dropping off my child.”

— Elliot Goldbaum, parent of a 4-year-old in a private preschool

“Our young people are putting themselves in front of bullets to save their classmates. They are taking a bullet(s) so that others can have their guns. I am scared senseless to send my daughter to school. I feel that it is not a matter of whether a school shooting will occur, but when. I think about the location of her classroom in comparison to the front doors and exits.”

— Di Ryter, parent of a student, Durango School District, and an educator working in higher education

“Reassured students for the umpteenth time that school is one of the safest places for them to be (after another school shooting)! Do they still believe me? Should they?”

—Mark Sass, high school teacher, Adams 12 School District

“Some students wanted to talk about [it]. The conversation was about how they don’t feel safe and are thinking about home schooling.”

— Mary Hulac, a teacher and parent, Greeley-Evans School District

“Some students have become numb to these events; the incidents have been normalized. But a few wanted to talk about it, and so we did. One of the most telling comments came from a 9th-grade young man. He said, ‘It is scary because do I really have to say goodbye to my mom as if I might never see her again?’ That comment hit me hard this morning. That my students think about saying goodbye to their parents in a totally different way than I ever had to as a student.”

— Stephanie Rossi, high school teacher

Did you notice more police officers or security guards at school today? Did that make you feel safer or not?

“We have had police officers walking through our school today. Even though it’s common for them to do walk throughs, knowing why they were making sure they were present today was depressing.”

— Rebekah, Monte Vista School District administration, parent

“Our administrators made a point about telling us that we have five security guards and a school resource officer, which is more than some schools. Not sure if it made me feel safer, but I believe it was intended to do so.”

— Sarah, middle school teacher, Denver Public Schools

“No. I don’t necessarily feel safe with more police presence — though I understand why it happens. I’m one of a very few teachers of color who aren’t comforted by police presence so was fine with no extra cops around.”

— Andres Martinez, high school educator, parent of a 10- and 17-year-old, Denver Public Schools

“Yes. It was nice to see them there, but they did keep their presence in the background.”

— Shelly Steveson, preschool assistant

What makes you feel safer in school? What makes you feel unsafe?

“What makes me feel safe are learning environments and school cultures that are inclusive, celebrate diversity, and provide supports to students who need them most. What makes me feel unsafe are schools that do not prioritize creating a safe and welcoming school environment.”

— Andrea, parent of preschoolers

“Unsafe: unannounced lockdown drills. Safe: the rare times that admin insists that every adult checks in the front office.”

— Jamie, second-grade teacher in Denver Public Schools

“The idea of arming teachers (as a teacher myself, and a parent) makes me so deeply uncomfortable. And so scared. I am scared by our consistent inaction, that the NRA is more powerful than American parents and scared children, that kindergarten students were exposed to this, that the Colorado Department of Education can’t study gun violence, that there are more guns than Americans in this country.”

—Allison Corbett, high school teacher, Denver Public Schools

“Nothing makes me feel safe.”

— Diana Herrera, pre-kindergarten teacher, Lakewood

“Having a school resource officer all the time who is very present and has a great relationship with staff and students helps me to feel safer. Today, something that made me feel unsafe was an unexpected announcement. I’ve never had that issue before, but when the PA system came on, for a brief moment I panicked, because I thought we were being put on a lockdown.”

— Alexandra Ham, high school teacher, Thompson School District

“Trusting our public safety staff to keep us safe. Working with our behavioral wellness staff to identify kids and families who are struggling — connecting them to resources so they can get the help they need not to hurt themselves or others.”

— Katie Winner, parent of a 12- and 9-year-old, Jeffco Public Schools

“The ‘security entrances’ at school do not make me feel safer. It’s not strangers who shoot up schools, it’s people who everyone knows. If someone wants to do damage, they will do damage. If they are somehow kept out of a school, they can do damage in the parking lot, or drop off lane, or at recess, or at the grocery store, or movie theater, or sports event, etc.”

— Chris Johnson, Steamboat Springs parent

“I am not sure anymore. After Sandy Hook, I thought that people would be moved enough to bring about necessary changes. I thought that the general public’s rage about these events would bring about meaningful change. Now, I think that the rage of the people is only good for pointing fingers at those they disagree with. No real changes have taken place to prevent the shootings. Children still have access to fire arms. Children still have untreated mental illnesses. Children’s families still have poor access to health care. Children and their schools have become an acceptable target for people’s rage and violence. The police have done a better job of responding to these events, but the politicians and government officials have done little if anything to prevent these events, and we the people are not demanding that they act. Our culture is sick and I no longer know what will make us feel safe in schools again.”

— Rob, seventh- and eight-grade teacher, St. Vrain Valley School District

What do you think schools should be doing that they are not doing already?

“We need to be kind to one another. Teachers should be allowed to teach and inspire. They shouldn’t have to be on the front lines.”

— Tracy, parent of three at the STEM School Highlands Ranch

“I worry that every day I kiss my kids goodbye, it will be for the last time.”

— Jennifer, Littleton parent of a 12- and 15-year-old

“This is not on our schools. It is on our government and us as citizens to demand from our government necessary and fundamental changes. Public schools are already drowning financially just to educate our children adequately without having to worry about making sure everyone lives to see the next school day. Our government must enact changes to our constitution. Our government must put better mental health systems in place. We as citizens must demand these changes. Common sense gun control. And we must lift up the victims and the heroes, and leave these perpetrators nameless.”

— Ashley Renz, parent of a 9- and 10-year-old, Jeffco Public Schools

“We need to be addressing mental health more in our education system. Counselors not cops!”

— Megan Ostedgaard, high school educator, Cherry Creek School District

“I think unfortunately we lack the resources — time, money, etc. — to run a better PR campaign about the much greater safety that schools do provide as a predictable, known, and relatively source of stability in the lives of our children. The teachers are known to the students, we show up compassionately, we are trained professionally, and have chosen the profession because we care about the success of young people and helping them grow and reach their full potential.”

— William Daniel, high school educator, Littleton Public Schools

“Schools should be training staff on how to disarm someone. Perhaps some martial arts training from police officers would help empower us.”

— Andrew Burns, 8th-grade teacher

“My district is doing everything they can with limited resources. They tried to pass a bond for increased security at all schools but the community didn’t support that. They are going after it again. The high school isn’t a secure campus. They have 19 points of entry and not all are locked. That’s terrifying to me as a parent.”

—Allison Williams, second-grade teacher, Eaton School District

What do you wish people knew about how gun violence affects the experience of going to school today?

“As a parent, it’s beyond my comprehension that my children could actually be gunned down in their school. It saddens me more than I can say that they have drills to practice what to do if someone comes into their school to kill them with a gun. They actually practice hiding in their classrooms, hiding in closets. Their teachers, who should be singularly focused on teaching and nurturing their students, have to also think through what they would do if someone came into their classrooms with a gun to kill them. What have we become that this is something that happens on a regular basis? I don’t think anyone who doesn’t have children who go through these drills and face this reality can possibly understand what this is like. I send my children to school each day expecting that they’ll be safe there. Usually, they are and they come home happy and healthy. When a shooting happens, though, I’m reminded that their safety could very well be an illusion.”

— Karen Herbert, parent of an 11- and 16-year-old, Denver Public Schools

“Just how terrifying it is. How I have to take a deep breath before I send [my children to school] after incidents like this. That my 5-year-old has nightmares for a week every time they have a lockdown drill. I hear her screaming ‘don’t hurt me’ in her sleep.”

— Lorna Mclean-Thomas, parent of a 4- and 5-year-old, Denver Public Schools

“Five-year-olds, who often cannot even read or write yet, are learning how to hide under desks and in closets during school shooter drills. They’re crying during drills because they’re scared. Their teacher has to explain what a school shooter is and why they are practicing hiding. High school classes are having conversations about what we would do if a shooter entered our classroom. If we ran, where would we meet to reunite? If we hid, where would a shooter likely not find us? If you’re a student and you happen to be in the bathroom or hallway during a shooting, where should you go to be safe? A group of students initiated a conversation on their own about if someone entered our room right now with a gun, who would distract them so that others could tackle and disarm them? Teenagers and children should not have to have these conversations. Kids who can’t even write their names fully yet should not have to learn how to hide and be quiet if someone shows up to try to kill them at their school.”

— Kim Skarns, educator at a charter high school and at Pikes Peak Community College

“Taking away guns will never solve the problem. Guns are instrumental but not causative in these tragedies. I do not oppose gun control of some kind, but I also don’t believe it will do anything to solve this particular set of problems.”

— Jeff Buck, high school educator, Denver Public Schools

“When I was in school we practiced cowering under our desks in the case of nuclear attack. I don’t remember feeling particularly scared by it. Today, the prospect of a school shooting is much more real and visceral.”

— Lisa Elliott, a former teacher whose grandchildren are now in school

“As a survivor of school gun violence, I wish that more people understood the impacts their callous words have on healing communities. This spring has been especially difficult as we’ve dealt with increased security, vague but credible threats, enhanced access control to our school site and remembered our own losses. Today’s students have grown up with active shooter drills, like students had ‘duck and cover’ drills during the Cold War. This is their new normal. This drill is my most hated day of the year as the ‘forced reliving’ of my personal horror is real. I typically end that drill in tears, angry, and frustrated that this has become normal for my own son. He’s had to grow up knowing both his parents experienced something horrific, and now has to practice how to hide in school.”

— Cheryl Mosier, high school teacher, Jefferson County

“The issue is not with the guns — it is with the people with the guns. Too many kids nowadays do not know how to deal with feelings and frustration, largely due to electronic media (games, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). They would rather bury their heads into an electronic device than talk and interact with another person. Kids are not being raised with the skills to deal with confrontation or other ways to handle emotions … We adults need to find the happy medium of also interacting with our kids and talking to them about appropriate ways to handle frustration and confrontation with others.”

—Liann Holmes, first-grade charter school teacher, parent of a 9- and 10-year-old

“Regardless of what’s in the news, there is not one morning that goes by when I drop off my little girl that I don’t think about how there could be a shooter. It adds to a family’s stress level in a world that is already stressful enough. Not to mention the incredible levels of anxiety it causes in many children.”

—Alisa, parent of an 8-year-old, Thompson School District

“This is the first generation who has PTSD, anxiety and panic attacks due to unsafe situations at our schools. We have gotten to the point in our society where students either have normalized the level of violence they face, or they have PTSD, regular anxiety and panic attacks. Preschoolers have to practice lockdown drills and teachers give them sucker to help they stay quiet while there is an ‘unsafe person’ inside or outside the building.”

— Andy, Boulder Valley School District administration

‘We are all educators’: How the teachers strike opened a rift at one Denver middle school network that will take time to mend

2019-02-17T04:00:00+00:00

For the first time since the Denver teacher strike exposed divisions in their ranks, the 100 adults who make the Beacon middle school network run gathered in the same room.

Teachers, some still wearing red for the union cause, brought breakfast burritos to share. Upbeat soul music pumped through the speakers, an attempt to set a positive tone.

Speaking to the group assembled Friday for a long-scheduled planning day in the cafeteria of Grant Beacon Middle School, Executive Principal Alex Magaña opened by acknowledging the awkwardness that had taken a toll on a school community that prides itself on a strong culture.

Some teachers who had gone on strike — exhausted by the experience and exhilarated by the outcome — felt snubbed. Where was the celebration of what they had just fought for?

School administrators were smarting for another reason: A large number of teachers did not return to work on Thursday after the tentative pact was signed, making for another hard day.

Just as it was starting, the effort to heal the Beacon school community was stumbling a bit.

One day after the end of the three-day strike over teacher pay, students at the Beacon schools had a day off Friday, giving leaders the opportunity to begin repairing any damage done. The district administration shared resources with schools, too, including a “lessons learned” tipsheet from the recent Los Angeles teachers strike.

The challenge is proving unexpectedly daunting at the city’s two Beacon schools — Grant Beacon in southeast Denver and Kepner Beacon in southwest Denver — which share a common central administrative staff, approach, and mission to serve the city’s neediest students.

“It’s never been administration-versus-teachers, district-versus-teachers, in the culture we have created here,” said Magaña, who oversees the two schools. “We have a lot of good leadership, a lot of input from teachers. But this caught everyone kind of by surprise.”

By “this,” Magaña means the tension on the two campuses before, during, and after the strike that put Denver in an unfamiliar national glare. The 93,000-student district is better known for its unique brand of at times controversial education reform — of which the Beacon network is part — than it is for labor strife and division in the educator ranks.

As it became evident that the teachers union was intent on striking, Magaña said he sent a message to his teachers, staff, and administrators.

“I called it out two weeks ago: Be careful with what you say, because it’s going to cause harm and impact our culture,” he said. “Everyone has their own right to make their own individual decision. Respect it. And people were trying to respect it.”

From Magaña’s perspective, it didn’t always happen. At Kepner Beacon, where 96 percent of students qualify for subsidized lunches, the young corps of teachers “grouped together and suddenly had this camaraderie, which is something that is part of our culture and that makes us successful,” Magaña said.

All but a few Kepner Beacon teachers went out on strike. Magaña harbored concerns, though, saying some striking teachers “were guilting teachers into joining for solidarity.” Teachers who crossed picket lines told him they felt alienated, he said.

Linsey Cobb, a special education teacher and special education team leader at Kepner Beacon, disputes that. She said every teacher wholeheartedly supported each teacher’s decision.

Cobb herself was torn about striking. She said she stood with teachers fighting for a system they believed would pay them a better, fairer wage. But the third-year teacher ended up reporting to work as usual Monday morning, feeling too strong of a pull to fulfill her responsibilities supporting students with individualized education plans — the complex and sometimes confounding binding documents for students with special needs.

Cobb said she was not fully prepared by what she experienced that morning.

“Even though I am very close with my students, I felt incredibly isolated,” she said. “I got the weirdest feeling. I got a lot of, ‘Miss, why aren’t you striking? Don’t you believe what teachers are fighting for?’ I was like, ‘I do!’ I had a little bit of an internal struggle.”

After attending the big teachers union rally Monday at the Capitol, Cobb said she woke up Tuesday and decided to join her colleagues picketing, which she did for the strike’s duration.

The strike brought to the forefront just how different the two Beacon campuses are. At Grant Beacon, 80 percent of students qualify for subsidized lunch — slightly above the district average. That part of the city, like much of Denver, is gentrifying. The southwest Denver neighborhood around Kepner is not. The school is a safe harbor from violence and trauma.

About half of Grant Beacon students showed up for school during the strike, and six in 10 teachers joined the strike. Four miles and a world away at Kepner Beacon, 90 percent of students showed up for school — and all but a few teachers were out on strike.

Against the backdrop of the strike, Magaña said he emphasized that words matter. Everyone in the buildings, he thought, not just teachers, ought to be considered educators. That was the role everyone was thrust into — administrators, deans, and district central office staff who through no choice of their own had to cover for absent teachers. Magaña, too. He taught math.

“We maintained a positive culture through a really weird and complicated time,” said Tristan Connett, who as Kepner’s dean of students was pressed into service to teach eighth-grade reading and language arts. “Not just for students, but all the adults, everyone included.”

Outside Kepner Beacon each morning of the strike, teachers huddled over donuts and coffee. Parents brought them hand-warmers in the 20-degree chill. One teacher sat in her car with the engine running to record a video message to her students, telling them where she was and spelling out the day’s lesson plan before she joined the picket line, Cobb said.

The Beacon schools promote character-building and use personalized learning, using data and technology to tailor instruction to individual students. As “innovation schools,” the schools are exempt from some state laws and aspects of the teachers union contract. Both schools were “green,” the second-highest ranking, in the district’s most recent school ratings.

Cracks in school culture did show during the strike. Magaña said one teacher at Grant Beacon was hurt by the negative reaction he received from striking colleagues.

The strike’s sudden end just after 6 a.m. Thursday led to mixed messages and confusion about what was expected of teachers that day, deepening rifts at the Beacon schools.

Cobb, the Kepner special education teacher, said teachers somehow got what turned out to be incorrect information from the union that they couldn’t be late for the start of school if they wanted to return.

Many striking teachers did not come back to school Thursday. That was out of step with the district as a whole, which saw more than 80 percent of teachers back in classrooms.

Some Beacon teachers, Magaña said, “said they were mentally and physically exhausted.” What, he asked, does that tell everyone who took on unfamiliar roles to keep the schools open?

When teachers, administrators, and staff arrived for Friday morning’s meeting, they congregated at tables with colored pencils and “reflection forms.” Everyone was asked to write down answers to two questions: What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about your colleagues?

“I also brought out the obvious — the elephant in the room,” Magaña said. “There are hurt feelings. There is resentment from teachers to staff to students to parents. That is something we can’t pretend isn’t there, and we put it out there and acknowledge it to move forward.”

The message from the network administration left a number of teachers disappointed.

“Every teacher who went out on strike believed in it, we got this victory, and it wasn’t celebrated as a whole,” Cobb said. “It was more like there was an acknowledgement of what we want to repair. OK, but we felt like we deserved a little celebration for what we accomplished.”

Several teachers took up administrators’ offers to speak in private throughout the day, and when everyone gathered to wrap things up, Cobb said there was acknowledgement of what teachers had accomplished. Magaña said Saturday he doesn’t regret starting off the day like he did.

“We had to acknowledge all of the feelings of the group,” he said. “It was about all of us working together for a common ground.”

Under the tentative deal union members are expected to vote on next week, all of the teachers in the Beacon network will see their base pay increase. The incentives Kepner Beacon teachers receive for teaching in a “highest priority” school will be slightly smaller but will continue.

After the Presidents’ Day holiday Monday, teachers and students will return to school Tuesday for another test of the culture that has contributed to promising academic progress.

“It’s about trust,” Magaña said. “Some of it was cracked a little it. There was no contention in the room (Friday). It was really coming in with openness and willingness by everyone to say, ‘It’s done, and we did the right thing for ourselves. Now it’s time to come closer together.’”

“Normalcy will happen,” added Cobb, the teacher. “But it might take a bit.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that Denver Public Schools were off Friday, when only some were.

An innovative elementary school — a product of Denver education reform — tries to get back to normal post-strike

2019-02-15T06:24:32+00:00

Nic Savinar tried to maintain a measure of normalcy for three days in her fifth grade classroom at Centennial Elementary School in northwest Denver, even as her students asked awkward questions about why she was still there when most teachers were out.

Walking in the door, she had a fleeting thought that someone from outside the school community might join the picket line and lash out at her. Her fellow teachers marching in the cold lent nothing but support, sending her texts throughout the day checking in.

Then not long after 6 a.m. Thursday, word started getting around that the Denver teacher strike was over. Principal Laura Munro’s phone blew up after her morning Crossfit workout. Munro ended up getting to school late because excited teachers kept texting her.

With the three-day strike about teacher pay ending with a tentative deal that gave both sides reason to feel good, Denver schools spent Thursday in a strange in-between place as substitutes and central office staff fill-ins reported for duty and striking teachers returned.

The labor action and its sudden conclusion posed a test for the 147 district-run schools affected by the strike and the 71,000 students in grades K-12 who attend them. Centennial just a few years ago was at risk of closure due to persistently poor academic performance. The school started to turn around after it reinvented itself in 2013 as an expeditionary school, where teachers in each grade weave a year-long “expedition” theme into their everyday lessons.

The school, in a gentrified neighborhood in a city that has become less affordable for families and teachers alike, would not exist in its current form without the kind of education reform that has gained Denver both a national reputation and opposition from the union and its allies.

“We have worked really hard to build a positive and trusting culture,” said Munro, who has been principal for eight years. “Even that being said, trying times can make any situation difficult.”

Of the 32 teachers, nurses, counselors, and other educators at Centennial covered by the teachers contract, all but six took part in the strike on Monday, Munro said. One teacher returned to the classroom Tuesday, and a nurse came back Wednesday, she said.

Those are higher strike participation figures than in the district as a whole. Between 56 and 58 percent of teachers were out each day, Denver Public Schools has said.

Savinar was among those Centennial teachers who remained in the classroom. But it wasn’t because she disagreed with the union’s opposition to many aspects of ProComp, the once-promising pay-for-performance system that was the subject of negotiations.

Savinar recently took maternity leave, much of it unpaid. She and her husband crunched the numbers — taking into account that teachers strikes typically last a week — and concluded that foregoing a paycheck, as striking teachers must do, was not something they could afford.

The irony is not lost on Savinar: She couldn’t afford to strike to improve her salary prospects.

“There was a lot of thought behind it, and it was definitely a financial decision,” she said, pointing out that her Centennial colleagues who remained in classrooms all have children 1 or younger. “It was a very challenging decision for every single person, I’m sure.”

A ninth-year teacher, Savinar left a job in neighboring Jeffco Public Schools to join Centennial four years ago. She said she was won over by the people and by expeditionary learning.

The school has a vegetable garden, an outdoor classroom with log benches, and a devoted corps of parent volunteers. For a recent lesson on biodiversity, Savinar took her students to Denver Botanic Gardens to visit a rainforest exhibit. They learned about different habitats and species of plants. Students who are now working on writing first-person narratives written from an animal’s perspective, like a jaguar or an exotic bird that makes its home in the lush canopy.

That a district-run public school would offer a model like expeditionary learning is unusual, and it’s part of Denver Public Schools’ philosophy of offering families a variety of school choices.

Centennial is also an innovation school, which means it doesn’t need to follow all aspects of state law or the teachers union contract. That allows for a much longer school day, for one. The opening bell rings at 8 a.m. and dismissal is at 3:45 p.m., with an 80-minute enrichment period.

Savinar is a “teacher-leader,” spending part of her time teaching and part of it coaching other teachers — another initiative that other U.S. school districts look to Denver to emulate.

Savinar said her support for the union stance during ProComp bargaining was rooted mostly in supporting an increase in all teachers’ base pay and in cost-of-living increases. She said she loves the flexibility that innovation status affords teachers and students both.

“It’s all relative, I guess,” she said. “Completely depends on what teachers are wanting in their school community.”

During the strike, Munro kept a detailed spreadsheet of classroom assignments, using a combination of regular teachers, substitutes, central office staff temporarily reassigned to schools, and her own preschool teachers who were available because DPS shut its preschools.

All but two classrooms were covered by certified teaching staff during the strike, she said.

Because of the timing of the tentative agreement, Thursday was more chaotic than when teachers were on strike, she said. Although all the striking teachers returned, the school retained a few substitutes to honor their commitments. Central office staff helped cover classrooms until late-arriving teachers got to work, then went back to their regular jobs.

“People had been gone three days and were just trying to put the puzzle pieces back together,” Savinar said. “People were scrambling a little bit because teachers are always prepared for their students, and they were feeling unprepared, coming into I am not sure what.”

Centennial will move on from the disruption of the strike at a time it faces its owns challenges. What was once a predominantly Latino student population has grown whiter and wealthier, driven by neighborhood changes and the appeal of expeditionary learning.

Having fewer students whose families live in poverty cost Centennial its Title I status, and the extra funding that goes with it. Munro said school officials knew it was coming and planned accordingly, accounting for the lost revenue over a two-year period and lessening the blow.

The older grades at Centennial are more diverse than kindergarten and the earlier grades, so as a fifth-grade teacher Savinar has a more diverse class than most.

Next up, her students will begin a module on inequality. She and a returning colleague struck upon an idea Thursday: including a discussion about the issues underlying the strike. It’s in keeping with expeditionary learning’s aspiration to connect learning to real-world events.

So in the near future, Nic Savinar’s fifth-grade students at Centennial Elementary could talk about the issues that kept their teacher in school while her colleagues picketed outside.

Jubilation, and some confusion, as Denver schools begin their post-strike recovery

2019-02-14T15:52:03+00:00

Lupe Lopez-Montoya got the text message at 6:15 a.m. The strike was over, the colleague who’d been keeping her up to speed on news from her union told her.

And so as district and teachers union officials celebrated their deal at the Denver Public Library, Lopez-Montoya on Thursday resurrected her regular commute to Columbian Elementary School, the northwest Denver school where she’s the longest-serving tenured teacher.

For the past three days, Lopez-Montoya had stayed out of school as Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association sparred over how teachers in Denver are paid. She still had unanswered questions about the future. But first, it was time to greet students.

One girl ran across the sidewalk to give a hug. “Ms. Montoya’s back,” she shouted, burying her face in the teacher’s side.

Lopez-Montoya began to welcome students into the building. “Line up and you can go get breakfast,” she told one boy. “I’m happy you’re here today.”

The moment kicked off what was a not-quite-normal day in Denver schools. With a deal coming just an hour before some schools were due to start for the day, teachers and families had little time to adjust their plans. The district also had too little time to reopen early childhood classes that have been closed all week; those will reopen on Friday, officials said.

Building principals got an email around 7 a.m. telling them that the strike was over and that many teachers would be coming back to work. In some buildings, central office staff and substitutes who had been filling in for teachers were already on site when teachers returned to work. And some students who commute long distances didn’t get the word in time to go to schools.

By early afternoon, about 81 percent of teachers in district-run schools had shown up to work, and about 83 percent of students had, according to Denver school district spokesman Will Jones.

In the parking lot outside Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy, a west Denver elementary school, teachers still clad in the red of their cause gathered in the parking lot to walk in together. Asked what the mood was, reading intervention teacher Denise Saiz said, “Relief!” and her colleagues responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!”

“We’re really excited to get back to the kids,” said fifth grade teacher Emily Mimovich.

While strike participation was high at the school — it was founded with support from the state and local union as a teacher-led school — the teachers said they did not believe there would be hard feelings between those who walked and those who didn’t.

“We have such a good relationship,” said Reyes Navarro, who teaches Spanish to kindergarten and first-grade students. “We understand that you have to do whatever is right for you.”

Parents also said they were eager to have their children get back to school.

Shannon Cruwys was happy to drop off her fifth-grader this morning at Centennial Elementary in northwest Denver with the strike over. She says the #DenverTeachersStrike was worth it. #DenverTeacherStrike pic.twitter.com/pCYA6ZYdqu
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) February 14, 2019

Sarah Murphy, who has a third-grader and a 4-year-old preschool student, said this morning was a “bit of a scramble, albeit a welcome one.” She had both children signed up for a day camp at the University of Denver and was unsure if she should send them to school or to camp because she wasn’t sure teachers would be back at school. Then she got word that camp was canceled for both children — but Denver Public Schools preschools are still closed.

“We were left trying to figure out what to do with our ECE4 since they were still closed,” she wrote to Chalkbeat. “We know how hard this has been on everyone, but this morning proved that the ECE program was the hardest hit, short notice every step of the way. We very much look forward to tomorrow when both are back in their normal school routines.”

Not everyone returned to school. Some teachers said they needed a day to collect themselves after an emotional experience. Judy Kelley, a visual arts teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Early College, said she and many of her colleagues live too far away from the school to get there on short notice.

But the majority of teachers who went back to work Thursday describe positive experiences returning to their schools. Ryan Marini, a social studies teacher and football coach at South High School, called it the “best day” in 17 years of teaching.

Suzanne Hernandez, a first-grade teacher at Westerly Creek Elementary in Stapleton, said she and other teachers gathered to walk into school together at 7:45 a.m.

Teachers thanked the subs from central office who were in the building. They headed back to their roles in central offices.

Early in the morning, Hernandez sent a message to her students’ parents to let them know teachers would be back in school. The reaction from students as she greeted them was “overwhelming,” she said.

With the help of paraprofessionals who had prepared lessons, Hernandez said teachers were able to jump right back to where they left off last week.

As far as Valentine’s Day, that celebration will be pushed back until Friday afternoon, she said. For now, teachers are having their own celebration, happy to be back in the classroom.

“I think if there’s any sort of effect from the strike, it’s been a positive one,” she said. “It’s been a very unifying experience.”

Allison Hicks, a teacher at Colfax Elementary, said returning teachers were greeted with hugs, music, smiles and tears.

“After finding out an hour ago we were going back to work, I scrambled home to get ready,” she wrote to Chalkbeat. “I am exhausted, but so excited to be back with my students. This day won’t be normal, but knowing I did my part to put my students first is the best feeling to have.”

Kade Orlandini, who teaches at John F. Kennedy High School, said most of the teachers are back in her building, despite the short notice.

“Teachers were ready, and we are jumping right back into instruction,” she wrote. “Attendance seems lower than normal, but students who are here are ready to learn. The atmosphere in the school is very positive all around.”

What was your experience going back to school? What other questions do you have? Take our survey.

Chalkbeat’s Ann Schimke, Erica Meltzer, and Yesenia Robles contributed reporting to this article.

Day 2 recap of Denver strike: Everything you need to know about picketing, bargaining, legal threats, and the view from schools

2019-02-13T07:13:00+00:00

Denver school district and teachers union leaders ended a long day of bargaining late Tuesday night without a deal but with a rare display of shared optimism.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association began a strike Monday, its first in 25 years, over disagreements with Denver Public Schools about how much teachers are paid and how much bonuses for incentivizing where teachers teach should matter.

Talks between the union and district began at 10 a.m. at the Denver Public Library’s central branch and concluded about 11 p.m.

Catch up on the history of the pay system, ProComp, here and the current sticking points here. And if you missed our full complement of stories Tuesday, you can learn about immigrant teacher sitting out the strike out of fear, jockeying to sway public opinion over the issues at stake in the district, membership gains in Denver’ teachers union, and a call to better fund schools.

Our reporters were all over Tuesday’s other developments, too. Below, you can catch up on everything you need to know — including a Twitter trending topic we never thought we’d see.

Phew.

We’ll do it all again Wednesday.

12:13 a.m. A show of unity

This joint statement from Denver schools superintendent Susana Cordova and union president Henry Roman just landed in the inboxes of Denver Public Schools parents and community members:

“Today, Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association worked in good faith to find common ground on ProComp. We exchanged proposals that are moving us closer and are hopeful that we will get to an agreement soon. However, we need a little more time to resolve the outstanding issues,” and will resume negotiations at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

This is the first statement of its kind as the union and district have spent a lot of time sparring in weeks of contentious negotiations. Clearly, the sides are closing in on a deal, and there’s a good likelihood this ends Wednesday.

Our ace Denver Public Schools reporter Melanie Asmar makes sense of a marathon bargaining day in this story.

11:10 p.m. Calling it a night

And that’s a wrap.

Thirteen hours of negotiations, much of it deep in the weeds of what kind of additional education and training teachers should be able to use to get raises, ended on a cautiously optimistic note late Tuesday.

Superintendent Susana Cordova — as she has before — said she thought the two sides made progress.

The two sides are calling it quits for the night. Susana: “I think it was an incredibly productive day. We can certainly see a pathway to getting to an agreement.”
— Melanie Asmar (@MelanieAsmar) February 13, 2019

The district and the union return to the bargaining table at 10 a.m. Wednesday, with the district planning to present a counterproposal as soon as possible.

Teachers, meanwhile, will be back on the picket lines.

8:26 p.m. Planning underway for Day 3

As the strike’s long second day winds to a close, teachers and their supporters are planning for Wednesday. (It’s predicted to be partly sunny and nearly 60 degrees — great weather for a winter picket.) A post on the Fair Pay For Denver Teachers Facebook group is connecting supporters with schools to “adopt” by sending coffee and other strike essentials.

“We got hand warmers, water, donuts (a lot), granola bars, and fruit today,” wrote one teacher. “And it made me march farther and chant louder.”

How long the strike will last is an open question. Most major teacher strikes in the last two years have lasted between five and nine school days, although there are ways that Denver is in a different position. And some teachers who joined pickets on Monday have already returned to the classroom or will soon.

Some teachers say they are committed to staying on strike if the union and district are not able to reach an agreement quickly.

“We’d rather come in sick than write sub plans, we wait all day to pee, we can wait out the most obstinate/challenging students,” one teacher wrote on the Fair Pay page. “We got this!”

But others are less confident. “I will be honest a number of us aren’t sure if we can sustain this for an extended time,” another teacher wrote. “I am one person with one income, no roommates, no other [income] sources.”

Other teachers voiced a similar sentiment today. We spoke with Emily Hetzler, a first-grade teacher at Dora Moore Elementary, just as picketing wound down Tuesday morning outside the stately brick edifice that is Denver’s oldest school building.

“A lot of people are saying, ‘I don’t know if I can keep going after today. I can’t afford to be missing work after today,” Hetzler said. “So I think there’s this mix of feeling very optimistic and excited (that a deal might be reached soon), and still seeing the support of all the teachers in the district who are out here fighting for what they know is right. But it’s also setting in: We’re not getting paid. We’re away from our students, and how much longer can we keep doing this?”

Three of the 19 teachers who were out on strike Monday returned to Dora Moore on Tuesday, and at least two more are expected to return Wednesday, Principal Karen Barker said. Four teachers never left their classrooms this week.

8:12 p.m. A war of words

Our bureau chief Erica Meltzer just published a new story documenting efforts by people on both sides of the pay dispute to win over public opinion. “A teacher strike is more than a labor dispute between employees and management,” she writes. “It’s a morality play — with audience participation.” Read the entire story here.

8 p.m. A late night at the library

Here’s one way that the strike is changing Denver: The central library is supposed to be closing right now — that’s why negotiations between the district and teachers union happening there were scheduled to end for the day at 8 p.m. But talks are still moving forward, so the library will stay open later than usual.

6:30 p.m. A “PDU” roller coaster in negotiations

After a calm morning and some actual jokes in the middle of the day, negotiations took a tense turn late this afternoon. The union and district are still sparring over how teachers can earn raises. Here’s a summary of the last couple of hours from Melanie, who’s been along for the ride all day:

The district came back with a new proposal. The most major change? Another “lane” on the salary schedule, which would give teachers another opportunity for a raise. That brings the total number of lanes on the district’s proposed schedule to seven. The union’s proposal has eight. But the proposal did not get a warm reception from the union. One big reason: it still included language that would require teachers to do 45 hours of study outside the regular work day to complete a training course known as a “professional development unit.” The union wants teachers to be able to put in that time during the regular work day. The requirements for these training courses are important because, under both sides’ proposals, completing a certain number would allow teachers to move a lane and get a raise. “Why are you requiring more work from our teachers?” lead negotiator Rob Gould asked. Cordova admitted that the district had spent the bulk of its hour-and-a-half caucus focused on other parts of its proposal, such as the additional lane, and had paid less attention to the 45-hour requirement for the training courses. The tone of the negotiations became more tense. “We’re professionals,” said Greg Ahrnsbrak, a physical education teacher at Bruce Randolph School and a member of the union bargaining team. “And it just feels like there’s absolutely no trust here that we’re going to behave like professionals.” The union went into caucus to consider the district’s proposal.

6:02 p.m. A trending topic

This has got to be a first. “ProComp” is trending on Twitter, at least for some users based in Colorado. (As with much on the internet, Twitter uses an algorithm to serve up content designed to target users’ interests.) “This is deeply, deeply weird,” Denver teacher Eliza Eaton-Stern tweeted.

5:50 p.m. “Not haveing the teachers was dreadful”

It’s been such a busy day that it’s taken until now to add this photo that a Denver parent shared from her first-grader’s class at University Park Elementary School today.

Angela Rathbun, who volunteered to assist the substitute assigned to the class while the regular teacher is on strike, said she took pictures after noticing that students were addressing the strike on the vocabulary worksheets the district provided.

“I felt it was important to take these photos to document how the kids are feeling about the strike,” Rathbun told Chalkbeat, “and to show their teachers that they are appreciated and missed.”

4:15 p.m. A union counterproposal

More details on the union counterproposal that came after a three-hour break in negotiations. From Melanie:

The union has offered several changes. Among them: allowing educators to complete the training courses known as “professional development units,” which allow them to get raises, during their regular work day, as opposed to requiring them to do that training outside of the work day. The district had some technical questions and then requested a break to look over the counterproposal. Of note: The tenor of negotiations is more collaborative today than it has been in recent sessions. There is less tension and frustration at the table.

Still no discussions about bonuses and incentives for teachers at high-poverty schools that had appeared to be the meatiest sticking points going into the strike.

3:52 p.m. A second lawsuit looms

On Monday, advocates for students with disabilities filed suit against the Denver district, charging that those students would be harmed by a strike. Now, a conservative organization is threatening a second legal challenge. From Melanie:

A conservative education advocacy organization has hired a lawyer and is prepared to file a lawsuit if the district and teachers union reach a deal that “violates Denver voters’ intent” when they passed a tax increase to fund the performance pay system known as ProComp, according to a press release sent by the group, Ready Colorado, on Tuesday afternoon. Ready Colorado president Luke Ragland said in a statement that “it is clear the union is trying to undermine the goals and voter intent of ProComp.” “The teachers union is trying to overturn the will of the voters, demanding the redistribution of funds approved to support high-poverty schools away from the neediest students,” Ragland said. “That is not what Denver voters signed off on.” It’s worth noting that both the union and the district have attorneys who have reviewed their proposals. Leaders on both sides have said what they’re proposing meets the spirit of the ProComp ballot language.

We weren’t around in 2005 for that ballot initiative, so here’s some coverage from the time if you want to gauge voters’ intent for yourself.

3:02 p.m. Susana Cordova’s no good, very bad job transition

It’s hard to believe, but Denver’s schools chief has been on the job only for six weeks. The school board named Susana Cordova, formerly deputy superintendent, as the sole finalist to replace longtime superintendent Tom Boasberg in December.

The strike is Cordova’s first big test, and some union members and allies say she’s falling short. Yesenia Robles has more:

When Cordova was named superintendent, she touted her experience as a teacher in the district and wanted to let everyone know she would be different from her predecessor, whose relationship with teachers was fraught. But dealing with a strike on her sixth week on the job seems to be putting an early strain on her relationship with teachers. Several signs on the picket lines across the city reference her specifically, and teachers say they are finding it hard to trust her. They have questioned her description of her offers in negotiations, for example, as well as how she characterized conditions inside schools during the strike. Now, one post titled “REOPEN THE SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH!!!!” on a public Facebook group Tuesday is asking whether the strike could cost Cordova the job. Part of the question revolves around the fact that the district hasn’t signed a contract with her yet. One was on the school board’s agenda just as teachers were voting to go on strike. The board, which supported her appointment unanimously, is unlikely to revisit its decision to hire Cordova. Still, the public discussion could make her path to win support from teachers steeper than she anticipated.

2:52 p.m. Talks resume, finally

The 30-minute break turned into a more-than-three-hour hiatus but union and district officials are now back at the bargaining table. They appear to be in good spirits. Rob Gould, the union’s top negotiator, said he thought the union had put together a strong counterproposal after this morning’s talks. And he answered a cutting question from his members with what sounds like a joke:

Crowd starts chanting: "Where's the distriiiiiiict?" Answer from Rob Gould: They were coming down in the elevator right behind us.
— Melanie Asmar (@MelanieAsmar) February 12, 2019

2:03 p.m. The case of the paused negotiations, solved

Talks between the Denver district and its teachers union broke for lunch more than two hours ago. Why haven’t they resumed? Melanie just tweeted an answer:

Announcement from a teacher: The union bargaining team apologizes for the delay, says they are working really hard on a counterproposal. #DenverTeacherStrike
— Melanie Asmar (@MelanieAsmar) February 12, 2019

1:45 p.m. The scene from inside Abraham Lincoln High School

Video shot by students inside Denver high schools on Monday appeared to show chaotic conditions — a narrative that national far-right media outlets immediately amplified in an effort to discredit the teachers union.

Here’s a video from today that shows an orderly display of solidarity.

Julia Aguirre, the Abraham Lincoln High School senior who shared it with Chalkbeat, wrote this about the demonstration and what happened next:

Today we conducted a sit in school wide to visually demonstrate we have always stood with our teachers and we always will. We then marched up to the second floor chanting: “Education is our right, this is why we have to fight!” We marched in hopes of getting more students to join and they did. After we joined our teachers in the front of our school we came back to class so show we really do just want a better education. Not only do we want our teachers back, but we need them.

1:25 p.m. A poetry interlude

While we wait for negotiations to resume (Melanie reports that pizza has replaced burrito as the background fragrance), we want to direct you to a poem that a Denver teacher, Joseph Bolz, posted to Facebook this morning. In the poem, Bolz outlines the many reasons he cried on the strike’s first day: because of the cold weather, because he missed his students and classroom, because he knew some teachers who wanted to picket could not. “I cried because of the sheer beauty of it all,” Bolz wrote. “To see so many hearts with a single goal.”

12:50 p.m. Teacher strikes go to Washington

Jahana Hayes, the 2016 national Teacher of the Year who was elected in November to Congress, brought up teacher strikes on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives today. She didn’t mention Denver specifically but did underscore a point that many Denver teachers have been making this week.

“If they think teachers are striking for salaries alone, then they don’t get it,” Hayes said. “That’s not how this works.”

At least two Democratic presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have explicitly endorsed Denver teachers.

12:15 p.m. Technical tweaks dominate morning negotiations

Here’s another dispatch from Melanie. Her last line will make you hungry:

This morning’s negotiations have been pretty technical. The district presented a new proposal for how teachers can change “lanes” on the salary schedule and get raises. The union has long advocated for allowing teachers to use training courses, called “professional development units,” to get raises, similar to how they would use college credits or advanced degrees. Last week, the district presented a proposal that would allow that. On Tuesday morning, district officials offered tweaks in response to union pushback. Union negotiators peppered district officials with questions about the tweaks, then took a break to meet privately to discuss them. Teachers in the audience used the break to stretch their legs, eat lunch, and run out to grab coffee. The row we’re sitting in smells like Chipotle burritos.

Nothing yet about the bonuses and incentives for teachers at high-poverty schools that make up many of the sticking points between the union and district.

12:09 p.m. Freebies for Denver teachers

Denver teachers on strike are benefitting from more than community goodwill right now. Local businesses are also showing their support by offering freebies for local educators. Fitness studios, coffee and pizza shops, wedding planners, and, yes, craft breweries have all volunteered their products and services. Here’s a Facebook thread tracking the offers.

11:05 a.m. The view from social media

Teachers and their allies across Denver have flooded Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat with pictures from their pickets. We can’t possibly share them all, so here’s one that Erica Schenck, a teacher, shared of her school’s all-female science department on Instagram this morning.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by erika schenck (@akires) on Feb 12, 2019 at 7:40am PST

10:46 a.m. National union leaders are back on the picket line

Representatives from the National Education Association, the national teachers union of which the Denver union is a chapter, are in town to picket with local teachers. Here’s what NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia tweeted this morning:

It's day two, educators are standing up for students, and students are showing solidarity! Go, fight, win! @DenverTeachers @ColoradoEA #DCTAstrong #RedForEd pic.twitter.com/e1R36nU7Nl
— Lily Eskelsen García (@Lily_NEA) February 12, 2019

Our Erica Meltzer spoke Monday with Eskelsen Garcia, who said ProComp has caused “chaos” in Denver. “There is not one school district in the country that is going to look at Denver and think, ‘Oh, I think I’ll try that,’” she said.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association helped design the ProComp pay system without the support of the national union that Eskelen García now heads.

10:25 a.m. Why you can watch Denver’s teachers contract talks

From Melanie:

In Colorado, teacher contract negotiations happen in public, which is different than in most states, where bargaining is a closed-door affair. It’s been that way since 2015, after Colorado voters passed a ballot initiative requiring the open-door sessions. That’s played out in Denver in a very high-profile way. For the past couple of years, Denver teachers have been packing bargaining sessions, first for the master contract and now for the ProComp agreement. And they don’t just watch passively. Teachers boo if they hear something they don’t like, snap if they hear something they do, and regularly shout out their opinions. When the union bargaining team entered the room Tuesday, the crowd went wild, giving them a standing ovation and starting a now-familiar cheer: “If they won’t pay us, shut it down!”

