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Here’s how a task force suggests changing the way schools and districts are rated in Colorado

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Colorado lawmakers are proposing big changes to the state’s school accountability system. Many of the recommendations come from a task force that worked for over a year on suggestions for how to improve the system.

But some of the proposed changes go further than the task force recommendations. One would give the State Board of Education more options when deciding what to do with schools and districts that have failed to show academic improvement for more than five years.

A bill proposing the changes, House Bill 1278, had its first hearing in the House Education Committee last week. But the committee held off on voting, because so much of the bill’s language is expected to change.

In part that’s because the bill’s initial fiscal note estimates the proposed changes would cost the state almost $18 million over three years, at a time when lawmakers are struggling to cut about $1 billion from this year’s state’s budget.

But it’s also because various groups are still pushing for changes.

Currently, the state’s school accountability system, in use since 2009, mostly uses standardized test scores to rate schools and districts. High schools are also rated on their graduation rates and on how many students move on to postsecondary options.

Schools can earn one of four ratings, while districts can earn one of five. The law requires the State Board of Education to step in when a district or school has reached five years of low ratings, but the State Board is limited to ordering changes that include: closing a school, turning a school into a charter school or community school, or granting innovation status, which allows a school or group of schools to get waivers from state laws or union contracts and try new approaches. The state can also order a school or district to turn over management to an external group, or can strip districts or schools of accreditation.

New language being drafted in a 12-page amendment would allow districts that have reached this five-year point to instead “take other actions that are comparable or that have a more significant effect…as proposed by the school district.”

“Actions include, but are not limited to, contracting with an external management partner, using contractors or resources provided by the department, engaging school districts to work together to monitor progress and provide assistance, or comprehensive school redesign,” the amendment draft states.

The task force was unanimous in its 30 recommendations, which are mostly all reflected in the proposed bill. But the task force report, published in November, didn’t mention changing the allowable state actions for when a school or district has reached five years of low ratings, also known as the end of “the clock.”

Rep. Meghan Lukens, one of the bill sponsors who is a Democrat from Steamboat Springs and also a teacher, said that the task force did have a goal of giving schools and districts more flexibility. Other leaders involved in drafting the bill say the amendment is related to one of the task force recommendations to “support schools and districts pursuing bold solutions to turnaround.” But the report from the task force explains that recommendation as suggesting the state provide more funding for more district improvement efforts.

Among those who spoke at the hearing last week, a few were opposed to the bill, stating that the accountability system is still inequitable and that schools are still underfunded, while most education leaders who spoke were in favor of the changes. Some asked for a few more.

“The current draft shows significant promise but its expansion of and emphasis on standardized testing is simply tone deaf,” said Kara Smallwood, a speech language pathologist who was one of several educators to speak on behalf of the Colorado Education Association. “While well intentioned, we urge testing companies, legislators, and parents to hear us when we say that doubling down on standardized testing does not improve students’ experience in school nor their preparedness for the future.”

CEA President Kevin Vick told lawmakers that the union supports amending the bill to ensure that the state doesn’t double down on testing, and that teacher retention is a focus.

Vick also said they are working with bill sponsors on amendments so the system “prioritizes community-led approaches over more punitive state-led actions such as mass firings, use of external managers or other things that devalue the efforts of the people in our respective districts on the clock.”

Adams 14 lawyer and former lawmaker Joe Salazar told the House education committee last week that the Adams 14 district has felt like the state’s guinea pig for the accountability system.

Adams 14 is the only district in the state that has earned low ratings for more than a decade, triggering all of the system’s most severe consequences.

The latest district administration pushed back against state orders and managed to get the state to back off a request that the district reorganize, which could have meant dissolving the district or merging parts of it with neighboring districts. The neighboring districts united with Adams 14 in rejecting the state order.

Now, district leaders say they are making better progress working with the state in a collaborative relationship, as opposed to an adversarial one, but state ratings have yet to improve.

“What we have endured since 2018 has been punitive and counterproductive,” Jason Malmberg, Adams 14 teacher union president, told the committee. “It created chaos in an already vulnerable system.”

Malmberg spoke of the amendment, titled L6, adding new options for schools and districts at the end of the clock, saying that it takes “an important step forward,” by shifting the focus of the accountability system.

“I urge you to learn from the mistakes of the past,” Malmberg said.

The current draft of the bill also proposes, as recommended by the task force, translating standardized tests into other languages, or adopting tests in other languages, for students who are still not fluent in English.

This component of the bill is the most expensive, estimated at possibly $4 million in the first year alone.

An amendment is being drafted to narrow the requirement and lower the cost.

Another part of the bill requires the state to do more to encourage participation in state tests, by clarifying how schools and districts can encourage students to take the test, and by requiring that information sent home include statements from the state about the importance of taking the test.

Colorado’s annual performance ratings show more schools, districts earning better marks

Here are some of the other changes proposed by HB 1278:

Requiring a study on the effectiveness of external management partners, which are consultants the state has required districts to hire to help improve achievement, and the return on investment they offer to districts. The study would also need to look at what is necessary for the consultants to be successful, and the department of education would need to create a list of groups qualified to work as external managers.
Students who fall into subgroups such as students with disabilities, English learners, or those who qualify for free and reduced price lunch should be combined into one “super subgroup,” so schools are only evaluated for them once.
Requiring the department of education to look for early indicators of distress to provide support earlier to schools and districts before they have five years of low ratings.
Requiring that improvement plans toward the end of the clock include financial plans.
The State Board would have to adopt new requirements for what school districts must do to earn a distinction rating, the highest performance rating available, including that none of the disaggregated student groups can have the lowest “does not meet” result in any performance category.
Requiring that if a district earns an insufficient rating due to low participation for three years in a row, it must submit a corrective action plan to the state.
Requires various studies for future changes to the accountability system including adjusting weights of the different factors evaluated, changing the labels for each rating, and increasing equity.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 tuvo éxito en impugnar algunas calificaciones, pero no en la calificación general baja del distrito

2025-01-09T19:16:44+00:00

El distrito escolar Adams 14 no tendrá una calificación de desempeño mejorada este año, a pesar de las numerosas quejas del distrito sobre el sistema estatal.

El miércoles, la Junta Estatal de Educación de Colorado votó para aprobar las decisiones finales sobre las apelaciones de escuelas y distritos que no estuvieron de acuerdo con su calificación anual de desempeño publicada por primera vez en septiembre.

Este año, el estado recibió solicitudes para reconsiderar 15 calificaciones de distritos y 79 de escuelas, en comparación con 10 distritos y 81 apelaciones de calificaciones escolares del año pasado. De estas solicitudes, el estado aprobó 85 cambios de calificación, incluyendo 22 solicitudes para escuelas de Denver. Entre las apelaciones denegadas se encontraba la solicitud de Adams 14 para modificar la calificación de su distrito.

Adams 14, el distrito con el mayor número de calificaciones bajas a nivel estatal, se encuentra en su undécimo año con calificaciones bajas. La calificación del distrito para 2024, de “mejora prioritaria”, es la segunda más baja para los distritos y está identificada por el color naranja. Es la misma calificación que el distrito recibió en 2023.

El estado está obligado a intervenir y ordenar un plan de acción cuando una escuela o distrito acumula cinco años consecutivos de calificaciones bajas.

Una vez bajo planes ordenados por el estado, una escuela o distrito debe obtener al menos una calificación de “mejora”, identificada por el color amarillo, un nivel por encima de “mejora prioritaria”, durante al menos dos años consecutivos, para que se suspenda la intervención estatal.

A pesar de numerosos planes de mejora y órdenes estatales para Adams 14, el distrito no ha logrado obtener una calificación de mejora ni una sola vez en más de una década.

En los últimos meses, los líderes del distrito han solicitado al estado que reconsidere la calificación del distrito, así como la forma en que evalúa el desempeño de las escuelas, teniendo en cuenta factores ambientales y el impacto que la contaminación tiene sobre los niños. El distrito también pidió al estado que reconsiderara el uso de los datos de SAT y PSAT en las calificaciones de este año, debido a las grandes brechas de desempeño y el reconocimiento de que las caídas en los puntajes de secundaria fueron, al menos en parte, consecuencia de los cambios en el formato de las pruebas.

Y en la solicitud oficial de reconsideración que revisó el estado, el distrito pidió que se excluyeran los datos de su escuela secundaria alternativa de la calificación del distrito.

Los funcionarios estatales explicaron que los estatutos y las reglas preestablecidas dictan las condiciones necesarias para cambiar la calificación de un distrito. En casos donde una escuela alternativa obtiene la calificación más alta posible – la de desempeño – y al excluir esos datos se eleva la calificación del distrito lo suficiente como para ascender un nivel, el estado permite esa exclusión. Para Adams 14, ninguna de esas condiciones se cumplió.

En una carta redactada por los abogados del estado para responder a Adams 14, los funcionarios negaron que algunos de los desafíos raciales y ambientales enfrentados por la comunidad hayan influido en la calificación del distrito.

“El departamento reconoce y no desestima los desafíos que enfrenta la comunidad de Commerce City – los impactos de contaminación, la pobreza, la inseguridad alimentaria y la violencia en una comunidad con un porcentaje muy alto de estudiantes multilingües y altas tasas de ausentismo. El departamento realmente desea seguir siendo un socio en el abordaje de estos problemas en beneficio de los estudiantes de Adams 14″, establece la carta. “Al mismo tiempo, el sistema de rendición de cuentas no está diseñado actualmente para ajustar las calificaciones finales en función de dichos desafíos”.

Para sus escuelas, Adams 14 tuvo éxito al apelar siete calificaciones.

Entre ellas, las dos escuelas secundarias del distrito ahora tendrán la etiqueta de “datos insuficientes” para una calificación, debido a la baja participación en las pruebas. Las otras cinco apelaciones exitosas fueron para escuelas primarias, donde el distrito presentó datos adicionales de pruebas locales.

Con todas las calificaciones finalizadas, este año Adams 14 tuvo dos escuelas con calificaciones mejoradas y otras dos con calificaciones más bajas, en comparación con el año pasado.

A pesar de haber logrado cambiar su calificación de “recuperación” a “mejora prioritaria”, la escuela primaria Alsup continuará avanzando en su tercer año dentro del proceso estatal hacia la intervención.

Traducido por Jackie Ramirez

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado que cubre los distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Colorado school leaders worried about immigration raids hear from one who experienced it

2024-12-17T20:29:32+00:00

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It was just two weeks from the end of the semester and the start of holiday break in 2006, when Superintendent Steve Joel got a phone call from the police chief. Federal immigration agents were raiding his community.

Immediately, Joel said he knew there would be students who would not have parents to go home to that day. By 8:30 a.m., “we were in absolute despair,” Joel recalled.

Joel now looks back on the day of the raid as the longest 24 hours of his career, and worries school leaders in Colorado will face a similar situation soon.

Joel shared his memories of that experience at the recent Colorado Association of School Boards conference in Colorado Springs.

Dozens of education officials attended the session to hear from Joel about what to expect and how they might prepare for the possible upcoming mass deportations promised by President-elect Donald Trump that could split kids from parents and create a host of problems for schools.

Last week, NBC reported the incoming Trump administration has plans to remove the long-standing practice of not conducting immigration enforcement at schools, hospitals, and churches. An influential conservative group with ties to Trump has also shared a blueprint to challenge a Supreme Court ruling that protects undocumented children’s right to go to public schools.

The 2006 immigration raid took place at a food processing plant when Joel was superintendent of Nebraska’s Grand Island school district. About 1,400 of the school district’s 10,000 students had parents working at the plant, he said. Some of those parents had legal status, but without proof on them, some were detained and rounded up anyway.

“Be prepared,” he urged school officials. “Your community, your parents, your leaders, your state, they’ll appreciate you for it.”

So far, most Colorado school leaders have been quiet about any possible plans they may be drafting to deal with mass deportations affecting their community.

Adams 14 school leaders are holding “know your rights” seminars for families, and training front office staff to direct federal authorities to the district’s legal team or director of security.

Here’s some of the advice Joel had based on his experience:

Have a message ready for families

As families in the community learned about the immigration raids, the school district began fielding nonstop calls, Joel said.

Relatives were calling, asking what they should do.

“It was gut wrenching,” he said. Joel said school leaders should have responses ready to share with families.

By around midday his district had created a plan to set up a triage at one of the district’s schools for any children whose parents had been detained and needed a place to stay. The district held a press conference to let the community know the plan and where people could come to reunite with affected students.

Joel also said that as word got out, they saw high school students walk out of class, go to the elementary schools to pick up their siblings, and then go into hiding.

“We weren’t quite ready for that,” Joel said.

As part of his message that day, Joel said he was attempting to assure the community that schools were safe. The district of about 10,000 students was down by 2,500 students the next day. Some slowly returned in the weeks following the raid, but about 500 students didn’t come back.

He said one thing he regretted was saying that immigration authorities would not be allowed on school property. In that moment, he was motivated to stop them himself if needed, he said.

Soon after that comment aired, he received a call from the leader of the immigration enforcement operation.

“He said, ‘I want you to know you’re wrong, we have jurisdiction. If we want to go into your schools we can. But I promise you, we won’t,’” Joel recalled.

Education officials don’t have a clear answer to the question of whether schools have the authority to stop immigration officials from entering schools today.

Joe Salazar, an attorney for Adams 14 who attended Joel’s talk, told the group that in his view — based on a state court ruling from this summer — immigration warrants aren’t considered warrants in Colorado and that schools do have the right to turn officials away.

In response to reports that Trump would permit immigration enforcement in schools, Denver Public Schools published a statement noting that according to current district policy, “federal immigration law enforcement activities would not be permitted at our schools, on transportation routes, on DPS property, or during school activities.”

DPS said it is committed to providing safe learning environments for all students regardless of their immigration status.

But the district also is encouraging families to have their emergency contact information updated and to identify who is authorized to pick up their children if parents can’t.

Have a way to verify who people are

When the district was preparing to reunite students with relatives who could take them in, Joel said security reminded him that they needed a way to verify that the people claiming to be relatives really were.

He said they had students and teachers confirm the relation to the family member they were released to.

In about a dozen cases, Joel said, teachers who had volunteered took in a student who did not have a confirmed relative to stay with for a night or two. But, he said, the district tried to limit those cases because of the district legal team’s concerns about liabilities.

Have a list of students who might be affected

Joel suggested that school districts create a list of students who could be affected in the case of mass immigration raids.

But doing so isn’t necessarily straightforward. Alex Marrero, superintendent of Denver Public Schools, asked Joel how districts should do that, given that they don’t collect immigration information about students or families. (The U.S. Department of Education has said schools may not collect information about students’ and families’ immigration status in order to deny them services, because by law they have to serve students regardless of their status. Joel did not suggest collecting that.)

Joel responded that his district did collect information about parent employers. So on the morning of the raid, the district was able to quickly identify students who had parents working at the worksite that had been impacted. Not all students’ families were undocumented or detained, but it gave the district a list of students to check in with.

Joel suggested districts can think about the larger employers in their community who might employ immigrant parents. They can even open a line of communication with those employers ahead of any possible raids.

A spokesperson for the Denver district said that DPS doesn’t collect information about parents’ place of employment either.

If Grand Island schools had lacked that, Joel said he would have probably asked staff to identify the students they thought were impacted.

Have a way to raise money for students

Knowing the district may need to help house, transport, or feed some children, Joel said his district decided to raise money, and he encourages districts to have a system prepared to take in donations.

“The funds flowed in like I would have never expected,” Joel said.

Joel recalls that one of the first checks he received came from an unexpected source.

Joel had a neighbor who was a friend who was heavily involved in the local Republican Party, Joel said. Every time the man’s property taxes went up by any amount, he grilled Joel about whether that money was going to educating undocumented children, Joel said.

But on the morning of the raid, the man showed up to Joel’s office with a “big check.”

“‘I’m a daddy too and I hate what this is doing to families,’” Joel recalled the man telling him.

The money the district collected helped students and families for weeks.

Joel said that a few days after the raid, a principal called him for help to talk to a student.

The student was a young girl who was pregnant and was two weeks away from graduating. Both of her parents had been detained, and once the girl found out where her parents were, she was anxious to join them.

The principal was pleading with her to stay in school and finish her diploma first.

Finally, Joel and the principal were able to talk the girl into staying, with the promise of helping her stay in the apartment she had been sharing with her parents. The district paid for food, utilities, and other bills through the end of the semester so the girl could get her diploma.

When doing home visits looking for children in the days after the raid, school staff sometimes found children speaking through a window to say they were under instructions not to open the door. So, principals and social workers also brought those families food, school work, or other necessities as they were trying to earn back their trust and get them back in schools.

Work with community groups, faith leaders, and others

Joel also emphasized that school districts should call on other leaders in the community to help. On the day of the raid, when he reached out to groups, he called a meeting. Despite the short notice, he said within an hour he had a great turnout.

“There’s going to be a lot of fear and quite a bit of anger,” he said. “They were hurting, mad.

None of it was really directed at us, but it sure felt that way.”

It can help if school districts start having conversations with those organizations and leaders before any raids.

Among other pieces of advice, Joel told school leaders that they should be prepared for a day of a raid to be an emotional day for staff, and to know that not all staff will be able to handle working on helping students and families. There will also be threats from people who don’t agree with the school district’s approach to helping families, he said.

He said the biggest thing is remembering to keep it about the children and advocating for them.

“If you can’t advocate for kids, what are you doing on the board?” Joel said. “That’s sort of the position we took.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 successful in challenging some ratings, but not the overall low district rating

2024-12-12T00:55:41+00:00

Here’s how a task force suggests changing the way schools and districts are rated in Colorado

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The Adams 14 school district will not have an improved performance rating this year, despite many district complaints about the state’s system.

On Wednesday, the Colorado State Board of Education voted to approve the final decisions on appeals from schools and districts that didn’t agree with their annual performance rating, first released in September.

The state this year received requests to reconsider 15 district ratings and 79 school ratings, compared to 10 district and 81 school ratings appeals last year. Of those requests, the state approved 85 ratings changes, including 22 requests for Denver schools. Among the appeals denied was Adams 14’s request to change its district rating.

Adams 14, the district with the longest number of low state ratings, is on year 11 of low ratings. The district’s rating for 2024 of priority improvement is the second-lowest rating for districts and is identified by orange. It’s the same rating the district received in 2023.

The state is required to step in and order intervention when a school, or district, has five years of low ratings.

Once under state-ordered plans, a school or district must have at least a rating of improvement, identified by yellow, one rung above priority improvement, for at least two years in a row, for the state intervention to stop.

Despite many improvement plans and state orders for Adams 14, the district has not managed to earn an improvement rating a single time in more than a decade.

In the last few months, district leaders have asked the state to reconsider the district’s rating, and the state’s way of evaluating any school’s performance based on environmental factors and the impact pollution has on children. The district also wanted the state to reconsider using SAT and PSAT data in the ratings this year, given large performance gaps, and an acknowledgement that drops in high school scores were at least in part due to changes to the test format.

And in the official Request to Reconsider application the state looked at, the district wanted the state to exclude its alternative high school’s data from its district rating.

State officials explained that statute and predetermined rules dictate the conditions needed to change a district’s rating. In a case where an alternative school earns the highest rating possible – of performance – and when removing that data raises a district’s rating enough to move up a level, the state allows that exclusion. For Adams 14, neither of those conditions were met.

In a letter drafted by state lawyers to respond to Adams 14, officials denied that some of the racial and environmental challenges faced by the community factored into the district’s rating.

“The department recognizes and does not discount the challenges facing the Commerce City community – the impacts of pollution, poverty, food insecurity, and violence in a community with a very high percentage of multilingual learners and high rates of absenteeism. The department very much wants to continue to be a partner in addressing these issues for the benefit of the students of Adams 14,” the letter states. “At the same time, the accountability system is not currently designed to adjust final ratings based on such challenges.”

For its schools, however, Adams 14 was successful in appealing seven ratings.

Among those, the district’s two middle schools will now have a label of insufficient data for a rating, based on low test participation. The other five successful appeals were for elementary schools where the district submitted additional local test data.

With all the ratings finalized, Adams 14 this year had two schools with improved ratings and two others with lower ratings, compared to last year.

Alsup Elementary, despite its successful appeal from turnaround to priority improvement, will move forward, now on year three, on the state’s timeline toward intervention.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Los puntajes de las pruebas en las escuelas preparatorias de Colorado cayeron, pero los estudiantes que aprenden inglés como nuevo idioma tuvieron caídas más grandes

2024-12-05T23:57:29+00:00

Estos estudiantes tuvieron más retrasos académicos durante COVID. ¿Cómo están respondiendo las escuelas en Colorado?

Los estudiantes de inglés en Colorado experimentaron las mayores caídas en los puntajes del PSAT y SAT la primavera pasada, incluso más grandes que las caídas de puntajes experimentadas por todos los estudiantes de la preparatoria en el estado.

Las caídas generales han llevado a discusiones entre los funcionarios del estado sobre sí ajustar los requisitos de graduación de la preparatoria y si los puntajes de la primavera pasada pueden compararse con los puntajes de años anteriores. Ahora, una superintendente de Colorado está planeando preocupaciones sobre si los puntajes del PSAT y SAT en los distritos escolares que sirven a un gran número de estudiantes de inglés deberían incluso usarse para calificar el rendimiento académico de un distrito.

“La tasa de puntos perdidos en los puntajes no es equitativa y no es comparable”, dijo Karla Loría, superintendente de las escuelas Adams 14. “Afecta a los estudiantes multilingües y a los estudiantes con discapacidades a una tasa mayor que a cualquier otro grupo de estudiantes”.

Una de las brechas más grandes en todo el estado, por ejemplo: los estudiantes de 10o grado que no están identificados para recibir servicios de idioma ingles tuvieron una caída promedio de 5 puntos en sus puntajes del PSAT, mientras que los estudiantes de 10o grado que están aprendiendo inglés como nuevo idioma tuvieron una caída promedio de 83 puntos, lo que equivale al 11.6%, o más de 16 veces la de sus compañeros.

Al observar solo los puntajes de matemáticas, los estudiantes de 10o grado que aprenden inglés tuvieron una caída del 13.6% en los puntajes, en comparación con una caída del 1.3% entre los estudiantes de 10o grado que no son aprendices de inglés.

Los estudiantes con discapacidades también experimentaron grandes caídas, aunque no tan grandes como los estudiantes de inglés.

En discusiones previas sobre las caídas generales de 2024, los funcionarios estatales dijeron que es difícil saber cuánto representan una disminución en el rendimiento y cuánto se debe a los cambios en el formato del examen.

El PSAT y SAT digitales que los estudiantes tomaron en la primavera de 2024 fueron adaptativos, lo que significa que las preguntas que los estudiantes veían dependían de cómo respondían a las preguntas anteriores.

Los funcionarios estatales también le dijeron a la Junta Estatal de Educación que es posible que estos resultados más bajos sean una representación más precisa del aprendizaje de los estudiantes que ya se desempeñaban en el rango más bajo de los puntos posibles.

Eso se debe a que, según dicen, antes se les daba a los estudiantes el consejo de adivinar las preguntas que no sabían o cuando se les acababa el tiempo. Y algunas de esas adivinaciones probablemente eran correctas, lo que les ganaba algunos puntos extra. Pero la nueva prueba digital del PSAT y SAT en línea está diseñada para saber cuándo los estudiantes probablemente están adivinando, por lo que, aunque sea correcta, el examen no les otorgará esos puntos.

“Los estudiantes estaban obteniendo crédito por contenido que no sabían”, dijo Christina Wirth-Hawkins, directora de evaluación del Departamento de Educación de Colorado.

Aún así, agregó, el departamento no está diciendo a las escuelas que cambien cómo preparan a los estudiantes para las pruebas, sino que les está diciendo que lo importante es ayudar a los estudiantes a aprender contenido.

Las caídas en las calificaciones de los estudiantes de inglés siguen las preocupaciones planteadas el año pasado

En el Distrito 11 de Colorado Springs, donde aproximadamente el 6% de los 22,700 estudiantes del distrito están identificados como que tienen una habilidad limitada o nula en inglés, los estudiantes de 10o grado que aún no son componentes en inglés experimentaron una caída de 127 puntos en sus calificaciones, en comparación con una caída de 27 puntos para los demás estudiantes.

En Westminster, donde más del 24% de los 7,600 estudiantes del distrito están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma, los estudiantes de 10o grado que están aprendiendo inglés tuvieron una caída promedio de 121 puntos en sus calificaciones, en comparación con una caída de 28 puntos para los que no reciben apoyo en inglés.

En los distritos escolares de Harrison y Fort Morgan, los estudiantes de 10o grado que están aprendiendo inglés experimentaron caídas de 120 puntos en su calificación promedio.

Debido a las grandes brechas, Loría pidió el mes pasado al consejo considerar los exámenes PSAT y SAT que los estudiantes tomaron en la primavera como un examen nuevo y no usarlos en contra de los distritos o escuelas en las evaluaciones por al menos un año.

Le preocupaba que las calificaciones para los distritos que sirven a grandes cantidades de estudiantes en esos subgrupos fueran significativamente más bajas que para otros distritos.

“El impacto es demasiado serio para tomarlo a la ligera”, dijo Loría.

Este otoño ya se han calculado las calificaciones preliminares para las escuelas y los distritos. El estado está revisando las apelaciones antes de que las calificaciones se finalicen. El Departamento de Educación del estado primero realizó un análisis para asegurar que las calificaciones siguieran siendo comparables con el año anterior y fueran justas para ser usadas en las evaluaciones. Basado en el análisis, el estado ajustó los puntajes de corte para las secciones de matemáticas del PSAT y SAT, pero dijo que aún era apropiado usarlas como un factor para evaluar el desempeño de las escuelas y distritos.

El miércoles, después de recibir algunos datos adicionales, la Junta Estatal votó nuevamente para ajustar los puntajes de corte para las calificaciones del próximo año, en particular para los distritos que utilizan un promedio de tres años de los puntajes. Sin embargo, la Junta Estatal no optó por seguir la sugerencia de Loría de excluir los puntajes de consideración.

Un portavoz de College Board, los creadores de los exámenes PSAT y SAT, dijo que en general han encontrado que “los puntajes del SAT de la primavera y el otoño de 2024 son generalmente comparables a los de años anteriores”. Según los informes de datos del sitio web de College Board, los estudiantes cuyo primer idioma no era el inglés experimentaron grandes caídas en los puntajes del PSAT de 10o grado, pero no en los puntajes del SAT de 11o grado.

A nivel nacional, según los datos de College Board, los estudiantes cuyo idioma era algo distinto al inglés experimentaron una caída de 57 puntos en sus puntajes promedio en comparación con el año pasado, mientras que los estudiantes de 10o grado cuyo primer idioma era el inglés tuvieron una caída de 44 puntos.

El voto de la Junta Estatal tiene como objetivo ajustar las expectativas para que las escuelas de Colorado no sean penalizadas por algunas de las caídas en los puntajes, ya que algunas podrían ser debido al cambio en el formato del examen, pero Loría no pensó que fuera suficiente para tener en cuenta las disparidades entre los subgrupos.

Otros distritos no plantearon las mismas preocupaciones.

Un portavoz de las escuelas del Distrito 11 dijo que el distrito está “abordando factores complejos y contribuyentes en el corazón de nuestros puntajes. No compartimos las mismas preocupaciones que Adams 14 en este momento”.

El año pasado, cuando los funcionarios estatales comenzaron a alertar que los datos mostraban que los estudiantes de inglés podrían haber sido más afectados por las pérdidas de la pandemia y tener más dificultades para recuperarse en comparación con otros grupos de estudiantes, muchos líderes de distritos en Colorado no identificaron el problema, incluso cuando sus datos también coincidían con las preocupaciones del estado. Algunos dijeron que no estaban haciendo nada diferente para ayudar a estos estudiantes.

Adams 14 puede tener una motivación mayor que otros distritos para pedirle al estado que cambie su sistema de calificación para las escuelas y distritos. Ha sido el único distrito que ha seguido recibiendo calificaciones bajas durante más de 10 años y enfrentando sanciones estatales por ellas, incluyendo la pérdida de acreditación en algún momento. Los miembros de la Junta Estatal recientemente han dado un paso atrás y han puesto más confianza en los esfuerzos de mejora del distrito, pero hasta ahora, no han producido una calificación más alta para el distrito.

Los líderes de Adams 14 también pidieron a la junta estatal que considere el impacto de la contaminación ambiental en el desempeño escolar cuando califiquen a las escuelas y distritos.

Las caídas de 2024 significan que algunas brechas se han duplicado

Ya existían brechas entre los estudiantes aprendices de inglés y aquellos que no necesitan servicios de inglés, pero estas han crecido con los resultados de 2024 que se publicaron hace unos meses. En algunos distritos, incluyendo Adams 14, se han duplicado.

En Adams 14, los estudiantes aprendices de inglés de 10.º grado tuvieron una caída de 108 puntos, en comparación con una caída de 30 puntos para otros estudiantes. En Adams 14, en comparación con 2023, la brecha en el rendimiento de los estudiantes aprendices de inglés y los estudiantes que ya hablan inglés en 10.º grado creció de 70 puntos a 148. Esto representa un aumento del 111 % en la brecha.

La brecha entre la puntuación promedio de los estudiantes aprendices de inglés y los estudiantes que no están identificados para servicios de inglés en el Distrito 11 es una de las más grandes del estado, más grande que las brechas estatales y está creciendo rápidamente.

La brecha más grande en ese distrito, por ejemplo, se da entre los estudiantes de 11.º grado que tomaron el SAT. Los aprendices de inglés de 11.º grado tuvieron una puntuación promedio de 625, en comparación con una puntuación promedio de 910 para los estudiantes que no están aprendiendo inglés como un nuevo idioma. Esa es una brecha de 285 puntos, frente a una brecha de 225 el año pasado.

De los 25 distritos que tenían datos que no tuvieron que ser suprimidos por razones de privacidad tanto en 2023 como en 2024, solo el distrito escolar de Boulder Valley vio mejorar las puntuaciones promedio de los estudiantes de 10.º grado que no son aún proficientes en inglés.

Al observar las puntuaciones sin desglosar, muchos distritos tuvieron a otros estudiantes que lo hicieron lo suficientemente bien como para promediar una caída más moderada en las poblaciones totales. En promedio, combinando a todos los estudiantes, los estudiantes de 10.º grado en el Distrito 11 solo tuvieron una caída promedio de 31 puntos. En Westminster, la caída general para 10.º grado fue de 49 puntos.

Jorge García, un defensor de los estudiantes multilingües a través de la Asociación Colorado de Educación Bilingüe, dijo que aunque no ha revisado los datos de 2024 detenidamente, los problemas no son nuevos.

Y si el estado está seguro de que este nuevo formato de examen está evaluando con precisión el aprendizaje de todos los estudiantes, dijo que debería haber un plan para ayudar a los estudiantes que aún no son proficientes en inglés.

“Si el sistema educativo y el estado están haciendo peor de lo que pensábamos, entonces, ¿qué están haciendo al respecto?” dijo Garcia. “No me sorprendería que tal vez tengamos algunos líderes a cargo, algunos, que no saben qué hacer. Deberían comenzar a echar un vistazo largo y profundo a cómo están fallando a estos estudiantes para que puedan comenzar a cambiar las cosas. Si siguen ignorándolo, no va a mejorar”.

Traducción por Jackie Ramirez

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado que cubre distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Colorado high school test scores dropped across the board, but students learning English as a new language had bigger declines

2024-11-15T22:32:03+00:00

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English learners in Colorado saw the largest drops in PSAT and SAT scores this past spring, bigger even than the score declines experienced by all high school students in the state.

The overall declines have led to discussions among state officials about adjusting high school graduation requirements and whether last spring’s scores can be compared to scores from previous years. Now, one Colorado superintendent is raising concerns about whether the PSAT and SAT scores in school districts that serve large numbers of English learners should even be used to rate a district’s academic performance.

“The rate of lost points in the scores is not equitable and it is not comparable,” said Karla Loría, superintendent of Adams 14 schools. “It hurts multilingual students and students with disabilities at a greater rate than any other student groups.”

One of the largest gaps statewide, for instance: 10th graders who aren’t identified to receive English language services had an average 5-point drop in their PSAT scores, while 10th graders who are learning English as a new language had an average drop of 83 points, which is 11.6%, or more than 16 times that of their counterparts.

When looking at just math scores, 10th grade English learners had a 13.6% drop in scores compared to a 1.3% drop among 10th graders who aren’t English learners.

Students with disabilities also saw large drops, though not as large as English learners.

In previous discussions about the overall declines of 2024, state officials said it’s difficult to know how much they represent a drop in performance and how much is due to the changes in the test format.

The digital PSAT and SAT students took in the spring of 2024 was adaptive, meaning that the questions students saw were dependent on how they were answering questions.

State officials also told the State Board of Education that it’s possible these lower results are a more accurate representation of learning for students who already performed at the lower range of the possible points.

That’s because, they say, students used to get advice to guess at questions they didn’t know or when they ran out of time. And some of those guesses were bound to be correct, earning them some extra points. But the new digital PSAT and SAT test online is designed to know when students are likely to be guessing, and so even if the guess is correct, the test won’t give students those points.

“Students were earning credit for content they didn’t know,” said Christina Wirth-Hawkins, chief assessment officer for the Colorado Department of Education.

Still, she said, the department isn’t telling schools to change how they do test prep with students, but rather telling them that the important thing is to help students learn content.

Drops in scores for English learners follows concerns raised last year

In Colorado Springs District 11, where about 6% of the district’s 22,700 students are identified as having limited or no English proficiency, 10th graders who aren’t yet English proficient had a 127-point drop in their scores, compared to a 27-point drop for other students.

In Westminster, where more than 24% of the district’s 7,600 students are learning English as a new language, 10th graders learning English had their average score drop by 121 points, compared to a 28-point drop for those who aren’t receiving English support.

In both the Harrison and Fort Morgan school districts, 10th graders learning English experienced drops of 120 points in their average score.

Because of the large gaps, Loria asked the board last month to consider the PSAT and SAT tests students took in the spring as a new test and not to use them against districts or schools in evaluations for at least one year.

She worried that the ratings for the districts serving large numbers of students in those subgroups would be significantly lower than for other districts.

“The impact is too serious to take it lightly,” Loría said.

This fall, preliminary ratings have already been calculated for schools and districts. The state is reviewing appeals before the ratings are finalized. The state Department of Education had first run an analysis to ensure the scores were still comparable to the previous year and fair to use in the ratings. Based on the analysis, the state tweaked the cut scores for the PSAT and SAT math sections of the test, but said it was still appropriate to use them as a factor for evaluating school and district performance.

On Wednesday, having received some additional data, the State Board voted again to tweak the cut scores for ratings next year, in particular for districts that use a three-year average of the scores. But the State Board did not opt to follow Loria’s suggestion of taking the scores out of consideration.

A spokesperson for College Board, the makers of the PSAT and SAT tests, said they’ve found in general “SAT scores from spring and fall 2024 are generally comparable to previous years.” According to data reports from the College Board website, students whose first language was something other than English had large drops in 10th grade PSAT scores, but not in 11th grade SAT scores.

At that national level, according to College Board data, students whose language was something other than English had a 57-point drop in their average scores compared to last year, while 10th graders whose first language was English had a 44-point drop.

The State Board’s vote is meant to adjust the expectations so that Colorado schools aren’t penalized for some of the score drops, since some could be due to the change in the test format, but Loría didn’t think it went far enough to account for the subgroup disparities.

Other districts did not raise the same concerns.

Test scores say COVID was especially rough on English learners. Not all school districts agree.

A spokesperson for the District 11 schools said the district is “addressing complex and contributing factors at the heart of our scores. We do not share the same concerns as Adams 14 at this time.”

Last year, when state officials first raised an alarm that data showed English learners might have been more impacted by the pandemic losses and having a harder time recovering compared to other student groups, many district leaders in Colorado did not identify the issue, even when their data also matched state concerns. Some said they weren’t doing anything different to help these students.

Adams 14 may have a bigger motivation than other districts to ask the state to change its rating system for schools and districts. It has been the only district to continue to receive low ratings for more than 10 years and face state sanctions for it, including a loss of accreditation at one point. State Board members more recently have backed off and put more trust in the district’s own improvement efforts, but so far, they have not yet produced a higher rating for the district.

Adams 14 leaders earlier this fall also asked the state board to consider environmental polluiton’s impact on school performance when they rate schools and districts.

The 2024 drops mean some gaps have doubled

Gaps already existed among English learners and those who don’t need English services, but they’ve grown with the 2024 results released a few months ago. In some districts, including Adams 14, they’ve doubled.

In Adams 14, English learners in 10th grade had a drop of 108 points, compared to a drop of 30 points for other students. For Adams 14, compared to 2023, the gap in the performance of English learners and students who already speak English in 10th grade grew from 70 points to 148. That’s a 111% increase in the gap.

The gap between the average score for English learners and students not identified for English services in District 11 are some of the largest in the state – larger than statewide gaps and growing fast.

The largest gap in that district, for instance, is among 11th graders who took the SAT. English learners in 11th grade had an average score of 625, compared to an average score of 910 for students not learning English as a new language. That’s a 285-point gap, up from a gap of 225 last year.

Of 25 districts that had data that didn’t have to be suppressed for privacy in both 2023 and 2024, only the Boulder Valley school district had 10th graders who are not yet English proficient improve their average scores.

When looking at scores without disaggregating, many districts had other students do well enough to average out a more moderate drop for their total populations. On average, combining all students, 10th graders in District 11 only had an average score drop of 31. In Westminster, the overall drop for 10th grade was 49 points.

Jorge Garcia, an advocate for multilingual students through the Colorado Association of Bilingual Education, said that although he hasn’t looked at the 2024 data closely, the issues aren’t new.

And if the state is confident that this new test format is accurately testing all students’ learning, he said there should be a plan to help students who are not yet proficient in English.

“If the educational system and the state is doing worse than we thought, then what are they doing about it?” Garcia said. “It would not surprise me that perhaps we have some leaders in charge, some, who don’t know what to do. They should begin to take a long hard look at how they’re failing these students so they can start to turn that around. If they continue to ignore it, it’s not going to get better.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Despite early returns, last ballots counted show voters approve Adams 14 ballot measures

2024-11-14T22:56:22+00:00

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Despite early disappointment, Adams 14 leaders are celebrating as unofficial final election results this week show voters passed both of the district’s tax requests.

The district hadn’t had a local tax measure approved by voters since 2006, when a bond was passed to build the new high school.

Adams County’s last update to election numbers Thursday showed the district’s mill levy request, 4A, winning by 241 votes, and the district’s bond request, 4B, winning by 109 votes. Results will continue to be considered unofficial until after the usual audit process, with certification expected Nov. 26.

District leaders had initially released a statement expressing their disappointment when it appeared last week that both measures would fail, but the district sent out a new statement on Thursday thanking voters.

“The passing of the bond and mill levy demonstrates the increasing support and trust of the Adams 14 community,” said Superintendent Karla Loría in the statement. “This funding will allow us to upgrade our facilities, improve our learning environments, and ensure our teachers and staff receive the compensation they deserve.”

The district wanted the funding from the mill levy override to raise salaries for teachers and school staff but is not planning to raise administrator salaries.

The bond funding will help the district pay for building a new middle school to house seventh and eighth graders from both Kearney Middle School and Adams City High School, which will merge.

Other district schools will also get building repairs for safety and HVAC improvements, as well as new furniture for classrooms.

Loría said the next step is for the committee that worked on the campaign to meet again, this time as the new oversight committee for the spending of the bond, to come up with a timeline and next steps.

The district will also need to meet with the union to negotiate the staff salary increases.

For the middle school merger, the district is still conducting more community outreach. The district, like others in the metro area, has seen a drop in enrollment over the last several years.

Loría expects in the next couple of months to select a transition site where this year’s sixth graders will go in the fall of 2025, while current middle schools start to get phased out.

The district also must select a permanent new site for the joint new building sometime this school year. Once a site is selected, Loría said the district will also have discussions about whether transportation services will need to expand to help students who currently walk to their middle schools.

Loría also wants voters to know she’s working on creating several ways for the community to be able to track how the money gets spent, like a new website, as well as ways for the community to give feedback and “be able to share what they really appreciate and what concerns they may have.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Los votantes de Colorado parecen dispuestos a aprobar aproximadamente la mitad de las medidas de financiación de los distritos escolares este año.

2024-11-14T18:31:32+00:00

Estos son los resultados electorales de las preguntas en la boleta de Colorado que afectan a las escuelas

Cuando se trató de dar más financiamiento local a las escuelas, los votantes de Colorado se mostraron reacios a aumentar los impuestos este año.

Normalmente, los años de elecciones presidenciales pueden ser buenos años para que los distritos pidan a los votantes que aumenten los impuestos para las escuelas. Pero este año, según resultados no oficiales publicados el viernes por la mañana, sólo aproximadamente la mitad de las solicitudes, es decir, 22 de 41, tuvieron éxito. Eso es menos que en 2020 cuando alrededor del 90% de las medidas tuvieron éxito y también en 2016 cuando 68% de medidas fueron aprobadas.

Este año, de los 22 que los votantes aprobaron, sólo 11 fueron en realidad aumentos de impuestos.

Muchas de las medidas electorales exitosas de los distritos escolares este año pueden atribuir, al menos en parte, su éxito al hecho de que pudieron decir a los votantes que aprobar la medida no significaría un impuesto a la propiedad nuevo o más alto.

En el distrito escolar Adams 12, al norte de Denver, las dos solicitudes del distrito tuvieron resultados divididos, precisamente por eso.

El distrito pudo pedir a los votantes que contrajeran nueva deuda de bonos, pero podría pagarla con la recaudación de impuestos existente. Los votantes apoyaron ampliamente esa medida. Ayudará a reconstruir la deteriorada escuela Thornton High School, agregará una nueva cocina central y un almacén, además de pagar otros tipos de mantenimiento de las escuelas.

Pero en un intento por lograr una nueva anulación del impuesto al molino que proporcionaría dólares continuos para aumentar los salarios de los maestros, los votantes de Adams 12 rechazaron la medida. Si se aprobara, los propietarios habrían tenido que pagar alrededor de $2.04 por mes por cada $100,000 de valor de la vivienda.

“Sabemos que la carga es mayor”, dijo el superintendente de Adams 12, Chris Gdowski. “Los ingresos son escasos y cada vez entran más. Sabemos que eso fue más allá de lo que nuestras familias pudieron hacer”.

Aún así, el distrito continuará ayudando a la comunidad a comprender los presupuestos escolares, incluidas las posibles pérdidas de ingresos que el distrito podría enfrentar, y luego volverá a realizar encuestas más adelante este año escolar para determinar “si las cosas han cambiado con el impuesto a la propiedad”. Gdowski dijo que el plan probablemente sería volver a preguntar a los votantes en 2025 o 2026.

Denver y Aurora Los distritos escolares tuvieron algunas de las solicitudes de financiamiento más grandes en la boleta electoral y ninguno exigió que esas comunidades pagaran una tasa impositiva más alta. Ambas medidas fueron aprobadas por amplios márgenes.

Todas las medidas que fracasaron habrían significado impuestos a la propiedad más altos para los propietarios de viviendas. Eso incluye medidas para el distrito escolar de Thompson, el condado 70 de Pueblo, varias en el condado de Weld, incluidas Weld Re-8 en Fort Lupton.

En Adams 14, los resultados más recientes de las elecciones, publicados por el condado de Adams durante el fin de semana, mostraron que dos medidas impositivas han tomado la delantera, a pesar de que los primeros resultados indicaban que ambas medidas iban a fracasar.

En el condado de Douglas, donde el distrito había tenido dificultades para aprobar una solicitud de bono durante los últimos dos años, los votantes aprobaron este año un bono que, esta vez, no requería una tasa impositiva más alta. El dinero se destinará a la construcción de nuevas escuelas en zonas en crecimiento del condado.

Los pocos distritos que aprobaron una medida fiscal que requería una tasa de impuestos más alta incluyen el distrito escolar de Poudre en el norte de Colorado, Cherry Creek, Platte Valley en el condado de Weld, Harrison en Colorado Springs, Durango y Montezuma, que logró por primera vez en su historia la aprobación de un incremento de impuestos.

En Cherry Creek, se les pidió a los votantes aprobar un bono de $950 millones y un incremento de impuestos para obtener $9 millones, lo que en conjunto costaría a los propietarios $3 por mes por cada $100,000.

El incremento de impustos de Harrison para obtener también $9 millones les costará a esos propietarios $5,31 por mes por cada $100.000 del valor de la vivienda, y eso sin un bono.

La superintendente de Harrison, Wendy Birhanzel, dijo que sabe que en su comunidad, que tiene muchas familias de bajos ingresos, hacer la solicitud fue un desafío. Piensa que ayudó el hecho de que la última vez que los votantes aprobaron un aumento de impuestos para un bono, el distrito lo usó para mejorar todos los edificios.

“Demostramos a nuestra comunidad que cuando tenemos un plan, lo seguiremos”, dijo Birhanzel.

El incremento de impuestos serviría para aumentar los salarios de los maestros. Pero los votantes en Harrison también podrían haber estado mostrando apoyo a otro programa que sería financiado con los nuevos fondos: la continuación de un programa de becas para todos los graduados del distrito.

La beca comenzó hace tres años. Con la financiación aprobada, se otorgará a los estudiantes independientemente de otros fondos que reciban para la universidad, lo que significa que pueden obtener la beca del distrito para cubrir la matrícula y aún recibir otras becas o fondos federales para ayudar con otros gastos. Las familias pueden haber visto el programa como un retorno directo de la inversión, dijo.

“Realmente crea equidad para nuestros niños”, dijo Birhanzel. “Nuestras familias realmente respaldan esto”.

Holyoke, en la esquina noreste del estado, pudo aprobar una medida que requería un nuevo impuesto para los bonos que sólo entraría en vigor si el estado obtenía una subvención para ayudar a construir una nueva escuela primaria. El año pasado el distrito no recibió la subvención, pero planea intentarlo nuevamente este año. Distritos escolares que ganan las MEJORES subvenciones (BEST por sus siglas en ingles) del estado para ayudar con proyectos de capital deben tener algunos fondos de contrapartida para pagar el costo, y la aprobación de los votantes de Holyoke asegurará que el distrito los tenga esta vez.

El superintendente Kyle Stumpf dijo que fue una “solicitud extremadamente difícil” para su comunidad. Hasta el jueves, la medida estaba ganando con solo 70 votos.

“Nuestra comunidad de agricultores y ganaderos apoya muy bien a nuestro distrito y siempre nos ha apoyado, pero este año ha sido extremadamente difícil”, dijo Stumpf.

Cree que la diferencia fue que los padres de los niños de primaria que asisten al edificio de la escuela, que fue construido en 1954, han visto que los problemas de mantenimiento empeoran.

Ha habido roturas en la tubería principal de agua, una de las tomas eléctricas originales de 1954 se incendió y, el día de las elecciones esta semana, la escuela primaria tuvo que ser evacuada por una fuga de gas. Los funcionarios encontraron no una, sino tres fugas de gas en la sala de calderas de la escuela.

Además, dijo, el edificio de la escuela no tiene mucha capacidad para trabajar con la tecnología que los estudiantes usan ahora o para acomodar ambientes de aprendizaje más pequeños donde los maestros pueden trabajar con estudiantes que necesitan apoyo diferente, incluidos los estudiantes de inglés.

“El edificio ha cumplido su propósito, pero no fue diseñado para el tipo de educación de hoy”, dijo Stumpf.

Dijo que el distrito es “muy afortunado” de que parece que una mayoría de votantes aprobó la medida. Dijo que espera que sea una inversión que sirva a la comunidad durante mucho tiempo.

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado que cubre distritos escolares K-12 y educación multilingüe. Comuníquese con Yesenia en yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Adams 14 tax request election results: Late results show 4A and 4B pulling ahead

2024-11-11T17:01:21+00:00

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Final unofficial election results show Adams 14 voters ultimately passed both measures. Read a more updated story here.

The latest election results posted by Adams County over the weekend showed that two tax measures for the Adams 14 school district have pulled ahead, despite earlier results showing both measures failing.

The votes for and against 4A and 4B had narrowed Friday to nearly a dead heat when more than 30,000 ballots were left to be counted, according to unofficial election results and Adams County officials.

A $10 million mill levy override to raise teacher pay was failing by a single vote. And a $113.9 million bond question to build a new school was failing by 124 votes.

By Saturday night’s last update, the mill levy override was ahead by 225 votes and the bond was ahead by 90.

On Wednesday, when the vote spread was wider, the district had released a statement saying leaders were disappointed in the outcome but found solace because the measures were only about 300 votes short of passing.

“While we were hopeful for the passage of these measures to support facility improvements and teacher salaries, we respect the outcome and will continue to seek ways to address the district’s critical needs,” said Superintendent Karla Loria in the released statement. “The fact that we were just shy of 300 votes on both measures shows that the community is beginning to rebuild trust in the District. This is a clear sign that we’re moving in the right direction and working toward uniting our community for the benefit of our students.”