The dynamic is a boon for union members and their allies, who have more visibility now than under the old way of negotiating. That’s not what the right-wing Independence Institute anticipated when it advanced the open-meetings ballot initiative. “Transparency is good for everyone,” Jon Caldara, the institute’s president, told Chalkbeat in 2014. “If this is such an advantage for the unions, why are they against it?”

10:22 a.m. Aw, shucks!

Our reporters have been working relentlessly for weeks, and especially over the last few days, to cover this locally disruptive, nationally significant, potentially life-changing teacher strike, so it’s nice to know that our efforts are paying off with readers. Here’s one who not only acknowledged and shared our reporting but also, recognizing that local news comes with a cost, contributed to support it. Thank you, Andrew! And if you’re so inclined, here’s how you, too, can donate to Chalkbeat.

I just donated $500 to @ChalkbeatCO for their amazing, balanced, timely, comprehensive coverage of the the DPS/DCTA dispute. There are some smart, hard working people keeping the rest of us informed. #goodjournalism
— Andrew Hudson (@ahjobslist) February 12, 2019

10:05 a.m. What you need to know as negotiations resume

Some essential background from Melanie Asmar:

The district and union are negotiating how to revamp ProComp, the district’s complex teacher pay system of bonuses and incentives. on top of their base salaries. The district’s last offer, made on Saturday afternoon, would add $23 million to teacher pay next year and $55 million over three years. The money would come from cutting 150 central-office positions, eliminating bonuses for top administrators, and anticipated state aid increases, according to schools chief Susana Cordova. That gets closer to but not does reach the union’s demand: $28 million more next year. The two sides also disagree on how to divvy up the money. The union wants to shrink the size of bonuses and incentives and pump more money into teachers’ base salaries, arguing that stable pay would do more to keep teachers than bonuses that can come and go. The district sees the bonuses as key to attracting and retaining teachers at high-poverty schools. The district’s Saturday offer included something the union found particularly objectionable: increasing the size of bonuses for teachers at 30 “highest-priority schools” to $3,000, from its previous proposal of $2,500. The union wants to eliminate that particular bonus altogether.

We can expect to hear more about the highest-priority schools during negotiations today.

10 a.m. A big crowd and an empty table to start negotiations

Union supporters convened at the Denver Public Library as negotiations resumed on the teacher strike’s second day.

The Denver Public Library’s basement auditorium is packed with strike supporters wearing red, while a bargaining table has been assembled as negotiations resume. Melanie Asmar is at the library, where unlike in school district buildings, the wi-fi is reliable and social media isn’t blocked. That means you can follow her on Twitter for updates.

9:05 a.m.: New attention for “innovation schools”

One side effect of the strike is that teachers and parents across Denver are paying attention to “innovation schools,” dozens of schools that the district runs but frees from many rules. They’re often described (including by us!) as having “charter-like flexibility” — but unlike charter schools, their teachers are members of the local union. That came as a surprise to at least one strike ally who posted in an active Facebook group — but was quickly rebuffed by people who said their innovation schools were on the picket line today.

8:44 a.m.: Strike fund swells

As national attention has turned to the strike, the GoFundMe launched to build a strike fund — a fund that can support union members who go without pay during the day — has swelled. On Monday morning, the fund had about $26,000. Today, that number is up to $33,000. The donors include at least one craft brewery.

8 a.m.: A big question today

One thing we’re watching: Exactly how many teachers are joining the strike. The district reported Monday that 56 percent of teachers did not come to work; on Tuesday, it upgraded that estimate to 58 percent, without sharing why the numbers changed. It also said that a majority of teachers did not participate at 30 “highest-priority” schools where the union’s plan would eliminate special bonuses. Will those numbers hold up on the strike’s second day? If not, the union could potentially face a situation where less than half of members are participating — a potentially critical blow to maintaining public support.

7 a.m.: 76 percent of students in school Monday

The Denver district just released attendance data from Monday, when it said 76 percent of students showed up to school. That rate wasn’t unexpected, since the district and union both initially encouraged families to send their children to school, but it doesn’t capture the significant numbers of students who left early. Some parents posted on social media that they would not be sending their children back to school today.

Immigration fears keep some Denver teachers in their classrooms

2019-02-13T04:25:58+00:00

Despite assurances from school district officials that they would not be reported to immigration officials for participating in the Denver strike, immigrant teachers working on visas remained in their classrooms this week instead of joining colleagues on picket lines.

Multiple sources with first-hand knowledge told Chalkbeat that some immigrant teachers are too afraid to strike. One teacher who fits that definition spoke to us on the condition of anonymity.

Any worries teachers already had about striking were inflamed when a Denver Public Schools human relations official sent an email to schools in late January saying that the district would have to report any striking teachers with H-1B and J-1 immigrant visas to immigration authorities.

After the email leaked on social media just a few days after a strike vote, district officials said it was wrong, and apologized. But to many educators, the damage had been done.

One immigrant teacher, who asked that her name and school be withheld for fear of repercussions, said she has too much at stake to take any risks.

A Venezuelan citizen who has lived in the United States for years, she is in the process of applying for residency and has young children, she said. With a political and humanitarian crisis unfolding in her home country, being forced to return is a frightening prospect.

“I would prefer to be outside” picketing, she said in an interview. “I want to make my voice heard. But it’s scary. I don’t know what could happen, and it’s my family that is at risk.”

The teacher said the first day of the strike was hard, and she struggled not to cry.

“I was here out of fear, but I wanted to be with my companions,” she said.

Of the district’s approximately 5,300 educators, 128 of them are here on H-1B and J-1 immigrant visas, the district says. But the district is not tracking whether those teachers have gone out on strike, said Anna Alejo, DPS’s chief communications officer.

Alejo said that with limited resources during the strike, the district is only tracking overall teacher attendance, student attendance, transportation staff attendance, and school meals served.

Counting how many immigrant teachers came to work or walked a picket line also would probably not help the school district regain trust and recover from its mistake.

Chalkbeat was able to confirm other examples of immigrant teachers who stayed in their classrooms this week. We are not identifying the sources of that information or the schools with the immigrant teachers because we were unable to reach the teachers to ask whether they’d be comfortable with that. By identifying the schools, we would also possibly identify them.

The immigrant teacher who spoke to Chalkbeat said she personally knows several other immigrant educators who made the same decision she did, for many of the same reasons.

“We were coerced” to not strike,” she said. “We don’t trust DPS.”

The school district tried to move quickly to limit fallout from the letter, with Superintendent Susana Cordova appearing at a news conference alongside school board members.

“This was wrong,” Cordova said then. “I cannot begin to express how shocked I was to learn of this message, and how deeply sorry I am for the anxiety and fear this has caused our educators, our families, and our community.”

Cordova said that in preparing for a potential strike, district officials asked a law firm specializing in immigrant visas whether a strike might have negative impacts on immigrant teachers, “and how we could take the appropriate steps to protect them if they choose to strike.”

The law firm advised the district it would have to notify the U.S. Department of Labor of the strike, and Cordova said that message was “misinterpreted” by human resources staff.

Cordova sent yet another email to the community about the email on Feb. 4, stating that the district needs to rebuild trust and that she had met personally with many immigrant educators. The district even set up a hotline for teachers to report immigration-based intimidation.

Alejandro Arceo, a first-year math teacher at Lake Middle School in northwest Denver, said none of those efforts could restore the trust that had been lost.

“The fact that email was first sent and it was a threat, that caused a lot of damage, regardless of the follow-up apology,” Arceo said Tuesday as he joined other striking teachers waving signs to passing motorists on Federal Boulevard. “We are talking about the livelihood of people. We are talking about the paperwork, the visa, their legal status in the country. You don’t play with those kinds of things.”

Behind the Denver teacher strike, a union that’s grown substantially in recent years

2019-02-13T04:04:54+00:00

Denver’s teachers union is wielding one powerful weapon in its strike against Denver Public Schools: growing membership.

For years, only about half of eligible educators chose to join the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. The union in Jefferson County was bigger, even though the district is smaller.

But in the last two years, Denver union officials say, membership has swelled to 3,800. That means 72 percent of eligible teachers, nurses, counselors and others are now choosing to pay $70 a month to belong to the union.

The membership surge makes DCTA the largest local teachers union in the state, president Henry Roman said.

Many forces have coincided with the membership growth, including the union’s pay dispute with the district that is the immediate cause of the strike, a national teacher activism movement, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision that both threatens unions and gives them new opportunities to organize.

Locally, an internal caucus has for years been pushing the Denver teachers union to be more aggressive and progressive in an effort to attract younger members. That effort has paid off, according to educators who have been with the district for decades.

“I’ve seen a resurgence in the union being a very popular thing for younger teachers,” said Dave Hammond, band director at Denver School of the Arts for 25 years. “It was always there but not as strong as it is now.”

Union leaders have ramped up efforts to get Denver teachers to join, adding a staff member whose job is to work with teachers in “innovation schools” and dropping indications that it might begin engaging educators in non-unionized charter schools.

In recent weeks, as a strike grew increasingly likely, Denver union leaders emphasized that only members could vote on a strike — and then made it possible to sign up on the spot as the vote was taking place. Union officials said 250 teachers had joined that way.

One big test for the expanded membership is the degree to which members participate in the strike. So far, the numbers from the district and union haven’t made that clear.

The district reported Monday that 2,631 out of 4,725 teachers — or about 56 percent — didn’t show up to work. That would represent 70 percent of the union’s current membership.

The union challenged the district’s numbers on Monday, saying that 3,769 out of 5,353 Denver educators — not just teachers but also school nurses, counselors, and others — were on picket lines on Day 1 of the strike. That would have put strike participation at 100 percent of union membership. (Some non-union members may have decided to join the strike.)

At Chalkbeat’s request, the district Tuesday provided a revised count for Day 1 that included those nurses, counselors, and other “special service providers” — and it rose to just 2,791. A spokeswoman cautioned the numbers may not provide the full picture because those staff were prioritizing support for students with special needs over reporting their own attendance.

The union and district haven’t yet offered participation numbers from the strike’s second day.

The murky numbers have drawn attention from longtime observers of teachers union dynamics. Mike Antonucci, a self-appointed watchdog who frequently criticizes teachers union leaders, wrote on his blog that the participation rates in Denver’s strike stand out.

“This divide is a significant difference from the other walkouts,” Antonucci wrote. “We should know more about it.”

What is clear is that the strike could help the union continue to grow, particularly if the ultimate deal reflects the union’s goals.

“Teachers unions are striking and winning. It provides a very viable way to show members, we have value and we can win,” Bradley Marianno, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies teachers unions. “If successful, this type of activism can really rally members.”

Sarah Darville contributed information to this report.

‘Giant classrooms’ and a principal teaching band: Inside a middle school on the first day of the Denver teachers strike

2019-02-12T03:10:57+00:00

At Skinner Middle School in northwest Denver, the “classroom” for the entire seventh-grade is a first-floor auditorium with wooden seats. It’s typically used for school assemblies and Shakespeare, but today it’s dedicated to math and language arts.

Downstairs in the gym, students squint over pre-packaged literacy curriculum directing them to read a paragraph about Susan B. Anthony and answer questions citing evidence.

The school’s executive principal, holding a flute in one hand, stands at the front of another classroom teaching a combined beginning band and concert band class fingering and rhythms.

This was what school looked like Monday morning in a large comprehensive middle school that saw 38 of its 39 teachers join with colleagues across the city going on strike in a dispute with Denver Public Schools about how much teachers are paid and the factors that determine their paychecks.

Students across Denver reported mixed experiences in schools as the strike began. Some high school students walked out to join their teachers on picket lines, while some students reported crowded classrooms, marathon attendance-taking sessions, and other disruptions.

After initially refusing media requests to be inside schools, citing the potential disruption, district officials agreed Monday morning to grant limited access to one school for a print/digital reporter, photographer, and TV crew, on the condition that students and staff not be identified. (Chalkbeat as the print/digital representative agreed to share its notes with other media.)

For school leaders like Grant Varvaris, the Skinner Middle School principal, the strike poses logistical and teaching challenges. The school invited students to spend part of the morning writing letters and drawing pictures to be delivered to their teachers outside on the picket lines, sharing messages like “we love you and we miss you, and we also understand why you are doing it.”

Activity coordinators broke up the monotony of hours sitting with “brain breaks,” leading students doing physical activities, like playing frisbee or tag outside.

The “giant classrooms,” as Varvaris describes the auditorium and gym, are working so far, he said. About 75 percent of the school’s roughly 625 students attended class Monday, and it would typically be about 95 percent. About 75 adults were in the building, down from the usual 100. Administrators, non-teachers union staff like cafeteria workers, seven district central office staff, and nine substitutes were on hand.

The gymnasium during third period had an adult-to-student ratio of about 1:10.

“I feel like it’s different than normal,” Varvaris said. “I know the kids are safe. I do know that our learning is impacted a little bit. I’m not going to pretend everything is as good as our 38 teachers who deliver great lessons. I feel a little bit just nervous because it’s just different, but I think our adults and kids are working really hard to make it work.”

That all but one Skinner teacher joined the strike stands out considering the school district said about 56 percent of Denver teachers did not show up Monday. Union officials released their own numbers showing that more than 71 percent of all employees covered by the union contract — teachers, nurses, counselors, and therapists — signed in or were counted on picket lines.

Some parents joined picketing parents with signs of their own outside Skinner, including Mary Harmon, who has two children at Skinner and one at North High School.

Harmon cited a litany of concerns that has her siding with the teachers union: that the district is top-heavy with administrators, and that after 15 months the district couldn’t make an offer acceptable to teachers.

Late Monday morning, she was sitting in a chair outside the main office waiting for Varvaris.

She wanted to know whether students were working on lessons prepared by their classroom teachers instead of what she called the “busywork” of district-prepared curriculum.

Varvaris replied that it was the curriculum district staff prepared for the strike, and told her that no, her son did not have to work on it.

Before the meeting with the parent, Varvaris said he wants to support his teachers and support anyone who walks through the door, without taking sides during a challenging moment.

“What we have said is we are a family when it starts,” he said, “and we’ll be a family when it’s over.”

Denver Superintendent Susana Cordova on eve of strike: ‘This is an issue of equity’

2019-02-11T12:00:48+00:00

Barely a month since taking charge of Colorado’s largest school district, Denver Superintendent Susana Cordova is reckoning with a teachers strike.

Teachers are set to start picketing Monday after union members voted to strike, the governor turned away a district request to step in and delay it, and a final flurry of negotiations failed to unlock a compromise over ProComp, the district’s complicated pay-for-performance system that is the subject of negotiations.

We sat down with Cordova on Sunday as her staff prepared for the walkouts. We talked about the district’s latest proposal, its determination to keep schools open, the size of the district’s central administration staff, and how what is happening in Denver is connected to teacher activism nationwide and the local community’s feelings about Denver’s education reform efforts.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Saturday night, you brought a new proposal to the table with deeper cuts to district central staff and elimination of executive bonuses, with the money going to increase bonuses for teachers in “highest priority” schools. The union wants to do away with those bonuses and use that money to raise base pay for all teachers. Why make this move, and why did you call it significant?

A: ProComp was initially designed to try to motivate the behavior we need to address the biggest problems in our system. And the biggest problems are closing the opportunity gap and teacher retention in the highest priority schools. So much of what we are doing in our proposal is trying to emphasize equity. At the end of the day, the most important thing we can do with our proposal is reward teachers in their base salaries and in the kinds of jobs we know we need to close the gaps we have. Our proposal, along with the incentives, also pays a significant base pay increase for everyone.

I want to say it over and over and over again that this is an issue of equity. And equity isn’t equal. And I don’t believe it’s in our city’s best interest to take money out of the hands of teachers working in higher poverty places to spread around the city so everyone gets an increase.

Q: How confident are you in your ability to keep schools open during the strike?

A: We’re going to approach this as thoughtfully as possible. Our No. 1 priority is the safety of our students. If at any point we are concerned about safety, we will make the decision to close a school. That is something we won’t compromise on.

Q: Along with tapping your regular pool of substitute teachers and trying to expand it, the district told central administration staff to be all-hands-on-deck and ready to go into schools. Some of these employees are the very same people who would lose their jobs in the cuts to central office you’ve proposed. How do you have those conversations?

A: It’s really challenging. Probably one of the hardest things I am having to do right now is talking to people who are really dedicated people who care about kids, to ask them to go cover in schools and then come back to the possibility that their job is going to be eliminated.

Whether you think a strike is the right thing or the wrong thing, there is no one who thinks it’s not the best thing to have grownups taking care of students. I am incredibly proud of the people who have reached out to me to tell them how focused they are on kids.

Q: Taking the context of the current negotiations out of it, is the central office too big? Does it need to cut?

A: Part of what I applied on was this concept of, “I think we need to have a bigger impact, and that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to be the size of the team that we are.” This is a good time to reevaluate how we can make an impact.

Q: These negotiations are about ProComp, but is this also about something more?

A: Yes, I think we are in the middle of a national moment. Teachers in Denver as well as in other places are feeling frustrated, disrespected, undervalued. I think that’s terrible. I went into teaching myself with a real passion to make a difference in the world. I know that’s true of our teachers as well. I don’t think for the most part teachers are going into the job for the money. Money matters. And certainly, a part of this is about the money. But it’s also about a lot of those other things that are happening. My hope would be that once we are past these negotiations, we will be able to sit down and engage in a collaborative way so that here in Denver, that storyline can feel different.

Q: What do you think has fueled that movement? Political winds nationally? What else?

A: There are national contextual aspects and very local contextual aspects. The political climate we have nationwide is a climate that has provided far greater divisions than it has brought people together. If you look at Denver, L.A., and potentially Oakland (where a strike also could be in the offing), these are primarily liberal, Democratic places. That feels a little bit different here. Some of the local context here is, I think teachers and parents are really frustrated with the lack of opportunity to collaboratively engage around the improvement of our schools. I said that when I was applying: It is something that frustrated me as a member of DPS, both before I was on (previous superintendent) Tom Boasberg’s cabinet, and when I worked for Tom. I have deep roots in the city. I am a DPS grad, a DPS parent, and I plan to be a DPS retiree at some point. I am not going away from Denver. I understand why people feel frustrated – they feel like they don’t have a voice in their schools. Part of the reason I wanted to be superintendent is I wanted to change that. I know people are frustrated with how things have worked over the past 10 years.

Q: Some people are frustrated because they don’t feel heard, and also because they don’t like what the district’s done. You’ve been a part of this, you have been in many district roles. How much of the frustration among teachers now and among community members who support them is with Denver’s reforms or direction?

A: Certainly, while I was applying for the superintendency, I heard from lots of people who are very frustrated around the reforms. But we’ve also heard from people who really love their school and their school is a direct manifestation of what those reforms have looked like. Innovation schools. The kind of choices we have. Montessori. IB. Expeditionary Learning. The opportunity to find the right fit for your kid. We also hear from parents how much they appreciate that. Not everybody speaks with one voice on that. I do think a lot of what we are seeing now is some of the pent-up frustration of the folks who have not been as satisfied with what reforms have produced.

There are many, many things we can point to as big improvements over the last 15 years. Graduation rates are up. Remediation rates are down. Dropouts are down. Enrollment is significantly higher. We were a district where for many years you might like your elementary school, you might like your high school, but you pulled your kids out for middle school. And middle schools are thriving in many, many parts of the city. A lot of that is sort of the chicken-egg — the schools are better, the neighborhoods get better, the neighborhoods get better, the schools get better. A lot of that is what’s happened. And that has not been the experience of all communities in the last 15 years. So even though our black and our brown children are performing significantly higher than they were, they have not accelerated at the same pace as their white peers or their peers who don’t qualify for free lunch. We have big, big work to do on that.

Q: Some district reform efforts have slowed down. The school closure policy is on hold. The last two calls for new quality schools have not called for any new schools. Is that because of changing circumstances, or does it say something else?

A: We’re just not growing at same pace. We saw rapid expansion of schools of all kinds: charter and district schools during a time when enrollment in our city was dramatically increasing. That is not where we are. We are going to be in a position where we are going to have to think differently about our schools. One of the things we shared with our board of education in our budget forecast, within the next five years we expect that we’ll have 20 schools that are under 200 kids if we do nothing now, based on the neighborhood changes. You can’t run a school on a budget you get for 200 kids. At under 200 kids, you don’t even have enough funds to have a teacher at every grade level. We’re in a different environment. So I think we’re going to have to look at what reforms look like in this context in a different way. We have a very large and troubling gap. We need reform. It’s going to need to look different.

Q: What do you think that will look like?

A: My hope is that we’re going to be working on that in collaboration with our teachers and our community.

Editor’s note: We have requested a similar interview with Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

Ten things to watch as Denver teachers go on strike

2019-02-11T04:55:04+00:00

The negotiating room is dark. Makeshift lesson plans are ready to be unpacked from boxes, if they haven’t been yet. Bullhorns and picket signs are at the ready.

Denver teachers will go on strike Monday morning for the first time in a quarter century.

It’s a big development not just in the ongoing dispute between school district and union leaders over how much and how teachers are paid, but also in the history of Denver Public Schools.

National attention will be focused on Denver, as it was on Los Angeles, Oklahoma, and West Virginia in recent months. Here are the things we’ll be watching as the strike begins:

How many teachers will walk out?

It’s hard to say. The teachers union’s lead negotiator told us dues-paying membership has swelled to about 3,800. That’s roughly 72 percent of the 5,300 teachers and special service providers covered by the district’s ProComp agreement that is at the center of the dispute — a big increase in membership that had been stuck at about 50 percent for years.

Teachers don’t have to be union members to strike. Some members may stay in their classrooms because they disagree with their colleagues, can’t afford to lose a paycheck, or are worried about their immigration status. Non-union member educators may walk out in solidarity with striking teachers, or find it too hard to cross a picket line.

One reason it’s hard to get a handle on how may Denver teachers support a strike: Union leaders refuse to say how many people voted to walk out. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association said 93 percent of those who participated voted “yes,” but did not disclose the number of ballots cast.

We’ve asked the school district for daily updates on teacher attendance during the strike. We’ll keep you posted about what we learn.

Will the district manage to keep schools open?

We have no idea — and the district probably doesn’t, either. There are a lot of things that won’t be known until bells ring Monday morning.

Probably the biggest wild card is student attendance. If attendance is close to normal, it will pose a big challenge to district officials committed to keeping doors open.

Other open questions: Will the district round up enough substitute teachers and central office staff to keep schools running? Will those in the district sub pool — many of them retired teachers— cross a picket line? What about other employees who are essential to keeping schools open: paraprofessionals, support staff, janitors, and cafeteria workers?

The district has made clear that its roughly 1,400-employee central office staff should stand ready for deployment to schools as substitutes or, if they aren’t licensed, hall monitors or lunchroom workers. Not only that, but the district has said that failing to do so could result in corrective action, which could include getting fired. These, by the way, are some of the same people who will lose their jobs because of cuts the district has proposed to pay teachers more.

The district has been getting reports from principals with projections about how many teachers might strike. The bottom line is that how schools are able to handle the strike will vary by school. The Denver district will be relying on principals to make the right calls on keeping doors open.

What will student attendance be like?

As we said above, it’s a crucial piece to keeping schools open. The union has changed course on its messaging. A union FAQ document from mid-January urged parents to send students to school with the logic that schools will be forced to close if they’re unsafe, “a demonstration of the essential labor performed by educators.” Some teachers distanced themselves from that, and union President Henry Roman eventually backed off, too. After Gov. Jared Polis declined to intervene in the dispute, clearing the way for a strike, Roman urged parents to make the decision “they believe to be in the best interest and well-being of their children.”

During Los Angeles’ recent strike, attendance was higher in high-poverty schools, where parents have less flexibility at work and may not be able to be with their children. In Denver, district officials say they’re planning to send more personnel to high-poverty schools.

What will school be like without teachers?

First off, many students and parents will experience a most unfamiliar morning drop-off — teachers who usually are inside getting classrooms ready instead will be outside on sidewalks marching with picket signs. Denver police initiated conversations with union leaders to make sure everyone knows the rules. Any picketing must take place on public sidewalks, not on school property.

DPS’s curriculum team has prepared material for use in classrooms: stand-alone units aligned to content areas and grade levels in English and Spanish. The district has sent two days’ worth of material to start, and Superintendent Susana Cordova said the district has more ready online and will reassess after a couple of days. An English language development unit covers food groups, with group work for students. A sixth-grade science section on freshwater use in the U.S. asks students to make predictions about estimated water use.

District officials have been clear that school during the strike will not be normal. Some classrooms may be combined. Classes may move to auditoriums. Schools with specialized programs — Montessori, Expeditionary Learning, International Baccalaureate — may find the pre-packaged curriculum lacking.

At least initially, we won’t be able to give you a firsthand account of what the school day looks like during the strike. The school district refused our request, and those from other media, to observe inside schools, saying it would be disruptive at a sensitive time.

Will older students turn to activism?

We’ve already seen Denver students speak out in support of teachers. An estimated 1,100 students at seven Denver high schools staged sit-ins, information sessions, marches, and other demonstrations during a school day two weeks ago, showing solidarity with teachers.

So it would come as no surprise if we see more as the strike begins. Or rather, if we see it in shaky video that ends up on some national news network. Everyone these days has a camera in his or her pocket and social media accounts on which to share videos and still pictures. The Denver Post found one middle school that will collect students’ phones during the strike, but schools also do this as a regular practice. A district spokeswoman told us each school has its own cell phone policy, and the district doesn’t expect them to change this week.

What will families with preschoolers do?

While DPS is telling families that schools will be open and operating on regular schedules Monday, there’s one exception: district-run preschools. Cordova announced late last week that the district will be unable to keep its preschools open, leaving parents of 3- and 4-year-olds scrambling. Those who can will take off work or lean on relatives and friends.

Meanwhile, state regulators have said they can grant emergency waivers to allow non-district preschools with extra room to take some of those students, and some Denver preschools have raised their hands. Parents searching for licensed child care options during a teacher strike may call Colorado Shines Child Care Referral at Mile High United Way at 1-877-338-2273 or text “child care referral” to 898-211.

How will students who rely on subsidized school meals eat?

The district has underscored that meals will continue to be served at schools with large numbers of students in need. Preschool students will still be able eat at school if they are accompanied by a parent. About 65 percent of DPS students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch.

The city of Denver also said it will have meals and snacks available at its recreation centers and libraries. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, following the lead of other local unions during a strike, has announced plans to open community food banks at four sites where it will collect and distribute non-perishable food from 7 a.m. to noon:

Northwest – Denver Firefighters Local 858: 12 Lakeside Lane
Northeast – IBEW Local 111: 5965 E. 39th Ave.
Southwest – National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 47: 5151 W. First Ave
Southeast – Unite Here Local 23: 5303 E Evans Ave., # 302.

Will charter schools be a target of pickets?

The current dispute has been focused on how much Denver teachers are paid and how they’re paid. But make no mistake: The energy the teachers union has harnessed also grows out of a long-simmering frustration with Denver’s brand of education reform, which includes closing low-performing schools and replacing them with other types of schools the district believes can do a better job. That includes charter schools. Our rough count shows DPS with 99 traditional district-run schools, 60 charter schools, and 50 innovation schools, which are operated by the district but don’t abide by all aspects of the teachers union contract.

The strike gives union leaders a chance to make charters an issue (in other cities, including LA, charter school growth was a major aspect of the dispute). Denver’s policy of welcoming charter schools to use space in underutilized buildings that are home to district-run schools is a highly unusual practice for a U.S. school district — and gives pickets a potential target.

The head of DSST Public Schools, the district’s largest charter-school operator, wrote to parents voicing concerns about how a strike would affect its students and families, but didn’t specifically cite concern over pickets. District officials have assured charter school operators that the district is doing everything in its power to ensure that it’s business as usual at district campuses.

What happens next with negotiations?

Union negotiators made clear when they walked away from the negotiating table Saturday night that they won’t be returning until Tuesday. That means all of the attention Monday will focus on picket lines, what happens in schools, and whether the district can manage to keep them open.

Teachers are ready — emotionally, practically, strategically — to strike. Imagine being asked to vote on whether to walk out of a classroom of students you are responsible for. You vote yes. You prepare yourself, you figure out what to tell your students what to expect, you decide what message is best for your picket sign. It’s hard to walk back from that.

But a deal has to be reached at some point. The start of the strike should be a game-changer for negotiations.

How long will the strike last?

Probably no more than a few days. That’s our best guess given the length of recent strikes elsewhere (Pueblo and LA both lasted a week) and how close the two sides are compared with disputes in other cities. Then there’s this practical consideration: Teachers who strike don’t get paid — and a strike fund can only go so far. The district put more on the table late in its attempts to avert a strike. Even though the union dismissed the move, it does get the sides closer.

Denver union rebuffs district’s request to keep talking, both sides prepare for strike Monday

2019-02-10T22:15:00+00:00

Denver schools superintendent Susana Cordova and her top negotiators spent a few hours Sunday sitting alone at a bargaining table after union officials rebuffed their request to keep talking less than 24 hours before the planned start of Denver’s first teachers strike in 25 years.

Negotiations halted Saturday evening when union bargainers walked away from negotiations, saying they’ll strike Monday and talk again Tuesday at the earliest.

That dramatic moment seemed to be the end of it, but the district notified the media on Sunday morning that it would be back at 9:30 a.m. and ready to resume. Cordova said the union did not respond to the invitation. Union negotiator Rebecka Hendricks told Chalkbeat the union believed little progress was being made and that everyone needed a cooling-off period.

That the two sides didn’t meet again is not surprising: Denver Classroom Teachers Association leaders have made clear that the time for talking is over for now.

Both sides instead spent much of Sunday preparing for the strike, with the school district trying to match substitute teachers to anticipated needs and taking other steps in a bid to keep schools open, and the union’s strike captains planning to meet to discuss their plans.

The strained negotiations over ProComp, the district’s complex teacher pay system, has exposed deep philosophical divides about how teachers should be paid. But the dispute is about more than that: it comes with a backdrop of heightened teacher activism nationally and pent-up frustration locally among opponents of Denver school reforms dating back more than a decade.

On Sunday morning, the room in a district building that had been crammed with red-clad teachers during intense bargaining sessions took on a dramatically different feel.

Cordova and three district staff members sat alone huddled over laptops in one corner of a square table. The only other people in the room were reporters.

Cordova said the union’s decision not to come back to the table was “incredibly disappointing” given that this will end in a deal and there was still time to potentially avert a strike.

“The most important thing we can do is get to work,” she said. “I am not sure I understand why they think we should wait until Tuesday. They don’t even want to meet tomorrow.”

On Saturday night, the district offered what Cordova framed as a significant proposal: eliminating performance bonuses for executive staff and cutting even deeper into administrative expenses — eliminating 150 central office jobs — and pouring the money into boosting bonuses for teachers working in schools identified as a highest priority to $3,000 from $2,500.

The union, however, advocates for eliminating that bonus altogether and using the money to boost the base pay for all district teachers. Union leaders believe the best way to attract and retain teachers is to offer them a competitive, stable salary, instead of bonuses that could come and go depending on a school’s demographics or other factors outside of their control.

District officials have been seeking to draw a starker contrast between those divisions, and Cordova continued Sunday when talking to the media.

“I want to say it over and over and over again that this is an issue of equity,” she said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “And equity isn’t equal. And I don’t believe it’s in our city’s best interest to take money out of the hands of teachers working in higher poverty places to spread around the city so everyone gets an increase.”

Cordova said the district has taken significant steps forward in negotiations and the union has not.

Hendricks, the DCTA negotiator, said Cordova made the district’s last offer sound good at first, but it “didn’t move us forward at all.” She said the union had good reason to skip what felt like a publicity stunt on Sunday.

“The negotiations have been very emotional for both sides,” said Hendricks, a math teacher at Emily Griffith High School. “I think a cooling-off period would do some good in terms of moving negotiations forward a little bit more productively.”

No one knows exactly what to expect when teachers form picket lines outside schools Monday.

The district says it has been gathering information from principals about how many teachers they expect to walk out, although it’s impossible to know for sure until the strike begins.

As of 8:45 a.m. Sunday, the district had fielded 2,024 requests from schools for substitute teachers, said Debbie Hearty, the district’s human resources chief. Of those, 284 assignments had been made and accepted from the district’s sub pool, which has been bolstered in preparation for the strike, she said. DPS officials are paying subs $200 a day, twice the usual rate.

The district also has 1,400 central office staff ready to substitute-teach if they’re licensed, or fulfill other tasks like monitoring hallways and lunchrooms if they’re not.

Student attendance is key to the staffing puzzle. If many parents keep their children home, not as many substitutes and support staff will be needed.

Cordova noted that during the recent Los Angeles strike, student attendance was higher in high-poverty schools, where parents are far less likely to have flexible schedules and be able to get off work to care for their children. District officials expect a similar dynamic in Denver, where 65 percent of students qualify for government-subsidized lunches, one measure of poverty.

Melanie Asmar contributed to this report.

Why civil rights groups are split over impending Denver teachers strike

2019-02-08T04:55:36+00:00

A half-dozen civil rights and community group leaders united Thursday to rally behind pay incentives for teachers in high-poverty Denver schools, aligning with the school district in the most contentious piece of a pay dispute with its teachers union.

A statement from the coalition, delivered as Denver is on the verge of its first teachers strike in 25 years, said shifting more money to teachers’ base salaries — the union’s proposal — would heighten inequalities in a school district already suffering from enormous achievement gaps.

The statement stood out for another reason: those who did not sign it. Several prominent local civil rights groups that have banded together in the past did not participate, a reflection of both differing opinions and the difficulty of balancing the interests of teachers and families.

A similar dynamic has played out across the country as teacher activism has heightened, with groups like the NAACP siding with unions against charter schools, others promoting charters and other reforms as benefiting students from poor families, and still other groups sitting it out.

Papa Dia, executive director of the African Leadership Group , which works with immigrant families in Denver and Aurora, said he and other signatories sought to build a bigger coalition. He said he was surprised more groups did not sign on, but also could understand why.

“It could be that they are torn apart,” said Dia, who would not identify groups that declined to sign. “It is difficult to be put in a position of choosing one way or another because teachers are a part of the community, a part of our family. For us, it is important to ask both sides to figure out a way to come to agreement for the sake of our children.”

Dia said the coalition’s overriding interest is to keep schools open, citing students who rely on free and reduced-price meals served at schools, high schoolers preparing for SATs, and working parents who have to choose between a paycheck or being at home with their children.

Leaders with the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Colorado Latino Leadership Advocacy and Research Coalition, FaithBridge, and Transform Education Now also signed the statement.

A number of those groups are friendly to education reform initiatives, including charters. Transform Education Now, for example, organized parents who supported an unsuccessful effort to bring the KIPP charter school network to the struggling Adams 14 district.

The coalition’s statement says that while implementation has been imperfect, the district’s ProComp pay-for-performance system — the subject of the current negotiations — reflects “our community value to better support our students who face the challenges of growing up in poverty, and who experience the current and historical legacies of racism.”

“We are concerned that a redistribution of ProComp funding into base teacher salary will shift resources from schools in high-need communities to those in more affluent neighborhoods where there are already far greater resources,” the statement says.

Dia said that although the coalition’s position on incentives is in line with the school district’s, he is not in position to say whether the district’s overall proposal is “really a good fit for teachers.”

The district and union, aside from being about $8 million apart, are at odds over both incentives for teachers in high-poverty schools and incentives for teachers who work at 30 “highest-priority” schools. The union wants to reduce the former and eliminate the latter.

Civil rights groups whose names don’t appear on the statement include the Urban League of Metropolitan Denver, the NAACP, Together Colorado, and Padres y Jóvenes Unidos. Chalkbeat could not reach representatives of every group for comment.

The Colorado NAACP has weighed in on the side of teachers along with other members of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a coalition of progressive religious and community groups.

Joyce Brooks, state education chair for the Colorado NAACP, said coalition members looked at both sides’ proposals before coming to a decision, and she believes the focus on incentives misses the point. More robust mental health services, community partnerships, and extracurricular activities would do more to improve conditions for students and teachers at schools with higher needs, she said.

“Without those additional resources going into those schools, whatever you pay them more (in incentives) doesn’t make up for that lack of resources,” she said. “(Teachers) who have stayed talk about having new teachers every year or teachers leaving in the middle of the year.”

“There are other resources needed far more than this incentive, and the incentive does not make that much difference,” she said. “Let’s make a really attractive package for teachers. This is not an attractive place to work, and I believe part of that is working conditions, as well as the cost of living.”

Together Colorado, a faith-based, multiracial civil rights group that champions a number of issues, decided not to sign the statement, Executive Director Mike Kromrey said.

“It’s a very complicated issue, and our folks did not feel ready to weigh in to that,” he said.

The organization’s board chair, Sharon Bridgeforth, elaborated, saying that Together Colorado believes both in economic justice and a liveable wage, and that all children should thrive in schools.

“As an organization, we know that for teachers, it’s difficult and scary for them to strike,” Bridgeforth said. “But in most cases, workers only strike when they feel their backs are against the wall. We believe change often requires tension, and think strikes are a healthy way to express and ultimately resolve the tension.”

“Tension is good,” she said. “That is how we are looking at it right now.”

Erica Meltzer contributed information to this report.

Denver district, union meet separately with Gov. Polis as he weighs intervention

2019-02-06T02:33:08+00:00

Representatives of the Denver school district and the teachers union met separately Tuesday with Gov. Jared Polis as the Democratic governor weighs whether to intervene in a pay dispute between the two sides.

A brief statement from Denver Public Schools described a “productive conversation” and said Polis “is continuing to push both sides to talk.” Denver Classroom Teachers Association officials also met with Polis and had no comment as they left, The Denver Post reported.

The meetings came at the request of state labor chief Joe Barela to “discuss the path forward” and to review an informal analysis by state budget officials of each side’s proposal.

Barela on Monday sent a sharply-worded letter to DPS and DCTA officials, criticizing the most recent teacher pay bargaining session last Thursday as “political theater.”

DPS has asked state labor officials to intervene in the dispute over how — and how much — to pay the district’s educators. The union wants the state to stay out of it. Union members voted last month to go on strike, but the action has been on hold while Polis decides whether to get involved.

Union members and their supporters plan to gather Wednesday afternoon outside the Colorado State Capitol to deliver letters to Polis asking him not to intervene.

Polis has until Monday to decide whether to intervene, which could delay a Denver strike by as much as 180 days.

On Thursday, union leaders rejected the latest district offer, which called for investing $50 million more into teacher pay over the next three years. The offer represented movement by the district in the form of an additional $3 million for teacher pay in the 2020-21 school year, plus two additional years of cost-of-living raises.

Union negotiators called the offer a waste of time.

Mike Johnston, Colorado education reform champion, announces run for U.S. Senate

2019-01-31T14:21:17+00:00

Former Colorado state Sen. Mike Johnston, the architect of Colorado’s teacher effectiveness law and a leading Democrat in other past education reform efforts, is entering the fray in his party’s attempt to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner.

Johnston, 44, will run in the Democratic primary in the 2020 election, The Denver Post reported Thursday.

“I think one of the things that gives me a real advantage is people are looking for someone who represents Colorado,” Johnston told the newspaper. “I’m a fluent Spanish speaker, and I’ve had a diverse set of experiences and jobs in all parts of Colorado.”

The Denver Democrat and Western Slope native ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, finishing third in the Democratic primary. Prominent supporters of education reform supported his campaign.

A former teacher and principal, Johnston was the author of Colorado’s teacher effectiveness law, 2010’s Senate Bill 191. He also was a key figure in the passage of the READ Act, which created a new system to identify students in kindergarten through third grade with reading disabilities. He found bipartisan support to pass the ASSET bill, which provided in-state tuition for students who were born in another country.

Gardner is seen as vulnerable given the current political climate and Colorado’s increasingly blue hue. Democrats swept to power in elections for statewide offices in November.

So far, Johnston is the biggest-name Democrat to announce he wants to take on Gardner. Johnston also was early in announcing his run for governor.

Here’s what picketing outside Denver schools might look like — and how police and the district plan to handle it

2019-01-26T00:41:04+00:00

If Denver teachers do indeed strike, the morning scenes outside schools could be dramatic: lines of educators chanting and waving picket signs, substitutes crossing those lines to get to work, and families and students trying to navigate it all.

Keeping a watchful eye will be Denver police and the school district’s safety team.

Both are trying to strike a balance: ensuring schools are able to operate while making sure picketing teachers are free to speak their minds. The stakes are high for all involved, but particularly for union organizers and the school district, as a blunder could undermine their standing in the court of public opinion at an inopportune time.

Last week, even before negotiations between the union and district hit a stalemate, Denver police initiated a conversation with Denver Classroom Teacher Association officials to lay out picket-line expectations, said Sonny Jackson, a police department spokesman.

Picketers are restricted to public sidewalks off school grounds, he said. Municipal code prohibits the obstruction of streets, sidewalks, and building entrances frequented by the public. Denver police — not district safety staff members, who are not sworn law-enforcement officers — enforce that rule.

Jackson characterized that conversation with the union and a subsequent one this week as positive.

“Our main objective was to build a rapport in advance of an impending strike,” he said.

The head of Denver Public Schools’ 140-member safety team — which includes uniformed safety officers at each middle and high school, an armed patrol team that provides support to all schools, an emergency management team, investigators, and support staff — is striking a similarly collaborative tone.

“Really, our primary focus is safety,” said Mike Eaton, DPS’s chief of safety. “We want to make sure our schools remain open … We also understand that teachers have a right to voice what they feel they need to voice, and that plays a part in our planning.”

The union has expressed a different point of view on one key point: It would like to see schools shut down, “as a demonstration of the essential labor performed by educators.”

A “strike plan” document produced ahead of bargaining sessions this month describes closing schools as a goal of picketing, suggesting it begin when teachers start arriving for the day and wrap by mid-morning. A union FAQ document suggests another tactic to force school closures: encouraging parents to keep sending their children to school during a strike. The thinking is that if enough students show up, the district won’t be able to adequately staff school buildings and will be forced to close them for safety concerns.

Not all teachers have embraced that strategy, with some saying that the decision about whether to send a student to school should be a personal choice.

The DCTA has designated 12 “anchor schools” for larger pickets, the strike plan says. “These are also schools with high visibility, along major thoroughfares,” it states.

Those schools were identified as:

Southwest: Abraham Lincoln High School, Kaiser Elementary, Eagleton Elementary
Far Northeast: Denver School of the Arts, Montbello High School, Vista Academy
Southeast: Cory Elementary/Merrill Middle School, Hill Middle/Steck Elementary, Hamilton Middle/Holm Elementary
Northwest: North High School, Polaris Elementary, Colfax Elementary

At four of those campuses — Lincoln High, North High, Montbello High, and Vista Academy — district-run schools and charter schools share space. DPS officials aim to keep all their campuses open with non-union staff and administrators, substitutes, and central administration staff pitching in, and have assured co-located charter schools that operations will be normal.

Eaton, the district’s safety chief, said good communication up front between his team, the union, and police is essential to managing what is likely to be an emotionally fraught situation. If a strike begins, the district intends to open an emergency operations center to manage its resources, he said.

Corey Kern, deputy executive director of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, said the union has had several conversations with Denver police that have been generally positive. He added that the union is still working on its strike plans and is not ready to share details about how teachers will approach picketing.

Eaton said that because teachers “always put students first,” district safety officials do not anticipate picketers “targeting kids or creating an unsafe environment for kids.” That doesn’t mean the scenes unfolding outside schools will leave students unaffected, he said.

“It can be very traumatic for elementary school kids to see a teacher he or she has trust in, to see the teacher picketing outside their schools,” Eaton said, adding that the district will look for ways to minimize impact on children.

As Denver braces for strike, charter operators seek to reassure parents, tackle pay issue

2019-01-24T04:49:05+00:00

The day after news that Denver teachers union members had voted to strike, Denver’s largest charter school operators reassured families their schools will keep operating as usual and sought to highlight their own efforts to better compensate teachers.

Both DSST Public Schools and STRIVE Prep — which collectively educate about 9,500 students at 25 schools — wrote emails to families and supporters Wednesday as questions swirl about the ramifications of a potential Denver strike at district-run schools.

The earliest a strike could start would be Monday, but Denver officials have asked for state intervention, a move that could delay any labor action.

Teachers at Denver’s 60 charter schools are not union members and won’t be going on strike.

But around the nation, unions have started to organize charter teachers, and the issue of teacher pay and how schools are funded has drawn more public attention.

While classes at charter schools wouldn’t be directly affected by a Denver strike, any labor action will still touch those students and their families. Many Denver charters share space with district-operated schools in district-owned buildings, and district and charter officials say they have been communicating about making sure things run normally.

“We remain very supportive of all Denver teachers and all Denver schools,” DSST CEO Bill Kurtz wrote in a letter also posted online. “Yet we share in the concerns of many throughout our community about the impact a strike will have on our students and families.”

While charter schools have been a factor in district-union negotiations elsewhere — including in Los Angeles, where a strike just ended — the focus is narrower here, on the district’s ProComp pay-for-performance system for district teachers.

Denver Public Schools has long embraced charter schools as part of its nationally known “portfolio” model that calls for giving schools autonomy, allowing families to choose among them, and then closing or replacing schools if they don’t make the grade academically.

The district also allows charters space in existing schools that have it to spare, part of a “collaboration compact.” Five of STRIVE Prep’s 11 schools are co-located with district schools. STRIVE CEO Chris Gibbons said DPS has conveyed that transportation, food services, safety and security, and facility management will be operating normally at all district buildings.

Kurtz said the district is “taking proactive steps to work with everybody and ensure students and families can get to their schools each day. So we feel good about that.”

A DPS spokeswoman confirmed the district has been communicating with charter schools housed in district buildings, but did not immediately provide more details.

Both DSST and STRIVE in their letters Wednesday mentioned the importance of paying their teachers well. DSST was more specific: Kurtz wrote that school officials last week committed to a 12 percent raise in teacher pay across the 15-school network. He described it as part of an effort over the last several years to boost compensation for all employees.

While STRIVE’s letter did not go into such detail, Gibbons said STRIVE is also planning average raises of 10 percent to 12 percent next year, a “significant” increase.

The charter network uses a performance pay system, with teachers eligible for raises based on a combination of teacher evaluations, test results, and other tools in specific content areas.

Charter school teachers are often paid less than district teachers. A 2016 report by the Colorado Department of Education found that the average Colorado charter school teacher earned $39,052 the previous year, whereas the average salary at a district-run school was $54,455. Kurtz and Gibbons could not immediately provide information about averages salaries at their schools.

Leaders from both Denver charter school networks say their efforts on teacher compensation are in response to broader state funding challenges and not connected to the DPS negotiations or the potential for a Denver strike.

Colorado voters in November rejected Amendment 73, a statewide tax increase that would have raised an additional $1.6 billion a year for schools. Even without that new money, the charter leaders said they know they need to do more for teachers.

“The degree to which public funding is paying for education in Colorado is reaching crisis state,” Gibbons said. “All of us watched Amendment 73 with a great deal of interest as a potential statewide and systematic solution to funding that would systematically impact teacher compensation. When that failed, we believed it was time to do everything we possibly could.”

Colorado doesn’t have unionized charter schools, though they do exist in other states. The nation’s first charter strike took place in Chicago in December, and another charter operator in that city is threatening one.

Last fall, the Denver teachers union used state public records law to obtain the names, email addresses, and salaries of every charter school teacher in the school district — a signal that the union plans to try to get charter school teachers to join. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association declined to say how it planned to use the information.

Meet Denver teachers who voted yes to a strike, no to a strike — and just aren’t sure

2019-01-20T06:09:20+00:00

Throughout the day, the parking lot of Riverside Baptist Church filled up as Denver teachers made their way into a meeting organized by their union, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

Months of negotiations that failed to produce a deal between top leaders of Denver Public Schools and the union had given way to individual teachers facing a choice: To strike or not?

Along with reporting the news of the day — which you can read about here — Chalkbeat spent time visiting with teachers to get a sense of what was shaping their decision-making.

Most teachers we spoke with, both in depth and in passing, said they voted “yes” to strike. Union officials have said two-thirds of those who vote Saturday and in a second session Tuesday must sign off on a strike for it to proceed, and the prevailing wisdom among teachers we interviewed was that support is strong.

The decision, though, is far from black and white for many teachers, regardless of where they ultimately land.

Here are the stories of three teachers, all at different places:

Krista Skuce, Slavens K-8 school: Yes to strike

At the urging of teachers and parents, Slavens K-8 students turned out early on a few recent mornings to show support for their teachers. They wore red in solidarity and posed for pictures.

They also brought questions. “Why are you doing this?” was one.

Krista Skuce, a physical education teacher and 14-year Denver Public Schools employee, would tell students that she lives 40 minutes from the school because she can’t afford to live in Denver.

Krista Skuce

But there is more to her story. Her spouse, she said, is no longer able to work, beset by medical issues, unable to draw disability benefits, and in need of costly care including massage therapy, chiropractic appointments, neuromuscular therapies, and more.

At the same time, Skuce said her pay “doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.” So she hustles, earning extra pay by driving across town to coach softball and basketball.

Skuce, like many teachers who stopped to talk about their votes on Saturday, believes the district can do more to boost teachers’ base pay — before bonuses and incentives.

She said her salary has only increased $4,000 or $5,000 in the past 14 years, even though she has been teaching 27 years, has a master’s degree, and is National Board Certified.

Skuce said she knows that by voting to strike, she could very well end up taking money out of her own bank account. Striking teachers don’t get paychecks.

“I am hoping the district and the DCTA do the right thing and recognize the fact that there are some people here who are on the edge,” she said. “We are on the edge emotionally, financially. We know these are good people. And I think teachers are people who wake up every morning with forgiveness.

“You have to take a stand and say what you are for at some point in time in your life — and this is it,” she said. “I’m willing to do it, scary or not.”

Jason Clymer, John F. Kennedy High School: No to strike

An English teacher at John F. Kennedy High School, Jason Clymer stands with his fellow union members in the belief teachers aren’t paid enough. He finds fault with what is asked of teachers through LEAP, the district’s growth and performance system for teachers.

“Teachers at my school feel extremely micromanaged and can’t catch a breath,” he said.

But in the end, after being one of the first teachers in the door Saturday and attending an information session, Clymer said he voted against the strike.

“Going on strike is very hard,” said Clymer, whose wife works in human resources for the district’s central office. “And I think the agreement DPS came to was close enough.”

Clymer questioned picking a fight now because of the limited scope of the negotiations. That would be the current agreement governing ProComp, the pay system that provides teachers one-time bonuses for things like teaching in a high-poverty school, getting strong evaluations, having students who earn high test scores, or teaching in a high-performing school.

He said he’d like to save some political leverage to focus on other issues covered by the district’s main contract with the union.

“It’s really unfortunate these things can’t all be negotiated together,” he said. “If the district came out and said, ‘We want to give you more money, not as much as you like, but we want to devote more to things like mental health services,’ I really think that would be a winning argument.”

In opposing a strike, Clymer said that he did not want to divide his fellow teachers.

“Although I voted no, I believe in the union,” he said. “And if the union voted to strike, I will absolutely support the union.”

Paula Zendle, Denver Green School: Undecided about strike

Paula Zendle is dreading the moment that is appearing increasingly likely: standing before her students at the Denver Green School and explaining why she won’t be there to teach them.

“I tell them constantly, ‘Don’t miss school, don’t miss school. Don’t be absent, don’t be absent, don’t be absent,’” said Zendle, her eyes welling up with tears as she waited on a friend. “I have been fighting to avoid a strike. I hate this. It’s utterly and totally agonizing to me.”

Paula Zendle

Zendle said she left a career in the corporate world for the classroom and has been teaching eight years. She teaches English language acquisition and Spanish at the Green School, a popular and highly-rated middle school option in a district that celebrates choice.

Zendle said she has done her research and written to the district’s chief financial officer. What bothers her is a system she believes rewards younger teachers and underpays teachers in terms of the cost of living.

The average Denver teacher currently earns about $51,000 in base pay and $57,000 with incentives, according to data from the state education department and the district. That’s less than teachers in districts like Boulder Valley, Cherry Creek, and Littleton.

District officials have agreed to put $20 million more into teacher compensation and defended their most recent offer on Saturday as “compelling.”

For Zendle, the prospect of facing her students — and that she works in a supportive school environment — is contributing to her struggle in deciding whether to vote “yes” to strike.

So if the moment does come, what will she tell her students?

“We have the right to protest unfair taxpayer spending,” she said. “This is not only unfair, it’s unconscionable. Their priorities have been wrong for 10 years.”

Then she paused and made clear that her decision had not been made. She considers herself a person of principle, and that will guide her in making a decision.

As Denver teachers turn out to vote on strike, superintendent defends ‘compelling’ district offer

2019-01-20T03:06:29+00:00

Denver teachers — some fighting back tears, others filled with energy and purpose — streamed into a rented Baptist church Saturday to cast a high-stakes vote on whether to go on strike.

If their answer is yes, it would be the first strike in Colorado’s largest school district in 25 years and affect some 71,000 students and 5,300 teachers.

The vote on Saturday and another scheduled for Tuesday evening come after the Denver Classroom Teachers Association rejected a district offer and ended negotiations late Friday night, the conclusion of months of bargaining that left the two sides still more than $8 million apart and with significant philosophical disagreements about how teachers should earn raises.

“This is about solidarity of all the workers for the district,” said Kris Valdez, who has taught physical education for 17 years at Columbian Elementary, a high-poverty school in northwest Denver. “For as long as I have been in the district, I feel like we have kind of always been taken advantage of. Now we’re coming together and seeing we have a lot of power when we unite.”

Valdez voted to strike, citing as his primary reason what he sees as a district that is too top-heavy. He, echoing other teachers, said he believes the district can invest more in teachers and paraprofessionals than in “deans of cultures, deans of this, deans of everything.”

The teachers union and Denver Public Schools are not negotiating their master contract — that deal was finalized in 2017 — but rather the ProComp system, which provides teachers one-time bonuses for things like teaching in a high-poverty school, getting strong evaluations, having students who earn high test scores, or teaching in a high-performing school.

Both sides’ proposals moved Denver teachers to much more predictable salary schedules that allow for reliable raises if teachers stay with the district and earn more education. The district proposal put an additional $20.5 million into teacher compensation, with some of that money set aside for bonuses, while the union’s last offer demands an extra $28 million toward compensation and keeps more of it in base pay.

On Saturday, the district sent an email to teachers making the case for its salary proposal and inviting them to use an online tool to see how much more they could be making if the union would just say yes. The district also posted its proposed salary schedule alongside those of other Denver metro area districts to show that pay would become much more competitive. The email urged teachers who aren’t union members to join and vote if they want their view to be heard.

At a press briefing Saturday, Cordova said the district had talked to teachers who would be making as much as $15,000 more.

“That’s a very compelling offer to our teachers and it recognizes the very high cost of living in Denver,” Cordova said. “It’s hard for me to understand that we would have teachers who are willing to go out on strike, who will attempt to shut down our schools, who will interrupt the education of the children of Denver because of 10 percent increases on average.”

Cordova noted that teachers in Pueblo went on strike for 2 percent raises last May, while teachers in Los Angeles are on strike for 6.5 percent raises. The district describes its offer to Denver teachers as a 10 percent average increase in base pay, a figure that includes cost-of-living raises the union and the district already agreed to in their master contract in 2017. The union’s proposal would amount to an average increase of 12.5 percent.

The actual raises that Denver teachers would see under either the union or the district proposal vary considerably depending on the current circumstances, educational level, and longevity of the teacher. Both sides have provisions that prevent teachers from losing money in the transition.

Cordova said the district is planning to cut $10 million in administrative costs, a figure that includes many central office jobs, to pay for teacher raises, as well as additional cuts to fund raises for paraprofessionals, bus drivers, food service workers, and others.

Money is not the only source of disagreement. The district feels strongly about keeping $2,500 bonuses for teachers who work in high-poverty schools, while the union wants more of that money to go into base pay and wants a salary schedule that allows early career teachers to earn raises more quickly.

Union officials were tight-lipped Saturday about how things were going during the vote at Riverside Baptist Church, home to one of the city’s largest church auditoriums. The proceedings, including three separate information sessions, were closed to the public and the press.

Corey Kern, deputy executive director of the DCTA, said the union would not be releasing any information about the number of votes cast or delve into other details until after the process concludes Tuesday, saying it’s the association’s policy to not discuss ongoing procedures.

“We don’t want to sway the vote or in any way influence or pressure anyone,” he said of union members. “It’s their decision.”

Union officials said Friday that a strike requires a two-thirds majority of members who cast votes but did not describe details about how the voting would be conducted. A spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said strike votes are internal union matters over which the department does not have purview.

Denver teachers and special service providers, such as school psychologists, nurses, and speech language pathologists, must be union members to vote, but they can join at any time — including right before voting. The union represents more than 60 percent of Denver teachers.

Those who attended Saturday’s information sessions described the feeling in the room as positive and low-key, in contrast to the often volatile atmosphere of the last few contract negotiation sessions with the district officials, which were open to the public and streamed live.

“I think it was optimistic, with a lot of solidarity, but it wasn’t that intense,” said Jason Clymer, a first-year English teacher at John F. Kennedy High School. Several teachers who came to the microphone expressed concern for their students, he said — including a nurse who was worried about delegating authorization to dispense drugs to her students.

Before negotiations ended on Friday, DCTA President Henry Roman said it’s important to remember that a strike vote and even a strike don’t mean the end to bargaining. Rather, those actions send “a big signal” to an employer about how seriously employees take an issue.

Similarly, Cordova said the district would keep talking and negotiating with the union.

“It is critically important that we reach an agreement,” she said.

The earliest that a strike could start is Jan. 28.

Cordova said she would ask Gov. Jared Polis to intervene if the vote is to strike. Gov. Roy Romer helped negotiate an end to the last Denver teachers strike in 1994. That came after the state tried — unsuccessfully — to have a court declare the strike illegal.

Cordova said that while she disagrees with a strike she can understand why teachers would reach that decision. She said no corrective action would be taken against any teacher engaged in a legal job action.

“We will not allow for any kind of bad behavior on the part of our leadership teams,” Cordova said. “The most important thing we can do is create the right culture for our kids to learn.”

Kristin Lacario, an English as a second language teacher at McMeen Elementary School, said her decision to support a strike was challenging given the potential significant impact on families. More than eight in 10 families at the school qualify for government-subsidized lunches — a proxy for poverty — and 37 different languages are spoken there.

But Lacario — who as a senior team lead also coaches and evaluates teachers — said she also has seen the toll the ProComp system can take on teachers. Teachers’ bonuses took a big hit last year when the school narrowly missed a higher rating in the district system, she said.

“Why were they not willing to put forth that little extra bit?” Lacario said. “To me it seems like a social justice issue, too, in the sense that the people on the ground, day after day, serving our kids in our community … why are we not being compensated in accordance with that?”

Denver district, board members frame teacher contract negotiations as debate over values

2019-01-17T01:15:00+00:00

With time running out to strike a deal with the teachers union, Denver school district officials in a special board meeting Wednesday portrayed the unresolved issues in contract negotiations as a clash over values.

The hastily called meeting was primarily a briefing for school board members from the district’s chief negotiators and Superintendent Susana Cordova. But it was also a chance for the district — and a board that generally supports its positions — to seize the narrative.

Cordova framed the district’s stance as honoring core district values, including getting teachers into hard-to-staff jobs and high-poverty schools, and keeping them there.

Under negotiation is the district’s pay-for-performance system, called ProComp. It offers teachers a base salary and allows them to earn bonuses and incentives for things like high student test scores or working in a hard-to-fill position. The union would like to take some incentive money and put it toward higher base pay to lift the salaries of all teachers.

The district’s general counsel, Michelle Berge, on Wednesday said the union wants to take $10 million being used now to incentivize teaching in high-poverty schools and spread the money around “like peanut butter.”

Talks hit a sticking point Tuesday, with the union insisting the district embrace a salary table with its preferred structure for paying teachers by “steps” corresponding to a teacher’s experience and “lanes” representing education.

The two sides have bargaining sessions scheduled for Thursday and Friday, and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association has pledged to hold a strike vote Saturday if an agreement isn’t reached.

Denver teachers have long said the pay-for-performance system is too complicated and unpredictable.

Cordova acknowledged the two sides are far apart on money. The money on the table for teachers now, she said, “is not enough.” But she said the two sides should reach an agreement, then work together to “fix the core of the problem” — how the state funds schools.

Wednesday’s meeting gave board members a platform as Denver inches closer to what would be its first teachers strike in 25 years.

Board member Jennifer Bacon said a system in which teachers don’t know what they are going to be paid — it can vary from year to year under ProComp — is “crazy.”

“What are we really negotiating on to make teaching an idolized profession?” said Bacon, one of two board members who often push back against the district’s policies.

Member Happy Haynes said she put a higher priority on rewarding teachers who take hard-to-fill jobs and work in high-poverty schools.

“It isn’t just simply numbers moving around on cells on a spreadsheet,” she said. “There are values that we are articulating here.”

A teachers union representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Union President Henry Roman, however, has previously cited values in articulating the union’s stance.

“We know the district has the money to pay teachers a living wage,” Roman said in a statement last week, “and it’s time that they get serious about budgeting their stated values, so that we can have a deal by the 18th and prevent further stress on educators, students, and the community. Any further delay in getting a fair and transparent compensation system will only serve to aggravate the situation.”

On Friday, district officials presented a new proposal that would put an additional $6 million into teacher pay. That’s on top of the additional $17 million the district had already proposed, for a total of $23 million more. Taking into account a previously promised cost-of-living raise, the $23 million would increase teachers’ base pay by 10 percent from this school year to the next on average, district officials said.

Board member Carrie Olson, a former teacher, indicated the school district has more work to do to describe its offer.

“When I sit here, I know it sounds good, but I know that is not translating into the teachers in our schools,” Olson said. “The feeling isn’t, ‘This is a great deal.’”

That doesn’t appear to be lost on district officials. Cordova fielded teacher questions for an hour late Wednesday afternoon during a “telephone town hall” with educators after the district blasted them with robocalls informing them of the opportunity.

Teachers, meanwhile, organized informational community meetings at no fewer than three Denver schools Wednesday afternoon or evening, part of an effort to engage parents, said union vice president Christina Medina. In some cases, school administrators took part in those or previous meetings to discuss implications of a strike and explain the district position, she said.

“No one is more invested than parents,” said Medina, a teacher at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval elementary school in northwest Denver. “So connecting with them is important because they love our kids and we love our kids. It’s making sure we are on the same page. Making sure that teachers stay and we have great teachers in Denver.”

Democrat Jared Polis will be Colorado’s next governor. Here’s where he stands on education issues.

2018-11-07T04:56:25+00:00

Colorado’s next governor has a long education resume.

Democrat Jared Polis, who comfortably defeated Republican rival Walker Stapleton on Tuesday, is a former member of the State Board of Education and the founder of two charter school networks.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Polis promised to fund full-day kindergarten and expand access to preschool (no easy task).

We quizzed the Boulder congressman about his education agenda earlier this year through a questionnaire we put to candidates from both major parties. Here’s a bit of background on the governor-elect and his answers to our questions:

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in schools. After Pittsburgh, teachers grapple with a response.

2018-10-30T01:16:30+00:00

At New York City’s Harvest Collegiate High School on Monday, social studies teacher Andy del Calvo did what educators often do: He adapted his lesson for the times. He shared news stories about the massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue and about last week’s shooting of two African-Americans at a Kentucky supermarket, and urged his students to think.

Del Calvo hoped that examining America’s latest heartbreaking moments would give his students a chance to process their feelings, develop empathy for others, and spur them to act — maybe through raising money for victims or expressing themselves through art.

“This is a place where students can get a feel for how to have these kinds of conversations with a broad variety of people,” he said, noting that the school’s 480 students roughly mirror New York’s diversity. “If I have this conversation with friends, people tend to have pretty similar ideas about whatever. Doing it at a school, especially at an integrated school, they are going to have to navigate the issues in a way that is deeply important for our democracy — especially today.”

This weekend’s mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, carried out by a shooter authorities have said targeted the Jewish community and expressed anti-immigrant sentiments online, strikes at the heart of rising concerns about how bias shapes people’s thinking and where the school system should fit in pushing back on those mentalities.

Schools have become fertile ground for anti-Semitic and other bias-fueled incidents — and in some cases, the setting for determined efforts to stamp them out. Educators must strike a difficult balance, figuring out how to address events that have upset students and their families while seeking to avoid being accused of pushing a political agenda.

Overall, the FBI and civil rights organizations have said their data shows a marked uptick in anti-Semitic incidents throughout the country, which has spilled over into schools. In the greater landscape of hate crimes, 54 percent of those targeted because of their religion were Jewish, according to the most recent data available for the 2016 year.

In schools, most hate-fueled incidents usually occur as verbal insults or graffiti — commonly incorporating swastikas — and don’t rise to the level of a more violent hate crime, so are considered bias incidents. Regardless of the nature, those incidents are up, according to several data analyses conducted by civil rights organizations as the federal government doesn’t drill down by location or require uniform reporting.

In 2017, the Anti-Defamation League reported that K-12 schools surpassed public areas as the locations with the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents, with 457 incidents in K-12 schools — a jump of 94 percent from the previous year.

Scott Levin, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League for Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, said he considers anti-Semitism in schools a bellwether for other hate incidents.

“If it’s happening to Jewish students, it’s happening to Muslim students, students perceived to be immigrants, or students of color out there,” he said.

“What’s happening these days is the role models we have have not been all that great in the national discourse, so now there’s additional language kids have learned, there are additional filters that have been removed, and they’re using them to a large degree,” Levin said.

In addition to anti-Semitic rhetoric, the shooter in Pittsburgh had voiced anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim views on online posts prior to the massacre. Another civil rights organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, tracks various U.S. hate groups and found last year that anti-Muslim groups rose for a third straight year, to 114 chapters in 2017, and anti-immigrant groups rose from 14 to 22 during the same period.

Those sentiments are also resurging in schools, chiefly focused on immigrants coming from Latin America and the Middle East. Students of color, particularly those who are Latino or Muslim, have had the phrase “Build the Wall” and “Go back to your country” yelled at or directed at them. Some school districts have responded to both Trump administration policies and heightened political rhetoric with messages of support for immigrant families.

Teachers, meanwhile, have expressed concern that their responses could be criticized as taking a political stand, and research shows they often feel unprepared to address such issues. Some families and civil rights advocates say the school system has been too reactive to bias incidents and hate crimes their students are processing.

“First of all, we just can’t wait until an incident happens, and schools now need to practice building cultures of respect,” said Maureen Costello, director of Teaching Tolerance, a Southern Poverty Law Center project that offers anti-bias education resources. “Students should be learning about stereotypes and how they perpetuate discrimination so that they all have access to that kind of vocabulary — which provides a foundation for these tough conversations.”

Costello outlined a week capped by the shooting in Pittsburgh — preceded by the shooting in a Kentucky grocery store and several pipe bombs mailed to Democratic politicians and media organizations that have been the target of heated political rhetoric in the most recent election cycles — as proof educators must realize the issue can’t be swept under the rug.

Teaching Tolerance is one of several national organizations looking to push teachers and school leadership to get proactive about anti-bias education in classrooms at the K-12 level, offering booklets and frameworks online at no cost.

Costello also pointed to the ADL’s “Pyramid of Hate” as a tool educators could immediately use to discuss how hateful words can mushroom into violent acts, and eventually policy that allows for genocide at the most extreme. In addition to providing resources online, the ADL offers training for students who can conduct anti-bias training, extending beyond anti-Semitism to other forms of ignorance and hatred, on their own campuses.

Ari Bloomekatz, managing editor of Rethinking Schools, a nonprofit organization that works on anti-racist and social justice education, said school district leaders can do more, including giving educators time to teach “what’s going on in the world,” making sure social studies gets enough attention, and diversifying curriculum.

Curriculum covering Judaism, he said, should go beyond the Holocaust and “teaching about Jews only through the lens of victimhood” to include U.S. Jews’ positive contributions to everything from the civil rights movement to immigrant rights.

“Schools are communities, and our communities are our schools,” Bloomekatz said. “When we talk about the need to fight and resist and protect each other, then the conversation needs to include our schools and be centered around our schools.”

“Our educators, our parents, our teachers, our principals are on the front lines of this fight, and need to understand they are on the front lines of this fight,” he said.

While some U.S. school districts react when bias incidents happens, others are taking initiative. That includes Denver, where a diversity and inclusion chief is pushing such conversations and the district is offering professional development on culturally responsive teaching.

Others do their best in the classroom when tragedy unfolds. At KIPP Indy College Prep Middle in Indianapolis, social studies teacher Andrew Pillow spent part of Monday fielding questions about the synagogue shooting from his students, most of whom are black.

Most of his students have never met a Jewish person, and Indiana’s middle school social studies standards don’t really touch on anti-Semitism, Pillow said.

“They are intimately familiar with the racism that affects them, but not necessarily the ones that affect others,” Pillow said of his students. “Most of them realize it was an ethnic-based attack and that it’s something they should know about. They just don’t really have access to it.”

Pillow said his older students have come to expect these tragedies. He feels torn between making sure his students understand current events and making mass shootings seem normal.

“I need to ride that balance of not teaching it as if it is normal, when in fact it is normal,” he said. “This is just something that for them happens every two or three months. They know one is coming, and they’re not surprised any more when it does.”

Francisco Vara-Orta reported from San Antonio, Eric Gorski and Melanie Asmar reported from Denver, and Shaina Cavazos reported from Indianapolis.

Editor’s note: Without data, it’s harder to understand the issue of bias-related incidents at schools, and for policymakers to take action. That’s why we at Chalkbeat want to help fill in those gaps, and have joined the Documenting Hate consortium organized by ProPublica to better understand the scope and nature of such incidents.

If you have witnessed or been the victim of a suspected hate crime or bias incident at school, you can submit information through the form below. Journalists at Chalkbeat and other media organizations will review and verify submissions, but won’t share your name or contact information with anyone outside of the Documenting Hate consortium.

What our local education reporters learned when we collaborated with ProPublica to look at equity data

2018-10-16T18:44:39+00:00

It’s a sad, familiar story: Across the country, students continue to have access to vastly different educational opportunities depending on where they live and the color of their skin.

Yet even as the Trump administration curtails programs that help low-income people and people of color, local educators and policymakers are in many cases working to make education more equitable.

That’s what Chalkbeat reporters concluded as a result of our new collaboration with ProPublica. The nonprofit investigative news organization took data from the U.S. Department of Education to build a interactive database that highlights school-level racial disparities in enrollment, discipline, access to Advanced Placement courses, gifted and talented programs, and more.

The database, part of a project called called Miseducation, renders complex data in a transparent and cohesive way, allowing users to compare districts and schools easily. We used the database as a springboard to do what Chalkbeat does best — tell the stories of educational inequity in the communities we cover and call home.

Our stories showcase both the discouraging statistics that describe our communities now, and news about initiatives meant to yield different data points in the future.

We learned that while just one in 10 Detroit students has access to Advanced Placement courses in high school, the district is putting in place a thoughtful plan to get more students enrolled. We learned that Indianapolis schools, where white students are far more likely than black students to be enrolled in gifted programs, recently started assessing all students for giftedness — a best practice that the district is doing not once in students’ careers but twice.

And we learned that in Chicago, three schools in one diverse neighborhood have vastly different access to AP courses. But that doesn’t tell the whole story — some students would rather attend a culinary program — and principals and a newly hired district chief equity officer are grappling with tough questions about what opportunity looks like.

We also found that even as families, educators, and policymakers have their eyes firmly on equity, the path ahead is likely to remain steep.

Unusually high shares of new teachers mean schools in Colorado and Tennessee that serve poor students are perpetually starting from scratch. New York City schools are making a huge investment in counseling services, but it’s unclear whether it will be enough for those most in need.

And murkiness in the very tracking of student data could make it hard to see whether efforts to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline in places such as Newark are paying off.

Data sheds light on how students are not being given equitable opportunities in schools. It can drive people to act.

These stories, from seven places, help drive that point home.

Colorado teachers: We like our schools, but we’ve got some issues

2018-04-27T23:33:17+00:00

Colorado teachers are largely happy at their schools and consider them good places for students to learn. But they’ve got concerns about having enough time to get everything done, and issues with how student behavior rules are enforced.

Those are among the takeaways of an anonymous survey this spring of more than 35,000 teachers — more than half of the 68,000 certified teachers in the state.

The state Department of Education released the results Friday, the same day thousands of teachers descended on the state Capitol to advocate for stronger school funding, teacher pay, retirement benefits, and more.

The survey, Teaching and Learning Conditions in Colorado, or TLCC, found:

Eighty-nine percent of Colorado teachers believe their school is a good place to work and a good place for students to learn.
About four in 10 feel they don’t have enough time to prepare for instruction.
About half feel that new initiatives — like curriculum, assessments, instructional approach — aren’t given enough time to determine their effectiveness.
More than four in 10 think rules for student behavior are not enforced consistently.

The survey did not include any questions about teacher pay.

“We appreciate everyone who took the time to complete the survey, which gives us valuable information that we can dig into to help us better support teachers and improve education for all students,” Katy Anthes, Colorado’s education commissioner, said in a statement.

This was the first year the state conducted the TLCC survey, and officials cautioned against comparing it to a similar survey that previously was conducted. State officials said a tool that would provide good comparisons should be released later this spring.

You can read the full survey results here.

Bennet and Boasberg: Denver schools needed big changes, and the work isn’t nearly done

2018-04-14T02:48:20+00:00

The two men responsible for guiding Denver schools through dramatic changes over the last 13 years shared the same stage Friday and said their decisions to close two neighborhood high schools were necessary steps to give kids better opportunities.

Current Denver Superintendent Tom Boasberg and his predecessor and former boss, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, were the headline speakers at “Schools as the Unit of Change: Building on Progress in Denver,” an event hosted by the Denver-based Gates Family Foundation. (The foundation is a financial supporter of Chalkbeat; you can see our list of funders here).

Boasberg and Bennet, with the backing of school board leadership, have steered the state’s largest district through reforms that include creating a unified school choice system, closing low-performing schools and replacing them with schools the district deems more likely to succeed, and building a “portfolio” of district-run, charter, and innovation schools.

At Friday’s gathering at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Bennet and Boasberg defended their most controversial decisions, tried to claim an imperiled political center, and argued there is no shortcut to lifting achievement for all students.

Here’s what they had to say:

Closing Manual and Montbello high schools was the right thing to do, but mistakes were made

The year after arriving to lead the district with a resume as a lawyer and a high-powered investment manager with no experience in school administration, Bennet moved to close long-struggling Manual High School. In doing so, Bennet ushered in an era of closing low-performing schools in Denver — an option unthinkable in most other cities because of the fraught, if not impossible, politics.

Bennet on Friday described that as “a watershed moment” in the history of Denver Public Schools that “demonstrated that we were not going to settle.” (Manual reopened in 2007, and struggled again in the years that immediately followed).

Boasberg continued the practice of shutting low-performing schools, with board support. Since Boasberg took the role nine years ago, the Denver district has opened 75 new schools and closed 30 lower-performing ones.

If Bennet’s watershed moment was Manual, Boasberg’s was Montbello High in far northeast Denver, which was replaced by three smaller schools.

Boasberg called out the success in far northeast Denver — many more families keeping students in area schools, a doubling of the number of graduates. But he also acknowledged missteps, including focusing so much on academics that officials failed to make sure they kept an athletic program the community could be proud of.

“But again, the changes were very necessary,” Boasberg said. “The changes were all about, ‘How do we get better opportunities for more kids faster?’ … That is the gold standard, the north star.”

The future of schools in far northeast Denver is back in the spotlight, with some parents and community members advocating for bringing back a traditional Montbello High School.

‘Currents of orthodoxy’ are threatening efforts to solve problems

Both Bennet and Boasberg pride themselves on a consensus-building approach to tackling problems. But in 2018, staking out a moderate stance runs counter to the prevailing political winds, in which activists on both the right and the left are fired up and influential.

Boasberg warned against the perils of being carried away in “the currents of orthodoxy,” and extended that to people in the room who endorse Denver’s brand of education reform. This polarization is not confined to national politics. Right now, Denver Public Schools is caught between those pushing for faster change and community pressure to preserve neighborhood schools.

“Folks are being pushed to the edges on the right and left on politics,” Boasberg said. “Part of what we’ve been able to do in Denver for some time is to reject the orthodoxy of the left and right.”

Rather, he said, people in Denver have taken elements from both and figured out “how to put different pieces together that respond to the needs of our community.”

Boasberg said he strongly disagrees with people opposed to the district’s embrace of charter schools. “At the same time, it’s important that we don’t try to demonize those points of view or delegitimize it.” He spoke of trying to find common ground whenever possible, but recognizing disagreement is legitimate and normal.

Bennet, too, lamented the current state of discourse. “We are thinking of people who disagree as somehow not having a legitimate place on the playing field,” he said.

Denver has made gains in many areas, but shortcomings persist — and it’ll take time

When it comes to Denver’s efforts to lift academic performance, Boasberg leaned on the common expression about the “glass half full, and glass half empty.”

He was far more on the side of “half full.”

Boasberg noted a number of ways DPS is different than it was 13 years ago — doubling the number of African-American and Latino students graduating high school, cutting the dropout rate by 70 percent, and catching up to state averages on test scores by different demographic groups.

Yet this week’s release of results from a test known as “the nation’s report card” also underscored how far the district has to go: Compared to other large, urban school districts, Denver has among the biggest achievement gaps in the country between white and Hispanic students in reading and math.

Boasberg said people who say nothing has changed are “Chicken Littles” staking out a position “that is as ignorant and unhelpful and blinded as people who say everything is great, everything is cool, everything is working perfectly.”

While Boasberg has said he thinks the district’s aggressive goals are achievable, both Bennet and Boasberg underscored that getting any school district to where it needs to be will take time.

“If you are interested in making enduring change,” Bennet said, “there is no shortcut.”

Boasberg explains his decision to bring back Antwan Wilson: ‘He has so much to contribute’

2018-04-14T02:30:23+00:00

The expertise and integrity Antwan Wilson displayed over a decade working in Denver schools led the district to bring him on as a consultant after he was forced to resign as chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools, Denver school superintendent Tom Boasberg said Friday.

Wilson left the D.C. job in February amid board calls for his resignation after admitting he had evaded school-enrollment policies so his daughter could attend a sought-after school.

Asked whether that gave him pause, Boasberg told Chalkbeat: “This is someone who had worked for over a decade in the public schools in Denver with absolute integrity and dedication and had such an extraordinary track record. Yes, of course, we are aware of what happened in D.C. And of course we’re aware of the decade-plus that he served with such integrity and such a record of achievement and compassion here in Denver Public Schools.”

Pressed again, and asked directly about concerns about the decision, he said, “I hear the concern, I understand the concern, it’s an important and it’s a valid concern … and I’ll just leave it at that.”

After Wilson resigned, David Suppes, the Denver district’s chief operating officer, contacted him to gauge his interest in working as a consultant on CareerConnect, the district’s career and technical education program that Wilson was instrumental in starting, Boasberg said.

Boasberg said the district turned to Wilson after investigating doing work with other consultants — including one it had worked with previously on a pro-bono basis. He said Wilson was a good fit because he “is so knowledgeable. He is probably the country’s foremost thinker on these issues around career and technical education and concurrent enrollment,” which allows high school students to be enrolled in and receive college credit in college-level courses.

“That just seemed like a great opportunity to be able to partner with someone who is so knowledgeable and has so much to contribute to this area,” Boasberg said, adding that expertise is hard to find because Denver is a national leader in this kind of work.

Word of Wilson’s return started spreading this week throughout the community and reached school board members, who received “no less than 30” inquiries about it, said board member Jennifer Bacon, who represents northeast Denver.

Bacon said district staff informed the board of the contract with Wilson this week as part of a regular check-in. She said she isn’t sure whether it’s right to work with him.

But Bacon expressed concern about the timing, with a renewed and contentious ongoing conversation about the state of schools in far northeast Denver. One group of community members is advocating for reviving Montbello High School, which closed on Wilson’s watch.

“For me, those types of decisions have to be thought of differently now,” said Bacon, who won election last year after campaigning on a platform of changing what she calls the district’s top-down management style. “We can’t just keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them over the last 10 years.”

Boasberg said he did not know what Wilson will be paid for what he described as one or two days a week of work while Wilson explores other career opportunities.

The district still has not provided the contract spelling out the terms of the deal with Wilson, which Chalkbeat requested on Thursday. A district spokesman promised an update Monday.

Wilson will be helping the district expand CareerConnect to its “pathways” schools, alternative schools that serve students who’ve struggled elsewhere, Boasberg said.

Boasberg said that Wilson’s family remains in Washington, D.C.

Forced out as D.C. chancellor, Antwan Wilson is back working in the Denver school district as a consultant

2018-04-13T01:24:39+00:00

Former Denver school leader Antwan Wilson, whose career took a sudden fall this year when he was forced to resign as Washington, D.C., schools chief amid scandal, is back working as a consultant for the Denver school district.

Denver Public Schools brought Wilson on as a part-time consultant to help build a strategic plan for a career and technical education program called CareerConnect, spokesperson Will Jones said Thursday in response to inquiries from Chalkbeat.

Jones in an email cited Wilson’s “experience and expertise in post-secondary readiness, specifically the career apprenticeship approach.” Jones did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment about the decision to work with Wilson, or details about the duration and cost of the consulting deal.

Wilson resigned in February as chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools after it came to light that he had skirted the district’s competitive school lottery process so his oldest daughter could transfer to a high-performing school.

A Kansas native, Wilson came to Denver in 2005 to serve as principal at Montbello High School. He went on to become an instructional superintendent supervising school principals and an assistant superintendent supervising middle, high, and alternative schools. He left in 2014 to become superintendent in Oakland, California, and then accepted the D.C. position in 2017.

While in a leadership role in Denver, Wilson oversaw the controversial turnaround of struggling Montbello High, which was shuttered and replaced with three smaller schools. Wilson’s return comes at a sensitive time, with a heated debate underway in far northeast Denver about whether to resurrect the traditional high school.

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg has been a champion of Wilson, crediting him for his work reducing dropout rates, halving suspensions and expulsions, and increasing graduation rates.

The program Wilson is working on in Denver, CareerConnect, is part of a push by the district to prepare students for life after high school through experience in the classroom and the workplace, with mentoring, internships, apprenticeships, and more.

A $7 million federal grant the district won in 2014 kickstarted the program, and a $56.6 million mill levy override voters approved in 2016 included money to fund and expand it.

Jones, the district spokesman, said Wilson will be “conducting stakeholder engagement, research, and analysis to help refine the vision, specific strategies, priorities, measurement tools, and plans for our future CareerConnect programs.”

Get to know Chalkbeat’s new Colorado bureau chief

2018-01-18T01:33:31+00:00

There’s a new byline — and bureau chief — at Chalkbeat Colorado.

Erica Meltzer started in the role Jan. 8. As part of her duties, Erica will cover the state government beat for us, continuing a legacy that began a decade ago with the launch of EdNews Colorado.

EdNews founder Alan Gottlieb and statehouse reporter Todd Engdahl had no shortage of things to chronicle that year, including the passage of the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids, a sweeping bill that has had a lasting impact on public education in Colorado.

What was once EdNews Colorado is now Chalkbeat, a national education news organization dedicated to covering efforts to improve education for all students, especially those from low-income families.

We introduced Erica briefly before, and explained how her arrival coincides with a number of exciting changes at Chalkbeat as we continue to grow. Now, with Erica officially on board and four stories already to her name, we thought you should get to know her a little better.

We talked with her about how she got started in journalism, her favorite stories, and how she’ll approach the job.

Let’s start with your journalism origin story. What inspired you to become a journalist?

When I was in sixth grade, we had an assignment to pick a job and research it and give a presentation. I can’t actually remember what prompted me to pick reporter, but by the time I was done with that assignment, I wanted to be a reporter, and I still can’t think of a better job. I’ve met so many people I never would have met otherwise and been privileged to hear and tell their stories. I get to ask all the questions I’d be too polite or shy to ask if I didn’t have a notebook in my hand. And every day is different.

I worked on my high school paper, where we took our job as the only journalists with access to the student community very seriously. We wrote about air quality problems in our school, and we wrote about how the administration responded when a student murdered his parents. Asking tough questions from the relatively powerless position of a student taught me a lot.

What are your favorite kinds of stories to tell?

I really like stories that combine human interest with policy issues. Fortunately for me, there are a lot of stories like this in education. I really believe in the value of journalism to help people be informed citizens. We can do that through stories that show how policy will affect ordinary people and through stories that put faces to these questions we all wrestle with.

And then sometimes I like to take off my policy nerd hat and do something weird and fun. At my last job, I interviewed an Elvis impersonator who serves as a kind of unofficial historian for Colfax Avenue. He had this crazy, stream-of-consciousness style of talking, and I just wanted to channel that for readers so they could enjoy him as much as I did.

In your introductory newsletter, you relayed an exchange you had with a local TV reporter of your acquaintance about joining Chalkbeat. This person said, “Chalkbeat, huh? You’re going to be getting into the minutiae.” And your response was: “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Then you went on to explain that you’ve found some really good stories in small things. Does anything in particular come to mind, an example you can share?

When I worked in Tucson, I covered county government, and I would keep an eye on all sorts of lower-level board and committee agendas. At some point I noticed something like the fourth horse property coming before the Zoning Board of Adjustment in six months and called up a source who worked in the planning department to ask if there was any particular reason these horse properties all needed variances. It turned into a really good story about how the community was changing. All these properties with livestock had once been way out of town where nobody cared what they did, and now they were surrounded by subdivisions and all sorts of things that had never been a problem were suddenly a problem.

Sometimes journalism involves noticing a loose thread and pulling on it and seeing what happens.

You came to us from Denverite, a local news startup that has done some creative things inviting readers into the news conversation. Can you give an example of that working well, and maybe share some lessons you’ve learned about how to better involve readers in stories?