The district has previously struggled to increase local funding. Voters haven’t approved a tax measure in more than 10 years. For about as long, Adams 14 has struggled to increase student achievement on state tests but did successfully rally against state orders for reorganization which could have dissolved the district. Still, Adams 14 has one of the highest rates of students choosing to enroll in other school districts. It is also home to many low-income families that may be more wary of raising taxes.

Voter guide: Adams 14 district wants voters to approve new funding for schools

If approved, Adams County’s 4A and 4B ballot questions would cost Adams 14 homeowners approximately $6.52 a month per $100,000 of home value. For a home valued at $400,000, that would be about $26.08 per month.

Measure 4A is the district’s request for a mill levy override to produce about $10 million per year to help pay for salary increases for teachers and classified staff.

Measure 4B is the district’s bond request to raise $113.9 million that the district wants to use to build a new middle school to house seventh and eighth graders from Kearney Middle School and Adams City Middle school. The district is planning to merge the schools but would like to build a new building instead of having to make costly repairs on one of the schools.

The district estimates it will take $77 million out of the $113.9 million bond request to build the new school building. That’s nearly as much as this year’s total general fund budget for the district, which is just over $99 million.

If approved, the rest of the bond money would help pay for security upgrades, HVAC system upgrades, and other maintenance as well as new furniture for classrooms.

The last time the district asked voters for a tax measure was in 2014 and 2013, and the measures failed both years.

The district enrolled about 5,484 students last school year. A majority of students come from low-income families, and about half of students are learning English as a new language.

Adams 14 has been the focus of state accountability measures for several years as it has struggled to raise student achievement enough to earn higher state ratings. But State Board members have stopped escalating state orders and are putting more trust in the district’s plans for improvement.

We’ll continue to update this story with election results.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Estos son los resultados electorales de las preguntas en la boleta de Colorado que afectan a las escuelas

2024-11-07T17:15:27+00:00

Los votantes de Colorado decidieron sobre varios temas relacionados con las escuelas en las elecciones del martes.

Aquí están algunos de los resultados, basados en el conteo de votos publicados el miércoles por la mañana.

La Enmienda 80 fracasa: Esta fue la propuesta a nivel estado para agregar el derecho de elegir libremente una escuela a la constitución de Colorado. Porque cambia la constitución, necesitaba el 55% de los votos para aprobarse. El jueves por la mañana, solo el 48% de los votos eran a favor de la enmienda. Los proponentes dijeron que querían proteger los derechos actuales en Colorado para elegir libremente una escuela, pero líderes de la educación pública se oponían a la medida. Dijeron que era un intento de dar lugar a desafíos en la corte para darles fondos públicos a las escuelas privadas.

Los votantes de Denver aprueban una medida de fondos: La propuesta de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver de recaudar más dinero para mejorar edificios, como instalar aire acondicionado en 29 escuelas más, tenía una fuerte ventaja. La medida no requiere que los dueños de propiedades en Denver paguen una mayor tasa impositiva.

Republicanos toman la delantera en tres puestos para el Consejo Estatal de Educación de Colorado: El Consejo Estatal de Educación, el cual cuenta con un total de nueve integrantes, tenía cuatro puestos vacantes en diferentes partes del estado estas elecciones. Dos de ellos ya estaban ocupados por integrantes republicanos. Un tercer puesto, actualmente ocupado por la demócrata Rhonda Solis en el 8º Distrito Congresal, el cual abarca la mayor parte del Condado de Adams y partes de los condados de Weld y Larimer, tenía la probabilidad de pasar a manos de la republicana Yazmin Navarro. Los resultados de la cuarta contienda mostraban a la demócrata Kathy Gebhardt en la delantera. Los resultados no cambiarán la mayoría demócrata en el consejo, pero pueden resultar en que haya más voces conservadoras.

Además: Conoce las candidatas al Consejo Estatal de Educación de Colorado

En Adams 14, los votantes rechazan solicitudes del distrito escolar: El distrito escolar les pidió a los votantes subir los impuestos a la propiedad para aumentar los salarios de los maestros y personal clasificado y para construir una nueva escuela media. Los votantes rechazaron tanto la propuesta de un bono como una propuesta para una recaudación especial de impuestos (en inglés: mill levy override). El distrito no ha logrado pasar exitosamente ninguna medida impositiva en más de una década.

Además: Alrededor del estado, otras solicitudes de fondos que hicieron los distritos escolares obtuvieron diversos resultados. En Aurora y Westminster, donde las solicitudes no hubieran aumentado los impuestos a la propiedad de dueños de viviendas, los votantes demostraron su apoyo. Los resultados también mostraron que se aprobarían las medidas de fondos escolares en el Condado de Douglas y en Cherry Creek. Pero votantes en muchos distritos, incluyendo el de Thompson, Pueblo 70 y la mayoría de los distritos en el Condado de Weld, estaban rechazando las medidas. En Adams 12, los resultados fueron diferentes para dos solicitudes. La que no aumentaría los impuestos probablemente se apruebe, mientras que los votantes rechazaron la que generaría mayores impuestos a la propiedad.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

El distrito Adams 14 quiere que los votantes aprueben nuevos fondos para las escuelas

2024-10-17T18:50:41+00:00

El distrito escolar de Adams 14 pedirá a los votantes, por primera vez en 10 años, que aprueben un aumento de impuestos locales para construir una nueva escuela secundaria y aumentar los salarios de los maestros.

Peticiones similares del distrito fracasaron en 2013 y 2014.

Además de construir una nueva escuela secundaria, que también fue el objetivo en 2014, la solicitud de bonos de $113.9 millones de este año, si se aprueba, se destinaría a mejoras de seguridad, como sensores en las puertas, mejoras en el sistema HVAC, nuevas ventanas, techos y nuevos muebles en muchas de las escuelas. El aumento de impuestos de $10 millones, otra versión de un aumento en el impuesto a la propiedad, incrementaría los salarios de los maestros y del personal clasificado.

Los educadores del distrito dicen que las reparaciones se han demorado mucho.

“Cuando entras a nuestras escuelas, los padres lo saben, la comunidad lo sabe”, dijo Joe Salazar, abogado de Adams 14. “Puedes ver que necesitamos mejoras serias”.

La última vez que el distrito aprobó un bono fue en 2008. Se utilizó para construir la Adams City High School. El distrito aprobó por última vez un aumento en el impuesto a la propiedad a fines de la década de 1990, aunque el distrito no confirmó un año exacto.

Esta vez, el distrito está trabajando en planes para fusionar las dos únicas escuelas secundarias del distrito, Adams City Middle School y Kearney Middle School, que ambas han visto una disminución en la inscripción y ya no albergan a estudiantes de sexto grado. (A partir de este año, los estudiantes de sexto grado permanecen en las escuelas primarias). El plan es trasladar solo a los estudiantes de séptimo y octavo grado al nuevo edificio. Si la medida de impuestos no se aprueba, las escuelas aún se fusionarán, pero los líderes del distrito no han decidido en qué edificio.

Jason Malmberg, presidente del sindicato de maestros de Adams 14 y maestro en Kearney Middle School, dijo que le entristece la idea de perder la escuela. Ha estado en Kearney durante años y dijo que incluso tiene un tatuaje de KMS. Pero dijo que los educadores entienden la posición del distrito.

“Adams City Middle School y Kearney están en una necesidad tan desesperada de reemplazo, que sería difícil encontrar a alguien que no esté emocionado por obtener un nuevo edificio”, dijo Malmberg. “Si esto va a ser algo que haga que el distrito sea más competitivo financieramente, entonces lo entendemos”.

Las condiciones de los edificios impactan directamente a los estudiantes, dijo.

“Si eres un niño y vas a la escuela y ves techos dañados por el agua y hueles algo que sube del alcantarillado por tercera o cuarta vez ese año, tiene un impacto”, dijo Malmberg.

Adams 14 ofreció fotos que demuestran las condiciones de sus edificios.

Malmberg recuerda a un estudiante que estaba considerando cambiarse a una escuela en el distrito vecino 27J, pero estaba nervioso por poder encajar en una escuela que veía como mucho más lujosa de lo que estaba acostumbrado en Adams 14.

Los estudiantes tienen expectativas más bajas para sí mismos en condiciones en las que no ven a otros invirtiendo en ellos, dijo, aunque “merecen todas las cosas”.

Dijo que el equipo de instalaciones y el personal trabajan arduamente para mantener los edificios seguros y limpios, pero que solo pueden hacer tanto con las instalaciones antiguas.

Malmberg dijo que los maestros están emocionados por las mejoras de seguridad que también vendrían, incluido el no requerir que los estudiantes caminen fuera del edificio para ir de una clase a otra, ya que los edificios actuales de la escuela secundaria están diseñados de esa manera.

Y, dijo, espera que la financiación del aumento de impuestos, si se aprueba, ayude a que el distrito sea más competitivo para la contratación y retención de maestros.

En las negociaciones del año pasado, el distrito y el sindicato acordaron que si se aprueba el aumento de impuestos, los maestros recibirán un aumento promedio mínimo del 3% una vez que el distrito comience a recibir los fondos. Las negociaciones podrían hacer que esos aumentos sean mayores.

El salario inicial en Adams 14 para los maestros es actualmente de $56,000, más alto que en años anteriores, pero aún más bajo que en algunos distritos vecinos.

Las medidas tendrán que superar desafíos previos.

El distrito podría enfrentar algunos desafíos para que las medidas de impuestos sean aprobadas. La comunidad está compuesta por muchos votantes de bajos ingresos que enfrentan una mayor carga que otras comunidades para recaudar fondos.

Para los propietarios de viviendas en Adams 14, el costo del bono propuesto y el aumento de impuestos es de aproximadamente $6.52 al mes por cada $100,000 de valor de la propiedad. Para una casa valorada en $400,000, eso sería aproximadamente $26.08 al mes.

Dos distritos cercanos, Aurora y Westminster, están pidiendo a los votantes que aprueben medidas fiscales que no requerirán que los propietarios paguen impuestos a la propiedad más altos.

El estado ha aumentado la financiación por estudiante, lo que afecta la cantidad base que reciben todos los distritos, pero los impuestos locales aprobados por los votantes han creado disparidades financieras crecientes entre distritos. Algunos han podido aprobar aumentos locales de impuestos, mientras que otros no. La diferencia puede ser de miles de dólares por estudiante.

“Debido a la forma en que financiamos la educación en Colorado, los distritos escolares tienen que hacer esto para pagar bien a sus maestros”, dijo Salazar.

En el pasado, los ex líderes del distrito de Adams 14 también dijeron que evitaron poner una pregunta en la boleta electoral debido a la percepción negativa del distrito en la comunidad.

En un informe de 2014, la Oficina de Derechos Civiles del Departamento de Educación de EE. UU. acusó a los líderes del distrito de discriminar a las familias, al personal y los estudiantes de habla hispana. El distrito luchó durante años para cumplir con los derechos de esos estudiantes. Los funcionarios federales sólo aprobaron condicionalmente el plan para estudiantes de inglés en 2020.

El distrito también ha enfrentado presión del estado para mejorar después de años de bajo rendimiento estudiantil. Solo recientemente la Junta Estatal de Educación ha mostrado más confianza en el último plan del distrito. Sin embargo, la mejora en las calificaciones estatales sigue siendo difícil de alcanzar.

Según una medida, la confianza de la comunidad en general en el distrito no ha mejorado.

Adams 14 tiene una de las tasas más altas de estudiantes que eligen en Colorado asistir a escuelas en otros distritos. De los 8,484 estudiantes que viven dentro de los límites de Adams 14 y asisten a escuelas públicas, el 62% eligió asistir a escuelas del distrito el año pasado. El otro 37%, o 3,211 estudiantes, se inscribieron en escuelas en otros distritos.

Los líderes del distrito no pudieron decir exactamente cómo están trabajando para hacer correr la voz a los votantes sobre las necesidades financieras del distrito para las medidas electorales. Dos líderes del comité encargado de la obra, Adams 14 Ciudadanos por Escuelas Excelentes, no respondieron a las solicitudes de comentarios.

Malmberg dijo que si las medidas no se aprueban, no ve otra opción más que intentarlo nuevamente el próximo año.

“No hay cantidad de recortes o reducciones que puedan generar el dinero que necesitamos para reemplazar estas escuelas”, dijo Malmberg.

El distrito estima que se necesitarán $77 millones de los $113 millones solicitados en el bono para construir la nueva escuela para estudiantes de séptimo y octavo grado. Eso es casi tanto como el presupuesto total del fondo general del distrito de este año, que es poco más de $99 millones.

“Todos los niños merecen un entorno seguro y acogedor para aprender y crecer”, agregó Malmberg. “Creo que todos querríamos eso para todos los niños de la comunidad”.

Traducción de Rossana Longo-Better

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre distritos escolares K-12 y educación multilingüe. Comuníquese con Yesenia en yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Adams 14 district wants voters to approve new funding for schools

2024-10-11T23:02:44+00:00

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The Adams 14 school district will ask voters for the first time in 10 years to raise local taxes to build a new middle school and to raise teacher salaries.

Similar requests from the district failed in both 2013 and 2014.

In addition to building a new middle school, which was also the intent in 2014, this year’s $113.9 million bond request, if approved, would pay for security upgrades such as door sensors, HVAC system upgrades, new windows, roofs, and new furniture at many of the schools. The $10 million mill levy override, another version of a property tax increase, would raise salaries for teachers and classified staff.

Educators in the district say the repairs have been long overdue.

“You walk into our schools, the parents know it, the community knows it,” said Joe Salazar, an Adams 14 attorney. “You can see that we need some serious upgrades.”

The last time the district passed a bond was in 2008. It was used to build Adams City High School. The district last passed a mill levy override in the late 1990s, though an exact year wasn’t confirmed by the district.

This time, the district is working on plans to merge the district’s only two middle schools, Adams City Middle School and Kearney Middle School, which have both seen a decrease in enrollment. and no longer house sixth graders. (As of this year, sixth graders remain in elementary schools.) The plan is to move only seventh and eighth graders into the new building. If the tax measure fails, the schools will still merge, but district leaders haven’t decided in which building.

Jason Malmberg, the union president for teachers in Adams 14 and a teacher at Kearney Middle School, said he’s sad about the idea of losing the school. He’s been at Kearney for years, and said he even has a KMS tattoo. But he said educators understand the district’s position.

“Adams City Middle School and Kearney are in such dire need of replacement, it would be hard to find someone who’s not excited about getting a new building,” Malmberg said. “If this is going to be a thing that makes the district more financially competitive, then we understand.”

Building conditions directly have an impact on students, he said.

“If you’re a kid and you go to school and you see water damaged ceilings and smell something coming up from the sewer for the third or fourth time that year, it has an impact,” Malmberg said.

Buildings in Adams 14 need improvements. District officials are seeking a bond and mill levy increase in the November election.

Malmberg recalls a student who was considering switching to a school in the neighboring 27J school district, but was nervous about being able to fit in at a school she saw as much fancier than what she was used to in Adams 14.

Students have lowered expectations for themselves in conditions when they don’t see others investing in them, he said, even though “they deserve all the things.”

He said the facilities team and staff work hard to keep buildings safe and clean, but there’s only so much they can do with the old facilities.

Malmberg said teachers are excited about the safety upgrades that would also come, including no longer requiring students to walk outside the building to get from one class to another, as the existing middle school buildings are designed.

And, he said he hopes that the mill levy funding, if approved, would help make the district more competitive for teacher hiring and retention.

In last year’s negotiations, the district and the union agreed that if the mill levy is passed, teachers will get a minimum average raise of 3% once the district starts receiving the funds. Negotiations could make those raises higher.

Adams 14’s starting pay for teachers is now at $56,000, up from previous years but still lower than in some of the neighboring districts.

The measures would need to overcome past challenges

The district may face some challenges in getting the tax measures passed. The community is made up of many low-income voters who face a higher burden than other communities to raise funds.

For homeowners in Adams 14, the cost of the proposed bond and mill is approximately $6.52 a month per $100,000 of home value. For a home valued at $400,000, that would be about $26.08 per month.

Two nearby districts, Aurora and Westminster, are asking voters to approve tax measures that won’t require homeowners to pay higher property taxes.

The state has increased per-student funding — which affects the base amount all districts get — but additional voter-approved local taxes have created growing financial disparities between districts. Some have been able to pass local tax increases, while others haven’t. The difference can be thousands of dollars per student.

“Because of the way we fund education in Colorado, school districts have to do this to pay their teachers well,” Salazar said.

In the past, former Adams 14 district leaders have also said they avoided putting a question on the ballot because of the negative perception of the district in the community.

In a 2014 report, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights charged district leaders with discriminating against Spanish-speaking families, staff, and students. The district struggled for years to come into compliance with meeting the rights of those students. Federal officials only conditionally approved the district’s plan for English learners in 2020.

The district also has faced pressure from the state to improve after years of low student achievement. Only recently has the State Board of Education shown more trust in the district’s latest plan. Improvement on state ratings still remains elusive, however.

By one measure, the larger community’s trust in the district hasn’t improved.

Adams 14 has one of Colorado’s highest rates of students choosing to attend school in other districts. Of the 8,484 students who live in the Adams 14 boundary and attend public schools, 62% chose to attend district schools last school year. The other 37%, or 3,211 students, were enrolled in schools in other districts.

District leaders couldn’t say exactly how they’re working to get the word out to voters about the district’s financial needs for the ballot measures. Two leaders of the committee in charge of the work, Adams 14 Citizens for Excellent Schools, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Malmberg said that if the measures don’t pass, he doesn’t see another option but to try again the following year.

“There’s no amount of trimming or cutting back that is going to manifest the kind of money we need to replace these schools,” Malmberg said.

The district is estimating that it will take $77 million out of the $113 million bond request, to build the new school for seventh and eighth grade students. That’s nearly as much as this year’s total general fund budget for the district, which is just over $99 million.

“All kids deserve a safe and nurturing environment to learn and grow in,” Malmberg added. “I would think we would all want that for all the kids in the community.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

School accountability should factor in environmental hazards like pollution, Adams 14 says

2024-09-20T01:12:30+00:00

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The Adams 14 school district in Commerce City faces some of the most serious environmental hazards of any in Colorado. It’s also one of the lowest performing.

But external factors such as local levels of poverty or pollution aren’t a part of Colorado’s school rating system that holds districts accountable for student test scores. Adams 14 officials have asked the State Board of Education to reconsider that. But it looks like they have an uphill battle.

After more than a year of work, a 26-member task force has almost finished a set of recommendations for changing the state’s accountability system. The group’s latest draft, published on Friday, doesn’t recommend considering factors such as the environmental pollution in a community, although it’s still taking feedback.

At a State Board of Education meeting last Wednesday, Adams 14 Superintendent Karla Loria highlighted pollution in Commerce City, and research showing that such conditions can contribute to higher rates of student illnesses, learning disabilities, and behavioral problems.

Community members say their higher than average rate of adverse health issues are directly tied to conditions created by industries like a Commerce City oil refinery run by Suncor Energy that has faced multiple investigations for exceeding the amount of pollution it is allowed to release into the air. Commerce City, a heavily industrialized community north of Denver, is considered a disproportionately impacted community, based on state data.

“Adams 14 students face, every day and night, detrimental environmental exposures that more than 90 percent of our students across the state do not face,” Loria said.

The Adams 14 school district currently serves about 5,400 students, of which more than half speak English as a new language and a majority come from low-income families. Those demographics, when combined with high pollution levels, create a challenging situation for Adams 14 students and educators, Loria said.

Wendy Birhanzel, the superintendent of the Harrison school district and the chair of the task force looking at the accountability system, said she’s well aware of how external forces impact students.

But she said the task force focused on inequities within the accountability system, and stuck to factors that are within a school district’s control. In the year the task force has been meeting, she said she didn’t hear concerns about environmental pollution.

“We know there’s a lot of factors that go into a student’s performance or a student’s success, and so with our charge it was really about what can schools and districts control and change within their own systems to change outputs,” Birhanzel said. “When you talk about those outside factors, that becomes a whole different conversation than really what our focus was.”

Accountability system’s handling of Adams 14 spurred criticism

For its accountability system, Colorado mostly looks at student performance on standardized state tests, and student growth on those tests. At the high school level, the rating system also considers graduation rates and how many students move on to postsecondary options.

Districts can earn one of five ratings. In the most recent results for the last school year, just 11 districts — including Adams 14 — received one of the lowest two ratings. Being in those two lowest ratings for five years or more then means the state must step in and order an improvement plan, or take steps like closing schools.

Adams 14 was the first district to reach so many years on the watchlist for low ratings. The fallout has put a strain on the accountability system, as well as the local community. The State Board stripped the district’s accreditation in 2022, and ordered a reorganization that could have resulted in school closures or even the dissolution of the district. But after community pushback, the state backed off the order.

Many community members pointed to factors outside of the school’s control — including poverty, bad water, and student health issues — as reasons why they said the state’s ratings system was unfair, punitive, or inaccurately capturing student learning.

For years, Adams 14 has been working with outside consultants trying to improve student achievement. But it has yet to show improvement on the state’s rating system.

A majority of schools and districts initially identified for low performance under the same system do manage to improve and get off the watchlist.

Still, Colorado lawmakers commissioned an audit to examine the state’s accountability system. In 2022, the audit concluded that the system was reasonable, although it did find that certain groups of students, such as Hispanic students, were more likely to struggle.

After that audit, the state convened a task force to determine whether there should be changes to the state’s accountability system.

That task force has been meeting since August of last year. Their latest draft includes more than 20 possible recommendations including creating a super subgroup to avoid over-counting students who fall into more than one subgroup, and translating more of the state tests into more languages.

Birhanzel said the recommendations will help the state “better measure where we’re succeeding and where we need to support schools, districts or students.”

The final report is due by mid-November. Some of the recommendations could be adopted by the State Board or the Colorado Department of Education, but some could require changes to the state law on accountability.

Adams 14 seeks help from new Colorado rules

This month, much of Commerce City is breathing a sigh of relief after an oil and gas company dropped plans to expand gas storage tanks across the street from an Adams 14 elementary school. But that reprieve for the district doesn’t address all its current concerns about environmental dangers.

Adams 14 officials implied in their public comments last week that due to new state rules about environmental justice, the State Board had a legal obligation to consider the district’s official status as a disproportionately impacted community when making any changes to the accountability system.

The new rules define a “disproportionately impacted community” and suggest that more state agencies factor the designation into their decisions. The Colorado Department of Education was not listed among the state agencies, although the rules note that its list of such agencies isn’t meant to be exhaustive.

The state education department disputed Adams 14′s interpretation of the rules, saying it’s not aware of such a requirement. But it did say it would review relevant materials from the district about that issue.

“We recognize that factors outside schools’ control impact the student learning environment,” the department said in a statement. “Our department and the state board can and do consider those factors when making decisions about how to support districts and schools.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s annual performance ratings show more schools, districts earning better marks

2024-09-10T16:58:44+00:00

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More Colorado schools and districts are earning higher marks on the state’s annual performance ratings, according to preliminary data published Tuesday.

The ratings, largely based on scores from standardized state tests administered every spring, improved but are not yet better than before the pandemic. The trend is similar to state test score data released by the Colorado Department of Education last month, which showed student achievement slowly recovering from declines after the pandemic disruptions of 2020.

Overall, the list of districts on the state’s accountability clock — the watchlist where districts land for low performance — has been cut in half from 22 to 11. Aurora Public Schools, one of the largest districts that had earned a low rating last year, has quickly bounced back and is off the list based on an improved rating for 2024.

And at the school level, 83% of schools earned the two top ratings of performance or improvement in 2024, compared to 78% in 2023.

The state uses the ratings to identify schools and districts with persistently low academic performance and provide them with more funding and scrutiny. By law, the State Board of Education must order schools and districts that have had more than five years of low ratings to undergo changes in an effort to improve student performance. Those changes could include closing a school or requiring a struggling district to merge with a better-performing one.

But in recent years, the State Board has backed off ordering more serious interventions. Instead, it has largely rubber-stamped schools’ and districts’ own improvement plans as long as they meet the parameters of the state’s accountability law.

Likelihood of improving is high, but some schools struggle

Among notable improvements, Denver’s Manual High School earned significantly higher points compared to last year and will be able to exit the state’s low-performance watchlist.

But a handful of chronically low-performing schools and districts continue to struggle. That includes Denver’s Lincoln High School, which entered the low-performance list at the same time as Manual.

Colorado’s accountability system places districts and schools on the accountability clock when they earn one of the lowest two performance ratings. If a district or school remains on that list for five years in a row, the state must step in and order an improvement plan. The state also provides more funding for schools on the clock, although officials on Tuesday said the need always exceeds the funding available.

Many of the schools and districts that end up on the clock are those with high numbers of Hispanic students, students from low-income families, or students with disabilities. But an audit in late 2022 found that overall the state’s system was still reasonable.

Still, new members on the State Board have sided with community members who criticize the state’s system as punitive and inequitable.

Although Colorado statute has not changed the state’s accountability system, State Board members more recently have taken a different approach of asking state officials to collaborate with districts and monitoring those schools and districts.

In 2022, the state had escalated and exhausted its options for Adams 14 by ordering reorganization for the district, which has been on the clock for more than 10 years. But, after community pushback, last fall the state backed down.

This year, ratings show student performance in Adams 14 has once again decreased, and the district this year earned the fewest points of all districts in the state. At the school level, each of the district’s schools earned fewer points on the state’s report card, compared to last year, and now three elementary schools — Alsup, Central, and Rose Hill — earned the lowest rating possible.

Behind Adams 14, which is now officially on “year 11″ of the clock, only one other school in the state has had as many low ratings: Risley International Academy of Innovation, a middle school in Pueblo 60. This year, Risley also continued to earn one of the lowest ratings in the state, although the school earned 40% of possible points on the report card, more points than the 38% it earned last year.

Among the large school districts in the state, most districts had stable numbers of schools on the clock, with some of their schools improving and others earning lower ratings and taking their place on the list. Jeffco Public Schools, however, has eight, or twice as many schools as last year, on the clock.

State officials say about 60% of schools that enter the clock will exit right away with additional support and focus.

In Aurora, Aurora Central Campus, formerly Aurora Central High School, continues to face low state ratings. Last year, the school had insufficient data to earn a score. This year, the school earned 49.2% of possible points — enough to earn a higher rating and start to exit the clock — but low test participation means the school will continue to earn a low rating for a 10th year.

Schools and districts now get a chance to appeal their ratings if they can present additional data to warrant a change. After considering appeals, the state will finalize the ratings later this fall.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Disparities in local tax revenue for Colorado schools are growing, causing inequities and concern

2024-06-12T00:26:36+00:00

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As Colorado celebrates school funding increases meant to benefit some of the most disadvantaged districts in the state, one key issue remained unresolved this legislative session: the growing inequities created by local taxes.

Apart from state per-pupil funding, some school districts can raise several thousand additional dollars per student in voter-approved property taxes known as mill levy overrides, allowing them to boost teacher salaries and make safety improvements, for example. Other districts raise nothing extra. An attempt by state lawmakers to equalize that imbalance isn’t yet working as intended, in part because a state matching fund can’t make up for all the gaps.

Meanwhile, the imbalance is growing. In the metro area alone, the gap between how much additional revenue school districts are able to generate per student has increased by 52% in the last 10 years from $2,032 to $3,105. That’s despite a cap on the amount of money districts can raise based on a percentage of that district’s state funding.

At the bottom of the 15-district group now: Adams 14, a school district that has struggled to raise student performance. Local leaders have long pointed to the high needs students have in the low-income community, and the lack of resources schools can offer.

Adams 14 collects about $956 in additional mill levy override funds per student. On the opposite side of Denver, the Sheridan district collected more than $4,000 per student this past year, after a recent local tax measure passed.

“We know we are at a disadvantage in terms of keeping up,” said Karla Loría, Adams 14 superintendent. “We feel it.”

She said the district is struggling to keep salaries competitive with neighboring districts, which is affecting hiring and retention. The district has long struggled with staff retention. Teachers this semester staged rallies before and after school trying to push the district to offer better salaries for next year. Negotiations are ongoing, but the district is also considering trying to ask voters this November for a mill levy override to help raise more money.

The district hasn’t asked to raise local taxes in 10 years. Adams 14 voters last successfully approved a mill levy override more than 20 years ago.

Across the state, some of the inequities are even larger than in the metro area. For the 2023-24 school year, 13 Colorado districts collected more than $4,000 per student in voter-approved mill levy override funds including Aspen, Telluride, Clear Creek, and Sheridan. On the other end of the spectrum, 54 school districts never have had voters approve this type of tax, meaning they collect $0 on top of the baseline funding all districts get.

And that’s not considering other additional local funds such as bond requests that districts can ask for.

How does it work?

The amount of money districts can collect depends on a few factors. One of the largest factors is the assessed value in the community. In other words, how much property or mineral value exists in the community that would be taxed? This includes home values, but also commercial or industrial development, agricultural properties, or oil and gas. It also depends on the ability of the community to approve a ballot measure to tax themselves more.

But experts say that what that tax means to property owners varies widely.

“You’re asking vastly different questions trying to achieve the same results,” said Brett Ridgway, chief financial officer for the Lewis-Palmer school district just north of Colorado Springs.

To raise a significant amount of money for a district in a community with high assessed value, the community’s tax only has to increase slightly, so they’re likely to approve it. In communities with low assessed value, the district would have to pass a much higher tax rate just to get a small amount of money. That means the burden on homeowners feels heavier, and voters are less likely to approve it.

One way to look at the inequities is to consider the difference between assessed values in a community. Assessed values have increased in many communities, but the gaps between districts with high and low property wealth is also growing.

For the 2023-24 school year, 12 districts in Colorado had an assessed value of more than a million dollars per student, including Gilpin County where many casinos are located, Telluride, Aspen, and Garfield counties.

When looking at that assessed value per student in the metro area, Adams 12 and 27J, which covers much of Brighton, have the lowest property wealth. Adams 12′s net assessed value in 2023-24 is $4.2 billion, or about $124,633 per student. Tiny Englewood has the highest assessed value per student. Its total district assessed value is just $830 million but with few students it ends up being $389,915 per student. Denver’s net assessed value is the largest in total, at $25.1 billion, but divided per student is $301,958.

Adams 12 Superintendent Chris Gdowski wrote a letter earlier this year to the legislature, asking them to consider mill levy inequities in their school funding discussions.

His community, for example, was created as a residential suburban community, so there’s little else besides residential homes that get taxed.

His district calculated that for Adams 12 to raise enough revenue to match Boulder Valley, which has more expensive homes, and also more development, a homeowner would pay about $1,120 per year in taxes on a $500,000 home while a Boulder homeowner of a $500,000 house would pay $400 per year.

“Districts without comparable MLO revenue, including districts like Adams 14, 27J, and Adams 12, will continue to have disproportionate vacancies, greater class sizes, and fewer resources to serve these same at-risk populations in their communities,” Gdowski said in his letter to lawmakers.

He added that simply increasing per-pupil state funding “without addressing MLO inequities between districts in the metro area, will perpetuate the zip-code based funding inequities that have existed — and grown larger — through my tenure.”

In Adams 14, district leaders said they have made $7 million in cuts to central administration in an attempt to find more funding for the classrooms. But that has meant that support for schools has also decreased. Superintendent Loría said that the mental health department in the district is now down to one person.

“That adds hats to some people in the schools which makes it difficult to work in a district,” Loría said.

The district is currently doing a market analysis to evaluate if they should ask voters for a tax measure this year. What it would fund would depend on what the community wants to see, but Loría said she would like to propose more funding for mental health, security, and special education programming.

And she wants to be able to offer more competitive salaries for all staff positions, she said.

Another possible fix

The legislature tried two years ago to help the disadvantaged districts, but some say it’s not quite playing out as was expected.

Lawmakers created a program that would establish matching funds for districts, on a sliding scale. A group of financial officers from various school districts helped write a formula that considered the district’s assessed value and median home income as a way of determining how much in taxes a community reasonably should be expected to contribute to help its schools.

The state match was meant to help fill the gap between what communities can raise through mill levy overrides and what would make their extra funding more equitable with other districts.

It was also meant to provide an incentive to districts that have not asked voters to tax themselves to raise school funds, thinking that the amount they would get out of a tax measure would be too small to help the district’s budget anyway. To benefit from the program, a district has to have a mill levy override, either one approved in the past or one approved after the program was created.

But the match hasn’t yet helped any district pass a new tax measure. In part, districts are uncertain about the way the formula works, and whether the match from the state would change rapidly year to year. In one district, Widefield in Colorado Springs, the opening of an Amazon warehouse center changed the assessed value in the community from one year to the next, drastically lowering the calculation of how much the state would contribute.

Ridgway, who helped write the formula, said that it’s working just as it was designed, but that new realities in how the economies in Colorado are changing might require some tweaks. He thinks perhaps using three-year averages of assessed values might help prevent drastic changes and give districts time to adjust.

In other cases, the state match just still isn’t enough.

“The current formula has not resulted in consistent and predictable matching in its first two years of operation,” Gdowski wrote to lawmakers. “Some districts received sizable allocations in year one and are currently set to receive nothing, or almost nothing, in year 2 — and at the same time the proposed distributions for the current fiscal year call for more than 87 percent of the funds to be awarded to just four school districts in El Paso County.”

In 2022-23, the state gave $10 million to 27 districts through the program. More than half of the districts received less than $50,000 from the state.

For the 2023-24 school year, lawmakers set aside more money, $21.1 million, but only split it between 22 districts. In response to Gdowski’s concerns, the legislature also ran a second formula for the match program this month for the 2023-24 year, giving another $15.7 million to 40 districts.

The year-to-year variations make it hard, Gdowski said, to assure voters that if they pass a tax measure they will get a state match.

Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who was one of the sponsors of the bill that created the state match program, disagrees that the program isn’t working. She says the problem is that districts want more money from it.

“It’s a good idea. We got it off the ground, but we’re going to need to think more long term about how to fund it,” Zenzinger said. “I’m really excited about the possibility of strengthening it.”

The state rewrite of the school finance formula approved this session ultimately included language to create a working group to meet this fall to study possible changes to the state match program, and to analyze mill levy inequities “between neighboring districts that have differing mill levy overrides, levels of property tax bases, or demonstrated levels of local effort.”

Zenzinger said that the group may consider changes to the formula, perhaps blending the two that were used this year together, but she also wants the group to consider how the state might create a sustainable funding source for the program.

“Right now it’s up in the air,” she said.

If the program is successful in the long term, Zenzinger doesn’t expect all inequalities can disappear.

“It’s kind of the nature of our tax structure,” Zenzinger said. “Inevitably, more property wealthy districts are going to bring in more money.”

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Democrat from Denver and former school board member, said part of the problem is that the state’s base funding for schools isn’t enough.

Ideally, she said, passing mill levy overrides should help communities pay for extras that they feel are important to them, not pay for necessities like teacher salaries.

“Districts are relying on it more for baseline budgets,” Bacon said. “That’s just because of how we fund things and we don’t have enough money. The big challenge is this lack of funding.”

Districts say the funding matters

Some critics say that what matters more than increasing funding is how the money is spent. They say lower-funded districts should spend their money more efficiently.

Ridgway said that while there is some truth to the importance of efficiencies, it’s only true when the disparities are below 10%. He said that when some districts can raise up to 30% more than their base state funding, while others have no extra money, the inequalities will be apparent.

“We can’t out-efficient that,” Ridgway said. “It’s not a question of efficiency at that point.”

Loría in Adams 14, wants her community to consider that Adams 14 is already making some academic improvements that the state has taken notice of, despite the lack of resources.

“The last couple of years we have proven we can do better,” Loría said. “More resources will ensure we can get there faster.”

Adams 14′s attorney, Joe Salazar, a former state lawmaker himself, said that the legislature has been discussing this problem for too long, and is systematically not working for low-income communities.

“We don’t see any end in sight,” Salazar said.

Chris Fiedler, superintendent of the 27J school district, agrees.

“We’re never going to tax ourselves to equal,” Fiedler said.

Fiedler is retiring this summer after decades as superintendent. Ten years ago, 27J was the district collecting the fewest dollars in mill levy overrides: just $46 per student. His district put the question to voters, failing seven times before finally passing a mill levy override in fall of 2022 that now brings in $1,118 per student, which has pulled his district out of the bottom.

Since passing the mill levy override, 27J was able to raise starting teacher salaries and give employees a 16% raise. For this coming year, they just finished negotiations and will be able to give teachers another 8% raise in pay.

“Prior to the mill levy passing, we had years we were frozen,” Fiedler said. “One time we just did a Christmas bonus of $250.”

Fiedler said teacher retention has improved already. The mill levy funding in 27J is also helping to pay for armed security in all elementary schools, other safety improvements, and to expand career and technical programs at the district’s comprehensive high schools.

“It matters, it really matters,” Fiedler said. “I am extremely grateful to our community for saying yes.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Líderes estatales demuestran una renovada confianza en el plan de Adams 14 para mejorar sus escuelas

2024-05-16T20:42:58+00:00

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El Consejo Estatal de Educación de Colorado votó la semana pasada para permitir que Adams 14 continúe su labor de mejoras con un gerente externo parcial—una señal de que el estado confía en el progreso que este distrito escolar, por mucho tiempo en aprietos, está alcanzando.

Las nuevas órdenes marcan la primera vez en años recientes que el estado no se involucra aún más en Adams 14, sino que aprueba el plan continuo del distrito. Hace dos años, el distrito enfrentó el cierre de algunas escuelas.

Según las leyes estatales, el Consejo Estatal debe ordenar mejoras en distritos como el de Adams 14 que hayan obtenido calificaciones bajas durante más de cinco años. El Consejo Estatal votó 8 a 1 a favor del trabajo continuo de Adams 14; el integrante del consejo Steve Durham fue el único con un voto en contra.

Un integrante del consejo, Stephen Varela, dijo que deseaba poder votar para sacar totalmente al distrito de la lista de aquellos bajo vigilancia por mal desempeño.

Adams 14, un distrito al norte de Denver que es 92 por ciento latino y atiende a muchas familias con bajos ingresos, fue uno de los primeros distritos en el estado en ser identificados por el sistema debido a múltiples años con mal desempeño. A pesar de muchos planes de mejoras a corto plazo, el distrito no ha logrado mejorar sus calificaciones en más de 10 años, lo cual resultó en muchas primeras veces conforme el estado intentó involucrarse más para imponer mejoras.

La integrante del Consejo Estatal Lisa Escárcega recordó que estuvo en el panel del estado cuya tarea fue examinar a Adams 14 y recomendar una intervención estatal hace 10 años. Pero reflexionando sobre esa época, dijo: “No les hicimos justicia”.

Con el tiempo, el Consejo Estatal y el Departamento de Educación de Colorado han empezado a enfatizar el trabajo con los distritos—en lugar de estar en conflicto con ellos—como la mejor forma de alcanzar buenos resultados. La nueva filosofía enfatiza la colaboración en lugar de la crítica.

“Siento que esto ha sido un libro de inicios falsos”, Escárcega dijo. “Si dijera cuándo empezó realmente el trabajo para cambiar el rumbo en Adams 14, fue solo hace un par de años. No fue hace 10 años”.

La nueva disposición del estado dictará que el distrito siga trabajando con los socios sin fines de lucro de TNTP, antes conocidos como el Nuevo Proyecto de Maestros (en inglés: The New Teacher Project). El estado tiene que aprobar un cambio en gerentes parciales si el distrito quiere uno.

Adams City High School, la única high school integral en el distrito, la cual también ha estado bajo planes de mejoras dictadas por el estado debido a sus bajas calificaciones, ahora tendrá una orden aparte claramente establecida para continuar su labor con el grupo externo de ConnectEd. Esa labora incluye lanzar las opciones de carreras de la escuela, llamadas academias, las cuales empezaron para los estudiantes de noveno grado este año.

Los representantes en la audiencia de la semana pasada mencionaron que la calificación más reciente de la high school realmente la hubiera puesto en una trayectoria para salir de la vigilancia estatal, pero que la calificación se redujo porque menos estudiantes de los necesarios tomaron las pruebas estatales la primavera pasada. La escuela no logró alcanzar el porcentaje necesario de participación del 95 por ciento.

Líderes del distrito y de la high school le dijeron al Consejo Estatal que se sentían decepcionados porque estuvieron muy cerca de alcanzar el porcentaje pero terminaron no lográndolo. Pero dijeron que sienten optimismo de que sus mejoras resultarán en mejores calificaciones estatales el próximo otoño. Dijeron que han trabajado recientemente para asegurar que la tasa de participación no sea un problema una segunda vez.

Adams City High School ha observado avances importantes en las tasas de graduación, las cuales, según algunos estándares, superan las tasas promedio de graduación en Colorado, los líderes del distrito dijeron. Ese es un gran factor que está impulsando la calificación de la escuela.

Karla Loría, superintendenta de Adams 14, le dijo al Consejo Estatal que la labor del distrito, gran parte de la cual se enfoca en crear sistemas para monitorear datos y cómo apoyan los administradores a las escuelas, está funcionando. Agregó que es clave que el estado sea más flexible con el distrito.

“Lo que hemos establecido está produciendo resultados”, Loría dijo. “Nos gustaría continuar con esa estructura que hemos establecido”.

Durham, quien votó en contra del plan para el distrito y la high school, dijo que estaba contento de que el distrito estuviera mejorando, pero criticó el sistema estatal de educación pública en general por elogiar y aceptar continuamente mejoras graduales en lugar de presionar para que se obtengan cambios significativos y se duplique la cantidad de estudiantes que pueden leer a nivel de grado.

Aunque los datos de Adams 14 reflejan progreso y crecimiento, el porcentaje de estudiantes que cumplen con o superan las expectativas en las pruebas estandarizadas sigue siendo bajo.

La idea de aprobar el plan propuesto por el distrito para seguir trabajando con un gerente externo, pero sin transferir el control total a una entidad externa, también concordó con las recomendaciones de un panel externo que examinó el distrito y la high school.

El estado aceptó comentarios del público durante cerca de un mes antes de la audiencia de la semana pasada, pero solo recibió un puñado de comentarios, ninguno de padres o estudiantes. Los comentarios recibidos todos expresaron apoyo al distrito.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

State leaders show new trust in Adams 14’s plan for improving its schools

2024-05-09T22:32:33+00:00

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Colorado’s State Board of Education voted Wednesday afternoon to allow Adams 14 to continue its improvement work with a partial outside manager — a sign that the state trusts the progress being made by the long-struggling school district.

Wednesday’s orders are the first time in recent years that the state has not escalated its involvement in Adams 14 but rather signed off on the district’s ongoing plan. Two years ago, the district faced school closures.

Under state law, the State Board must direct improvement in districts such as Adams 14 that have had more than five years of low ratings. The State Board voted 8 to 1 in favor of Adams 14′s continued work, with board member Steve Durham as the only no vote.

One board member, Stephen Varela, said he wished he could vote to take the district off the state’s watchlist for low performance altogether.

Adams 14, a district north of Denver that is 92% percent Latino and serves many low-income families, was one of the first districts in the state to be flagged by the system for multiple years of low performance. Despite many short-lived improvement plans, the district hasn’t been able to improve its ratings in more than 10 years, leading to many firsts as the state tried to escalate its involvement in directing improvement.

On Wednesday, State Board member Lisa Escárcega recalled that she was on the state panel tasked with reviewing Adams 14 and recommending a state intervention 10 years ago. But reflecting back, she said, “We did you no service.”

Over time, the State Board and the department have begun to emphasize working with districts — rather than being in conflict with them — as the best way to achieve good results. The new philosophy emphasizes collaboration over criticism.

“I feel like this has been a book of false starts,” Escárcega said. “If I were to say when did the turnaround work really begin in Adams 14, it was just a few years ago. It wasn’t 10 years ago.”

The new state order will direct the district to continue working with nonprofit partners TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project. The state would have to approve a change in partial managers if the district wanted one.

Adams City High School, the district’s one comprehensive high school, which has also been under state-ordered improvement plans for its own low ratings, now will have a clear separate order to continue its work with outside group ConnectEd on rolling out the school’s career options, called academies, which started for ninth grade students this year.

Officials in the hearing Wednesday discussed how the high school’s latest rating actually would have put it on the path to exit state oversight, but the rating was lowered because not enough students took state tests last spring. The school fell just short of the required 95% participation.

District and high school leaders told the State Board they were disheartened that they had gotten so close but ultimately missed the target. But they said they are optimistic that their improvements will result in better state ratings next fall. They said they’ve worked recently to ensure participation rate is not a problem a second time.

Adams City High School has seen a significant improvement in graduation rates, which by some measures exceed Colorado’s average graduation rates, district leaders said. That is a big factor driving the school’s rating.

Adams 14 Superintendent Karla Loría told the State Board that the district’s work, much of it focused on creating systems for tracking data and how administrators support schools, is working. She added that having the state be more flexible with the district is also key.

“What we have in place is yielding results,” Loría said. “We would like to continue with that structure that we have in place.”

Durham, who voted against the plan for the district and the high school, said he was glad the district was making improvements, but criticized the state’s public education system as a whole for consistently praising and accepting incremental improvements instead of pushing for significant change to double the number of students who can read at grade level.

While Adams 14 data shows progress and growth, the percentage of students who meet or exceed expectations on standardized tests remains low.

The idea of approving the district’s proposed plan to continue working with an outside manager, but not handing over total control to an outside entity, was also in line with recommendations by an external panel that reviewed the district and high school.

The state took public feedback for about a month prior to Wednesday’s hearing, but only received a handful of comments, none from parents or students. The comments submitted were all in support of the district.

Correction: This story was updated to correct the context of State Board member Lisa Escárcega’s quotes.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Más estabilidad y tiempo: panel independiente pide continuar mejoras en Adams 14

2024-04-12T21:21:14+00:00

Las escuelas de Adams 14 necesitan más tiempo y estabilidad para construir sobre las mejoras que han comenzado, según un panel de expertos externos.

El Panel de Revisión Estatal, un grupo de educadores externos que visitan escuelas de bajo rendimiento y reportan al estado, notó “indicadores tempranos de progreso” en el distrito escolar, pero dijo que los esfuerzos de mejora aún “no se han vuelto sistemáticos o sostenidos”.

El panel recomendó que Adams 14, y su escuela secundaria, Adams City High School, continúen con las estrategias actuales de mejora, trabajando con un grupo externo. Actualmente, el distrito trabaja con la organización sin fines de lucro con sede en Nueva York, TNTP.

“La interrupción de esta estrategia actual probablemente sería perjudicial para un sistema frágil”, se lee en las últimas recomendaciones del grupo, que fueron compartidas por el distrito el viernes.

Este año escolar, la calificación estatal de Adams 14 en 2023 mejoró de la categoría más baja, llamada “reorganización”, a la segunda más baja, llamada “mejora prioritaria”. La cantidad de puntos obtenidos por el distrito escolar aún fue ligeramente inferior a la que recibió en 2019 antes de que comenzara la pandemia.

En la calificación anterior, en 2022, Adams 14 obtuvo la menor cantidad de puntos en el sistema de calificación de todo Colorado.

Adams 14, un distrito al norte de Denver con aproximadamente 5,400 estudiantes, ha tenido durante mucho tiempo algunas de las calificaciones de calidad más bajas en el estado, y ha enfrentado numerosos presedentes con el sistema de rendición de cuentas del estado. En 2022, se ordenó al distrito reorganizarse, lo que podría haber significado el cierre de escuelas o la fusión con otros distritos, pero la comunidad luchó contra las órdenes y el estado liberó a Adams 14 de la orden en septiembre.

Pero dado que el distrito ya no está siguiendo esa orden de reorganización y aún no ha mostrado suficiente mejora para estar libre de intervención estatal, el distrito y la escuela secundaria enfrentan una nueva audiencia con la Junta de Educación Estatal en mayo.

La audiencia de la Junta Estatal considerará las recomendaciones del panel, así como los comentarios del personal del Departamento de Educación, la propuesta del propio distrito y la opinión de la comunidad.

El distrito celebró las recientes recomendaciones del panel de revisión estatal.

“Me sorprende lo que puede cambiar en dos años”, dijo la superintendente Karla Loría en un comunicado de prensa. “En 2022, el SRP creó esta narrativa de un distrito escolar fallido, un liderazgo fallido, y hizo las recomendaciones más atroces para cerrar nuestro distrito escolar. Su informe anterior resultó en litigios que llegaron a la Corte Suprema de Colorado. Derrotamos todas las recomendaciones hechas por el SRP en ese momento. Ahora, dos años después, finalmente se reconoce la cantidad de trabajo y el progreso real realizado”.

En 2022, la última vez que el estado convocó a un Panel de Revisión Estatal para proporcionar recomendaciones sobre Adams 14, el panel sugirió cerrar Adams City High School y reorganizar el distrito escolar, citando una gestión ineficaz del distrito.

Al mismo tiempo el panel visitó en la primavera de 2022, el distrito acababa de pasar meses luchando para cortar lazos con el administrador externo formal, MGT Consulting. Y aunque Loría ya había estado en el distrito durante aproximadamente un año, argumentó que no tenía la autoridad para liderar.

En ese momento, el Panel de Revisión Estatal encontró que el distrito no tenía un plan claro para avanzar y dudaban de que hubiera suficiente liderazgo para que el distrito mejorara.