Denverite has an occasional feature called Readers’ Choice that involves asking readers what stories they’d like to see covered — sometimes we did this as a poll with a discrete set of options — and asking readers to submit questions on those topics. This served as the springboard for a lot of good stories — everything from why Denver has these flagstone sidewalks that trip us up to what’s so bad about gentrification.

Sometimes people who work in the policy realm bring certain assumptions to the table, and those assumptions bleed over to the reporters who spend a lot of time hanging out with those insiders. Hearing from readers provided this reality check about what people know and don’t know and what they’d like to see explored further. It’s a way of getting outside that “everybody knows” trap, and it opens us up to new ways to approach familiar topics.

And of course, readers know a lot of things that we don’t know. They live and work in the communities we cover. They’re teachers, or they have kids in school. So they’re a great resource.

You covered the legislative session for Denverite last year, and now you’ll be covering education issues under the dome for Chalkbeat. How would you describe your approach to covering the statehouse beat?

Covering any government body, I like to keep the focus on how people will be affected by what that body is doing. Sometimes that requires a turn-of-the-screw story on some action at the committee level, but more often, I’m going to be looking for the big storylines and themes of this session and trying to put bills into context with the larger discussion of school quality and equity in access to education. By nature, I’m more interested in policy than in political intrigue, but of course politics is how we get things done in a democracy, so sometimes the political story is the story.

Anything else you’d like to share with our readers as you begin this role?

I’ll be frank. I haven’t covered education in-depth in a long time, and a lot has changed. I’m reading a lot and trying to talk to as many people as I can get up to speed. If there’s something you’d like to see covered or if you have feedback — positive or negative — about something I or someone on our team has written, please get in touch with me. I want to hear from you.

Erica Meltzer can be reached at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org or 303-446-7635. Follow her on Twitter here.

How President Trump’s immigration policies made waves and stoked fears in Colorado schools in 2017

2017-12-22T15:00:45+00:00

President Trump’s hard-line immigration policies had a profound effect on Colorado’s education community in 2017, with students taking to the streets, teachers recasting lesson plans, and school boards seeking to calm fears.

At a gathering at Denver’s South High School, a group of teenagers whose families fled persecution and war in their native countries decried Trump administration actions they say betray American values they hold dear.

Denver Public Schools took a number of steps this year as fears spread in immigrant communities about enforcement crackdowns under Trump, assuring families that the district will protect students’ constitutional rights. The state’s largest school district also joined with the Mexican consulate in those efforts and promised to build on their longstanding partnership.

Students made their voices heard loud and clear. In February, several Colorado school districts reported a spike in absences among students and staff during a “Day Without Immigrants,” a demonstration of immigrants’ contributions to society.

At northeast Denver’s Bruce Randolph School, sixth and seventh graders in an English language development class spent an afternoon tweeting to President Trump about their experiences, pride, and fears.

Trump’s plans to roll back protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children generated a whole new wave of protest and concern.

Denver schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg predicted that repealing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, would prove “catastrophic” for the school district and the city.

Not all superintendents were so vocal. Across Colorado, officials in districts with large numbers of immigrant students took different approaches to support kids without over-promising security they may not be able to guarantee.

In September, students from more than 20 Denver schools walked out of class and converged on a downtown college campus to protest President Trump’s order to end the DACA program.

The Aurora school board grappled with heightened concerns about immigration policy, too. Dozens of Aurora students and parents pressed the board to adopt a proposed resolution for “safe and inclusive” schools. The board ultimately adopted a resolution, but not before fault lines emerged over the intent.

Changes — exciting ones! — coming to Chalkbeat

2017-12-21T23:53:25+00:00

Dear Chalkbeat readers,

Exciting news: Come 2018, Chalkbeat Colorado will have a new bureau chief.

I’m thrilled to announce that Erica Meltzer, currently the assistant editor and government reporter at Denverite, will lead our coverage starting next year.

This is part of a series of changes we’re making as Chalkbeat expands. In early 2018 we’ll add Chicago and Newark, N.J., to our network of local sites covering education in Denver, New York, Indianapolis, Memphis and Detroit, and our national news site.

All this growth has caused us to re-think roles and responsibilities as we seek to strengthen and sustain our journalism.

I am turning over the bureau chief reins to Erica after two-and-a-half years in the job to take on a new role as managing editor for local news, working with bureau chiefs in all our markets to help plan our coverage. I’ll remain based in Denver.

Deputy bureau chief and state government reporter Nic Garcia is also taking on a new role, overseeing Chalkbeat’s engagement efforts to build a broader audience for our work. Nic, too, will stay in Denver, working with our local staff and journalists across the organization.

As our next bureau chief, Erica will be overseeing our local reporting team and covering the state government beat — just in time for the start of the legislative session Jan. 10!

Erica has a similar joint editor/reporter role at Denverite, a digital startup that has done terrific work trying to reinvent what local news looks like. Before joining Denverite when it was founded last year, Erica was a reporter for the Boulder Daily Camera and, before that, the Arizona Daily Star. She is fluent in Spanish.

Once Erica joins us, we’ll introduce you to her formally and get a conversation going about what we should be writing about as 2018 begins. So stay tuned!

We’re all excited about this next chapter for Chalkbeat. We’re confident these changes will strengthen our efforts to tell what we think is the most important story in the nation — efforts to provide a great education for all kids.

Happy holidays!

— Eric Gorski, Chalkbeat Colorado bureau chief

Betsy DeVos visited Denver twice in 2017. Here’s how the education secretary’s tenure has made a mark in Colorado

2017-12-19T17:55:45+00:00

Betsy DeVos’s tenure as education secretary has been anything but ordinary.

The Michigan billionaire and private school voucher champion has drawn no shortage of attention and controversy since the moment President Trump nominated her to the nation’s education bully pulpit.

DeVos has visited Colorado twice since her confirmation. But even from afar, she’s loomed large over the state’s education policy and politics — including during November’s local school board elections.

Democratic U.S. Sen Michael Bennet of Colorado sharply questioned DeVos during her confirmation hearing, suggesting that school choice in DeVos’s native Michigan did not include the strong accountability measures that exist in Denver. Bennet, a former Denver Public Schools superintendent, invited DeVos to visit Denver schools to see that firsthand.

Bennet was not done criticizing DeVos, though. He took to Twitter to challenge DeVos’s implication that choices in Denver are lacking because students can’t use private school vouchers or don’t have enough charter schools options.

Later, in an interview with Chalkbeat, he characterized the education secretary as “an ideologue when it comes to our public schools.”

It didn’t take long for teachers union leaders to evoke DeVos’s name in a debate over policy. In March, the union branded a bill to boost charter school funding as a “Betsy DeVos-Style Privatization Bill. The legislation passed and was signed into law.

DeVos did make an appearance in Denver over the summer, but not to take up Bennet on his offer. (School was out, anyway).

She spoke at the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that helps shape legislative policy across the country. She used the appearance to criticize teachers unions and reiterate her support for private school vouchers.

Demonstrators made themselves heard, gathering at rallies and marching to the meeting with signs like “Make America Smart Again. Foreshadowing a hard-fought school board election season, a number of speakers at a rally on the Capitol steps sought to portray the Denver school board as being cut from the same school-choice cloth as the conservative Republican.

DeVos returned to Denver in September, this time as part of her national “Rethink Schools” tour. She visited a private autism center and called on the nation’s public schools to work with parents to better serve students with special needs.

Behind the scenes, a Douglas County couple who met with DeVos on that visit was not especially happy with how it went down.

The couple, plaintiffs in a landmark lawsuit that set a new standard for educating children with special needs, told Chalkbeat that DeVos held them out as a “poster child” while cherrypicking details of their experience to suit her cause.

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg used DeVos’s visit to have a letter hand-delivered to her staff urging DeVos to protect a program that defers the deportation of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

DeVos became a factor in November’s Denver school board election when teachers-union funded independent committees financed fliers that sought to tie the education secretary to school board candidates the union didn’t support.

School board incumbents targeted in the ads favored elements of school choice, including support for charter schools, but oppose vouchers and previously criticized DeVos and the Trump administration’s policies.

Movers and shakers: significant comings and goings in Colorado education in 2017

2017-12-18T23:57:50+00:00

Every year brings arrivals, departures and transitions on the Colorado education scene — and 2017 was no different.

The highest-profile change was signaled early in the year, when the Jeffco school board voted in January to open a search for a new superintendent while the incumbent, Dan McMinimee, still had six months remaining on his contract.

McMinimee stepped down in March. The school board picked Jason Glass, at the time the superintendent in Eagle County, to take the helm of the state’s second largest school district. Later in the year, Chalkbeat profiled the district leaders working with Glass.

As the state’s largest school district, Denver Public Schools is bound to see changes in personnel, and there was some movement in 2017. Chief of Staff Eddie Koen left after a year with the district to take a job with Mile High United Way.

The district announced in August that Koen would be replaced by Tameka Brigham, a former classroom teacher and Teach for America official. But she instead landed in a different position — chief of family and community engagement. We explained that move, and much more, in our look this fall at the inner circle of DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg. Nina Lopez was tapped to serve as interim chief of staff.

The departure that got the most attention in Denver was the exit of Andy Mendelsberg as East High School principal after an investigation into complaints over the school’s cheerleading coach. Mendelsberg was swiftly replaced by former East principal John Youngquist, who resigned as Aurora Public Schools’ chief academic officer to return to the school. Andre Wright took on Younguist’s former position on an interim basis.

Former DPS board member Nate Easley left his position leading the Denver Scholarship Foundation to become CEO of a new nonprofit called Blue School Partners that aims to be an “education quarterback” in Denver.

Taking over as CEO at the Denver Scholarship Foundation: Lorii Rabinowitz, who previously headed a startup venture in the city that counts among its goals improving high school graduation rates by engaging at-risk students in arts education.

The Colorado Department of Education did not experience much staff churn in 2017, a sign that Education Commissioner Katy Anthes has been a stabilizing force since taking the job on a permanent basis last year. (The department had been experiencing an exodus of top talent dating to Robert Hammond’s departure as commissioner in 2015).

The state education department did lose deputy commissioner Leeann Emm, an authority on school finance, to retirement. Anthes, meantime, took on an additional role, joining the advocacy group Chiefs for Change.

In another move with statewide implications, the Colorado League of Charter Schools tapped Ben Lindquist, who most recently worked for the Wisconsin-based Kern Family Foundation, as its new executive director.

This is the first in a series of articles looking back at the year in education in Colorado in 2017.

‘Low pay and low prestige’: How Colorado superintendents want to lift the teaching profession

2017-12-08T02:06:31+00:00

The teaching profession, says Bree Lessar, has become “low-pay and low-prestige.”

Professionals in other fields — like architecture, law and medicine — get plenty of support starting off, said Lessar, superintendent of southern Colorado’s LaVeta school district. New teachers “get the most difficult classrooms and kids, and not a lot of resources,” she said.

Lessar needs more than mountain views to attract educators to the 220-student district nearly three hours from Denver. So the district offers what incentives it can: First-year teachers get two planning periods, to better prepare. One-third of the district’s teachers are retired, and there’s talk of exploring ways for the experienced hands to mentor the newcomers.

And yet …

“Superintendents out in the field in Colorado are exercising creativity already,” Lessar said Thursday at the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition’s annual Superintendent Forum. “There needs to be a comprehensive funding solution throughout the state. To build the political will and public will for that, we need to think beyond education alone and think about the economic prosperity we want to see throughout Colorado.”

Lessar was part of a panel of a half-dozen superintendents from rural, suburban and urban areas who joined the heads of the two state education departments to discuss a pressing, timely topic: How to address teacher shortage challenges in Colorado.

Just last week, the Colorado Department of Education and Department of Higher Education released a strategic plan, mandated by lawmakers, to come up with possible solutions.

Here are three big themes that emerged from Thursday’s forum:

Takeaway No 1.: The numbers don’t lie … Colorado, we have a problem

Over the past five years, Colorado has seen a nearly 23 percent dip in the number of students completing education preparation programs in Colorado colleges and universities. Growth in non-traditional paths — such as teacher residencies — hasn’t made up the difference.

Education Commissioner Katy Anthes cited a number of factors for the decline — stress, salaries, baby boomers starting to retire, and support and working conditions for teachers starting out.

Transparency about test scores and district performance also is playing a role in perceptions of the profession, said Kermit Snyder, superintendent of the Rocky Ford School District.

“I think that transparency is necessary, but along with it has come a lot of criticisms,” Snyder said. “So teachers really get a beating sometimes … Then the message to students is, ‘It’s a tough profession, you don’t want to be a teacher.’”

Aurora Superintendent Rico Munn said some believe teaching “is a job that anyone can do,” and that filters down to decisions about funding and public policy.

Not every corner of the state faces a shortage. The Adams 12 district had a less than 1 percent vacancy in its teaching corps this year, Superintendent Chris Gdowski said. He credited a bonus system for hard-to-fill positions and a new salary schedule for psychologists, speech and language pathologists and similar positions to better compete with the private sector.

Takeaway No. 2: There is no silver bullet — but better pay is on a lot of people’s minds

Pressed to come up with one thing that would make the biggest difference to ease the teacher shortage, the heads of the state’s two education agencies passed, for good reason.

The strategic plan released last week detailed more than 30 strategies ranging from student loan forgiveness and housing incentives to extra pay to attract teachers to rural areas.

“We do know there is no silver bullet,” said Kim Hunter Reed, executive director of the higher education department. However, Hunter Reed identified one step as the hardest: “To get our teachers to the cost-of-living wage. It’s critical.” The issue is especially pronounced in Colorado’s rural areas, where 95 percent of teachers salaries are below the cost of living, according to the state.

The strategic plan calls for the state to explore setting a minimum salary for educators pegged to the cost of living in their districts. Snyder, of Rocky Ford, questioned how well that would work, and others wondered how that would prevent better-off districts from cherry-picking strong candidates.

After the forum, Chalkbeat caught up with state lawmakers in attendance to gauge their interest in minimum teacher salaries — something the legislature would need to take up.

“I’m not sure,” said state Sen. Nancy Todd, an Aurora Democrat and a former social studies teacher who sits on the Senate Education Committee. “The salary piece is important. But talking about the respect, and the opportunities for professional development for teachers is key, and supporting the hard work our teachers are doing every day — making clear this is a noble profession. We need to bring that out at a higher level. It’s not just about the dollar.”

State Sen. Owen Hill, a Colorado Springs Republican and chair of the Education Committee, said he thinks the idea is viable and worthy of discussion.

Noting one superintendent’s remark about younger teachers not being as focused on retirement benefits, Hill connected the proposal to another discussion about reforms to the state’s troubled public pension system, the Public Employees’ Retirement Association, or PERA.

“Can we set aside a bucket of this money that could make teachers whole on their salary but that doesn’t incur new PERA obligations as well?” he said. “It’s really shifting our conversation from, ‘What did the economy, and what did hiring and employment look like 20 or 30 years ago, to what does it look like in the 21st century?’”

Takeaway No. 3: It always comes back to money …

So about that “comprehensive funding situation” Lessar, the LaVeta superintendent, yearns for … As you would expect, she was not alone in expressing that wish.

Time and again, superintendents brought up Colorado’s failure to adequately or equitably fund schools. The state consistently ranks near the bottom nationally in funding K-12 education.

“Nobody says we just want to be average,” said Cherry Creek Superintendent Harry Bull. “Yet in the context of funding, our aspirational goal as superintendents would be to just get to the national average. That would make a substantial difference.”

Multiple efforts to stave off a financial crisis for Colorado schools are underway, including a group of superintendents that has been working on a proposed solution for school funding. A state task force, meanwhile, is charged with reimagining the state’s public school system, with asking voters to approve more money for schools being one possible outcome.

In Colorado, school districts that are able to convince local taxpayers to raise taxes to support schools have a considerable advantage — including in recruiting and keeping teachers.

“We’ve got to move way from this system that allows local (districts) to super-size their funding so much that their next door neighbors cannot compete adequately for staff,” said Gdowski, of Adams 12.

State unveils plan to tackle Colorado teacher shortage, including exploring ways to boost pay

2017-12-02T02:15:09+00:00

To combat a shortage of teachers in Colorado, state education officials on Friday unveiled a sweeping strategic plan proposing ways to attract, keep and better pay educators.

More than 30 strategies are spelled out, ranging from student loan forgiveness and housing incentives to coming up with extra pay to attract educators to stretched-thin rural areas.

An early draft floated one bold possibility — setting a minimum salary for educators in Colorado tied to the cost of living. The final plan released Friday said the state should “explore” that possibility, but it stopped short of recommending legislation to establish it.

In response to legislation passed this year, officials from the state departments of education and higher education were required to deliver to lawmakers by Friday a report recommending steps to tackle the teacher shortage problem in Colorado. What happens next rests largely in the hands of state lawmakers, who return to the Capitol next month.

“We know that educators make all other professions possible, and attracting top talent to our school districts, especially in rural areas, is a must,” Kim Hunter Reed, executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, said in a statement. “We look forward to engaging in policy conversations to advance solutions that will support our teachers, students, and communities.”

Cost is a significant barrier to seeing through the plan’s vision, which the departments acknowledge. Funding public education in Colorado is a perpetual challenge, and about two-thirds of the proposed strategies carry what the plan describes as a “high” to “moderate to high” price tag. Specific cost estimates were not cited.

Strategies to boost teacher pay and benefits are among the most expensive pieces of the plan. Along with looking at setting minimum salary for teacher and early child care providers, the departments are urging lawmakers to consider incentives for educators who teach in hard-to-staff districts and content areas, including STEM and special education.

Another possible move: establishing subsidies for early child care and education businesses to increase the salaries and wages of early child care providers. In Colorado and other states, low pay is a barrier to providing quality and accessible child care.

Not all parts of the state lack teachers, and some grade levels and content areas have no shortage of job-seekers. State officials said the shortage is exacerbated in early childhood education and care, and subjects such as mathematics, science, special education, world languages and art/music/drama, as well as in urban and rural areas.

The state notes that several recommendations would require community and education partnerships — including one to expand “grow your own” educator or teacher residency programs — while some could be put into practice on a statewide level.

“We’re already seeing creative community solutions in supporting educators, and we’ll continue to rely on these partnerships as we look to implement high-impact recommendations,” Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said in a statement. “Now that we’ve collected all of this valuable feedback from communities around the state, I look forward to continuing the discussion with our legislature, state board, districts, and educator preparation programs.”

Some of the state’s proposals have found success elsewhere. A recent study found that offering bonuses or loan forgiveness to teachers in positions that are hard to staff can prove effective.

State officials also released an accompanying report detailing the scope of teacher shortage issue in Colorado and other states.

Since 2010, there’s been a 24 percent drop in graduates from the traditional teacher prep programs at Colorado’s colleges and universities. There’s also been a 23 percent drop in enrollment to those programs.

Alternative programs, such as residency programs, have seen a 40 percent increase in enrollment. However, those programs produce far fewer teachers than traditional programs and can’t keep up with demand. According to the state department of education, the state’s public schools employ more than 53,000 teachers.

Tax measures prevail in Colorado Springs and Greeley, while Brighton attempt fails

2017-11-08T14:00:00+00:00

Local tax measures supporting public schools passed easily in Colorado Springs District 11 and Greeley-Evans School District 6 on Tuesday, while voters in Brighton again rejected a property tax increase for schools.

A total of 34 money measures from nearly 20 Colorado school districts appeared on local ballots Tuesday.

As of early Wednesday, 22 had passed, seven had failed and five were too close to call, according a preliminary count from the Colorado School Finance Project.

In Colorado Springs, voters approved a $42 million annual property tax increase by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin. The district intends to use the money for salaries, facility improvements and for new school psychologists and counselors.

Supporters raised $517,000 in campaign contributions and recruited 500 volunteers to knock on 30,000 doors to secure D-11’s first property tax increase in 17 years, The Gazette reported.

Voters in Greeley, by a margin of 58.4 to 42.6 percent in the latest returns, approved a $14 million property tax increase to pay teachers and staff more and to update curriculum, technology and add security cameras at the high school.

The $12 million property tax increase from the Brighton 27J school district was defeated 53.4 percent to 46.6 according to latest returns. It marked the sixth time since 2003 voters have rejected such a tax increase, known as a mill levy override.

District officials sought the money to increase salaries, add counselors to every elementary school and provide new curriculum and technology.

Here are draft results for the state’s local money measures as compiled by the Colorado School Finance Project:

Why this year’s Denver school board election has become so combative

2017-11-03T02:50:09+00:00

The Denver school board election has grown more contentious in its waning days, with accusations flying about the influence of outside money and attempts to tie candidates who back the district’s agenda to unpopular Republicans.

Although past Denver school board races have been marked by rancor, observers and participants alike agree that the tone this year is different — closer in tenor to the heated 2015 Jeffco school board recall and this year’s divisive Douglas County school board race.

Several factors are at play: the controversial tenure of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, long-simmering divides within the Democratic party over education policy, a more aggressive teachers union, and the growing influence of outside groups responsible for a torrent of mailers and digital advertising that can prove powerful in low-turnout elections.

At stake is control of a board that is 7-0 lockstep in support of Denver Public Schools’ strategies, which include offering families a choice among different schools including charter schools, rating schools with a system that heavily weights student progress on standardized tests, and closing schools that are persistently low-performing.

Four of the board’s seven seats are in play this election. Opponents of the district’s current path are running for all four seats. Mail ballots went out more than two weeks ago, and voting ends Tuesday on Election Day.

For several years now, school boards have been battlegrounds for factions trying to get a foothold on local politics and influence how public schools run, said Robert Preuhs, an associate professor of political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“Those things continue to play out now and may be more amplified or feel more amplified because of this extra dose of polarization we’ve seen post-2016 election,” he said.

Denver’s school board campaigns have grown more sophisticated and expensive, setting the stage for more combativeness when the conditions are right.

While candidates themselves raise varying amounts of money, independent groups that are prohibited from coordinating with the candidates have emerged as big players. Both teachers unions and supporters of education reform are backing such efforts in Denver.

The biggest money player in Denver is Raising Colorado, an independent expenditure committee. On the scene since 2014, the group is connected to a web of organizations that includes Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee with a Colorado office.

This election cycle, Raising Colorado has spent more than $350,000 to support maintaining the 7-0 margin on the DPS board, according to the recent campaign filings. The sole contributor to the committee this year: New York-based Education Reform Now Advocacy.

The organization carries out both non-political and political activity. However, as a 501(c)4 tax-exempt social welfare organization that is not a private foundation, Education Reform Now Advocacy is not required to publicly disclose its donors — and it does not. The group has contributed about $2 million to Raising Colorado since its founding.

“It could be $2 million coming from one person,” said Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, which was formed as a counterweight to education reform groups, opposes charter schools and using test scores to evaluate teachers, and is affiliated with a 501(c)4 group that endorses candidates. “You have no idea who is giving to campaigns and what their vested interests might be.”

Robert Speth, a candidate in the Denver at-large race seeking to unseat incumbent Barbara O’Brien, has spoken out about the vast sums coming into the race, which he describes as coming from “out-of-state hedge fund managers.”

“I don’t feel like Denver is actually in control of its political outcomes at this time, and it’s really disturbing,” Speth said.

The privacy veil for donors is in a statutory rule that dates to litigation in the 1950s and 1960s, when a Alabama state investigating committee was seeking names of members of the NAACP, said Marcus Owens, a Washington lawyer and former director of the IRS’s tax exempt division.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that members’ names did not need to be released because of the likelihood of retaliation. Now, 501(c)4 groups at “both ends of the political spectrum make use of that non-disclosure of donors,” Owens said.

Jen Walmer, the registered agent for Raising Colorado and Colorado state director of Democrats for Education Reform, has said the independent expenditure committee and all its affiliates are in full compliance with IRS regulations.

While outside money is not new in Denver school board races, this year has brought more attention to the tone and content of some of the election messaging it’s buying.

Two independent committees bankrolled with money from local and state teachers unions have produced mailers that try to portray supporters of DPS’s current direction as allies of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary DeVos, hugely unpopular figures in Denver.

One candidate targeted in the mailers, Angela Cobián, a former teacher and community organizer and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, assailed the attempt as a baseless attack on her identity, and an editorial in The Denver Post this week denounced the tactics.

The committee responsible for the mailers, called Every Student Succeeds, is supporting Cobián’s opponent, Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán.

Gaytán released a statement this week urging limits on contributions to local school board elections, calling the contributions “outrageous.” She said that she “did not approve of any independent expenditure committee literature or mailers,” and that her campaign mailers have focused on her platform. Gaytán has not responded to requests for an interview on the issue.

Here is a similar piece that landed last weekend in northeast Denver, where a three-person race is considered the most competitive and hard-fought among the four contested:

The committees behind the Trump-themed ads share the same political consultant: Steve Welchert, a seasoned Democratic strategist who said he has helmed eight DPS school board candidate campaigns in addition to his independent committee work.

Welchert defended the mailers’ tone and content. “I am comfortable with everything we have done with this campaign and will continue to be comfortable with it moving forward,” he said.

Colorado Education Association and Denver Classroom Teachers Association officials have declined interview requests to discuss the mailers and the recent tenor of the campaign. The committees are funded by union members who choose to contribute to such political efforts.

Candidates being targeted by the mailers and their allies are speaking out forcefully.

School board member and longtime civic leader Happy Haynes, who is not up for reelection this year, said the tactics are “dragging this school board race that should be about our best down into the gutter … The irony is that these are Trump-like tactics if ever there was.”

Rachele Espiritu, an appointed incumbent targeted by the more recent Trump-themed mailer, said she was extremely frustrated by the mailers given her numerous public statements in support of young immigrants and against the Trump and DeVos agenda.

“I’m disappointed these fliers continue to come out against me like this, and that my opponent hasn’t even taken a stance against them,” Espiritu said earlier this week. “To me, her silence is that she is confirming these messages. The negative campaigning takes away from the issues of our students, and that is frustrating to me.”

That opponent is Jennifer Bacon, whose candidacy the committee behind the mailer is supporting. Told of Espiritu’s comments, Bacon said Thursday that she is disappointed by the election’s negativity and that she has focused on running a positive, issues-based campaign.

“I believe people are allowed to have their opinions and voting is an expression of their own positions and research,” she said. “I’m not going to be in a place where I can speak for others and check everything everyone is saying right now.”

Most of Raising Colorado’s mailers have been in support of candidates, including several that have portrayed backers of the district’s agenda as strong voices fighting Trump and DeVos. Campaign finance reports show the group also paid for a mailer in opposition to Bacon.

Espiritu, too, voiced a desire to work on limiting contributions in school board elections. She also said she was excited to get support from different groups and individuals. That includes the backing her candidacy is getting from the Democrats for Education Reform affiliates.

“I don’t think there is really anything for folks to hide,” she said. “I have looked at the DFER website and their values and vision, and I think they are commendable and are things I stand by. Whoever is supporting them, I think they can stand tall knowing they are supporting a great organization that is leading the way to help our students get the best public education they can.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify background about the Network for Public Education.

Denver Democratic Party chairman claims election mailer implies party endorsement in school board race

2017-11-01T19:15:20+00:00

The chairman of the Democratic Party of Denver on Tuesday called out as false a political mailer he said implied the party had endorsed a candidate in the Denver school board election.

The registered agent for the group that produced the piece, however, responded that was not the intent of a mailer that highlighted prominent Denver Democrats’ endorsements of board vice president Barbara O’Brien, a former Democratic lieutenant governor.

The disagreement is the latest escalation in what has become a tension-filled final stretch in the school board race, which features contests for four of the board’s seven seats. Ballots were mailed to voters more than two weeks ago, and voting ends Tuesday on Election Day.

At issue is a mailer produced by Raising Colorado, an independent expenditure committee that has spent more than $345,000 to try to preserve the 7-0 majority that backs the current direction of Denver Public Schools. The committee is affiliated with Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee that in Colorado has advocated for increased funding for charter schools and for a DPS policy to close persistently low-performing schools of all types.

O’Brien sits on the national advisory board of Democrats for Education Reform, or DFER.

Here is the front and back of the mailer:

Mike Cerbo, chairman of the Democratic Party of Denver, sent out a news release Tuesday with the following statement:

Dear Denver Democrats,
It has come to my attention that a mail piece is being circulated claiming that a candidate for the Denver School Board, Barbara O’Brien, is the choice of Denver Democrats. The implication that the Democratic Party has endorsed in this race is untrue. The Democratic Party of Denver does not endorse in local school board races and has made no endorsement in this one.

Cerbo also sent an email, obtained by Chalkbeat, to party members saying the party was calling on Raising Colorado “to retract any reference or implication that the Denver Democrats have made a choice in the Denver School Board race.” He provided the phone number and email of Jen Walmer, Raising Colorado’s registered agent and the Colorado state director of DFER.

In an interview Wednesday, Cerbo said his statement came in response to calls from party members about the mailer’s message.

“The implication was the Denver Democratic Party made a choice,” said Cerbo, a former state lawmaker and past president of the state’s AFL-CIO labor union. “There were a few different ways to phrase it if they were talking about a specific group of Denver Democrats.”

Walmer told Chalkbeat she responded to the concerns immediately when they were first aired on Facebook, explaining that as former Arapahoe County Democratic Party chair she understands party rules and bylaws about endorsements and never intended to imply one. She also apologized to Cerbo “for any problems this has caused for you in your role.”

After Cerbo shared her contact information with party members, Walmer said she received 45 phone calls and 16 or 17 emails, and also was the target of attacks via comments on Facebook.

“As a former county chair, I know the rules of parties,” said Walmer, who is also a former DPS chief of staff. “I never insinuated that they endorsed. I know they cannot. I am surprised I got such hateful and threatening comments based on a piece that is merely highlighting that six incredible Democratic leaders have endorsed Barbara O’Brien, but the party has been absolutely silent on attacks likening (candidates running for Denver school board) to Donald Trump.”

Asked about those attempts to tie board candidates to Trump and the party’s stance on them, Cerbo said he has not looked closely into it.

“Just to be clear,” he added, “I am not condoning mailers with inaccurate information if that’s the case. I wish we could have thoughtful debate on every issue of the campaign.”

Group agrees to stop using term ‘for-profit charter’ in election material after complaints from DSST

2017-10-31T02:01:06+00:00

An independent committee trying to sway a Denver school board race has agreed to stop saying a “for-profit charter school” is moving into a DPS campus in northeast Denver.

As Chalkbeat reported last week, a teachers union-funded independent expenditure committee called Brighter Futures for Denver Students made the claim in an election mailer that Northfield High School was “ceding space” to a for-profit charter.

The DPS school board in December voted to locate a school run by nonprofit charter school network DSST in a building separate from Northfield’s on the same district-owned property.

Bill Kurtz, CEO of DSST, said a DSST lawyer contacted the committee, which agreed “not to use that messaging in any digital advertising or in any future printed mailings.” Kurtz earlier criticized the mailer as “categorically untrue.”

Longtime Denver Democratic political consultant Steve Welchert, who is working as a campaign consultant for Brighter Futures for Denver Students, confirmed the committee had agreed to no longer use the language. But he did not disown the description, either.

“Their IRS designation is not all that matters here when you describe how people make money and how money moves among different entities,” Welchert said, declining to elaborate.

State records show that as of Wednesday, the Brighter Futures for Denver Students committee had spent more than $138,000 to back the candidacy in northeast Denver of Jennifer Bacon, who has the Denver union’s endorsement. The mail in question targeted incumbent Rachele Espiritu.

Recent high school graduate Tay Anderson is also vying for the seat, and used a video posted on Facebook to criticize the mailer as unfair.

Read more about the issues and people running for the northeast Denver District 4 seat here, and watch for more coverage in Chalkbeat on Tuesday on the next batch of public disclosures about how much money independent committees are bringing in and spending.

Why Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos’s names — and faces — are all over this fall’s Denver school board races

2017-10-28T02:39:00+00:00

Angela Cobián has spent much of her young career as a teacher and community organizer. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, the 28-year-old has advocated for justice for immigrants and spent two years teaching English language learners at a low-income northeast Denver school.

So when the political newcomer running to represent heavily Latino southwest Denver on the Denver school board saw an election campaign mailer that pictured her face alongside those of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, she felt “genuine shock.”

In an interview Friday with Chalkbeat, Cobián described being left reeling by what she called “a baseless and cruel assault on my public character.”

“As a young woman of color, I can’t think of a more hypocritical, absurd and inane attack on my identity,” she said. “I have in every single way lived out what the opportunity gap is in education. I have lived out what it means to be a young teacher of color in a very white-dominant space, teaching majority students of color. … I speak English and Spanish with pride. To see someone slap a black and white picture of me next to two people who are unqualified to lead our country, who are the embodiment of white privilege in Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump, is so frustrating. I feel powerless. I know what racism feels like, so this isn’t new. But I am deeply pained.”

The mailer was produced by a teachers union-funded independent expenditure committee whose registered agent, like Cobián, taught in a district-run school.

Its appearance this week represents an escalation in a rhetorical war over the priorities and direction of the state’s largest school district, with Trump and DeVos cast as central characters.

Opponents of the district’s policies signaled months ago they would seek to tie candidates who support Denver Public Schools’ reforms to DeVos, a billionaire champion of school choice. Supporters of the district’s agenda were ready with their own narrative: that their candidates would stand up to the Trump administration’s immigration and education policies.

All seven current DPS board members support the district’s strategies, which include giving families a choice from among district-run schools, charter schools and “innovation schools” that have autonomy but not as much as charters. DPS rates schools through a system that heavily weights state test scores, and recommends persistently low-performing schools be closed.

Four seats are up for grabs this fall, putting control of the board in play. Three incumbents are running, and newcomer Cobián’s positions are aligned with those pro-reform board members.

The mailer juxtaposing Cobián with Trump and DeVos was paid for by Every Student Succeeds, an independent expenditure committee bankrolled by funds of the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, and the Aurora and Denver teachers unions.

Here’s the other side of the mailer, which Chalkbeat received from multiple readers:

As of Tuesday, the Every Student Succeeds committee had spent more than $350,000 on the southwest Denver race and board races in Aurora, Mesa County and Brighton, records show. Independent expenditure committees are barred from coordinating with candidates’ campaigns. In Denver, the committee is backing Cobián’s opponent,parent and real estate agent Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán.

State records identify Every Student Succeeds’ registered agent as Susan Pinkney-Todd, who worked as a teacher at Denver’s South High School from 2012 to 2016 and is a substitute teacher this year, according to records provided by DPS. She also formerly served on the board of the Colorado Education Association. Pinkney-Todd did not respond to a phone message or email on Friday.

The committee’s registered filing agent, former Colorado Springs Democratic state Sen. John Morse, an accountant, also did not respond to requests for comment, according to state records. (The flier identifies him as registered agent).

Chalkbeat provided a spokesman for the Colorado Education Association, of which the Denver union is part, with a detailed description of the mailer, and also relayed Cobián’s comments.

In response, the spokesman provided a statement from CEA political director Karen Wick: “There is a lot of money in the Denver school board races that come from non-disclosed sources that should be looked into,” it said. The union also provided a statement from the president of the Denver teachers union, Henry Roman, which read: “The education reform agenda is everything DeVos and Trump are all about and we need to put a stop to it.”

Backers of Cobián and the three board incumbents are angrily speaking out. On Thursday, former Democratic speaker of the House Terrance Caroll called attempts to tie candidates to DeVos and Trump “patently false and defamatory.” Another union-funded independent committee mailer drew criticism this week for a false statement.

Jen Walmer, Colorado state director of Democrats for Education Reform, said in an interview Friday that Cobián and the three board members seeking reelection are fighting to protect immigrants protected through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which Trump plans to end; to support LGBT students; and to provide “real public school options for kids.” The DPS board is unanimous in its opposition to private school vouchers championed by DeVos, and members also have spoken out against proposed federal budget cuts to education.

“Personal attacks are completely unacceptable,” Walmer said. “They are desperate lies that prey on people’s worst fears of the (Trump) administration.” To align those candidates “with someone as hateful as Trump is just unbelievable,” she said.

The union-funded mailer portraying Cobián as a kindred spirit of Trump and DeVos claims that “Cobián’s campaign is funded by groups with ties to Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, not to mention funding from the Koch brothers,” billionaires who are major supporters of conservative education reform efforts.

A small donor committee of Democrats for Education Reform had given $1,000 to Cobián’s campaign as of the last public filings. Meanwhile, a DFER affiliate called Education Reform Now Advocacy has been the sole funder this cycle of independent expenditure committee Raising Colorado. As of Monday, state records show that committee had spent more than $387,000 on the Denver school board races, and had hundreds of thousands of dollars more on hand.

As a 501(c)4 social welfare organization under the federal tax code, Education Reform Now Advocacy isn’t required to disclose its donors. District critics have decried the influx of such “dark money” into local races.

An email to Education Reform Now’s New York offices was not returned Friday. Walmer on Friday rejected any ties to DeVos and Trump and said “we have never taken money from the Koch brothers, nor would we ever.”

Several Raising Colorado mailers describe the candidates who support DPS reforms as a check against the agendas of Trump and DeVos. Here is one example:

Scott Gilpin, a co-founder of Our Denver, Our Schools, which opposes DPS reforms and is backing a slate of candidates who feel similarly, dismissed such attempts.

“The current school board can try as hard as they want to distance themselves from Trump and DeVos, but their actions speak louder than their campaign fliers,” Gilpin wrote in a text message. “Their votes to close schools, privatize education and expand high-stakes standardized tests are in lock step with Trump and DeVos.”

At least one mailer from the campaign of a candidate, at-large contender Robert Speth, draws a DeVos connection — in this case linking her to board vice president Barbara O’Brien, who Speth is seeking to unseat:

Denver’s school board race is not the first to feature attempts to tie candidates to Trump and DeVos. Union-funded groups unsuccessfully tried a similar tactic in Los Angeles earlier this year in the most expensive school board election in the nation’s history. Advocates of charter schools won a majority there for the first time.

Information voters glean from endorsements and literature that lands in their mailboxes can be influential in a low-turnout, off-year election with candidates who lack party labels, said Seth Masket, a political scientist and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver.

“If people are trying to come up with a reason to support one candidate over another, there is a not a whole lot for them to go on without a ton of research, which most voters are not going to do,” he said. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Trump/DeVos-themed mailers will prove effective, he cautioned: Some voters might see it at an overreach.

For her part, Cobián on Friday said she wondering what the mailer tying her to two Republican figures she opposes vehemently would mean for her beyond the school board race.

“The practical side of me wonders what implications of this slander into the public record will have on my future career,” she said. “I am six years out of college and have spent those six years working public education and local politics, and I’m looking forward to a lifetime of service in organizing and social justice. Now I will wonder what the professional consequences are of these kinds of lies being in our Denver community.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misidentified former state Sen. John Morse’s party affiliation. Thanks to Chalkbeat readers for pointing out immediately so we could fix. We also clarified the sentence about Education Reform Now Advocacy’s donors. To be clear: the identities of donors who support the group’s political activities are not made public.

Denver school board election mailer’s false statement about ‘for-profit charter school’ draws criticism

2017-10-26T01:19:13+00:00

School board elections, like all elections, brim with harsh accusations, cherry-picked data and political posturing.

An election mailer from an independent committee trying to influence the outcome of a hard-fought race in northeast Denver goes a step further, falsely stating that the school district is “ceding space to a for-profit charter school” on one of its campuses.

In December, the school board unanimously voted to locate DSST: Conservatory Green High School — run by a charter network registered as a nonprofit — in a separate building from existing district-run Northfield High School on the Paul Sandoval Campus in northeast Denver.

In Colorado, charter schools are required to be run by nonprofit boards. Charter school boards are permitted to contract operations and management to for-profit companies, often known as education-management organizations or EMOs, but that is rare in Colorado. DSST operates its own schools.

The mailer was paid for by Brighter Futures for Denver Students, an independent expenditure committee that is supporting the candidacy of Jennifer Bacon, who has worked as a teacher, administrator and lawyer. As of the last reporting deadline, the group had brought in $139,000 from the Denver teachers union and the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

The Denver teachers union has endorsed Bacon in the three-candidate race that is the most watched among the four DPS board seats in play.

With ballots mailed and Election Day on Nov. 7 drawing nearer, Denver mailboxes are filling with literature produced both by candidates’ campaigns and independent committees seeking to grab voters’ attention in what are are traditionally low-turnout off-year elections. Union-backed committees are supporting critics of the district’s direction, while committees affiliated with groups such as Democrats for Education Reform are pouring money into maintaining a 7-0 majority in favor of DPS reforms.

Bill Kurtz, CEO of DSST, which operates some of the city’s highest-performing schools, criticized the mailer’s language about a “for-profit charter school” in an interview with Chalkbeat.

“As adults in this country, we have an obligation to model integrity, and to model truthful discourse,” Kurtz said. “It’s disturbing that the adults in Denver are modeling for our young people in a school board race factually untrue, categorically untrue statements in the name of trying to elect adults in the city to lead our school system.”

The registered agent for Brighter Futures for Denver Students is lawyer Scott Martinez, a former Denver city attorney. He did not respond to two requests for comment this week. The president of the Denver teachers union, Henry Roman, declined to answer questions about the mailer, saying in an email that he is “not involved in the Independent Expenditure side.”

Independent expenditure committees have grown in prominence in Denver school board elections in recent years. Such committees have to report their contributors and what they spend; they are barred from coordinating efforts with candidates and their personal committees.

In an emailed statement Wednesday, Bacon distanced herself from the direct mail piece. “With campaign finance rules the way they are, my campaign has no control over the communications of outside groups,” said Bacon, who once worked for DSST. “I’d like to see the conversation stay focused on the issues that matter to families, teachers, and community members.”

Bacon is trying to unseat incumbent Rachele Espiritu, who was appointed to her seat in 2016. Tay Anderson, a 19-year-old recent Manual High School graduate, is also vying for the seat.

To learn more about the candidates and their positions, read Chalkbeat’s profile of the race and replies to our DPS candidate questionnaires.

Here’s the mailer from the District 4 race:

Five takeaways from a panel with author David Osborne, champion of giving schools autonomy and holding them accountable

2017-10-21T00:07:04+00:00

When David Osborne was considering cities to spotlight in a book about reinventing American public schools, he started with the drastic overhaul of schools in Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, moved on to Michelle Rhee’s controversial changes in Washington, D.C., and found his way to Denver.

Osborne, an author and consultant who specializes in documenting public sector reforms, is an advocate of charter schools and giving schools greater autonomy.

He was sold on Denver Public Schools, he told Chalkbeat, because of the district’s unusually long and strong track record of embracing charters — and by “performance improving going back a decade.”

DPS can point to successes: Enrollment and graduation rates are up, and state test scores are creeping closer to state averages. But the district also has yawning achievement gaps between minority students and white students, and between poor students and wealthier students, and teacher turnover is high.

Osborne was in Denver this week to discuss his book, “Reinventing Public Schools: Creating a 21st Century Education System,” and take part in a panel with Jeffco Public Schools Superintendent Jason Glass; Denver school board member Rosemary Rodriguez; and Jennifer Holladay, DPS’s executive director of portfolio management.

The Tuesday discussion at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs was hosted by A-Plus Colorado, Democrats for Education Reform, the Donnell-Kay Foundation, the Gates Family Foundation, the Progressive Policy Institute (where Osborne works) and The 74. (The Donnell-Kay Foundation and the Gates Family Foundation are funders of Chalkbeat).

Here are five themes that emerged from Osborne’s remarks and the panel discussion that followed:

Autonomy, accountability, choice … and districts getting out of the business of operating schools altogether

In his book and his Denver talk, Osborne laid out the ingredients he believes will improve America’s public school system. It starts with autonomy: giving school leaders the freedom to do whatever it takes to help kids. This is why Osborne is a steadfast believer in charter schools, which are operated independently and can make their own decisions about school calendars, hiring and firing, and curriculum, among other things. Next is accountability: schools that succeed grow and replicate, and those that fail are closed. Then you give parents a choice among schools. Finally, the most politically difficult piece: Osborne thinks school districts should get out of the school operating business altogether. All schools would be independently operated, with districts doing the “steering” and school operators doing the “rowing,” he said. “Denver has done a pretty good job of doing both, but it’s really unusual,” Osborne said. Not everyone is pleased with how DPS is doing both. As Chalkbeat reported last spring, charter school operators complained that they were not getting a fair shot in the competition to replace two schools being closed for poor performance.

Denver’s “family” of schools is sometimes in need of counseling

Denver is known nationally for its “portfolio” system that includes traditional district-run schools, charter schools and innovation schools, which enjoy many of the same freedoms as charters. Holladay, who oversees that portfolio, has a different term for it. “I sometimes think of it more like a family of schools, because we fight a lot,” she said. “… There are periods where the family of schools has to go to marital counseling, and there are periods where we do extraordinary work for children with each other.” Holladay suggested that collaborative work could be improved and expanded. “If you look at the portfolio of schools, the ones that struggle the most are single-site charters because they operate in isolation,” she said. Holladay cited new models of collaboration popping up around the country, including innovation network schools in Memphis and Indianapolis, as well as Denver’s own Luminary Learning Network. That network of four schools is part of an innovation zone, which gives schools even more autonomy than regular innovation schools. So far, the effort has shown mixed results, with two of the four schools posting low growth and slipping scores on the latest state tests.

Indianapolis could prove to be a model for Denver and other cities

Osborne had plenty of praise for Indianapolis, the only city in the country where the mayor authorizes charter schools. Much like in Denver earlier, education reform advocates in Indianapolis poured money and energy into winning control of the school board. When that paid off, the board coaxed the superintendent into retirement, brought in a new leader, and the district successfully lobbied the state legislature to pass what’s called the Innovation Network Schools Act. In Colorado, innovation schools enjoy many of the freedoms afforded charters, but they’re still run by school districts. Not so in Indiana, where nonprofit organizations and outside charter operators operate innovation schools that are still considered to be district schools. To Osborne, a true believer in as much autonomy as possible, this is the way to go. He said both Denver and Washington, D.C., should look to the Hoosier state for inspiration. On the most recent Indiana state tests, innovation schools’ scores were still pretty dismal, but showed the most improvement in English and math tests compared to other school models (schools taken over by the state made the second-most progress). Note: Critics say innovation schools had an easy road to higher grades under Indiana’s system. “Within the district framework,” Osborne said, “it gives you the dynamics that can lead to higher performance.”

Segregation and quality school authorization are challenges to choice

Glass, the Jeffco Public Schools superintendent, clearly was meant to be a contrast to Osborne and the DPS folks who are all-in on charter schools and autonomy with accountability. On the job since July, Glass is a sort of reformed reformer. He’s had a change of heart on strategies such as tying teacher pay to student performance (used to champion it, is now against it) and he came strongly endorsed by the Jeffco teachers union. Glass on Tuesday praised Denver for its nationally recognized centralized admissions system and for taking “courageous stands” on school authorization and closing schools that need closing. He also took issue with aspects of Osborne’s book. Glass said Osborne overlooked “some of the segregation issues that come with school choice — that are a problem every place you implement school choice.” Osborne’s book “also glosses over some of the difficulty” of being a quality school authorizer, Glass said. Charters often “come with low quality applications, and if they keep fighting, they get the state board or some other entity to roll over and approve them,” he said. “That’s a problem.” (Glass is not alone in this sentiment). Osborne conceded that some charter school authorizers are “awful” and advocated that less is more: one strong authorizer in each city and an “escape valve” at the state level if charter applicants are “somehow treated unfairly.” That’s essentially the Colorado model.

Denver is not getting out of the business of running schools any time soon — maybe ever — but is likely to loosen the reins

DPS has shown no indication of backing away from operating schools altogether. If anything, it has invested greater energy into replicating promising district-run models, including opening spinoffs of Grant Beacon Middle School and McAuliffe International School. The district in 2018-19 is planning on giving all innovation schools more freedom over their budgets, allowing them to opt out of district services (like, say, help from the district’s family engagement office), and spend that money on something else. Osborne’s advice to DPS: “Be bold. You have gone partway down this path, but there are other steps you can take.” Among his suggestions: giving schools even more autonomy, recruiting charter networks from outside the city, adding stand-alone charter preschools (some charters in Denver run preschools as part of elementary schools) and adult schools, and improving its school rating system, known as the School Performance Framework. That system, which is adjusted and tweaked frequently, is a common target of criticism, in part because it gives much more weight to how much students are improving than it does to whether they are proficient in a subject.

Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately described how state-run schools in Indianapolis performed on state tests.

Denver-based University Prep charter school network wins federal grant, opening expansion possibilities

2017-09-29T03:02:57+00:00

Denver charter school operator University Prep has won a nearly $1.4 million federal grant this year as part of a U.S. Department of Education program that helps bankroll the expansion and replication of successful charter schools.

University Prep, which operates two Denver elementary schools, was the sole Colorado recipient in a series of charter school growth grants announced Thursday.

The education department recommended that University Prep receive a total of $3.7 million through the program, contingent on congressional approval in future years.

With a student population that is overwhelmingly Latino and low-income, University Prep opened its first campus, on Arapahoe Street just north of downtown, in 2010. Last year, its fourth- and fifth-graders outperformed district averages on both the English and math tests.

In 2016, University Prep took on a daunting turnaround effort, taking over failing Pioneer Charter School in northeast Denver. On last spring’s state math tests, University Prep Steele Street students posted the highest growth scores in Colorado.

Earlier this year, University Prep founder David Singer joined three other charter leaders in writing an open letter to Denver Public Schools asking district leaders to let them open more new schools in the coming years to help meet ambitious goals to improve the city’s schools.

The Denver school board last spring signed off on four new University Prep elementary schools. That doesn’t guarantee the schools will open, however. Competition for district real estate is fierce and DPS has seen flat or declining enrollment in some parts of the city.

The grant, however, doesn’t specify where University Prep would expand, leaving open the possibility that it could bring its model to other school districts with a need. The grant program is designed to “expand opportunities for all students, particularly traditionally underserved students.”

Singer said Thursday that University Prep remains committed to Denver, and also would be open to expansion to other communities.

“The grant is an opportunity for us to engage with families and communities in continued turnaround efforts in the Denver metro area,” he said.

Other high-performing college-prep charters that began in Denver have either opened schools in other districts or plan to, including DSST and Rocky Mountain Prep.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a school choice champion, advocating for an expansion of charter schools and vouchers that allow taxpayer dollars to go toward private school tuition. DeVos has both praised Denver Public Schools for being choice-friendly and criticized the district for not doing enough.

It’s a new school year. Here’s what Chalkbeat Colorado is curious about — and how you can help us find the answers.

2017-09-25T12:00:36+00:00

When Jeffco Public Schools announced the possible closure of five elementary schools last spring, Chalkbeat reporter Yesenia Robles wanted to see firsthand what was at stake.

She arranged a visit to Pleasant View Elementary School in Golden, housed in a 1950s brick building in a neighborhood of apartment buildings, a mobile home park and aging stripmalls. There, she talked to a woman who runs an on-site pantry that hands out milk and eggs to needy families in a school building that lacks a full sprinkler system or adequate roof coverings.

Jeffco district staff at the time didn’t consider equity as a factor in selecting schools for possible closure. Yesenia’s coverage showing poor students would be disproportionately impacted by the proposal helped change the conversation. The school board voted to close Pleasant View but spare the four others, and new Superintendent Jason Glass cited Chalkbeat’s coverage and broader concerns about equity in his recent decision to put a moratorium on school closures.

These are the kinds of stories Chalkbeat is dedicated to covering — stories that inform, enlighten and make an impact, especially for students who historically have lacked access to a great education.

Now that a new school year has begun, we’re asking you to join us in informing and supporting our journalism. Below you’ll hear from Chalkbeat Colorado reporters about the stories they’re focusing on this year, but as you read, know that we can’t tell them without you. So please — reach out! Introduce yourself, submit a story tip, give us feedback or propose a First Person essay by emailing us at co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

All this work demands time and talent — neither of which are free. If every Colorado reader gave $10 right now, we could raise $650,000 to support our mission this year. That’d be enough for all these stories and more. We hope those who can will consider making a $10 tax-deductible donation here.

Melanie Asmar, covering Denver Public Schools

Melanie’s aim is to unpack what reforms the state’s largest school district is undertaking, explain the reasoning behind them and the backlash against them, and examine whether they’re having the intended effect, such as improving student learning or increasing school integration.

One of the big DPS storylines is right in front of us: This fall’s school board election. With control of the seven-member board hanging in the balance, this election could be a referendum on Denver’s reforms, which include giving families a choice from a “portfolio” of schools, including traditional district-run, charter and innovation. We’ll be profiling the races and following the money.

Melanie also will be digging into DPS’s work to tackle the impacts of gentrification and efforts to better integrate schools, as well as its experiments with granting schools more autonomy.

Melanie has a talent for rich, narrative storytelling, bringing classroom scenes to life with telling details and dialogue. The judges of this year’s Education Writers Association awards agreed: Melanie was a finalist in beat reporting for her work covering DPS.

You can reach Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org and 303-446-7625, and follow her on Twitter.

Nic Garcia, covering state education issues

Nic is all things state of Colorado, which means covering the state legislature, State Board of Education, Colorado Department of Education, and issues of statewide significance.

Nic is a product of Pueblo City Schools, which has seen its share of struggles, giving us a valuable perspective about challenges facing Colorado schools.

This coming year, he’ll be focusing on big conversations over how to best hold schools accountable for their performance educating kids, the eternal struggle over adequately funding schools in Colorado, and attempts to tackle teacher shortages in some areas and subjects.

Nic also will be mining education angles in the 2018 governor’s race — and there are many. A number of candidates, especially on the Democratic side, have long track records on education. We’re planning “education profiles” of the candidates, fleshing out their pasts and proposals.

We’ll be looking for more stories in rural Colorado, which is much more diverse than many rural areas in other states and faces its own distinct challenges, many centered on race and poverty.

Nic stands at an important intersection — explaining the goals of policymakers to educators, students and parents, and the realities of educators, students and parents to policymakers.

You can reach Nic at ngarcia@chalkbeat.org and 303-446-7624, and follow him on Twitter.

Yesenia Robles, covering suburban school districts and English language learners

Yesenia came to us a year ago from The Denver Post to flesh out a beat that is central to our mission — the suburbanization of poverty and how it is playing out in public schools.

As someone who was born in Mexico and grew up in Denver schools as an English language learner, Yesenia can relate to many of the students she writes about.

Yesenia will continue to invest significant resources in covering Aurora Public Schools, which has a high-needs student population and its own reform agenda under Superintendent Rico Munn. That will include chronicling this fall’s high-stakes school board election.

We’ve decided to turn more attention to a couple of high-poverty districts that haven’t gotten enough attention: Adams 14 in Commerce City and Westminster Public Schools. Both ran out of time last school year on the state’s “accountability clock,” and we’ll be paying close attention to how their state-approved improvement plans play out.

Both districts serve large numbers of English language learners. Are districts doing enough to help these students succeed? Who is failing and succeeding? We intend to find out.

You can reach Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org and 303-446-7622, and follow her on Twitter.

Ann Schimke, covering early childhood education and healthy schools

The early childhood years are getting more emphasis in Colorado and nationally as policymakers, educators and funders realize how critical these years are to brain development and learning. No reporter in Colorado owns this subject like Ann Schimke.

Our coverage focuses on the drive for quality and equity in early childhood, covering issues including finding qualified teachers, navigating funding disparities and addressing discipline.

This fall, look for a project from Ann and Yesenia examining life in a child care desert — a long-neglected Denver neighborhood where good options for early care are hard to find, and a variety of organizations and advocates are trying to change the narrative.

Ann also has taken a broader lens to covering how health intersects with schooling, expanding our coverage beyond traditional physical health issues (obesity, immunizations, and nutrition) to cover social and emotional learning, mental health, and childhood trauma.

Everyone is talking about social and emotional learning. One of Ann’s goals for this year is to take a thoughtful look at the growing arsenal of tools and approaches that help foster these skills.

You can reach Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org and 970-238-0179, and follow her on Twitter.

Stand for Children chooses not to endorse in northeast Denver school board race

2017-09-19T23:56:56+00:00

Stand for Children Colorado on Tuesday announced its candidate endorsements for this fall’s Denver school board races — and one notable non-endorsement.

The pro-education reform group chose not to endorse a candidate in the three-person race in District 4, which encompasses a diverse mix of northeast Denver neighborhoods. The group said both incumbent Rachele Espiritu and challenger Jennifer Bacon had surpassed the group’s “threshold for endorsement,” and that “Denver’s kids would be well served by either candidate.”

Recent Manual High School graduate Tay Anderson is also vying for the seat.

With four of seven seats in play, this fall’s election could swing the balance of a school board that unanimously backs the school district’s education reform efforts.

Stand is a significant player in Denver school board elections. It donates money to candidates and helps marshal resources on the ground, including door-to-door canvassing.

Kate Dando Doran, a spokeswoman for Stand for Children Colorado, said in an email the group will not contribute financially to candidates in District 4. She said that families Stand works with in southwest Denver are supporting former teacher Angela Cobián’s campaign in that part of the city, and that Stand would focus its energy and resources there, too.

Cobián has the support of incumbent Rosemary Rodriguez, who is not running again. Stand endorsed Cobián in her race against parent Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, who has teachers union backing.

Stand for Children’s other endorsements do not come as a surprise: incumbent Barbara O’Brien in the citywide at-large race that includes former Denver teacher Julie Bañuelos and parent Robert Speth; and incumbent Mike Johnson for District 3 in central-east Denver, who is facing English language development teacher Carrie A. Olson.

To be considered for Stand’s endorsement, candidates agree to answer a candidate questionnaire and to be interviewed by a committee of parents. Doran said O’Brien, Cobián, Johnson, Bacon and Espiritu went through the group’s process.

That Stand could not settle on an endorsement in District 4 adds to the drama in the three-person race. Opponents of the district’s reforms haven’t united on a pick, either. The Denver teachers union endorsed Bacon, a community organizer and former teacher. The advocacy group Our Denver, Our Schools and a progressive caucus of the teachers union are backing Anderson.

From passionate to politics-free, here’s how Colorado school districts responded to Trump’s DACA decision

2017-09-08T23:30:23+00:00

Even before the Trump administration announced the rollback of an Obama-era program that provides protections to young undocumented immigrants, Tom Boasberg didn’t hold back.

The longtime Denver Public Schools superintendent fired off one pre-emptive statement saying that ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, would “cruelly rip the American dream” from young immigrants’ grasp. He joined other civic leaders for a news conference under the Capitol dome to call for the program’s preservation.

When DACA’s imminent demise was announced Tuesday, the DPS communications staff was ready with a statement, in both English and Spanish, decrying the move as “shortsighted, heartless and harmful.”

In Aurora Public Schools, Superintendent Rico Munn, a lawyer and former head of the State Department of Regulatory Agencies, conferred with staff about a more measured response.

Two days after the Trump White House put DACA on notice, APS emailed the school community a newsletter reiterating district policy about immigration enforcement and linking to a school board resolution passed earlier this year meant to allay community fears. The district statement did not mention DACA, nor was it signed by Munn or anyone personally.

The contrasting responses – from passionate and personal to informational and politics-free – provide a window into how school districts view their responsibilities when a divisive national policy change carries profound implications for many Colorado students and their families.

In Colorado’s urban, suburban and rural areas, officials in districts with large numbers of immigrant students are attempting to support kids at a trying time without over-promising security they may not be able to guarantee. How districts respond hinges on intensely local factors, from the political climate to leadership style and school board makeup.

“This is uncharted waters,” said Kathy Escamilla, director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. “… It’s incumbent upon all school districts to say ‘This issue is complex, it’s not just legal and illegal.’ And they need to inform their communities about the complexities about dealing with these thorny issues.”

Roughly 800,000 people in the U.S., including nearly 17,300 people in Colorado, are enrolled in DACA. Begun in 2012, the program offers work permits and temporary reprieves from deportation to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children.

Trump has given Congress six months to tackle immigration issues broadly before DACA is undone. He also has indicated that he may act on DACA if Congress does not.

Susana Cordova, deputy superintendent of Denver Public Schools, said leaders of the 92,000-student district felt they had no choice but to speak out.

“The conditions have been thrust on us,” she said Friday.

Cordova added that DPS leaders believe “this is a fundamental moral obligation we have to support our Latino students in general and in particular, take a stance on what we believe is a very misguided, poorly thought-out and detrimental decision.”

Some Denver school principals also spoke out publicly. A group of more than 90 school leaders wrote an opinion piece in The Denver Post calling on Congress to pass the 2017 DREAM Act to provide permanent protections for immigrants.

“Principals have real power in communities,” said author James Cryan, who is founder and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Prep charter school network in Denver and Aurora. The group, he said, wanted to use that power “to stand with folks who, in many cases, … don’t feel safe.”

The Aurora Public Schools statement sought to tamp down concerns about imminent immigration actions and said the “safety and wellbeing of our students and staff is our top priority.”

Munn said in an interview that there is no “right response” to news like DACA’s rollback, and that it varies by community. Asked about the more pointed statement from Boasberg and DPS, Munn said neither he nor the district has a track record of putting out such statements.

“We have tried to stay focused on serving our kids and making sure our kids and our families know at a very practical level what the impact is on their lives,” he said. “For us, it’s important not to be a distraction in that communication. In other communities, it makes all the sense in the world to handle it differently depending on how you relate to that community.”

Judith Padilla, an Aurora mother of three, said Friday she didn’t receive the district’s communication on immigration this week, but wishes she had more resources from the schools.

“All of us need more information about what help our schools can or can’t offer us,” Padilla said. “They need to support everyone. I am worried about what’s going to happen.”

Other suburban Denver districts, many of them with large and growing Hispanic populations, also gave a variety of responses.

In Jeffco Public Schools, Superintendent Jason Glass was quick to post on his blog about DACA, striking a tone that falls somewhere between Denver’s and Aurora’s statements.

Glass noted the opportunities DACA provides to undocumented students “who have much to contribute to our community, state, and nation.” He also linked to more information and a “do and don’t list” for educators.

In an email to Chalkbeat, Glass expanded on the district’s strategy, noting that leaders must take into account residents, boards and community values in deciding if and how to engage on issues with political dimensions.

“For Jeffco, that meant reassuring potentially impacted members of our community that our schools remain open and welcoming to them, and that we would monitor and work with our Congressional delegation in an effort to not limit opportunities for our children,” he said. “In other communities, that engagement can mean something else.”

Westminster Public Schools sent an internal communication last week to principals with “key talking points,” and reminders to staff of policy on social media, teaching controversial topics and interactions with immigration officials.

“We do not collect or share information on a student’s legal status and that will not change,” the memo said, echoing the message of many other school districts. “Westminster Public Schools values ethnic and language diversity in our district and we view diversity as a strength.”

Javier Abrego, the superintendent of the Adams 14 School District in Commerce City, put out a more pointed statement — in English and Spanish — on DACA on Wednesday.

“To be sure, the elimination of DACA will not only have a dramatic economic impact on our state and nation, it will have devastating impacts on our schools and communities,” he wrote. “Our community and schools will lose employees, coaches and school support staff. Our educational systems are already in dire need of great support and resources; the elimination of DACA just compounds an already alarming situation.”

Abrego also joined a handful of other superintendents in calling for Congress to act.

In Greeley-Evans School District 6, Superintendent Deirdre Pilch put out a one-paragraph statement Tuesday acknowledging that changes in DACA will “cause worry and concern for some of our students, families and our own staff.” It concluded by encouraging families to voice their concerns to national elected officials and expressing hope that Congress will find a solution.

Earlier this year Pilch was one of several Colorado school and district leaders who signed a letter to federal officials in support of DACA.

But not every district leader felt compelled to speak out about DACA this week.

In St Vrain Valley School District, where 30 percent of the district’s 32,000 students are Hispanic, district officials released no statement or resolution on DACA.

“I don’t know what a piece of paper would do,” said Superintendent Don Haddad. “For us, we don’t change our approach with kids and our community every time a politician says something. We care about our kids 24/7, every day of the week.”

Rural Colorado is far more diverse than most other U.S. rural areas, with significant Latino populations in some areas. Districts there, too, are grappling with responding to DACA.

In the Roaring Fork School District, Superintendent Rob Stein released a one-page statement critical of the DACA announcement on Tuesday — the district’s first day of school.

In a separate letter to district staff and board members, Stein acknowledged that immigrant rights is a political issue and said everyone should make their own choices about how to get involved. “At the same time,” he wrote, “we have a safe haven resolution as a school district that states, in part, ‘We will act where we have influence and make a difference wherever we can.’”

The 1,000-student Lake County school district has yet to send any formal communication about its stance on DACA to parents, said high school principal Ben Cairns. Instead, they’ve deferred to the community’s Latino organizations.

However, the high school is encouraging students to participate in the immigration policy debate. On Tuesday, about two dozen students in three vans traveled to a rally on Denver’s Auraria Campus.

Cairns said he’s aware of potential backlash from other community members but that hasn’t stopped him from supporting the needs of his students.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “But it’s our role to help kids process these big moments in their lives.”

Denver schools chief: Removing DACA protections for undocumented immigrants would be ‘catastrophic’

2017-08-31T20:59:27+00:00

Rolling back protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children would prove “catastrophic” for Denver Public Schools and the city, DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said in a statement Thursday.

Boasberg joined other school and community leaders from across the country in speaking up as President Donald Trump is expected to announce any day the repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

“Our schools and our community are strengthened by our city’s rich diversity and open arms,” Boasberg said. “The DACA program has helped bring wonderfully talented and critically needed teachers to our classrooms and has provided peace of mind and legal status to thousands of immigrant children and families who make our city and our schools great.”

“We at the Denver Public Schools stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these children and families; we join their call for respect and appreciation for the contributions they make to our community; and we join other cities across this great country in resolute opposition to any effort to curtail the DACA program that would cruelly rip the American Dream from their grasp.”

DPS describes itself as the first school district in the nation to hire teachers under DACA. Last year after Trump’s election, Chalkbeat profiled three Denver educators who are in classrooms because of the policy’s safeguards.

President Obama created DACA by executive action in 2012 to give protections, but not citizenship, for two years at a time to undocumented immigrants who came here as children.

DPS officials have been vocal about immigrant rights since Trump’s election. The district produced a fact sheet in four languages answering immigration questions posed by anxious students and families, assured families that the district will protect students’ constitutional rights and teamed with the Mexican consulate to reinforce that message.

The Aurora school board in May approved a statement aimed at helping immigrant students feel safer.

Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes joins education advocacy group Chiefs for Change

2017-08-17T02:25:38+00:00

Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes has joined Chiefs for Change, a group of state- and district-level school chiefs advocating for reforms they believe will boost achievement for all students, the group announced Wednesday.

“I’m excited to continue working with fellow state and district Chiefs from around the country,” Anthes said in a statement. “Chiefs for Change members are courageous, effective, and laser-focused on students. It is a privilege to join their ranks and come together as a community to advocate for excellence and equity for all of our students.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush launched the organization in 2008 to promote his education agenda nationally, and it broke away from Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence in 2015 to become an independent nonprofit.

It has championed charter schools, the Common Core State Standards and other reforms. Over the last two years, Chiefs for Change has produced position papers on building a more diverse teacher workforce, expanding instructional choices, and school improvement strategies in the era of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal education law.

The group began as a coalition of state education leaders, then expanded its scope to include heads of school districts. Among its two-dozen members are Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg and Antwan Wilson, a former DPS hand who now leads the Washington, D.C., school district. Both men sit on the board of directors.

According to its most recent tax forms, Chiefs for Changes’ largest funders are Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Walton Family Foundation. The Walton Family Foundation also provides funding to Chalkbeat.

Denver teachers union, members of progressive wing diverge on key school board races

2017-08-05T00:17:23+00:00

The Denver teachers union and a caucus within the union are split over who to support in two competitive school board races that could determine the direction of the state’s largest school district.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Union this week announced endorsements for all four races in play this fall on the seven-member board.

The endorsements are significant because a small donor committee of the union is a major contributor to board candidates.

In two races, the DCTA endorsements align with earlier statements of support for candidates from the Caucus of Today’s Teachers, formed last year by a group of progressive, social justice-minded teachers that would like to see the union be more aggressive.

But in the two races that feature multiple challengers to incumbents, the union and its caucus diverge. In the at-large race, DCTA endorsed Robert Speth, a northwest Denver parent who nearly upset board member Happy Haynes two years ago, over one of its own — Julie Bañuelos, a former teacher who recently served on the DCTA board.

The caucus is supporting Bañuelos, citing her teaching experience and advocacy for communities of color. Speth and Bañuelos are trying to unseat Barbara O’Brien, the board vice president and former lieutenant governor, who is running again.

The union endorsed Jennifer Bacon, a former teacher who has had a leadership role with the advocacy group Padres & Jóvenes Unidos, for the northeast Denver seat now held by Rachele Espiritu, who is running for the first time since being appointed to the board in spring 2016.

The caucus is backing a different challenger: Tay Anderson, a 2017 graduate of Manual High School whose campaign has attracted national attention and endorsements from former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and education historian Diane Ravitch, a union ally.

Both DCTA president Henry Roman and caucus members downplayed the differences.

“We live in a democracy,” Roman said Friday. “We are speaking our voice.”

“We don’t look at it as anything that’s negative or divisive,” said Tommie Shimrock, a founding member of the caucus who sought to unseat Roman in union leadership elections this year. “It’s significant in that it’s yet another way for members of DCTA to have our voices heard, through the caucus.”

Of endorsing Speth over Bañuelos, Roman said, “We feel like this is not a vote against anyone. We feel he is a stronger candidate.”

The union and caucus are both supporting longtime educator Carrie Olson over incumbent Mike Johnson for a seat representing east and central Denver, and Denver Public Schools parent Xochitl “Sochi” Gaytan over former DPS teacher Angela Cobián for the southwest Denver seat. Cobián has been endorsed by incumbent Rosemary Rodriguez, who is not running for re-election.

The campaign is expected to feature big money, intense debates and attempts to link incumbents to school choice policies championed by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

All seven current board members support DPS’s nationally recognized school reforms, which include closing low-performing schools and promoting school choice through a mix of district-run schools, charter schools and innovation schools that operate with similar autonomy. None of the current board members support private school vouchers, a centerpiece of DeVos’s agenda.

Candidates in favor of DPS reforms historically have raised large sums from wealthy donors both from Colorado and out of state. Pro-reform candidates also have gotten backing from an independent expenditure committee affiliated with Democrats for Education Reform.

Adding another wrinkle, a nonprofit group called Our Denver Our Schools that is opposed to the current direction of the school district is offering its own endorsements — and they don’t match up exactly to either the union endorsements or the caucus’s statements of support.

Our Denver Our Schools is endorsing Speth, Anderson, Olson and Gaytan.

Speth is a founding member of Our Denver Our Schools, which formed last year. Scott Glipin, a co-founder of the group and Speth’s campaign manager two years ago, said Speth is not part of the group’s steering committee, which selected the candidate endorsements. Speth “went through the same process as every other candidate,” Gilpin said.

Betsy DeVos is coming to Denver for a meeting of the conservative group ALEC — and protesters are ready

2017-07-13T21:08:30+00:00

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is scheduled to speak in Denver next week at the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an influential conservative group that has successfully advocated for free-market principles at statehouses across the country.

While DeVos will find a friendly audience at ALEC, she’ll get a different greeting from liberal activists and union leaders who are seizing on the chance to protest DeVos’s agenda.

This is DeVos’s first visit to Colorado since the billionaire philanthropist and school choice advocate was confirmed as President Donald Trump’s pick for the nation’s top education job.

DeVos has close ties to ALEC. She is the founder of the American Federation for Children, which provides financial support to ALEC and has representation on ALEC’s Education and Workforce Development Task Force.

ALEC is best known for crafting “model” legislation advancing conservative principles on issues ranging from tax limitations to gun safety and the environment. Its membership includes corporations and nearly 2,000 state legislators across the country.

DeVos shares ALEC’s support for charter schools and the use of tax dollars to pay for private school education through vouchers, tax-credit scholarships and education savings accounts.

As of Thursday, DeVos’s appearance was not listed on the meeting’s online agenda. An ALEC spokeswoman confirmed DeVos will appear, but said details including the timing still were being worked out. The group’s meeting runs Wednesday through Friday.

Inez Feltscher Stepman, director of ALEC’s Education and Workforce Development Task Force, lauded DeVos’s support for school choice and for making clear that decision-making about education should be invested in states.

“It’s really encouraging to hear (states) should have the primary responsibility for crafting their education systems, and should be the leaders in education reform and opportunity,” she said.

A U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman did not respond to questions this week about whether DeVos has any other stops or appearances planned during her Colorado trip.

The secretary has a standing invitation from Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado to visit Denver Public Schools and get a window into the district’s brand of school choice.

DeVos has been critical of DPS, implying that its choices are lacking because students can’t use private school vouchers or don’t have enough charter schools from which to choose.

Bennet, a former DPS superintendent, fired back, saying DeVos was wrong. In a later interview with Chalkbeat, he called her an ideologue who is not the face of education reform.

A DPS spokesman said Thursday a member of DeVos’s team contacted the district to ask about learning more about its efforts to serve students learning English. Approximately 37 percent of Denver’s 92,000 students are English language learners. The spokesman said the district is working to connect the DeVos team member with DPS’s experts, but “there are no plans in place right now.”

A “Denver RESISTS DeVos” protest, meanwhile, is planned for 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday outside the state Capitol involving multiple groups. The protest is being promoted on a Facebook page hosted by Tay Anderson, a 2017 Manual High School graduate who is running for a Denver school board seat. It’s part of a broader “ALEC resistance” effort that includes a “teach-in.”

The Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is planning to make signs that morning, take part in the protest and then march to the ALEC meeting at a downtown hotel, according to its Facebook event page.

John Ford, president of Jefferson County Education Association and a scheduled speaker at Wednesday’s protest, said in a statement via email that “voucher schemes and other failed reforms” DeVos will promote are not welcome in Colorado.

Could a modest summer bus pass program for youth help unlock Denver’s bigger student transportation problems?

2017-07-11T01:58:23+00:00

City officials are giving away 1,500 cash-loaded transit cards to Denver young people ages 14 to 19, hopeful that data gathered as a result will help build a case to expand public transportation access for the city’s public school students.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced the initiative Monday during his annual State of the City address, which focused on tackling the fast-growing city’s many challenges.

The $90,000 pilot project will not just give high school students a way to get to summer jobs or get around town, but provide valuable information about how youth use public transit, said Dionne Williams, deputy director of the city’s Office of Children’s Affairs.

Participating youth will receive MyRide cards, a new Regional Transportation District pre-loaded fare card. The cards will be loaded with either $50 or $100, depending on how costly fares are in their part of the city, Williams said. As students use the cards, city officials will be able to track how often they are used and where.

Solid data on student transit use is not available now because there is no specific bus pass for public school students, and no way to track student use. Denver Public Schools estimates it purchases about 2,500 RTD bus passes for high school students monthly. Some schools tap their own budgets to buy passes for students who don’t qualify for a district-provided one.

“We are really trying to better understand what the need is,” Williams said. “We believe a lot of youth rely on public transportation year-round, especially when it comes to school choice, but we don’t have good data to back that up. We want to be able to show how important public transit is for kids for school, for work, and to get around the city.”

Williams acknowledged the information gleaned will not be perfect, since the cards are being given away in the heart of the summer. However, she said the cards never expire, and presumably some young people will hold onto the cards and use them to get to school.

Transportation challenges continue to serve as a barrier to the kind of school choice promoted by Denver Public Schools. The district runs a nationally-recognized bus shuttle system, the Success Express, but it only serves certain parts of the city and has other limitations.

City officials and community groups have been trying to convince RTD — so far unsuccessfully — to change how it handles transit passes DPS and its schools purchase. The proposal would allow the district to purchase much cheaper yearly passes instead of monthly passes, offering a benefit not unlike the Ecopass program available to businesses.

Matt Samelson of the Denver-based Donnell-Kay Foundation, which is involved in the effort, said the summer pilot project could be a step toward broader transportation solutions. (Donnell-Kay is a financial supporter of Chalkbeat).

Although the data will be relatively limited, “One of biggest pushback points we get from RTD is they don’t know how, when or where students are using their services,” Samuelson said. “One of the huge benefits is that we will now have some data.”

Williams said officials will not have access to any personally identifiable data, but will get aggregated data broken down by age, ZIP code and bus route. Parents or guardians will be required to sign waivers agreeing to collection of that data, she said.

To be eligible, youth must have a valid MY Denver membership, a program that provides access to city recreation centers and other benefits. There is a limit of two cards per family, and a parent or guardian must be present to register. Youth who get the cards also will be asked to complete a survey about their experience, Williams said.

City officials began giving away the transit cards Monday after Hancock’s speech at the Hiawatha Davis Jr. Recreation Center in northeast Park Hill. Sign-up for cards will be available this week:

Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday, Ashland Recreation Center, 2475 W Dunkeld Place.
Noon-5 p.m. Thursday, Athmar Recreation Center, 2680 W Mexico Ave.
Noon-5 p.m. Friday, Montclair Recreation Center, 729 Ulster Way.

Aurora school board: Judge us by our actions, not one board member’s words

2017-06-09T13:17:23+00:00

The Aurora school board sought to convey Thursday that the controversial statements of one of its members should not overshadow the board’s actions to support immigrant and refugee families.

Board president Amber Drevon sent a statement to reporters trying to shift attention back to a board resolution last month that underscored district policies about responding to immigration enforcement actions and emphasized “inclusive practices.”

The resolution was meant to allay fears in immigrant communities. Although the vote for the resolution was unanimous, board member Cathy Wildman’s remarks during the board’s deliberations continue to cause challenges for the school district.

Widlman at that meeting called the resolution unnecessary and argued that it singled out a group of students she called rule-breakers. After being criticized by education reform groups and speakers at this week’s school board meeting, Wildman read a lengthy statement that emphasized the importance of following rules and included an assurance that she wants students to feel safe. She declined to answer questions from Chalkbeat at the meeting.

Here is the full text of the statement Drevon shared, which she said in an email was on behalf of the board:

“The Aurora Public Schools Board of Education values holding open conversations with our community. The Board is comprised of individual members who are entitled to voice their own opinions. We voted unanimously on May 16, 2017 to pass ‘A Resolution to Reaffirm Aurora Public Schools’ Inclusive Practices and Beliefs for all Students Regardless of Documentation Status.’ The vote and text of the resolution, not the comments of any one member, speak to the Board’s commitment to upholding the policies, core beliefs and practices already in place to support our immigrant and refugee families. Our focus remains on providing the best educational opportunities for every APS student.”

Inside one Denver charter school operator’s push to serve all students

2017-05-30T16:00:21+00:00

When Josue Bonilla started at STRIVE Prep Federal, he spent a lot of time trying to earn happy-face stickers and string cheese. These were the rewards for sticking to his behavior plan.

At times, they seemed hopelessly out of reach. One day, Josue was caught playing with a lighter in the bathroom. Another day, he hit a teacher’s aide in the face.

Now, as the 13-year-old completes his second year in the middle school’s special education classroom — named “Wisconsin,” for teacher Wendi Sussman’s alma mater — Josue is off the behavior plan and spending 90 percent of his time on academics.

He is using words his teachers gave him for when a classmate with autism gets too close — “Please be outside my personal space” — and not getting physical. Twice a week he participates in a general-education gym class, where things feel safe and structured to him.

Students and their teachers make breakthroughs like Josue’s in schools across Denver and the country every day. But it’s remarkable at STRIVE because until a few years ago, the charter network, like many others, wasn’t focused on meeting the needs of students like Josue.

That changed in part because of an unusual effort by Denver Public Schools to get its charter schools to serve their fair share of high-needs students. It also changed because STRIVE embraced the new challenge, part of a broader “equity agenda” that includes other changes in enrollment and school practices.

“This is about creating the best system for public schools on behalf of communities,” said the network’s CEO, Chris Gibbons. “We believe that requires that charter schools be a part of a system of durable public institutions that are truly creating that value for a community. That is the right thing to do morally.”

Now, as the network seeks to grow again, it is seeking to prove that charter schools can sustain high test scores even when they educate students who bring many challenges — a result that’s proven elusive for others who have tried.

“STRIVE will almost surely be applauded if it has high scores,” said Kevin Welner, a researcher who heads an education research center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “I don’t know if it’s going to be applauded if it’s going to be equitable.”

STRIVE began in 2006 with a single charter school in southwest Denver. Since then, it has grown into an 11-school network educating 3,500 students, most of them low-income and Latino.

The network offers families a straightforward proposition: We will offer your children safety, structure and preparation for college. Students wear uniforms, teachers command attention in the classroom, passing periods are expected to be quiet and orderly, and the school uses a battery of data to guide its thinking.

Gibbons traces the network’s equity agenda to 2009, when DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg came to him with a request: Would STRIVE be willing to open a middle school in an existing district building as a “boundary school,” meaning it would be the default school for kids who live in that area?

The request put Denver at the forefront of a developing push to get charter schools to do the hard work of trying to work with existing communities, rather than just create new ones with a fresh slate. Within a couple of years, other operators were taking up the charge, including the Democracy Prep in New York City and those authorized by Tennessee’s Achievement School District, which was created to replace long-struggling neighborhood schools with better ones.

Chris Barbic, who led Tennessee’s turnaround district until 2015, said he sees STRIVE’s equity work as evidence of a maturing charter sector.

“If we are talking about wanting to transform a system and talk about ways to transform public education, we cannot say that honestly without saying then we are serving a broad range of students,” said Barbic, who when he resigned in 2015 called on charter operators to step up to turnaround work.

But at the time Boasberg approached Gibbons, few charter operators had taken the approach. Prior to his request, STRIVE — then known as West Denver Prep — had followed the charter school playbook of accepting students by lottery from anywhere in the district.

“That was a moment in our history when we really looked at our institutional values and decided to take a different course,” Gibbons said. “We had to ask ourselves: ‘As a neighborhood boundary school, are you going to serve all students?’ That was significant.”

When STRIVE Prep Lake opened in 2010, Gibbons said STRIVE set out to build a school that was “truly of the neighborhood, serving all kids.” That meant not only serving students with disabilities or students who do not know English, but also taking a stand about “backfill,” an issue that divides charter advocates. Some charter schools across the country do not replace students who leave, avoiding a potential drop in test scores and the disruption of adding new students. But STRIVE Prep Lake decided to take students at mid-year and in all grades.

That practice that has since spread to all STRIVE schools. The network does not participate in the district’s choice process for 12th grade, but does admit interested 12th grade students who can demonstrate they have enough credits.

It’s too early to gauge the academic impact, positive or negative, of STRIVE’s efforts to serve all students.

STRIVE did see its state test scores plummet in 2014 as it was in the midst of changing its practices. Although Gibbons never publicly cited the equity push when explaining about the low scores at the time, he now acknowledges that it likely had an impact.

“Our first class of sixth-graders was 100 kids and we finished with 55 eighth-graders two years later,” Gibbons said. “Now, we have 120 kids in sixth, seventh and eighth grades. That is going to lead to a different environment in terms of outcomes.”

Other returns are mixed. On state English and math tests, STRIVE special education students and English language learners typically lag behind the district for being at grade-level. But their “growth” scores are higher than those for students with special needs in district schools, meaning that STRIVE students are covering more ground each year.

By last year, Gibbons was ready to declare his commitment to the equity approach in a letter outlining STRIVE’s work.

“Please forgive the cynical perspective, but I increasingly fear that too many initiatives branded as school reform across our country are initiatives not to change the programs inside of schools, but rather initiatives to adjust the circumstances such that some students are encouraged to enter the school and others are encouraged to leave,” Gibbons wrote to the network’s staff, families and supporters. “Far too often, those encouraged to enter are those already on track to proficiency and those encouraged to leave are those students with the most significant needs.

“At STRIVE Prep, we are putting a stake in the ground that we don’t do that here.”

At STRIVE Prep Federal (photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post).

STRIVE ISN’T ALONE IN LOWERING TRADITIONAL BARRIERS TO ENTRY. A year after STRIVE committed to opening the Lake campus, the school district and its charter school leaders signed a “collaboration compact.” The district pledged equitable funding and — crucially — a shot at district real estate. Charter schools committed to improving access and equity.

Like schools run by school districts, charter schools must under federal law open their doors to students with special needs and develop individual learning plans for them.

But historically, charter schools have not educated a proportionate share of special-needs students. In 2011-12, the last year analyzed, special education students comprised 10.4 percent of charter schools’ enrollment, compared to 12.6 percent in district-run schools, according the National Center on Special Education in Charter Schools.

There are many reasons for the gap, according to Lauren Morando Rhim, the center’s executive director, but many of them come down to resources. Single-site charters, she noted, can’t tap the economies of scale that benefit large networks such as STRIVE, or the school districts to which they’re trying to be an alternative.

Morando Rhim said special education can fit with charter schools’ mission and culture of high expectations.

“There is this kind of inherent tension in trying to create a mission-driven choice and offer a unique program, but also make sure that program works for everyone,” she said. “You can make appropriate accommodations for kids who learn differently and not erode your mission.”

Across the country, charter school networks have a mixed record on special education. Some — including UP Education Network in Boston and Los Angeles-based Green Dot Public Schools — have been recognized for their progress. Others, including East Coast chain Achievement First and New York-based Success Academy, have been sued or audited over the issue.

In Denver, the collaboration compact has taken some of the randomness out of the equation. Now, all schools seeking to open, charter and district-run alike, are expected to offer school-based special education centers if asked by the district, said Josh Drake, who oversees special education for DPS. That doesn’t necessarily mean every school will be required to run a center.

“We ask schools to indicate their willingness to serve kids not just with disabilities, but with significant disabilities,” Drake said. “There is a right answer and a wrong answer.”

The compact hasn’t removed all challenges. The way Denver funds charter schools often leaves a gap when it comes to the steep costs associated with special education — one that networks like STRIVE, with economies of scale and philanthropic support, are in a better position than most to close. And charter operators and the district are at odds over whether charter schools should be able to specialize in what kinds of disabilities they support, or whether they should have to serve any student who comes through their doors, no matter their challenges.

“It’s something we are trying to sort through,” said Drake, the Denver school district’s special education chief.

Even so, DPS says that within three years, it expects Denver to be the first city in the country to provide equitable access to charter schools for students with significant disabilities.

STRIVE hit that threshold last year, three years after the network started enrolling a greater proportion of special education students than the district overall.

STRIVE is running its first Transitional Native Language Instruction program at Kepner Middle School (provided by STRIVE).