Desde entonces, el distrito ha creado un nuevo plan estratégico y ha renovado el equipo administrativo del distrito, y la junta escolar ha recibido nueva capacitación para centrarse en la gobernanza de políticas.

Aunque algunos en el distrito han cuestionado la nueva administración, el Panel de Revisión Estatal de este año encontró que los líderes escolares y otros educadores con los que hablaron en el distrito tenían claras las prioridades del distrito.

Si bien el distrito pudo evitar la reorganización, en su mayor parte han continuado trabajando con el socio externo, TNTP, que fue otro requisito de la orden de la Junta Estatal en 2022.

Este año, el panel encontró que ese trabajo fue beneficioso y recomendó que continúe.

“Varias indicaciones apuntan a que esta asociación es el factor impulsor probable de los indicadores de progreso que el distrito está comenzando a experimentar”, indica el informe del panel.

El panel declaró que no recomendaría cerrar escuelas esta vez porque el distrito ha cerrado escuelas por sí mismo. Este año, el distrito cerró una escuela primaria, y ha redactado planes para continuar consolidando escuelas en los próximos años para responder a la disminución de la inscripción.

El panel también declaró que no recomendaría reorganizar el distrito en parte porque eso ya se había intentado, y el estado encontró que no estaba en el mejor interés de la comunidad.

Una opción más que el panel podría haber recomendado sería convertir las escuelas en escuelas comunitarias, una estrategia que el distrito está intentando en una escuela primaria, Central Elementary. Pero el Panel de Revisión Estatal informó que el efecto de esa estrategia aún no está claro. También señaló que el modelo requiere muchos recursos y, dado los “recursos financieros decrecientes” del distrito, no tenía sentido intentar el modelo en todo el distrito.

Los problemas financieros del distrito, aunque no son un componente significativo que el estado suele revisar, surgieron más de una vez en el informe del panel de revisión estatal esta vez.

El otoño pasado, Adams 14 consideró poner fin a su relación con TNTP por completo, citando la necesidad de recortar su presupuesto y reconsiderar el alcance del trabajo del socio.

El informe señala que los líderes del distrito dijeron que deberían tener la flexibilidad y autoridad para revisar con quién se asocian, en qué y en qué medida. Si bien el panel reconoció los desafíos, especialmente en torno a los problemas presupuestarios, recomendó que cualquier cambio necesario aún debía pasar por el estado.

“Los cambios frecuentes y el alejamiento de las estrategias y prácticas que muestran resultados prometedores serían perjudiciales para el éxito potencial del trabajo y la integridad de la orden estatal”, indica el informe.

Traducido por Rossana Longo Better

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado cubriendo distritos escolares de K-12 y educación multilingüe. Contacte a Yesenia en yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

More stability and time: Independent panel calls for continuing improvements in Adams 14

2024-04-05T23:34:23+00:00

Read the panel’s district report here:

Adams 14 schools need more time and stability to build on improvements that have begun, according to a panel of outside experts.

The State Review Panel, a group of external educators that visits low-performing schools and reports to the state, noted “early indicators of progress” in the school district, but said improvement efforts have “not yet become systematic or sustained.”

The panel recommended that Adams 14, and its high school, Adams City High School, continue current improvement strategies, working with an outside group. Currently, the district works with the New York-based nonprofit TNTP.

“Disruption of this current strategy would likely be detrimental to a fragile system,” read the latest recommendations from the group, which were shared by the district Friday.

This school year, Adams 14′s 2023 state rating improved from the lowest category, called turnaround, to the second-lowest, called priority improvement. The number of points earned by the school district was still slightly below what it received in 2019 before the pandemic began.

In the previous rating, in 2022, Adams 14 earned the fewest points in the rating system in all Colorado.

Adams 14, a district north of Denver with about 5,400 students, has long had some of the lowest quality ratings in the state, and has faced many firsts with the state’s accountability system. In 2022, the district was ordered to reorganize, which could have meant closing schools or merging with other districts, but the community fought the orders and the state relieved Adams 14 from the order in September.

But since the district is no longer following that order to reorganize, and still hasn’t shown enough improvement to be free of state intervention, the district and high school face a new hearing with the State Board of Education in May.

The State Board hearing will consider the panel’s recommendations as well as feedback from the Department of Education staff, the district’s own proposal, and community input.

The district celebrated the state review panel’s recent recommendations.

“I am astounded at what a difference two years can make,” Superintendent Karla Loría, said in a news release. “In 2022, the SRP created this narrative of a failing school district, failing leadership, and it made the most heinous recommendations to shut down our school district. Their past report resulted in litigation that reached the Colorado Supreme Court. We defeated every recommendation made by the SRP at that time. Now, two years later, the amount of work and the real progress made is finally being recognized.”

In 2022, the last time the state convened a State Review Panel to provide recommendations about Adams 14, the panel suggested closing Adams City High School and reorganizing the school district, citing ineffective management of the district.

At the time the panel visited in spring of 2022, the district had just spent months fighting to cut ties with the formal external manager, MGT Consulting. And although Loría had already been in the district for about a year, she argued she had not had the authority to lead.

The State Review Panel at that time found that the district did not have a clear plan for moving forward and they doubted that there was enough leadership for the district to improve.

Since then, the district has created a new strategic plan and overhauled the district’s administrative team, and the school board has received new training to focus on policy governance.

Although some in the district have questioned the new administration, the State Review Panel this year found that school leaders and other educators they talked to in the district were all clear about the district’s priorities.

While the district was able to avoid reorganization, they have for the most part continued working with the external partner, TNTP, which was another requirement of the State Board’s order in 2022.

This year, the panel found that work beneficial and recommended that it continues.

“Multiple indications point to this partnership being the likely driving factor for the indicators of progress the district is beginning to experience,” the panel’s report stated.

The panel stated that it did not recommend closing schools this time because the district has closed schools itself. This year, the district closed one elementary school, and it has drafted plans to continue consolidating schools in the coming years to respond to declining enrollment.

The panel also stated that it wouldn’t recommend reorganizing the district in part because that had already been attempted, and the state found it was not in the best interest of the community.

One other option the panel could have recommended would be to turn schools into community schools, a strategy that the district is attempting at one elementary school, Central Elementary. But the State Review Panel reported that the effect of that strategy is still unclear. It also noted that the model requires a lot of resources and given the district’s “diminishing financial resources” it didn’t make sense to attempt the model districtwide.

The financial problems of the district, while not a significant component that the state usually reviews, came up more than once in the state review panel report this time.

This past fall, Adams 14 considered ending its relationship with TNTP altogether, citing a need to cut its budget and reconsider the scope of the partner’s work.

The report notes that the district leaders said they should have the flexibility and authority to review whom they partner with, on what, and to what extent. While the panel acknowledged the challenges, especially around budget problems, it recommended that any needed changes still should go through the state.

“Frequent change and movement away from the strategies and practices that are showing promising results would be disruptive to the potential success of the work and the integrity of the state order,” the report states.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

A ‘sick-out’ over teacher pay leads Adams City High School to switch to remote learning

2024-02-14T17:38:02+00:00

This story has been updated with additional comments from Adams 14 officials.

Adams 14 will move students at Adams City High School to remote learning Wednesday after learning many teachers were planning a sick-out, the district announced Tuesday

The action was not organized or sanctioned by the teacher’s union in the district, but by a group of teachers in the high school who are frustrated by a lack of prospects for teacher raises.

A letter circulated by staff that is signed by “Adams 14 District CTA Membership” — implying it is from members of the teacher’s union but not union leadership — states the concern is about how pay is affecting teacher retention.

“Our intention is not to disrupt education, but to voice our concerns regarding teacher retention, fair compensation, benefits, time management, and the overall need for a positive change by leadership,” the letter states. “The constant turnover in staff has hindered our mission to elevate our district from its current status. We acknowledge the financial challenges faced by the district, but we cannot overlook the disproportionate impact on teachers and staff compared to the recent raises and contract improvements that have been enjoyed by district leadership.”

In the current school year, a starting teacher’s salary is $50,500.

Many teachers believe that Superintendent Karla Loría and other district leaders have had recent raises, but there are no public documents demonstrating a school board vote for a raise for the superintendent or other district leaders.

On Wednesday morning, Joe Salazar, an attorney for the district, said he did not know how many Adams City High teachers had called in sick. Asked if teachers would be disciplined, Salazar wrote in an email, “Why would they be disciplined? They have the right to call in sick.”

As for Loría’s salary, Salazar said only that her “base salary” is $250,000. That has been her base salary since 2022, when the board gave her a raise to acknowledge that the district was no longer under third-party management.

Loría’s contract with the district states that she is to receive annual raises that amount to year-over-year change in the local consumer price index. It’s unclear if that has happened.

The Adams 14 school district has had low state ratings based largely on student test scores for more than 10 years, but was released from state orders to reorganize after leaders for the district and neighboring districts said it was not in anyone’s interest to reorganize.

The district has had declining enrollment like many metro area school districts. Some leaders still blame the years the district was ordered to be under management by private company MGT Consulting as the reason for continued budget problems.

Jason Malmberg, the president of the teachers union in Adams 14, said he believes the frustrations stem from the state intervention in the district.

“It’s related to the stress the state has put us under,” he said.

Malmberg said the frustrations facing teachers at Adams City High School are reflective of problems teachers face in high-poverty districts across the nation as it becomes more difficult to stretch budgets to serve children’s needs, and as gaps widen between districts that can raise local funds and districts that can’t.

School districts in Adams County have not had much success when it comes to asking local voters to raise taxes for schools. Adams 14 leaders have long hoped that the community would vote to approve a bond or mill levy request if the district showed improvement.

After MGT, Loría wanted to work with another third-party management firm, TNTP, that also cost the district millions. The contract with TNTP originally called for Adams 14 to pay $5 million over three years. The district last year tried to cut ties with the group early, citing budget concerns and other reasons. The state offered to give the district more money to help cover the contract, but the district eventually signed a new, reduced contract that cost only $395,587 for the second year of work.

Citing budget problems, the district also closed an elementary school and has said it is considering more closures in the future.

Some teachers, however, are concerned about whether the district leadership team has grown too large, including with many of Loría’s former colleagues, and wonder if new contracts have also taken up much of the budget.

In a letter obtained by Chalkbeat that is signed by the superintendent and addressed to a leader of the union at the high school, Loría stated that “the district will take action on all absences related to the planned sick-out.”

Loría also stated in the letter that she agrees that teachers need better pay and that the board is exploring a local tax request to increase revenue to be able to pay teachers more. But she accused the teacher leader of being abusive and violating policies.

“Your conduct and comments with me and certain cabinet members were unprofessional and disrespectful to the point of being abusive,” Loría wrote. “Your conduct was aggressive and defamatory (several times you claimed that the district was lying about the budget and “hiding” money), and you directed personal attacks against me while mansplaining matters of which you are wholly unfamiliar, while pointing your finger at me several times.”

In a reply also obtained by Chalkbeat, the teacher leader responded to Loría’s letter rejecting the accusations. The teacher leader, who did not respond to an interview request, said Loría’s letter had a “perceived retaliatory tone,” and that he plans to seek legal counsel.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado Supreme Court: Low ratings don’t harm school districts

2023-10-16T22:18:57+00:00

The Adams 14 school district failed to show that state intervention caused any real harm or injury and has no basis to sue the state, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The ruling leaves the state’s school accountability system intact but could have larger significance. The justices threw out a longstanding precedent known as the rule of Martin, which said that political entities that are subordinate to the state, such as school districts and counties, can’t sue the state for exercising normal oversight.

The justices also noted that the State Board of Education’s actions toward Adams 14 are allowed under the Education Accountability Act and that Adams 14 did not challenge the legality of the law itself.

Justice Monica M. Márquez wrote the opinion, and all six other justices joined in. There were no dissenting opinions.

“A school district is not injured by receiving a low accreditation rating. A low accreditation rating means that the district will receive additional resources from the state to facilitate improved performance — a process intended to help districts and their students, not harm them,” the court ruling states.

Education Commissioner Susana Córdova said the ruling means school improvement efforts in the district can continue “without the risk of being derailed by pending litigation.”

“We welcome the opportunity to continue to work closely with Adams 14 and build on the current work underway in the school district,” she said in a written statement. “We know that a focus on student achievement by working together is the best way forward for the students, staff, families, and community of Adams 14.”

An attorney for the Adams 14 school district hailed the decision as a victory for local control, even though the justices upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the district’s lawsuit against the state.

“My little school district getting rid of a 53-year-old law that was being used against local governments and local school boards, is a big deal,” Adams 14 attorney Joe Salazar said of the rule of Martin. “Sounds like a good day to me.”

Having had the district’s case thrown out didn’t matter, Salazar said.

Facing widespread opposition within the district and from neighboring communities, Córdova already had backed off a state order that the district should reorganize after years of low test scores. That order prompted the lawsuit in the first place.

“We don’t care; we already defeated reorganization,” Salazar said.

After agreeing with Adams 14 that the rule of Martin was harmful, Monday’s ruling says the state should only use another rule, known as the Wimberly rule, which says that to have standing to sue, a plaintiff must prove injury to a legally protected right. Under that rule, the court found Adams 14 still didn’t meet the bar for suing the state for relief.

“The State Board actions that Adams 14 challenges are expressly permitted or required by the Education Accountability Act, the facial legality of which Adams 14 does not challenge,” the ruling states.

Adams 14 had made several arguments that the Supreme Court grouped into four sets. Among them, the district argued that the state violated the district’s right to local control when the State Board used an external State Review Panel to evaluate the capacity of the district’s leadership and when it reviewed its contracts with partners.

The court ruling states that the district’s right to local control has to be balanced with the state’s obligations to oversee schools, and that in simply reviewing leadership or contracts, the state didn’t actually restrict the district’s operations. The ruling also states that the State Board was following the law in taking those steps.

Another argument Adams 14 made was that the state set cut scores for tests that led to school districts with more students from lower income or non-English speaking families being more likely to earn low ratings, causing the districts harm based on their populations.

In this case, the Supreme Court’s ruling found that the cut scores don’t directly cause a district to lose accreditation or be forced into reorganization. “Many intervening steps must take place,” the ruling states, meaning that having that be the potential injury claimed in the lawsuit was “‘overly indirect and incidental’ and too far removed from the State Board’s use of cut scores” to constitute injury.

In the case of Adams 14, the district has been rated low performing since 2010. It has been under state improvement plans of some sort since at least 2017 and has not yet managed to earn higher ratings.

In 2022, the State Board ordered the district to undergo reorganization with neighboring districts. Reorganization could have meant closing some schools, shifting boundaries, or letting neighboring districts take over parts or all of Adams 14. But the neighboring districts that appointed members to the reorganization committee declared their support for Adams 14, and ultimately, the committee submitted a plan that said any reorganization would be harmful.

The new state commissioner this year approved that recommendation and released the district from that State Order.

Adams 14 is still under another State Board order that requires it to be working with an outside group to manage and improve the district. Adams 14 had been working with TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project, but over the summer, negotiations broke down after the district asked the group to scale back its work in the second year.

The Adams 14 school board approved a new contract with TNTP in September, but state education department staff told the State Board of Education that the contract doesn’t meet State Board requirements. State officials said much of the required work is happening, but some is being handled by other subcontractors or district staff.

And despite the state education department increasing school improvement funding to Adams 14 to a total of $1.2 million, the new TNTP contract is worth just $395,587.

The State Board of Education will hold a rehearing on how to approach school improvement efforts in the district next spring.

Córdova said the State Board will continue to work in compliance with state law and the ruling does not make it easier for school districts to sue the state.

Nonetheless, Salazar said he’s sure the state’s accountability law and system are likely to see more legal challenges.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

State Board concerned about Adams 14’s pause to work with TNTP, but some members are encouraged by improvements

2023-09-14T15:02:29+00:00

State Board members Wednesday expressed concern that Adams 14 has not yet resumed work with a partner helping with improvement efforts, even as some also praised achievements that have already been made.

Adams 14, a school district north of Denver, has had the most years of low performance ratings of any other in the state. Because of those continued low ratings, the State Board of Education last year ordered the district to work with a partial manager on its improvement plan.

The state had also ordered the district to begin reorganization, which could have closed schools or split up the district, but has since cleared Adams 14 of that obligation.

The district signed a contract to work with New York-based nonprofit TNTP, formerly called the New Teacher Project, for three years on things like teacher training, coaching of leaders, and reviewing employee policies. But last month, after one year of the contract, the district and TNTP paused the work, unable to reach a new agreement for how the work in the second year should go.

In an update to the State Board Wednesday, Colorado Department of Education staff told the board that the pause has not been as disruptive as when the district also stopped its work with the previous external manager, MGT Consulting. Some professional learning planned for schools was put on hold, but the pause was less disruptive because TNTP did not hold district administration positions the way MGT had, staff told the State Board.

Still, State Board member Karla Esser said she was concerned that this pause in the work meant more inconsistency in a district that has had a lot.

“It feels to me very disruptive to be on this path,” Esser said. “It’s very disappointing.”

District leaders have pointed to budget problems as a reason for needing to scale back.

State Board member Steve Durham pressed department staff for more details on where the disagreements were, and whether they had to do with how much authority or control each party had.

Staff said they had not heard any discussions or disagreements about that.

“It was more about the scope and where we’re reducing services and what outcomes can we expect with TNTP expressing some concern,” said Lindsey Jaeckel, executive director of school and district transformation. “We didn’t hear a discussion over authority. We’ve seen them work collaboratively.”

In an effort to help pay for the contract, the Colorado Department of Education has agreed to give the district more money than it planned this year. Instead of the expected $850,000 in grants for its improvement work, the state will offer an extra $350,000, for a total of $1.2 million. But an agreement has still not been reached.

A vote on a TNTP contract was on the agenda of the Adams 14 school board meeting on Tuesday night. The board instead tabled the item.

The contract with TNTP originally called for $5 million over three years, with the cost going up slightly in the second year. From September through June this school year, the district was to have paid TNTP $1.8 million, up from $1.6 million it paid in the last year.

State Board member Kathy Plomer thanked department staff for their work with the district. She said that while people may want to see “astronomical growth,” the smaller improvements the district is making are good news.

“For a district that’s struggled for so long, I’m encouraged,” Plomer said.

“We are all eager for this work to continue,” Andy Swanson, director of accountability pathways for the Colorado Department of Education told the State Board. “I think we’re hopeful this resolves sooner rather than later.”

Department staff told the State Board that depending on the agreement the district might reach with TNTP, a request for an amendment to the State Board improvement order may come next month.

Correction: Due to an editing error, this article incorrectly identified State Board member Karla Esser as representing the Adams 14 school district. The article has been updated to remove the reference.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Comisionada dice que el distrito escolar de Adams 14 no tiene que reorganizarse

2023-09-08T19:45:03+00:00

El distrito escolar de Adams 14 no se verá obligado a reorganizarse.

Al aceptar una recomendación presentada en agosto por un comité, la comisionada de educación para Colorado, Susana Córdova, liberó al distrito escolar de una orden del Consejo de Educación del Estado que lo obligaba a reorganizarse. Este proceso pudo haber resultado en cierres de escuelas o que distritos vecinos integraran partes del distrito.

La decisión del estado se envió al comité de reorganización el 30 de agosto.

En ella, la comisionada señala que la ley no permite una reorganización cuando los distritos circundantes no están dispuestos a replantear sus límites geográficos.

“No beneficiaría los intereses de ningún distrito involucrado invertir más recursos o tiempo en este asunto si no existe un interés básico entre los distritos circundantes”, la respuesta declara. “No habrá más expectativas de que el proceso de reorganización continúe”.

Los representantes de Adams 14 celebraron la derrota del intento del estado.

“La Ley de Reorganización de Distritos Escolares en Colorado es un proceso anticuado y no comprobado que no funciona y que no debería incluirse en el sistema para rendir cuentas”, dijo Reneé Lovato, presidenta del consejo escolar de Adams 14 y presidenta del comité de reorganización, en una declaración publicada el 1º de septiembre. “No hizo más que causar miedo e incertidumbre entre los estudiantes, el personal y la comunidad”.

La superintendenta Karla Loría agradeció la ayuda de los distritos vecinos y dijo en una declaración que “es nuestra ferviente esperanza que el Consejo Estatal deje de implementar medidas negativas contra Adams 14 y nos permita enfocarnos en nuestros estudiantes”.

El Consejo Estatal ordenó que Adams 14 se reorganizara en mayo de 2022. En noviembre de 2018, el Consejo Estatal había ordenado que el distrito, basado en la comunidad de clase trabajadora de Commerce City, cediera el control a una gerencia externa, lo cual se inició en 2019. La orden de reorganización de 2022 sucedió después de que una nueva superintendenta expulsara al grupo gerencial externo, MGT, del distrito.

Esta semana, los líderes de Adams 14 publicitaron avances en sus calificaciones como prueba de que van por buen camino. Las mejoras todavía no son suficientes como para que el distrito deje de seguir lo que se conoce como el “reloj para rendir cuentas”. Según la ley estatal, a las escuelas o los distritos que reciben una de las dos calificaciones más bajas se los coloca “bajo el reloj” y tienen cinco años para demostrar mejoras antes de enfrentarse a órdenes del Consejo de Educación del Estado.

Adams 14 fue el primer distrito escolar en Colorado a quien le ordenaron reorganizarse como una consecuencia de múltiples años con bajas calificaciones en su desempeño. El distrito ha desafiado la orden de reorganización en los tribunales. Queda pendiente una decisión de la Corte Suprema de Colorado sobre si el estado tiene la autoridad de forzar a un distrito para que se reorganice.

Mientras tanto, Adams 14 formó un comité con integrantes de los distritos vecinos—el primer paso necesario hacia la organización. El grupo se reunió cuatro veces, pero en lugar de diseñar un plan borrador para cerrar escuelas, cambiar límites geográficos o disolver el distrito, adoptó una recomendación de 40 páginas que encontró que la reorganización no beneficiaría los intereses del distrito.

La carta con la decisión de Córdova señala: “El comité busca una autorización para dar por terminado el proceso antes de [realizar] audiencias con la comunidad porque no hay nuevos límites [geográficos] que presentarle a la comunidad”. Debido a que el estado entregó el proceso para que la comunidad lo liderara, el estado ahora tiene la opción de decir que el proceso se completó, Córdova escribió.

Córdova también señala que si partes del distrito de Adams 14 tuvieran que votar para decidir que las integre o no un distrito escolar vecino con un mayor impuesto sobre la propiedad, también tendrían que votar para aprobar ese impuesto mayor—algo que probablemente no suceda en el distrito con bajos ingresos donde han fracasado múltiples veces medidas relacionadas con aumentar los impuestos.

Aunque el distrito ya no estará obligado a reorganizarse, sigue estando obligado bajo una segunda orden del Consejo Estatal de contratar a un gerente parcial para que lo ayude con su trabajo de mejoras, la decisión dice.

“Desafortunadamente, el Consejo Estatal recibió una notificación esta semana de que Adams 14 no renovará su contrato con TNTP, y el trabajo de TNTP se ha suspendido en el distrito”, la decisión estatal menciona. “Esto es una sorpresa”.

Los líderes del distrito dicen que el costo del contrato de TNTP es una de las principales razones por las que suspendieron su trabajo, y en su notificación al estado dijeron que tanto la organización sin fines de lucro como el distrito acordaron suspender el trabajo mientras llegan a un acuerdo.

Adams 14 había firmado un contrato con TNTP en el verano de 2022. El contrato iba a ser por tres años con un valor total de $5 millones durante ese período.

Representantes del estado le dijeron a Chalkbeat que habían ofrecido aumentar los fondos para las mejoras del distrito en $350,000, para un total de $1.2 millones este año. “Esperamos que esto ayude a que el distrito continúe su trabajo con TNTP”, dice una declaración del departamento.

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Commissioner: Adams 14 school district doesn’t have to reorganize

2023-09-01T18:20:33+00:00

Read the state’s decision here:

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The Adams 14 school district will not be forced to reorganize.

Accepting a committee recommendation submitted in August, Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova has released the school district from a State Board of Education order that it reorganize — a process that could have led to school closures or seen parts of the district absorbed by neighboring districts.

The state decision was sent to the reorganization committee Thursday evening.

In it, the commissioner finds that the law doesn’t allow for reorganization when surrounding districts are unwilling to redraw their boundaries.

“It would not be in the best interest of any of the districts involved to spend further resources or time on this matter if there is no foundational interest from the surrounding districts,” the response states. “There will be no further expectations for the reorganization process to continue.”

Adams 14 officials celebrated their defeat of the state’s attempt.

“Colorado’s School District Reorganization Act is an outdated, unproven process that does not work and has no place in the accountability system,” said Reneé Lovato, the president of the Adams 14 school board and chair of the reorganization committee, in a statement released Friday. “It did nothing except instill fear and uncertainty among our students, staff and community.”

Superintendent Karla Loría thanked neighboring districts for helping and said in the statement, “it is our fervent hope that the State Board will stop taking negative actions against Adams 14 and allow us to focus on our students.”

The State Board ordered Adams 14 to reorganize in May 2022. In November 2018, the State Board had ordered the district based in the working class community of Commerce City to cede control to an external manager, which began in 2019. The 2022 reorganization order came after a new superintendent pushed that external manager, MGT, out of the district.

Adams 14 leaders had touted ratings improvements this week as evidence that they are on the right track. The ratings improvements aren’t yet enough to get the district off of what is known as the “accountability clock.” Under state law, schools or districts that earn one of the two lowest ratings are placed “on the clock” and have five years to show improvement before facing orders from the State Board of Education.

Adams 14 was the first school district in Colorado to be ordered to reorganize as a consequence of multiple years of low performance ratings. The district has challenged the reorganization order in court, and a Colorado Supreme Court decision on whether the state has the authority to force a district into reorganization is pending.

In the meantime, Adams 14 formed a committee with members from the neighboring districts — the first required step toward reorganization. The group met four times, but instead of crafting a draft plan to close schools, change boundaries, or dissolve the district, they adopted a 40-page recommendation that found that reorganization was not in the district’s best interest.

Córdova’s decision letter notes, “The committee seeks authorization to end the process before community hearings because there are no new boundaries to present to the community.” Because the state turned over the process to be led by the community, the state can now choose to say that the process is complete, Córdova wrote.

Córdova also notes that if parts of current Adams 14 district had to vote on being absorbed into a neighboring school district with a higher property tax burden, they would have to also vote to approve that higher tax — something that is unlikely to happen in the low-income district that has failed to pass its own tax measures multiple times.

While the district will no longer be bound to go into reorganization, the district is still bound by a second State Board order to contract with a partial manager to help with improvement work, the decision says.

“Unfortunately, the State Board was notified this week that Adams 14 is non-renewing their contract with TNTP, and TNTP’s work has been stopped in the district,” the state’s decision notes. “This comes as a surprise.”

District leaders cite the cost of TNTP’s contract as one main reason for stopping their work, and in their notice to the state, said that both the nonprofit and the district mutually agreed to stop the work while they negotiate.

Adams 14 had signed a contract with TNTP in the summer of 2022. The contract was to be for three years and for a total of $5 million over that time.

State officials said late Thursday they had offered to increase school improvement funding for the district by $350,000, bringing the total to $1.2 million this year. “We hope this will help the district continue its work with TNTP,” a statement from the department says.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 leaders cite ratings improvements as they make case against state reorganization orders

2023-09-01T00:45:30+00:00

Adams 14 leaders are hoping to stop efforts to reorganize the district and point to improved state ratings as evidence they’re on the right path.

A reorganization committee that was formed in November following state orders, submitted a recommendation earlier this month asking the state to stop reorganization, calling the process “unproven, time-consuming, and resource-intensive.”

Reorganization would hurt the community, the committee argued in its 40-page report.

This year, the Adams 14 district improved from the lowest rating of turnaround, to the second-lowest of priority improvement on the state’s annual ratings. Priority improvement is the same rating the district had in 2019, and four other years in the last decade during which the state gave the district consecutive low ratings.

Superintendent Karla Loría highlighted the improvements on state tests and in performance ratings compared to last year at a press conference Wednesday.

Loría pointed to the improvements as evidence the district is on the right track, and that they don’t need state intervention.

“We still have a lot of work to do, but we are heading in the right direction,” Loría said. “We just need to be given the opportunity.”

Based on the state’s accountability law, the priority improvement rating isn’t enough to release the district from state intervention. But Loría said she’s confident that, with more time, the changes she’s implementing will lead to better results than the district has seen under previous improvement plans in the last decade.

How the district got here

Adams 14 has had one of the two lowest ratings for more than 10 years. State law requires the state intervene and order certain changes after five years in a row of low ratings.

Adams 14 was one of the first districts in the state to reach that mark, and to remain with low ratings after various state-ordered improvement plans.

Current district leaders point to turnover, state pressures, and biased standardized tests that don’t account for many of the socioeconomic factors that impact children in Adams 14. The district has one of the highest percentages of students who are learning English as a second language, as well as a high number of students from low-income families and students with disabilities. The district points to poverty, trauma, immigration fears, and environmental contamination as some of the many factors that impact learning in Commerce City more than elsewhere in the state.

This spring, just 17.6% of third graders met expectations on state reading tests, up from 13.6% in 2022, but still lower than the 21.2% who did in 2019.

In May 2022, Adams 14 was the first district ordered by the state to reorganize when State Board members said they no longer trusted that local leadership could make necessary improvements. The process for reorganization is spelled out in state law, but since it’s never been implemented this way, several questions remain. A Colorado Supreme Court decision that would impact whether the state can order reorganization is pending.

The law requires the district under order to reorganize to form a committee including members of neighboring districts and draft a plan for changes. That could mean anything from rebranding the district, changing district boundaries, closing some schools, or dissolving the district altogether.

The draft plan would be finalized with community feedback and sent to the state commissioner of education for approval. Lastly, voters would have the final say.

Instead, the reorganization committee, after meeting four times, approved a 40-page recommendation that asks the state to stop reorganization.

A spokesperson for the state Department of Education said the commissioner is reviewing the request and will issue a decision to the committee. The recommendation is not being considered a reorganization plan, which would have triggered some timelines for a response.

“Statute doesn’t contemplate a report that is a recommendation to not reorganize,” reads an emailed statement from the department. “The report asks the commissioner to accept the report and absolve the committee of any further obligations related to reorganization.”

The report initially was displayed on the district’s board website, but has since been removed and can only be viewed by search.

Under the law, the committee was supposed to review data, and gather community feedback about their draft plan before presenting it to the state.

In its vote on Aug. 11, all members voted in favor of forwarding the report to the state, except committee member Chris Gdowski, superintendent of neighboring Adams 12, who recused himself because he had not seen or read the 40-page report before the 10-minute meeting.

The report claims the public had ample opportunity to provide feedback, since its meetings were publicized, school board members held individual meetings, and community members could comment at the end-of-year Adams 14 town hall meeting.

However, the announcement for that meeting included no mention of the reorganization process, a draft plan, or recommendation.

An archived online notice for that town hall meeting is just a handful of sentences: “Please join us for an end-of-year town hall meeting on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. The superintendent will share some of our incredible achievements this year regarding state metrics, community engagement, and district initiatives. Join us in the Adams City High School auditorium on May 31 at 5:30 p.m. Dinner and child care will be provided. Interpretation services will be available.”

The report also cites that other local boards, including the neighboring school boards involved in reorganization, and the Adams County Commissioners, have passed resolutions in support of Adams 14. Teachers unions including the local Adams 14 association and the state teachers union also have voiced their support of the district and opposition for reorganization.

District attorney Joe Salazar said that community members always have a right to speak about reorganization or any topic at any meeting.

Salazar said “by and large, people from all four districts didn’t want to take part in reorganization. They are so over this process.”

What is happening in the district now?

Since the state ordered Adams 14 to enter reorganization, the Department of Education is now led by a new state commissioner and has new state board members.

Momentum to make changes to the state’s accountability system have picked up over time and a task force has been formed to make recommendations for changes.

Meanwhile, in the district, Adams 14 worked this past year with consultant TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project. TNTP was supposed to take the place of an external manager the state wanted the district to work with to ensure success.

Adams 14 filed notice with the state this week that they don’t plan to renew TNTP’s contract due to budget constraints. Asked about that decision Wednesday, Loría said “we’re working with the state through that.” A department spokesperson said ending that relationship would put the district in violation of existing orders. However, the state is willing to give the district more money to cover some of the costs.

Two years ago, just after being hired, Loría cut ties with a state-ordered manager, for-profit consultant MGT, by locking them out of the district, and the State Board of Education temporarily removed the district’s accreditation.

This time, Salazar, the district’s attorney, said the district would seek an amendment to the State Board orders to remove the requirement that the district have an external partner. It’s not clear whether the State Board would approve such a request.

Loría said the district is continuously re-evaluating district needs and prioritizing improvement efforts, but said the district’s budget woes also pushed her to the decision.

The contract with TNTP was signed in June 2022, for $5 million over three years.

Loría said among other things, she has restructured administration staff for a savings of about $800,000. The district also closed Hanson, a low-enrollment elementary school, at the end of last school year, and is considering other closures in the coming years.

She said the district has been “bold” against the state’s orders, and now has a strong local vision and that has contributed to the district’s improvements. She also discussed the new career-focused academies that are being started at the high school, the district’s commitment to fund full-day preschool for all 3- and 4 year-olds, and the rollout of the community schools model at Central Elementary, one of the low-performing schools that has improved over 2022.

Loría also announced Wednesday that the district is one step closer to earning an alternative accreditation from Cognia, a Georgia-based nonprofit that conducts reviews of schools, grants accreditation, and offers suggestions and resources for improvement. The district began seeking that one after the state removed its accreditation.

Read the full report from the reorganization committee:

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add additional information about Adams 14 considering cutting ties with TNTP, including a response from the Colorado Department of Education.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

More Colorado schools, districts earn higher scores in annual performance ratings

2023-08-30T00:51:07+00:00

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More schools and districts scored higher this year on the state’s annual performance ratings than in 2022, according to preliminary ratings released Tuesday by the Colorado Department of Education.

But, similar to trends with state test data, the number of schools and districts with good ratings is still lower than before the pandemic.

And, although more schools and ratings improved overall, more schools and districts were newly identified as low performing, putting them on the state’s watchlist for low performance.

Colorado issues school performance ratings for every public school and district annually, using state test data, graduation rates, and some post-secondary data such as college enrollment and participation in career education. The highest rating for districts is distinction, while the highest rating for schools is performance, followed by improvement, priority improvement, and lastly, turnaround. By state law, the State Board of Education is required to intervene in schools or districts once they’ve had five consecutive years of one of the two lowest ratings.

This year’s ratings are the first since 2019 to count for school accountability purposes. Ratings were not issued in 2020 or 2021 due to pandemic testing disruptions, and last year’s ratings were considered advisory. The ratings are preliminary because schools and districts can request the state change the rating taking into account different data. The ratings become final after that process, by December.

Overall, the Colorado Department of Education reported that 70% of districts and 78% of schools earned ratings of improvement or higher.

Among the state’s 184 school districts and BOCES, three districts earned a turnaround or red rating this year: Centennial R-1, Deer Trail, and East Otero; last year, only one received that rating. BOCES or boards of cooperative educational services are groups of small districts that share resources.

The three districts in turnaround — all serving small rural communities — received their lower ratings due to low test participation. Aurora and Sheridan districts earned priority improvement, the second-to-lowest rating, and are now on the state’s list for low performance. Both have been on the state’s watchlist before.

A rating for a school or district can be lowered if the rate of participation, after removing parent excused absences, is below 95% for two or more content areas. Although it’s happened before, it was more common this year for districts or schools to have a rating lowered for low participation. In 2022, since the ratings were advisory, the state waived the participation requirements that could have lowered many ratings.

Adams 14, the one district that was rated turnaround in 2022, moved up to priority improvement. The Adams 14 school district has been rated in the bottom two categories for 10 years and has been ordered to try various improvements, which haven’t been effective. The district is fighting the latest state order to reorganize. The move up doesn’t take it off the state’s watchlist for low performance.

Another district, the 107-student Aguilar district in southern Colorado, which had also been under state orders for years of low performance, did improve enough this year to get off the watchlist.

Two districts, Mesa County Valley School District 51 and Pueblo 60, do not yet have district ratings as the state is recalculating their data and expects to release their ratings next month.

Meanwhile, efforts to change the state’s accountability system are ongoing. Critics say the ratings rely too heavily on standardized test data and are biased against districts with high percentages of students from low-income families or who are not native English speakers. The legislature has convened a task force to recommend changes to the school ratings system, but any changes likely wouldn’t happen until 2025.

Of 22 districts that earned one of the two lowest ratings, 11 are majority students of color.

In Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest school district, fewer schools earned the top rating this year than last year. But low student participation on state standardized tests could be the reason. Nine schools’ ratings were lowered from performance, signified by the color green, to improvement, or color yellow, due to low test participation.

Those schools include some of DPS’ largest high schools, including East, Northfield, South, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson.

More DPS schools earned one of the two lowest ratings this year than last year. But last year’s ratings breakdown was skewed because so many DPS schools — 40 last year compared to just three this year — had insufficient data for the state to calculate a rating.

Six DPS schools this year earned the lowest rating of turnaround. Four are elementary schools, one is an ECE-8 school, and one is a high school. West High, which reopened in 2021 after being closed for low test scores, was bumped down to a red turnaround rating because of low student test participation. The other red Denver schools are: College View Elementary, McGlone Academy, Oakland Elementary, Barnum Elementary, and Academy 360.

Two DPS high schools are under state improvement orders for chronic low performance. Both schools, Abraham Lincoln and Manual, earned the same rating this year as they did last year: priority improvement, signified by the color orange.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado 2023 CMAS results show slow academic recovery, red flags for some students

2023-08-17T17:00:00+00:00

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State test scores released Thursday show signs that Colorado students are recovering from pandemic learning disruption, as 2023 scores approached 2019 levels in some grades and subjects.

But worrying signs remain that many students are still struggling.

The share of fourth and eighth graders who could read and write at or above grade level on CMAS tests taken this past spring remains more than 4 percentage points behind the share who could in 2019. Seventh and eighth graders are similarly behind in math. Each percentage point represents thousands of students who are not meeting expectations and who are less prepared for the next grade.

At the same time, fifth and sixth graders are posting similar scores in reading and writing to their peers four years ago, and in math, all elementary students are. At nearly every grade level, more students met or exceeded expectations in both language arts and math in 2023 than did in 2022, with fifth and seventh graders improving several percentage points in reading.

State education officials attribute the progress to a more normal school year, with fewer disruptions due to illness and safety protocols, as well as to school districts’ investments in new curriculum and tutoring to help students catch up. At the same time, staff shortages meant educators had less time to help struggling students, and many schools reported increases in students missing class.

The uneven recovery may be due to differences in where students were developmentally when COVID hit and school moved online — and how critical the material they missed during disrupted schooling was to the next grade level. Students who were in eighth grade in spring 2023 were in fifth grade when schools shut down in March 2020.

“There are some key learnings that typically occur in some grade levels that have impact down the road,” Joyce Zurkowski, chief assessment officer for the Colorado Department of Education, said on a call with reporters this week.

She said education officials consider “what typically is covered (in) fifth grade, second semester — and how that could be impacting our students in seventh and eighth grade.”

All Colorado students in grades three through eight take reading, writing, and math tests every spring. The tests are known as the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS. Some students also take tests in science and social studies. High schoolers take the PSAT and SAT.

Scores for English learners raise concerns

Test scores for English learners and students who took the reading and writing tests in Spanish raise major concerns about how well these children are faring in school.

Just 18.7% of third graders who took the test in Spanish met or exceeded expectations, down 8.8 percentage points from 2019 — by far the biggest lag in student recovery. And just 14.2% of fourth graders who took the Spanish test met or exceeded expectations, down almost 5 percentage points from 2019.

State education officials said the trend calls for more attention to these students. Some of that will have to come from state lawmakers, who have set aside money and crafted new rules to support reading and math instruction, but not bilingual learners.

Floyd Cobb, the associate commissioner of student learning, made that clear this week. Asked what the state education department will do to close the gap between bilingual learners and English-speaking students, he said, “that’ll need to be answered by the General Assembly.”

“Our job here at the department is to make sure that we go about implementing the laws that the General Assembly passes, and in the event that someone writes a bill, and that bill makes it through, we’ll engage in our work to be able to support,” Cobb said.

Colorado’s Latino communities suffered a heavy toll during the pandemic, experiencing more illness and death, more job losses, and more economic instability than white Coloradans. Hispanic families are also less likely to have reliable internet access, and have been affected by rising rents and home prices that have pushed many of them out of their neighborhoods.

Colorado education officials are also watching with concern the test scores of middle school girls. Girls typically do better than boys in language arts, while boys do better in math. That hasn’t changed, but in some cases, gender gaps have narrowed because girls are doing worse. The number of eighth grade girls meeting or exceeding expectations in language arts is down 7.7 percentage points since 2019, and down more than 3 points just since last year.

“When we look at the national level, there’s been significant research that suggests young women have struggled more during the pandemic with depression and anxiety,” Colorado Commissioner of Education Susana Córdova said.

“It’s hard to say if that’s the reason why we’re seeing lower performance with young women than we are with young men,” Córdova said. “But I think it’s going to be important for us to continue to monitor and look at and to focus supports on young women.”

Colorado continues to have major gaps in proficiency rates based on student race and economic status. The share of white and Asian students scoring at grade level is 24 to 30 points higher than for Black and Hispanic students. The gaps between students living in poverty — as measured by eligibility for free- or reduced-price lunch — and their more affluent peers is more than 30 points in most grades and subjects.

These are longstanding problems, but Colorado education officials said they demand urgent attention.

How state officials, schools, teachers, and families use CMAS results

Critics of standardized tests say they are a better measure of the effects of poverty than of academic performance, but state education officials point out that they are the only statewide measure of how well students meet the state’s academic standards.

The state uses the test results to rate schools and districts, and to direct help to schools with lower scores and issue state improvement orders.

Parents can use their children’s individual test results to discuss strengths and weaknesses with teachers, and they can use state data to see how their school and district perform compared with others.

Schools and teachers can use the test scores to determine the subjects where students are furthest behind and find ways to help them improve.

In addition to the raw test scores, Colorado also calculates growth scores. Those scores measure how much progress students made compared with students who scored similarly to them the year before and are generally considered a better measure of the work educators do than raw test scores.

Because of the way the growth scores are calculated, the state average is always around 50 on a 100-point scale. Students who are behind need growth scores above 50 to catch up.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Colorado students would need growth scores of 55 or higher to catch up to 2019 achievement levels, said Lisa Medler, the executive director of accountability and continuous improvement for the Colorado Department of Education.

Among districts with more than 1,000 students that serve a large portion of students of color, only Denver edged above 50 in growth in both language arts and math, and many districts had below-average growth scores.

Statewide, district growth scores for grades three through eight ranged from a high of 79 in math in Hinsdale County RE-1, a small district in southwest Colorado, to a low of 23, also in math, in Agate School District #300, a tiny district in the east.

Denver scores rebound, but big gaps remain

In Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest school district with nearly 88,000 students, test scores for most grades and subjects rebounded, but not quite to pre-pandemic levels.

There were a few exceptions. Third graders scored higher this past spring than four years ago: 40% met or exceeded expectations in 2023, compared with 39% in 2019.

The troubling trend of English learners falling further behind showed up in Denver’s test scores, too. Most English learners in Denver speak Spanish, and more than 1,600 Denver students took the state literacy test in Spanish. But only 21% met or exceeded expectations on the Spanish literacy test, down from 29% in 2019.

While English-speaking students are catching up from pandemic learning loss, students who are still learning the English language are not, the test data shows. The test score gap between English learners and English speakers is growing.

Denver has other gaps, too. Last year, Denver’s test score gaps between white and Black students, and between white and Hispanic students, were the biggest in Colorado. The gaps did not shrink this year. In fact, the gap grew in math between white and Hispanic students.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero has said he wants to see the number of students scoring at grade level go up by 10 percentage points in reading and math by 2026 — a goal he included in the district’s strategic plan. The plan says test scores should improve even more for “some student groups,” an acknowledgement that Denver has big gaps to close.

This year’s test scores show only slight progress toward that goal. Proficiency rates in grades three through seven rose between 0.2 and 2.4 percentage points, depending on the grade. Eighth graders declined slightly in language arts.

On both the PSAT and SAT, fewer Denver students scored at or above a benchmark meant to indicate college readiness this past spring in literacy and math than did in 2019.

Adams 14 test scores remain low

The Adams 14 school district, which received state orders to reorganize after years of chronic low student performance, continued to see low scores.

At the high school level, students in every grade level tested had lower average combined scores than in 2019. The trend is similar statewide, but Adams 14’s scores are lower than the state’s average.

In grades three through eight, Adams 14 saw significantly lower scores districtwide compared with 2019, nearly across the board.

The biggest decrease was among fifth graders taking English language arts tests, only 12.7% of whom met or exceeded expectations. The only districtwide improvement was very small: just a 0.1 percentage point increase among sixth graders in math. Only 4.3% of those students met or exceeded expectations.

Looking at growth among Adams 14 students, the district and most of its schools had growth scores of less than 50. The two highest growth scores were for math at Dupont, with a 57.5, and language arts at Rose Hill Elementary which had a growth score of 58.

The test where Adams 14 had its highest percentage of students meeting expectations was on the language arts tests given in Spanish. Among third graders taking that test, for instance, 19.2% of students met or exceeded expectations, compared with 17.6% of third graders taking that test in English.

Adams 14 has one of the state’s highest proportions of students learning English as a second language, and historically has had trouble educating those students and complying with their civil rights. In more recent years, the district has implemented bilingual programming and created a plan that finally got federal approval for how to educate English learners.

Third graders still recovering in reading

Elementary students are still not yet up to pre-pandemic reading proficiency levels, despite big changes in how Colorado schools teach reading.

Statewide, 39.9% of the spring’s third graders met or exceeded expectations on reading tests. That percentage is lower than last year, and down from 41.3% in 2019.

Sheridan, Douglas County, Jeffco, and St. Vrain districts in the metro area showed significant improvements in third grade reading.

In Sheridan, the district went from having just over 10% of students meet expectations for reading in 2019 to 26.8% this spring. In the Douglas County school district, 58% of third graders met expectations in reading, up from 52% in 2019. The score put the Dougco district above most metro area districts.

The Jeffco school district also had increases, with 48.2% of third graders meeting reading standards, up from 46.3% in 2019.

Mapleton and Pueblo 60 districts have not been able to bring the percentage of students meeting expectations back up to 2019 levels. In Mapleton, 17.8% of third grade students met or exceeded reading expectations this spring, down from 28.1% in 2019. In Pueblo 60, 22.9% of third grade students met or exceeded reading expectations, down from 27.6% in 2019.

Among 10 districts that serve the highest percentages of students of color and have more than 1,000 students, all saw a decrease in the percentage of students meeting expectations in math. Westminster and East Otero in southeast Colorado had the smallest decreases in overall math scores. Among Westminster students 15.5% met or exceeded expectations in math this year, down from 16.4% of students in 2019.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Estudiantes y padres sienten emoción y esperanza por el nuevo año escolar en Adams 14

2023-08-10T19:23:13+00:00

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Poniéndose a la delantera de la mayoría de los estudiantes en distritos escolares alrededor del estado, los estudiantes en Adams 14 empezaron un nuevo año escolar esta semana—nerviosos, emocionados y con curiosidad sobre los posibles cambios que el distrito quizás implemente.

Se espera que Adams 14 haga modificaciones como parte de cambios importantes por ser el primer distrito en el estado que recibiera una orden de reorganización después de muchos años de bajas calificaciones en evaluaciones de desempeño. La mayoría de los padres y estudiantes no sabían que habría cambios, y algunos tenían curiosidad de saber qué se aproxima.

La mayoría de los estudiantes en la high school no sabían sobre los planes de la escuela de crear academias técnicas en ciencias de la salud y servicios humanos; arquitectura, construcción, ingeniería y diseño; negocios, hotelería y restaurantes/bares y turismo; e, información digital y tecnología. El distrito dijo que los estudiantes de noveno grado terminarán por elegir una de las cuatro academias, o vías, que pueden darles certificaciones junto con su diploma de high school.

Algunos estudiantes no esperan que mucho cambie. Sin embargo, muchos ya tenían sus horarios en mano cuando entraron a la escuela—una mejora importante en comparación con los últimos años cuando los estudiantes dijeron que tuvieron que esperar varios días en el auditorio para recibir un horario.

En la escuela Primaria Monaco el lunes, los padres llegaron acompañando a sus pequeños, con mochilas llenas, cajas de pañuelos y otros materiales, para esperar a que sus maestros los llevaran a su primer día de clases.

Este año, Monaco está recibiendo a estudiantes de la antigua escuela Primaria Hanson, la cual el distrito cerró debido a reducciones en el número de estudiantes inscritos y para tener más espacio para la high school alternativa. Padres de algunos estudiantes de Hanson dijeron que sus hijos estaban nerviosos, pero afortunadamente encontraron antiguos maestros y compañeros entre las caras amigables en su nueva escuela.