AS STRIVE CHANGED ENROLLMENT POLICIES, it also changed practices. For 45 minutes a day, four days a week students are grouped together in classrooms focusing on math, reading or language development, depending on what data show are their greatest needs.

English language development classes have been offered at STRIVE for years, “but at a network level, it has not been very well supported,” said Josh Smith, STRIVE’s chief academic officer. Teachers developed their own classroom resources and shared with peers, he said.

Now, STRIVE is using off-the-shelf curriculum for the first time and hired a staff person to oversee it. Teachers are being trained in the curriculum, too. This is a case in which STRIVE’s size — it essentially can function as a small district — gives it an advantage.

This year, STRIVE launched its first native language instruction program for Spanish-speaking students at at Kepner Middle School in southwest Denver, which is going through turnaround. Any school operator seeking to take on the turnaround had to offer the program, part of a court order dictating how such students must be taught in DPS under such circumstances.

So when classrooms full of students in maroon shirts and sweatshirts with STRIVE logos follow intently, sitting up straight and tracking the speaker as they’ve been taught, the skills they are asked to tackle range widely.

“A new word you are learning today is ‘this,’” an English language teacher at Lake Middle School instructed students during one recent class. “You are going to repeat after me. You are going to say the sentence: ‘I made my mother this shirt.’ It is something you are looking at. It’s right in front of me. This shirt. When it’s not in front of you, it’s that. That movie is awesome.”

In Sussman’s “Wisconsin” classroom at STRIVE Prep Federal, learning goals not only include academic skills but ones required for life, such as how to use a calendar, wash hands, and count money — a skill that students practice on trips to a nearby Walmart.

Yet one thing that hasn’t changed is the way STRIVE schools start their school day. Each day begins with an adult greeting students with a firm handshake and the words, “Are you ready to strive for college today?” The shifts have prompted some deeper soul-searching about the organization’s college-prep mission. If the goal is to serve all kids, is college the right goal?

“We talk about this all the time,” Gibbons said. “It’s an enormously important part of the conversation. We have changed our goals. We have not changed them very much.”

No longer does STRIVE aim to get 100 percent of its high-school graduates accepted into a four-year college. Now, the goal is 95 percent — “a way of acknowledging that students with severe needs may not be going to college, without lowering the bar generally of what we expect,” Gibbons said.

This year, he said, 94 percent of STRIVE graduates met that goal.

Some charter school critics question whether highly structured models like STRIVE’s can and should serve kids with special needs. Amber Kim, a Denver-based education consultant who does work in special education, questioned how students with sensory integration disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or those who cannot sit still, would fit in and succeed.

“Compliance-driven models may produce high scores, but they aren’t accessible to students with special needs,” Kim wrote in an email. “Many don’t succeed in such a rigid school and they end up feeling defeated and like ‘bad’ students. They often leave or are pushed out.”

Gibbons said STRIVE has clearly instructed leadership and staff not to push students out. What’s more, network officials said, they are actively working to get entire school communities to embrace the mission of welcoming all students no matter their needs.

“We have a long way to go to meet the promise we are setting out to meet,” said Smith, the network’s chief academic officer. “I have a lot of confidence and optimism that we are putting the programmatic changes in place, that we are putting our money where our mouth is in terms of where our mission is.”

Denver Public Schools’ glaring conflict: both authorizing and operating schools

2017-05-18T22:28:22+00:00

Right after school let out, a line formed outside the second-floor staff room at Greenlee Elementary School in Denver. Teachers, staff, janitors and union representatives all crammed into the space to learn the fate of a school that had been on the ropes academically for years.

Denver Public Schools officials delivered the blow: The school would likely close after 2017-18 and be “restarted” with a new program.

What happened next at the meeting last fall epitomizes the challenges facing the state’s largest school district as it juggles two conflicting roles.

Deputy Superintendent Susana Cordova, whose mother attended Greenlee and who still has family in the neighborhood, got emotional as she told the room that district officials shared responsibility in Greenlee’s situation. Cordova pledged to support Principal Sheldon Reynolds’ application to run a replacement program at Greenlee, building on recent gains there.

Superintendent Tom Boasberg, also in the room, made clear that the competition to replace Greenlee would be open, and that he would play no favorites. It will be Boasberg’s job to recommend to the school board next month which applicants should run new programs at Greenlee and another DPS school being closed for poor performance: Amesse Elementary.

“That meeting was a great encapsulation of what it’s like — especially for me, but also for Susana — to be very explicit that we do wear two hats,” Boasberg told Chalkbeat. “It was a very important and challenging conversation.”

Those two hats are school authorizer and school operator. DPS says it has a “firewall” separating those who help run and support district-managed schools, and those who approve schools that make up the district’s nationally recognized “portfolio” of traditional district-run, charter, innovation and magnet schools.

Managing that separation can be complicated, messy and — this year — tension-filled.

Slower enrollment growth, scant opportunities to locate in a district-owned building, more high-quality district-run proposals and other factors have contributed to a contentious process.

In a district that has long supported charter schools, it is charter schools that are leading the criticism. Even after DPS took extra steps this year to address the operator/authorizer conflict, charter operators are saying the restart competitions have not been fair.

Such tensions are not uncommon in school districts, especially at those with significant charter school growth, said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research and policy group at the University of Washington.

Bias may not be intentional — especially in districts like Denver committed to different governing structures — but it can be damaging to promoting great schools without labels, she said.

“There can be an internal schizophrenia in the main office about what its core job is,” Lake said.

Tensions are running highest in DPS over the competition for the Amesse restart in northeast Denver.

All three applicants are considered strong: local college-prep charter networks STRIVE Prep and University Prep, and a proposed district-run partnership between nearby McGlone Academy and existing Amesse staff called the Montbello Children’s Network.

University Prep remains an applicant but is no longer in the running after a DPS review found that its plans did not meet the requirements of a court order dictating how English language learners must be educated.

Before that development, University Prep CEO David Singer in an interview with Chalkbeat voiced concerns about how DPS is navigating the operator/authorizer conflict.

“There needs to be a level playing field where families can engage in a process that is not biased in one direction or another,” Singer said. “The process doesn’t feel like it’s in the right place yet.”

STRIVE was more pointed — and specific. Dani Morello, STRIVE’s outreach and engagement manager in far northeast Denver, said in written testimony at a school board meeting last month that the district being “both an authorizer and a restart competitor has been challenging and confusing.”

She said a lack of clear messaging has “led to the narrative within the school community that this process is a choice between applicants looking to change the school and those looking to keep it the same — which we find confusing and misrepresentative of all applicants.”

Morello also cited “differential access” to families and staff — including lists of family contact information made available to the district applicant long before the charter applicants.

STRIVE sees the conflict most evident in the decision to allow DPS’s Office of Family and Community Engagement “to directly organize for the district applicant,” Morello said.

“While we believe this effort is well-intentioned, it has the consequence of parents experiencing messages from district staff in an official capacity speaking about only one applicant, which has exacerbated confusion among families,” she said.

Both district officials and Sara Gips Goodall, principal of McGlone and proposed leader of the Montbello Children’s Network, disputed the STRIVE criticisms.

Goodall said that DPS is not spearheading her school’s application, and that she is “100 percent sure that no parents have experienced a single message from district staff in an official capacity speaking about one applicant.”

Goodall said her team did community outreach early on to gauge interest and incorporate community input into its plan. She said STRIVE, which has been seeking to build support to open a school in the neighborhood for the past couple of years, has been targeting parents aggressively.

“This is also what makes me sad: I actually view University Prep and STRIVE as some of our partners,” Goodall said. “One reason I moved back to Denver (to help lead McGlone in turnaround efforts) is because I loved the idea that charter-public was a collaboration and not competition.”

Charter schools have “huge” advantages as school applicants, Goodall said, including network staff who have experience navigating the process.

“I’m writing those plans on the weekend at a coffee shop,” she said.

Chris Gibbons, CEO of STRIVE, said the school board testimony had nothing to do with McGlone, and that STRIVE’s concerns rest with the district’s management process.

Parents pick up their children at Amesse Elementary, one of two schools that will be restarted.

“I would want Sara to know that and anyone to know that,” Gibbons said. “The critique of the process is that charter applicants did not have access to information until (their letters of intent to apply) had been received” by DPS, while the district-run applicant had access earlier.

Boasberg also took issue with some of STRIVE’s claims. He said all Amesse applicants got the same list of family contact information at the same time.

“It is true that one of the applicants did begin to organize and do efforts in the Amesse community earlier,” he said. “But there is nothing that prohibits hard work here.”

Boasberg said DPS’s Office of Family and Community Engagement, or FACE, had “absolutely nothing” to do with running the process. DPS created a public affairs team in the superintendent’s office this year to communicate with school communities, taking FACE, which has deep relationships with families in schools, out of that process.

Said Cordova: “The whole idea was to not have a process that seems like it’s rigged.”

Gibbons said that STRIVE in its testimony was making reference to district assistance in the early organizing. Boasberg acknowledged that FACE supported McGlone to some extent, including providing examples of engagement and helping with meeting setup.

Overall, Boasberg said DPS has worked diligently to build a wall separating school authorizing — overseen by Jennifer Holladay, executive director of DPS’s portfolio management team — and the school operating role led by Cordova, the deputy superintendent.

DPS also has developed policies meant to bring more clarity — and less politics — to decision-making. In the last two years, DPS has laid out specific criteria for closing schools and for awarding district buildings to schools.

“This is not a new conflict,” Boasberg said. “It’s been with us for some time. I do think we in Denver have been more thoughtful and more proactive than any other district in the country.”

DPS this year formed Community Review Boards for both restarts that will weigh applicants against the district’s building allocation criteria and make recommendations to Boasberg. The boards include parent members, community members, professional reviewers and facilitators.

Boasberg underscored how important that new step will be: “I am going to greatly respect the Community Review Board’s recommendation in making my recommendation,” he said.

How Denver navigates the operator/authorizer conflict bears watching, said Martin West, an associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

“Legitimate questions can be raised about whether a school district can be even-handed in a competition where it is both a player and referee,” West said. “It wouldn’t necessarily require intentionality to create situations where the district-managed school has a big advantage.”

Students at Greenlee Elementary

The competition for restarting Greenlee Elementary is not nearly as heated as the one at Amesse.

The only charter school to apply was Wyoming-based PODER Academy, and DPS staff this week said its application did not meet the district’s quality standards. The school leader strongly objected to the recommendation that it not be approved.

The restart is all but certain to go to a team led by current Greenlee principal Reynolds, who is proposing a new program called the Center for Talent Development at Greenlee Elementary.

Reynolds’ application promises challenging standards-based instruction, a rich roster of electives and a teacher development pipeline through the University of Colorado Denver.

As Reynolds has emphasized to those doubting whether he should stay at the helm, he is just completing his second year at Greenlee and has seen some positive academic growth after adopting a plan celebrating student accomplishments and strengthening school culture.

Reynolds said he believes the district has approached the process appropriately.

“I’ve definitely had district support, but it’s also been very clear there is a separation between that and them being fair and equitable in the process,” he said.

DPS has been encouraging such entrepreneurial leadership in-house, including replicating successful district-run models in new locations. That deeper pool of district-sponsored applicants is likely a contributing factor to some of the tensions.

Boasberg said he was surprised no local charter network applied for the Greenlee restart, and acknowledged that a perception that Reynolds would prevail likely played a role.

Reflecting on that emotional meeting in the Greenlee Elementary staff room, Cordova said she knows firsthand what happens to communities when things don’t work out. She was part of the team that devised a previous turnaround plan at Greenlee that didn’t succeed.

Cordova emphasized that her primary responsibility as deputy superintendent is to “support and lead our reform efforts in our district-managed schools.”

A few school districts have either relinquished the school operator role or are moving in that direction. Although Denver has experimented with different governance structures — including giving district-run schools more autonomy in a budding “innovation zone” — that is not in the district’s future.

Boasberg said DPS can wear both its operator and authorizer hats.

“It’s absolutely imperative,” he said, “that we do both jobs very well.”

Meet the next president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools

2017-05-08T14:15:50+00:00

Ben Lindquist, whose charter school experience ranges from working in philanthropy to founding a school network and funding expansion of successful models, has been named the next president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools.

Lindquist, 42, will start June 1, the league announced Monday. He is leaving a job as a program director with the Waukesha, Wisconsin-based Kern Family Foundation.

Lindquist previously worked for nine years in Colorado, including as a program officer for the Walton Family Foundation. (The foundation provides financial support for Chalkbeat). He also worked on the founding team of the Charter School Growth Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy fund that supports the expansion of high-performing charter schools.

In 2010, Lindquist left Colorado to launch and lead Exalt Education, a Little Rock, Ark.-based network of charter schools with four campuses in Arkansas and Oregon.

Jay Cerny, principal and CEO of Cherry Creek Academy and chairman of the league’s board, in an email announcing the hire credited Lindquist’s experience “driving systemic improvement with a focus on transforming education for underserved populations and communities.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Lindquist cited a number of priorities he intends to focus on, including encouraging members to “set a high bar for excellence” to serve a growing population of students with diverse needs in different settings.

Lindquist said during the era of No Child Left Behind — the federal education law ushered in during the President George W. Bush administration — the definition of quality narrowed. With so much focus on boosting scores on standardized tests, schools emphasized proficiency in math and English so much that in many cases schools eliminated civics, social studies, science, music and art, he said.

“We have to continue to have the basics of literacy and numeracy be a priority for students,” Lindquist said. “It remains a bedrock. But I think our view of quality has really broadened.”

The league advocates for charter school causes at the statehouse, and pushing for more equitable funding will continue to be a top priority, Lindquist said.

With just three days remaining in the session, lawmakers this year have yet to resolve the question of whether school districts should be required to share revenue from local taxes increases with charters.

Lindquist said he also hopes the league can play a stronger role in lifting the quality of charter schools that reside in “the great middle” between the high and low performers. He said charter authorizers have been more aggressive in closing failing schools, so policing low-quality operators is not as much of a concern.

“What the league can do is help good schools become excellent,” he said. “That is where our attention needs to be.”

Lindquist will replace Nora Flood, who left the league last year to launch a new program of the Walton Family Foundation.

Can a successful charter take over a failing peer and build an integrated school in Denver?

2017-05-08T12:51:18+00:00

To save the community that binds together families at Cesar Chavez Academy in northwest Denver, the charter school may need to do what sounds unthinkable: close.

School leaders are exploring the possibility of phasing out the school over a three-year period and turning it over to Rocky Mountain Prep, a Denver-area charter school network with ambitious expansion plans and promising academic results.

For Cesar Chavez Academy, the likely alternative is being shut down by Denver Public Schools for a record of dismal test scores and not improving fast enough.

“Is there something I can do that creates a for-sure quality program for our kids?” said Mary Ann Mahoney, the principal at Cesar Chavez Academy. “Our (charter) renewal is really up in the air for next year, and school closure can be so painful for families and communities.”

For Rocky Mountain Prep, striking a deal with Cesar Chavez Academy would guarantee the charter network a building — an asset that inspires intense competition among schools.

But Rocky Mountain Prep leaders have more ambitious plans: to create an integrated high-quality school educating both predominantly Latino Cesar Chavez families and more affluent white families that have moved into the neighborhood in recent years.

At a recent community meeting, Sara Carlson, the proposed leader of the new Rocky Mountain Prep, spoke of “a truly integrated model” that is “not just a product of gentrification.”

Building racially and socioeconomically integrated schools is a priority for DPS, which is in the midst of forming a citywide committee focused on the issue. Yet the proposed deal between Cesar Chavez Academy and Rocky Mountain Prep faces several obstacles, including declining enrollment in northwest Denver, concerns that competition might hurt existing schools nearby, and neighborhood politics that are not friendly to charter schools.

The potential partners hope to make a decision by June about whether to proceed. Rocky Mountain Prep must get district approval to open a new school, which it is seeking. Because the Cesar Chavez building is privately owned, it is not subject to the competitive district process of determining which schools warrant placement in district-owned buildings.

If all goes as hoped, the two schools would partner in a “year zero” planning year for 2017-18, Rocky Mountain Prep would take over preschool and kindergarten through second grade in 2018-19, then grades three through five in 2019-20. Cesar Chavez Academy is a K-8 school, so middle school grades would no longer exist if Rocky Mountain Prep takes control.

If the pieces do fall into place, next school year would be the final year of middle school at Cesar Chavez Academy, forcing families to seek other options.

Cesar Chavez Academy opened in 2009, moving into a gleaming three-story building at 38th Avenue and Tennyson Street that previously housed a charter school that closed.

Serving a mostly Latino student population, Cesar Chavez Academy emphasized character-driven education and back-to-basics reading. Mahoney said it sought, not always faithfully, to use the teachings of Core Knowledge, a rigid curriculum with grade-level expectations meant to instill “background knowledge” in subjects.

The only charter elementary school in northwest Denver — and with no bigger network to support it after it severed ties early on with a Pueblo charter school of the same name — Cesar Chavez Academy soon found itself confronted with a changing neighborhood.

As gentrification intensified, many Cesar Chavez families were forced out of the neighborhood but kept their kids enrolled in the school, Mahoney said. That’s one reason why more than one-third of students are from outside district boundaries.

Enrollment plummeted nearly 30 percent from 2013-14 to 2016-17, from 473 to 339.

The school has never been a high performer on the district’s color-coded school rating system, which prioritizes student performance and growth on state standardized tests. At one point, it moved up two categories from “red” — the lowest rating — to “yellow.”

Then the school’s test scores sank again after Colorado shifted in 2015 to new, more difficult tests aligned with the state’s updated academic standards. Mahoney said that in retrospect, Cesar Chavez Academy didn’t do enough to prepare for the transition to PARCC testing.

The school faced the prospect of closure this school year. In December, a district subcommittee recommended that the district not renew its charter, which would have effectively closed it.

In making the recommendation, the panel cited “a very thin board of directors,” a skeleton crew of only two administrators, high teacher turnover and “alarmingly low” test results. Only 11 percent of students were proficient on the 2016 state and math English tests.

The school needed a longer record of poor performance, however, to qualify for closure under a new district policy. After district staff voiced concerns about holding charter schools to a different standard, the board voted 7-1 to renew Cesar Chavez’s charter.

Cesar Chavez has adopted strategies to improve, including increasing teacher training around the new academic standards and classroom management training.

But while Mahoney said she expects improvement in this year’s scores, it will take significant improvement to avoid the chopping block. The principal had first been in touch with Rocky Mountain Prep about teaming up last spring, and circumstances caused her to do so again.

The marriage makes some sense: The demographics of Cesar Chavez and Rocky Mountain Prep are similar. Their philosophies aren’t far off, either. But the schools couldn’t be further apart on the measure that has forced them together — academic performance.

Rocky Mountain Prep is the largest pre-K-elementary charter network in metro Denver, with 800 students on two campuses in Denver and one in Aurora. The network emphasizes “rigor and love,” “pairing a personalized approach to learning with a nurturing values-based culture.”

“Our vision is to close the opportunity gap that exists between low-income students and their wealthier peers,” the organization says in its charter application to DPS.

The network’s flagship campus, Rocky Mountain Prep Creekside, is the highest-performing Denver elementary school serving a majority of low-income students. The three schools in the network have a collective waitlist of 177 families, according to the charter application.

In making its pitch to DPS, Rocky Mountain Prep emphasized that of all district regions, northwest Denver has the fewest high-quality elementary seats under the DPS rating system.

Several district-run neighborhood elementary schools are in high demand, however, even if their district ratings have dipped since the change in state tests.

Popularity of existing schools and demographic trends in the neighborhood could make Rocky Mountain Prep’s road difficult. Enrollment in northwest Denver is flat or down, the result of rising housing costs and falling birth rates, DPS says.

“We are aware of declining enrollment trends in Northwest Denver but also aware of the urgent need for quality in this region,” Rocky Mountain Prep’s charter application says.

Scott Gilpin, co-founder of Our Denver Our Schools, which supports strengthening district-run neighborhood schools, questioned whether the community wants Rocky Mountain Prep.

He said competing for students with a charter operator with vast marketing resources “becomes a drain” on neighborhood schools such as Edison Elementary and Centennial Elementary, which is improving under a new school model after being in danger of closing.

“It’s frustrating, because people I talk to want strong neighborhood schools with well-rounded curriculums,” Gilpin said.

An integrated school would be new territory for Rocky Mountain Prep. Network-wide, 86 percent of its students quality for free and reduced-price lunch, 60 percent are English language learners and 87 percent are students of color, it says.

James Cryan, CEO of Rocky Mountain Prep, said he believes the college-prep school — where students are called “scholars” and wear uniforms — can have broad appeal.

“Families choose us because they want a warm environment where students do the thinking, where everyone knows everyone’s name and everyone is cared for,” he said. “There is something universal and really powerful for that as a foundation for an education.”

Cryan pointed out that the network offers classes to suit its communities, including Spanish in southwest Denver and music in Aurora, and the same would hold true in northwest Denver.

Other hurdles remain. Cryan said Rocky Mountain Prep will need to restructure the building debt for the takeover to be feasible.

This would not be the first time a high-performing charter has stepped in to take over from a failing operator. In near northeast Denver, University Prep replaced Pioneer Charter School, which in 2015 announced it was not seeking to renew its charter.

Mahoney of Cesar Chavez Academy is candid about what motivates her — her kids.

“Our families are incredibly loyal and incredibly committed,” she said. “I think it’s because one thing we do really well is we really nurture and care for these kids. I think that is what has kept them here despite some of the struggles they have seen.”

Denver-based DSST named finalist for national charter school prize

2017-05-01T16:00:52+00:00

Denver-based DSST Public Schools has been named one of three finalists for a prestigious national prize recognizing large charter school networks with records of high academic achievement, especially with low-income students and students of color.

The $250,000 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools is presented by the the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Winners will be announced June 12 at the National Charter Schools Conference in Washington, D.C. The other finalists are New York-based Success Academy and Harmony Public Schools in Texas.

This is the first year DSST has been large enough to be considered for the award, organizers said.

DSST is an integral piece of Denver Public Schools’ nationally known “portfolio model” that gives families choices among traditional district-run, charter, magnet and innovation schools, which get many of the freedoms afforded to charters.

DSST is also in major expansion mode. By 2024-25, the network plans to have 22 schools in Denver enrolling as many as a quarter of the city’s secondary school students. The network is also seeking to open two new schools in neighboring Aurora Public Schools, which would be its first schools outside Denver.

DSST seeks to build integrated schools — a mission DPS is now investing more energy in — and offers a liberal arts education with a strong science and technology focus. For 10 straight years, 100 percent of DSST graduates have been accepted to a four-year college, school officials say.

Among DSST’s academic accolades spotlighted in Monday’s announcement of the Broad Prize finalists:

DSST operates 12 secondary charter schools that serve nearly 5,000 students in Denver, 69% of whom are low income and 75% of whom are students of color. DSST runs four of the five top Denver Public Schools (DPS) high schools, and five out of the top eight DPS middle schools, according to Denver’s 2016 School Performance Framework. At DSST, all students take the ACT and the average score for their 2016 seniors was 23.3, which far exceeds the ACT college readiness benchmark of 21.3, Colorado’s average of 20.4, and DPS’s average of 18.6.

Critics of DSST and similar high-performing charter schools contend their student populations are not representative because they attract more engaged families, that support from deep-pocketed philanthropic backers gives them an unfair advantage, and that school leaders overemphasize test preparation and performance, among other claims.

Denver school board strikes back at Trump budget, Betsy DeVos’s school choice vision

2017-04-21T02:41:35+00:00

Take that, Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos.

The Denver school board on Thursday approved two resolutions jabbing at President Trump’s first proposed education budget and Education Secretary DeVos’s vision of school reform.

Trump’s budget, the resolution says, would slash funding for a range of programs that help Denver students, including after-school programs, financial aid and Medicaid.

More notable was the DeVos-focused resolution, called “A Resolution in Support of School Choice – Emphasis on Equity and Accountability.”

DeVos started it, essentially, suggested at a Brookings Institution event that the district was not worthy of recognition as a school choice leader because private school vouchers aren’t offered.

The board is trying to draw a stark contrast between DeVos-style reforms and those carried out in Denver Public Schools over the past decade. It reads, in part:

“(T)he Board of Education does not support private school vouchers, which would encourage public education dollars to be spent in private schools that do not serve all students and that are not held to the same standards of transparency and accountability as public schools, but believes instead that public dollars should be used to support and grow public schools, both district-run and charter, that are open to and serve all students.”

Board members were more pointed in their comments during Thursday’s board meeting.

“We are witnessing an assault on public education in this country, both through the budget and the appointment of what I think most of us would agree is the least qualified secretary of education ever appointed to that office,” said board member Mike Johnson.

Board member Happy Haynes said there “have been many who have been trying to associate the work we have done, the careful work that we have done” with the Republican administration.

“We’re not going to quit. We’re not quitters,” Haynes said. “ … It’s the time to double down, and that is what we are doing tonight on this resolution.”

The resolution also amounts to a pre-emptive strike ahead of what should be a contentious school board campaign. Opponents of the incumbent school board members are all but certain to try to link them to DeVos and Trump, not exactly popular figures in heavily Democratic Denver.

Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet: Betsy DeVos is an ideologue, not the face of education reform

2017-04-14T21:32:07+00:00

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on Friday visited a Denver school with a large immigrant population to quiz students about the current political climate, field their questions and calm their fears.

The setting was Bruce Randolph School, a northeast Denver middle and high school where, last month, a classroom full of middle-schoolers tweeted President Trump with messages about how their immigrant families make America great.

School leadership then visited the Colorado congressional delegation in Washington, including Bennet, to deliver bound copies of those tweets. That led Bennet to return the favor with a school visit.

Students asked the Democratic senator, a former Denver schools superintendent, about immigration policy, the expense of college and federal policy about public lands.

One student posed a simple question for Bennet: “Do you like Mexicans?” (After detailing his family’s Polish immigrant past and his work in Denver Public Schools, he made clear that yes, he does).

Bennet’s message to students on edge about the fates of their loved ones who are undocumented: “Try not to be distracted, and we’ll try to figure this out somehow.”

In an interview with Chalkbeat afterward, Bennet answered questions about what he learned from the school visit, his impressions of Betsy DeVos’s start as U.S. education secretary, his fears about how the Trump administration might undermine the nation’s new education law, and more.

This transcript has been lightly edited.

What did you take away from the school visit today? Did it confirm things you suspected, or open your eyes to anything you hadn’t thought about?

It mostly confirmed what I have heard, which is there are a lot of kids in this school that are worried about what is going on with immigration in the country, and concerns about families being broken up, and a kind of a weight that is hanging over them as they try to study and prepare to go to college or a career after high school. That’s a heavy burden for a teenager to carry and for a middle schooler to carry. What I hope is we are able to send a more productive signal from Washington than one that’s been sent in the past few months.

Overall, how would you assess the job Betsy DeVos has done since she was confirmed as education secretary?

I’ve been very disappointed but not surprised. I think she really is an ideologue when it comes to our public schools. When she talks about education in this country, she does not project support, really, for public education. Just the other day, the Denver Public Schools was recognized by a group in Washington for being the No. 1 choice school district in America and she went to that ceremony and took the opportunity to denigrate the work in the Denver Public Schools without having been here. So that does not instill me with a great deal of confidence.

Anything in particular, anything else, that has been disappointing?

I read the other day that she said when asked about the results that had occurred in the Michigan schools and the Detroit schools, her answer to that was that she wasn’t a numbers person, and that she was just for choice. Choice is not choice for choice’s sake. Choice is about improving outcomes for kids and you cannot do that without real accountability that ensures that there is rigor, that we are moving towards rigor, for kids that are choosing schools in the system. I wish she would come to Denver and take a look at the work that’s been done here, both in terms of choice and in terms of trying to move our traditional schools forward.

You spent months trying to craft bipartisan compromise on the Every Student Succeeds Act, the new federal education law. Then the country elected a president who has pledged to eliminate the act’s accountability standards. What advice would you give to state officials and school districts about how to comply — or not comply — with the law’s mandates?

My advice is that we should avoid is a race to the bottom here. There was a change between No Child Left Behind and ESSA, and part of that change was letting go of some of that accountability from the federal government and placing the responsibility on the states. I’m disappointed by the signals the administration is sending. My advice would be to anybody that is in the business of implementing this is to make sure their state is a state that leads all other states in terms of the rigor and expectations we have for our kids. And states can do that. There’s no magic that says the federal government has to do it. But what I would like to see is states competing with each other to provide that rigor, rather than having a race to the bottom, which I think some people worry might be the result of the changes that have been made.

On the same subject, the State Board of Education yesterday signed off on Colorado’s state education plan under ESSA, to forward to Washington. One of the board members, Republican Steve Durham, had this to say: “Unless you’re poor or a minority or from another identity politics group, there is nothing in this plan that will benefit you. There’s nothing in this plan to improve the education of your children.” What do you think about his characterization and choice of words?

Well, I haven’t read the plan so I can’t speak directly to the plan. I can speak to the process, the development plan, which as far as I can tell was very far-reaching across all of Colorado and included constituencies both in urban areas and rural areas. And I think a lot of parents and educators were involved … I will withhold judgment on the final product, but I think the process struck me as a robust process. I don’t think (what Durham said) is helpful rhetoric. I think what we should be doing is making sure all kids in this state have a chance to have a great education no matter what circumstances they are born into. We’re a long way from that being true. Language that divides us is not helpful in trying to achieve that objective.

There are a lot of things in play in Colorado this year, including some local school board elections. Earlier this spring, the Colorado Education Association, in opposing a bill in Colorado that would boost charter school funding, branded it a “Betsy DeVos-Style Privatization Bill.” We are likely to see similar in school board races, including in Denver, where the incumbents all favor reforms you began and Tom Boasberg continued. What do you think of that message and tactic?

That is one of the very regrettable aspects of President Trump choosing Betsy DeVos to be the secretary of education, because if she becomes the face of reform in this country, if she becomes the face of change in this country, and that becomes an excuse for not changing and not reforming our schools or our school districts, that would be a real shame. I know what the content of the reforms are in the Denver Public Schools. I know what our starting point was and I know where we are today. And I am the first to say we have a long, long way to go. We are certainly not perfect, we certainly made mistakes, but we’ve created a lot of opportunity for a lot of people. I for one am not going to have that work thrown under the wheels of the bus of an ideologue in Washington who I think doesn’t reflect in any way the work that’s been done in Denver over now many years.

You take a bipartisan approach to your role in the Senate. What opportunities do you see — if any — to find bipartisan common ground on education issues?

Broadly speaking, even though I’ve spent a lot of my first term working with others in the other party, this is a moment where bipartisanship looks very hard to find. And the place I think with respect to education where I think we’re going to find it, and I’m optimistic about it, is higher education and the reauthorization of the higher ed bill. I’ve already had conversations with Lamar Alexander, who is the Republican chairman of the education committee. He and I worked very closely together on ESSA. And I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about access questions for higher ed: How to make higher ed more accessible, less expensive. We heard some of these questions today, not surprisingly at all, from students at Bruce Randolph. So I look forward to rolling up my sleeves with Chairman Alexander and seeing what we can do as a bipartisan way to create a higher ed bill that’s more responsive to the needs of kids that are living in the 21st century rather than in the 20th or 19th century.

Incumbent president holds on in Denver teachers union election recount

2017-04-11T01:19:49+00:00

The president of the Denver teachers union will hang onto his position, according to results of a mandatory recount.

Henry Roman, head of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, held off challenger Tommie Shimrock, a middle school teacher and leader of a slate of progressive, social justice-oriented candidates, according to the union.

Initial results announced last month showed Roman with 906 votes to Shimrock’s 857. The margin was within the 3 percent threshold for an automatic recount.

The recount, conducted Friday night, changed little, according to a union announcement: Roman finished with 905 votes to Shimrock’s 855.

Still, the progressive slate — which grew out of a new caucus within the union — took four of the seven union leadership seats in play, including vice president.

Roman and his allies ran on a platform that the union has been making progress in better engaging members, challenging Denver Public Schools in court and turning out large numbers for contract bargaining.

The challengers portrayed the establishment as ineffective in battling a “corporatist” district agenda, unsuccessful in influencing school board elections and inadequate in addressing broader social justice issues.

Cary Kennedy jumps into Colorado governor’s race, citing need to pay teachers “as professionals”

2017-04-10T21:41:48+00:00

The Democratic field of Colorado gubernatorial hopefuls is firming up — and education promises to play an outsized role in the race.

Former State Treasurer Cary Kennedy on Monday announced her campaign for the 2018 election, following U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter’s launch event Sunday.

Neither development was a surprise. Both have long been considered contenders to replace Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who is leaving office due to term limits.

Former state Sen. Michael Johnston was an early Democratic entrant, announcing his bid in January. The former teacher, principal and architect of Colorado’s controversial teacher evaluation law last week touted an impressive first-quarter fundraising haul.

In a Facebook Live video announcing her candidacy, Kennedy focused heavily on education, which she described as the No. 1 issue of her campaign. The graduate of Denver’s Manual High School said she is frustrated by what she sees in public schools today.

“I want all our kids to be thinkers and creative problem-solvers, not just good test-takers,” Kennedy said, adding that she wants to pay teachers “as professionals.”

Kennedy is the author of Amendment 23, a constitutional provision that requires school funding to increase by inflation and enrollment growth every year. Lawmakers have used a legislative workaround, however, to deny schools what is coming to them under the amendment.

Kennedy also crafted the eight-year-old Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) program, which funds school building replacements and repairs through a competitive grant process.

In a news release, Kennedy’s campaign also mentioned the importance of giving every child the chance to attend preschool and kindergarten, offering technical and professional courses to high-school students, and tackling college debt.

Johnston got his start in education policy after joining the Teach For America program, and became arguably the state’s best known promoter of education reform.

His leadership in overhauling the state’s teacher evaluation system in 2010 made him a popular target for teachers unions, a powerful constituency in the Democratic party. Johnston also was among those who championed 2013’s Amendment 66, a failed effort to pump $1 billion into the state’s schools.

Perlmutter’s education record is thinner than Johnston’s and Kennedy’s.

During his time as a state lawmaker, Perlmutter sponsored little education legislation, according to a review of the bills he sponsored between 1995 and 2002.

But Perlmutter has close ties to Jeffco Public Schools, the state’s second largest school district, which is part of his congressional district.

Perlmutter attended Jeffco Public Schools, as did his children. His wife, Nancy, is a former Jeffco teacher. More recently, he supported the successful recall of three conservative Jefferson County school board members and championed a slate of candidates to replace them. The recall was heavily financed by the Jefferson County and state teachers unions.

Perlmutter joining the gubernatorial race caused other political dominos to fall. Democratic state Rep. Brittany Pettersen, chair of the House Education Committee, announced on Sunday that she would run for Perlmutter’s congressional seat in 2018. State Sen. Andy Kerr, a Jefferson County teacher, said he is also running for the seat.

The Democratic field for governor has come together quickly after former U.S. Senator and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced he would not run. U.S. Rep. Jared Polis of Boulder, chairman of a House education subcommittee, also has said he is considering joining the field.

Entrepreneur Noel Ginsburg, who heads a nonprofit organization that is set to launch a new youth apprenticeship system in Colorado this fall, has also announced his candidacy.

The Republican race for governor is still taking shape. George Brauchler, the 18th Judicial District attorney, named education and transportation as his two top issues in announcing his candidacy last week.

Other possible GOP candidates include State Treasurer Walker Stapleton and Kent Thiry, CEO of Denver-based DaVita HealthCare Partners. Thiry and his wife have contributed money to local charter schools, including DSST Public Schools and STRIVE Preparatory Schools.

Did immigration agents get too close to a Denver school? City, district officials raise questions

2017-04-06T23:29:10+00:00

Leaders from Denver’s city government, school district and court system have a message for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: back off our schools and courthouses.

In a letter Thursday to the acting chief of the local ICE field office, officials including Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg asked that the agency follow its own policy in respecting such “sensitive locations” while carrying out their duties.

The letter in part was triggered by a March 14 incident that rattled one Denver school community.

That morning, federal immigration agents dressed in black arrived at a residence directly adjacent to Colorado High School Charter in west Denver, a neighborhood that is home to many immigrant families, according to the letter. The enforcement action, which was planned, came during morning drop-off in plain view of students and families, it said.

“We believe this enforcement action, particularly because it was scheduled to occur during the morning drop-off period, may have violated both the letter and the spirit of your sensitive location policy,” the letter reads. “The hour and location of this action potentially put children, staff and parents in danger should your agents have encountered resistance, and clearly caused alarm to the principal and the community served by the school.”

The 2011 “sensitive location” policy discourages ICE agents from arresting, interviewing, searching or surveilling targets of investigations while they are in schools, places of worship, hospitals or at public demonstrations like marches and rallies. Exceptions are allowed if “exigent circumstances exist,” or other law enforcement actions have led officers to a sensitive location.

A memo laying out the policy also says ICE officers or agents should consult with supervisors if a planned enforcement operation “could reasonably be viewed as being at or near a sensitive location.”

Another aspect of the March 14 incident bothered authors of the letter to ICE. According to the letter, video taken during the incident shows ICE agents wearing black uniforms with “POLICE” in large white letters and “ICE” in much smaller type. This, the letter said, can lead people to mistakenly think that local police are involved in immigration enforcement.

A Denver-based ICE spokeswoman did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Denver Public Schools has taken several steps to reassure immigrant families in the wake of President Trump’s election and his following through on campaign promises to adopt hard-line immigration policies.

The school board in February approved a resolution saying DPS will do everything “in its lawful power” in response to immigration enforcement to protect students’ confidential information and not disrupt learning. That includes continuing its policy of not collecting any information on students’ immigration status and involving DPS’s general counsel in any enforcement requests.

Alex Renteria, a DPS spokeswoman, said the principal of Colorado High School Charter contacted the City Council, not the school district. She said the district’s legal department could not recall other examples of ICE detentions near schools.

The principal of Colorado High School Charter, Clark Callaham, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The school is an alternative high school serving at-risk students. As of last fall, it had 350 students, 62 percent of whom are Hispanic, DPS data show. Many are from outside the district’s boundaries.

Boasberg said in a statement Thursday that the district is required by law “to ensure that our schools are safe spaces where a student’s race, ethnicity, religion and immigration status do not create any barriers to that child’s education.”

“We urge ICE to continue to respect our schools as sensitive locations so that our students know they are safe,” Boasberg said. “When they are confident in their safety, they will be more successful as students and their success as students is so vital to our shared success as a community.”

Challengers claim victories in Denver teachers union elections, race for president heading for recount

2017-03-24T22:23:22+00:00

A slate of progressive, social justice-oriented candidates won a majority of seats up for grabs in the Denver teachers union election, and the race for president is headed for a recount, according to results released to union members Friday.

Denver Classroom Teachers Association president Henry Roman edged challenger Tommie Shimrock, the leader of the slate, 906 to 857, according to an email from the union obtained by Chalkbeat.

The margin is within the 3 percent threshold for an automatic recount, which will be held after Denver Public Schools returns from spring break April 3, the email said.

Christina Medina, a northwest Denver elementary school teacher, defeated incumbent vice president Lynne Valencia-Hernández, 922 to 809.

In all, members of the progressive slate — part of a new caucus within the union — took four of the seven seats in play. Along with the top two posts, the elections were for board of director seats representing southwest, northwest and northeast Denver.

Union representatives and the candidates did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

While mixed, the results are a boost for members of the caucus, who view their efforts as part of a national movement to reinvigorate teachers unions, many of which have experienced flat or declining membership.

Roman, Valencia-Hernández and their allies ran on a platform that the union has been making progress in better engaging members, challenging Denver Public Schools in court and turning out large numbers for contract bargaining.

Shimrock, Medina and their peers portrayed the status quo as ineffective in battling a “corporatist” district agenda, unsuccessful in influencing school board elections and inadequate in addressing broader social justice issues facing the community.

Here are the full results, according to the union email. Members of the progressive slate are designated with an “s.”

PRESIDENT

Henry Roman: 906
Tommie Shimrock (s): 857

VICE PRESIDENT

Christina Medina (s): 922
Lynne Valencia-Hernandez: 809

SW BOARD OF DIRECTORS (one opening)
Jocelyn Palomino: 192
Marguerite Finnegan (s): 174
Janell Martinez: 66

NW BOARD OF DIRECTORS (three openings)

Hipolito (Polo) Garcia (s): 246
Kris Bethscheider: 177
Kate Tynan-Ridgeway (s): 170
Brianna Myers: 152
Terrilyn Hagerty: 135

NE BOARD OF DIRECTORS (one opening)

Tiffany Choi (s): 271
Bill Weisberger: 203

Will Denver’s teachers union election shake up the status quo?

2017-03-22T00:12:33+00:00

Their school days concluded, about 35 Denver educators gathered in a high school auditorium earlier this month to hear starkly different visions of what a teachers union should be.

On one side of a table up front, three veteran union leaders painted a picture of steady progress in better engaging members, challenging Denver Public Schools in court and turning out large numbers for the latest round of contract bargaining.

Sitting to their right, three younger teachers gunning for those union leadership positions portrayed the status quo as ineffective in battling a “corporatist” district agenda and in addressing broader social justice issues harming students and communities.

Which vision prevails will be known Friday, when results are expected to be announced in an unusually competitive and testy Denver Classroom Teachers Association election. Seven members of a newly formed caucus within the union — including the three who took part in this month’s debate — are running as a slate to challenge incumbents for every eligible seat.

The outcome will provide a sense of how rank-and-file teachers view the state of their union, which has had little impact slowing Denver Public Schools’ nationally known reforms. It’s also the latest test of a growing movement across the country pushing unions, many of which are suffering declining or flat membership, to drape themselves in progressive social justice causes.

“The caucus is not trying to divide our union,” said Tommie Shimrock, a middle school teacher who is challenging eight-year incumbent Henry Roman for union president. “The caucus is designed to push a viewpoint that members do not feel is being elevated.”

Both Roman and Lynne Valencia-Hernández, the union vice president, refused interview requests for this story. Both said they were too busy with contract negotiations and other responsibilities.

Roman has previously said members of the new caucus — called the Caucus of Today’s Teachers — are “entitled to their opinions and that’s all good.”

At the March 1 debate, Roman noted that membership challenges are not unique to the Denver teachers union. He said the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest union, is “facing tough times.” A spokesman for the association said it has more than 35,000 members, but he declined to provide information about membership trends.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has about 2,940 members, or about half the teachers in DPS, officials say.

Shimrock portrayed the Denver union’s current leadership as complicit in an era that has seen erosion of teachers’ rights and rapid growth of charter schools and innovation schools. Innovation schools are managed by the district but don’t need to follow the union contract.

Shimrock also criticized the union for failing in efforts to elect candidates to the school board who favor union positions. With four of the seven Denver school board seats up for grabs this November, a high-stakes, big-money election is anticipated.

Roman said at the debate that the union is “absolutely moving in the right direction.” Large numbers have attended a handful of contract bargaining sessions, including a boisterous Monday night meeting about teacher evaluations that drew Superintendent Tom Boasberg and his deputy, Susana Cordova.

Both the current regime and the challengers agree that the district’s teacher evaluation and pay-for-performance systems have not served teachers well. But they disagree on what to do next, with the new caucus arguing it’s time to scrap both and start over.