“Están muy emocionados ahora que descubrieron que muchos de sus amigos se cambiaron con ellos”, dijo la madre Tabitha Amaya. Sus hijos de primer y tercer grado todavía estaban acostumbrándose al edificio de su nueva escuela, pero además de elogiar el almuerzo y los recreos del día, estaban emocionados de tener una clase de ciencias este año. “Eso es lo más memorable”.

Amaya sigue teniendo una preocupación: cómo hará para llevar a sus hijos a la escuela los jueves. El distrito anunció que este año las clases empezarán dos horas después una vez por semana para permitir que los maestros tengan más tiempo para planear o recibir capacitación.

“Con ambos padres trabajando, eso es algo difícil”, Amaya dijo. Dijo que los líderes en la escuela Monaco se habían comunicado con ella para escuchar sus inquietudes, al parecer en busca de una solución, pensó, pero no la habían vuelto a llamar.

“Creo que veremos el jueves”, Amaya dijo.

Adams 14 tiene alrededor de 6,100 estudiantes y todavía enfrenta un futuro incierto. La reorganización podría significar cierres de escuelas o que distritos cercanos tomen control de las escuelas del distrito, pero el plan debe ser diseñado y aprobado por la comunidad, y los líderes nombrados para el comité de reorganización apoyan dejar que Adams 14 siga funcionando como lo hace en este momento.

Gran parte del trabajo sigue en pausa mientras el distrito espera una decisión de la Corte Suprema de Colorado en la que afirma que el estado no tiene la habilidad de ordenar que un distrito escolar cierre. Mientras tanto, los líderes del distrito están contando con la nueva administración de la superintendenta Karla Loria para que impulse mejoras académicas que múltiples administraciones anteriores no lograron alcanzar.

Los líderes del distrito se negaron a una entrevista para hablar sobre el trabajo que se está invirtiendo en estos avances. Los padres dijeron que no saben qué cambios vayan a suceder, pero tienen la esperanza de que sea un buen año escolar.

Angelica Munoz dijo que se acaba de mudar a Commerce City y no sabe sobre ningún cambio en el distrito, pero que su cuñada le dijo que Monaco era una “escuela maravillosa”.

A su hija le encantó su primer día de kindergarten.

“No puede esperar para regresar mañana”, Munoz dijo. “Dijo que estuvieron leyendo mucho. Creo que eso es bueno”.

Carlos Cabrera tiene un hijo de 14 años con necesidades especiales que está empezando esté año en Adams City High School.

Cabrera dijo que a su hijo le preocupaba ir a una escuela más grande, con estudiantes mayores y con más interacciones sociales, y él estaba preocupado porque su hijo no se comunica mucho.

Pero después de la escuela, Cabrera dijo que parece que le fue bien.

“Dijo que le gustan sus maestros”, dijo. “Parece que estuvo bien”.

Cabrera dijo que en la mañana entró a la escuela con su hijo, pero no obtuvo mucha información. La escuela dijo que le darían información sobre las academias más adelante.

Jason Malmberg, el presidente del sindicato de maestros del distrito, dijo que lo que más les emociona a él y a otros maestros es el trabajo continuo del distrito para implementar el modelo de escuelas comunitarias.

El modelo, el cual busca llevar recursos comunitarios a las escuelas, como despensas de alimentos, clases para padres o cuidados después del horario escolar, para abordar factores externos que afectan el aprendizaje, se está lanzando primero en la escuela Primaria Central, una de las escuelas con el peor desempeño en el distrito. Malmberg dijo que este verano él y otros líderes solicitaron fondos a través de un subsidio para tratar de pagar por el trabajo de implementar el modelo en todo el distrito.

“Existe un modelo que hace como que la raza y la clase y la pobreza no tienen un impacto en la educación”, Malmberg dijo. “Estamos tratando de usar un modelo diferente, un modelo que eleve la voz de la comunidad, que responda a las necesidades de esa comunidad”.

Malmberg, junto con líderes del distrito y de la comunidad, cree que los resultados estatales de desempeño ignoran el impacto que la alta concentración de pobreza y otros desafíos sociales y medioambientales tienen en la habilidad de los estudiantes en Adams 14 de poder aprender o demostrar su aprendizaje en una prueba estandarizada. Están interesados en que el distrito escolar aborde primero esos desafíos y creen que, con el tiempo, eso puede resultar en mejoras académicas.

“Realmente sentimos que esta es la respuesta: invertir en la comunidad. Pero no es un arreglo rápido”.

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Students, parents excited and hopeful about new year in Adams 14 schools

2023-08-08T00:36:38+00:00

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Getting ahead of most school districts in the state, Adams 14 students started a new school year Monday, nervous, excited, and curious about possible changes the district might roll out.

Adams 14 is expected to be making changes as part of its turnaround as the first district in the state ordered into reorganization after many years of low ratings in state performance measures. Most parents and students were unaware of the turnaround changes, and some were curious about what to expect.

Most students at the high school didn’t know about the school’s plans to create career academies in health sciences and human services; architecture, construction, engineering and design; business, hospitality and tourism; and digital information and technology. The district has said ninth graders would eventually pick one of the four academies, or paths, that can give them certifications along with their high school diplomas.

Some students don’t expect much to change. However, many already had their schedules in hand as they walked into school — an important improvement over some past years when students reported waiting days in the auditorium to get a schedule.

At Monaco Elementary, parents walked their little ones, carrying stuffed backpacks, boxes of tissues, and other supplies, to wait for their teachers to take them into their first day of classes.

Monaco is receiving students this year from former Hanson Elementary which the district closed due to declining enrollment and to make more room for the alternative high school. Parents of Hanson students said their kids were nervous, but fortunately found former teachers and classmates among the friendly faces at their new school.

“They’re very excited now that they found out a lot of their friends moved with them,” said parent Tabitha Amaya. Her first and third graders were still getting used to the new school building, but besides praising the lunch and recess periods of the day, were excited to have a science class this year. “That’s the highlight.”

For Amaya, one concern remains: how she’ll manage to get her kids to school on Thursdays. The district announced that this year they’ll have classes start two hours later once a week to allow teachers more time to plan or train.

“With both parents working, it’s kind of hard,” Amaya said. She said Monaco leaders had reached out to her to hear her concerns, seemingly looking for a solution, she thought, but she hasn’t heard back.

“I guess we’ll see Thursday,” Amaya said.

Adams 14 has about 6,100 students and still has an uncertain future. Reorganization could mean school closures or nearby districts taking control over the district’s schools, but the plan has to be shaped and approved by the community, and leaders appointed to the reorganization committee support letting Adams 14 continue to operate as is.

Much of that work remains on hold while the district awaits a Colorado Supreme Court decision as it argues the state doesn’t have the ability to order a school district to close. In the meantime, district leaders are counting on Superintendent Karla Loria’s new administration to drive academic improvements that multiple past administrations have been unable to accomplish.

District leadership refused an interview to talk about the work that’s going into those improvements. Parents said they’re unaware of what changes are happening, but are hopeful for a good school year.

Angelica Munoz said she just moved to Commerce City and isn’t aware of any of the district changes, but heard from her sister-in-law that Monaco was a “wonderful school.”

Her daughter loved her first day of kindergarten.

“She can’t wait to go back tomorrow,” Munoz said. “She said they were doing a lot of reading. I think that’s good.”

Carlos Cabrera has a son, 14, with special needs, who is starting at Adams City High School this year.

Cabrera said his son was worried about the bigger school, older students, and more social interactions, and he was concerned because his son doesn’t communicate much.

But after school, Cabrera said it seemed to go well.

“He said he likes the teachers,” he said. “It looks like it went good.”

Cabrera said that in the morning he walked into the school with his son, but didn’t get a lot of information. The school said they’d let him know about the academies later.

Jason Malmberg, the president of the district’s teachers union, said he and other teachers are most excited about the district’s continued work to roll out the community school model.

The model, which seeks to bring community resources into the schools such as food pantries, parents classes, or after-school care, to address external factors that impact learning, is being rolled out first at Central Elementary, one of the lower-performing schools in the district. Malmberg said he and other leaders applied this summer for some grant funding to try to pay for the work to roll out the model districtwide.

“There’s a model that pretends race and class and poverty have no impact on education,” Malmberg said. “We are trying to do a different model, a model that elevates the voice of the community, that responds to the needs of that community.”

Malmberg, along with district and community leaders, believe the state’s performance ratings ignore the impact that the high concentration of poverty and other social and environmental challenges have on the ability for students in Adams 14 to be able to learn or demonstrate learning on a standardized test. They’re interested in having the school district address some of those challenges first and believe that over time, that may lead to some academic improvements.

“We really feel like this is the answer: investing in the community. But it’s not a quick fix.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

State agency approves two charter schools rejected by Adams 14

2023-06-20T22:36:39+00:00

Two charter schools received approval Tuesday to open in Adams 14 despite the school district’s opposition.

The school district north of Denver had tried to block both schools — University Prep and Be the Change — from opening, but the State Board of Education last month took away the district’s exclusive say in approving or denying charter schools within its boundaries.

Adams 14 is under state reorganization orders after years of low test scores, and a majority of State Board members said it seemed the district showed a pattern of being unfair to charter schools.

Because the district lost its chartering authority, the two schools were able to apply through the state agency, the Charter School Institute. Now, both schools are expected to open in fall 2024.

At a special meeting Tuesday, the CSI board of directors unanimously approved both schools.

Joe Salazar, an attorney for Adams 14, said the district had asked CSI to hold off on their vote because of pending litigation. The district has sued the state for removing their exclusive chartering authority and requested that the judge issue a stay on the order. Salazar said the judge has not issued a ruling.

“If they issue a stay, then what CSI did today is void,” Salazar said.

The Adams 14 school board initially approved University Prep, a charter network that already operates schools in Denver, but then contract negotiations broke down. The charter network successfully appealed to the State Board of Education — twice — but the district still said it could not reach an agreement to open the school.

Leaders of University Prep said they worked with parents in the community, some of whom already drive their kids out of the district to attend the network’s Denver schools. Together they designed a school that is to include a preschool and programming in Spanish.

The school now has plans to open in fall 2024 serving students in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, expanding over time to enroll students up to fifth grade.

Adams 14 leaders cited uncertainty about whether the school would offer preschool in the first year as the issue that began the breakdown in negotiations. At that time, the network still hoped to open in fall 2023.

Be the Change leaders also say they had a lot of community engagement in designing their high school under a community school model with a biliteracy approach. The district denied their application after criticizing the plans as not rigorous enough.

On an appeal, State Board members sided with the district. That didn’t stop Be the Change founders from trying again, though.

Now, Be the Change expects to open in the fall of 2024 with students in grade 9, eventually serving students through grade 12.

“We are absolutely honored by the approval and thrilled for our Commerce City community to have an additional high school option in order for families to make the best decision for their children,” said Amanda Gonzales, Be The Change co-founder, in a written statement.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 loses chartering authority as Colorado State Board sides with University Prep

2023-05-11T19:59:32+00:00

The Adams 14 school district lost its exclusive authority to approve or deny charter applications Thursday. Nor will the district be able to decide whether charters within its boundaries can seek authorization from the state.

The Colorado’s State Board of Education voted 5 to 4 to remove exclusive chartering authority at a hearing requested by charter network University Prep.

The charter school has argued with Adams 14 for over a year, winning two state appeals against the district. Still, Adams 14 has not approved a contract to allow the school to open an elementary charter school.

The State Board decision opens the door for University Prep to seek state authorization and open over the district’s objections.

The conflict has hinged largely on whether the charter school would be able to open with a preschool in its first year as originally proposed.

But the disputes between the two have included Adams 14 accusing University Prep of threatening the district, the charter accusing the district of demanding it sign a loyalty agreement, and a disagreement over how much each has tried to resolve the issues.

University Prep leaders argued Thursday that state law allowed them to request that the district lose its exclusive chartering authority because it showed a pattern of unfair treatment of charter schools — including by not complying with State Board orders. They also said they had no other recourse outside the courts.

Adams 14 leaders argued that the charter only made the request because they were unhappy with the outcome of their contract negotiations and dealings with the district. The district said that one case didn’t constitute a pattern, and that they had obeyed the State Board orders by trying to restart negotiations, but that they could not be forced to agree with their requests.

Some State Board members said that the law was unclear, now that two state appeals had been exhausted, and that the dispute that remained appeared to be a contract issue. They said it seemed to be an area needing new legislation.

State Board member Lisa Escárcega said she previously worked in a district that had a clearer pattern of being anti-charter, but that it was never brought to the state’s attention. She said the Adams 14’s case didn’t seem like a pattern to her.

Escárcega voted against stripping the district’s charting authority, along with board members Karla Esser, Kathy Plomer, and Rhonda Solis, all Democrats.

Board Chair Rebecca McClellan and Angelika Schroeder, both Democrats, joined three Republicans, Steve Durham, Stephen Varela, and Debora Scheffel, to vote in favor of removing that authority.

McClellan said she was thinking of families who have already been waiting years to see this school open.

“They are here for relief because they have no other option and time is of the essence,” McCllellan said. “I am convinced there’s a pattern. I am convinced there is an equity issue.”

Thursday’s hearing didn’t mention other charter schools applications that Adams 14 has denied.

Two state-approved charter schools do operate in the district. When the schools recently sought district approval instead, they were also denied.

Adams 14 is under state-mandated improvement orders. State review panels examining the state’s options in the district have recommended against charter schools, noting much of the community is against charters.

Parents both in favor of University Prep and those against the charter’s arguments attended the hearing Thursday though public comment was not allowed.

In Colorado, school districts start off having exclusive chartering authority, meaning that any charters looking to open within their district boundaries must apply to them. Even if schools wish for state Charter School Institute approval, they have to ask the district to allow it.

When districts lose their exclusive chartering authority, prospective charter schools can apply to either the district or the state agency, without getting prior permission.

Three small districts have lost exclusive chartering authority, according to the state Department of Education, and of districts with more than 3,000 students, just two others have lost the authority: Poudre and Fort Morgan.

School districts and charter schools alike watch State Board decisions on chartering authority closely. A board member for the Colorado League of Charter Schools presented the case with University Prep. Dan Schaller, president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools, praised the decision in a written statement.

“We believe this decision puts kids and families first in finding public school options that best [meets] their needs,” he said.

Districts can ask for their charting authority back, if they prove to the state they do not have a pattern of being unfair to charter schools.

Joseph Salazar, an attorney for Adams 14, told the State Board that University Prep was an abusive organization. That is why the district did not want to allow University Prep to open a school under state agency approval, he said.

He compared the situation of being forced to negotiate with an abusive outside entity to the state forcing the district about two years ago to work with their previous external manager, MGT Consulting. The district ultimately ended that contract, despite being under State Board orders to hire an outside manager.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado Supreme Court will hear Adams 14 case against state

2023-03-01T23:30:12+00:00

The Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could determine whether the State Board of Education has the final word in directing low-performing school districts to improve or whether those districts can appeal state orders to the courts.

The case could determine the limits of local control and state authority within Colorado’s education system.

The Adams 14 school district sued the State Board of Education after it ordered the district to reorganize, possibly risking its autonomy. Now a state Supreme Court ruling, if it favored the district, could allow for legal recourse for school districts when they disagree with a State Board order.

The State Board had never before used its powers to order reorganization of a school district for persistent low performance.

In September, a Denver district court judge dismissed Adams 14’s lawsuit. The judge ruled, among other things, that school districts don’t have the right to request a judicial review of State Board of Education action under the state’s accountability law.

Adams 14 planned to appeal, but the state attorney general’s office and the district decided together to petition the state Supreme Court to hear the case, bypassing the court of appeals. The Supreme Court this week agreed to hear the case.

The state’s request argued that accountability issues will become more common.

“The questions carry great weight for public education,” the document states. “Several school districts aside from Adams 14 are on track to face directed action from the State Board, and pandemic-related learning loss will likely lead to more. As more accountability matters come before the State Board, it is of imperative public importance to determine whether school districts can sue to forestall the State Board’s directed actions for turning around struggling schools.”

Lawmakers this session were considering a bill that would give districts the right to appeal the State Board’s accountability orders. On Wednesday bill sponsor state Sen. Jessie Danielson, a Jefferson County Democrat, withdrew it to allow the Supreme Court to rule on the issue.

The district court’s ruling hinged on what lawyers call the Martin rule. It’s a judicial precedent that means a government agency cannot sue a state agency above it for doing its job, without state law or the constitution spelling out that right. The district court judge said the state’s accountability law does not give districts the right to appeal state orders.

Adams 14 lawyers have argued that the state constitution does explicitly give local school boards in Colorado authority that the State Board of Education cannot take away, such as it would by dissolving a district.

Joe Salazar, an attorney for Adams 14, has also told the State Board that elected local school board members are peers of State Board members, not subordinate to them.

The district court disagreed and said the school district is subordinate to the state. That is one of the four questions the Supreme Court will review.

The state Supreme Court recently had agreed to hear another case involving the Martin rule. In that case, the court of appeals ruled against Weld County commissioners suing the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment over air pollution rules for oil and gas sites.

In the request to the Supreme Court to hear the Adams 14 case, the state argued that the cases were similar but that the differences would give additional context for how the rule should be applied.

One difference is that in the education case, the state constitution grants both the State Board and local school boards some measure of authority, meaning, “the General Assembly must balance those entities’ powers in a manner that does not ‘clearly impede the capacity of either.’”

The state and the district have more than three months to file documents laying out their case. After that, the court will schedule a hearing.

Read the request for the Supreme Court consideration here:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Bill would allow Colorado school districts to sue State Board of Education

2023-02-10T20:24:42+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Subscribe to our free Colorado newsletter to keep up with education news from around the state: ckbe.at/subscribe-colorado

A bill introduced in the Colorado legislature would allow school districts to sue the State Board of Education when they disagree with decisions related to the school accountability system.

The proposal would put a check on the State Board’s ability to intervene in schools and districts that report many years in a row of low student test scores. It comes as the Adams 14 school district is engaged in an extended legal fight to block a state-ordered reorganization process.

Supporters of the proposal, including groups representing superintendents and school boards, predict lawsuits would be rare but say they deserve some legal recourse when they disagree with the State Board. Opponents fear it will slow down efforts to improve education and put complex policy issues in the hands of judges who don’t have the expertise to handle them.

Senate Bill 71 would allow school districts to appeal any rule, regulation, or final order of the State Board related to the accountability system. It is scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Education Committee on Monday.

State Sen. Jessie Danielson, a Jefferson County Democrat sponsoring the bill, said most state agencies are subject to judicial review, and the State Board should be as well.

“The situation involving Adams 14 involves concerns that the State Board is intruding on local control and constitutional rights,” she wrote in an email. “Why shouldn’t Adams 14 or every other local school district in the accountability system be entitled to a court’s review of a State Board’s order?”

The State Board opposes the measure, with members saying lawsuits would delay improvement plans that could help children who already have waited too long.

“By and large, we’ve been very successful in assisting districts to move forward academically,” board member Steve Durham, a Colorado Springs Republican, said. “When the district works with the department, we’ve had extraordinary success. I think it’s in the best interest of the children that the present system be preserved, and this bill be defeated.”

The State Board of Education is an independently elected body that oversees the state accountability system, among other duties. That includes administering standardized tests, rating schools and teachers on their performance, and ordering changes in schools and districts with persistently low performance. There is no appeal process after the State Board rules.

In most cases, the State Board approves improvement plans developed at the district level, but it has ordered schools to turn over some or all authority to an external manager, often a consultant or private company. The State Board also has the power to close schools, convert them to charter schools, or order the reorganization of an entire school district.

That’s what happened in Adams 14 last year. The process could result in schools closing or parts of the district being absorbed by its neighbors, but that seems unlikely. Neighboring districts, which have representatives on the reorganization committee, have pledged their support for the district, and any big changes would require voter approval.

Nonetheless, Adams 14 officials say state orders have been deeply disruptive, harmed their ability to hire teachers, and intruded on the authority of local elected officials.

Last year, a Denver district court judge dismissed Adams 14’s lawsuit challenging the state order, saying the law doesn’t allow for judicial review. The district is appealing.

Joe Salazar, a former legislator now serving as attorney for the Adams 14 school district, could not be reached for comment on the bill.

Organizations that support Colorado’s test-based accountability system such as Stand for Children and Democrats for Education Reform oppose the bill, as do groups representing charter schools. Brenda Dickhoner of the conservative education advocacy group Ready Colorado said the bill poses “grave concerns.”

“It’s incredibly broad in scope and would allow districts to bring a lawsuit forward and challenge anything under the accountability act,” she said. “It’s not helpful or productive.”

State Board members fear the bill could leave open to judicial review everything from state ratings to grant awards to the thresholds used to determine whether students meet expectations on standardized tests.

But Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, which represents superintendents, said locally elected boards need some recourse when they disagree with a State Board ruling. He believes school districts would only sue about things that matter a lot.

“There is no reason we shouldn’t have that opportunity, but it will be sparsely used,” he said. “It would take time and money and resources.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

State again sides with University Prep charter, tells Adams 14 to negotiate contract

2023-02-09T23:38:33+00:00

Once again, the Colorado State Board of Education has sided with the charter group University Prep in an appeal and against the Adams 14 school district.

The State Board voted unanimously Thursday afternoon to grant the group’s appeal and order Adams 14 to engage in “good faith negotiations with University Preparatory Schools and to complete the contract.”

However, attorneys for Adams 14 argued that the State Board cannot order a district to negotiate a contract. The district’s denial of the charter contract centers around University Prep promising to include a preschool and then saying it might not happen in the first year.

The State Board has gained several new members since December when it initially voted to order Adams 14 to reconsider allowing the school to open. But still, many of the deliberations were similar.

Board chair Rebecca McClellan said she remains confused as to why, if the district values a preschool so much, a one-year delay in opening should mean it’s no longer of value and should be eliminated as a possibility.

State Board member Angelika Schroeder said there was clear interest in the school from families, and the issues sound like adult problems.

Two attorneys for Adams 14 argued that trust has been broken, that the district cannot be forced to sign a charter contract, and that they would not be forced to concede.

“There will not be a contract,” Joe Salazar, an attorney for Adams 14, said during the appeal hearing. “This is not an organization we want to engage with.”

State Board members then asked their own attorneys what the point of the hearing was if Adams 14 doesn’t intend to comply. State Board member Kathy Plomer said she wasn’t sure what implications her vote would have and that the issue seemed likely to head to the courts.

State attorneys still encouraged the State Board to make a decision on the appeal.

University Prep proposed a preschool through fifth grade school to open within Adams 14, and initially had their charter application approved by the Adams 14 school board in December 2021. The school and the district agreed to extend negotiations on details longer than usual, thus delaying the opening of the school.

In summer 2022, when University Prep believed negotiations were completed, the Adams 14 board delayed a vote then rejected the contract.

Central to the issues the district cites is whether the school will include a preschool in its first year. Leaders of University Prep say that is still their goal, but want leeway to push back opening the preschool in case construction and state licensing delay their timeline.

The draft charter contract stipulates that lack of a preschool by the second year could constitute a reason to close the school.

But Adams 14 attorneys said that changing the preschool timing represented a “bait and switch” and raises questions about whether the preschool would open at all. The attorneys also said the charter group broke trust when David Singer, the leader of University Prep, threatened to appeal to Steve Durham, a State Board member who has been critical of Adams 14.

Singer said in the state appeal hearings that he didn’t mean to threaten the district, that he didn’t mention Durham specifically, and that he has since apologized.

State Board member Rhonda Solis told University Prep leaders that they need to be more aware of the trauma that the Adams 14 district is dealing with, so they can be more sensitive.

On Thursday, attorneys for both sides said there was no negotiation after the December order.

Plomer said she was concerned that the district didn’t go through the process to try to remedy the impasse in negotiations after the December decision.

Salazar told the State Board that the Adams 14 board met to reconsider its denial of the school, but that the order didn’t require them to communicate or negotiate with University Prep. The local board approved a resolution without discussion reaffirming the denial.

Typically, a second appeal win by a charter is binding and has resulted in other districts opening a charter school they initially wanted to block. But the majority of appeals happen earlier in the process when a district denies a charter application, not when they’re considering a final contract.

In the case of Adams 14, Salazar said after the hearing that the local board will wait to see the written state order and weigh what is being asked.

But Salazar said he remains confident that the State Board cannot order a district to negotiate a contract.

Singer said he wants to remain hopeful that he’ll be able to work with the district to finalize a contract that works for everyone.

“Our goal is to find a way forward that ultimately honors the needs of kids,” he said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

New Colorado State Board of Education blocks a charter appeal against Adams 14

2023-01-12T22:54:23+00:00

The State Board of Education voted 5-3 Thursday to deny an appeal from a charter school seeking to open a new high school in Adams 14.

The Adams 14 school board had denied the application from Be the Change Community School for a high school with biliteracy and project-based learning in November.

This was the first charter appeal heard by a State Board of Education with an expanded Democratic majority and two new members who previously served on school boards. Just last month, the State Board unanimously sided with a charter school and against Adams 14 in a different case.

The Be the Change appeal saw both new members and some who had previously ruled against Adams 14 instead side with the district.

State Board members who sided with the district were most swayed by the concern that Be the Change had submitted only around 30 intent-to-enroll forms for its opening ninth grade level. The school wanted to have 100 students to open.

“I am not convinced, based on the enrollment numbers, that people are looking for this particular option,” said new state board member Kathy Plomer. “I don’t think it’s my job to sit here and decide what Adams 14 parents are interested in.”

In November, the Adams 14 school board voted unanimously to reject the charter application for the school at a special meeting without public discussion and without public comment. The district had held three community meetings to hear feedback from the public about the charter school but they were not well-attended.

At Thursday’s appeal hearing, a lawyer for the charter school argued that if approved, the school would agree to pre-opening conditions laid out in a contract and not open if it didn’t ultimately get more students to enroll.

But State Board members who voted to deny the appeal said such conditions could cause other problems for parents, who would be left uncertain if the school would be able to open. If the school did open and then had to close soon afterward, that would also be bad for the community, board members said.

For State Board president Rebecca McClellan and the board’s two Republican members Steve Durham and Deb Scheffel, who sided with the charter school, those conditions should have been enough to allow the charter application to proceed.

“It’s really a non-issue,” Durham said. “There will be a flight to quality.”

An estimated 900 high school students who live in Adams 14 go to schools in other districts, state officials said. District officials, who said they don’t know how many students leave, said some students from other districts also choose to enroll in Adams 14 schools.

Durham urged his fellow board members to accept the appeal because about 75% of students at the district’s existing high school, Adams City High School, can’t meet expectations on state tests. In his opinion, Durham said, it was unlikely that a new school led by experienced educators would do any worse.

In the appeal hearing, the district also argued that the local board had reasonable concerns about some of the curriculum not being fully developed, and that the governing board of the charter school would only include one parent.

Leaders for the proposed charter said they haven’t yet fully developed the curriculum because they are working with a design team of community members, teenagers, and parents to design the school’s project-based curriculum. They did submit an overview of the programming.

At the hearing on Thursday, district representatives said they would have also liked to have seen a timeline for the project to develop the curriculum, but charter leaders said that was not requested prior to Thursday.

Charter leaders also said they were considering revising their bylaws to allow for more parent involvement, but noted there are other ways they envisioned parent involvement in multiple advisory committees.

Last month, the State Board heard an appeal from University Prep, an existing Denver charter operator, that attempted to open an elementary school in Adams 14. In that case, the State Board did overturn the Adams 14 decision and asked the district to reconsider approval of that charter school’s contract.

State Board member Lisa Escárcega said she was also concerned about ordering Adams 14 to focus on even more than the current three State Board orders: for reorganization, implementing a turnaround plan in the meantime, and reconsidering the University Prep charter contract.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Meet the Helpers: How a bilingual school counselor in Adams 14 helps students and families

2023-01-11T22:39:18+00:00

As more schools see a need to focus on student mental health, districts are hiring new mental health professionals to help.

But what do these various positions involve, how do they work together, and how can they help students?

Chalkbeat talked to a bilingual school counselor in Adams 14 to learn more about how school counselors work with students and how being bilingual contributes to the job.

Brenda Moreno Negrete is the only bilingual counselor in the only comprehensive high school in Adams 14, a district north of Denver, where about half of the more than 6,000 students are identified as English language learners and most come from Spanish-speaking homes. Here she talks about her job and how being bilingual helps her talk to more students and connect with families.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Do you have more questions about mental health positions at your schools you’d like to share with us? Send us an email at co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Tell us about your job.

Brenda Moreno Negrete is a bilingual counselor in Adams 14.

It is my first year as a school counselor here at Adams City High School. School counselors, we have three main domains that we focus on: academics, career, and then social-emotional, which is where the mental health part comes in. They go hand-in-hand. A lot of times we have kiddos struggling at home or with mental health that affects their academics. Being able to look at kiddos in that holistic way is where we try to help.

A lot of college programs including mine we do internships and practicums where we do just mental health — that’s all we do we do, and then later we incorporate the academics part of it.

I grew up in the community I’m serving. We do have an intern that is bilingual, but I am currently the only bilingual licensed counselor at the school which has been of huge help. It’s just really nice to be able to connect with families in their language. I know my community and I know how important it is for parents to connect with people who speak their language and who can connect with them. I also know the needs here so I wanted to come here and I wanted to start my career here.

What kind of work do you do with students on a typical day?

It varies. If a kid is talking about suicide or self-harming, we get called in and we do screeners. If a kiddo is having a tough day they come to us and meet with us, whether it be about anything from anxiety, which we have seen a lot, to depression, to maybe even just relationship problems. We go ahead and talk to them. We do talk about academics but that is not all the focus.

If we see they’re having attendance issues then we go ahead and check in and see what’s going on. A lot of the time it has something to do with their life at home or they are struggling with mental health.

How are students assigned to one of the four counselors?

It depends on the school. Right now at our school we have them by alphabetical order, so it’s by last name.

When it comes to kiddos, their families might only speak Spanish, but a lot of kiddos are bilingual. We do have kiddos who maybe they just got here from Mexico or they’re fairly new. If they don’t speak English, then yes, that would be me. I go ahead and meet with them and talk to them just because right now our other counselors do not speak Spanish. We do have the intern who does and she does talk to some also.

What are the other mental health resources you work with at your school?

We have a social worker. She works with a lot of kiddos, she usually has a case load just like us. A lot of her kiddos have special education services or are on IEPs (Individual Education Program).

In this school we have Kids First, which is a clinic and they’re stationed here at the school, right in the same area as our nurse. Kids First also offers a therapist. If there are kiddos who need more time, for example my caseload right now is about 350 students, so that’s a lot of students. We do have kiddos who need maybe more individualized meetings with a therapist more often, like once a week or every other week. Then we do refer out.

We have Kids First and we have Griffith Center here at the school. Griffith Center is also a mental health place where they do all sorts of things, but they have someone who is actually here at the school. It’s really neat because when we refer students they meet with a therapist who is here at the school. The family does not have to go out. We try to eliminate that barrier. They usually try to pull them or meet with them during the school time, where they’re able to.

When do you connect with families?

It comes in a lot of different ways. Sometimes the parents do come in asking for help. They get phone calls saying that their kid is missing class and so some of them do come in. Or for example if we have a teacher who refers them and says, “Hey, I know this kid who maybe has cuts” or “I know this kid is feeling down,” then we go ahead and pull them and depending on what’s going on that’s when we make the connection at home.

Or we call as we’re checking in on students. We let them know what’s going on, especially for example with mental health, if we notice we need to check on what’s going on at home. If it comes to academics, we might call to let them know this is how they are looking for graduation.

Can students expect confidentiality, or when do you have to reach out to parents?

There is confidentiality with us and the student. There are only three exceptions where we need to break that. That is if they are being harmed, so if they’re talking about suicide, if they’re in danger. If they’re talking about hurting someone else or they want to hurt someone else or themselves, or if there’s an immediate danger to the building. It’s really only those exceptions, unless they give us permission.

When we meet with students we have signs and we do tell them. We do keep confidentiality. I am here for you, but there are exceptions to that. I always tell them and they do give me permission a lot of times to talk to the families. If the families are on board it makes all the difference, but sometimes it’s not safe.

For example if a kiddo is hurting themselves or having suicidal ideations, then having that conversation with parents in a way where the chid can feel safe and where it’s not so much stigmatized is one way we can help.

What do you want people to know about how you’re able to help students in this job?

Where we come in is we really try to see what’s going on, try to take the time to see what’s going on. If a kiddo is getting into fights, talking to them about anger and their coping skills. We really do not go into discipline because of the relationships we’re building with the students. We have to be the people they can go to.

Students have to be feeling good mentally and emotionally before they can even be students. In working with other professionals here at the school, we are able to be more intentional about mental health and what’s going on.

Bringing in other support like home and family. There are strengths in our community. Looping them in in a way where it can benefit the student if it’s possible that also helps. For example normalizing some of the things when we talk about mental health. Letting them know, a lot of kiddos are struggling with this. People struggle with it and it doesn’t have to be something that’s wrong with the kiddo. Normalizing that in a way where parents also feel support. Telling them we have these resources. If it’s here at the school, for example, it’s free. Talking to parents in a way they can understand it’s not this shameful thing.

The biggest misconception about school counselors is that we just look at grades or do scheduling. There’s this huge other resource that’s not being tapped into which is the mental health, the social-emotional part. We’re a great bridge to resources when it comes to how a student is feeling.

We have to meet with them about their grades, but it’s also about just letting them know we’re here because if the kiddo does open up, we can go ahead and get on that.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Los líderes de Adams 14 prometen mejorar la educación vocacional y ayudar más a los estudiantes de inglés

2022-12-15T23:50:26+00:00

Antes de la pandemia, la Escuela Primaria Rose Hill del distrito Adams 14 llevaba cuatro años teniendo malas calificaciones. Eso cambió este otoño cuando los estudiantes de Rose Hill demostraron una mejora en los exámenes del estado, y fue la única escuela primaria de Adams 14 en lograrlo.

Los cambios fueron el resultado de un liderazgo consistente y de un experto equipo de maestros que se esforzó arduamente para mejorar cómo atienden las necesidades de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

“No hemos tenido una cantidad masiva de gente yéndose de Rose Hill,” dijo el director Luis Camas. “Este es mi quinto año, y la mayoría de los maestros está todavía aquí. Está marcando una diferencia”.

Los líderes de Adams 14 están ahora compartiendo planes de cómo esperan apoyar que más escuelas progresen como la Rose Hill, que lo logró a pesar de haber tenido años de desempeño deficiente y una intervención del estado que no funcionó.

Ellos también insisten en que a sus estudiantes les está yendo mucho mejor de lo que sugieren las puntuaciones en los exámenes estatales, y continúan resistiendo la intervención externa en los tribunales.

Los planes del distrito incluyen asegurar que los directores tengan el tiempo y las destrezas necesarias para trabajar con los maestros en temas de instrucción, desarrollar una escuela de la comunidad en la Escuela Primaria Central que les preste servicios a toda la familia, establecer academias vocacionales en la Escuela Secundaria Adams City, y brindarles más recursos a los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés, que representan la mitad de la matrícula.

Algunos de esos planes son nuevos — como el de la escuela en la comunidad — mientras que otros fueron propuestos o intentados antes, pero con seguimiento limitado. Los líderes del distrito dicen que esta vez es diferente porque están trabajando con la comunidad y desarrollando una estrategia completa, no solamente una ‘lista de tareas’ con programas nuevos.

María Zubia, miembro de la junta escolar, dijo que en esta ocasión está viendo acción real para cambiar y cree que los planes subsistirán más que la administración actual, y por lo tanto el trabajo no tendrá que volver a comenzar con cada cambio de administración.

“Eso es lo que nos entusiasma”, dijo Zubia. “Son las cosas que vemos. Estoy cansada de la gente que habla, habla y habla, pero no hay acción. Yo soy realista; necesito verlo”.

Algunos miembros de la comunidad y expertos todavía se muestran dudosos. Nicholas Martinez, que dirige el grupo local Transform Education Now, dijo que los líderes no le han explicado claramente a la comunidad lo que está pasando ni por qué.

“Desde mi punto de vista, no mucho ha cambiado”, dijo Martinez. “Los datos del estado se publicaron, y no hay muchos que se salgan de la norma. No hay un montón de gente diciendo, ‘Ahí se ve un punto brillante’. Me encantaría saber cuál ha sido la estrategia del distrito”.

Cómo Adams 14 llegó aquí

Hace ocho meses, la Junta de Educación del Estado ordenó la reorganización del distrito escolar Adams 14 — la medida más drástica disponible según las leyes del estado. El distrito había batallado con puntuaciones bajas en los exámenes del estado por más de una década. La reorganización podría resultar en cierres de escuela o en la pérdida de control de algunas partes de Adams 14 a los distritos vecinos, pero el plan sería dirigido por miembros de la comunidad de Adams 14 y personas de distritos cercanos que apoyan al distrito.

El distrito ha dedicado bastante tiempo y esfuerzo a resistir las órdenes del estado. Un comité de reorganización se reunió una sola vez, y el grupo ahora está buscando un facilitador.

Mientras tanto, la Superintendente Karla Loría ha formado un equipo nuevo de líderes mayormente compuesto de personas que ella conoce de empleos anteriores. El distrito también tiene un contrato de tres años y $5 millones con TNTP, una entidad sin fines de lucro, para que ayude con la mejora a las escuelas.

De todos modos, muchos en la comunidad se preguntan qué está haciendo el distrito para mejorar el desempeño de los estudiantes.

Los maestros en Rose Hill dicen que las mejoras de los estudiantes se deben a un liderazgo consistente y al aumento en apoyo para los que están aprendiendo inglés.

Con el tiempo, los estudiantes de inglés han tenido más apoyo

Adams 14 tiene una matrícula de un poco más de 6,000 estudiantes al norte de Denver, y más o menos la mitad están clasificados como estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés o linguistically gifted, como el distrito los llama ahora. Una queja ante el gobierno federal y una investigación iniciada en 2010 con el tiempo indicó que el distrito estaba violando los derechos civiles de esos estudiantes y discriminando contra sus familias. Una orden federal obligó a Adams 14 a mejorar sus servicios para los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

El distrito está agregando más instrucción bilingüe y ha traído maestros bilingües de otros países.

“Me parece excelente contar con instrucción en dos idiomas que apoyará no solamente a los estudiantes que quieran aprender un segundo idioma, sino también a los que quieran fortalecer su primer idioma”, dijo Loría. “Estamos viendo progreso en esa área, pero creo que todavía quedan cosas por mejorar”.

Este año el distrito agregó maestros dedicados al desarrollo del idioma inglés a cada escuela primaria.

Raven-Syamone Wattley, maestra en la primaria Rose Hill, dijo que esto ha marcado una gran diferencia, aunque muchos maestros en la escuela han recibido capacitación especial también. Antes, los maestros en Rose Hill tenían que dividir sus clases y clasificar a los estudiantes según su dominio de inglés cuando llegaba la hora de la clase de inglés.

Esto significaba que ella recibía estudiantes adicionales que tenía que atender además de sus clases regulares.

Ahora al tener un maestro o maestra de desarrollo del idioma de inglés asignado, ella se puede enfocar en sus estudiantes y en cómo incorporar la instrucción de inglés en el resto del día.

“Ha sido una diferencia enorme al momento de planificar. Ahora es una materia menos” dijo Wattley. “El desarrollo del idioma inglés ha mejorado drásticamente”.

Mientras los líderes del distrito trabajan para mejorar la instrucción de los estudiantes bilingües, ellos creen que el sistema estatal los juzga injustamente porque muchos de esos estudiantes todavía no dominan el inglés. Cuando los estudiantes de primer y segundo grado tomaron este año el ampliamente usado examen STAR, casi un 60% de los estudiantes que lo tomaron en español cumplieron las normas, en comparación con solo un 23.5% de los que lo tomaron en inglés.

Luis Camas, director de Rose Hill (en el centro), asegura que los niños se suban a los autos de sus padres después de la escuela. Sus cinco años en la escuela han ayudado a tener consistencia y crecimiento académico.

Enfoque del distrito en el liderazgo de los directores

Antes de la pandemia, Rose Hill enfrentaba la posibilidad de una intervención estatal si recibía otra mala calificación de desempeño.

Pero este otoño la calificación estatal de Rose Hill subió a nivel de Improvement (mejoró), el segundo nivel más alto. Este nivel de mejora necesita continuar el próximo año para que la escuela no tenga una intervención por el estado.

Camas dijo que su tiempo en la escuela le ha permitido establecer una cultura y sistemas en los que los maestros saben cómo analizar los datos y hablar sobre la planificación de lecciones. Él también es uno de siete directores de Adams 14 que asistieron a un programa de liderazgo en la Universidad de Virginia.

Loría dijo que le ha dado prioridad a que el personal del distrito apoye a los directores para que ellos puedan enfocarse, como Camas, en dirigir la labor educativa de los maestros en vez de tener cargas administrativas pesadas o asistir a largas juntas sobre los aspectos de administrar una escuela que no están relacionados con instrucción.

En Rose Hill, Camas ha agregado un periodo nuevo de planificación para los maestros, que ahora tienen dos cada día. Aunque él hubiese preferido no darles más tareas a los ya sobrecargados maestros, ellos se le acercaron y pidieron que empezara un programa de tutoría en las tardes.

Los estudiantes de Rose Hill tienen acceso a programas en las tardes, entre ellos un club de competencias para apilar vasos.

Se acercan programas vocacionales en Adams City

La Escuela Secundaria Adams City es la única secundaria de programa completo en el distrito. Ha obtenido calificaciones deficientes del estado desde 2010, y tiene su propio plan de mejoras.

Por más de una década, los líderes del distrito han hablado acerca de crear programas vocacionales más estructurados, o academias, en adición a las clases vocacionales que la escuela ya ofrece.

Muchos padres quieren estos programas, y los educadores piensan que motivaría a los estudiantes y les abriría puertas después de graduarse. Los estudiantes que participan en programas vocacionales tienen más probabilidad de graduarse, pero en 2019 solamente una cuarta parte de ellos estaban participando.

Ahora el distrito quiere crear programas integrados que conecten el enfoque vocacional de cada academia durante todo el día en materias como matemáticas, lectura, y otras. Las cuatro academias serán: ciencias de salud y servicios humanos; arquitectura, construcción, ingeniería y diseño; negocios, hospitalidad y turismo; y finalmente, información y tecnología.

El próximo año, los estudiantes de noveno grado explorarán todas las cuatro durante el primer semestre y luego seleccionarán una para el resto de sus años en la secundaria.

“No importa si esa será su profesión o no, de todos modos estarán preparados para entrar el mundo laboral”, dijo Ron Hruby, el director de educación vocacional y técnica del distrito. “Por ejemplo, nuestros estudiantes van a poder trabajar a tiempo parcial como flebotomistas — imagínense la cantidad de dinero adicional que podrían recibir”.

Una subvención estatal de $900,000 pagará por parte de las modificaciones a la secundaria.

Misael Díaz (al centro), en décimo grado en la Secundaria Adams City, elabora un plato durante una clase de cocina 2019 ProStart en la escuela.

Escuela de la comunidad es parte clave de los esfuerzos del distrito

La Escuela Primaria Central también tiene su propio plan de mejoras después de haber tenido calificaciones deficientes desde 2012. La escuela está destinada a ser la primera escuela de la comunidad en el distrito — un modelo que trata de resolver factores externos al salón de clases que afectan el aprendizaje.

Un coordinador a tiempo completo está trabajando con la escuela para determinar las necesidades de las familias e identificar qué servicios se necesitan. Esos servicios podrían incluir un banco de alimentos, una clínica, o un programa de ayuda para encontrar empleo para los padres. Es un modelo que algunas personas quisieran expandir a otras escuelas aparte de la Primaria Central. Más de un 71% de los estudiantes de Adams 14 califican para comidas gratuitas o a precio reducido (una medida de pobreza) y muchas familias tienen problemas de salud que ellos entienden están relacionados con factores ambientales.

El distrito también ha creado incentivos especiales para que las personas trabajen en la primaria Central.

Jason Malmberg, presidente de la unión de maestros del distrito, dice que a su entender, esta es la mayor diferencia en estos planes de mejora del distrito.

“El distrito ahora ha asignado el dinero donde lo han prometido” dijo Malmberg. “Esto es como todo — no se puede simplemente comprar una etiqueta para ponérsela al edificio. La idea es que se estaría respondiendo a las barreras de aprendizaje específicas para esa comunidad. Hay un contexto importante en las vidas de los niños. Y ya no es algo que opinan solo los maestros o las familias. Es una idea que viene desde arriba, es un cambio en la cultura”.

Yesenia Robles es reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre asuntos relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un mensaje a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

State tells Adams 14 to negotiate with University Prep to open charter school

2022-12-15T01:43:43+00:00

The Colorado State Board of Education overturned an Adams 14 decision to deny the opening of a University Prep charter elementary.

The State Board vote Wednesday was unanimous and requires the district to resume negotiations with University Prep to finalize a contract.

An attorney for Adams 14 had first argued that the State Board didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the appeal because it was a matter of contract negotiations, not a denial of a charter. The State Board unanimously dismissed that idea, after their own attorney said that the board has heard cases like this before.

Last December Adams 14 initially approved a charter proposal from University Prep, a charter operator with two schools in Denver. The proposed school in Commerce City would be an elementary school that would include free, full-day preschool. The school also would offer programming in Spanish to put students on a path to earn a Seal of Biliteracy.

After months of negotiations that reached what Mario Marquez, the district’s chief business officer, described as a high-quality contract, Adams 14’s school board rejected the contract without discussion. A resolution adopted later outlined several concerns, including that the preschool might not open in the first year of operations.

Adams 14 attorney Jon Fero argued to the State Board Wednesday that the district had lost confidence that University Prep was going to open a preschool or meet other promises to the district, that the charter leaders threatened to go to the State Board, and that the board felt that the charter breaking its promises was enough of a basis for rejecting the contract.

State Board members said they failed to grasp why a possible delay in opening the preschool posed a problem, particularly if district leaders themselves said it was a need for the community.

“It’s better to have it at some point than not at all,” State Board member Rebecca McClellan said.

State Board member Karla Esser said she was also concerned the school board had no public discussions about their thoughts on the contract to give an indication of its concerns.

Fero said the board resolutions are how the board speaks as a whole.

University Prep argued that the district imposed unreasonable expectations on them at the last minute. Charter leaders said they always were committed to opening a preschool and had suggested language in the contract to establish consequences if the charter didn’t follow through.

Charter leaders worried that they might not secure licensing for the preschool in time because first they needed a signed charter contract to lease a building, and then might need to remodel to meet licensing requirements.

State Board President Angelika Schroeder asked how it was possible that the Adams 14 board couldn’t understand that current labor and supply shortages put many projects behind schedule.

One of the charter’s proposed solutions was to include language that would end the charter contract in year two if the preschool hadn’t opened by then.

“We were prepared to face revocation,” said an attorney for University Prep. “There is no more serious commitment a school is capable of making than that it would have closed.”

But Fero questioned whether the district would really have been able to close the school if it failed to meet the contract requirements. Marquez, who led the district’s negotiations with University Prep, said taking up the school’s offer would not have benefited the district.

“It adds no value whatsoever to a district to punish U-Prep for not being able to open pre-K,” Marquez said. “That brings nothing to us. What brings something to us is to have that pre-K in year one as promised, which is what the community was expecting.”

State Board members described the issue as an adult problem and one of timing.

Schroeder also told Adams 14 leaders that she believed they could get past the trust issues.

“The animosity or perhaps lack of trust or whatever else you had when you came before us disappears when you focus your commitment on the kids in your district,” Schroeder said. “For that reason you will support whatever work is necessary.”

The State Board will draft an official order with more detail next. If the charter and the district are still unable to reach a final contract, the case can come back to the State Board of Education.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 gives superintendent new contract and large raise

2022-12-14T21:51:22+00:00

The Adams 14 school board approved a new contract for Superintendent Karla Loría Tuesday night, giving her a substantial raise reflecting her new duties since the district regained management.

The contract, which takes effect July 1, will run through at least June 30, 2026. After that it will automatically renew for up to three more years unless the board notifies Loría otherwise. She will make $250,000 per year, with annual raises based on a consumer price index for the region.

Loría’s new salary puts her close to the top salaries in the largest districts in the state. Superintendent Alex Marrero in Denver and Superintendent Tracy Dorland in Jeffco each make $260,000 salaries.

The Adams 14 school board approved the contract unanimously as part of a consent agenda.

“I am so thankful for your work Dr. Loría,” Board President Reneé Lovato said just before the vote. “You have done so much to not only elevate our school district but done so on a state and national, international level so thank you for that.”

Karla Loría

In part, Lovato was referring to a presentation earlier in the meeting where the board heard an update about the district beginning its evaluation from Cognia, a nonprofit organization that reviews and accredits schools and districts around the world.

Maria Zubia, another Adams 14 board member, told Loría she appreciated her integrity.

Loría’s original contract signed in 2021 paid her $205,000 annually, more than previous district superintendents earned. Her predecessor Javier Abrego made $169,125 before leaving the district.

“The increase is in recognition of the increased duties of the superintendent that resulted from the return of the district’s authority by the State Board of Education,” the new contract states.

Loría’s original contract stated that she would not receive a raise when she received an unsatisfactory performance evaluation, but that stipulation is not in the new contract.

When Loría took charge of the 6,100-student district, Adams 14 was under a state order to be fully managed by an outside group, due to many years of low test scores. The plan was for the management company to slowly release more duties to the district as they phased out their work over the next two years.

Not long after Loría started, she asked the board to end its relationship with the management company. Loría now says she was blocked from many decisions by the management company.

The early termination of that contract led the State Board to order the district begin a reorganization process. The district has formed a reorganization committee with neighboring districts and must design a plan, which could range up to merging or dissolving Adams 14.

Read the new contract:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Community schools, career academies, better planning: How Adams 14 leaders plan to improve learning

2022-12-08T00:36:26+00:00

Read the full letter sent to the districts on Monday:

Before the pandemic, Rose Hill Elementary in the Adams 14 district had four years in a row of low ratings. That changed this fall when Rose Hill students showed improvement on state tests — the only Adams 14 elementary school to do so.

The changes came from consistent leadership and an experienced team of teachers working hard to improve how they serve English learners.

“We haven’t had the massive numbers of people just leaving Rose Hill,” said principal Luis Camas. “This is my Year Five, and most of my teachers are still here. It’s making a difference.”

Adams 14 leaders are now sharing plans for how they hope to support more schools in making progress like Rose Hill despite years of low performance and failed state intervention.

They also insist their students are doing much better than dismal state test scores suggest, and they continue to fight outside intervention in the courts.

The district’s plans include making sure principals have the time and skills to work with teachers on instruction, developing a community school at Central Elementary that will provide services to the entire family, building career academies at Adams City High School, and providing more resources to the English learners who make up half the student body.

Some of these plans are new — like the community school — while others were proposed or tried before, but with limited follow-through. District leaders say this time is different because they’re working with the community and developing a comprehensive strategy, not just a “to-do list” of new programs.

Board member Maria Zubia said this time she’s seeing real steps toward change and believes the plans will outlast the current administration, so the work doesn’t have to restart next time there’s a change.

“That’s what’s exciting to us,” Zubia said. “There’s just things we see. I’m tired of people who talk, talk, talk, and there’s no action. I’m one of the realists; I need to see it.”

Some community members and experts are still skeptical. Nicholas Martinez, who leads the local advocacy group Transform Education Now, said leaders have not clearly explained to the community what’s happening or why.

“From my vantage point not a lot has changed,” Martinez said. “State data was released, and there’s not a ton of outliers. There’s not a ton of folks that said, ‘There’s a bright spot.’ I would love to know what has been the strategy for the district.”

How Adams 14 got here

Eight months ago, the State Board of Education ordered the reorganization of the Adams 14 school district — the most drastic step available under state law. The district has struggled with low test scores for more than a decade. Reorganization could lead to school closures or losing control of parts of Adams 14 to neighboring districts, but the plan will be led by Adams 14 community members and people from neighboring districts who support the district.

A few months prior to the state order, at the request of Superintendent Karla Loria, the school board had terminated its contract with the outside consulting firm that had run the district under state orders since 2019. State Board members were concerned Loria didn’t have enough details for a plan with a new management partner and that she wasn’t willing to give up enough control.

The district has spent much of its time and effort fighting the state’s orders. A reorganization committee has met just once, and the group is now looking for a facilitator.

Meanwhile, Loria has built a new leadership team largely made up of people she knows from past jobs. They’re turnaround experts, she says, from districts with experience serving students like those in Adams 14. Of the leadership team she inherited, Loria said she fired just one out of about eight people who have left. She said she simply made her high expectations clear and let people decide whether to stay.

The district now has a three-year, $5 million contract with national nonprofit TNTP, a consulting group that has traditionally focused on teacher evaluation systems, among other projects, to help with this work. Officials with TNTP did not respond to an interview request but released a joint statement with district officials outlining their work and the start of a strategic planning process.

After having lost state accreditation briefly twice in the last year, the district has also applied for an alternative accreditation from Cognia, an outside agency. Loria said she hopes it will give the community a sense of pride if they can say their district is nationally accredited. The process will also help the district get feedback from an external group about what is working and what’s not.

Still, many in the community wonder what the district is doing to improve student outcomes.

Teachers at Rose Hill credit consistent leadership and more support for English learners for the gains students have made.

Over time, English learners have gotten more support

Adams 14 serves a little more than 6,000 students north of Denver, and about half of them are classified as English learners, or linguistically gifted, as the district now calls them. A federal complaint and investigation launched in 2010 eventually led to a finding that the district was violating the civil rights of those students and discriminating against their families, and has been under federal orders to improve.

Under the guidance of MGT, the previous state-ordered management company, the district finally completed a plan in 2020 for how to serve its English learners that met federal approval.

Since then, the district has been working on rolling out that plan, including dual language programming. Under Superintendent Loria, the district has brought in teachers from out of the country to provide students with more bilingual teachers.

“I see a great strength in supporting the dual language programming that will support not only students learning a second language but also strengthening their first,” Loria said. “We’re seeing progress there, but I think we have room to improve.”

This year the district added dedicated English language development teachers to each elementary school.

Raven-Syamone Wattley, a Rose Hill elementary teacher, said it’s made a big difference on top of previous efforts.

Wattley estimates about half the teachers at her school have a master’s degree in culturally and linguistically diverse education or English learner endorsements on their teachers’ license, with help from the district. She already has an endorsement and expects to finish her master’s this summer.

The district had also started providing a coach who helped her learn how to design lessons for English learners. But teachers at Rose Hill still had to split up their classes and shuffle students based on their English proficiency levels when it was time for English language development instruction.

That meant she got extra students whose needs she had to learn in addition to her regular classes.

Now, having a dedicated English language development teacher means she can focus on her students and how to incorporate English language development work throughout the rest of the day.

“It has made a huge difference for planning. That’s one less subject we have to plan for,” Wattley said. “English language development has improved drastically.”

Even as district leaders work to improve instruction for bilingual students, they believe the state system judges them unfairly because many students aren’t yet proficient in English. When first and second graders took the widely used STAR early literacy assessment this year, almost 60% of students who took it in Spanish met benchmarks, compared with just 23.5% of students who met benchmarks in English.

Rose Hill Principal Luis Camas, center, makes sure kids get in their parents’ cars after school. His five years at the school have helped provide consistency and academic growth.

The district is focusing on principal leadership

Before the pandemic, Rose Hill faced the possibility of targeted state intervention if it were to receive one more bad rating.

But this fall, Rose Hill’s state rating went up to Improvement, the second highest level. The improvement needs to stick next year for the school to avoid state intervention.

Camas said his time at the school has allowed him to develop a culture and systems where teachers know how to look at data and talk about lesson planning. He is also one of seven Adams 14 principals who have gone through a University of Virginia leadership training program.

Loria said she’s made it a priority to have district staff support principals so they can focus, like Camas, on leading their teacher’s instructional work instead of having heavy administrative loads or long meetings about non-instructional tasks of running schools.

Staff retention is another priority in a district that has struggled with high turnover. District officials said in September that they’re on track to meet a goal of retaining 80% of high-performing teachers and administrators, but they did not provide Chalkbeat with current data.

At Rose Hill, Camas has added a new planning period for teachers so they each have two per day. Although he wanted to give overworked teachers a break from additional duties, teachers came to him and asked to start an after-school tutoring program.

Teachers at Rose Hill also lead other after-school programs, including a step club, archery club, and speed stacking. Those things help students want to come to class, and maintain good enough grades to participate, Wattley said.

Students at Rose Hill have access to after-school programs including a speed cup stacking club.

Career paths at Adams City are in the works

Adams City High School is the district’s only comprehensive high school. It has received low state ratings since 2010 and has its own improvement plan.

For more than a decade — ever since the school moved into its new building off Quebec Parkway — district leaders have talked about plans to create more structured career pathways, or academies, in addition to the career classes the school already offers.

Many parents want these programs, and educators think they would motivate students and open doors after graduation.

MGT, the previous outside manager, was working to expand apprenticeships, certifications, and opportunities for college credit. The group said in 2019 that less than a quarter of the school’s students were participating in one of the school’s five career pathways, and data showed those students were more likely to graduate.

But Superintendent Loria said those plans weren’t substantial enough to lead to lasting improvement or aligned with other programs. Mostly, she said, they were documents with “just a list of things to do.”

This time, with the academies model, the district is working on integrating projects that tie to the career focus of each academy throughout the day in math, reading, and other classes. Loria has enlisted the help of nonprofit Connect Ed with a contract for $411,300 to help develop a more rigorous plan at the high school.

So far, the group has surveyed students to identify the four career areas that will become academies. The four academies are: health sciences and human services; architecture, construction, engineering and design; business, hospitality and tourism; and digital information and technology. Students in ninth grade next year will explore all four in their first semester, then commit to one academy for the rest of their high school experience.

District leaders say they aren’t worried about losing students to other districts if they don’t feel like they fit in any of the four pathways.

“Regardless if that’s going to be their career or not, they’re prepared for the workforce,” said Ron Hruby, the district’s director of career and technical education. “Our students are going to be able to do part time jobs as phlebotomists — think about the amount of extra money they would have.”

A $900,000 state grant will pay for some of the high school changes.

Adams City High School sophomore Misael Diaz, center, works on a dish during a 2019 ProStart cooking class at the school.

Community school is key part of district effort

Central Elementary is the other Adams 14 school with its own improvement plan after receiving low ratings since 2012. The school is set to become the district’s first community school — a model that tries to address outside factors that affect learning.

The district has created a full-time coordinator position and enlisted the help of several partners. The State Board has signed off on the plan.

The coordinator is working with the school to survey the needs and identify services that can be offered to families. Such services could include a food bank, a clinic, or job help for parents. It’s a model some would like to see expand beyond Central Elementary. More than 71% of Adams 14 students qualify for free- or reduced-price lunches, a measure of poverty, and many families have health issues which they believe are tied to environmental factors.

The district has also worked on giving Central Elementary some additional flexibility. In recruitment, for instance, the district has created special incentives for people who want to work specifically at Central.

Jason Malmberg, the president of the district’s teachers union, says he feels this is the biggest difference in district improvement plans this time.

“The district has put their money where their mouth is,” Malmberg said. “This is just like everything else — you can’t just buy a label and slap it on the building. The idea is you’re responding to the barriers of education specific to that community. There is context that matters in children’s lives. And that’s not just coming from teachers or families anymore. That’s top to bottom, a culture shift in values.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 rejects a charter proposal for a new community high school

2022-11-30T18:39:43+00:00

The Adams 14 school board voted Tuesday to reject an application for a new charter high school with a community school model. Charter leaders said the decision was disappointing, but they would keep fighting to open.

The charter, Be the Change, would have served students in ninth through 12th grade using a biliteracy approach designed and overseen by a group of community and parent members.

The district did not allow the charter leaders to present to the school board. The vote was taken at a special meeting without public comment, and without the district having presented any recommendations on the application beforehand.

The district did hold prior community meetings to talk about the charter application, but cited low attendance at those meetings as one of the reasons to reject the charter application.

Board members did not discuss the application prior to the vote on Tuesday. Board president Reneé Lovato was the only member to comment, saying that she read the application, the district’s review of the application, and the review from the district accountability committee.

“There were a lot of great things, and I just want to thank you for your time,” Lovato said.

The board voted unanimously to approve the previously drafted resolution rejecting the charter.

The resolution says the district found “numerous and substantial concerns” the school didn’t resolve, including that the charter board only required one community member and ran a risk of not being representative of the community; there was no detailed plan for recruiting students from out of the district; and programming and services were not developed to meet the “varying needs of special populations.”

Amanda Gonzales, one of the co-founders of Be the Change and a former Adams 14 teacher, said the district’s process has felt hurtful.

“It shows a lack of organization within the district but it also shows just a lack of respect to us as community members and to our families that we serve,” Gonzales said. “It doesn’t feel like we’re getting a fair shake.”

More than 3,000 additional students living within the boundaries of the 6,000-student district leave to attend other school districts each year. At the high school level, the district only has one high school and a small alternative high school for at-risk students. The district currently has a state order for reorganization, after years of low state performance.

Be the Change had planned to apply in the spring, but two weeks before submitting the application, it learned that Adams 14 did not have an authorized process to approve charters in the spring. The school asked the district to vote instead on releasing it to apply for authorization through the state Charter School Institute. The district never took up the issue, so instead the school applied in the fall.

Now, Gonzales said she isn’t giving up.

“This fight is too important to just let it die,” she said. “Unfortunately our families have experienced let downs so many times. We don’t want to be part of that same narrative.”

Before Tuesday’s meeting, Gonzales said parents who had been excited while helping design the school, were disappointed. She said many were upset they weren’t going to be allowed to speak, questioning whether the drafted resolution was an indication that the decision had already been made.

Gonzales said she questioned the rationale cited by the district in part because the charter application had just received praise from state reviewers in a grant process.

The school was awarded a Colorado Charter Schools Program Start-up award, and was given extra funding for being a “high scoring” application. The award total is for $350,000 for the first year, and could have totaled more than a million dollars over time, depending on the number of students enrolled. The grant, however, is contingent on the school being authorized to open.

The school got 100% of possible points in some of the award’s rubric sections including for having a research-based program. “Applicant does an excellent job of connecting the research-backed curriculum to the proposed student demographics (extremely student-centered),” reviewers commented.

The Adams 14 district is already facing an appeal from University Prep, another charter school that wanted to open an elementary school in the district. In that case, Adams 14 voted to approve the charter, but then the district recommended the board reject signing a contract with the school, after claiming that the school’s plans had changed and were inadequate.

There are currently two charter schools in the district boundaries, an elementary school and a 6-12 secondary school, both run by the same leaders. The charter schools are authorized under the state’s Charter School Institute, and the district has at times had a contentious relationship with the charter leaders.

“Adams 14 needs a different option because it’s what families have requested,” Gonzales said. Be The Change Community School is “about the empowerment of our young people who are not just underserved but underestimated.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Superintendents, parents, and a mayor will be among the people considering Adams 14 reorganization

2022-11-15T23:20:34+00:00

The committee tasked with helping transform Adams 14 into a better functioning school district will convene next week.

Adams 14 and three neighboring school districts each have appointed a mix of elected officials, district staff, and parents to the reorganization committee that the state ordered Adams 14 to form.

The committee will hold its initial meeting virtually at 3 p.m. Tuesday. The district will provide a link for the public on Monday.

Adams 14 has received names of all the appointed members from the neighboring districts, but Mapleton’s appointees are still tentative, pending approval by the district’s accountability committee and the school board.

The State Board of Education in May ordered Adams 14 to reorganize itself after years of low ratings and some of the lowest test scores in the state. The state had previously put the district on different improvement plans. But after the district’s superintendent stopped implementing the state order by kicking out a management company, the State Board turned to a reorganization order.

State law requires the State Board to intervene after a district has had low ratings for five years in a row, but gives the state limited options for what it can order a district to do to improve.

Adams 14 is the first district the state ordered to reorganize, and the district is challenging the order in court. A district judge dismissed the case, but the district filed an appeal that is pending.

In the meantime, Adams 14 leaders said at a board meeting this week that they plan to follow the law in going forward with the reorganization committee.

“We are really going to work diligently in this legal battle to make sure our district stays intact,” Adams 14 board member Maria Zubia said. “Yes, this is something we have to do. It is ridiculous to be spending so much time and effort and actually money, but we have to abide by it.”

The process for the reorganization committee will take time. The committee will have to consider the boundaries of all districts, among other factors, and come up with a plan that could be to change boundaries, dissolve Adams 14, or keep everything the same. If the plan involves changing boundaries, then it also has to include information about facilities, school board representation, and how affected districts would share properties and cash assets.

Once the committee drafts a plan, it must hold community meetings to share the proposal and gather feedback. The committee then is supposed to take that feedback into account to finalize the plan for state approval. The final organizational plan must be approved by the state education commissioner and the reorganization committee within 120 days of the last public hearing.

After the commissioner approves the plan it will go to voters in all the affected districts — who will have the final say over the plan.

The state did not set a timeline for producing a reorganization plan. State law sets the timeline for some of the process, but doesn’t set a limit on how long the reorganization committee may meet before coming up with a draft.

The leaders of the neighboring school districts who are participating in the committee have expressed support for Adams 14 and opposition to its dissolution, making it unlikely the district will be dissolved.

Mapleton’s district accountability committee will vote Monday night to appoint a parent, and the school board will meet Tuesday evening to vote on the other appointments.

Updated: This story has been updated to reflect a change in a member representing Mapleton Public Schools.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

State orders Adams 14 to appoint reorganization committee

2022-10-18T22:49:43+00:00

Colorado’s Commissioner of Education has ordered Adams 14 and neighboring districts to begin reorganization.

With a notice sent Monday, the state is giving Adams 14 and the neighboring districts of Mapleton School District, Brighton School District 27J, and Adams 12 Five Star Schools 30 days to appoint three members each to a reorganization committee. The first meeting must be held by Nov. 16.

In the letter to Adams 14, Commissioner Katy Anthes also announced that the state will make available an extra accountability grant for up to $100,000 to help pay for the costs of the committee, including hiring a facilitator.

In a news release from Adams 14, the district notes that the beginning of “forced reorganization” doesn’t have any immediate impact on staffing or students.

“The Colorado State Board of Education has been advised that its efforts to reorganize Adams 14 will fail,” the district says in the press release. “The four school districts now must reallocate time, resources, and finances from its students and redirect them towards reorganization efforts. All the school districts agree that reorganization of Adams 14 is not in the best interest of our students, parents, community, and neighboring districts.”

The Colorado Board of Education voted in May to direct Adams 14 to reorganize — the first time it has used the drastic measure of intervention for a low-performing district.

Adams 14 has been on the state’s radar for low performance for more than 10 years after receiving consecutive low ratings for lagging student achievement. The district has dealt with high turnover at the leadership level as well as among teachers. With the latest superintendent, the district had come out of compliance from previous state’s orders requiring a management company to take over daily operations, when the district locked out MGT Consulting officials and eventually terminated the contract.

The new superintendent asked the state for more time to implement her own plan for improvement, but State Board members questioned the proposal. After asking for a more fleshed-out plan, the board rejected it, saying her plan alone would not be enough to help the district improve. Instead, in May, they ordered reorganization.

At least one of the three members that each district appoints to the reorganization committee has to be a parent selected by the District’s Accountability Committee. In addition, reorganization committee meetings must be open to the public.

The plan the committee creates also needs state approval from the Education Commissioner and voter approval in the affected districts.

The plan could leave things as is, reshape boundaries to allow neighboring districts to absorb parts of Adams 14, close schools, or dissolve the district altogether.

Leaders of neighboring districts have voiced their support for Adams 14 and the current leadership.

The district filed a lawsuit against the state attempting to stop the reorganization orders, but a Denver district judge dismissed the case. Adams 14 is still planning to appeal.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 school board rejects University Prep charter school contract

2022-10-12T21:20:02+00:00

Nearly ten months after approving an application for a new charter school, the Adams 14 school board rejected the contract that would have allowed the school to open.

Tuesday’s 4-0 vote was taken without any discussion after several closed-door sessions and while board member Maria Zubia had stepped away from the meeting. Zubia’s name was not called during the vote.

Board president Reneé Lovato directed the district’s attorney to craft a resolution to be considered at a future meeting that would explain the board’s reasoning, which was not discussed in public.

University Prep, which operates charter schools in Denver, had proposed opening an elementary school, designed with parents, in the Commerce City-based district. Many Spanish-speaking families want options with Spanish offerings for their children. The plans for the school would include a preschool and put students on a path to a Seal of Biliteracy.

Parents who wanted the school to open, many of whom already drive their children out of the district to attend University Prep schools in Denver, said they were confused and disappointed by Tuesday’s vote.

“It’s heartbreaking to hear that word – denied – after waiting for so many months,” said parent leader Susanna Pasillas following the meeting. The school, she said, proved it “was going to go above and beyond.”

David Singer, founder and executive director for University Prep, said he would explore all next steps, including a possible appeal to the state.

School approved last year faced repeated delays

Tuesday’s vote essentially ends the proposed plans unless an appeal is successful. The district’s rejection of the contract reverses a prior approval in December when the board voted 3-2 to approve the school.

The vote to deny the contract was unanimous, but included only four of the board’s five members. Of the three members who voted to approve the school in December, only one – Lovato – also voted Tuesday, reversing her prior support of the school.

Ramona Lewis has since resigned her position on the board and instead taken a job as the board’s administrative assistant. Board member Zubia became sick during Tuesday’s meeting and had stepped away from the boardroom when the vote was taken.

By Colorado law, once a district approves a charter school application, the district has 90 days to negotiate the language of a contract with the charter school. The 90 days can be extended if both sides agree. Districts use language in contracts to ensure oversight of charter schools, including conditions the charter schools must meet to be able to operate.

District and University Prep leaders agreed to extend the deadline to June 28. During the spring, the district and charter school leaders, including parents who helped design the school, negotiated the contract and finished a draft with the help of a mediator.

University Prep’s own school board approved the draft contract in June, but Adams 14 didn’t put the contract on its own board agenda until this week.

Singer said he and parents had more than 20 meetings with Adams 14 leadership over the course of four months.

“To see all of those efforts fundamentally dismissed through the board’s vote last night, is deeply disappointing,” Singer said. “The lack of public transparency by the local board is highly concerning because it means none of us know what happened between getting to a quality contract and experiencing a unilateral no vote on that contract.”

Parents had pleaded with the board in previous meetings to take action on the contract to allow the school to proceed with plans to open.

Concerns raised over preschool promises

Joe Salazar, the district’s attorney, did not want to expand on the board or district’s concerns, saying it would be made clear in a resolution, but did say that the district learned new information from University Prep in June “that changed everything.”

“Those changes did not live up to the promises to the community and to the board,” Salazar said.

Salazar said the December approval only had one condition, which was for the school to open with preschool for 3-year-olds through kindergarten in its first year. Singer said the charter is still working to open a preschool in the first year, but expects it may take longer.

At the time of the December approval, the charter school had been planning to open in fall of 2022.

Two weeks ago, the school board held a study session where Adams 14 board members questioned University Prep leaders on the plans and what they believed were changes from the approved application. Several questions were about the school’s plans for a preschool.

Singer said that the school still plans on opening a preschool, but because of the delayed timeline, doing so in the first year may not be possible.

Part of that, he and his team told the board, is because the state licenses preschool facilities differently than other schools, including checking the facility.

Board members also wondered why the charter network hadn’t already secured a site.

Singer said charter schools in Colorado usually don’t sign leases for a school facility until they have a contract with the district to prove they will be allowed to open and receive the funding to pay the lease. Depending on which site University Prep is able to sign a lease with, the charter is anticipating renovations to set up a preschool. With a new state department overseeing early childhood education, charter leaders also wanted more time to account for delays or any changes to requirements.

The draft contract voted on by University Prep included language that required the school to open the preschool by its third year at the latest or face revocation of the charter.

After initial negotiations, Singer said, Adams 14 in June proposed more strict language that would prevent kindergarten students from moving to first grade in the second year if no preschool was opening. Eventually, Singer said, the charter agreed to the language, though the draft was not changed to reflect that.

Parents in support of the school want choices

The Adams 14 school district has not traditionally been friendly to charter schools and could face scrutiny from the State Board of Education over the denial. The district faces possible reorganization after years of low test scores, and many families have opted for schools in neighboring districts. Colorado law provides limited reasons for school districts to turn down charters, and the State Board has overturned district denials.

Currently, Adams 14 has one charter network operating two schools — Victory Preparatory Academy and Community Leadership Academy — in the district, but the schools are authorized by the state agency, Charter School Institute. In December, that charter was seeking to be authorized by Adams 14 and argued that the schools’ higher scores could help pull up the district average. But the school board rejected the proposal.

In 2018, the Adams 14 school board also rejected an application for a KIPP charter school, another network operating in Denver that serves many families from Adams 14. That rejection wasn’t appealed. Now the district faces another charter application that it would have to vote on next month: a proposal for Be The Change Community School, a charter high school being founded by two local educators, including one who is a district parent.

After Tuesday’s vote on the University Prep contract, parents interrupted the meeting asking for the board to give an explanation.

Lovato told them they were not allowed to address the board at that time. When the parents stepped out of the boardroom, the attorney asked permission to follow them out to ensure they didn’t leave with the district’s translation headsets. He and several other district leaders followed the crowd out.

Susanna Pasillas, who has a third grader she already drives out of Adams 14 to University Prep in Denver, and a 2-year-old she hoped would attend preschool at a University Prep in her community, said she was disappointed.

Pasillas said she first chose to take her elder daughter to University Prep because she was concerned with the teacher turnover in Adams 14 schools when her daughter was in preschool at a district school. She also felt that the school staff were not welcoming.

At University Prep, she said she feels welcome and supported.

Josette Lopez, a single mom of four, drives her elementary-age students to University Prep in Denver. Her children would be out of elementary school by the time the proposed Commerce City school could open, but she still helped design the school for other children in the community because she also felt University Prep was a supportive place for parents like her.

“It’s more like my family, for me, that I’ve had along the way to help,” Lopez said. “I got to see the perspective of having direct communication with teachers. Instead of calling the office for a student, and getting transferred around, you don’t have to do that. If you have a problem, I have their direct number. The communication has been phenomenal with them.”

Lopez said she’s confused about why the Adams 14 board voted no after saying yes last year.

“I thought it was approved,” she said. “They gave us a yes already. I remember it was a very long night.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

State board restores Adams 14’s accreditation, citing unintended consequences

2022-09-14T22:59:00+00:00

The Adams 14 school district will regain its accreditation from the state of Colorado.

The State Board of Education on Wednesday afternoon voted 6-1 in favor of the state education commissioner’s recommendation to restore accreditation immediately. However, the change does not affect the state’s orders to reorganize and potentially dissolve the district.

Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said she made her recommendation after learning and reflecting on some of the district’s problems after the state removed accreditation in May. Mainly, she pointed to the district’s difficulty in hiring bilingual teachers from abroad. During a court hearing last month, the district testified that previously secured sponsors for the teachers’ visas had backed out after learning the district was no longer accredited.

Anthes noted the challenge that Adams 14 and its outside manager, TNTP, have in improving achievement in the struggling district, while “reorganization is considered.”

“I don’t want any unintended consequences around the loss of accreditation to make that road any harder than it already is,” Anthes said.

The state removed Adams 14’s accreditation as a largely symbolic move, with officials saying their May vote wouldn’t affect students’ ability to learn in school and earn a diploma, nor the district’s ability to receive funding.

“Little by little, the state board is understanding that its heavy-handed order has had unintended consequences on the children of Adams 14,” Joe Salazar, the district’s lawyer said in a released statement. “We are pleased with this recent development, and we hope this further builds on a more positive relationship between the state board and Adams 14.”

Board member Joyce Rankin, the sole vote against restoring accreditation, expressed concern about the district’s training of teachers in the science of reading. She said it was still unclear how many Adams 14 teachers have been trained, and wondered if international teachers would also be trained in the science of reading.

“I would like to focus more on the students rather than the adults in the situation,” Rankin said. “I think if we were going to emphasize this, and we were serious before, I believe I’m serious now.”

Board member Rebecca McClellan, who voted in favor of restoring accreditation, said she just wanted the public to be clear on the state’s reasons. “If there’s any chance at all that this makes the road or the pathway toward success more likely, then it’s the right thing to do.”

Two other board members, Steve Durham and Deb Scheffel who voted to support restoring accreditation, mentioned ongoing concerns with the district.

“The student achievement data in this district is heartbreaking,” Scheffel said. State achievement data released last month shows Adams 14 achievement declined on most tests in the 2021-22 school year. The one improvement was in sixth grade math where 5.3% of students met or exceeded expectations, up from 4.2% in 2019.

The state’s May reorganization order requires Adams 14 to set up a committee to consider redrawing district boundaries. Potentially, that process could ultimately cost the district control over some schools or areas. The process hasn’t yet started, and the district is challenging the order in court.

“We’re trying to figure out, what can we do? The district has a lot of wonderful teachers, but something is amiss and it’s been amiss,” Scheffel said. “I think we’ve been bending over backwards to do what we can… while still saying that it can’t just go on. We’re really trying to figure out what would matter and we hope that what we’re trying to do in partnership with you really matters on behalf of your students.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 appoints new board member after withholding applicant names

2022-09-14T16:10:13+00:00

The Adams 14 school board appointed a new board member to fill a vacancy Tuesday night in a process that lacked transparency compared to previous years.

The district refused to release the submitted letters of interest or publish the names of the people who applied to the board vacancy. Instead, the district invited the public to a community forum at the high school to hear from the people interested in the board vacancy — without naming who they might hear from.

At the start of the meeting Tuesday night, the district leaders announced that only one of the two applicants showed up to the forum: Lucy Molina, a bilingual mother, business owner, and community organizer who had applied to previous board vacancies.

Lucy Molina and her children pose for a portrait outside of their home in Commerce City in 2020.

Last month, the board said only one person, who they never named, had applied for the vacancy. The board reopened the application process in the hopes of getting more applicants and received one more.

Tuesday, the board did not name who the other applicant was and did not clarify if Molina had been the initial sole applicant, or the second person to apply after the board reopened the process.

After the forum, the board approved the appointment of Molina in a unanimous vote after noting disappointment that the other unnamed applicant didn’t show up.

Reneé Lovato, the board vice president, thanked Molina for her community engagement.

“Every meeting, any school board thing that has gone on since I can remember, I’ve always relied on you being there and being the voice for our community, so thank you for stepping up for this,” Lovato said.

Molina will serve out the remainder of Ramona Lewis’ term, which was to go to November of 2023.

Lewis, who had been the board president, left her position earlier this year citing personal reasons and refusing to elaborate. On Tuesday, the board also approved the hiring of Lewis as the executive assistant for the board and the district’s lawyer.

District leaders said during the meeting that the board’s longtime executive assistant Monica Avina is now in a different position.

Adams 14’s five-member school board has had approximately one vacancy per year as members leave their positions prior to serving out their terms.

In prior years, the district published letters of interest from those interested in serving on the board as soon as the deadline to submit them had passed, allowing for public inspection long before a vote.

Most recently when board member Janet Estrada was appointed to serve on the board in March 2021, four people expressed interest in the position and all were named publicly prior to the vote.

The Denver school board, which also had a board vacancy earlier this year, published the resumes and letters of interest of their five applicants about a month before taking a vote to appoint one of the applicants.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

More Colorado schools and districts earn low state ratings

2022-09-08T20:01:56+00:00

Fewer Colorado schools earned top ratings this year — and 31% more earned one of the state’s two lowest ratings — after three years of pandemic-interrupted schooling, according to preliminary ratings released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Education.

Of Colorado’s more than 1,870 schools, 175 earned one of the two lowest ratings, up from 134 schools that had one of the two lowest ratings last year.

Thirteen school districts also earned one of the two lowest ratings, up from four last year. The 13 districts include three in the metro area: Mapleton, Englewood, and Sheridan.

Low-rated schools and districts qualify for additional financial assistance and advice from state education officials. But repeated low ratings put schools and districts at risk of state intervention if their student test scores don’t improve.

Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said in a press release that the ratings, known officially as the School Performance Framework reports, mirror the state literacy and math test scores on which they are largely based. Test scores fell during the pandemic.

“The frameworks demonstrate the same thing we saw with our assessment results — that we still have work to do to rebuild following the pandemic,” Anthes said.

What state officials call the accountability clock — a timeline for struggling schools and districts to show improvement or face intervention — has been on hold since state testing was suspended in 2020.

This school year is a transition year, with schools receiving ratings that might serve as a warning but won’t be used to add schools to the clock or move schools further along. Schools that have been on the clock can use a good rating to make a case for getting off, but schools with poor ratings will have another year to improve before facing consequences.

Lawmakers increased school transformation grant funding 50% this year to a total of $6 million and will allow more schools to apply for that funding. Schools also have access to federal COVID relief money they can use for tutoring and other help for students.

About 17% of schools and 39% of school districts had so little testing data the state did not assign a rating. That’s higher than in years past.

How schools under state orders fared

The State Board of Education can still use this year’s ratings to order new interventions in schools and districts already under improvement orders from the State Board of Education. These schools and districts have had at least five years of low ratings.

Twelve schools and one district, Adams 14 in Commerce City, are already under state orders. The 12 schools include three in Aurora, three in Pueblo, two in Adams 14, two in Denver, one in Monte Vista, and one in Colorado Springs.

The Adams 14 district, which has tested the limits of the state’s accountability system, has had low ratings since 2010, and this year saw a further drop in its rating. Central Elementary, which has its own separate state improvement plan, dropped another level to the lowest this year.

In total, five of the district’s 11 schools earned one of the two lowest ratings. But two Adams 14 schools that previously had low ratings earned an improved rating this year: Rose Hill Elementary and Lestor Arnold, the district’s alternative high school.

Under a new superintendent, district and union leaders last year criticized the state’s accountability system as inequitable. Students in the district face so many challenges outside the classroom, leaders say, that learning takes more time. Teachers have to address hunger, safety, and trauma first.

Additionally, more than half of Adams 14 students are learning English as a second language, one of the highest percentages in the state. Past administrations faced federal investigations for discriminating against them.

More recently, leaders have tried to correct that record, including by restoring some bilingual education and describing the students as linguistically gifted. However, those students were also the most likely to suffer under disruptions during COVID shutdowns when schools didn’t offer the normal amount of English language development classes and had to change how they offered support for students.

In Aurora, Aurora Central High School earned a lower rating this year than in the past. The district recently created an arts magnet program on the same campus that will include a path at Aurora Central for students studying the arts.

The two other Aurora schools under state orders, Gateway High School and North Middle School, stayed the same, each earning one of the two lowest ratings once again. So did Abraham Lincoln High School in Denver, which is also under state orders.

Only three of the 12 schools with state orders saw their ratings improve: Manual High School in Denver, and Central High and Minnequa Elementary schools in the Pueblo City 60 district. Bill Metz Elementary School in the Monte Vista district earned a high rating for the second year in a row, which means it could request to be removed from the clock.

How ratings are calculated

Each public school in Colorado receives an annual state rating. Student growth, or how much progress students make year over year on state tests compared with peers with previously similar scores, counts more toward the ratings than does how many students scored at grade level. For high schools, data such as graduation and dropout rates also factor into the ratings.

Colorado last issued ratings in 2019 that were based on state math and literacy tests from that spring. State tests were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, and limited in 2021. This past spring was the first time since 2019 that students in grades three through 11 took the full battery of tests, known as the Colorado Measures of Academic Success or CMAS.

The 2021 state ratings were based on 2019 state test scores, though schools and districts could request that the state raise their ratings based on other data.

Colorado issues each public school one of four ratings, ranging from performance plan, the highest, followed by improvement plan, priority improvement plan, and turnaround plan, the lowest. School districts receive similar ratings, though the highest performing districts can earn a rating of distinction plan.

Schools and districts rated priority improvement or turnaround are put on a state watchlist and have five years to show improvement.

This year, 54% of Colorado schools earned the highest rating, down from 69% in 2019. Another 17% of schools have the second-highest rating this year, down from 21%.

The percentage of schools with one of the two lowest ratings increased to 9% from 7%.

More than half of schools maintained the same rating from 2021 final ratings to this year’s preliminary ratings. Overall, about 15% of schools’ ratings decreased, while about 10% increased.

Colorado’s school accountability system is currently undergoing a wide-ranging performance audit ordered by lawmakers. The audit is meant to ask whether the system improves student outcomes, hurts certain student groups, or influences teaching practices in negative ways, among other questions. Results are expected in November.

Erica Meltzer and Yesenia Robles contributed reporting. Kae Petrin contributed data analysis.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Judge dismisses Adams 14 lawsuit, clearing way for reorganization

2022-09-08T18:12:09+00:00

A Denver district judge on Wednesday dismissed an Adams 14 lawsuit against Colorado’s State Board of Education that attempted to stop the state’s orders to reorganize the district.

The ruling states that school districts don’t have the right to request a judicial review of State Board of Education action under the state’s accountability act and acknowledges that school districts don’t have absolute authority under the state constitution.

“Adams 14 maintains that it cannot ever be considered a subordinate agency because Article IX, Section 15 of the Colorado Constitution accords local school boards with local control over instruction in public schools. The Court disagrees,” Denver District Judge Shelley I. Gilman wrote in her ruling.

While many laws allow government bodies to appeal to the courts, the judge wrote that the state accountability law only allows school districts to have a hearing before the State Board of Education, which Adams 14 has already received. The state accountability law requires intervention in school districts that have many years of low test performance.

On Thursday, district officials said in a press release that the decision hurts students, detracts from the district’s turnaround efforts, and allows the State Board to operate without checks and balances. The district plans to appeal.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said that the ruling means the state can move forward with reorganization. That would start with Education Commissioner Katy Anthes sending a letter to the district and starting the clock on putting together a committee to plan for how it might redraw the boundaries of Adams 14 and its neighbors. The process could lead to the closure of some schools and the district losing authority over portions of its territory.

During a two-day hearing last month on this case, Anthes said that the reason she hadn’t initiated that work was because she was waiting on a decision regarding the lawsuit.

“Today the court confirmed that these difficult decisions cannot be challenged or slowed down by litigation in the courts,” said Dana Smith, spokesperson for the department. “This outcome recognizes that time is of the essence in school improvement and turnaround efforts.”

“We believe that all students are capable of achieving high levels of academic success with the right resources and support. Our goal all along has been to support Adams 14’s work to ensure that educators have consistent leadership and professional development opportunities they need to provide high quality instruction for students. This ruling settles the questions around this work and allows us to continue supporting the district.”

Even so, the lawsuit may lead to at least one change for the district. A State Board agenda for next week says that Anthes plans to ask the board to consider restoring the district’s accreditation. Removing accreditation was largely symbolic but had larger consequences for the district, including making it harder for the district to hire international bilingual teachers to work with the district’s large population of Spanish-speaking students.

In a letter to the State Board, Anthes wrote the request does not mean Adams 14 has improved but that she doesn’t want the state to stand in the way of changes that would help students.

“We have a long and challenging road ahead to see sustained improvement in Adams 14,” Anthes wrote. “During that time, I do not want any unintended consequences from the loss of accreditation to make that road any bumpier than it needs to be.”

Read the full ruling:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Claiming students are already harmed, Adams 14 seeks to block reorganization

2022-08-23T00:02:43+00:00

State efforts to reorganize the Adams 14 school district after years of low performance have already hurt students, including causing the district to lose out on contracts with international teachers who could have served the community’s many Spanish-speaking students.

That’s one argument attorneys for the Adams 14 school district made in a two-day court hearing in Denver last week as they seek to block Colorado’s first major intervention into a low-performing school district.

Attorneys representing the Colorado Department of Education and the State Board of Education countered that what’s really hurting students is more than a decade of poor education in the school district serving parts of Commerce City. Students will suffer more if state intervention is further delayed, they said.

“The children of Adams 14 have been waiting for the turnaround work to start in earnest for far too long,” a state attorney said. “Every week makes a difference.”

But the judge interrupted the state attorney’s argument to question if the public interest would actually be harmed by proceeding with reorganization while a lawsuit is pending.

“There’s just a lot of ifs. Talk about uncertainty to children and the community,” said Denver District Judge Shelley I. Gilman. “How does that affect the child? Isn’t there something that makes sense about waiting until the court resolves these issues before taking actions that can’t later be reversed?”

Gilman has two months to decide if a state reorganization order should proceed or if she’ll grant Adams 14’s request to block the order while the lawsuit plays out.

Adams 14 is challenging both the state reorganization order, which could lead to school closures or the loss of control to neighboring districts, and the entire state accountability system that allows this type of intervention. The state wants the lawsuit dismissed.

The State Board of Education removed Adams 14’s accreditation and ordered that the district be reorganized in May. The district was previously under external management after more than eight years of persistently low test scores. But before the external manager completed the four years it was supposed to oversee Adams 14, the local school board voted to fire the external manager after a new superintendent Karla Loria raised questions about mismanagement.

State Education Commissioner Katy Anthes hasn’t formally started the reorganization process, saying in testimony that she was waiting for the outcome of these legal motions. Adams 14 students returned to class on Aug. 9.

Joe Salazar, the attorney for Adams 14, described seven ways he claims the district and the larger community are already being harmed by the State Board’s order.

Students and staff have left the district out of fear that schools will shut down. The district’s bond rating has been lowered twice since the order, meaning future bond requests may end up costing the district a lot more in higher interest payments. Leaders of Adams 14 and neighboring districts have spent hours discussing the state’s orders, reassuring families, and thinking about how to prepare for all the potential impacts.

The state pointed out that the district has dealt with declining enrollment and high staff turnover for several years. Current debt payments are fixed and not at risk of costing more, the state also argued.

Loria, the superintendent, described how the district is missing at least 16 bilingual teachers it expected to hire for this school year. The district had signed a contract in the spring with a company called IAG that would find teachers from other countries and take care of the paperwork and visas necessary for the teachers to legally work in the U.S..

But the sponsor the company had secured for the teacher’s visas backed out after learning that Adams 14 had lost its accreditation. Commissioner Anthes helped the district when it was attempting to reassure a new sponsor that Adams 14 is still able to educate students in Colorado, despite its loss of accreditation.

Loria testified that Anthes apologized for the ordeal as she tried to help, and said Anthes described it as an “unintended consequence.”

Two weeks into the start of the school year, an estimated 400 students who would have been taught by the international teachers have substitute teachers, and it’s unclear if the bilingual teachers will eventually come.

Loria also testified that one of the potential sponsors was willing to continue to help the teachers if they worked at only one of the district’s schools. But those stipulations essentially remove the district’s local control to decide where teachers are needed, Loria said.

The state’s attorneys tried to argue that the fact that the second sponsor was willing to place teachers at one school meant that the criteria was not about the loss of accreditation, since that affected all the district’s schools in the same way. The judge questioned that argument, since the court didn’t hear testimony about the sponsor’s reasoning for its decision. The judge also pointed out that the problem may be more than just a delay.

“There was a willingness before. Now it hasn’t happened,” Judge Gilman said. “I’m not sure it’s just a delay. There’s no certainty. Folks are making phone calls and sending letters and trying their best, but there’s no assurance.”

In another case of a possible unexpected harm from the loss of accreditation, the district called as a witness La Crea Dixon, an alumna and district paraprofessional who enrolled this summer at Colorado Christian University, planning to study to become a special education teacher.

Dixon planned to pay with a TEACH grant, funded by the federal government. But after weeks of getting the runaround, she said an administrator at the university told her the grant had been denied because Adams 14 was not an accredited school district.

The state attorneys said they believe there is some confusion as to where that information came from, since they are not aware of any rules that would require the district to be accredited.

When questioned, Anthes said she is still looking at the implications of the State Board order and hasn’t decided if she will kick off the reorganization process if the judge doesn’t pause the order. But she also said she does not have the authority to reverse the State Board’s orders.

Reorganization will require Adams 14 and neighboring districts to appoint a committee tasked with coming up with a plan for reimagining district boundaries. Anthes also said in court that the group could decide it’s best to keep everything the same.

State attorneys said that if the court allows the state’s orders to move forward, it’s still unlikely the group would finalize any changes before the lawsuit is resolved.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

CMAS results: Colorado students make gains but still below pre-pandemic levels

2022-08-17T19:53:10+00:00

Colorado third graders did almost as well on standardized tests this past spring as third graders did before the pandemic, an encouraging sign after three disrupted school years.

But older students in most grades and subjects did worse, even as test scores rebounded from very low levels in 2021. And the majority of Colorado students didn’t meet grade-level expectations on the tests, known as Colorado Measures of Academic Success or CMAS, just as they didn’t before COVID.

That’s not the return to normal education leaders or parents want to see, and state and district officials emphasized the work that remains even as they noted some bright spots.

“We celebrate the fact that student scores were better in most cases than they were in 2021, but we continue to face the challenge of fully bringing kids back to the levels they were before the disruptions of the pandemic, as well as closing the historic opportunity and achievement gaps,” Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said in a press release.

Wide gaps remain between Black and Hispanic students and those from low-income households, on one hand, and their better-off white and Asian peers on the other. Where test score gaps narrowed, it was generally because students who historically performed better instead performed worse.

“That is not how we want to see the gap decrease. We want to see both groups increasing in terms of achievement, with our historically lower-achieving group improving at a faster pace,” said Joyce Zurkowski, Colorado’s chief assessment officer.

Nearly 41% of Colorado third graders met or exceeded grade-level expectations in literacy, almost as high as the 41.3% who did so in 2019. Colorado is in the midst of a multiyear effort to improve reading instruction. Reading well by the end of third grade positions students for future academic success.

Zurkowski said the reading rebound was “a piece of really good news” for students whose schools closed before they could finish first grade.

Less encouraging were results for older students. Just a quarter of seventh graders met or exceeded expectations in math compared with 31.6% in 2019. And less than a third of eight graders met benchmarks in math, compared with almost 37% in 2019. Ninth graders showed the biggest decline. Only 40% of ninth graders met or exceeded expectations in math, compared with almost 50% in 2019, a drop of 8.8 percentage points.

Literacy scores for older students were also lower than 2019 in most grades.

Colorado results released Wednesday align with some national test results and standardized tests from other states that show older students struggling more than younger ones do, and math scores taking a greater hit than literacy.

Colorado administers CMAS tests in literacy and math every spring in grades 3 through 8. Schools also give tests in science and social studies but far fewer students take the tests. High school students take the PSAT and SAT.

This was the first year Colorado gave the full suite of tests since 2019. Testing was canceled in 2020, and in 2021, many students took either math or literacy tests based on their grade level, rather than both tests. Participation also plummeted, making comparisons hard. Nonetheless, students did far worse in 2021 than in 2019, with the exception of 11th grade, where students posted higher SAT scores.

Participation was largely back to normal this year, though some student groups took the test at lower rates. Participation was particularly low for Black students in middle school, for students with disabilities, and for English language learners.

The state uses standardized tests results to rate schools and districts and to target help to schools with lower performance. State officials may consider low scores in deciding next steps for schools under existing state improvement orders, but schools won’t be subjected to new interventions based on this year’s results. Colorado’s school accountability system is set to fully resume next year.

Parents, meanwhile, will get their children’s CMAS results from their districts and can use them to talk with teachers about their students’ strengths and weaknesses.

Colorado has expanded state money available for school improvement, and in recent years, schools also have federal money for intensive tutoring to catch students up.

Jeffco Public Schools is among the districts investing in that approach. Chief of Schools David Weiss hopes that by October, tutors will be meeting several times a week with students who need the most help. The district is also rolling out new curriculum in elementary reading and secondary math and providing teachers with more training and more opportunity for collaboration.

“We outscored the state in just about every category, both in growth and achievement, and we’re encouraged by that,” Weiss said. “That being said, there’s still a lot of room for growth, and we definitely have work to do as a district getting back to some of those best practices that we know are great for kids.”

Weiss said academic gains and losses are just one piece of pandemic recovery.

“There are other things that our students gained through this experience and there are other things that they lost,” he said. “Our students lost family members, they lost the social time that they had with their friends. On the flip side, some families grew closer. I don’t think it’s appropriate to minimize all the different things that our communities could have learned and experienced over the last few years to just the math and reading scores.”

Wide test score gaps remain

Schools did not close large test score gaps between students from low-income families and those from wealthier families, or between white students and Black and Hispanic students.

For example, less than a quarter of Colorado students who qualify for subsidized school meals met or exceeded expectations on CMAS literacy tests, compared with more than half of students who don’t qualify. The gap was nearly 30 percentage points. The gaps between white students and Black and Hispanic students were nearly as large, at 27 and 29 percentage points respectively.

Denver Public Schools, which is Colorado’s largest school district at about 90,000 students, has even larger gaps by race: 72% of white students met expectations on state literacy tests, while 26% of Black students and 24% of Hispanic students did. That’s approaching a 50 percentage-point gap in a district that has for years been focused on equity.

Of the five largest school districts in Colorado, Denver has the largest CMAS test score gaps separating white students from Black and Hispanic students in both literacy and math.

On the whole, Denver’s CMAS scores rebounded from last year, though not to pre-pandemic levels. The one positive exception was third-grade reading, where the percentage of students meeting expectations — 39.9% — was slightly higher than in 2019.

On the PSAT and SAT, however, Denver’s scores were lower than in 2019 or 2021. Students struggled the most in math. Just 29% of 11th graders met expectations on the math SAT.

Chalkbeat also looked at the CMAS scores in 10 school districts with the highest percentages of students of color and more than 1,000 students total. In those districts, scores were mixed.

Some rebounded, such as the fourth-grade math scores in Aurora, which were higher than last year but still not as high as in 2019. Others, such as the sixth-grade math scores in Mapleton, decreased from 2019. And some scores increased. More third graders in Sheridan met or exceeded expectations on the literacy test this year than in either 2019 or 2021.

Growth scores in the 10 districts were also mixed. Those scores measure how much progress students made compared with students who had similar scores the year before. Because growth is relative, the state average is always around 50 on a 100-point scale. Students who are below grade level need growth scores above 50 to make progress at a faster pace.