Roman said that when discussing the pay-for-performance system, known as ProComp, the union has to be realistic.

“As an organization, we cannot deal in absolutes,” Roman said. He added that organizations can have “no permanent friends and no permanent enemies.”

The current union leadership is already claiming some victories in bargaining, including giving every member access to an HMO as part of the health care plan. So far, however, the union has not made headway in trying to change contract language about evaluations.

The upstart caucus in Denver is drawing inspiration and ideas from the Chicago union, where a similarly-minded group wrestled away leadership seats and went on to lead a strike in 2012.

One of the Denver slate members, high school math teacher Marguerite Finnegan, traveled to Chicago last spring to march with union members in a one-day strike meant to pressure state lawmakers to break a budget stalemate threatening Chicago’s schools.

Finnegan said in an email the caucus wants the union to become one that “stands up for justice rather than simply being malpractice insurance for teachers.” That, caucus member say, means teaming up with other organizations to work on issues ranging from poverty to better pay for janitors.

“We want to partner with the community and with parents for the good of our students, because we are natural allies,” Finnegan said. “Our working conditions are the students’ learning conditions, and our students deserve the best.”

How Denver Public Schools wants to drive a conversation about creating more integrated schools

2017-03-17T22:09:20+00:00

Denver Public Schools is pledging to start a conversation about gentrification and spiraling housing costs in the city, hoping to use the results to create more integrated schools.

The school board on Thursday approved a “Resolution for Strengthening Neighborhoods.” It calls for forming a citywide committee to study those demographic shifts, which are driving a major reduction in the number of school-age children in many neighborhoods.

“It’s important that DPS address this issue, or begin to tackle this issue, because of the impact on our students, our students’ families, and our workforce,” said school board member Lisa Flores, who represents gentrifying areas of northwest, north and west Denver.

The board said it would use the results to recommend policies on school boundaries, choice, enrollment and academic programs “to drive greater socio-economic integration in our schools.”

Denver schools have a troubled history with segregation. It took court-ordered busing in the 1970s to integrate schools that separated white and black students. Now, the pattern is playing out with Latinos and whites, in large part because the city itself is segregated.

Enrollment growth in Denver is slowing even as the city’s population is surging. Housing prices are driving low-income families out of Denver, new construction is catering to empty-nesters and millennials without children, and birth rates have declined since the Great Recession.

The details of who would serve on the committee, how it will be formed and when it will meet still are being worked out, Flores said. Likely partners include city leaders, the Denver Housing Authority and the Regional Transportation District.

The cost of housing and transportation are among the challenges DPS faces as it seeks to make high-quality schools available to families across Denver.

This story has been updated to make clear when court-ordered busing began in DPS.

Are Denver’s nationally-known school reforms paying off? New report says yes.

2017-03-16T01:28:00+00:00

Top-to-bottom efforts to reform Denver Public Schools are showing positive results, helping the district post the second highest rates of academic growth among large U.S. districts, a new report says.

The mostly laudatory report from Education Resource Strategies, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit, also noted continual challenges facing the 92,000-student district, including widening achievement gaps separating students living in poverty from their better-off peers.

Between 2009 and 2013, DPS trailed only Lincoln, Neb., in academic growth among U.S. districts with more than 25,000 students, the report said, citing federal data. Across all grades and subjects, DPS performance improved almost an entire grade level, the report said.

Academic proficiency increased across all groups of students, and in both district-run and charter schools, it said. The report credited DPS for how it manages schools with different governance structures, saying DPS has avoided “the unplanned under-enrollment and performance degradation in district schools that too often accompanies charter growth.”

However, the report also notes that DPS has taken steps backward in trying to achieve its goal of having 80 percent of students in high-quality classrooms by 2020. For DPS, high quality means schools that rank “blue” or “green” on its color-coded performance system.

As of 2013, DPS was on track to achieve its goals, with 60 percent of students in high-quality seats. That has since dropped below 50 percent, in part because of a shift to new state tests and changes to DPS’s rating formula, the report says.

The report said DPS’s goal may need “recalibration” as a result. DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg recently told Chalkbeat he still thinks the 80 percent goal is achievable.

Karen Baroody, managing director of Education Resource Strategies, said the organization has worked with DPS in the past and approached the district about the study because it has “systematically tried to retool every part of its system” and seen results.

DPS cooperated with the report but did not commission it, a district spokeswoman said. The work was funded by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation.

Baroody said Denver’s changing demographics cannot explain the uptick in academic growth since 2009, saying the trend of more affluent families moving in has grown more pronounced more recently.

To better serve high-needs students, the group urged DPS to strategically place “proven models and operators” of schools and adopt policies “that encourage integration in gentrifying neighborhoods.” Baroody said district-run schools that are growing increasingly white and middle class could adopt preferences for higher-needs students much like charter operators do.

Speaking broadly of integration efforts, she said, “I don’t think anyone in the country has figured out how to do this.”

The report also credited DPS for its “willingness to put teeth into accountability systems by closing chronically underperforming schools.” However, considerable effort should be invested in helping struggling schools, Baroody said.

“In reality, you don’t want to keep closing and opening schools,” she said. “It’s like hiring a teacher and saying if they’re great, great, and if they aren’t, fire them. But brand-new teachers need help and support to get better and most schools, if given the right support, will get better.”

District critics will take issue with many of the report’s findings. For example, the report says DPS investment in changing how it evaluates teachers and school leaders “seems to be paying off.” It cites increased rigor in teacher evaluation and high retention of strong performers coupled with relatively higher attrition of low performers.

In the ongoing election for leadership of the Denver teachers union, the teacher evaluation system, known as LEAP, has come under heavy criticism.

Read the full report here.

Denver Public Schools urging overhaul of school closure policy, promising to better engage families

2017-03-15T23:50:20+00:00

As many as seven low-performing Denver public schools could face closure if the school board approves major revisions to how it decides the fate of struggling schools.

The board is expected to vote in April on changes to its year-old school closure policy, an effort to right the ship after last year’s process resulted in confusion and criticism.

At a work session this week, Denver Public Schools staff recommended changes that include drawing a brighter line for determining which schools would be initially considered for closure, and eliminating use of a subjective “school quality review” as the final step in recommending a school’s fate.

The overhaul would put a majority of board members in the politically fraught position of voting in September to close schools, less than two months before they are up for re-election.

All seven schools now in danger would be spared if they show enough improvement. But they would be eligible for closure if they earn the lowest ranking, “red,” on the district’s next school performance ratings, due out in September. The schools are:

Abraham Lincoln High, a district-run school in southwest Denver
Beach Court Elementary, a district-run school in northwest Denver
Castro Elementary, a district-run school in southwest Denver
Cesar Chavez Academy, a northwest Denver K-8 charter school
The Math and Science Leadership Academy, a union-designed, teacher-led and district-managed elementary school in southwest Denver
Venture Prep High School, a northeast Denver charter school
West Early College, a district-run school that narrowly staved off closure in the last go-around

The revamped policy would create more time for community engagement, DPS says. Last year, a delay in the release of state test scores held up the process, and the district was criticized for giving schools just seven weeks’ notice about the possibility of closure.

The state’s largest school district has closed low-performing schools for years. The policy put into practice last year was meant to be more fact-based and less political.

Schools were recommended for closure vote based on the following criteria:

— Whether they rank in the bottom 5 percent of schools based on multiple years of school ratings and aren’t exempt from the policy because they’re in the midst of a significant intervention meant to boost performance;
— Whether they failed to show an adequate amount of growth on the most recent state tests;
— And whether they scored fewer than 25 out of 40 points on a school quality review.

Schools that met all three criteria were recommended for closure or “restart,” which means keeping the buildings open but with new programs, leadership and staff. The school board, using the policy, voted in December to close one school building and restart two others.

The board is considering major changes to two of the three criteria, with only the piece about showing adequate growth on state tests remaining untouched.

District staff recommended no longer using the “bottom 5 percent of schools” measure to first identify schools, saying it creates uncertainty by being so tied to how other schools perform.

Instead, a “persistently low performing school” would be defined as one that receives:

— Two consecutive “red” ratings on the district’s school performance rating system, which is based primarily on how students perform on state standardized tests. The ratings are blue (the highest), green, yellow, orange and red (the lowest).
— A “red” rating on the most recent scorecard, preceded by either “orange” or “red” ratings on the two preceding ones.

Any schools rated “green” in 2014 would be protected from closure this year. Schools in the midst of a significant intervention would remain exempt.

The board also will vote on scrapping the use of independent school quality reviews as the final piece of the puzzle in deciding whether a school is recommended for closure or restart.

Those scores became controversial after the board voted to close Gilpin Montessori School in northeast Denver. Gilpin supporters filed an open records request that showed the school’s score had been changed from passing to failing before its review was finalized, and didn’t believe the district’s explanation that the changes were routine.

The process would have a new timeline, too.

Schools facing possible closure votes in fall 2017 already have been notified, kicking off a process in which “DPS staff shall actively engage families and others about school performance, improvement efforts and enrollment health.”

The next school performance ratings are due out in September, and the school board would vote on closures the very same month under the proposed timeline. That puts the school board in the precarious position of deciding schools’ fate not long after they get their latest school performance ratings.

DPS officials, however, say that the change in criteria will give schools in danger of closure a full year’s notice in the future, and that past performance is well-known.

The changes also would allow the board to select operators of replacement programs sooner and allow those programs to launch earlier, district officials said. However, that would limit the pool of potential providers to those who were previously approved.

“We are hoping communities will see the possibility of what we’re moving toward and not just what they’re losing,” said school board member Barbara O’Brien.

Alison Wadle, a Gilpin Montessori parent who helped lead community opposition to the board’s decision to close the school, sees flaws in the district’s second pass at the policy — including the promise to spend more time on community engagement.

“DPS has just shown over and over and over again that they are not skilled at engaging in deep community engagement,” she said. “That feels very hollow.”

Wadle said removing the school quality review as a factor would give even greater weight to test scores while missing possible impacts of more recent improvement efforts. And if a school does need to be taken over, limiting the playing field to already-approved providers means charter schools would have a leg up and community-designed schools would not get an opportunity, she said.

Jeani Frickey Saito, executive director of Stand for Children, a pro-reform group that works with families, said it’s critical for the district to improve communication to school communities, and that she “takes the district at its word” about getting better.

“I would hope that the district has learned and has really listened to the communities about the process,” Frickey Saito said. “I think there continues to be a disconnect about how the district perceives the conversation and how the communities are perceiving the conversations.”

That the school board could be voting on closures shortly before an election was raised at Monday’s work session by Lisa Flores, who represents northwest and west Denver. Flores, who is not up for reelection, called the proposed timeline best for students. But she said a vote to close schools, no matter the engagement, “is not going to play well in a community election.”

“You are going to cycle through board members — this is my fear — and not build that institutional knowledge and advocacy I think is really important,” Flores said.

“Change is very important, and I just want to be eyes wide open about what that means.”

None of her colleagues at the work session addressed the political consequences.

Those up for re-election in November are at-large representative O’Brien, central Denver representative Mike Johnson, southwest Denver representative Rosemary Rodriguez and northeast Denver representative Rachele Espiritu, who was appointed to fill a vacancy.

Denver Public Schools urging overhaul of school closure policy, promising to better engage families

2017-03-15T23:50:20+00:00

As many as seven low-performing Denver public schools could face closure if the school board approves major revisions to how it decides the fate of struggling schools.

The board is expected to vote in April on changes to its year-old school closure policy, an effort to right the ship after last year’s process resulted in confusion and criticism.

The overhaul would put a majority of board members in the politically fraught position of voting in September to close schools, less than two months before they are up for re-election.

Abraham Lincoln High, a district-run school in southwest Denver
Beach Court Elementary, a district-run school in northwest Denver
Castro Elementary, a district-run school in southwest Denver
Cesar Chavez Academy, a northwest Denver K-8 charter school
The Math and Science Leadership Academy, a union-designed, teacher-led and district-managed elementary school in southwest Denver
Venture Prep High School, a northeast Denver charter school
West Early College, a district-run school that narrowly staved off closure in the last go-around

The state’s largest school district has closed low-performing schools for years. The policy put into practice last year was meant to be more fact-based and less political.

Schools were recommended for closure vote based on the following criteria:

The board is considering major changes to two of the three criteria, with only the piece about showing adequate growth on state tests remaining untouched.

District staff recommended no longer using the “bottom 5 percent of schools” measure to first identify schools, saying it creates uncertainty by being so tied to how other schools perform.

Instead, a “persistently low performing school” would be defined as one that receives:

Any schools rated “green” in 2014 would be protected from closure this year. Schools in the midst of a significant intervention would remain exempt.

The board also will vote on scrapping the use of independent school quality reviews as the final piece of the puzzle in deciding whether a school is recommended for closure or restart.

The process would have a new timeline, too.

DPS officials, however, say that the change in criteria will give schools in danger of closure a full year’s notice in the future, and that past performance is well-known.

“We are hoping communities will see the possibility of what we’re moving toward and not just what they’re losing,” said school board member Barbara O’Brien.

“DPS has just shown over and over and over again that they are not skilled at engaging in deep community engagement,” she said. “That feels very hollow.”

“You are going to cycle through board members — this is my fear — and not build that institutional knowledge and advocacy I think is really important,” Flores said.

“Change is very important, and I just want to be eyes wide open about what that means.”

None of her colleagues at the work session addressed the political consequences.

Denver Public Schools retooling equity measure, presses forward on scoring schools

2017-03-15T00:31:15+00:00

Denver Public Schools is moving forward with plans to hold schools accountable through a new measure meant to gauge how well they are educating traditionally underserved students, but not before making changes to address concerns from principals and other school leaders.

At a work session Monday, two school board members objected to making the so-called “equity indicator” count toward schools’ overall district quality ratings starting this fall, saying the district was moving too fast. The board eventually reached consensus, backing Superintendent Tom Boasberg’s desire to press forward even as he acknowledged the risks.

The reform-minded district is using the equity indicator to shine a spotlight on educational disparities and encourage change at the school-level. Although DPS’s traditionally underserved students have posted gains on state tests, gaps separating those students from their more privileged peers persist or are widening.

The new measure takes into account the test scores and graduation rates of students of color, low-income students, English language learners and special education students. The district introduced the measure last year, and made schools’ scores public.

But because it was new, the equity rating didn’t count toward a school’s overall rating on Denver’s color-coded school rating system, known as the school performance framework.

The plan all along was to change that starting this fall, based in part on results of state tests students are about to take. Schools’ equity ratings follow the same scale as the overall ratings: blue (the highest), green, yellow, orange and red (the lowest).

Beginning this fall, schools will need to score green or above on equity to be green or blue overall. Several schools have work to do: Of the 82 DPS schools that were blue or green overall last year, 33 were below green on equity.

Two-dozen DPS schools earned the lowest possible equity score last year — red. The district uses school ratings to help make several important decisions, including whether to close schools that are persistently low-performing.

It’s uncertain how changes coming to the equity indicator will change how schools rank.

While some of the changes are new, others were communicated to school leaders last May, said Grant Guyer, executive director of DPS’s department of accountability, research and evaluation.

Some of the most significant moves, which grew out of school leaders’ concerns, deemphasize achievement gaps within individual schools, instead putting more weight on how particular student groups within schools compare to district targets in proficiency (being at grade level) and growth (how much they’ve improved).

“This was trying to address the concerns that, ‘Well, maybe I have a big gap, but all of my kids are outperforming the district. Why should I be penalized for a large gap?’” said DPS Deputy Superintendent Susana Cordova.

DPS said achievement gaps within schools are still included as important measures on overall school ratings system.

Other changes include incorporating early literacy scores into the equity measure, and a greater emphasis on results of tests given to English language learners.

Cordova said that it’s difficult to say whether schools’ equity scores will rise or fall with the changes because the district is tweaking the overall rating system, not just the equity indicator.

The disagreement among board members over the timing of making the equity indicator count was unusual for a board united in support of Boasberg’s brand of education reform.

Board member Mike Johnson, who represents central Denver, said it “feels arbitrary” to hold schools accountable to standards the district is only now establishing. He said the district runs the risk of fewer people buying into the system.

“What we are trying to do is change behavior,” Johnson said. “If you want to change behavior, you need to tell people exactly what you want them to do, give them the tools to do it, and give them opportunity to do it. It just seems we are out of sync in doing that.”

Lisa Flores, who represents northwest and west Denver, voiced support for delaying by a year making the equity indicator count.

Other board members, however, supported moving forward, citing a sense of urgency. Ultimately, the board gave its blessing to Boasberg moving forward as planned. (The decision did not require a school board vote).

District staff said the equity indicator already has led to positive steps, including schools digging more deeply into data, examining causes for gaps and developing plans to take them on.

Boasberg conceded that whether to press forward this year “is a hard question and tough call.”

“But I do think part of what is driving me is that we’ve been at this for a while now,” he said. “And we’ve made some progress but not anywhere near the progress we want to make.”

Boasberg also discussed the societal forces the district faces tackling educational disparities. While teachers and school-leaders are passionate about working with the district’s highest-needs kids, factors ranging from bias to active parents push for giving attention to kids “with more social capital,” a dynamic that plays out at every level of society, he said.

If DSST students do their part, CU Denver will guarantee their admission

2017-03-08T01:09:32+00:00

Students from Denver-based charter school network DSST will get a leg up on gaining admission to the University of Colorado Denver under a partnership announced Tuesday.

DSST high school students who earn a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or more by the end of their junior years will automatically be granted conditional admission to CU Denver, a research institution in the heart of the city.

Although the offer applies to all DSST students, it has a special focus on DSST Cole High School in northeast Denver, where the announcement was made at an all-school rally.

DSST Cole High School is rated “blue,” or distinguished, on Denver Public Schools’ color-coded school performance system. More than three-quarters of students qualify for government-subsidized lunches, and about 87 percent are students of color.

CU Denver Chancellor Dorothy Horrell said the partnership with DSST Cole made sense given the school’s demographics and proximity to the Auraria campus via the light rail system’s D Line.

“We believe in these students and we know that it’s possible for them to be successful,” she said. “They are coming from a rigorous academic background with the expectation that their academic journey will continue. As I look out at the faces of this group, they look like the faces of our students.”

DSST students who have received CU Denver acceptance letters will still need to complete the SAT or ACT and fulfill their graduation requirements, but the application fee to apply to the university is waived.

DSST has similar partnerships with other campuses in the University of Colorado system.

Dear Mr. President: Immigrant students in Denver tweet to Trump about why their families make America great

2017-03-01T22:13:53+00:00

Spread out over large tables, the students of Room 228 cluster together in front of their laptops, typing out messages to the president of the United States.

The sixth and seventh graders at Bruce Randolph School in northeast Denver are the sons and daughters of immigrants. For almost a week now, they have been learning in their English language development class about the contributions of immigrants, President Donald Trump’s rise to power and the vocabulary behind his favorite mode of communication: Twitter.

Those lessons culminated Wednesday when the students’ messages to the president about how their friends and families make America great were posted on the social network via a new classroom account.

“Who used the hashtag, ‘immigrantsrock?’” says teacher Mandy Rees, who came up with the idea of tweeting at Trump. “That makes my heart happy. That’s wonderful.”

Trump’s election and hard-line executive orders on immigration have stoked fears in immigrant communities in Denver and across the country about raids and mass deportations. With so many children of immigrants enrolled in public schools, the classroom has become a forum to meet those fears head on, with educators providing moral support and teaching moments.

This week’s classroom exercise at Bruce Randolph began with a challenge. Principal Cesar Cedillo and another school administrator are headed to a conference in Washington, D.C., this month and arranged meetings with members of Colorado’s congressional delegation.

Teachers were asked to come up with an assignment that would produce something the school leaders could take to the nation’s capital to share with the delegation.

“I kept thinking, ‘How does Donald Trump communicate?’” Rees said. “Well, he communicates through Twitter. This is the best way.”

Last week, the students watched the film “A Day Without a Mexican,” which takes a satirical look at what would happen if all of California’s Mexicans suddenly disappeared. They watched a short PBS “Frontline” piece about Trump’s ascendancy. And they learned the language of Twitter — character counts, how to tweet at people, how hashtags work.

The students spent part of Monday writing drafts of their messages, and refined them Tuesday. Although Rees said the main point of the assignment is to tell students, “You’re important, your voice matters, and it doesn’t feel like that right now,” it’s also a reading and writing exercise.

More than seven in 10 middle school students and nearly eight in 10 high school students at Bruce Randolph are English language learners. Some of the sixth and seventh graders in Rees’s classroom are reading in English at second- or even first-grade level. Many of the students’ parents and relatives are undocumented.

During third period Wednesday morning, students in Room 228 type their 140-character-or-less messages into a shared Google Doc.

One of the two teachers — Rees or Carrie Cisneros — checks them for accuracy and moves them to Twitter, at times tagging Trump’s Twitter handle.

“OK, you guys,” Cisneros says. “I’m ready to tweet another one.”

My immigrant family makes America great because they work and pay taxes. My mom helps make America great by being an honest citizen. — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 #immigrants My father bakes bread and works all day while I take care of my sis. He works hard to help us #family — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 @realDonaldTrumpMy mom is an immigrant and she takes care of me and my sibilings #MYmomisawesome! — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 My immigrant dad helps America by building houses for families and for homeless — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 My immigrant dad works two jobs. #hardworkingman — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 My family are immigrants and they are hard workers with tiring jobs. They work up to 3 jobs. #immigrantsworkhard — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017

The tweets — which Rees plans to compile so school leaders can take hard copies to Washington — come in rapid fire. The students summon the teachers for help with calls of, “Miss, miss.” One boy asks whether it’s possible to use a burrito emoji.

The students were told to keep it positive on Twitter, Rees says, not be mean like Trump can be.

“Don’t forget to capitalize ‘America,’ friends,” Cisneros says.

My cousin helps make America great by being army to fight for us ….He risks his life to protect us. #immigrantsareimportant — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 Immigrants are as equal as anyone else. So are Muslims. We should be able to live anywhere we want without being mistreated. — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 Not all immigrants are bad immigrants. Immigrants have hopes and dreams just like any other person in this world #Hardworkers #Dreamers — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017 At school there’s a lot of students that are Immigrants. If all Immigrants would leave the schools it would be lonely #immagrints — Bruce Randolph ELD (@BRSELD) March 1, 2017

Eating lunch in class after the period ends, a group of sixth-grade boys share their feelings about President Trump, immigrants’ role in society and the assignment they’ve just completed.

“It makes me mad because he is saying we are worthless and we don’t help the U.S.A.,” says student Sebastian Soto. “My dad, he builds houses. My mom, she cleans and cares for us.”

The boys say they hope their messages, whether Trump sees them or not, make a difference in how people think and act. They hope no immigrants are deported, or hurt.

How does it feel to share their experiences with the president?

Says one boy, “I feel proud.”

Trump’s proposed AmeriCorps cuts would trim .03 percent of the federal budget — but slash support at 11,000 schools

2017-02-24T00:00:47+00:00

From when the first students arrive until the last ones leave, eight young adults in white AmeriCorps T-shirts are a constant presence at Denver’s North High, a comprehensive high school where “Viking Pride” has not traditionally translated to academic success.

The corps members, part of a program called City Year, help run North’s social justice and writing clubs, hold kids accountable for their attendance and behavior, and team up with teachers to make math and literacy skills stick with ninth-graders.

All of that could vanish next year. President Donald Trump is set to propose slashing the AmeriCorps program from the federal budget, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. That would cost more than 11,000 schools support that they use to help students who’ve fallen behind, build playgrounds, and offer after-school programs.

On a recent morning, North High School Principal Scott Wolf watched a City Year corps member pull four struggling students out of an algebra classroom and into a hallway, where he sat with a whiteboard explaining how to identify the intersection points of two variable equations.

“A student in those classrooms, they may otherwise just be checked out, sitting there not knowing what to do,” Wolf said. “The corps members allow us to provide supports we could not otherwise offer our kids. Our students open up and can relate to them.”

AmeriCorps has been threatened before, but members and supporters have good reason to fear this time could be different. President Trump has promised significant cuts to government programs, and Republicans control Congress and can easily sign off on them.

The prospect of the elimination of federal funding has brought uncertainty to the 80,000 working AmeriCorps members and the schools and communities that rely on them. It has also mobilized the organization’s leadership and supporters to make their case to Congress that the relatively modest investment — just .03 percent of the federal budget — is worth it.

“We are prepared for this,” said Morris Price, vice president and executive director of City Year Denver, which works in nine city schools. “We have to make a case every year anyway. Now we have to make that case not just at the local level but at the congressional level, of the impact we have. We can’t get lazy. This reminds us of that.”

The proposed cuts target the Corporation for National and Community Service, a $1 billion-a-year agency that finances programs run by AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, a volunteer organization for people over 55.

About half of the agency’s grant funding goes to education-related work, officials said, making it a significant player in school improvement efforts across the country. Its programs include City Year, College Possible, Playworks, Citizen Schools, the National College Advising Corps and a school-based foster grandparent program through Senior Corps.

“We are lucky that for more than 50 years, successive administrations of both parties have engaged with this concept of national service,” said Samantha Jo Warfield, spokeswoman for the Corporation for National and Community Service. “We know the best solutions come from outside Washington where ordinary citizens are doing extraordinary things.”

That federal support is leveraged to raise money from other sources, including private foundations, school districts, universities and colleges, and corporations. The end result is an additional $1.25 billion — more than the federal contribution, according to the agency.

AmeriCorps, however, has long been in the sights of conservative budget hawks and those who don’t believe it’s the government’s business to subsidize public service. (Corps members are not volunteers. They receive a stipend to help with living expenses, health insurance, and another $5,800 after the completion of each year to pay for additional education or to help pay off student loans.)

Blue Engine teaching assistant Alexandra DiAddezio helps 10th-grade geometry students with a project.

In cities ranging from New York to Denver and Memphis to Detroit, roughly 3,000 City Year corps members work alongside teachers and school leaders in long-struggling, high-poverty schools.

At Denver’s Manual High School, which is trying to reinvent itself yet again after a series of reforms, City Year corps members are integrated into all aspects of school life, principal Nick Dawkins said.

In addition to logging 875 hours helping students with literacy and math this year, corps members have surprised teachers with coffee and donuts, served free breakfast to students, and played chess and Monopoly with kids during tutoring, Dawkins said.

Part of the philosophy of City Year is that corps members — 18 to 25 years old — are not far removed from school themselves, allowing them to forge stronger relationships.

“In a tighter budget picture, I would hate to see programs like this go away,” Dawkins said. “I just think they are great kids and are great for school culture.”

In some cities, the possibility of losing funding for programs is throwing plans into question.

In Memphis, the school district is piloting an after-school tutoring program launched through City Year. Now in two Memphis schools, it is designed to grow to five schools and 50 AmeriCorps members by next school year.

Startup director Karmin-Tia Greer said it’s too soon to tell what gutting AmeriCorps would mean for students in Memphis. Currently, AmeriCorps provides about 25 percent of the project’s funding.

“We hope that Congress will continue to support AmeriCorps, which has shown to positively impact students and schools in a cost-effective way,” she said.

In New York City, home to the nation’s largest school district, more than 250 City Year corps members serve in 24 public schools with about 13,000 total students, officials said. AmeriCorps members have also served in the city’s community schools and through programs like Blue Engine, Harlem Children’s Zone, and Teach for America, whose corps members use stipends to help pay for their master’s degree programs.

Through another AmeriCorps program, Citizen Schools, 41 corps members act as teaching fellows in high-needs middle schools in Harlem and Brooklyn, where they also help mobilize community partners to volunteer, said Wendy Lee, executive director of Citizen Schools NY.

“Our entire operating model is based on having AmeriCorps service members in schools,” Lee said. If funding were cut, she said, “We’d either have to rethink staffing or rethink the way our model is delivered.”

As AmeriCorps staff and supporters make their case to Congress, they will point to results.

A 2015 study examining three years of educational outcomes in 22 cities found that schools that partner with City Year were up to three times more likely to improve on math and English assessments.

In Denver, three-quarters of the schools with City Year corps members have moved up in the city’s rating system. That includes North High School, where Wolf, the principal, credited City Year for helping with the turnaround.

Brittanyanne Cahill, 26, who is in her second year of City Year Denver service, reports similar progress at the Hill Campus of Arts and Science.

The suburban Atlanta native majored in special education in college, did a stint student teaching, signed on as a corps member at Hill last year and came back this year as a “senior corps member” mentoring first-year corps members and working with students.

“My eyes have been opened,” she said. “There is so much hardship. Schools around the country are not able to provide the support that all students need to succeed.”

Eric Gorski reported from Denver and Cassi Feldman reported from New York. Chalkbeat reporter Caroline Bauman in Memphis contributed reporting.

Denver Public Schools, Mexican consulate unite to quell immigration fears

2017-02-22T01:50:34+00:00

Flanked by American and Mexican flags, leaders of the state’s largest school district and Mexico’s acting consul general in Denver stood side by side Tuesday pledging to help protect student rights amid stricter immigration enforcement.

At a news conference at the city’s Mexican consulate, the two parties promised to build on their longstanding partnership to offer additional resources to Denver Public Schools families.

The joint appearance came within hours of the Department of Homeland Security releasing new directives laying out a much more aggressive federal approach to enforcing immigration law.

“The most important thing here is the parents and people who have kids in schools, that they know they are safe,” said Jeremias Guzman, Mexico’s deputy consul general in Denver, who is serving as acting consul general.

DPS leadership has been vocal on immigration issues since the election of President Donald Trump, whose hard-line immigration stance was core to his campaign.

The school board approved a resolution Thursday saying DPS will do everything “in its lawful power” in response to immigration enforcement to protect students’ confidential information and not disrupt learning.

That includes continuing its policy of not collecting any information on students’ immigration status and involving DPS’s general counsel in any enforcement requests.

To date, DPS officials say they have not needed to respond to any requests.

DPS has not contacted federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to discuss the district’s approach, according to a statement Tuesday from the district’s deputy general counsel.

Tuesday’s event at the consulate was an opportunity for DPS officials to better communicate to a community on edge about immigration enforcement under Trump.

As board member Lisa Flores noted, the Mexican consulate has a strong relationship with the community’s Spanish-language media. There are 35,550 Spanish-speaking students in DPS, of a total student population of about 92,000.

Superintendent Tom Boasberg delivered remarks in Spanish that he sharpened on a six-month sabbatical to South America last year.

Boasberg said DPS is strengthening its approaches in partnership with the consulate, including sharing information on the district’s daily Spanish language radio program and adding additional community spaces at schools for sharing information beyond new spaces opened last week.

The district is posting its immigration resolution in every school, translating it into 10 languages and training its crisis and emergency response teams to help students dealing with immigration enforcement issues.

“We want to reassure students and families that DPS is committed to providing a safe and welcoming space that will support their education,” Flores said. “The safety and emotional well-being of our students will be supported regardless of immigration status.”

Boasberg was cautious in comments about the federal immigration directives issued Tuesday, emphasizing the district needs to review the details.

The policy calls for the deportation of undocumented immigrants convicted of any criminal offense, a break from the Obama administration’s prioritization of those convicted of serious crimes.

Federal officials said there would be no change to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which provides work permits and deportation protection to young people brought to his country without documentation.

Protecting the program has been a priority of DPS, which has students and teachers who benefit from the program. Boasberg said Tuesday that DACA has been “fundamental to our students, giving them hope for the future.”

He said DPS will continue to advocate for the program and push for it to become enshrined as law.

How Denver Public Schools is assuring immigrant families that their children are safe in city schools

2017-02-17T02:40:00+00:00

As fears spread in immigrant communities about enforcement crackdowns, Denver Public Schools officials took extra steps Thursday to assure families that the district will protect students’ constitutional rights.

The school board unanimously approved a resolution Thursday night affirming DPS’s approach to doing everything “in its lawful power” to protect students’ confidential information and ensure “students’ learning environments are not disrupted” by immigration enforcement actions.

“Above all else, this is for our students to have their fear replaced by confidence and hope,” Superintendent Tom Boasberg said.

Board member Rosemary Rodriguez, who represents southwest Denver, praised the “tenacity and fierce love” of immigrant parents who brought their children to the United States.

“This is a terrible time,” Rodriguez said. “But together we’re going to get through it.”

Among the steps the district promised in the resolution:

Continuing its practice of not collecting or maintaining any information about students’ immigration status.
To contact the district’s general counsel immediately about any request by a federal immigration official to talk to a student while in school or in any school activity or using district transportation.
That in response to any such request, the district’s general counsel won’t share information or provide access to students unless required by law, and will fight to protect students’ constitutional and legal rights.

The resolution does not represent a policy change, but spells out clearly the DPS’s position at a time of anxiety in a district with a large immigrant population. To date, DPS has not had to respond to any immigration enforcement actions, spokeswoman Nancy Mitchell said.

Leadership of the 92,000-student district took its stance on a national day of protest, “A Day Without Immigrants,” meant to spotlight immigrants’ contribution to the U.S. economy and society. Across the country, thousands skipped work and school, business owners hung “closed” signs on their doors and marchers took to the streets.

Guadalupe Tarango, a North High School senior and member of DPS’s student board of education executive team, called the resolution a way to help students feel safe.

“For most of us, school is our second home,” she said. “School is a place where we can learn and grow. And school can be a distraction from the realities we face at home.”

The resolution falls short of a demand from an activist group, Padres & Jóvenes Unidos, that DPS create a strong “sanctuary schools” policy.

Board member Lisa Flores, who represents northwest Denver and parts of west Denver, said at a news conference before Thursday’s meeting that district officials had talked about including “sanctuary” language in the resolution but decided against it because a lack of a clear definition of the term. The term “sanctuary city” is generally used to describe a city that will not cooperate with federal officials on immigration enforcement.

Flores also encouraged families to update students’ emergency contact information provided to the district.

“There is great strength in solidarity,” Flores said, referring broadly to the resolution. “There is great strength in standing together as a community to protect the rights of our students.”

DPS has taken several steps in response to concerns about how immigration policy and enforcement will play out under President Donald Trump. The district in November produced a fact sheet in four languages answering immigration questions, and last month gave voice to South High School students following Trump’s controversial executive order on refugees.

Charter school funding bill clears Senate Education Committee

2017-02-15T19:11:33+00:00

A bill that would require school districts to equally share money from local tax increases with charter schools cleared its first legislative hurdle Wednesday.

Senate Bill 61 advanced out of the Republican-controlled Senate Education Committee on a 4-3 party-line vote.

Supporters testified during a hearing last week that charter school students deserve equal access to taxes their parents pay each year.

Charter schools receive public money but operate independently, with greater autonomy over budgets, curriculum, and hiring and firing. Currently, it’s up to districts whether to share revenues from local tax increases with charter schools, and practices vary.

Opponents said the state would set a dangerous precedent, essentially breaking a compact between school boards and voters who approved tax increases known as mill levy overrides. Under the bill, charters would get a share from such tax measures approved by voters in the past and any that win approval in the future.

The bill was sponsored by state Sen. Owen Hill, a Colorado Springs Republican, and Sen. Angela Williams, a Denver Democrat. It is expected to win Senate approval but its future is cloudier in the Democratic-controlled House. Similar legislative efforts have failed in the past.

“What this bill is really about is the funding disparities that exist,” Williams told the Senate committee Wednesday. “Charters are public schools. They are schools that all our children attend … I don’t think any kid should be systematically underfunded because of the type of school they attend.”

Democrats on the education committee raised a number of concerns. Sen. Nancy Todd, an Aurora Democrat, said that while she fully supports school choice, the state has not been adequately funding the public school system.

“We are in a financial bind as a state,” Todd said. “I don’t believe that it is our role to step in and tell the local school districts what they have to do and how they are going to spend their money. Where does that stop?”

Democratic Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, who represents portions of Jefferson County, said she struggled with the bill. She too cited the financial pressures on districts, which continue to face shortfalls under Colorado’s complicated school funding system.

“I really feel at this time I can’t tie the hands of my local district people with another mandate from the state,” she said.

Sen. Tim Neville echoed other Republicans in saying he supports the bill to bring equality to school funding. He also pointed out that mill levy overrides approved by voters this fall included no language excluding charter schools.

The committee vote was 4-3, with Republicans Hill, Neville, Bob Gardner and Kevin Priola voting yes, and Democrats Todd, Zenzinger and Mike Merrifield voting no.

Denver Public Schools is already looking to overhaul how it closes schools — and these schools could meet that fate

2017-02-15T03:13:37+00:00

Denver Public Schools is considering major changes to its year-old school closure policy — changes that could result in more of the city’s lowest performing schools being shuttered.

District leadership is considering steps that include drawing a brighter line for determining which schools would be initially considered for closure, and eliminating use of a subjective “school quality review” as the final step in recommending a school’s fate.

District staff introduced the potential changes, including several different scenarios, at a school board work session Monday night. The board plans to decide on a path in March.

Between two and six schools could face a board vote on closure this fall, depending on how the schools perform this year and how aggressive the board is in revamping the policy.

The schools most at risk of closure are West Early College — which narrowly dodged that fate this year — and Beach Court Elementary in northwest Denver, according to data DPS officials provided Tuesday to Chalkbeat.

Other schools put on notice that they too could be subject to the closure policy, according to the data:

Abraham Lincoln High School, a tradition-rich comprehensive high school in the heart of Latino southwest Denver;
Castro Elementary, a district-run school in southwest Denver;
Cesar Chavez Academy, a northwest Denver K-8 charter school that recently had its charter renewed by the board;
The Math and Science Leadership Academy, a union-designed, teacher-led and district-managed elementary school in southwest Denver;
Venture Prep High School, a northeast Denver charter school.

That so much about the closure policy could change so soon reflects both its troubled rollout and the pressures on a school board trying to meet ambitious goals to lift school quality.

Deciding how to close schools for performance or financial reasons is a challenge for school districts across the country. Last week, the Jeffco school board struggled through decisions on closing schools for budget reasons. Denver’s performance-based policy, called the School Performance Compact, is considered one of the most specific and detailed in the country.

The state’s largest school district has closed low-performing schools for years. The new policy adopted last year was meant to make a process often driven by emotions and politics more fact-based and transparent.

The current policy evaluates low-performing schools using three criteria:

Schools that met all three criteria are recommended for closure or “restart,” which means keeping the buildings open but with new programs, leadership and staff.

The draft proposals would bring major changes to two of the three criteria, with only the piece about showing adequate growth on state tests remaining untouched.

District staff is proposing no longer using the “bottom 5 percent of schools” measure, saying it creates uncertainty for schools by being so tied to how other schools perform.

Two alternatives were presented for defining a “persistently low performing” school:

— A school is rated “red,” the lowest category, in the district’s current school rating system, and rated “red” or “orange,” the second lowest category, in both of the preceding years. One possible variation: the district could require that one of those years be “red.”
— Back-to-back “red” school performance ratings, but with a caveat for how the policy would play out this fall: Any schools rated on the 2014 school rating system as “blue” or “green,” the two highest categories, would be safe from closure.

For any school to be recommended for closure, it would need to be rated “red” this year on measures that include results from this spring’s state standardized tests.

If the school board chooses the first option, West Early College, Beach Court and Lincoln High would be recommended for closure if they are rated “red” this year.

Lincoln would be spared if the board decides a school must be rated “red” in one of the previous years. The school was rated “orange” in both 2014 and 2016. (A change in state tests made 2015 ratings impossible).

If the board goes with the second option, Lincoln High would not be recommended for closure because it wasn’t classified as “red” in either of those years. Both West Early College and Beach Court would be recommended for closure, along with Castro Elementary, the Math and Science Leadership Academy, Cesar Chavez and Venture Prep.

Again, all of those schools would be need to score “red” on this year’s DPS school performance framework to be recommended for closure. Then the board would need to vote to close the schools next fall. The district also floated the possibility of holding off on adopting the “back-to-back red” standard until the fall of 2018, which would give a reprieve to four of the six schools on the list under option No. 2 — Castro, the Math and Science Leadership Academy, Cesar Chavez and Venture Prep.

None of the school board members voiced a preference Monday for an option.

The majority of board members were clear, however, in their desire to abandon school quality review scores as the final piece of the puzzle in deciding whether a school is recommended for closure or restart.

Those scores became a flashpoint in a controversy over the board’s vote in December to close Gilpin Montessori School in northeast Denver’s Five Points neighborhood.

The reviews came after visits to the schools under consideration for closure by teams of DPS staffers and employees of an education consulting company the district hired to conduct the quality reviews.

Gilpin supporters filed an open records request that showed the school’s score had been changed from passing to failing before its review was finalized, and didn’t buy the district’s explanation that such changes are routine.

Several board members — and Superintendent Tom Boasberg — said Monday the discussion focused too much on one number from the review and not enough on the school’s long record of not adequately serving students. Boasberg pointed out that only one Gilpin student of color in grades three through five scored at grade level on last year’s state math tests.

“The conversation wasn’t about the quality of (what was going on within) four walls in the school,” said board member Rosemary Rodriguez. “It was about the points, and less about what was going on in the classroom with kids.”

In trying to save Gilpin, community members insisted the school was improving. The board ultimately voted to close Gilpin after this school year, and to restart two other elementary schools in the fall of 2018.

Board members expressed interest in either eliminating the school quality review scores from the closure process, or conducting the reviews earlier — in the spring instead of the fall — as part of a body of evidence to consider and not as the final “bright line” to decide a school’s fate.

Only one board member, Lisa Flores, voiced support for cutting the reviews from the closure designation process altogether. She said she was disappointed in how they were used to hold schools accountable. “I will own that this did not work,” she said.

District staff also said a preliminary review found a “low to medium correlation” between the school quality reviews and ratings the schools received on DPS’s school rating system — suggesting the reviews could be a flawed measure for something so high-stakes.

District leadership considers the school closure policy one way — but not the most important way — to help it meet its goal that by 2020, 80 percent of the district’s 92,000 students will attend a high-performing school. Currently, about 38,000 students — or 40 percent of kids — are in schools DPS considers lower performing.

“We need to be thoughtful about our sense of urgency about using the compact as we need to,” Boasberg said.

He said DPS also must be sure school operators stand ready to launch successful “restarts” of shuttered schools. “Otherwise,” he said, “it’s just churn for our communities if we have false restarts.”

On Friday, executives of four Denver charter school networks wrote to district leadership asking for approval to open several new schools in the coming years. Some have expressed an interest in running restarts. Boasberg has said he welcomes interest from both charter and district-operated schools in taking on that role.

Charter schools band together to advocate major expansion in Denver Public Schools

2017-02-11T03:57:20+00:00

Leaders of four charter school networks delivered an open letter to Denver Public Schools leadership Friday asking the district to let them open more new schools in the coming years to help meet ambitious goals to improve the city’s schools.

The charter school executives’ letter, a copy of which was obtained by Chalkbeat, came on the deadline for responses to the district’s annual open call for new school applications.

Three of the networks — University Prep, STRIVE Prep and Rocky Mountain Prep — submitted 10 charter school applications this cycle for schools they hope to open over the next few years.

The school board already has approved six additional DSST schools to open in the coming years, and two existing STRIVE charters are awaiting permanent placement. If all those schools are approved and open, they would serve 11,300 additional students at full capacity.

In all, the district received 23 letters of intent for new school proposals, 17 of them from charters, by Friday’s deadline.

Seven came in response to the only needs the district asked be filled for the 2018-19 school year — replacing two persistently low-performing elementary schools the school board recently voted to shut down in the first test of a new school closure policy.