Growth scores in the 10 districts ranged from as low as 16.5 in elementary school math in the East Otero district in southeast Colorado to as high as 56 in elementary school reading in the Harrison district in Colorado Springs and 58 in elementary school math in Denver.

Adams 14, which faces the possibility of losing control of its schools due to its years of low performance, posted worsening test scores in the spring.

The district’s growth scores show most students are not making enough progress. One bright spot was for middle school math, where students made more than a year’s worth of progress.

The only area where Adams 14 had more students at grade level or above than in 2019 was sixth grade math. But the percentages are still tiny. On that test, 5.3% of students met or exceeded expectations, up from 4.2% who did in 2019. In math, achievement rates for most grade levels in Adams 14 are in the single digits.

In English, all Adams 14 scores were worse than in 2019, with fifth grade scores dropping the most, and seventh graders having the lowest rate of meeting or exceeding expectations.

Students struggle more in math

Statewide, nearly 29% of students who took CMAS math tests met or exceeded expectations. That’s lower than in 2019, when almost 33% did.

Many educators believe students ended up reading more during periods of virtual learning — not necessarily novels, but text messages with friends, social media posts, and all the material posted online for their classes. Parents are also more likely to support literacy at home, reading to their kids and encouraging their kids to read.

Many parents aren’t sure how to help their children with math, especially as it gets more complex. Teachers also reported that loss of classroom instruction time made it harder to spot when students were confused. And teachers differed in how they approached missing skills.

Marty Gutierrez teaches middle school math in Adams 12 Five Star Schools in the north Denver suburbs. He noticed that many students started last school year without mastery of skills from the previous year. The pandemic meant less hands-on learning, less practice, and less interaction among students, who might explain something to a peer in a new way, bringing that student along while reinforcing their own understanding.

“A lot of my students struggled with basic math facts, 7 x 8. I think the pandemic affected the way we taught those things and people went about addressing them in different ways,” Gutierrez said. “Some people went back and said we’re going to work on this, work on this, work on this. But then they missed out on what seventh and eighth grade was supposed to be about.

“My approach was, OK, if the kid struggles with math facts, give them a calculator and let’s work on those concepts. In seventh and eighth grade, we learn a lot of concepts.”

Even in math, there were some positive signs. When education officials examined student growth scores from the 2019 baseline, they found students making more progress in math, even where test scores remain low. That indicates some students are making up lost ground.

Reading scores show both promise and trouble

While the percentage of third graders performing at grade level on state literacy tests rebounded, Zurkowski noted a concerning trend among the good news: the percentage of third-graders reading far below grade level is going up.

This past spring, 22.1% scored in the “has not yet met expectations” band on the literacy test, the lowest of five bands. That’s more third-graders reading far below grade level than in any year since 2016, when 19% of third-graders scored “has not yet met.” The same was true for some other grades and subjects too.

Fifth graders, meanwhile, continued the drop that began last year. In 2021, about 47% of fifth grade students were proficient on literacy tests, about 1 percentage point lower than pre-pandemic levels. This year, the fifth-grade proficiency rate declined to about 45%.

Krista Spurgin, executive director of the advocacy group Stand for Children Colorado, suggested that the state’s ongoing focus on improving early elementary reading instruction may be paying off in the form of rebounding third grade literacy scores.

But there has been no similar set of policies aimed at older students who can’t read well.

“We have heard from so many educators and parents over the last few years that report their older students are struggling to read — fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-graders that need supports their teachers are understandably not equipped to give them,” she said by email.

See full state results from the Colorado Department of Education here.

Ann Schimke and Yesenia Robles contributed reporting.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: This article has been changed to reflect that last school year’s third grade students were in first grade in March 2020, not kindergarten.

Colorado SAT test scores mostly down in 2022. Look up your school or district’s results.

2022-08-17T17:00:00+00:00

Last spring’s state SAT and PSAT test scores for Colorado high school students fell from the previous year, results released Wednesday show.

In 2021, Colorado’s high school test scores improved from 2019, despite the learning interruptions students endured, but results released Wednesday are less encouraging.

Two of three groups — ninth and 11th graders — also scored lower than did their counterparts in 2019, state results published Wednesday show.

The bright spot was among 10th graders. Although a smaller proportion met or exceeded expectations than did last year, their rates still were better than in 2019. In English for example, 67% of 10th graders met or exceeded expectations this spring, down from 69.3% in 2021, but higher than the 64.9% of 10th graders who did in 2019.

Colorado uses the PSAT for ninth and tenth graders, and the SAT for 11th graders as its annual state test.

Last year, when more high school test scores seemed to improve, educators wondered if lower participation rates might have skewed results. Students who took the 2021 test might have been those who were more motivated and likely to do well.

High school participation in the PSAT and SAT this spring went up to around 85%. That’s still lower than the roughly 92% participation rates before the pandemic, but state officials said that the students who did participate reflected the year’s enrollment diversity.

Some colleges use the SAT for admissions criteria, though many are now backing away from standardized testing requirements.

SAT scores can range from 200 to 800 each on the literacy and math tests, with a maximum composite score of 1600. The statewide average composite score in 2022 was 986, down from 1001 in 2019.

PSAT scores for 10th graders can range from 160 to 760 on individual tests, with a maximum total score of 1520. For ninth graders the range is from 120 to 720, with a maximum total score of 1440.

For ninth graders, the statewide average total score was 885 in 2022, down from 906 in 2019. Ninth grade scores on the math PSAT test declined the most. Only 40.8% scored at least on grade level, a decline of 8.8 percentage points from 2019.

Most achievement gaps grew across various demographic groups, with the largest gaps this year between English learners and other students. On the reading and writing tests, those gaps exceeded 50 percentage points. Among racial and ethnic groups, the largest gap separated Hispanic students from white students.

Among metro area school districts, Adams 14 and its neighbor, the Brighton-based 27J had some of the largest declines in scores for 11th graders from 2019. Students meeting or exceeding expectations dropped by 9 percentage points in 27J, and by 8.4 percentage points in Adams 14.

Ninth graders in Adams 14, a district that may lose control of its schools because of its chronic low achievement, also had some of the largest three-year drops in math scores in the metro area. Only 7.8% met or exceeded expectations this spring.

The district also had lower participation rates than the state average with 76.9% of students taking the test.

Adams 14’s growth scores for high school students were also among the worst in the state.

Performance on the SAT is strongly tied to demographic factors, with better-off white and Asian students posting higher scores. Growth scores, which are supposed to be a more equitable way to look at achievement, compare how much students improve relative to students who have a similar test performance history. Students who are below grade level need growth scores above 50 to make progress toward catching up.

For math, Adams 14’s average growth score of 32 was the seventh-worst in the state.

Jeffco and Cherry Creek school districts are among metro area districts that did well on growth measures. For high school math, both districts had a growth score of 55, placing both in the top 20 scores in the state.

Mica Buenning, the principal for Ralston Valley High School in Jeffco, said she wasn’t surprised by her school’s scores. After seeing a big drop in math scores last year, her staff spent 2021-22 focusing on rewriting math units. Math scores at her school were up this year, though they still haven’t bounced back to 2019 levels.

Buenning said she had made a point of making time for her math teachers to collaborate and plan together, particularly for Algebra 2 teachers, which is usually a class for juniors.

“I know my teachers make a difference when they have time to collaborate,” Buenning said. “We did that last year and we’re doing it again this year too.”

Buenning said her school now will focus more on ninth grade math classes. Those scores are the farthest from 2019 levels. About 69% of Ralston Valley ninth graders scored at least on grade level on math, compared with 84% of freshmen in 2019.

Ninth graders last year had tougher challenges than did other students, Buenning said.

“My freshmen came in today and they were 1,000 times different than the freshmen from last year,” Buenning said Tuesday. “They had a full year of middle school to work on their skills around organization and all of those executive function skills, including moving from classroom to classroom. Last year we had a lot of kids coming in that academically they might have been OK, but socially they struggled.”

Teachers across the country talked about the challenges of helping students with greater behavioral issues and social-emotional needs.

Other districts that showed some bright spots were Englewood and Sheridan.

Tenth graders in Sheridan, where most students come from low-income families, had larger improvements than either the state or most metro area districts did. In reading and writing, 46.3% of 10th graders met or exceeded expectations, up from 30.5% last year and from 38.9% in 2019.

Maegan Daigler, executive director of assessment and technology for Sheridan, said that district leaders were “delightfully surprised” at the scores. She said there are some investments the high school has made to help students catch up.

Those changes include adding a pre-Advanced Placement English course that helps push more students into rigorous courses, expanding AVID programs, and adding a partnership with University of Colorado Denver. Math professors from the university’s education department have helped Sheridan create diagnostic tests to help teachers better understand how to help students progress.

Daigler said it seems students who made more progress were more likely to be involved in rigorous courses including the new pre-AP classes.

“We’re thinking about how we’re pushing and supporting students, instead of just remediating,” Daigler said.

Now leaders are digging deeper to see how those different approaches have helped, to look at where to expand the work.

See how students performed at your school in the searchable database below. You can also see the state’s full data release on its website here.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 school board president resigns

2022-07-19T23:09:43+00:00

The Adams 14 school district announced the resignation of its board president Tuesday afternoon.

Ramona Lewis, who was elected in November 2019 and was to serve until 2023, resigned suddenly. Her resignation was effective immediately.

Reached by phone, Lewis said she stepped down for personal reasons but would not specify what they were.

“It was just a decision I needed to make,” Lewis said. But she added that she is committed to continuing to support the district’s work.

The district’s announcement stated that the board and Adams 14 Superintendent Karla Loria “regretfully accepted the resignation.”

By state law, the board must declare a vacancy and start taking applications from those interested in finishing Lewis’s term.

The Adams 14 school board, like the district, is familiar with turnover. The last board member to resign was Regina Hurtado in 2021, when she moved out of the district.

Before that, the board had a vacancy in 2020, when a board member’s term expired and no one ran to replace her. In 2019, a board member resigned in the middle of an investigation into an incident in which he had improperly accompanied his wife to a substitute teaching assignment in the district. In 2018, the then-board president resigned, just before the State Board issued its first order asking the district to hire an outside manager.

The district is now at another turning point after the state ordered it to reorganize amid continued academic struggles.

The state has not yet initiated that process, and a district lawsuit seeking to stop that order is pending.

Adams 14 board member Maria Zubia said Tuesday she was sad to see Lewis step down but was not concerned about the board or district being able to continue moving forward.

“I wouldn’t have been able to take this work on without Ramona Lewis and Renee Lovato,” Zubia said, speaking of two board members. “It was because of them that I decided to do this. I could see a vision. I thought we could really do more together. I’m grateful I got to serve with her.”

Reflecting on her time on the board, Lewis said hiring Loria as superintendent is the thing she is most proud of.

“We had a board for the first time where we were all on the same page, focused on our children.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado will pay for two ways for Adams 14 students to go to different schools

2022-07-06T00:46:14+00:00

Colorado will pay about $3 million over two years to transport some Adams 14 students to schools outside the district.

The state will award funds to a charter school group and a pair of nonprofit organizations that applied for money from a new state grant to transport Adams 14 students away from low-performing schools.

The charter school group proposes to take Adams 14 students to its schools, Community Leadership Academy and Victory Prep.

The nonprofit groups would pay for rides from HopSkipDrive, a ride-share company, to take students to high-rated charter or district-run schools in Denver.

The state asked both applicants to modify their applications, which group leaders said would not be a problem.

The charter school group requested slightly more than $100,000 in each of two years to pay for existing bus service for about 50 more students. Together, the two charter schools, which have the same leaders, serve students in kindergarten through 12th grade in Commerce City.

“It just opens up so many options for families,” said Terry Croy-Lewis, executive director of the Charter School Institute, supporting the charter school application.

The state asked two non-profit groups applying together, RootEd and Transform Education Now, to cut their budget request by 10% to about $2.7 million for two years, to justify why their per-student cost of more than $5,000 exceeds predetermined state estimates, and to have a way to track the grant dollars, among other things.

Nicholas Martinez, the executive director of Transform Education Now, said the groups could make the changes.

Although families in Colorado have long been able to send their children to schools outside their neighborhood, they’ve usually had to arrange their own transportation.

Even then, many Adams 14 families have enrolled their children in neighboring districts. Last school year about 3,000 students attended non-district schools, leaving slightly more than 6,100 students in Adams 14.

As Adams 14 faced state pressure over its academics, State Board of Education members wanted to find a way to pay for transportation to make it easier for students to attend a higher-rated school. The state board discussed those options even before it ordered the district to reorganize and possibly face dissolution.

The district, meanwhile, is working on recruiting and retaining students. Last school year, it paid for billboards to advertise new programs at Adams 14 schools, and is working to make it easier for families to re-enroll.

In a lawsuit filed last week, the district’s lawyer wrote that the state’s orders requiring reorganization have harmed the district and prompted more students to plan to leave Adams 14 schools.

Colorado funds school districts based on the number of students enrolled. As districts lose students, they face the prospect of losing funds as well.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 sues state, challenges reorganization order

2022-06-29T01:04:26+00:00

The Adams 14 school district, with help from the state teachers union, filed a lawsuit this week challenging both the state’s order to reorganize the troubled district and the system that allows the state to intervene in low-performing districts.

The Adams 14 school district north of Denver has experienced several firsts as one of the only districts that has consistently earned the state’s lowest performance ratings. Previous legal challenges to state intervention have been unsuccessful.

Last month, after other state-ordered improvement plans had fallen apart, the State Board of Education ordered Adams 14 to begin a reorganization process that could result in the district being dissolved.

In its lawsuit the district argues the state doesn’t have the authority to take away a district’s local control, which it says is what would happen if the district were dissolved. It also argues that the State Board was biased, seeking to take away the district’s authority from the beginning, and that the accountability system itself is biased because districts with more affluent students aren’t vulnerable to the same orders as a district like Adams 14 serving lower-income families.

State accountability laws require Colorado to intervene in low-performing school districts, yet limits what the state can order districts to do. The law lists reorganization as one option, but that had never been used.

The State Board in May ordered Adams 14 to begin reorganizing. The district has a timeline for complying, but the clock won’t begin running on creating a committee to draft a plan until the state education commissioner notifies Adams 14 and neighboring districts that it’s time to form the committee. That hasn’t happened yet.

As in a previous lawsuit, the challenge filed this week in Denver District Court heavily relies on arguments about the State Board’s procedures, including claiming that the state has failed by not creating an appeals process for districts.

In the filing, the district wants a judge to halt and set aside the state’s order pending a judicial review. It also wants the courts to give the district more trial-like procedures that would allow the district to cross-examine witnesses and evidence given to the State Board.

In describing the damage the state has caused, the lawsuit describes large numbers of staff resigning following the state’s May order and says schools received notices from parents that students are moving to other districts.

The lawsuit also notes that Moody’s credit rating agency downgraded the district’s bond rating following the May order. Moody’s announcement said the ratings change was based on “substantial enrollment loss” and governance issues. The ratings may be further downgraded, according to the agency.

That can make it more expensive for the district to borrow money and issue bonds.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said the state doesn’t discuss ongoing legal matters, but noted “the State Board of Education has followed their obligations to intervene in a struggling district as statute dictates.”

In past challenges to State Board orders, the courts have dismissed the cases, but not necessarily because of the claims.

In a 2019 case in which the teachers union challenged state orders that required Adams 14 and Pueblo 60 districts to enter into outside management agreements, a judge said the union had no standing to bring the case. In reviewing whether Colorado’s accountability law is unconstitutional because it allows the State Board to order external management, a judge wrote, “the court declines to define the scope of the State Board’s authority.”

In the filing this week, the Colorado Education Association joined as a secondary plaintiff to Adams 14. The lawsuit argues that the union has standing because its employee contracts with the school district are at risk, and because union staff are resigning.

Earlier this year, Adams 14 filed another lawsuit trying to delay new state hearings and to change the process. A judge dismissed the case, stating that the district’s harms weren’t irreparable.

The latest lawsuit’s 12 claims include just one on the accountability system being unconstitutional. In making that case, the lawsuit cited the Westminster school district’s complaints in 2017 that it was being targeted as a district with many low-income students.

At the time, Westminster was also facing state action. However Westminster then managed to improve its rating and is no longer on the state’s watchlist.

Still, critics have continued to criticize the state’s rating system and the laws governing how the state should intervene, known as the accountability system, as inequitable. Legislators have asked for an audit of the accountability system, due later this year.

“Since 2017 the State Board has done absolutely nothing to stop its unconstitutional and discriminatory application of Colorado’s accountability system on districts that serve primarily students of color who are poor and are fluent in languages other than English,” the lawsuit states.

In the other 11 claims in the lawsuit, the district targets State Board member Steve Durham, using his comments to claim that he influenced the State Review Panel in requesting recommendations that would remove Adams 14’s authority.

The lawsuit also states that Adams 14 school board members had filed claims of racism against the State Board but that the state never investigated, and never removed Durham from decision making.

Additionally, because Durham read a motion that had been prepared ahead of time, the lawsuit claims “the State Board entered into the hearing predisposed to vote in a particular manner — demonstrating bias (due process violation) and a possible violation of the Colorado Open Meetings law.”

Reading or using motions prepared ahead of time is a common practice for the State Board of Education.

The district also argues that after Adams 14’s board cut ties with its previous external manager, the state’s immediate request for an external review panel to visit the district and create recommendations was “in outright retaliation.”

The district’s lawsuit also criticizes the fairness of that external panel, including because it didn’t include experts in bilingual education, and calling out one member for coming from a district where leaders had signed an agreement with the Justice Department to settle complaints of race and national origin discrimination, although Adams 14 itself has signed similar agreements.

“The State Review Panel’s visit was a sham, and was a rubber stamp mission to produce a report that would legitimize Board Member Durham’s desired outcome to ‘disempower the district,’” the lawsuit states.

Three others on the seven-member State Board joined Durham in voting to reorganize the district.

Ordering reorganization, and requiring neighboring districts to participate, also violates the district’s local control, the lawsuit argues, because it will require them to use resources and money for the process.

“The Colorado Constitution, as interpreted by the Colorado Supreme Court, forbids the State Board from interfering with local control powers, which involves the power to decide what to do with locally-raised funds,” the lawsuit states.

Read the full lawsuit here.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 finalizes 3-year contract with new manager

2022-06-27T23:28:53+00:00

Adams 14 officials signed a $5 million, three-year contract with the school district’s new external manager, the New-York-based nonprofit TNTP.

The contract, effective July 1, will run through June 30, 2025.

TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project, submitted the only response to a request for proposals from organizations to manage the district, as required by the state. Both the district and the nonprofit group spent months figuring out if they were the right match.

This is the second time the district has entered into an external management agreement to raise student achievement after years of low performance.

The state in 2018 ordered the Adams 14 school district, north of Denver, to hand over management to a third party. The district signed a contract in 2019 with MGT Consulting, a for-profit based company, but that partnership fell apart this past school year. The district terminated the contract early in 2022.

This time, the district proposed that the selected group would only be partial managers, citing among other things a lack of research backing full management by private or consultant groups. That means the superintendent and local board will keep more authority than they did under MGT.

At the same time that the State Board of Education asked the district to hire a new manager, the board also ordered that Adams 14 reorganize — which may result in school closures or district dissolution.

Under the contract approved by the school board last week, TNTP’s responsibilities fall under five categories. Among other things, they will be responsible for co-designing a strategic plan, coaching leaders, and conducting an analysis of the root causes of problems in the district, identifying priorities for improvement and giving the district recommendations.

TNTP also will be responsible for recommending new personnel policies to improve recruitment and retention and for recommending curriculum changes.

Additionally, TNTP “will have authority … [over] hiring, firing, performance evaluations, compensation decisions, and other employment decisions,” as the district’s board delegated, according to the contract. TNTP will not oversee district day-to-day operations, the contract states.

Adams 14 school board member Maria Zubia said just before the vote that this contract was different from the last one with MGT, and that the board is looking for checks and balances.

To address a concern the school board had with the last manager, the contract will not allow TNTP to subcontract without prior district approval. If a subcontractor is doing the same work as TNTP is hired to do, the money already paid to TNTP must cover it.

The contract lays out a proposed payment schedule for the $4,995,553 cost over three years. District and community leaders had raised concerns about the cost of the last management contract, in which MGT received more than $7 million in the first two school years.

The cost to the district for this contract would be higher, but the Oak Foundation is subsidizing the services with a grant to TNTP. The contract doesn’t specify which services are covered by the grant or how large it is. A spokesperson for TNTP did not respond to a request for additional information.

The contract allows the district or TNTP to end the contract for any reason. Good cause reasons to terminate the contract include a decrease in student performance on state tests, an increase in state ratings for two consecutive years — which would pull the district out of state oversight — the state changing its orders, or the district’s inability to pay.

The district also will be able to renegotiate the cost and services, in case schools are closed and the amount of help required from TNTP changes.

Read the full contract here:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Two applicants seek state money for Adams 14 student transportation

2022-06-23T22:22:20+00:00

A charter school group and a pair of nonprofit organizations submitted applications to the state’s new grant program for transportation of Adams 14 students who choose to leave low-performing schools.

The charter school’s plan would transport students to its own charter and the nonprofit groups’ plan would take students to Denver schools.

The Colorado State Board of Education asked the department to look into ways the state could pay for transportation in order to remove one barrier for Adams 14 students who want to enroll elsewhere at a higher-performing school.

The state Department of Education is reviewing the two applications and will announce awards by July 1.

The Adams 14 school district is the only one identified as chronically low performing by the state’s rating system, and is the only one the state grant will target. Adams 14 has received the state’s lowest ratings since 2010. Neither previous district-run nor state-ordered improvement plans have improved its rating so far.

The state this year directed the district to begin reorganizing — a process that could eventually lead to neighboring districts absorbing parts of Adams 14, though leaders of those districts have stated they support the district’s autonomy and its own improvement plans.

In the meantime, the state wants the district to start its own improvement plan and wants to help students who choose to attend other schools.

The Adams 14 district has long had many students attend schools in nearby districts. Charter schools and Mapleton Public Schools have at times marketed specifically to attract Adams 14 students. In the past school year, Adams 14 enrolled about 6,100 students, and lost about 3,000 students who live in the district to other schools.

Details of what the support would look like have been limited, however, the grant applications provide some insight.

The charter school application is from the leaders of Victory Prep and Community Leadership Academy, long-standing partner charter schools located in the Adams 14 boundaries.

The schools are authorized under the Charter School Institute, although leaders recently asked Adams 14 to authorize them instead, but were denied.

Under their application, the charter school would use the money to pay for up to six traditional school bus routes through Adams 14, aiming to cover the transportation cost of about 50 eligible students. The application requests a little more than $100,000 each of the two years.

The other application was submitted by RootEd and Transform Education Now, two nonprofits that have supported charter schools. Transform Education Now has worked with Adams 14 parents for several years. That application seeks a little more than $3 million dollars over the two years, to pay for rides for students in the low-performing Adams 14 schools who want to go to a school in Denver.

The nonprofit groups would use the third party, HopSkipDrive, and estimates they would pay for daily rides for 150 students the first year and 250 students the second year. Their budget request estimates more than $5,000 cost per student, significantly higher than the state’s cost estimate of between $1,200 and $2,800 per student.

Both applications describe how they will market to students in Adams 14 over the next few months to make families aware of the option. The nonprofit groups also plan to help families navigate choice enrollment by identifying where open spots are available in higher-performing Denver schools and creating a guide highlighting options available with academic data for the schools.

The state has allocated about $3 million from the state’s ESSER COVID relief dollars to fund the transportation grants for two years. If the program is successful, state board members said they may consider finding other sources to keep it going in the future.

Read the grant applications in full.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 gets state approval to turn Central Elementary into a community school

2022-06-09T00:51:28+00:00

The Adams 14 school district won state approval Wednesday to use its own improvement plans at Central Elementary. The approval avoids more drastic options like closure or charter conversion even as the state has ordered the entire district to reorganize.

Members of the State Board of Education voted 6-1 in favor of the district’s plan. Central Elementary had ended up on the state watchlist, separately from the district. The state board heard the initial proposal from the district in April, and asked leaders to flesh it out with more detail.

Board member Steve Durham cast the only no vote Wednesday, but other members joined him in expressing concern about whether the plan would be implemented well and whether it has enough academic focus.

Central enrolls 432 students including more than half who are identified as English learners. While the school has received seven years of low state ratings, in the most recent ratings in 2019, the school fell only 1.4 percentage points away from a higher rank.

But state officials worried early this school year that Central’s progress may have stalled.

Central’s plan will make it the first school in the state to incorporate three paths for improvement: autonomy through innovation status, a community schools model, and partial management by an outside group.

TNTP, the partial manager the district has selected, will oversee the school’s transition to a community school model that will offer supportive services such as counseling or health care for students. The plan qualifies as an improvement plan by getting innovation status, which allows schools to request waivers from state laws, district policies, and labor contracts.

The plan calls for TNTP to focus on academics and guidance for teachers. The district and TNTP also will plan services to help families eliminate barriers to learning or attending school. The services could include things like after-school care, mental health services, and a health clinic.

In opposing the plan, Durham expressed concern that it did not seek enough waivers for teacher hiring or for different pay based on performance.

Many innovation proposals request waivers that grant school-level officials sole authority to hire or fire staff and set pay. Principals or other school teams might hire teachers who don’t meet state requirements but have skills that align with the school’s specific educational plans. And principals generally get more authority under innovation status.

The district’s plan for Central asks for waivers including to add 20 minutes to the school day, and to add five days to the teacher work year, to train before the school year starts.

The school must continue to pay teachers according to the district’s salary schedule but may offer incentives to retain teachers.

The plan allows Central some flexibility around recruitment, but the district and TNTP will still make hiring decisions.

Superintendent Karla Loria said that the school staff already have had to reapply for their positions, and mentioned that with incentives, teachers at Central may earn up to $13,000 above what they might earn at other district schools.

Board member Lisa Escárcega, who said she’s had experience with crafting innovation plans when she worked in school districts, said she has seen successful innovation plans with fewer waivers.

Still, she told district leaders, she hoped they would continue to explore additional waivers.

State board member Joyce Rankin said she was concerned that 20 additional minutes per day was not a lot, and that the plan lacked urgency in its academic provisions. In particular, she worried that only 51% of the required teachers at the school have completed literacy training requirements so far.

“If you are really serious, they’re already trained,” Rankin said. “The urgency is with the process. It’s with what we have to do to get by.”

Despite her reservations, Rankin said she would vote to approve the innovation proposal because she didn’t think closing the school would be a good option.

“I wish we had other options,” she said.

Last month, the state board came down harder on the district as a whole, and ordered it to reorganize as well as hire a new external manager. The district hasn’t begun reorganizing, which likely will take a long time. Several school districts and parents will have to join a committee and draft a plan that could include changing boundaries or governance of parts of the district.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 se resiste a la reorganización; distritos vecinos dan su apoyo

2022-05-20T20:36:03+00:00

Los líderes de Adams 14 tienen planes de resistir los esfuerzos del estado por reorganizar el distrito escolar (que lleva años teniendo dificultades), y están recibiendo el apoyo de los distritos vecinos, un frente unido que sugiere que el estado está a punto de entablar una batalla cuesta arriba en sus esfuerzos por obligar un cambio en la comunidad.

“Creo que en esto vamos a tener más aliados que la Junta Estatal”, dijo Joe Salazar, uno de los abogados de Adams 14.

Adams 14, un distrito escolar al norte de Denver, ha probado el poder de la ley de responsabilidad del estado porque ha tenido que enfrentarse a muchas cosas que nunca habían ocurrido. A diferencia de otros estados, Colorado no tiene autoridad para adueñarse directamente de las operaciones de los distritos escolares.

En 2018, cuando el estado ordenó que el distrito contratara un administrador externo después de años de desempeño académico deficiente, la junta escolar local permaneció. Y en 2021, cuando esa junta contrató su propia superintendente, Karla Loria, ella no tardó en deshacerse de la compañía externa de administración, MGT Consulting.

Ahora, con la preocupación de que los líderes del distrito no tienen lo que hace falta para dirigir los planes nuevos para mejorar el desempeño de los estudiantes y que no están dispuestos a compartir suficiente responsabilidad con asistencia externa para hacerlo, la Junta Estatal de Educación le quitó la acreditación al distrito y ordenó que fuera reorganizado, una movida que pudiera resultar en la disolución del distrito, cierres de escuelas, y que los estudiantes tengan que asistir a distritos vecinos.

Pero Colorado nunca había hecho esto, y deja muchas preguntas sin contestar con respecto a cómo funcionará el proceso. Mientras tanto, la ley les da a las comunidades locales bastantes opciones para resistir al estado.

Líderes de distritos vecinos se unen para apoyar a Adams 14

Aunque Adams 14 tuvo una relación débil con algunos de sus vecinos en el pasado, este año Loria logró convocar a sus colegas y ha recibido su apoyo. Los líderes del distrito tienen la esperanza de que otros se unan, aunque sea solamente para defender el control local.

El estado ha dicho que los distritos Mapleton, 27J y Adams 12 Five Star también participarán en el proceso de reorganización junto con Adams 14. De conformidad con la ley, un comité compuesto por miembros designados por las juntas escolares y los comités de responsabilidad de cada distrito redactará un plan para los nuevos límites geográficos del distrito. Cuando el comité y la comisionada de educación hayan aprobado un plan, éste debe ser aprobado por votación de los electores en los distritos afectados.

Y en cuanto a qué tan nuevo e incierto el proceso es, el departamento de educación originalmente publicó una hoja de información en la que se indicaba que las juntas escolares mismas necesitarían aprobar el plan. Sin embargo, ese requisito en actualidad se trata de un proceso de reorganización distinto incluido en otra sección de la ley estatal.

Mientras hablaba ante la junta escolar de Adams 14 la semana pasada, Salazar también indicó que entendía que las juntas locales necesitarán tener una votación por el plan. Eso significa que los funcionarios estatales tienen un problema, dijo él.

“Quieren pelear con el Condado de Adams, y vamos a unirnos como el Condado de Adams”, dijo.

Aunque el proceso no requiere la aprobación de las juntas escolares, éstas pueden influir en el resultado porque son las que nombran a los miembros del comité.

Y si no quieren crear un plan, el estado no puede hacer mucho para obligarlos a hacerlo. Haber eliminado la acreditación es algo mayormente simbólico — pero ha sido la amenaza detrás de las órdenes del estado en el pasado. Su propósito es hacerles saber a los padres que el distrito lleva mucho tiempo teniendo un desempeño deficiente. Pero los padres ya saben que el distrito tiene retos, y muchos se han expresado abiertamente para apoyar el liderazgo local y creen que el sistema de responsabilidad del estado los juzga injustamente.

Decisión “en las manos de la comunidad”

La Comisionada de Educación Katy Anthes dijo que la reorganización de Adams 14 no es algo seguro, y que los resultados realmente dependen de la comunidad.

“Mi esperanza es que hagan un esfuerzo de buena fe, y estoy segura de que así lo harán”, dijo Anthes. “Si deciden que no quieren reorganizarse o que un plan no tiene sentido, o no pueden definir un plan, entonces tendremos que reevaluar todo en ese momento. La decisión está en las manos de la comunidad”.

Chris Fiedler, Superintendente del Distrito 27J, dijo que apoya a Adams 14. Su distrito, basado en Brighton, cubre partes de Commerce City y estará incluido en el comité de reorganización.

“Entiendo que debemos participar según la ley. No puedo optar por no participar, aunque me gustaría”, dijo Fiedler. “De todos modos creo que lo que se necesita para el éxito de los estudiantes de Adams 14, está en Adams 14. Sé que Karla es una superintendente excepcional, realmente una de las mejores que he visto mientras he ocupado este puesto”.

Aparte de creer en el liderazgo actual del distrito, Fiedler dijo que en su opinión esto se trata del control local y confiar que los líderes del distrito conocen sus necesidades mejor que el estado.

Charlotte Ciancio, Superintendente de Mapleton, también dijo que apoyo a Adams 14 y criticó al sistema de responsabilidad del estado, que le ha dado calificaciones bajas a Adams 14.

“Lo que le está pasando a Adams 14 es resultado directo de un sistema que no asegura que a todas las comunidades se les trate de manera justa y equitativa”, dijo Ciancio en una declaración. “El sistema de responsabilidad y acreditación en Colorado tiene bastantes deficiencias. Un ejemplo de la injusticia es que para calificar a las escuelas usa los resultados de un examen administrado únicamente en inglés en una comunidad que predominantemente habla español. Mientras continuamos identificando la mejor ruta a seguir para Adams 14, ¡también continuaremos pidiendo un sistema de acreditación nuevo para las escuelas de Colorado!”

Los legisladores han ordenado una auditoría del sistema de responsabilidad del estado para determinar si está funcionando como se supone, lo cual incluye determinar si está perjudicando a los estudiantes de minorías raciales y bajos ingresos que se supone que proteja. Los resultados de esa auditoría deben estar listos en noviembre.

Les pedimos comentarios a los representantes de Adams 12 pero no recibimos respuesta. El distrito de Denver, que también colinda con Adams 14, no es parte del proceso porque una enmienda a la constitución estatal en la década de los 70 impide que los límites geográficos del distrito de Denver crezcan excepto si los límites de la ciudad cambian también.

Decisión de la junta estatal: “desestabilizante”

Jason Malmberg, presidente de la unión de maestros de Adams 14, dijo que en las escuelas la semana pasada lo que se percibía era una tristeza profunda. Muchas personas estaban confundidas por no saber cuál es el próximo paso, mientras que a otras les entristecía que el estado hubiese ido tan lejos, dijo.

Malmberg dijo que la decisión de la Junta Estatal era desestabilizante y que los miembros de la junta no lo entienden. “Las soluciones que sugieren no están ayudando”, dijo. “Están empeorando las cosas, no mejorándolas”.

Malmberg dijo que también le preocupa lo que las órdenes significan para el control local.

“¿La Junta Estatal de Educación tiene derecho, en el siglo 21 y en una democracia, para disolver un organismo elegido democráticamente?”, preguntó.

Si el comité de reorganización prepara un plan que disuelve el distrito completo, dándole las áreas a otros distritos, la junta escolar local de Adams 14 quedará disuelta.

Salazar dijo que este es un aspecto de la ley que le preocupa.

También le preocupa que reorganizar el distrito será una manera para traer más escuelas chárter, aunque Anthes dijo que ella no cree que eso esté dentro del alcance del comité de reorganización.

Otros escenarios posibles incluyen disolver a Adams 14 y crear otro distrito con nombre nuevo en los mismos límites geográficos (una manera de cambiar de marca y empezar desde cero), o dejar que los distritos vecinos absorban partes de Adams 14 para que el distrito se enfoque en menos escuelas.

Mientras tanto, los líderes de Adams 14 dicen que todavía están dedicados a educar estudiantes. Los líderes están continuando las negociaciones para trabajar con TNTP, una empresa de consultoría sin fines de lucro. Según el plan que el distrito le presentó al estado, TNTP trabajaría ‘hombro con hombro’ con la superintendente para hacer recomendaciones.

El distrito también tiene que ir ante el estado el próximo mes para presentar su plan para la Escuela Primaria Central. El distrito está pidiendo más autonomía para convertir a la Central en una escuela de la comunidad que ofrezca varios servicios de apoyo.

El estado había permitido que el distrito procediera con el plan el mes pasado, pero los Miembros de la Junta Estatal tienen que dar la aprobación final en junio o emitir otra orden de acción, que podría todavía incluir su cierre.

Anthes señaló la posibilidad de que, si los esfuerzos de mejorar del distrito tienen éxito antes de que se cree el plan de reorganización, quizás la Junta Estatal cambie de parecer.

“Es posible que el distrito implemente estos planes, que veamos que los resultados empiezan a cambiar, y que la junta entonces reevalúe su decisión”, dijo. “Quizás la orden de reorganización se cancele. Mientras tanto, las escuelas están abiertas, los niños están asistiendo a clases, y nosotros queremos que esas escuelas mejoren.”

Yesenia Robles es reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre asuntos relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia escribiendo a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Lo que necesitas saber sobre una reorganización de Adams 14

2022-05-20T20:19:20+00:00

Read the district’s submitted turnaround plan here.

El distrito escolar Adams 14 será el primero de Colorado obligado a comenzar un proceso de reorganización después de años de rendimiento académico deficiente en el sistema de contabilidad del sistema.

Como es la primera vez que la ley se usará de esta manera, hay muchas preguntas sobre cómo funcionará y qué significa. Aquí intentaremos contestar algunas preguntas importantes de las familias.

¿Se afectarán o tendrán menos valor los diplomas de los estudiantes porque el distrito perdió su acreditación?

No. El estado acredita los distritos como parte de su sistema de evaluación, pero perder la acreditación no tiene impacto en los fondos del distrito, los diplomas de los estudiantes ni la elegibilidad de los estudiantes para ir a la universidad o recibir becas. La comisionada del departamento de educación Katy Anthes dijo que la pérdida de acreditación no debe perjudicar a los estudiantes de ninguna manera. Tampoco tiene impacto en ninguna de las operaciones diarias de las escuelas.

En vez de eso, su propósito es avisarle a la comunidad que este distrito escolar lleva “demasiado tiempo” teniendo un desempeño deficiente según las calificaciones del estado, dijo ella.

¿Qué es una reorganización, y cuándo comenzará?

Hay dos leyes estatales que describen cómo iniciar una reorganización, un proceso para consolidar, anexar o crear distritos escolares. La que seleccionó la junta estatal requerirá una votación para ser aprobada por los electores del estado.

El proceso comienza con la creación de un comité compuesto por miembros de la junta y padres de los distritos afectados y que determinará los límites geográficos del distrito. Ese plan puede tener muchas formas, lo cual incluye crear un distrito nuevo con los mismos límites geográficos de Adams 14 (es decir, volver a crear el mismo distrito), o permitir que otros distritos vecinos adopten partes del distrito Adams 14 actual.

El comité sería formado después de redactar y finalizar las órdenes de la junta estatal, algo que podría tomar un par de semanas.

¿Van a cerrar las escuelas?

Por ahora no se cerrará ninguna escuela como resultado de la decisión de la junta estatal. Cuando el comité de reorganización se reúna para crear el plan a seguir, puede cerrar escuelas como parte de los cambios pero no tiene que hacerlo. Se anticipa que el proceso tome mucho tiempo, y no se completará antes de que comience el próximo año.

Adams 14 como tal, sin embargo, está considerando cerrar algunas escuelas en sus propios planes. El lunes, después de protestas de los padres, el superintendente retiró un plan para cerrar la Elemental Hanson y transferir a los estudiantes existentes a la Mónaco en el otoño. Los líderes dijeron que el cierre propuesto se necesitaba debido a una reducción en la matrícula, y para mover estudiantes de la escuela secundaria alternativa al edificio Hanson, que tiene una cafetería y espacio para más programas (algo que el edificio actual no tiene). Ramona Lewis, presidente de la junta, les dijo a los padres que ellos van a dedicar más tiempo a considerar otras opciones.

La clausura de Hanson es solo uno de los muchos cierres o combinaciones de escuelas sugeridos en una evaluación de las instalaciones de Adams 14 hecha en enero de 2020.

¿Qué tal con los padres que quieren enviar a sus hijos a otras escuelas?

Colorado permite inscripción abierta, y los padres siempre tienen el derecho de enviar a sus hijos a cualquier escuela que tenga espacio. Más de 3,000 estudiantes que viven dentro de los límites geográficos de Adams 14 ya están asistiendo a las escuelas de distritos vecinos.

A partir del próximo año escolar, algunas familias podrían recibir asistencia del estado para el transporte. Los detalles todavía se están definiendo, pero la Junta Estatal de Educación aprobó planes para desarrollar un programa de subvenciones para cubrir los costos de transporte de las familias de las escuelas con desempeño más deficiente.

¿Cómo participará la comunidad en los planes de reorganización?

Primero, se requiere que al menos un padre de cada uno de los distritos afectados — Adams 14, Mapleton, Adams 12 y 27J — sea parte del comité. Los padres serán seleccionados por los comités de responsabilidad de los distritos. Luego, las reuniones del comité de reorganización tienen que estar abiertas al público. Cuando el comité tenga un borrador del plan, se requiere que tenga reuniones con la comunidad para presentarlo y recibir comentarios y retroalimentación. El comité debe entonces tomar esa retroalimentación en cuenta para finalizar el plan y luego presentarlo al estado para que lo aprueben.

Una vez el plan sea aprobado por el comisionado, entonces será presentado a los votantes. Finalmente, los votantes de los distritos afectados tendrán la última voz para aprobar o rechazar el plan.

¿El distrito puede apelar la decisión del estado de iniciar una reorganización?

Aunque no hay un proceso formal de apelación, se espera que el distrito desafíe las órdenes del estado ante los tribunales. Joe Salazar, uno de los abogados de Adams 14, dice que cree que al estado se le requería tener un proceso de apelación para las órdenes de la junta fuera de los tribunales. Los funcionarios de educación del estado dijeron que a su entender, ese requisito no existe.

¿El distrito tendrá una nueva compañía de administración?

Como el proceso para reorganizar el distrito tomará mucho tiempo, la junta estatal también aprobó una orden que requiere que Adams 14 nuevamente contrate una compañía de administración externa. La junta estatal quiere que el distrito esté bajo administración completa, igual que cuando era administrado por MGT Consulting, pero esta vez está permitiendo que el distrito retenga control de sus propias finanzas.

Sin embargo, los líderes de Adams 14 están procediendo con negociaciones para contratar a la empresa sin fines de lucro TNTP como administradores, pero bajo el plan existente de que sean administradores parciales. El abogado del distrito y otros líderes del distrito ahora piensan que la orden del estado en 2018 para que el superintendente renunciara su autoridad es ilegal. En el plan de administración parcial, ellos le darían a TNTP completa autoridad sobre el departamento de recursos humanos, pero no la autoridad para contratar o despedir empleados.

Esta fue una inquietud de los miembros de la junta estatal durante la audiencia de esta semana. Los líderes de Adams 14 todavía alegan que el plan es suficiente para cumplir la orden del estado. Se anticipa que esta sea otra área en la que el estado y el distrito podrían no estar de acuerdo.

Adams 14 resists reorganization, neighboring districts pledge support

2022-05-16T17:55:11+00:00

Leer en español.

Adams 14 leaders plan to resist state efforts to reorganize the long-struggling school district, and they’re getting support from their neighboring districts, a united front that suggests the state will face an uphill battle in its efforts to force change on the community.

“I think we’re going to have far more allies on this than the State Board,” said Joe Salazar, an attorney for Adams 14.

The Adams 14 school district north of Denver has tested the power of the state’s accountability law as it has faced many firsts. Unlike other states, Colorado does not have the authority to directly take over the operations of school districts.

In 2018, when the state ordered the district to submit to an external manager after years of low academic performance, the local school board remained in place. And in 2021, when that board hired its own superintendent, Karla Loria, she soon pushed out the management company, MGT Consulting.

Now, concerned that district leaders don’t have what it takes to lead new plans to improve student performance, and that they’re unwilling to share enough responsibility with outside help to do so, the State Board of Education has stripped the district’s accreditation and ordered that it be reorganized, a move that could mean the dissolution of the district, school closures, and students being absorbed by neighboring districts.

But Colorado has never done this before, leaving many unanswered questions about how the process would work. Meanwhile, the law gives local communities significant leverage over the state.

Neighboring leaders rally to Adams 14’s side

While Adams 14 has had a tenuous relationship with some of its neighbors in the past, Loria this year rallied colleagues and has received their support. District leaders hope others will join them, even if it’s just to defend local control.

The state has named Mapleton, 27J, and Adams 12 Five Star school districts as participants in the reorganization process along with Adams 14. According to the law, a committee made up of members appointed by the school boards and district accountability committees of each district would draft a plan for new district boundaries. Once a plan has been approved by the committee and the education commissioner, it must go to the voters of the affected districts.

Speaking to how new and uncertain the process is, the state education department originally put out a fact sheet that indicated the school boards themselves would need to sign off on the plan. But that requirement actually pertains to a different reorganization process in another section of state law.

When he briefed the Adams 14 school board last week, Salazar also believed local boards would need to vote on the plan. That means state officials have a problem, he said.

“You want to mess with Adams County, we’re going to rally like Adams County,” he said.

While the process doesn’t require the approval of school boards, they can shape the outcome by appointing committee members.

And if they don’t want to create a plan, there’s little the state can do to force compliance. Removing accreditation is mostly symbolic — though it has been the threat behind state orders in the past. It’s meant to show parents that the district has been consistently low performing. But parents already know the district has challenges, and many have been outspoken in support of local leadership and believe the state accountability system judges them unfairly.

Decision “in the hands of the community”

Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said the reorganization of Adams 14 is not a foregone conclusion, and the outcome really depends on the community.

“I hope they make a good faith effort, and I have no doubt they will do that,” Anthes said. “If they make this decision that they don’t want to reorganize or a plan doesn’t make sense or they can’t come up with a plan, we’ll have to reevaluate the plan at that stage. The decision is in the hands of the community.”

District 27J Superintendent Chris Fiedler said that he supports Adams 14. His Brighton-based district covers parts of Commerce City and will be included in the reorganization committee.

“I believe we’re compelled to participate under the law. I can’t opt out, but I’d like to,” Fiedler said. “I still believe the answers to providing success to the students in Adams 14, they exist in Adams 14. I believe Karla to be an exceptional superintendent, certainly one of the best ones I’ve seen in my tenure.”

Besides believing in the district’s current leadership, Fiedler said for him, this is about local control and trusting that district leaders know their needs better than the state does.

Mapleton’s Superintendent Charlotte Ciancio also said she supports Adams 14 and criticized the state accountability system that has given Adams 14 low ratings.

“What’s happening to Adams 14 is a direct result of a system that fails to assure fairness and equity across all communities,” Ciancio said in a statement. “The accountability and accreditation system in Colorado is significantly flawed. Using the results of a test administered only in English in a community that is primarily Spanish speaking to rank their schools is but one example of the injustice. As we move forward to identify the next best path for Adams 14, we will continue to call for a new accreditation system for Colorado’s schools!”

Lawmakers have ordered an audit of the state’s accountability system to determine whether it’s working as intended, including whether it hurts the low-income students of color the system is supposed to protect. The results are due in November.

Adams 12 representatives did not respond to a request for comment. Denver, which also borders Adams 14, is not part of the process because a 1970s state constitutional amendment prevents Denver’s school district boundaries from growing unless the city’s boundaries also change.

State board decision “destabilizing”

Jason Malmberg, president of the Adams 14 teachers union, said the feeling in schools last week was one of heartbreak. Many people are confused as to what comes next, while others feel upset that the state would step in so far, he said.

Malmberg said the State Board decision was destabilizing in ways board members can’t understand. “The solutions being suggested are not helping,” he said. “They’re making it worse, not better.”

Malmberg said he’s also worried about what the orders mean for local control.

“Does the State Board of Education have the right, in the 21st century, in a democratic country, to dissolve a democratically elected body?” he asked.

If the reorganization committee were to draft a plan that dissolves the district entirely, giving up areas to other districts, the local school board of Adams 14 would be dissolved.

Salazar said that is an area of concern he has about the law.

He also worries that reorganizing the district will be a way to bring in more charter schools, though Anthes said she doesn’t believe that would be under the scope of the reorganization committee.

Other possible scenarios include dissolving Adams 14 and creating a new district with a new name and the exact same boundaries, as a way to rebrand and get a fresh start, or letting neighboring districts take on just parts of Adams 14, so the district could focus on improving fewer schools.

In the meantime, Adams 14 leaders say they’re still working on educating students. Leaders there are continuing negotiations to partner with nonprofit consultant TNTP. According to the plan the district presented to the state, TNTP would work “side by side” with the superintendent to make recommendations.

The district will also have to go back to the state next month to present its plan for Central Elementary. The district is seeking more autonomy to turn Central into a community school offering various support services.

The state had allowed the district to proceed with the plan last month to flesh it out, but State Board members must give final approval in June or order another action, which could still include closure.

Anthes raised the possibility that if district improvement efforts are successful before a reorganization plan is created, perhaps the State Board may change course.

“We could see the district implement these plans, and we could see outcomes starting to change and my board could revisit the decision,” she said. “Maybe the reorganization order would go away. In the meantime schools are open, kids are going to school and we want those schools to improve.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s what reorganization could mean for Adams 14

2022-05-16T15:45:12+00:00

Leer en español.

The Adams 14 school district is set to be the first district in Colorado forced to start a reorganization process after years of low academic performance on the state’s accountability system.

Since this would be the first time for the law to be used this way, there are many questions about how it works and what it means. Here, we try to answer some important questions for families.

Will student diplomas be affected, or worth any less, because the district lost its accreditation?

No. The state accredits districts as part of the state accountability system, but losing accreditation doesn’t impact a district’s funding, student diplomas, or student eligibility to go to college or to get scholarships. Katy Anthes, the commissioner for the education department, said loss of accreditation shouldn’t hurt students at all. It also doesn’t impact any daily school operations.

Instead, it is meant to signal to the community that this school district has been low-performing based on the state’s ratings “for far too long,” she said.

What is reorganization and when will it start?

There are two state laws outlining how to start reorganization, a process for consolidating, annexing, or creating school districts. The one the state board has selected ultimately will require voter approval.

The process starts with creating a committee made up of board members and parents from affected districts to reimagine district boundaries. That plan could take many forms, including creating a new district with the same boundaries as Adams 14, (essentially restarting the same district), or allowing neighboring districts to take over parts of the existing Adams 14.

That committee would be formed after the state board’s orders are written out and finalized, which may take a couple of weeks.

Are schools closing?

For now, schools are not closing as a result of the state board’s decision. When the reorganization committee meets to create a plan, it can close schools as part of the changes, but doesn’t have to. That process is expected to take a long time and will not be completed before next school year.

Adams 14 itself, however, is considering closing schools in its own plans. On Monday, after parent outcry, the superintendent pulled a plan to close Hanson Elementary and transfer existing students to Monaco in the fall. Leaders said the proposed closure was needed because of declining enrollment, and to move students from the alternative high school into Hanson’s building, which has a cafeteria and space for more programming, something the current building doesn’t have. Ramona Lewis, the board president, told parents they would take more time to consider options.

The shuttering of Hanson is just one of many closures or school mergers suggested in a facilities assessment for Adams 14 from January 2020.

What about parents who want to send their children to other schools?

Colorado allows open enrollment, and parents always have the right to send their child to any school that has room. More than 3,000 students who live within Adams 14 boundaries already attend school in neighboring districts.

Starting next school year, some families might get state assistance with transportation. The details are still being worked out, but the State Board of Education signed off on plans to develop a grant program to cover transportation costs for families in the lowest-performing schools.

How does the community get to participate in reorganization plans?

First, at least one parent from each of the affected districts — Adams 14, Mapleton, Adams 12, and 27J — will need to be part of the committee. The parents will be chosen by the district’s accountability committees. Then, meetings of the reorganization committee have to be open to the public. Once the committee has a draft of a plan, it is required to hold community meetings to share the proposal and gather feedback. The committee is then supposed to take that feedback into account to finalize the plan before submitting it to the state for approval.

After the plan is approved by the commissioner, it will go to the voters. Ultimately, voters in the participating affected districts will have the final say to approve or deny the plan.

Can the district appeal the state’s decision to start reorganization?

While there is no formal appeal process, the district is expected to file court challenges to the state orders. Joe Salazar, an Adams 14 attorney, said he believes the state was required to have an appeals process outside of the courts for these state board orders. State education officials said they don’t believe that to be a requirement.

Will the district have a new management company?

Since the process to reorganize the district will take a long time, the state board also passed an order that requires Adams 14 to again contract with an external manager. The state board wants the district to be under full management, just as when it was under MGT Consulting, but this time is allowing the district to retain control of its own finances.

However, Adams 14 leaders are proceeding with negotiations to hire the nonprofit TNTP, not as full managers, but under the existing plan to make them partial managers. The district’s attorney and other district leaders now believe the state’s order from 2018 forcing the superintendent to give up authority is illegal. In the partial management plan, they would give TNTP full authority over the human resources department, but not the authority to hire or fire employees.

This was a concern for state board members at this week’s hearing. Adams 14 leaders still claim the plan will be enough to comply with the state’s order. This is expected to be another area where the state and district could disagree.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that under the process ordered by the State Board, only voters will have to approve the reorganization plan recommended by the committee and the commissioner. School boards will not vote on the plan.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Changing course, State Board orders reorganization of Adams 14 district

2022-05-10T23:52:18+00:00

The Adams 14 school district must be reorganized, leading to possible dissolution or takeover by neighboring districts, the State Board of Education ruled Tuesday afternoon.

This makes the district north of Denver the first in the state to be required to start a process for reorganization. Adams 14 already was the first district that Colorado ordered to relinquish management to an outside entity, because of persistent low achievement.

The decision was a major change in direction after last month’s hearing, when State Board members expressed some trust in the district and its new leaders and allowed them to flesh out their plan to hire an outside manager to assume only partial authority.

But Tuesday, the three-year turnaround plan presented by Adams 14, which was still not finalized, fell flat for State Board members. Primarily, they said they didn’t see it truly giving any authority to the selected management partner. They were also disappointed that Adams 14 did not bring representatives from the management group to speak directly to the state.

The board voted 4 to 3 in favor of reorganization. Board Chair Angelika Schroeder, a Democrat, joined the three Republican members, Steve Durham, Joyce Rankin, and Debora Scheffel, in support of reorganization. Democratic State Board members Lisa Escárcega, Karla Esser, and Rebecca McClellan voted against reorganization.

The vote also immediately pulls the district’s accreditation. The state board has done that once before but it should not affect students or daily operations, a state website notes and the district’s attorney said.

In addition to beginning that reorganization process, the State Board also voted unanimously to require Adams 14 to continue under full outside management, as described in 2018 orders, but with a new partner, the non-profit TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project. In the new iteration, the state will now allow financial responsibilities to fall under the district’s purview instead of the external manager.

Adams 14 leaders had previously told the state that TNTP might not be interested in full management responsibilities.

Reorganization had been recommended by a review panel prior to the state’s hearing. No Colorado school district has gone through reorganization, and the end result for the district could be a number of things.

The process for reorganization is laid out in state law and requires a committee made up of people from Adams 14 and neighboring districts to create a plan to change district boundaries, which could include creating new districts or dissolving existing districts.

Specifically, the State Board requested Mapleton, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, and the 27J district participate. The plan must be approved by a majority of the committee and by the state’s education commissioner.

Creating the plan would take time and could be slowed by legal challenges.

Attorney Joe Salazar, who began representing the district a few months ago, has made clear that the district will challenge any state decision that takes away local district authority or control. As state board members were about to adjourn, Salazar argued with them to allow him to state his objections “for court review.”

He told the state that the district has followed all of the asks from the state, and that “punishing” the district for not having brought representatives from TNTP was “arbitrary and capricious.”

Robert Lundin, a district spokesman, said that district leaders are “disappointed and puzzled,” after the hearing. He said the superintendent was busy in meetings and could not respond to questions.

Lundin said that the district feels the rules were changed on them and that the district’s turnaround plan had as much detail as it could have at this point, without having signed a contract with the partner yet. He said the district is exploring all next steps.

Last month the State Board hearing was packed with community members showing their support for the district and hoping the state wouldn’t close schools or order reorganization. The district had provided busing to parents who wanted to attend, and an interpreter was on hand.

Tuesday’s hearing on the other hand was empty except for three local board members and a handful of other observers.

There was little discussion after the motion for reorganization was presented, and board members who voted against it seemed conflicted. Esser, who represents the area of Adams 14, had said that she would have to “deliberate in my own head.”

“I also have fear that a partial manager would not be allowed to be independent and do what they needed to do without blowback,” Esser said. “This is a very difficult place for this board to be in.”

Rankin said that with the urgency required, she wanted to have seen more substantial changes in the proposed turnaround plan.

“I do think we need something better than what we have,” Rankin said. She particularly singled out a portion of the district’s turnaround plan that calls for hiring new staff members including more interventionists and coordinators for math and English at each school.

“That’s a lot more people to pile on to watch the teachers do what they should know how to do,” Rankin said. “They should be trained in what to do. Adding more people I don’t think is going to be the answer. I don’t think we’re on the right path now.”

Board Chair Schroeder said that unless TNTP “does magic” they would be unlikely to pull the district out of turnaround status.

“I know you’d like us to trust you,” Schroeder said. “You feel very strongly about having control, but it hasn’t served your families — it simply hasn’t served your families well enough.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado may offer Adams 14 students transportation to other schools

2022-04-30T00:04:19+00:00

Some Adams 14 students who want to attend higher-performing schools may have more options this fall as the state seems poised to pay for transportation.

This would represent the first time the state covered transportation costs for students who want to transfer from low-rated schools to better ones. The conversation comes weeks after the State Board of Education gave the district more time to develop improvement plans.

On Friday, Colorado Department of Education staff presented two possible options for funding transportation to the State Board of Education. The board chose not to pick one, but instead asked the department to pursue both, in the interest of time, to see if one might work out by the beginning of the 2022-23 school year.

Board members said that since Adams 14 is “in a crisis” — it’s the first district where several years of low performance triggered a state intervention that included external management — they want to eliminate the transportation barrier for students who want to attend school elsewhere under Colorado’s open enrollment program. Adams 14 has about 6,100 students enrolled while about 3,000 students have choiced out of the district.

Transportation has been a major barrier to exercising school choice both within districts and across district lines. Advocates say students deserve more opportunities, but school districts have raised objections because losing students threatens their ability to fund programming for those who remain.

This would mark the first time the state would step in to provide transportation funding for those who choose schools outside their neighborhoods.

“We are so limited in options available to help kids,” said State Board Chair Angelika Schroeder. “This is hopefully one other option.”

Most districts don’t provide transportation for students who enroll in schools other than the ones in their neighborhood. And state law prohibits school districts from offering transportation across district boundaries without consent from the district that is losing students. A previous Republican-led effort to change the law was unsuccessful.

Other entities, such as public transportation systems or private companies paid by the state, wouldn’t face that prohibition.

The first option relies on a plan already written in state law that was never funded or rolled out. It calls for having the state provide “tokens,” though it’s unclear whether that will be directly paying families with K-8 students enrolled in low-performing schools, reimbursing them, giving them bus passes, or something else. The draft rules presented Friday would limit eligibility to students enrolled in schools with the two lowest state ratings — priority improvement and turnaround — located within a district that also has one of the two lowest ratings for more than five subsequent years.

In Colorado, only three Adams 14 elementary schools would meet that criteria, according to department staff.

The department would have to scramble to find a lawmaker to introduce and help pass statutory changes allowing the program to be funded with ESSR relief funds before the end of the legislative session scheduled for May 11.

Because of several existing laws, students would likely be limited to public transportation at first, though private transportation could be added later.

For the second option, the department is considering creating a grant program so that districts, nonprofits, or other private transportation providers could apply directly for funding to transport students to schools of their choice. The state could be able to expand eligibility by making it available to high schools or beyond the three Adams 14 elementary schools eligible under the criteria mentioned in option one.

Department staff pointed out that although they are interested in providing transportation to Adams 14 students, a grant option means anyone in the state could apply for the money to start offering rides, and if Adams 14 doesn’t want to apply, the state would have to wait until someone else in the area, like a nonprofit or the regional transportation system, wants to do it.

Lisa Escárcega, the only board member who voted against exploring the two options, commented that a similar program had existed in the past under federal rules requiring that districts offer transportation within their district if a family wanted to send their children to higher performing schools.

“The feds dropped that requirement because analysis showed it didn’t actually end up benefiting or changing student experience or improving achievement, or whatever it was,” Escárcega said. “We did have some parents who took us up on this … but eventually a lot of districts had no parents that wanted to take them up on it. They don’t want their kids going across the district.”

Adams 14 officials did not respond on Friday to a request for comment.

The State Board plans to continue discussing the grant options at its regular May meeting.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

For Adams 14, state won’t reorganize or close schools, but wants outside help

2022-04-15T01:15:06+00:00

Rejecting recommendations to reorganize the troubled Adams 14 school district or close schools, the Colorado Board of Education on Thursday instead indicated it will likely grant the district some autonomy but will require partial outside management.

Still, the State Board left open the options of school closures or district reorganization if the district fails to present a high-quality plan in about a month for retaining its authority to manage itself. But community support and the district’s new leadership, along with a lack of multiple options, persuaded some State Board members to reject an outside panel’s advice and instead give the district another chance to manage itself.

The State Board will consider partial outside management of Adams 14, as the district has requested, but wants clearly defined roles and responsibilities of each party, to try to avoid the power struggles that emerged between the district and its previous management company.

Adams 14 Superintendent Karla Loria said after the hearing that she was happy, excited, and emotional, and she agreed with the State Board’s requests for clearly outlined roles in a partial management plan.

“I think it’s very wise on behalf of the State Board to ask for those details — what they’re going to be over, in what authority,” Loria said. “What I can tell you is that they will not be over finances — that will remain at the board level.”

Initially, the State Board discussed requiring the district to continue under full external management. In 2018 the district became the first one the state ordered to hand over all authority to an external manager. But this time concerns about a lack of qualified or interested management groups pushed State Board members to consider a partial management plan.

Adams 14 now must submit that plan before the board’s May 11 meeting, in time for education department to review it and to evaluate the manager that the district selects.

Separately, the board requested the district come up with a complete plan for quasi-autonomy for Central Elementary, which is under separate scrutiny for low performance. The State Board requested a complete plan for what’s known as innovation status, including proof that a majority of the school’s staff have voted to approve the plan.

The district must submit Central’s plan for state staff review before the board’s June meeting.

“We are up to the challenge,” Loria said. “We will deliver. It is aggressive but it is doable. We will make it work.”

Adams 14 school board President Ramona Lewis said she didn’t expect Thursday’s outcome, and now feels like the state is willing to listen to the Adams 14 community.

She said the timeline is aggressive, but “our kids need aggressive. We’ve recognized that we really need to make a push and to make sure our kids get what they need.”

State Board member Lisa Escarcega cast the sole vote against the request for Central, citing concern that having a partial manager plus many consultants at the school as part of its other plans would become a disaster.

State Board member Karla Esser asked the district also to examine the condition of Central’s building and plan to address those facilities challenges too.

The State Board also considered scheduling a separate hearing for Adams City High School, which would require a new state review panel to go into the school, but given that school is over in about a month, said it would not be possible. A review panel for the district had recommended closing Adams City High School for persistent low performance. State Board member Steve Durham said that would be “impractical and damaging to children.”

The board instead asked the district to come up with a robust plan for improvement of the high school as part of the district’s plan.

Leaders of Adams 14, which serves about 6,000 students in working-class suburbs north of Denver, spent much of their time before the State Board Thursday describing the demographics of their district, which includes a majority of students living in poverty, and a high proportion of students who are classified as English learners.

Low achievement has placed the district on the state’s watchlist since 2010. Previous improvement plans have failed, and the latest state-ordered plan fell apart after Adams 14 parted ways with its external manager earlier this year.

District leaders called the state’s accountability process racist, and suggested the State Board’s measures were punitive. A lawyer for the district said he was aiming to create a record so that courts could review any negative action the State Board takes against the district. District lawyers also question the legality of the original order to relinquish its self-management.

State Board members disputed the district’s claims. Most also said they felt more confidence in current district leaders and in Superintendent Karla Loria than in previous administrations.

When asked why she hasn’t yet developed a complete plan for turning the district around, Loria said she would not introduce a plan from the top down without involving the community.

When one State Board member asked how the community could heal after years of turmoil, Loria said the answer was in listening to them.

“That’s why I continue saying the plan that I have, the vision that I bring to the district, is to listen to them,” Loria said speaking of the community. “They want to be part of the solution. They want to be part of the development of the plan. I can come top down with a plan, but I won’t.”

The State Board considered hundreds of pages of public comment submitted in letters and surveys. Among those that addressed external management, 45 supported some version of management, while 42 opposed it. Messages supporting or opposing local district leadership were similarly mixed, according to Education Department staff.

Messages addressing school closure were much more likely to say the schools should remain open, with just seven comments favoring closure. None in the case of Central Elementary.

Among those who submitted public comment, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis expressed support for “transformational change” in the district, and offered state dollars to support improvement plans.

“As governor I would seek to use a portion of federal custodial funds I have at my disposal to work in coordination with the Colorado Department of Education to facilitate successful transformational change in Adams 14,” Polis wrote.

He didn’t mention how much the state would provide, but did speak of a $2 million RISE grant from the state that is helping the high school to provide more career pathways, and hinted at a larger investment that “could have an even greater impact in promoting elementary, middle, and high school transformation.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 prepares case for local control in advance of State Board hearing

2022-04-12T02:12:41+00:00

Facing a hearing this week that could determine the fate of Adams 14 schools, district leaders plan to ask the state to trust local leaders to oversee their own plan to improve schools.

The state has threatened to dissolve the 6,100-student school district, which serves mostly working-class suburbs north of Denver and has received the state’s lowest ratings since 2010. Adams 14 leaders will argue that they have both the will and the skills to pull up the district themselves.

State Board of Education members have expressed concern about local leadership after the school board fired an external management company, MGT Consulting. A state panel of outside experts has recommended closing the main high school and reorganizing the district.

Thursday’s hearing will consist of two parts. In the morning, the State Board of Education will consider how to improve the district as a whole. Those orders could include changes at the high school, despite district leaders telling the community the high school’s future is not on the agenda.

In the afternoon, the State Board will hear recommendations for Central Elementary.

In both hearings, State Board members will consider information from education department staff, an external review panel’s report, the district’s own plan, and public feedback.

While the review panel’s recommendations have been public for some weeks, the district has been less open about its own plans.

Documents given to the state and recent public meetings give some insight.

Adams 14 leaders propose hiring a new external manager overseen by the district, instead of one that would have full authority over the district.

They propose turning Central Elementary into a community school with partners that would provide resources to address non-academic issues that could affect children’s abilities to learn.

The district, which refused to grant an interview, has not presented a plan specifically for the high school. It has publicly insisted that the state would not decide the school’s fate this month.

But a spokesperson for the state confirmed that the State Board can order changes to the high school, or any school, on Thursday.

Adams 14 School District

The state-ordered improvement plans in Adams 14 have escalated over the years, and in the past have included partial management plans where a previous superintendent oversaw consultants’ work. Most recently in 2018, the State Board of Education required the district to hand over most daily operations to an outside entity, expressing a lack of trust in local leaders to improve low achievement.

The district now has new leadership, but a new state review panel, convened after Adams 14 released its previous external manager, reported that district administration still lacks the skills.

The panel suggested possibly reorganizing the district, including closing at least the main high school. That could mean entirely or partially dissolving the district, or redrawing boundaries to give neighboring districts control over parts of Adams 14. To do that, state law lays out a process that has never been used. This represents the most aggressive state intervention possible in a school district.

Adams 14 leaders argue they are qualified and their leadership really only began in February, after MGT left. The district submitted the resumes of board members and other district leaders to back their claim.

A new attorney hired by the district during its fight with MGT has said the district is prepared to fight the state to retain local control. A lawsuit seeking to change the terms of this week’s hearing was unsuccessful, but in one win, the district will get an extra 30 minutes to make its case.

Although the district plan calls for a management partner, it does not name one. The district put out a request for bids and received only one application, from nonprofit TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project. The district has refused to release a copy of that application.

After removing a vote on the external manager from a recent board agenda, the district instead has hosted several community forums with the applicant in recent days.

“This is not by any means a process we want to rush or push through just to finalize it,” Superintendent Karla Loria said at one of the meetings. “I think this is an important aspect of our planning on how to improve.”

At the forums, district principals and board members asked questions about what kind of support the consultant would provide for English learners, who make up about half of all Adams 14 students, about what their first 90 days with the district would look like, and how they would incorporate community engagement.

Team leaders from TNTP gave many examples of their work in other districts similar to Adams 14, where they have trained teachers to tailor lessons for students with different needs such as English learners. They said community engagement was important, and that student voice was especially useful for letting teachers understand how their teaching was being received.

They said they wanted to be sure that the Adams 14 community wanted to work with them. Much of the first 90 days would be listening to the community and the district about its needs, TNTP leaders said.

TNTP worked with the Houston school district at the same time Loria led a team of schools there. A case study from TNTP’s website about work in the district talks about how teacher evaluations changed so that teachers had more feedback about how to improve.

Central Elementary

Meanwhile, the district plans for Central Elementary may win more favor from the State Board.

Before the pandemic, the school seemed to be making improvements, and external observers found reasons to be hopeful.

Adams 14’s plan for Central would consist of using innovation status — a status that gives schools, where staff and community agree, autonomy from certain state mandates or teacher union rules — to become a community school. The draft plan as submitted to the state would consist of expanding the time students spend on math and reading, using tutors, adding before- and after-school child care, and creating financial incentives for hard-to-staff positions.

The district also plans to put out more requests for bids to work with other organizations to bring additional resources to the school. So far, the plan notes, the district has secured commitments from groups that MGT had hired and that were already working with Adams 14 schools.

Vocal parent advocates with students at Central say they trust district leaders because they feel heard, and they want to see the community school model put in place.

Adams City High School

While the district hasn’t submitted a plan to the state about the high school, leaders at Adams City High School say they’ve been working on improvement plans anyway.

And much of what they started with MGT is continuing.

“When I speak to instruction and school structures and program monitoring of our performance — those three things have been consistent,” said Chris Garcia, principal of Adams City High School.

The plan includes the introduction of more career tracks, or pathways that let students earn certifications along with their diplomas.

This semester, the school is expecting about 80 seniors to graduate with certificates in business or construction from Front Range Community College. The high school resumed participation in the state’s ASCENT program which allows high school students to stay in high school for a fifth year while earning college credit for free.

Natalie Johnson, an assistant principal at Adams City, said she wishes the number of students taking and passing college courses at the high school were given more consideration in evaluating the school’s performance.

“These kids are working hard,” Johnson said.

The school has been using a RISE grant to build out the career pathways, but finding teachers is a challenge. Johnson said there are 69 students on a waitlist hoping to participate in a Certified Nursing Assistant program, but the high school has struggled to recruit a credentialed instructor.

Garcia said the school’s challenge is getting students motivated to be in school and to turn in their work. The school is considering moving some classes to the evening to accommodate students who are working to support their families.

“We have to find ways to encourage them to stay and grind it out, and parents have to help us with that expectation,” Garcia said, “but also understanding that some of our kids are having to deal with other things.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

State panel sees signs of promise at Adams 14’s Central Elementary

2022-03-30T22:05:12+00:00

In contrast to drastic recommendations to reorganize the Adams 14 school district as a whole, a state review panel is suggesting a less disruptive approach at the district’s long-struggling Central Elementary School, where reviewers heard promises of improvement.

The panelists are recommending Central Elementary become an innovation school, which would give it more autonomy over its budget, calendar, teacher training, and more. The panelists are also suggesting Central work with a “partial management partner” that could help the school carry out its vision and train its staff but not assume total control.

The Adams 14 school district serves Commerce City, a working-class suburb of Denver. On state orders, the district turned over day-to-day operations to a private management company, MGT Consulting. Then the district hired its own superintendent, Karla Loria, and recently terminated its two-year relationship with MGT.

The entire district, as well as Central Elementary and Adams City High schools, are still under state orders to boost student achievement. The State Board of Education is set to meet April 14 to decide next steps for the district as a whole and also for Central.

Adams 14 leaders support the innovation idea and have already begun developing a plan that would include extending Central’s school day, hiring more reading and math tutors, and providing wraparound services for families, including before- and after-school child care.

Conversion to a district-run innovation school is less drastic than the State Board’s other options, which include closing Central or converting it to an independently run charter school.

The state review panel — which was composed of a retired superintendent from the St. Vrain Valley School District and an administrator from Aurora Public Schools — ruled out converting Central to a charter school or closing it altogether. The panel’s recommendations are important because the State Board will consider them when making its decision.

“There is a clear commitment from the school community to Central Elementary School,” the review panel’s report said. “This was especially true of parents and community members, who indicated a strong desire to keep Central Elementary open.”

The state review panel report noted that Central’s new principal who was hired in November has created “more consistency and stability” at the school and has begun to identify strategies that will likely lead to academic gains for students — but it’s too early to be sure.

Adams 14 leaders on Tuesday laid out their vision for Central. As an innovation school, Central could waive certain district policies, state laws, and portions of the teachers union contract.

Those waivers would allow Central to operate differently from other Adams 14 schools with the goal of improving learning for Central’s 432 students. Ninety percent of students at Central are students of color, 79% come from low-income families, 57% are learning English as a second language, and 15% qualify for special education services.

Robert Lundin, the district’s executive director of communications and special projects, told the Adams 14 school board that becoming an innovation school would allow Central to do several things, including:

Extend its school day to offer students more reading and math instruction, as well as provide teachers more time to plan lessons and analyze student achievement data.
Expand a math and reading tutoring program.
Hire an agency to find special education staff.
Provide each teacher with a customized plan for training and professional learning.
Offer financial incentives to staff members in hard-to-fill positions.
Host forums to gather feedback from families, teachers, and others.
Expand social and emotional learning to all students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
Create a “student success coordinator” position to oversee improving school culture, social and emotional learning, and restorative practices, which is a discipline approach that focuses on repairing harm rather than punishing students.
Establish a community schools model that would provide non-academic services to both students and families, including before- and after-school child care.

The Adams 14 school board supports the community schools model, which aims to provide services to families so that circumstances at home don’t become barriers to student learning. Lundin said the goal is so “no parent ever feels hesitant to walk through the schoolhouse doors because they know it’s really part of their community and it’s their home too.”

The community schools model has been gaining traction with Colorado lawmakers, who are considering a bill that would establish community schools as a state-approved strategy for improving schools with persistently low test scores. But one of the bill’s main sponsors has said the proposal is not meant for schools already facing state intervention, such as Adams 14.

The bill isn’t law yet. Proposing to provide services such as child care and food pantries is allowed as part of an innovation plan. It’s unclear how the State Board will view Adams 14’s plan for Central, though Loria said Colorado Department of Education officials had reviewed a draft and provided feedback that the district would incorporate.

Read the state review panel’s report below.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Los padres de Adams 14 quieren que el estado les dé otra oportunidad a sus escuelas locales

2022-03-29T16:09:11+00:00

La primera noche después de enterarse de que las 14 escuelas de Adams están en riesgo de cerrar, Cristina Ruiz (madre de dos niños y cuyo hijo mayor empezará la secundaria en otoño) dio vueltas en la cama toda la noche.

¿A qué escuela van a ir sus hijos? ¿Cómo van a inscribirse en otros distritos sin una dirección local? ¿Qué tanto se van a llenar esas escuelas? ¿Va a poder manejar hasta allá?

Muchas de estas mismas preocupaciones son las que están pesando sobre los padres, estudiantes y miembros de la comunidad a medida que la Junta Estatal de Educación está a punto de tener una vista pública en abril para decidir el destino del distrito, que ha batallado durante años con inestabilidad y puntuaciones deficientes en los exámenes de aptitud.

Un panel externo de expertos recomendó cerrar como mínimo la escuela secundaria principal del distrito y reorganizar el distrito, posiblemente cerrando otras escuelas. Los líderes del distrito quieren, en cambio, crear escuelas en la comunidad con amplios servicios de apoyo para involucrar a las familias y hacerle frente a la pobreza.

La Junta Estatal considerará ambas recomendaciones, y también las ideas del público y del personal del departamento de educación, antes de tomar una decisión en una vista pública que se celebrará en abril.

Muchos padres y estudiantes se sienten excluidos del proceso del estado y confundidos por la recomendación, que consideran una medida drástica que desplazará a los estudiantes.

“Cerrar las escuelas no es una solución”, dijo Ruiz. “En lugar de ayudarnos, nos están perjudicando.”

Los estudiantes y padres que han tenido tanto buenas como malas experiencias en el distrito quieren que el estado les dé otra oportunidad a sus escuelas.

JoJo López, de 19 años y estudiante de último año de la Adams City High School, teme que la mayoría de los estudiantes han perdido la esperanza y piensan que los líderes estatales ya tomaron su decisión.

López, que camina a la escuela cada mañana - “solamente unos buenos 30 minutos” - dijo que le preocupa cómo los estudiantes como ella van a llegar a una escuela fuera de su comunidad. Muchas familias no tienen auto o no conducen, dijo ella.

Pero sí cree que la escuela secundaria necesita cambiar. López fue diagnosticada con ansiedad y síndrome de Tourette y ha estado esperando una evaluación para recibir servicios especializados pero la escuela ha estado ocupada, dijo. Y cuando pide ayuda extra a los maestros, ellos dicen que no porque ella no tiene un plan de necesidades especiales, dijo.

“Siento que necesito más tiempo y ayuda individual de los maestros. Para mí es muy difícil aprender como lo hacen los demás”, dijo López. “En mi caso, si tomo notas mi cerebro se desconcierta por completo.”

Cuando empieza a preocuparse por aprobar una clase y acude a los consejeros académicos, ellos también están siempre ocupados, dijo. Aun así, cree que está en camino de graduarse en mayo.

Para otros estudiantes, cree que los problemas giran en torno a la seguridad. Hace unos años, su hermana mayor abandonó la escuela tras meterse en problemas cuando tuvo que defenderse en una pelea. Otros amigos que conoce han abandonado la escuela secundaria más recientemente por preocupaciones similares con las peleas.

“Quiero que los estudiantes que son menores que yo puedan graduarse y obtener una mejor educación”, dijo López. “Tienen que sentirse suficientemente protegidos.”

Otros factores afectan al aprendizaje de los estudiantes

Algunos padres y muchos maestros creen que le está echando demasiada culpa al distrito, y que otros factores como pobreza, traumas y los distintos niveles de participación de los padres también afectan la capacidad de aprendizaje de los estudiantes.

Entre los distritos escolares de Colorado, Adams 14 tiene el mayor porcentaje de estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés y el segundo mayor porcentaje de estudiantes de color, y ocupa la posición 15 en cuanto al porcentaje de estudiantes con derecho a comidas subvencionadas (cifra que se usa para medir pobreza).

La comunidad y el distrito han criticado al estado por depender demasiado en los resultados de los exámenes estatales para medir la calidad educativa del distrito. Pero otras medidas también pintan un panorama sombrío.

El año pasado, el distrito tuvo un porcentaje de abandono escolar de un 6%, el sexto más alto del estado. El distrito también tiene un alto número de padres que han matriculado a sus hijos fuera del distrito, y muchos dicen que no tienen planes de regresar a Adams 14, pase lo que pase.

Algunos estudios han encontrado que los cierres de escuelas tienen un historial mixto y muchas desventajas. Los estudiantes desplazados que se trasladaron a otra escuela de bajo rendimiento no mejoraron sus resultados académicos, y las escuelas que aceptaron un gran número de estudiantes desplazados tuvieron más dificultades. Los estudiantes informaron que sus amistades y autoestima se vieron afectadas. Se graduaron menos estudiantes, y más abandonaron sus estudios por completo.

Muchos en la comunidad de Adams 14 defienden a sus escuelas.

En una reciente reunión del consejo de la ciudad, varias personas hablaron públicamente para destacar las historias de los graduados de Adams 14 que han ido a la universidad y han comenzado carreras exitosas.

Las oportunidades están ahí, dijo una madre al consejo, “si los niños las aprovechan.”

Elizabeth Rivas tiene un niño de preescolar y otro de primer grado en el distrito, y cree que están aprendiendo. Se pregunta la causa de los comentarios negativos, ya que no corresponden con lo que ella ha experimentado.

“No lo veo”, dijo Rivas. “Mi hija es brillante. Sé que está aprendiendo porque puede hacer los deberes sola. Otra forma de saberlo es porque le encanta la escuela.”

Rivas dijo que si el estado quiere ayudar al distrito, debería ayudar a las escuelas a tener más programas de doble idioma.

“Quiero que mi hija aprenda los dos idiomas”, dijo Rivas. “El estado no debería negarles a los niños de Commerce City la oportunidad de tomar todas sus clases en dos idiomas. Es algo muy beneficioso para ellos y puede abrir muchas oportunidades.”

Adams 14 está empezando a lanzar un nuevo plan que incluye programación en dos idiomas en algunas escuelas y grados. El programa que más le interesa a Rivas solamente se ofrece hasta ahora en una escuela de Adams 14. Los estudiantes cuyo primer idioma es el inglés y los estudiantes cuyo primer idioma es español reciben la mitad de sus clases académicas en inglés y la otra mitad en español para que todos pueden beneficiarse de ser bilingües. Es un modelo que los padres llevan tiempo pidiendo en Adams 14 y que no existe en la mayoría de los distritos.

El mismo distrito Adams 14 ha luchado en el pasado para seguir desarrollando un programa bilingüe K-12 completo.

Rivas cree que es un área en la que el estado podría aportar más recursos — ya sea en dinero o con personal, dijo.

Ella y otros padres también están entusiasmados con los planes del distrito de crear una escuela en la comunidad que incluya servicios como una clínica de salud, una despensa de alimentos o educación para adultos, dependiendo de las necesidades de las familias. Los padres quieren que el distrito tenga tiempo para probar esa idea.

“Ahora estamos unidos”, dijo Rivas. “Creo que ahora hay tanto apoyo, que el distrito puede tener éxito.”

La rotación del liderazgo ha sido un reto

Bill y Lorraine Maddock llevan casi 50 años viviendo en la comunidad y siguen participando en organizar a los padres. La pareja afirma que después de haber visto a muchos líderes hacer promesas y luego marcharse, el liderazgo actual inspira confianza.

En el año desde que empezó, la Superintendente Karla Loria se ha reunido con el grupo de padres de los Maddock más veces de las que pudieron reunirse con MGT, la empresa privada que administró el distrito durante unos dos años.

“Tuvimos muchos problemas para que GMT nos contestara preguntas, pero nuestra superintendente de ahora se reúne con nosotros bastante a menudo y nos cuenta lo que está pasando”, dijo Lorraine Maddock. “Ella nos ayuda con lo que queremos ver en nuestra comunidad. La mayoría de las veces somos nosotros los que le decimos lo que queremos ver. Y ella nos escucha.”

April Saucedo, de 20 años y graduada de Adams City en 2019, participó en un paro estudiantil la última vez que la escuela fue amenazada con un cierre. Ella recuerda que se sintió menospreciada por la administración, y no quiere que su hermano menor (que va a empezar la escuela secundaria en otoño) sienta lo mismo.

Ella dijo que tiene la esperanza de que los funcionarios del distrito y del estado escuchen a la comunidad.

“Quiero que los niños sepan que son importantes y se van a cuidar”, dijo Saucedo. “No quiero que piensen que no se merecen dedicarles tiempo.”

Yesenia Robles es una reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado que cubre los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un mensaje a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Judge dismisses Adams 14’s lawsuit against the state

2022-03-25T23:43:34+00:00

A Denver judge dismissed the Adams 14 school district’s lawsuit against the state on Friday afternoon.

In a six-page order, Denver District Judge Michael Martinez concludes that the district failed to prove it had standing to bring the complaint or that the state had caused “irreparable injury.”

“While plaintiffs in their response dedicate significant time to describing the harms associated with their complaint, they fail to explain how or point to an allegation showing that these harms are in fact irreparable,” the judge’s order states.

The district had argued in a lawsuit filed last month that the State Board of Education was violating the district’s rights in its accountability proceedings to determine the fate of the district.

The State Board will hold new hearings in mid-April to discuss new orders for improving the district, which has been low-performing for years. Among the options is the possibility of closing one or more schools, or dissolving the district.

Adams 14 brought on a new attorney, Joe Salazar, earlier this school year. He filed the lawsuit in Denver District Court arguing that the State Board must consider all evidence the district presents and must allow the district more time to present its case. The lawsuit also demanded State Board member Steve Durham be barred from participating in the hearing because district officials believe he is biased against them. Salazar argued the state’s proceedings violated the law.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the state had asked the judge to dismiss the case, stating their procedures follow the law.

Typically, the hearings for schools or districts facing state orders over low performance last a little more than two hours. The State Board hears 30 minutes of evidence and arguments from Colorado Department of Education staff, then 30 minutes from school or district officials.

State Board members consider only information presented in the hearing and recommendations from a panel of experts who are asked to visit the site. State Board members then discuss recommendations before voting on a plan and orders for the district.

Read the judge’s order here:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 is looking for a new external manager, but not sharing details

2022-03-25T22:02:09+00:00

The Adams 14 school district is searching for a new external manager, but has released few details or the names of the finalists, despite interviews being set for Monday.

The process contrasts with how the process worked when the district last hired an external manager in 2019.

The district, north of Denver, faces a mid-April hearing when the Colorado State Board of Education must decide on a new improvement plan to turnaround years of low academic achievement in the district. One outside panel has recommended closing at least the high school, and possibly reorganizing the rest of the district.

District officials, led by the superintendent hired last year, are working on an improvement plan of their own to present to the state as an alternative to school closings.

The internal plan would create at least one community school — a model that would analyze the needs of families, and bring in resources such as a food pantry, health clinic, or adult classes.

The proposal also will include working with an external manager, but with a new authority structure.

Proposals from those interested in the external management work were due to the district Wednesday afternoon. The district has refused to release those proposals to the public or answer Chalkbeat’s questions about the process including how many groups applied.

The district’s request for proposals, which was shared, lays out a tight timeline. Three finalists will be chosen Friday, two days after applications were due, and those finalists will have on-site interviews Monday.

No information about the search, which started in February, about the committee that will conduct interviews, or about Monday’s interviews, is on the district’s website as of Friday afternoon.

In 2019, when the last manager was selected, Adams 14 created a community engagement process in which, over the course of a month, dozens of parents and community members vetted the nine applicants for the position, and made recommendations.

Ultimately, the State Board rejected the community’s first pick, neighboring Mapleton Public Schools, prompting the local school board to vote on a second choice, MGT Consulting, despite the State Board voicing concerns about that finalist. In the first two years, state education officials had said MGT’s work was mostly on track, but this school year, the new superintendent immediately began raising concerns about the company’s work, locking them out of the district twice, and taking them to court, until the school board and MGT agreed to terminate the contract.

It’s unclear if the public will be allowed to participate or observe Monday’s interviews. A district employee said the interviews were to be conducted by a committee of staff, parents, and community members, but did not know how that group was selected. The school board was expected to attend to watch only.

The school board has a special meeting scheduled for Tuesday, and an agenda posted early Friday listed a resolution titled “External Management Partner for Adams 14.” That meeting notice, and agenda, were removed by Friday afternoon.

Superintendent Karla Loria has maintained she is willing to work with a manager, despite having been at odds with the previous external manager. But Loria wants to maintain authority over such a consultant.

In the previous arrangement, the State Board of Education ordered the district to give the external management company authority to review and recommend policy changes, make changes to instructional programming, and recommend personnel changes to the board, among other responsibilities.

The State Board drafted the order with those specifics because members felt that the district leadership at the time would not easily give up authority.

This time, the district’s request for proposals, states that the managing partner will be “supporting efforts” of the district in those areas, or “recommending to the superintendent,” about those changes — allowing Loria to maintain authority.

The request for proposals asks bidders to submit a sealed cost estimate that would only be opened if that manager is selected. The same process was used in selecting the last external manager.

This time, State Board members have already said they’re concerned that another external manager won’t be enough to make the drastic improvements still necessary in the district. The outside panel also noted concerns about the district’s leadership abilities.

District leaders say they are up to the challenge of improving the district, and note that the superintendent is new, as is the school board. One of the five board members joined in November. And even though the superintendent was hired in May, leaders say that she shouldn’t be judged as a district leader until MGT left the district last month.

The State Board has limited options to direct improvement in a low-performing district but can order closure, conversion of schools to charter schools, or start a district reorganization which may dissolve the district.

Read the district’s request for proposals here:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Los defensores quieren que el estado traduzca todos los comentarios públicos

2022-03-24T22:31:05+00:00

Los defensores están criticando el Departamento de Educación de Colorado por la forma en que planea manejar los comentarios del público sobre el destino de las escuelas Adams 14.

El problema es una línea que ha estado en múltiples declaraciones explicando cómo el público puede presentar comentarios a la Junta Estatal de Educación para las audiencias sobre las escuelas y distritos de bajo rendimiento: “Los comentarios presentados en idiomas distintos del inglés se traducirán al inglés cuando el tiempo lo permita”.

“Esto nos dice que los comentarios en inglés son importantes y serán aceptados, pero si se presentan en cualquier otro idioma, su voz sólo es importante si ‘tenemos tiempo’ para traducirla”, escribió Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, directora ejecutiva de la Asociación de Colorado para la Educación Bilingüe, en una carta al Departamento de Educación de Colorado.

“Todas las voces, sin importar el idioma que se hable, son importantes durante el proceso de decidir el destino de la escuela de una familia; en particular cuando existe la posibilidad de un cierre de la escuela”, escribió Trinidad-Sheahan.

Un panel de expertos completó sus recomendaciones para Adams 14 esta semana y está sugiriendo que la Junta Estatal cierre al menos la escuela secundaria principal del distrito, y considere la reorganización del resto de las escuelas.

Actualmente el estado está aceptando comentarios públicos para el destino de Adams 14, y su escuela de menor rendimiento, Central Elementary. El estado también está aceptando comentarios sobre la Escuela Secundaria Mitchell en Colorado Springs.

Ambas escuelas y el distrito de Adams 14 tienen porcentajes mucho más altos de estudiantes hispanos que el promedio del estado. La Escuela Secundaria Mitchell tiene más del 52% de sus estudiantes identificados como hispanos. En Central Elementary más del 82% de sus estudiantes son hispanos. En Adams 14, más del 87% de los estudiantes son hispanos y más de la mitad son estudiantes de inglés.

Dana Smith, una portavoz del departamento, dijo que la Junta Estatal y el departamento crearon voluntariamente un proceso de comentarios públicos para proporcionar más información sobre sus decisiones, a pesar de no ser requerido por la ley. Smith también dijo que el departamento se compromete a traducir todos los comentarios públicos recibidos antes de la fecha límite de las 5 p.m. del 8 de abril.

“El lenguaje en el aviso tal vez no hizo el mejor trabajo de transmitir que tomará algún tiempo para traducir todos los comentarios que se reciben en español”, dijo Smith. “El CDE asegura que haremos todo lo posible para que todos los comentarios del público, incluidos los comentarios que no estén en inglés y que hayan sido traducidos, se incluyan en el expediente siempre que se reciban antes de la fecha límite”.

Además, dijo, el departamento ha traducido los avisos que solicitan los comentarios del público, una encuesta en línea y los comunicados de prensa, “para garantizar que los hispanohablantes de la comunidad tengan acceso a este proceso.”

La carta de Trinidad-Sheahan señala que el estado espera que los distritos realicen un trabajo similar para comprometerse con sus comunidades, y deben seguir las mismas reglas.

“Si los distritos pueden proporcionar este servicio a los padres y las familias, el CDE también debería hacerlo”, dice la carta de Trinidad-Sheahan. “El CDE no está por encima de las expectativas que el mismo CDE ha establecido para las escuelas y los distritos escolares cuando se comunican con los padres/tutores que hablan otro idioma que no sea el inglés”.

Traducido por Juan Carlos Uribe, The Weekly Issue/El Semanario.

Adams 14 parents to state: Give our schools another chance

2022-03-24T22:28:55+00:00

Lee en español.

The first night after learning that Adams 14 schools were at risk of closing, Cristina Ruiz, a mother of two whose older child is heading to high school in the fall, tossed and turned all night.

Where would her children go to school? How would they enroll in other districts without a local address? How crowded would those schools become? Could she make the drive?

Many of those same concerns are weighing on parents, students, and community members as the State Board of Education nears an April hearing to decide the fate of the district, which has struggled for years with instability and low test scores.

An outside panel of experts recommended closing at least the district’s main high school and reorganizing the district, possibly closing other schools. District leaders instead want to create community schools with extensive support services to engage families and address poverty.

The State Board will consider both recommendations, as well as ideas from the public and the education department staff, before making a decision at an April hearing.

Many parents and students feel left out of the state’s process and confused about the recommendation which they see as a drastic measure that will displace students.

“Closing the schools is not a solution,” Ruiz said. “They’re hurting us instead of helping.”

Students and parents who have had both good and bad experiences in the district want the state to give their schools another chance.

JoJo Lopez, 19, a senior at Adams City High School, fears most students have lost hope and think state leaders have made up their mind.

Lopez, who walks to school every morning — “only a good 30 minutes” she said — worries how students like her would get to a school outside their neighborhood. Many families don’t have cars or don’t drive, she said.

But she does think the high school needs to change. Diagnosed with anxiety and Tourette Syndrome, Lopez has been waiting for an evaluation to receive specialized services, but the school has been busy, she said. And when she asks teachers for extra help, they decline because she doesn’t have a special needs plan, she said.

“I feel like I need more time and help one-on-one with teachers. It’s really hard for me to learn the way everyone else learns,” Lopez said. “For me, like, if I take notes, my brain gets completely puzzled.”

When she starts to worry about passing a class and looks for academic counselors, they’re also always busy, she said. Still, she thinks she is on track now to graduate in May.

For other students, she believes problems revolve around safety. A few years ago, her older sister dropped out of school after getting in trouble when she had to defend herself in a fight. Other friends she knows have left the high school more recently because of similar concerns with fighting.

“I want the kids that are younger than me to be able to graduate and get a better education,” Lopez said. “They need to feel safe enough.”

Other factors affect student learning

Some parents and many teachers believe that too much of the blame is placed on the district while poverty, trauma, and varying levels of parent involvement also affect students’ ability to learn.

Among Colorado school districts, Adams 14 has the highest percentage of English learners, the second highest percentage of students of color, and the 15th highest percentage of students who qualify for subsidized meals, a measure of poverty.

The community and the district have criticized the state for relying heavily on state test scores in measuring the educational quality of the district. But other measures also paint a grim picture.

Last year, the district had a 6% dropout rate, the sixth highest in the state. The district also has a high number of parents who have enrolled their children out of the district, and many say they don’t plan on coming back to Adams 14 no matter what.

Studies have found that school closures have a mixed track record and many downsides. Displaced students who moved to another low-performing school didn’t improve their academics, and schools that accepted large numbers of displaced students struggled more themselves. Students reported their friendships and self-esteem suffered. Fewer students graduated, and more dropped out entirely.

Many in the Adams 14 community defend their schools.

At a recent city council meeting, several people spoke during public comment to highlight the stories of Adams 14 graduates who have gone to college and started successful careers.

The opportunities are there, one mother told the council, “if kids just take advantage of it.”

Elizabeth Rivas has a preschooler and a first grader in the district, and feels they are learning. She wonders about the cause of negative comments that don’t match what she experiences.

“I don’t see that,” Rivas said. “My daughter is brilliant. I know she’s learning because she can do her homework by herself. Another way I know is because she loves school.”

Rivas said that if the state wants to help the district, it should help schools to roll out more dual language programming.

“I want my daughter to learn both languages,” Rivas said. “The state shouldn’t deny the children of Commerce City the opportunity to take all of their classes in two languages. It’s something that is very beneficial for them and can open a lot of opportunities.”

Adams 14 is starting to roll out a new language plan that includes dual language programming at some schools and grade levels. The program Rivas is most interested in is only offered at one Adams 14 school so far. Students whose first language is English and those whose first language is Spanish both receive half of their academic classes in English and half in Spanish, so they all can benefit from becoming bilingual. It’s a model that parents have long asked for in Adams 14 and that doesn’t exist in most districts.

Adams 14 itself has struggled in the past to stick with developing a full K-12 bilingual program.

Rivas thinks that’s one area where the state could provide more resources — perhaps money or staffing, she said.

She and other parents also are excited about the district’s plans to create a community school that includes services such as a health clinic, food pantry, or adult education, depending on the needs of the families. Parents want the district to have time to try that out.

“We are united now,” Rivas said. “I think there’s so much support now that the district can be successful.”

Leadership turnover has been a challenge

Bill and Lorraine Maddock have lived in the community for almost 50 years and still are involved in organizing parents. The couple says that after witnessing many leaders make promises and then leave, the current leadership now inspires trust.

In the one year since she started, Superintendent Karla Loria has met with the Maddocks’ parent group more times than they were ever able to meet with MGT, the private company that ran the district for about two years.

“We had a lot of problems getting questions answered with MGT, but with our superintendent now she meets with us quite often and tells us what’s going on,” Lorraine Maddock said. “She just kind of helps us along with what we want to see in our community. Most of the time it’s us who tell her what we want to see. She listens.”

April Saucedo, 20, who graduated from Adams City in 2019, participated in a student walkout last time the school was threatened with closure. She remembers feeling put down by the administration, and she doesn’t want her younger brother, who is supposed to start high school in the fall, to feel the same.

She said she is hopeful that district and state officials will listen to the community.

“I want kids to know they are cared for,” Saucedo said. “I don’t want them to think that they’re not worth the time anymore.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Complaint: English learners with disabilities didn’t get needed services

2022-03-18T21:28:57+00:00

At least 13 students who spend most of their school day in special needs classrooms did not receive the instruction they were due as English learners in the Adams 14 school district most of last school year.

That’s the main complaint in the latest federal civil rights investigation into the Adams 14 school district. Adams 14, which has long struggled to comply with other civil rights agreements stemming from past investigations, is also facing possible drastic action by state officials trying to address lagging student achievement.

In a response to the complaint, district officials acknowledged an error that led to students at Adams City High School not being enrolled in required classes. The district response states that district officials discovered the problem in April and have been working on addressing it since then.

But the complaint that the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights received also alleges that after the district tried to make up the lost class time, it then cut other required services during the summer to do it.

The district has provided the federal government with data it says can disprove some of those other complaints. However, the district declined to provide Chalkbeat the data, which it said included protected student information.

Federal investigations can sometimes take years to produce findings and, if they find a violation of civil rights laws, to negotiate a remedy.

Students can be vulnerable, advocates say

In Adams 14, almost 38% of students with special needs are also designated as being English learners, or about 5% of all district students.