The united front from the four charter operators signals that they want to play a large role as DPS tries to meet a goal of giving at least 80 percent of district students access to high-quality schools by 2020. As of now, less than 50 percent of students are enrolled in schools that meet that bar through being rated “blue” or “green” on DPS’s color-coded rating system.

In their letter to the district, the charter operators touted the collective success of their schools, saying 91 percent of their 22 schools are rated green or blue. Altogether, the networks serve a population that is 90 percent students of color and 81 percent high-poverty.

“We have a deep sense of urgency now,” said DSST CEO Bill Kurtz. “We aren’t making very much progress, particularly for students that are in low-performing schools that are not seeing much opportunity to be in a high-performing school.”

DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said Friday the district welcomes both charter and district-run proposals for new quality schools — and acknowledged that a lack of supply has been a challenge in reaching the goal outlined in the Denver Plan 2020.

“We keenly feel a sense of urgency about reaching that goal,” he said. “I do think it is achievable.”

This year’s “Call for New Quality Schools” does not provide much of an opening for would-be school operators. DPS only solicited two “new high-quality programs” to replace the elementary schools being closed — Greenlee in west Denver and Amesse in far northeast Denver. The goal is to launch those school “restarts” in the fall of 2018.

The current Greenlee principal, Sheldon Reynolds, filed an application to lead a restart at the school under a new name, the Greenlee Community School.

The DPS grad said he hopes to build on a foundation that has begun to bear fruit, including a jump in DPS’s quality ratings. Reynolds adopted a “Possibility Plan” that celebrates students’ accomplishments and seeks to strengthen school culture.

“We’ve had a lot of positive things going on,” he said. “Me being in my first year, and in the first year of implementing the (closure) policy, it was more that we got caught up in the history of the past of the school … This gives us an opportunity to show we can have growth for a number of years.”

A proposed charter school using Core Knowledge curriculum also put in a letter of intent for the Greenlee restart, as did a college prep-focused charter called PODER Academy.

The competition for the Amesse space is more heated, including applications from two charter operators — STRIVE and University Prep — that co-signed the Friday letter to DPS.

The leadership of McGlone Elementary, a district-run turnaround school that has become a DPS darling for posting impressive academic growth, also filed a letter of intent for the Amesse restart. The PODER Academy team also formally filed interest.

The school board is scheduled to choose new programs for Greenlee and Amesse in June, and applicants will get plenty of chances to make their pitches in community meetings before then.

Three of the four charter schools that sent the joint letter to DPS used the filing deadline to express interest in opening more schools in the next several years.

Rocky Mountain Prep, which operates two elementary schools in Denver and one in Aurora, wants to open one new school in 2018-19, one in 2019-20 and one in 2020-21. CEO James Cryan said the network is open to being a restart operator in the future.

“I believe firmly that every student deserves a great school and a great public school to go to, and I know there have been generations of students who have been failed by historically low-performing schools,” he said. “I don’t believe any school has a right to exist just because it’s existed in the past if it has a track record of failing its community and students.”

One possible tension as the district tries to lift the quality of schools citywide — disagreement over the role school closures will factor in the efforts. The new closure policy, called the School Performance Compact, had a rocky rollout marred by confusion and community criticism.

STRIVE Prep CEO Chris Gibbons, who put in letters of intent to open three new elementaries over the next five years in addition to seeking to run the Amesse restart, said “urgent action” is needed to provide families high-quality educational opportunities.

“We need more families in high-quality options to get there,” he said. “And more aggressive use of the compact is one path.”

Boasberg, however, has made it clear that the district does not see school closures as the primary vehicle for achieving the district’s ambitious goals in the next four years.

“Clearly, the overarching and most important strategy is to improve and support our existing schools to ensure they are meeting the needs of our kids, particularly our highest needs students,” he said. “We also have been really clear over the last decade that if after sustained efforts to improve, if a school is not showing more growth for kids, we will restart that school.”

“To us, it’s not an ‘either or’ but a ‘both and’ — with a very clear primacy on improving our existing schools.”

Calling all teachers: Have student-engagement routines like the one in this viral video? Show them off

2017-02-03T16:44:48+00:00

You may have — OK, you no doubt have — seen this viral video of a Charlotte, North Carolina, teacher who starts each morning with an elaborate, personalized greeting for each of his students.

Barry White, a fifth-grade English teacher, and his colleagues say the routine helps build the kind of relationships that are essential for students at their school, where almost all students come from poor families and only a third score at grade level on state tests. (The Charlotte Observer featured the school in a series about local philanthropic efforts to break the link between poverty and achievement.)

White’s moves might be unique, but his strategy isn’t — many teachers create routines meant to make each of their students feel special. Are you one of them? If so, let us know. Bonus points if you send us a video so we can share it with our readers.

These five Jeffco elementary schools face possible closure. Here’s why.

2017-01-27T05:30:24+00:00

Five Jefferson County elementary schools in three different areas of the state’s second largest school district would be closed after this school year as part of $20.4 million in budget cuts proposed Thursday.

Jeffco Public Schools is facing a squeeze in local and state funding while it also seeks to better pay teachers and staff, which the school board has made a top priority.

In hearing staff budget recommendations Thursday night, the board kicked off what is sure to be a difficult, contentious process. Few issues are as gut-wrenching and politically fraught as closing schools that are woven into the fabric of communities.

The five schools facing possible closure after this school year are: Peck Elementary and Swanson Elementary in Arvada, Pennington Elementary in Wheat Ridge, Stober Elementary in Lakewood and Pleasant View Elementary in Golden.

In total, the schools have 850 students in their enrollment boundaries, district officials say. All five are in buildings that are at least 50 years old. All but one — Pennington — saw enrollment declines this year.

Four of the five schools share another characteristic — their student populations are poorer than the district average. At both Pennington and Pleasant View, more than 80 percent of students qualify for free and reduced-priced lunches, an indicator of poverty. At Swanson, the rate is 66 percent and at Peck, it is 58 percent. The district average is 33 percent.

Closing the schools and sending the children to neighboring elementaries would save the district $3.5 million a year, staff said.

“We need to get the process right as we go down this trail,” said board president Ron Mitchell. “Part of the reason I believe that is because this is not the end of this process. This is the beginning. We are going to be in this business (of closing schools) in the years to come … We need to do it well, do it right.”

The board was asked to vote on the closures and other budget cuts on Feb. 9 — a quick turnaround that illustrates the difficult position the district is in after November’s failure of two tax measures that would have gone to buildings and teacher salaries.

Other Denver-area school districts passed their tax measures, putting Jeffco at a disadvantage when economic forecasts and limitations from the state’s complicated tax laws mean “there is no life raft coming from the state,” as one staff member put it.

With 13,000 seats sitting unused, enrollment projected to continue declining in certain areas, and the edict that teachers be paid more to keep the district competitive, district staff said the time to act is now.

“It will be a disruption to some families short-term,” Superintendent Dan McMinimee said. “But hopefully long-term, those families will see the benefits of having high-quality educators in classrooms their kids can access.”

District staff chose the schools based on a number of criteria, including enrollment trends, the condition of the building and the capacity of nearby schools to absorb more students. Academic performance was not taken into account.

District staff is also recommending another significant, long-discussed change: that Jeffco middle schools add sixth grade in addition to the existing seventh and eighth grades, to make better use of space and save money. The majority of districts in metro Denver and the nation follow that structure. Some Jeffco middle schools would get additions to make room for the additional grade.

Other budget cuts that district staff recommended include:

Eliminating all social and emotional learning specialists and a coordinator. Schools nationwide are investing in this work, which helps students develop skills to manage their emotions, resolve conflicts and make responsible decisions. Denver Public Schools in November passed a tax increase that will bolster efforts to help students’ social and emotional needs.
Cutting by half the number of specialists who teach literacy to students who are below grade level. District research shows literacy interventionists are “closing the gap for our most highly impacted populations.”
Cutting four of 16 “resource teachers” who help support teachers of students determined to be gifted and talented.

Other proposed cuts include increased athletics fees, elimination of a quarterly audit and a reduction in how often schools are cleaned at night by custodians.

Only a handful of the proposed cuts — including the school closures and fee increases — require board approval.

Several school board members expressed reservations about the proposals Thursday, voicing concerns about a “very squeezed timeline,” that three of the schools slated for closure were not previously identified as candidates for closure, and a possible erosion in community trust in the board. Some questioned whether school performance should be a factor in closing schools.

Board member Ali Lasell said the board had told the community that steps such as moving sixth grade into middle school wouldn’t happen until 2018. The response from district staff: Circumstances have changed and so must the plan.

Said Mitchell: “We’ve got in my mind a little bit of an integrity issue here.”

McMinimee said fewer than 120 teachers and staff would be impacted by the closures, and most would likely be offered other positions in the district, in part because of expected turnover.

As a result, the district will save money not on personnel but on not having to keep open and maintain under-utilized buildings that also are in need of repair. The district can also sell the property, taking earnings from that.

In an interview before Thursday’s meeting, McMinimee said the district is watching enrollment along the county’s eastern boundary with Denver, where some longtime families no longer have children in school and others are being priced out or kept out by skyrocketing housing costs.

Both Denver Public Schools, which is seeing its enrollment growth slow, and Aurora Public Schools, which saw a record enrollment decline this year, also are feeling the impacts of rising costs and gentrification.

“Growth in a metro area is a lot like throwing a rock in a pond,” McMinimee said. “What happens in Denver just has this ripple effect you see going out into the suburbs now. Obviously, that stops when you get out into an area where there are high-priced homes already.”

The district and community groups have poured resources into lifting student achievement in clusters of schools with large numbers of students who live in poverty. Just last week, the district celebrated graduation rate gains at one such school, Jefferson High.

McMinimee acknowledged he was concerned about the impact the closures could have on the district’s efforts to serve traditionally underserved communities, but he urged a broader view.

“I am concerned about that, but I also recognize our responsibility is to 86,000 kids,” he said. “It’s not just one specific area. Those efforts that we put into those schools, those can be replicated in other areas.”

Five Jeffco Public Schools recommended for closure under budget-cutting plan

2017-01-27T00:18:53+00:00

The Jefferson County school district is proposing closing five schools in a cost-cutting move to meet a school board directive to better pay teachers and staff, Superintendent Dan McMinimee told reporters Thursday.

McMinimee’s comments came hours before a board meeting where the names of the schools will be publicly announced.

Given enrollment trends in Jeffco, it’s likely that the schools slated for closure will include some along the district’s eastern border with Denver. Those schools, which serve large populations of students living in poverty, have been the focus of recent district and community efforts to boost academic achievement.

“It will be a disruption to some families short-term,” McMinimee said. “But hopefully long-term, those families will see the benefits of having high-quality educators in classrooms their kids can access.”

The proposed closures are part of an effort to save between $20 million and $25 million, with the goal of spending that amount on attracting and retaining high-quality educators. Jeffco teachers on average are paid about $10,000 to $15,000 a year less than their peers in other metro area districts, McMinimee said, making it difficult to meet the district’s goal of ensuring every classroom has exceptional educators.

The school board decided to make spending on compensation a priority in November, after voters rejected a bond request for capital improvements and a tax increase that would have helped boost teacher salaries.

The 86,000-student district also anticipates a drop in enrollment, which will mean less money from the state. A change in property tax assessments also could cost Jeffco an estimated $10 million in state revenue, McMinimee noted.

The board will not be making any decisions Thursday. School principals were notified earlier in the day that their schools are being recommended for closure, McMinimee said. He called the closure recommendations “very difficult choices.”

The district identified the schools after considering nine or 10 criteria, among them enrollment trends and the condition of the buildings, he said. According to data provided by the district, enrollment is declining in the Edgewater, Jefferson and Alameda areas along Denver’s western boundary. Some Arvada schools also have many empty seats.

Fewer than 120 teachers and staff will be impacted by the closures, and McMinimee said he expects most will be offered other positions in the district. Between 300 and 500 positions come open per year, either because of one-year contracts elapsing or people moving on, he said.

As a result, the district will save money not on personnel but on not having to keep open and maintain under-utilized buildings, many of which are in need of repair. The district can also sell the property, taking away earnings from that.

All five Jeffco school board members won election in 2015 after a bitter recall campaign that saw the ousting of three conservative board members who hired McMinimee for the superintendent’s job. The recall had strong backing from the teachers union; the union also supported the candidates who swept to power and now hold all five seats.

This month, the school board voted to begin a search for a new superintendent while McMinimee still has six months remaining on his contract.

Chalkbeat’s Yesenia Robles contributed information to this report.

Meet the teacher who helped organize the Women’s March on Denver

2017-01-24T01:23:01+00:00

Upset about the election result and wanting to act, Cheetah McClellan was excited to learn that women from across the country were planning to march on Washington, D.C., the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Then she checked out prices on flights and hotel rooms, and remembered she was earning a beginning teacher’s salary.

Maybe, she thought, Denver ought to have its own women’s march. After searching fruitlessly online for anyone planning such a thing, McClellan created a Facebook event page, shared it with some left-leaning social media sites and waited.

By the next morning, 800 people had signed up for an event that was more of an idea at that point.

Not long after, McClellan connected with a couple of similarly inspired local women — Karen Hinkel and Jessica Rogers — and plans for the Women’s March on Denver began to take shape.

Cheetah McClellan

On Saturday, a larger-than-anticipated crowd of more than 100,000 filled Denver streets and Civic Center Park in a display of what organizers described as a united front for equality and women’s rights after Trump’s ascension to the White House.

McClellan, 42, came to teaching later in life after working as a bartender, waitress and astrologer who did readings and wrote a column about astrology, she said. McClellan completed her teacher licensure through a University of Colorado Denver residency program, and is now pursuing a master’s in culturally and linguistically diverse education.

This school year, McClellan is doing math intervention work on a one-year contract at Colfax Elementary School in Denver, which has a large number of Latino students living in poverty.

We caught up with McClellan after the march she helped lead. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What led you to become a teacher?

Life just kind of pulled me in that direction. I was volunteering at my kids’ school, doing writing groups with kids. The school secretary said, “Do you want a job?” So I became a paraprofessional. Then I decided I wanted to be a teacher.

There is something so beautiful about a child’s mind that is just so wide open and eager to learn. There is nothing more fulfilling to me that hearing, “Miss, I get it.”

Why did you invest so much energy in the organization of this march? What motivated you?

I have always considered myself to be politically aware and informed. I’ve always voted, I try to be vocal and have conversations with people. But I never was super-active. Last year, I was doing student teaching for my residency. Even before Trump was the (Republican) nominee, kids were scared. I was working with fourth graders, and literally every single day a student would ask me a question about Trump that revolved around fear. “Will they really deport us? Will my mom and dad have to go back to Mexico?” While we want students to be aware of politics, they were not just aware of it, they were emotionally affected by it. They were scared. That just really bothered me. The day after the election, the whole fifth-grade class was sobbing.

My son has Asperger Syndrome. So when Trump mocks a disabled person, it irks you. My daughter identifies with the LGBT community. She said she was so scared. All this got me mad.

Have you brought any of your work organizing the march into the classroom, used it in your teaching in any way?

Some of the kids know what I’ve been doing. But it’s not something I have been able to discuss in more of an academic way. Moving forward, I am actively looking for a teaching position next year and I’m definitely excited to bring this into the classroom — especially in Colorado, where we have such a rich history of the women’s movement. I don’t think a lot of people realize that. Continuing to empower girls at the same time educating boys that empowered girls are not a threat: That’s how I’d like to incorporate it into the classroom. This is definitely something that is not ending.

So what does come next?

We are working to create a nonprofit organization out of this. We want to move forward with it but we’re not sure exactly how it’s going to look like at this point. I am hoping it becomes a platform for community networking and — as I have called it — legislative meddling. We want to make sure we have an impact on laws and the legislative process as citizens.

Beyond that, on a broader level what do you hope will come out of the energy and enthusiasm?

I hope to see people just continue to be active in their community. We’ve gotten into a bad habit of hiding behind our keyboard, hiding behind social media. We have tensions in our communities. We still have a lot of racial tensions in our communities. What you saw Saturday was all these different people coming out because they care about a central issue. We have to continue that — to try to find opportunities for people to sit in the same room together and work together on issues they care about.

The march was a sea of signs. Did you have a favorite?

That is a hard question. I loved them all. One of my favorites was a small sign by a man that said, “Gay, Muslim and fifth-generation Coloradan.” I just felt, “Wow.” It was the simplicity of it, and him just saying, “This is who I am.”

What do you say to those who think the marches are sour grapes about a lost election, and that this ultimately won’t make any difference?

I would say, look at the history books. Take a class on civics. When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, that inspired John F. Kennedy to take a different approach to the civil rights movement.On Saturday, we had numerous state legislators marching with us and on stage. It sends a strong message to those in power. And it also unites the community.

OK, I need to ask. Is “Cheetah” a nickname? Where did that come from?

It’s an old bowling nickname. It has been around for about 25 years. That’s who I am.

Any closing thoughts?

One of the larger messages I’d like to pass along is you don’t have to be someone special or a board member or a politician to impact real change in your community. You just have to be a little bit brave and a little bit crazy.

Sen. Michael Bennet to Betsy DeVos: Come visit Denver, where school choice is different

2017-01-18T04:00:44+00:00

Could the next Republican secretary of education soon be visiting Denver Public Schools, a popular destination for the last two Democrats who’ve held the job?

Democratic U.S. Sen Michael Bennet of Colorado extended the invitation to Betsy DeVos during her confirmation hearing Tuesday. But not before drawing a stark contrast between Denver’s approach to school choice and what has played out in DeVos’s native Michigan.

Bennet said that in Denver, “without exception we demanded quality and implemented strong accountability. And as far I can tell, Detroit has followed the opposite path.”

DeVos said she’d “love to” take Bennet up on the offer to visit Denver, but disputed the former DPS superintendent’s characterization.

In the time he was given to question DeVos, Bennet said he supports giving parents choices among high-quality public schools, including charter schools. However, Bennet said his goal has never been “school choice for its own end,” but high-quality public schools for every child from every neighborhood.

He then cited Denver’s strategy of authorizing charter schools, creating innovation schools that operate with many of the same freedoms as charters, and strengthening traditional schools.

DeVos said she looked forward to “correcting some of the record” about Detroit schools and disputed that Michigan lacks school accountability, characterizing that as “false news.”

The state of Michigan’s charter sector has emerged as central to the debate over DeVos’s qualifications to serve as education secretary. The billionaire philanthropist has been a leading architect of free-market-style school choice policies in Michigan that have proven divisive in Detroit, where the public schools are in dire straits.

Critics assert that Michigan charter schools can open wherever they want, shut down without notice and operate with less oversight than charters in some other parts of the country.

DeVos defenders say she’s created educational opportunities for families that otherwise wouldn’t have had them, noting that Detroit charter school students on average do slightly better on state exams than their district school peers.

In an interview Tuesday after the confirmation hearing, current DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg echoed Bennet in contrasting the Colorado and Michigan charter sectors’ differences in quality and accountability.

He said that as a result, charter schools are better integrated into the Colorado public school system on issues such as fair enrollment systems and serving special education students.

Recent data show students with mild to moderate special needs are now served equally in district-run schools and charter schools, and Denver’s charter schools lack some of the barriers to entry that distinguish charter schools in other urban districts.

Critics of Denver charter schools say they lack adequate financial transparency, get credit for serving students who are more likely to succeed and don’t offer a true choice because a lack of transportation prevents many families from enrolling.

Boasberg and Bennet have known each other since childhood, and Boasberg joined DPS in 2007 as chief operating officer during Bennet’s tenure as superintendent.

Told of Bennet’s comments, Boasberg said his guess is what Bennet “was trying to point out is that you can have a very strong charter sector in which there is a very clear set of opportunities and accountabilities and very intentional efforts to make sure that our charter schools maintain a high degree of autonomy in their academic program, and at the same time function as public schools in every sense of the word.”

Bennet later lamented the restrictions on the confirmation hearing:

Only one 5-min round of questioning is not enough time to clear concerns on her commitment to high quality public schools.
— Michael Bennet (@SenatorBennet) January 18, 2017

Outgoing Secretary of Education John King and his predecessor, Arne Duncan, both visited Denver schools.

Chalkbeat’s Melanie Asmar contributed to this report.

New Montessori program to launch at Denver elementary, offering home for students at school slated to close

2017-01-14T01:51:11+00:00

Denver Public Schools moved quickly Friday to try to placate families upset by a vote to close a long-struggling Montessori school in near northeast Denver, announcing the launch this fall of a Montessori program at a higher-performing elementary school nearby.

In a letter to Gilpin Montessori School families, deputy superintendent Susana Cordova said the new Montessori program at Garden Place Elementary would run alongside the school’s traditional program. A similar setup exists at Lincoln Elementary School in the West Washington Park neighborhood.

Gilpin students who live in the area’s enrollment zone — a boundary that includes several schools in near northeast Denver — will be provided free bus transportation, with a stop at Gilpin.

Garden Place scored “green” — the second highest mark — on DPS’s most recent color-coded school performance framework. Gilpin scored in the red — the lowest category.

Current Gilpin students also will be given priority status at other DPS schools with Montessori programs — Monarch, Denison, Lincoln and Academia Ana Marie Sandoval. Seats can be hard to come by at at least some of those schools, however, and transportation may be a barrier to many families.

The district had little time to waste in putting together the option because DPS’s school choice window — when families fill out forms listing their top choices for the 2017-18 school year — opened last week and closes Jan. 31.

The letter to parents Friday did not come as a surprise. At a meeting at Gilpin earlier this week, three DPS board members pledged to push the district to think about making another Montessori option available in the area.

The school board unanimously voted Dec. 15 to close Gilpin and two other low-performing elementary schools under a new district policy known as the School Performance Compact.

Since then, however, Gilpin parents and teachers have mobilized to try to save the school. Citing emails obtained through an open records request, they have questioned whether Gilpin’s score on a recent quality review was “willfully altered” to meet the criteria for closure because the district wanted to repurpose the building for office space or to house a charter school.

District officials disputed that, saying the review was conducted by an independent party and that no decisions have been made about the building. The board members who attended the meeting defended the new school closure policy. None indicated they would heed Gilpin supporters’ call to put the issue of potentially reversing the closure vote on the board’s Thursday meeting agenda.

New Montessori program to launch at Denver elementary, offering home for students at school slated to close

2017-01-14T01:51:11+00:00

Gilpin students who live in the area’s enrollment zone — a boundary that includes several schools in near northeast Denver — will be provided free bus transportation, with a stop at Gilpin.

Garden Place scored “green” — the second highest mark — on DPS’s most recent color-coded school performance framework. Gilpin scored in the red — the lowest category.

The school board unanimously voted Dec. 15 to close Gilpin and two other low-performing elementary schools under a new district policy known as the School Performance Compact.

How a Colorado court case could change how public schools everywhere serve students with special needs

2017-01-12T00:39:48+00:00

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday grappled with the question of what kind of education public schools must provide students with disabilities, hearing arguments in a case that originated with a complaint against a suburban Denver school district and that could have profound implications nationwide.

The case involves a student diagnosed with autism and attention deficit/hyperactive disorder. His parents pulled him out of his Douglas County elementary school, saying he wasn’t making enough progress and the district’s response was lacking.

They enrolled the boy in a private school for children with autism and asked the district to reimburse them for the tuition, arguing their son was due a “free appropriate public education” as required by the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The law spells out the requirements states must meet to receive federal money to educate special-needs students. The district declined, saying it had met the standard of the law.

The family eventually filed a lawsuit against the district. Lower courts all sided with the district, reasoning that it had provided the child “some” educational benefit — the standard cited in the federal statute at issue.

Lower courts across the nation have varied in their definition of the proper standard. The high court arguments Wednesday centered on whether “some” benefit was good enough, or whether special-needs students deserve a more “meaningful” benefit.

Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney for the boy’s family, told the justices that as a general rule, individualized education plans for special education students should include “a level of educational services designed to allow the child to progress from grade to grade in the general curriculum.”

Throughout the arguments, the justices expressed frustration with what Justice Samuel Alito described as “a blizzard of words” that the law and courts have used to define what’s appropriate for special needs students.

Chief Justice John Roberts said regardless of the term used, “the whole package has got to be helpful enough to allow the student to keep up with his peers.”

Neal Katyal, an attorney for the school district, argued that providing children “some benefit” is a reasonable standard.

“That’s the way court after court has interpreted it,” he said. “It’s worked well. This court shouldn’t renege on that.”

Ron Hager, senior staff attorney for special education at the National Disability Rights Network, attended the oral arguments Wednesday and said he was optimistic the lower court’s ruling would be overturned.

He said if the Supreme Court does overturn the federal Tenth Circuit Court’s ruling and requires a higher standard, it won’t necessarily come with major financial costs for school districts. Instead, he said, it will nudge them to be proactive and provide teacher training and intervention services early on instead of waiting until problems — and the expenses associated with them — snowball later.

Marijo Rymer, executive director of the Arc of Colorado, which advocates on behalf of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said she was heartened to see the case advance to the Supreme Court. Establishing a clearer standard on what constitutes a fair and appropriate education for students with disabilities is a civil rights issue, she said.

“It’s critical that federal law, which is what this is based on, be reinforced and supported, and the court is in the position to deliver that message to the nation’s schools and the taxpayers that fund them,” Rymer said.

Both Hager and Rymer acknowledged that even if the Supreme Court establishes a new, higher standard, it could be open to interpretation. Still, they said it would send a strong message to school districts about their responsibilities to students with disabilities.

Five big issues that got lawmakers talking at Chalkbeat’s annual legislative preview

2017-01-09T23:42:04+00:00

Two days before the dawn of another legislative session, Chalkbeat Colorado convened a bipartisan panel of five lawmakers Monday to handicap what to expect on the education front, from school finance to preschool discipline.

About 175 people bought tickets to our second annual legislative preview featuring:

Sen. Tim Neville, R-Littleton, member of the Senate Education Committee
Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood, chair of the House Education Committee
Rep. Bob Rankin, R-Carbondale, member of the Joint Budget Committee
Sen. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora, member of the Senate Education Committee
Rep. Jim Wilson, R-Salida, member of the House Education Committee

The following is a recap of the event, which was moderated by deputy bureau chief Nic Garcia, drawing from comments from the speakers and audience comments on social media.

You can listen to the full audio or relive it through Facebook Live (see bottom of story for both).

School funding

It comes as no surprise that school funding tops the list of Capitol priorities this year.

The state perennially ranks near the bottom nationally in school funding. Complicated tax laws, inequities in school districts’ ability to raise local taxes, pressures on lawmakers to fund transportation projects this year and other factors could make solutions elusive.

Rankin, Pettersen and Wilson are among a diverse group of lawmakers that have been batting around ideas. Rankin said the goal is to “bring order to the chaos” of school funding.

Rep. Bob Rankin says to expect a lot of bills, suggestions on how to fix "chaotic" school funding this year #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

One possibility is drafting legislation that would ask for voters to set a uniform state tax rate on property, with the aim of helping level the playing field. Right now, every county and school district taxes personal and business property at varying rates, leading to vast funding disparities.

Rankin is leading the effort along with Rep. Millie Hamner, a Frisco Democrat. The duo is also talking about setting up a committee and hiring a third party to establish a new long-term vision for Colorado’s education system. The thinking is that before getting public buy-in in investing in public education, it’s essential to first lay out what exactly they’d be paying for.

One audience member — Douglas County school board member Anne Marie Lemieux — questioned Rankin’s comment that legislators should take the lead on the issue.

Pettersen clarified:

Rep. Pettersen: We need to talk to communities, people in ed world and then, as lawmakers, make improvements. #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

Rankin also had a grim projection for the “negative factor,” a controversial mechanism the state uses to rein in constitutionally mandated increases in per-pupil funding tied to inflation.

Rankin projected that the negative factor — in effect, a funding shortfall — will grow from roughly $831 million to more than $1 billion. That’s more than three times the $46 million increase in Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper’s November budget proposal.

The nation’s new federal education law

How will the arrival of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the nation’s new education law, impact education policy in Colorado?

Wilson, who is serving on a committee organized by the Colorado Department of Education responsible for drafting the state’s federally required education plan, noted that Colorado already has plenty of flexibility through waivers the state has obtained from the previous law, No Child Left Behind.

Still, there was optimism that changes could be afoot.

ESSA is "prime opportunity to release us in some ways from the mandates we've put on school districts," says Sen. Todd #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

Pettersen urged caution in making any changes to Colorado’s system for holding schools, districts and educators accountable for student performance.

Potential changes to school accountability system need to be thoughtful, not piecemeal, says Rep. Pettersen #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

Neville said he’d like to get rid of the law altogether, drawing this rebuke from veteran Adams County educator Mark Sass:

#edcolo ESSA is all about civil rights. Sen. Neville wants to do away with #ESSA
— Mark Sass (@collabteacher) January 9, 2017

During the audience Q&A, Jan Brennan of the Education Commission of the States pointed out that the phrase “well-rounded education” appears over 50 times in the new law. What, she wondered, would lawmakers like to see happen along those lines?

Wilson touted the importance of “the basics,” pointing to his encounters with what he described as “appalling” misspellings on school bulletin boards. Todd agreed that the basics are extremely important, but that education also must must consider the whole child, which means investments in music, the arts and physical education.

"None of us kick back and do some algebra to relax...having that roundedness is important."-@nancytodd28 #edcolo
— Susan Gonzalez (@TheNewsan) January 9, 2017

Charter funding equalization

The legislature is also expected to again consider a bill that would require local school districts to share the fruits of voter-approved tax measures with charter schools.

The divide on the panel is a good indication of why its political prospects are dim.

Pettersen said that given that the school funding shortfall is projected to increase and schools are facing cuts, “it’s going to be a difficult conversation.” And Todd made her position clear:

Sen. Todd: Charter equalization $ conversations should happen at local level, not state level. Not one size fits all. #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

Neville, in contrast, supports requiring equal funding for charter schools.

Sen. Neville: Equity is nice buzzword, but what does that mean? Need equity between charter and traditional public schools funding. #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

Pettersen’s response:

Rep. Pettersen: "Equitable does not mean equal. It depends on the needs of our districts." #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

Early childhood discipline

How to address the suspension of expulsion of preschoolers — a practice that disproportionately impacts black boys, especially — continues to be a vexing issue.

Last year, proposed legislation to tackle the question did not get traction. But the issue is expected to return this year after a group of early childhood advocates and state officials worked together to lay out possible solutions.

Among them: collecting more detailed suspension and expulsion data from more early childhood programs, creating policies limiting the use of suspension and expulsion, and giving providers more training in how to handle challenging behavior like chronic biting, hitting and tantrums.

Wilson wasn’t bullish on the issue getting much attention this session.

“We’ve got a lot of things we’re dealing with this year and I don’t see the suspensions and expulsions of early childhood students being a top priority with all the big dragons we’ve got to fight in education,” he said.

Lawmakers agreed that suspension and expulsion should be a last resort. But how to ensure that’s the case? Pettersen and Todd underscored the importance of gathering stronger data, which would allow officials to better grasp why the practice is used.

As former Democratic state Sen. Evie Hudak, who attended the panel, pointed out:

No legislators on Chalkbeat panel willing to directly support eliminating suspension/expulsion for early childhood. #edcolo
— Evie Hudak (@SenHudak) January 9, 2017

Licensing teachers

Should Colorado’s system of licensing teachers change to make it easier for nontraditional teachers to get a stronger toehold in the state’s classrooms?

The law governing teacher licenses hasn’t changed since the 1990s, and Hickenlooper has said he wants to revamp it. Wilson and other Republicans also hope to relax licensing rules for rural schools, where hiring a licensed teacher can be difficult.

Todd had a couple of thoughts.

We'll "continue to grow and develop" alternative teacher licensing, may bring back retired teachers in rural CO, Sen. Todd says #edcolo
— Chalkbeat Colorado (@ChalkbeatCO) January 9, 2017

The dean of the School of Education at Metropolitan State University of Denver had this response to the second piece of that:

Bring back retired #teachers? They want to come back??? #edcolo
— Elizabeth Hinde (@elizabeth_hinde) January 9, 2017

Replay of event on Facebook Live:

Legislative Preview
Posted by Chalkbeat Colorado on Monday, January 9, 2017

Listen to the event here:

Changing city, changing suburbs: A look back at important demographic shifts in our schools

2016-12-22T00:12:46+00:00

All around us, Denver is changing.

Construction cranes tower not just over downtown but residential neighborhoods, like super-sized erector sets. Low-slung buildings along Welton and Tejon have been reduced to rubble, leaving holes in the ground soon to be filled by condos or apartments or another hip restaurant.

The city’s breakneck growth is remaking the face of not just Denver but the metro area and beyond — and in the process, profoundly changing the region’s public schools.

In a presentation to the school board, Denver Public Schools’ planning office laid out how rising housing prices are pushing lower-income families out of the city — leading to a slowdown in what had been a fast-growing student population. New construction is booming but much of it is aimed at millennials, most of whom don’t have school-aged kids, the district explained.

This story features five graphs that illustrate the shift — including a look at five-year trends showing the decline in minority students and students living in poverty, as well as troubling disparities that suggest a growing haves and have-nots problem in the state’s biggest district.

A couple of elementary schools in working-class north Denver did get a modest hand up to counter the effects of gentrification. Using grant money, Swansea Elementary is spending on a school psychologist while Garden Place Academy is investing in hiring a new family liaison.

Not all parts of the city are seeing fewer students, however. In response to growth, DPS is planning to use bond money to build new schools in Stapleton and Green Valley Ranch. One of those projects, adding a DSST charter school on the Paul Sandoval Campus in northeast Denver anchored by Northfield High School, stirred up all sorts of controversy this month.

East of Denver, Aurora has long been a more affordable destination for families. But that, too, is changing as gentrification spreads to Colorado’s third largest city. Look no further than the development around the Anschutz medical campus, or the artisan bread sold at Stanley Marketplace.

The changes, coming so fast, caught Aurora Public School officials off guard. Facing its largest enrollment decline in decades, the district was forced to slash $3 million from its budget. Tellingly, the declines were most pronounced in lower-income schools, costing the district both state per-pupil funding and less money earmarked to serve students living in poverty.

Movers and shakers: Significant comings and goings in Colorado education in 2016

2016-12-20T00:25:33+00:00

While every year brings farewells and new faces to the institutions that shape public education in Colorado, 2016 was like a revolving door spinning in a blur.

The year began with Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg going on a six-month unpaid sabbatical to Argentina with his family, an unusual perk made possible by Boasberg’s long tenure and the district’s relative stability.

His absence gave Susana Cordova the opportunity to step into the role of acting superintendent. Cordova was an intriguing pick — a Denver native who attended school during desegregation, and became a teacher, principal and high-ranking administrator.

Boasberg returned in July with improved Spanish and greater appreciation for “the extraordinary resources we have here,” while Cordova took the new title of deputy superintendent.

A couple of DPS alums ventured into new territory this year. Former principal and assistant superintendent Antwan Wilson was tapped to take over the top job in Washington, D.C., while former Boasberg lieutenant Alyssa Whitehead-Bust launched a new consulting firm.

The state’s most significant departure of the year came in May, when Colorado Education Commissioner Rich Crandall announced his resignation after just four-and-a-half months, citing family reasons and the demands of the job. Later, it emerged that Crandall and the board had met privately — violating Colorado open meetings law — in an unsuccessful effort to better define the then-commissioner’s priorities.

Katy Anthes was named interim commissioner. The well-liked former department chief of staff was appointed to the role on a permanent basis last week.

A former state government colleague of Anthes, meantime, is stepping into a different role. Rebecca Holmes, a former associate education commissioner, is set to take over as president and CEO of the Colorado Education Initiative, another organization that has seen recent turnover at the top.

The nonprofit education community saw other notable comings and goings: Kelly Causey was named new president and CEO of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, replacing Chris Watney; and Nora Flood announced she was leaving the Colorado League of Charter Schools to lead a new Walton Family Foundation program. (The Walton Foundation also supports Chalkbeat.)

Finally, a few suburban Denver school districts have experienced some leadership upheaval this year.

In May, Adams 14 School District Superintendent Pat Sanchez was hired for the top job at the Newark Unified School District in the Bay Area, leaving the Commerce City district as it was about to run out of time to right itself or face state sanctions.

As a replacement, the school board chose Javier Abrego, a longtime administrator who pledged to bring along English language learners quickly. Abrego now has the task of overseeing the 7,500-student district as it does, indeed, face repercussions from the state for persistent low academic performance.

Douglas County Superintendent Liz Fagen announced later in May she was leaving to become superintendent of a smaller school district outside of Houston. Fagen’s tenure included a controversial market-based pay system for teachers and a private school voucher program that drew national attention and legal challenges. Erin Kane is serving as Dougco’s interim superintendent.

The fate of another high-profile district leader — one with a history in Douglas County — will be decided early in 2017.

The Jefferson County school board has met twice in executive session to discuss the contract of Superintendent Dan McMinimee, a former Dougco assistant superintendent. McMinimee was hired by conservative school board members who were recalled in November 2015. The Jeffco board is expected to revisit the issue in January.

Movers and shakers: Significant comings and goings in Colorado education in 2016

2016-12-20T00:25:33+00:00

While every year brings farewells and new faces to the institutions that shape public education in Colorado, 2016 was like a revolving door spinning in a blur.

Boasberg returned in July with improved Spanish and greater appreciation for “the extraordinary resources we have here,” while Cordova took the new title of deputy superintendent.

Katy Anthes was named interim commissioner. The well-liked former department chief of staff was appointed to the role on a permanent basis last week.

Finally, a few suburban Denver school districts have experienced some leadership upheaval this year.

The fate of another high-profile district leader — one with a history in Douglas County — will be decided early in 2017.

Rebecca Holmes named president and CEO of Colorado Education Initiative

2016-12-07T02:12:23+00:00

Rebecca Holmes (provided by the Colorado Education Initiative).

Rebecca Holmes, a former associate state education commissioner with experience working as a teacher and charter school executive, as well as for private foundations and in the private sector, was announced Tuesday as the next president and CEO of the Colorado Education Initiative.

Holmes will take over the role in January, leaving her current position as a senior program officer with the Denver-based Gates Family Foundation. (The foundation is a financial supporter of Chalkbeat).

“We’re excited that Rebecca is joining the CEI team,” Leroy Williams, the nonprofit group’s board chairman, said in a statement. “Her experienced leadership, vision, and passion for making a difference in Colorado education is contagious — while she understands the dynamics and unique challenges of Colorado’s K-12 public education system. Her wealth of experience and ability to partner and collaborate will be great assets in advancing CEI’s mission to help all students achieve success.”

The Colorado Education Initiative describes itself as an independent nonprofit working with the Colorado Department of Education, educators, schools, districts and others “to accelerate educational improvement and innovation across Colorado.” The organization provides teacher training and supports STEM education, health and wellness programs, and other programs.

CEI has been in leadership flux over the last couple of years. Chief financial officer Sandy Sales has been serving as interim president and CEO since the departure of Glenna Norvelle, who resigned in June after just over a year in the position.

Holmes, who has degrees from Yale and Harvard, started off teaching in Denver, became chief executive officer of the KIPP charter school network’s Colorado schools and also has worked for Deloitte Consulting.

In her state role, Holmes served as associate commissioner for innovation, choice and engagement. She was among a number of high-ranking education department officials who left after the 2015 retirement of former education commissioner Robert Hammond.

Chalkbeat

Feagins is fired as Memphis schools superintendent after stormy 9-month tenure

A long line of speakers come to Feagins’ defense

Superintendent drama has been running for more than two years

Federal review of Memphis school district cites dozens of cases of alleged sexual harassment and assault

Educators rebuke Hillsdale College for soliciting donations to ‘put the Constitution back in Tennessee schools’

Latino community coalition calls for delay in Denver schools superintendent vote

Welcome to high school in pandemic times: Introducing a new Chalkbeat series

COVID Diaries Colorado: A day in the pandemic

7 a.m.

Venture For Success Preparatory Learning Center, Denver

8 a.m.

COVID-19 unit, St. Joseph Hospital, Denver

9 a.m.

Office in the former Morris Elementary School, Yuma

9:10 a.m.

Denver City and County Building

11:15 a.m.

Avery Parsons Elementary School, Buena Vista

Noon

Parking lot of the El Jebel Laundromat, Eagle County

12:20 p.m.

St. Joseph Hospital emergency room, Denver

1:30 p.m.

Self-storage locker, Grand Junction

2 p.m.

On the road from Steamboat Springs to Oak Creek

2:30 p.m.

Home of Arapahoe County coroner Dr. Kelly Lear, Centennial

4:44 p.m.

Masjid Al-Shuhada, downtown Denver

5 p.m.

Fire Station 52, Brighton

6:30 p.m.

Home of Cat and Zach Garcia, Aurora

11:30 p.m.

Dr. Mercedes Rincon’s home office, Aurora

More stories from the project

Meet Spock and Panda, classroom rats who needed a home during the COVID-19 crisis

Coronavirus has upended traditional school board meetings — and put transparency to the test

Colorado governor orders all schools closed to stem spreading coronavirus

Denver school district cancels classes March 19, citing expected mass teacher absences during rally

Final-hour union-backed Denver school board mailers evoke Trump, DeVos, and teacher strike

Teachers union challenges improvement plan for Pueblo school, calling it bid to ‘privatize’

‘Nothing makes me feel safe.’ How Colorado educators and parents are processing yet another school shooting

What was the mood in school today after the shooting? What conversations did you have about it?

Did you notice more police officers or security guards at school today? Did that make you feel safer or not?

What makes you feel safer in school? What makes you feel unsafe?

What do you think schools should be doing that they are not doing already?

What do you wish people knew about how gun violence affects the experience of going to school today?

‘We are all educators’: How the teachers strike opened a rift at one Denver middle school network that will take time to mend

An innovative elementary school — a product of Denver education reform — tries to get back to normal post-strike

Jubilation, and some confusion, as Denver schools begin their post-strike recovery

Day 2 recap of Denver strike: Everything you need to know about picketing, bargaining, legal threats, and the view from schools

12:13 a.m. A show of unity

11:10 p.m. Calling it a night

8:26 p.m. Planning underway for Day 3

8:12 p.m. A war of words

8 p.m. A late night at the library

6:30 p.m. A “PDU” roller coaster in negotiations

6:02 p.m. A trending topic

5:50 p.m. “Not haveing the teachers was dreadful”

4:15 p.m. A union counterproposal

3:52 p.m. A second lawsuit looms

3:02 p.m. Susana Cordova’s no good, very bad job transition

2:52 p.m. Talks resume, finally

2:03 p.m. The case of the paused negotiations, solved

1:45 p.m. The scene from inside Abraham Lincoln High School

1:25 p.m. A poetry interlude

12:50 p.m. Teacher strikes go to Washington

12:15 p.m. Technical tweaks dominate morning negotiations

12:09 p.m. Freebies for Denver teachers

11:05 a.m. The view from social media

10:46 a.m. National union leaders are back on the picket line

10:25 a.m. Why you can watch Denver’s teachers contract talks

10:22 a.m. Aw, shucks!

10:05 a.m. What you need to know as negotiations resume

10 a.m. A big crowd and an empty table to start negotiations

9:05 a.m.: New attention for “innovation schools”

8:44 a.m.: Strike fund swells