Paula Christina, a child and family advocate for ARC of Adams County, said that students who are English learners and also have special needs can sometimes be more vulnerable because families struggle just to overcome language barriers in understanding their rights and then advocating for them.

Separately, she’s heard of Hispanic parents who are talked into signing forms that they don’t understand, but then learn that may have given the district permission to not offer services to their children under special circumstances.

Robert Lundin, the district’s spokesperson who is now also in charge of overseeing compliance with Office for Civil Rights complaints, said the district did reach out to all families of students affected by the error to explain and offer makeup services.

The district argued in part that the summer compensatory services are not required and are determined in meetings with parents.

“As it is not a mandatory program for their students to attend, parents make the ultimate determination of whether their students shall participate in” an extended school year, states the district’s response to federal investigators.

Christina said all parents of students with special needs had a particularly frustrating summer dealing with districts that tried to make up services not offered during pandemic disruptions.

“Districts said ‘absolutely, your child is entitled to these services’ — but then they make them virtual,” Christina said. “It’s just like ‘how can we check the box?’”

And even when in person, she’s finding that families are keeping children home from school for a variety of reasons.

In one recent case, she said, the mother of a student in Adams 14 was surprised that no one from her school or district had reached out to her after she had kept her student home from school for more than a week because of safety concerns related to the child’s seizure disorder and the mother’s fear there was not enough supervision during recess.

“There has to be some ethical practice to honor services these kiddos need,” Christina said. “That’s not even talking about, are they quality services? Are they really working on goals and objectives?”

District coping with followup from previous cases

The federal government is still monitoring Adams 14 as it rolls out improvements in English language development instruction, after finding previous efforts insufficient.

In one of the district’s older cases regarding the identification of students who qualify as English language learners, the district finally got approval for its new language education plan in the fall of 2020.

Lynnette Steinhoff, Adams 14’s director of special education, said that the district is reviewing how it served students who are “dual identified” as having special needs and being English learners, and discovered “a gap” in April.

Policies and practices hadn’t been updated to match new guidance from the state about identifying and evaluating students. There was also a concern that work is being duplicated in different district departments.

So Adams 14 is now negotiating a contract with a consultant to evaluate the district’s systems.

Tonia Lopez, the director of culturally and linguistically diverse education at Adams 14, said the district is trying to be proactive.

“It’s us looking at the systems. How are we coming together to talk about kids,” Lopez said. “Are we doing it in a smart way taking account of all their needs and all their gifts?”

District officials said they want the consultant, RISE PD, to suggest ways to improve the district’s systems for serving dual-identified students and possibly to train district leaders and teachers.

The district this fall also rolled out a new system that alerts administrators every week about any English learner who is not enrolled in an English language development class, to prevent students from falling through the cracks in the future.

Read the Office for Civil Rights complaint:

Read the district’s response to the complaint:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Posible cierre de la Secundaria Adams City y reorganización del distrito Adams 14, según recomendaciones

2022-03-17T17:29:04+00:00

Afirmando sin rodeos que el distrito escolar de Adams 14 no puede mejorarse a sí mismo, un panel de revisión estatal ha recomendado que el estado cierre la escuela secundaria principal y reorganice el distrito. Las escuelas podrían consolidarse, y otros distritos podrían intervenir para administrar el Adams 14.

“Hay evidencia de la falta de capacidad de liderazgo y estabilidad en los niveles más altos del distrito para dirigir el trabajo de cambio eficazmente para aumentar los logros de los estudiantes”, dicen las recomendaciones del panel. “Además, la escuela secundaria de Adams City sigue teniendo un nivel de desempeño bajo y no hay un plan de prioridades para la escuela y sus estudiantes, que probablemente tienen mejores opciones que están geográficamente cerca [de] sus hogares.”

El informe obtenido por Chalkbeat sugiere el cierre de la Escuela Secundaria Adams City, la única escuela secundaria completa del distrito, y posiblemente de otras escuelas, para permitir que el distrito se enfoque en tener menos grados escolares mientras el estado establece un plan de reorganización.

La recomendación sugiere que a los estudiantes de la Secundaria Adams City les iría mejor si asistieran a escuelas de mejor desempeño en distritos vecinos.

El panel incluyó a seis educadores, entre los que se encontraban un consultor, algunos superintendentes actuales y un antiguo asistente de superintendente. La Junta Estatal de Educación de Colorado considerará las recomendaciones, así como las del personal del departamento de educación, la propuesta del distrito mismo, y los comentarios del público en una audiencia el próximo mes.

Colorado nunca ha intervenido hasta este grado en un distrito escolar con problemas. Hay muchas preguntas sobre cómo esto funcionaría.

Es probable que el distrito escolar de Adams 14 se oponga firmemente a renunciar a su autonomía.

El distrito está trabajando en una propuesta para mejorar creando al menos una escuela comunitaria, que ofrecería una variedad de servicios sociales para los estudiantes y las familias. La Junta Estatal de Educación no ha indicado qué tan receptiva sería a esa idea.

Los funcionarios del distrito no respondieron a una solicitud de comentarios sobre las recomendaciones del panel, pero Joe Salazar, un abogado que trabaja con el distrito, dijo que el distrito envió una refutación al estado criticando las recomendaciones, en particular por no distinguir entre el liderazgo del antiguo administrador privado del distrito (MGT Consulting) y el liderazgo del nuevo superintendente.

El distrito contrató a Karla Loria como superintendente de Adams 14 en mayo y ella comenzó a trabajar en junio, pero Salazar argumenta que Loria no tuvo ninguna autoridad hasta que MGT dejó el distrito en febrero, y por lo tanto no debería ser responsable de ninguna deficiencia en el liderazgo antes de esa fecha. Bajo la dirección de Loria, Adams 14 en varias ocasiones no le permitió entrada al distrito a los empleados de MGT.

Jason Malmberg, presidente de la unión de maestros del distrito, dijo que el panel debió haber considerado los correos electrónicos que el distrito trató de proporcionar para demostrar que Loria no tenía autoridad. Malmberg dijo que la llamaba a menudo para hablar de varios temas y que le decían que tenía que hablar con MGT.

A Malmberg también le preocupa que el panel estaba compuesto por personas de fuera del distrito, que no entienden todos los problemas locales a los que se enfrentan los estudiantes. Y dijo que cuando el panel finalmente tuvo una reunión con los padres, muchos de ellos no se quedaron para dar su opinión debido a problemas técnicos.

El distrito Adams 14 atiende a más de 6,000 estudiantes en las áreas de gente trabajadora en el norte de Denver y ha estado recibiendo calificaciones deficientes por parte del estado durante al menos una década.

El estado ya había hecho que Adams 14 fuera el primer distrito obligado a ceder su administración a un grupo externo para mejorar el desempeño de los estudiantes. Pero el distrito y su administrador, MGT Consulting, cortaron abruptamente sus vínculos a principios de este año. Por lo tanto, la Junta Estatal de Educación fijó una audiencia para decidir sobre un nuevo plan de mejora.

Como lo requiere la ley, un panel de revisión estatal formado por expertos externos visitó el distrito dos veces en febrero, entrevistó al personal y a los miembros de la comunidad, y recopiló recomendaciones.

El informe del panel señala que al grupo le preocupaba el liderazgo del distrito y una división en la comunidad.

Específicamente, “las preocupaciones más graves son la cultura de miedo y represalias que se ha informado, la falta de buenas prácticas financieras y de recursos humanos y la poca mejora general del desempeño y el crecimiento de los estudiantes durante muchos años.”

Las opciones del estado para dirigir el distrito son limitadas. La ley permite que el estado cierre una escuela, la convierta en escuela chárter, otorgue exenciones y autonomía para implementar su propio plan, y que ceda el manejo de la escuela o del distrito parcialmente o totalmente a un grupo externo. El estado también puede disolver o consolidar un distrito, pero nunca lo ha hecho.

El informe del panel de revisión señala algunas de las muchas preguntas abiertas sobre la adopción de medidas sin precedentes.

“Para que la consolidación sea una opción, el [panel de revisión estatal] reconoce que hay distritos vecinos que están desempeñándose a niveles más altos y pueden ser opciones viables para los estudiantes. Sin embargo, esta opción requeriría que las juntas locales de educación de los distritos vecinos lleguen a un acuerdo”, dice el informe.

La ley del estado establece un proceso general de reorganización que requiere que un comité de planificación elabore un plan sobre cómo cambiar los límites del distrito. Ese plan podría incluir crear distritos nuevos o disolver distritos existentes, pero requiere obtener el acuerdo de la mayoría de los miembros del comité y la aprobación del comisionado de educación del estado. Luego, el comité ordenaría elecciones en todos los distritos afectados para aprobar el plan.

Como alternativa, el informe sugiere que los distritos vecinos se conviertan en socios para apoyar a Adams 14 en su trabajo de recuperación. Esta idea surgió cuando el panel tuvo un grupo de discusión con los líderes de los distritos cercanos, de los que se dijo que estaban “inicialmente renuentes” a absorber a los estudiantes de Adams 14. Pero el informe cuestiona quién sería el responsable en caso de una asociación.

“Aunque los socios indicaron que están dispuestos a darle apoyo al distrito, no está claro si hay socios locales que estén dispuestos a rendir cuentas del trabajo que está ocurriendo en Adams 14.”

Antes de que Adams 14 contratara a MGT Consulting, el distrito había propuesto asociarse con las escuelas vecinas del Distrito Mapleton Public Schools. La Junta Estatal de Educación rechazó el plan del distrito en ese momento, a menos que los distritos aceptaran añadir otro grupo para ayudar a Mapleton a realizar el trabajo. Pero las conversaciones entre los distritos no progresaron.

El panel de revisión estatal también señaló que una reorganización o consolidación requeriría un plan de transición.

“Crear una falta de estabilidad en las escuelas podría ser más perjudicial para los estudiantes y las familias si no se hace bien y si no se cuenta con la pericia adecuada”, afirma el informe. El informe también sugirió crear una junta nueva.

“La creación y/o el nombramiento de una junta independiente compuesta por pares/expertos locales para dirigir y supervisar la dirección del distrito y sus funciones y responsabilidades... puede proporcionar la responsabilidad cuentadante necesaria para mostrar mejoras”, afirma el informe. “Esto también permitiría que cualquier cambio mayor en liderazgo y reorganización se hiciera a menor escala y comenzara más rápidamente y pensado que la reorganización o consolidación de un distrito grande.”

Adams 14 ya está demandando al estado para que cambie las reglas de la audiencia del próximo mes. La demanda del distrito, en parte, cuestiona el Panel de Revisión Estatal y los datos que éste podría haber considerado.

Salazar ha cuestionado vocalmente la autoridad del estado para quitarles el control a la junta escolar elegida localmente y al superintendente que contrató.

La audiencia del próximo mes también considerará recomendaciones separadas para la Escuela Primaria Central, una de las escuelas de más bajo desempeño del distrito y que podría enfrentar sus propias órdenes de mejora aparte del distrito. Un panel de revisión estatal separado está preparando recomendaciones para esa escuela.

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado. Cubre distritos escolares K-12 y educación multilingüe. Póngase en contacto con Yesenia en yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Close Adams City High, reorganize school district, panel recommends

2022-03-16T15:52:23+00:00

Lee en español.

Bluntly stating that the Adams 14 school district cannot improve itself, a state review panel has recommended the state close the main high school and reorganize the district. Schools could be consolidated or other districts might step in to manage Adams 14.

“There is evidence of lack of leadership capacity and stability at the district’s highest levels to lead turnaround work effectively to increase student achievement gains,” the panel’s recommendations state. “Additionally, Adams City High School continues to perform at a low level and there is a lack of a prioritized plan for the school and its students, who likely have better options that are geographically close [to] their homes.”

The report obtained by Chalkbeat on Tuesday suggests closing Adams City High School, the district’s only comprehensive high school, and possibly other schools, to allow the district to focus on fewer grade levels while the state comes up with a reorganization plan.

The recommendation suggests that Adams City High School students might fare better if they attended higher-performing schools in neighboring districts.

The panel included six educators including a consultant, some current superintendents, and a former assistant superintendent. Colorado’s State Board of Education will consider the recommendations, as well as those from the education department staff, the district’s own proposal, and public comment at a hearing next month.

Colorado has never intervened to this extent in a struggling school district. There are many questions about how it would work.

The Adams 14 school district is likely to push back hard against relinquishing any autonomy.

The district is working on a proposal to improve itself by creating at least one community school, which would offer an array of social services for students and families. The State Board of Education has not indicated how receptive it would be to that idea.

District officials did not respond to a request for comment about the panel’s recommendations, but Joe Salazar, an attorney working with the district, said that the district sent a rebuttal to the state criticizing the recommendations, in particular for failing to distinguish between the leadership of the district’s former private manager, MGT Consulting, and the new superintendent’s leadership.

The district hired Karla Loria as Adams 14’s superintendent in May and she began work in June, but Salazar argues that Loria didn’t have any authority until MGT left the district in February, and therefore shouldn’t be held accountable for any shortcomings in leadership before that. Under Loria’s direction, Adams 14 locked MGT employees out of the district several times.

Jason Malmberg, president of the district’s teachers union, said that the panel should have considered emails the district tried to provide that show that Loria had no authority. Malmberg said he often called her on various issues and was told he had to talk to MGT.

Malmberg is also concerned that the panel was made up of people from outside the district who don’t understand all the local issues students face. And he said that when the panel finally hosted a meeting with parents, technical issues meant many parents didn’t stay to give their thoughts.

The Adams 14 district serves more than 6,000 students in the working-class areas north of Denver and has received failing ratings from the state for at least a decade.

The state had already made Adams 14 the first district required to hand over management to an outside group to improve student achievement. But the district and its manager, MGT Consulting, abruptly cut ties earlier this year. So the State Board of Education set a hearing to decide on a new improvement plan.

As required by law, a state review panel of outside experts visited the district twice, in February, interviewed staff and community members, and compiled recommendations.

The panel’s report notes the group was concerned about the district’s leadership, and about a division among the community.

Specifically, “the gravest concerns are the reported culture of fear and retaliation, the lack of sound financial and human resource practices, and the overall limited improvement in student achievement and growth over many years.”

The state has limited options for directing the district. The law allows the state to close a school, turn it into a charter school, grant waivers and autonomy to implement its own plan, and partially or totally hand over school or district management to an outside group. The state can also dissolve or consolidate a district, but it has never done so.

The review panel’s report notes some of the many open questions about taking unprecedented steps.

“In order for consolidation to be an option, the [state review panel] recognizes that there are neighboring districts that are performing at higher levels and may be viable options for students. However, this option would require the local board of education in neighboring districts to agree,” the report states.

State law outlines a general process for reorganization that requires a planning committee to craft a plan for how to change district boundaries. It could include creating new or dissolving existing districts, but must get agreement from a majority of committee members and approval from the state’s education commissioner.

As an alternative, the report suggests that neighboring districts instead become partners to support Adams 14 in its turnaround work. That idea came up when the panel held a focus group with leaders of the nearby districts who were described as having an “initial hesitancy” to absorbing Adams 14 students. But the report questions who would be held accountable in a partnership scenario.

“While partners indicated they are willing to provide support to the district, it is not clear if there are local partners who are willing to be held accountable for the work occurring in Adams 14.”

Before Adams 14 hired MGT Consulting, the district had proposed partnering with the neighboring Mapleton Public Schools. The State Board of Education at the time rejected the district’s plan, unless the districts agreed to add another group to help Mapleton do the work. But talks between the districts broke down.

The state review panel also noted that a reorganization or consolidation would require a plan for transition.

“Creating a lack of stability at the school level could be more detrimental to students and families if not done well and without the appropriate expertise,” the report stated. The report also suggested creating a new board.

“The creation of and/or appointment of a separate board composed of local peers/experts to lead and oversee the district leadership and its roles and responsibilities … may provide the accountability required to show improvements,” the report states. “This would also allow for any major leadership changes and reorganization to occur on a smaller scale and to begin more swiftly and thoughtfully than a large district reorganization or consolidation.”

Adams 14 is already suing the state to change the rules for the hearing next month. The district’s lawsuit, in part, takes issue with the State Review Panel and the data it might have considered.

Salazar has been vocal about questioning the state’s authority to take control away from the locally elected school board and the superintendent it hired.

The hearing next month will also consider separate recommendations for Central Elementary, one of the district’s lowest-performing schools which could face its own orders for improvement apart from the district. A separate state review panel is drafting recommendations for the school.

Read the State Review Panel’s recommendations here:

Read the district’s response here:

Correction: A previous version of this story included outdated information about the reorganization process. The law does not require an election to approve a plan for Adams 14.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Advocates want Colorado to translate all non-English public comment

2022-03-15T23:44:08+00:00

Advocates are criticizing Colorado’s Education Department for how it plans to handle public comments regarding the fate of Adams 14 schools.

At issue is a line that has been in multiple statements explaining how the public can submit comments to the State Board of Education for hearings on low performing schools and districts: “Comments submitted in languages other than English will be translated into English as time permits.”

“It says to us, English comments are important and will be accepted but if you submit in any other language, your voice is only important if ‘we have time’ to translate it,” Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, the executive director for the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, wrote in a letter to the Colorado Department of Education.

“All voices, no matter the language spoken, are important during the process of deciding the fate of a family’s school; in particular when there is possibility of a school closure,” Trinidad-Sheahan wrote.

A panel of experts completed its recommendations for Adams 14 this week and is suggesting the State Board close at least the district’s main high school, and consider reorganizing the rest of the schools.

Currently the state is accepting public comments for the fate of Adams 14, and its lowest-performing school, Central Elementary. The state also is accepting comments about Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs.

Both schools and the Adams 14 district have much higher percentages of Hispanic students than the state average. Mitchell High School has more than 52% of its students identified as Hispanic. At Central Elementary more than 82% of its students are Hispanic. In Adams 14, more than 87% of students are Hispanic and more than half are English learners.

Dana Smith, a department spokesperson, said the State Board and the department voluntarily created a public comment process to provide more input into their decisions, despite not being required by the law. Smith also said the department is committed to translating all public comments received by the 5 p.m. deadline on April 8.

“The language in the notice perhaps didn’t do the best job of conveying that it will take some time to translate all of the comments that are received in Spanish,” Smith said. “CDE assures that we will do everything we can so that all public comment, including non-English comments that have been translated, will be included in the record as long as they are received by the deadline.”

Additionally, she said, the department has translated the notices requesting public comment, an online survey, and news releases, “to ensure that the Spanish speakers in the community have access to this process.”

Trinidad-Sheahan’s letter points out that the state expects districts to put in similar work to engage with their communities, and should follow the same rules.

“If districts can provide this service to parents and families, CDE should as well,” Trinidad-Sheahan’s letter read. “CDE is not above the expectations that CDE itself has set for schools and school districts when communicating with parents/guardians who speak another language other than English.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Lawmaker: Community schools option not intended for Adams 14

2022-03-10T23:57:49+00:00

To address persistent academic struggles, Adams 14 leaders have proposed developing community schools to provide extensive wraparound services such as tutoring for students, English classes for parents, on-site laundry facilities, and food pantries.

They hope a bill nearing final approval will make the State Board of Education more receptive to their plans. Senate Bill 54 would establish the community school model as an option for schools with turnaround status, the lowest rating in the state’s school performance system.

But the bill’s main Senate sponsor said her proposal was not designed for districts that have already faced state intervention. That would include Adams 14, which has been on a state watchlist for a decade and is fighting to maintain its autonomy after it ousted a state-ordered external manager.

“This is for the beginning of the end, not the end of the end, which is where Adams 14 is at,” said state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat.

Adams 14 school district serves the working-class Denver suburb of Commerce City. In 2018, after eight years of persistently low test scores, it became the first Colorado district that the state ordered to turn over day-to-day operations to an external management company. This year, under the leadership of Superintendent Karla Loria, the school board terminated its relationship with the company, MGT Consulting.

Adams 14 is scheduled for a hearing in front of the State Board of Education in April to determine next steps. The board has asked for feedback on the most drastic option available to it, dissolving and reorganizing the district.

The Adams 14 school board, meanwhile, says it wants the opportunity to chart its own course and has sued the state in an effort to change the terms of the accountability process. Loria has pushed back against the idea that students aren’t achieving enough. More than half of the district’s 5,700 students are learning English, yet many have to take standardized tests in English. And nearly 73% qualify for subsidized lunches, a measure of poverty.

“There are complicated reasons why schools end up in turnaround status,” Loria told the House Education Committee Wednesday. “It has to do with poverty, the way we test not being conducive to certain communities, our rating system, and the list could go on. The worst thing that can happen is for the state to close a school or take other adverse actions that disrupt the lives of our students and our school community.”

Loria called community schools a “wonderful option” for Adams 14 and welcomed a suggestion from state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, to enable the bill to go into effect before the April hearing. But other committee members declined to do that, so the bill likely would go into effect some time this summer.

Also this week, the district’s school board adopted a resolution stating its intent to pursue the development of community schools, including at Central Elementary, which has been flagged for very low performance and could face state intervention beyond what’s aimed at the district.

Community schools require extensive engagement with parents and staff to identify programs that would provide more stability for students. Those could include adult education in English, literacy, and job skills, mentoring and tutoring, access to medical care, and more.

A 2019 bill allowed schools to pursue a community schools model as a form of innovation status, which grants schools exemptions from certain state rules. This year’s bill would add the community schools model to the options available for schools that face state intervention after five years of persistent low performance. The other options are innovation status, conversion to a charter school, closure, or external management.

Neither bill provides money for wraparound programs, but community schools can pursue grants.

The bill passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support. It moved out of the House Education Committee on a partyline vote after Republicans said they were concerned about anti-charter comments made by Adams 14 representatives.

Zenzinger said community schools might have been a good option for Adams 14 in 2018, but now it may be too late. Regardless of the merits, she didn’t draft the bill to present the district with another option.

“The secret sauce about community schools is you really need to be committed to it and it needs to be from within,” Zenzinger said. “I understand the advocates are really excited about this, but it’s become very political. I think they are taking the concept of community schools and plopping them down on their side of the argument.”

Without explicit legislative authority, it’s hard to say how the State Board would respond to a request from Adams 14 to develop community schools, a spokesperson said.

Zenzinger said the crisis in Adams 14 does call out for further legislative action.

“We are unprepared as a state for a school district reaching this point,” she said. “There isn’t anything outlined in our accountability system to say what happens now.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 demanda a la Junta de Educación del estado; desafía el proceso de rendición de cuentas

2022-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

El Distrito Escolar Adams 14 ha demandado al estado para retrabajar las reglas de una audiencia crítica que pudiera determinar el destino del distrito.

Entre otras cosas, el Distrito quiere más tiempo ante la Junta de Educación del Estado en abril a fin de presentar argumentos para mantener control del distrito en cualquier plan de mejoras nuevo. La demanda fue presentada a principios de este mes en el Tribunal de Distrito de Denver, y la semana pasada se agregó una petición para detener la audiencia completamente hasta que la Junta del Estado cambie su proceso. El martes, los abogados del estado pidieron que el tribunal desestimara el caso.

La demanda argumenta que los procedimientos de la Junta del Estado violan las leyes. El Estado dijo que sus audiencias no están sujetas a la ley que rige las audiencias administrativas y que ya ofrece un proceso justo.

Típicamente, las audiencias de escuelas o distritos que enfrentan órdenes del estado por desempeño deficiente duran poco más de dos horas. La Junta del Estado escucha 30 minutos de evidencia y argumentos por parte del personal del Departamento de Educación, y luego 30 minutos por parte de los funcionarios de la escuela o distrito.

Los miembros de la Junta del Estado consideran únicamente la información presentada en la audiencia y en un reporte, y las recomendaciones de un panel de expertos a quienes se les pide que visiten el sitio. Los miembros de la Junta del Estado entonces discuten las recomendaciones antes de votar por un plan de manejo y otras órdenes para el distrito.

En 2018, Adams 14 fue el primer distrito del estado al que se le requirió entregar el manejo diario a un grupo externo por consistentemente no haber podido mejorar el desempeño de los estudiantes. La intención de la Junta del Estado era proporcionar estabilidad y hacer mejoras para ofrecerles una mejor educación a los estudiantes.

Este año escolar, la junta de Adams 14 (asesorada por su propio superintendente) terminó el contrato con su administrador externo, MGT. Como el distrito no está ahora cumpliendo las órdenes estatales de 2018, la Junta del Estado entonces ordenó una revisión nueva y durante una audiencia en abril escuchará las recomendaciones resultantes para un plan de mejoras.

Joe Salazar, abogado que representa a Adams 14, dijo el jueves que el límite de 30 minutos es una falta de respeto, tomando en cuenta el peso de las decisiones y consecuencias.

La demanda busca tener un proceso más similar al de un tribunal, con testigos, examinación cruzada, y la habilidad para desafiar evidencia. Esto debería durar todo el tiempo que haga falta, dijo él.

“Aquí debería haber colaboración,” Salazar dijo. “Es caso como si la junta del estado tuviera más autoridad que el gobierno local, y así no debería ser.”

Los funcionarios del estado dijeron que la demanda indica un malentendido en cuanto a las leyes de rendición de cuentas del estado.

“Los reclamos en la demanda no tienen mucho sentido, y todo esto solo distrae la atención de donde debiera estar, en trabajar juntos para mejorar el desempeño de los estudiantes en Adams 14,” dijo Dana Smith, portavoz del Departamento de Educación de Colorado. “De conformidad con la ley Education Accountability Act, la Junta de Educación del Estado está obligada a dirigir acción que mejore los resultados de los estudiantes.”

Entre otros reclamos, la demanda alega que el panel de revisión del estado — el grupo de expertos con la tarea de visitar el distrito y hacer recomendaciones — no debe considerar los datos de los exámenes estatales de los últimos dos años, y tampoco se le debe permitir que evalúe el liderato del distrito.

La demanda dice que como las juntas escolares son elegidas localmente, y por sí solas no son las responsables de contratar a un superintendente, la Junta del estado no puede cuestionar quién está en esas posiciones de liderazgo.

Salazar dijo el martes que él no cree que sea justo juzgar a los miembros actuales de la junta de Adams 14 ni a la superintendente Karla Loria, excepto si fueran juzgados estrictamente por lo que hayan hecho después de la salida de MGT hace menos de un mes.

“Yo rechazo esta idea de que Karla tenía autoridad gerencial,” dijo Salazar.

Y en lo que respecta a la junta, Salazar dijo que la junta se sentía presionada a aprobar cualquier recomendación de MGT por temor a represalias por el estado.

La demanda desafía la ley de rendición de cuentas del estado, ya que requiere que el estado envíe un panel a evaluar las escuelas y distritos de poco desempeño y hacer recomendaciones, y que la ley incluso detalla qué es lo que tienen que considerar.

Aunque las opciones abiertas para la Junta del Estado no incluyen reemplazar a una junta escolar o superintendente, Salazar dijo que basarse en las evaluaciones de los líderes locales para recomendar cosas como disolver un distrito a la larga son lo mismo.

El estado argumentó que siempre ha sido su responsabilidad observar y evaluar el desempeño y el liderazgo del distrito, y que eso no infringe el control local.

“El simple hecho de observar los líderes del distrito y reportar sobre esas observaciones de ninguna manera disminuye la habilidad de la junta local para implantar su programa educativo,” dice la moción del estado.

La demanda también busca remover de los procedimientos al miembro de la Junta del Estado Steve Durham, arguyendo que él está prejuiciado. Salazar presentó ese argumento en una reunión de la Junta del Estado el mes pasado, pero los miembros de la Junta desestimaron el reclamo como ofensivo y dijeron que, como funcionarios electos, tienen permitido expresar sus opiniones.

Salazar argumenta que, en el caso de audiencias para rendir cuentas, deben conducirse más como audiencias ante un tribunal y los miembros de la Junta del Estado deben mantenerse imparciales.

Adams 14 sues State Board of Ed, challenges accountability process

2022-02-25T01:08:53+00:00

The Adams 14 school district has sued the state to rework the rules of a critical hearing that could determine the district’s fate.

Among other things, the district wants more time before the State Board of Education in April to present arguments for maintaining control of the district in any new improvement plan. It filed the lawsuit in Denver District Court earlier this month, and last week added a request to stop the hearing altogether until the State Board changes its process. On Tuesday, state attorneys asked the court to dismiss the case.

The lawsuit argues that the State Board’s procedures violate the law. The state said its hearings aren’t subject to the cited law governing administrative hearings and that it already provides a fair process.

Typically, the hearings for schools or districts facing state orders over low performance last a little more than two hours. The State Board hears 30 minutes of evidence and arguments from Department of Education staff, then 30 minutes from the school’s or district’s officials.

State Board members consider only information presented in the hearing and a report and recommendations from a panel of experts who are asked to visit the site. State Board members then discuss recommendations before voting on a management plan and other orders for the district.

In 2018, Adams 14 became the first district the state required to hand over daily management to an outside group for consistently failing to improve student performance. The State Board intended to provide stability and make improvements to offer students a better education.

This school year, the Adams 14 board, advised by its own superintendent, terminated the contract with its outside manager, MGT. Because the district is no longer following the 2018 state orders, the State Board then ordered a new review and will hear the resulting recommendations for an improvement plan at a hearing in April.

Joe Salazar, an attorney representing Adams 14, said Thursday that a 30 minute limit is disrespectful given the weight of the decisions and consequences.

The lawsuit seeks a more court-like process with witnesses, cross examination, and the ability to challenge evidence. It should last as long as it takes, he said.

“There should be a collaboration happening here,” Salazar said. “It’s almost as if the state board looks down at local government, and it shouldn’t.”

State officials said the lawsuit indicates a misunderstanding of the state’s accountability laws.

“The claims in the lawsuit don’t make much sense, and the whole thing just takes focus away from where it should be, which is working together to improve outcomes for the students in Adams 14,” said Dana Smith, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education. “Under the Education Accountability Act, the State Board of Education is obligated to direct action to improve student outcomes.”

Among other claims, the lawsuit argues that the state review panel — the group of experts tasked with visiting the district and making recommendations — should not consider state test data from the past two years, nor be allowed to review the district’s leadership.

The lawsuit argues that because school boards are locally elected, and they alone hold the responsibility of hiring a superintendent, the State Board cannot question who is in those leadership positions.

Salazar said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe it is fair to judge the current Adams 14 board members or Superintendent Karla Loria, unless they were strictly judged on what they’ve done after MGT left the district less than a month ago.

“I reject this idea that Karla’s had managerial authority,” Salazar said.

And as far as the board, Salazar said the board felt pressured to rubber stamp any recommendations from MGT, for fear of retribution from the state.

The lawsuit challenges the state’s school accountability law itself, because it requires that the state send a panel to review low-performing schools and districts and to make recommendations, and even outlines what they are to consider.

While the options open to the State Board don’t include replacing a school board or superintendent, Salazar said that using assessments of local leadership to recommend something like dissolving a district amounts to the same thing.

The state argued that it has always been its responsibility to observe and evaluate district performance and leadership, and that it doesn’t infringe on local control.

“The simple act of observing district leadership and reporting on those observations in no way diminishes the local board’s ability to implement its educational program,” the state’s motion states.

The lawsuit also seeks to remove State Board member Steve Durham from procedures, arguing that he is biased. Salazar made that argument before a State Board meeting last month, but State Board members dismissed the claim as offensive and said that as elected officials they were allowed to voice their opinions.

Salazar argues that for accountability hearings, which he says should be conducted more like court hearings, State Board members should be impartial.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 releases audit of spending on external manager MGT Consulting

2022-02-17T23:13:13+00:00

The Adams 14 school district paid almost half a million dollars to subcontractors for work that appears substantially similar to work already included in its contract with external manager MGT Consulting, a forensic audit commissioned by the district found.

Adams 14 district officials released the audit findings Thursday after withholding them for months. The allegations contained in it contributed to the school board’s decision in January to terminate its contract with MGT Consulting, which had managed the district for more than three years.

The auditors compared contracts between the district, MGT, and vendors. Auditors from Eide Bailly did not conduct interviews with MGT, the subcontractors, or staff in the district’s finance office.

“The contracts provided to us for eight individual contractors or vendors contained scope of work descriptions that seemed similar to work [MGT] was required to perform,” the auditors concluded. “Based on our examination, we recommend Adams 14 review and examine the contracts from business, operational, and legal perspectives to make a final determination regarding similarities in scope of services/work.”

In some cases, contracts with vendors were approved by the board, but the district ended up paying more than the maximum amount described in the initial contract. In other cases, the contracts were below the $25,000 threshold for board approval.

During the pandemic, MGT requested and received a policy change that allowed it to approve more contracts without board approval. Board members acknowledged the need for quick spending decisions during the pandemic, for example to buy laptops for students, but said they felt MGT took advantage.

“When the purchasing policy was changed, it created an opportunity for the manager to approve contracts without engaging the board in the approval process,” Superintendent Karla Loria said. “It actually is removing monies that belong to our students and to our teachers in our schools. This is not for me about the money. It is about what we can get with that money for students, and our students did not receive that.”

Payments for additional contracts totaled $495,486.18, the audit found. That was on top of more than $7 million the district had already paid MGT out of a general operating budget of less than $100 million a year.

Adams 14 officials previously shared the audit with the Adams County District Attorney’s Office and cited a law enforcement exemption to not release the findings in response to public records requests. On Thursday, Adams 14 Board President Ramona Lewis said prosecutors told the district there was not enough evidence for criminal charges, and that was why the district was releasing the audit now.

Officials with MGT said the additional vendor payments were for extra services outside MGT’s contract, and district officials were well aware of the work. In an email statement, MGT Consulting Executive Vice President Eric Parish called the press conference a “charade” and the audit “much ado about nothing.”

“There is nothing here, as the District Attorney’s Office itself has said, and the auditors would have come to a similar conclusion if they had actually interviewed anyone from the district’s accounting or finance departments or anyone from MGT,” Parish wrote. “The district’s ongoing desire to create artificial distractions raises real questions about their interest and ability to lead the type of academic improvements that MGT accomplished during its time as lead partner.”

District spokesman Robert Lundin said that doing interviews with staff and trying to assess the motivation behind the various contracts was outside the scope of the audit. Board members ultimately have responsibility over spending and whether it’s appropriate or within the scope of MGT’s contract, Lundin said.

Joe Salazar, an attorney for the district, said the State Board of Education had pressured Adams 14 to work with MGT while not looking into district officials’ concerns about financial management.

A spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Education said both department staff and State Board of Education members have asked for the forensic audit repeatedly in recent months and finally received it about 20 minutes before the press conference.

However, the department does not plan any additional investigation.

“Whether the district had to separately contract for services that it thought MGT should provide or pay for is a contract dispute between those parties,” CDE spokeswoman Dana Smith said in an email. “It is not something within the jurisdiction of either CDE or the State Board.”

In 2018, the State Board of Education ordered Adams 14 to turn over most day-to-day operations to an outside manager after many years of low student performance on state tests. The Adams 14 board chose MGT after the state denied its first choice, the neighboring Mapleton School District.

Initial reports about MGT’s performance were positive, and the company can point to concrete accomplishments, such as improving graduation rates and securing federal approval for a plan to serve English learners. However, Loria raised concerns about the company, including spending on subcontractors, after she was hired in 2021 as the first superintendent since external management started.

School board member Maria Zubia said the state order made her feel pressured to go along with MGT’s recommendations.

“I have to say ‘yes’ to pretty much everything because if I question it, or I say, ‘Well, I don’t think that makes sense,’ they’re like, ‘Well, remember what the State Board decided, that if you don’t want to do this, just remember that you’ll have to be prepared to take that up with them and explain to them why you’re telling us no,’” she said. “It just made it really hard for us to question.

“When you’re being told that the accreditation of this district is going to be in jeopardy, and you think that the accreditation is tied to the impact of the students’ diplomas, that’s a huge responsibility that we have.”

MGT formally ended its work in the district on Feb. 11 after months of tensions.

For the time being, Loria and the elected school board have full authority over the district. However, the state education department has convened a group of experts to make further recommendations, and State Board members have raised the possibility of more drastic interventions. A hearing is scheduled for April.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

External manager MGT leaving Adams 14 school district

2022-02-07T21:00:00+00:00

MGT Consulting, the company that has overseen most day-to-day operations in the Adams 14 school district under a state order, is ending its work in the district effective Friday, Feb. 11.

The Adams 14 school board had already voted to terminate the relationship, but that termination wouldn’t have taken effect until April. In a special meeting late last month, the State Board of Education declined to take any action that would have forced the district to keep working with MGT.

District officials said MGT informed them on Friday that the company’s last day would be Feb. 11.

MGT’s announcement means the company is no longer fighting to maintain a relationship that has been intensely strained since Superintendent Karla Loria took over last summer.

In a press release, MGT officials said they made the decision with the goal of “protecting the safety, well-being, and reputation of our employees.”

“Given the current circumstances, it’s clear that we have accomplished as much as we can,” said Eric Parish, MGT’s executive vice president. “We leave with our heads held high, grateful for the support we received from the Adams 14 community and the partnerships we created to increase opportunities for students and families.”

In their own press release, Adams 14 officials said MGT’s decision “temporarily restore[s] all day-to-day decision-making authority to run the district to the duly elected Adams 14 Board of Education and its superintendent.”

“It is the shared commitment of the Adams 14 Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Karla Loria, and the district’s senior leadership to minimize any disruption throughout this transition,” the district said. “Teaching and learning will continue as normal in every Adams 14 school, and faculty and staff can count on continued support.”

In 2018, Adams 14 became the first school district to be placed under external management under Colorado’s school accountability system, which rates schools and districts based on student performance on standardized tests and authorizes intervention in schools with persistent low test scores. MGT Consulting received generally favorable reports the first two years it was working in the district, and company officials list rising graduation rates and increased services for English language learners among their accomplishments.

When Loria was hired as the district’s first superintendent since MGT took over, she quickly raised concerns about MGT, including whether the company essentially had charged the district twice for services being performed by subcontractors. MGT has denied any wrongdoing. The district has not publicly released the results of a forensic audit it conducted last year.

The dispute has tested the accountability system, and it’s not clear what will happen next. The State Board of Education may issue new orders for the district, and some members have even raised the possibility of dissolving and reorganizing the district, the most drastic option available under state law.

The State Board could also order the district to work with a new external manager. Adams 14 officials say they want any new outside consultants to answer to the superintendent.

District officials said they will hold community meetings in the coming weeks to describe next steps and hear feedback from parents and teachers.

The State Board of Education is scheduled to get an update on Adams 14 at its regular meeting Thursday but is not expected to consider new orders until April.

A spokesman for the Colorado Department of Education confirmed Monday that the superintendent has authority to manage the district until the State Board approves new orders.

Officials with the education department will continue to monitor progress in the district, he said. An independent panel of experts is scheduled to present a report to the State Board in March, and the State Board will hold a hearing on next steps in April.

Who’s in charge? Adams 14 crisis challenges state accountability system

2022-02-07T03:32:55+00:00

Lee en español.

When Colorado education officials stepped in and ordered new management in the Adams 14 school district, it was the first time the state asserted its authority under decade-old accountability laws.

The hope — although there were skeptics from the start — was that state oversight and an outside management company would provide stability after constant turnover, and coupled with added resources, would raise student achievement in a district with some of the lowest test scores in the state.

Less than four years after the mandate, the experiment in state intervention is crumbling as the district’s new superintendent has wielded her own powers while the local board is pushing out the management company — and fears remain that students still don’t have access to an adequate education.

State officials failed to mediate the leadership conflict and, with limited options, the State Board now has floated the possibility of dissolving the district. State law is unclear on how that would happen or what would come next.

The crisis in Adams 14 raises questions about the state’s ability to rescue the most troubled of school districts, about what kind of oversight system would work, and about what success would look like.

Some State Board members say the law needs to give them more authority, while some community members prefer the state to stay out except to provide more resources to address problems like poverty and hunger that impede learning.

Education Commissioner Katy Anthes defends the state accountability system, despite her disappointment in how things have played out in Adams 14.

“This can work,” Anthes said. “Providing extra support, focus and expertise can and does work to improve schools and improve student outcomes. We do see this instance where it’s more challenging, but we do see a lot of great things happening.”

Colorado is not alone in struggling. Around the country, state takeovers have a poor track record, especially in the long run, making it hard to find models for success. One thing they have in common, though, is turnaround efforts occur in districts that serve mostly students of color and those districts often end up stigmatized and labeled as failures.

“If you look at the data on these kinds of turnaround takeover efforts, it’s a complete mixed bag so we really still don’t know if these kinds of reforms are good or bad,” said Jonathan Collins, an assistant professor of education and international and public affairs at Brown University. “What we do know is they tend to be racialized.”

Being on the clock

Colorado’s school accountability system rates schools and districts based on standardized test scores and calls for intervention in schools that don’t improve over time. Schools or districts are referred to as being on the clock because they have to improve before time runs out. A low performance rating qualifies schools and districts for state grants and resources from the Department of Education to improve.

The State Board of Education taps experts who visit the schools or districts and issue recommendations. District leaders also can present their own improvement plans which the board often approves — or it can order something else.

But the state has limited ways to intervene. Among its options, it can shut down schools, dissolve districts, turn schools into charters, or order an outside management partner to take over some or all of the operations of a school or district.

In Colorado, unlike in many other states, the state cannot just take over a struggling district.

In 2010, 24 districts were on the state’s watchlist for low performance, but most have improved. In 2019, the most recent year for ratings, there were just three districts on state watch. Some of the districts that have improved enough to be off the list still have considerably low test scores.

Anthes, the education commissioner, said that every situation is unique but that department staff have learned that relationships are important, and that being really clear in guidance is, too.

“What we’ve seen from other districts is that the partnership between the district, CDE, and whatever the management partner is, is really important,” Anthes said. “We’re all human beings in this hard work of turnaround, so having good trusting relationships between those entities is important.”

Adams 14 has been on the state’s radar for more than a decade. Three years ago when it handed over daily management authority to a private, for-profit company, some say the state and the district failed to clearly spell out the division of authority.

“We really struggled with entering into an agreement. What is MGT responsible for providing to the district, versus what is the district still responsible for? That is the main area of conflict,” said state Sen. Dominick Moreno, a former Adams 14 school board member. “I don’t think it was all that clear what the responsibility of each respective entity was.”

The latest school board vote would have terminated the contract with MGT Consulting in April, when the State Board is expected to consider new orders for Adams 14. On Friday, MGT Consulting told district officials the company would end its work in the district effective Feb. 11.

The Adams 14 school district serves about 6,100 students, the majority of them Hispanic students. The district also has one of the highest proportions of English language learners in the state. Until recently, the district struggled with complying with a federal order issued after an investigation found leaders had been discriminating against Hispanic students and staff, and not providing the right education to help students learn English.

Enrollment has declined for years, worsening at times as staff changed and the district embraced one turnaround strategy after another.

First district to lose control to a private company

As the state stepped in to stabilize and strengthen leadership, state law hobbled its efforts. The outside manager, MGT Consulting, still had to report to the Adams 14 school board.

But State Board members tried to make clear that they wanted the local school board to follow MGT’s recommendations and to justify rejecting any of them.

The first couple years saw positive reports about MGT’s work in the district, which included coaching principals, updating curriculum, and securing federal approval for a new plan to serve English learners.

MGT’s proposal always had called for the local board to hire its own superintendent halfway through the 4-year plan. But neither the state nor MGT outlined how they would start to hand over authority. After the Adams 14 board hired Karla Loria as superintendent last spring and she tried to assert her authority, the relationship quickly fell apart.

Loria said in a recent press conference that she thought it was clear that she would work side by side with the management company. She now wants the state to allow her to oversee the work of any management partner, not the other way around.

But having a superintendent come in after a management company might not be the right sequence for success, said Mary Wells, co-founder and managing partner for the nonprofit Bellwether Education Partners.

“It does sound like a really challenging structure,” Wells said.

Allowing district leadership to select the external manager might make leaders more invested in the work, she said. “Then that superintendent would be much better positioned to hold that organization accountable.”

The Adams 14 local board did select MGT, but only after the state rejected the community’s first choice. The State Board, aware that the community’s second choice was MGT, had raised concerns about the for-profit company too, but approved the choice after the local board selected MGT in a meeting with no discussion.

None of those voting members remain on the Adams 14 board today.

State Board member Steve Durham believes that the problem is whether the local board has an interest in working with a management partner.

“We all had high hopes that this would work,” Durham said. “I think the problem is the external manager model won’t work unless you have a board of education that is committed to working with the external manager that they selected.”

At a meeting last month, Durham wondered about changing the law to allow the State Board to take more of the local board’s authority away.

Current Adams 14 board members have publicly stated that they became disheartened by what they describe as MGT’s failure to deliver on promises.

But the board has refused to make public much of the evidence they claim to have collected against the company, and MGT officials deny any wrongdoing.

“We’ve found the Colorado Department of Education to be consistent and committed partners in supporting Adams 14,” Eric Parish, MGT executive vice president, said in an emailed statement, adding that CDE had monitored the company’s work closely and he believes the company’s record speaks for itself.

Holding companies accountable

With the relationship at the top unraveling last fall, the State Board briefly yanked the district’s accreditation, an action that had little practical effect, but was meant as a consequence for failing to negotiate an agreement to restart work with MGT. But the State Board had no power to punish MGT for failing to reach a deal. Community members and at least one State Board member pointed out the dilemma of the state not being able to hold a private company accountable.

As the district and the company negotiated, State Board member Rebecca McClellan questioned if Adams 14 was at a disadvantage.

“We are placing them right back in the position they already were in where a private party may make demands that put them at odds with their fiduciary obligation to the taxpayers of their district,” McClellan said at a meeting in October.

Experts say that’s true in other states as well. Often districts or states can outline ways to hold a company accountable only by inserting specific language in contracts.

Jason Malmberg, the district’s teachers union president, has questioned the $7 million so far spent on the MGT contract, which essentially puts more money in consultants and advisers that he said don’t help teachers and students, despite tremendous student need.

“I’m not saying the district doesn’t need management and a functioning hierarchy, but we have buildings that aren’t meeting basic needs,” Malmberg said.

Commissioner Anthes pointed out that in the past three years, Adams 14 has received an additional $5 million in grants. State officials have spent many hours mediating problems and guiding the district.

Former State Board member Jane Goff, who represented the area and voted to approve the original state orders, said she believes in local control, but thinks the state role is to provide a lot of help.

“It’s not a good idea to just sort of take a district and say here’s what’s going to happen and then leave them on their own,” Goff said. “This is something the whole state needs to be involved in.”

Reducing poverty before focusing on test scores

Many teachers and some community members have floated the idea of creating a community school model that would flood schools with resources to address various issues that affect children’s ability to learn, such as their health, and social and emotional well being.

Several lawmakers have proposed a bill to add community school models more explicitly as one of the options that the State Board can use to intervene in a low-performing school or district.

Some experts say that as more people acknowledge that outside issues such as poverty and housing affect learning, there may eventually be support from other government departments for school communities.

“We need them to work better with school districts,” said Christine Pitts, a resident policy fellow for the Center on Reinventing Public Education. “We also need better private-public partnerships.”

The schools and districts currently on the state’s watchlist serve predominantly low-income communities, with at least 65% of their student body qualifying for subsidized lunches. Most also have much higher concentrations than the state of students with disabilities or students who are learning English as a second language, or both.

Colorado has commissioned an audit of the entire accountability system to look at whether the system is harming at-risk students more than it helps them. The audit will also look at the state’s ability to intervene and whether interventions are successful. The results of that audit are due Nov. 15.

Malmberg believes that state officials are ignoring social and outside problems that inhibit student learning. Students in Adams 14, for example, have to take standardized tests in English, even if they’re not fluent in English yet, he said, creating a language justice issue.

“From its inception the testing regime that they put in place destined us to failure,” Malmberg said. “They’re assuming the ground rules that have been laid are equitable. There was no other outcome than supposed failure.”

Commissioner Anthes said that while she understands that view, she believes that the state’s accountability system is not targeting, but identifying communities that just need more help.

“It can shine a light on folks who may need additional support, additional professional development, additional resources or programming for students,” Anthes said. “We want to make sure they get whatever they need.”

Searching for consistency

Parents in Adams 14 have voiced distrust in the district for years, in part because of the instability of leadership, and recently over day-to-day decisions such as whether school will be remote or in person the following day. Some parents who have become more engaged with the current superintendent and have renewed hope for improvement say the state is not listening to them.

Malmberg says that teachers stand behind the district’s new leaders. He’s not sure he would have been as confident in previous boards, but now believes the leaders are listening to the community.

“We have the right people but they’re not able to make decisions,” Malmberg said.

That brings a main issue back to the state — of how much it should remain involved and what entity should wield power.

Collins of Brown University said while often the need to remove ineffective leaders is clear, how to bring in more effective leaders — and to ensure they stay for a long time — is not. Constant change remains one of the biggest challenges for sustained improvement.

“There needs to be clear guidelines and a clear outline of how this is going to generate consistency and continuity,” he said. “We don’t typically see that.”

¿Quién está al mando? La crisis de Adams 14 desafía el sistema estatal de rendición de cuentas

2022-02-04T17:31:52+00:00