Chalkbeat

2 conservative law firms join defense team in Elizabeth school district’s book ban lawsuit

2026-07-21T23:32:26+00:00

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Two high-profile conservative law firms, including one that has many wins before the U.S. Supreme Court, are helping to defend a Colorado school district in a book banning lawsuit.

Lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation filed paperwork to join the legal team representing the Elizabeth School District, which was sued after removing 18 books from its school libraries. The additional legal firepower comes about five months before a December jury trial is set to begin in federal district court.

It’s not clear why the district brought on lawyers from the Heritage Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom at this point in the case. A statement provided by a district spokesman said that Alliance Defending Freedom has a 20-win record before the U.S. Supreme Court. It also said that the district is the first client of Heritage’s new Legal Action Center, which was created for cases like the library book lawsuit.

“The District has assembled this legal team to mount a vigorous, well-resourced defense of its policies on the merits,” the statement said.

The three lawyers join the book removal case at a tumultuous time for the district. In May, the previous superintendent was forced out and a new superintendent was hired. The district is also facing a financial crisis caused by overspending, leading to staff layoffs and other cuts this summer.

The district has been soliciting donations for its legal defense in the book removal case since last summer. In May, district leaders took steps to create Friends of Elizabeth Schools, a group intended to fundraise for legal costs.

The Elizabeth district spokesperson said he did not have information about how much the district has spent on the library book lawsuit so far or whether Heritage and Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys will charge the district for their work. The additional lawyers will join at least two other firms already representing Elizabeth in the case.

The controversy over the books, which are back on school library shelves while the case is pending, began in the fall of 2024 when the district in conservative-leaning Elbert County decided to pull 19 titles from school libraries because of content school board members deemed not age appropriate, overly graphic, or highly sensitive. One of the books was not actually removed because it had been checked out and was never returned.

The removed books are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both. They include “The Bluest Eye” and “Beloved,” both by Toni Morrison; “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini; and “It’s Your World — If You Don’t Like It, Change It” by Mikki Halpin.

In December 2024, two students, a chapter of the NAACP, and an authors group, all represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, sued the Elizabeth district over the book removals. They alleged that the removals violate students’ rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment to access information and ideas and authors’ rights to communicate those ideas to students.

Lawyers for the district rebutted those claims in a 2025 legal filing, saying “a school library’s curation decisions are government speech immune from First Amendment scrutiny.”

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative public policy group that produced Project 2025, a playbook for the second Trump administration. The document’s introduction says,“Children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.”

Heritage’s Legal Action Center launched in July and described its goals on social media as defending “free speech, religious liberty, election integrity, parental rights, medical freedom, the right to life, and the constitutional principles that safeguard liberty.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an Arizona-based conservative law firm and legal advocacy group that describes its mission as “grounded in the historic Christian tradition.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board to hold special meeting to discuss superintendent’s concerns

2026-07-08T22:18:18+00:00

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The Denver school board will hold a special meeting later this month to discuss concerns raised by Superintendent Alex Marrero, who alleged in a June email that the board is overstepping its authority and that “the current trajectory” has become “increasingly untenable.”

In the email, obtained by Chalkbeat in a public records request, Marrero wrote that board members are too involved in administrative matters, that he is caught in the crosshairs of disputes between members, and that the board is failing to hold itself accountable as required.

Policy governance is at the center of the tension between Marrero and the board. The framework is meant to set clear expectations for both sides. Marrero’s contract says the board sets district goals but “will avoid telling the Superintendent or staff what to do or how to do it.”

Board President Xóchitl Gaytán said in a statement that she scheduled a July 27 special board meeting after several board members requested a discussion of Marrero’s concerns.

Gaytán said some board members wanted to meet earlier than July 27. Marrero’s contract says that if the board materially alters its governance policy, he can deem it a termination of his contract. Before doing so, the contract requires him to provide the board president written notice of his concerns and enter into good-faith discussions to resolve them within 30 days.

Gaytán said Marrero “confirmed that his email raising concerns about board overreach was not intended to invoke” that clause in his contract. She said meeting on or before July 8 — 30 days after Marrero sent his email on June 8 — was unnecessary.

If the board terminates Marrero without cause, his contract says he would receive 12 months’ salary. He earned $346,529 during the 2025-26 school year.

Marrero declined to comment for this story. He recently applied for the superintendent job in Florida’s Miami-Dade County Public Schools but was not named a semifinalist.

Board member Amy Klein Molk said she agreed the board should hold a meeting to discuss Marrero’s concerns, and she’s not worried about the clause in his contract.

“For me, it’s really about getting us all in alignment, getting the board working as one, and figuring out our path forward,” she said. “I want to be able to make sure we’re able to get to that place where he feels good about our response to his concerns.”

Board member DJ Torres said he hopes the discussion will address both the superintendent’s concerns “and some that we may have.”

“What I hope we discuss is a shared interpretation of the elements of his contract,” Torres said.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero no longer in the running for top schools job in Miami

2026-07-08T19:35:16+00:00

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero is out of the running for the top job in Florida’s Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.

The Miami-Dade school board whittled a pool of 21 applicants down to six semifinalists, the Herald said. Marrero is not among them.

In a statement, Marrero said he remains fully committed to Denver, where he has been superintendent since 2021.

“My former candidacy for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent position does not diminish my focus on Denver or the work we have led together,” Marrero said.

“I entered that process as exactly who I am, with a record and a set of values I will never minimize, sanitize, or rewrite for another opportunity,” he added.

Marrero said the Denver district has “unapologetically invested in Black and Latino student success,” supported immigrant and LGBTQ+ students, and focused on equity.

“I recognize that these values may not align with the increasingly conservative ideology shaping public education in certain parts of this nation,” he said. “If that made me less attractive to Miami-Dade, I can live with that. Although I feel for the historically underserved communities.”

Miami-Dade County is an increasingly Republican-leaning part of Florida, with 55% of county voters casting ballots for President Donald Trump in 2024. The Herald had previously reported that Marrero did not appear to meet the school board’s requirement that the next superintendent of the 345,000-student district have public school teaching experience.

Before coming to Denver, Marrero was interim superintendent of a much smaller school district in New Rochelle, New York. He previously served as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in New Rochelle and as an assistant superintendent in East Ramapo, New York.

Marrero began his career in the country’s biggest school district, New York City, where he served as a guidance counselor, assistant principal, and principal.

Marrero’s name has been floated for other high-profile superintendent jobs in the past. Earlier this school year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he was a finalist for Chicago Public Schools’ CEO position. But Marrero said he was staying in Denver. There was also speculation that he might be in line to lead New York City Public Schools, but he did not get that job.

In his statement, Marrero touted his record in Denver, including all-time high graduation rates, climbing test scores, and a “green” state rating, which is the second-highest a district can earn.

During his tenure, Marrero has also overseen unpopular school closures, disagreed with the school board about school autonomy, and faced pushback from parents over school safety.

“Denver knows exactly what it has in me,” Marrero said. “Our progress is real. Our work is worthy of celebration. And our work is not done.”

Marrero’s contract runs through 2028. His salary for the 2025-26 school year was $346,529.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero is a candidate for the top schools job in Miami

2026-06-11T22:46:01+00:00

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Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero is a candidate for the top job in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, he confirmed Thursday.

Marrero is one of 21 candidates who applied to be superintendent of the 345,000-student district, according to the Miami Herald. The current leader’s contract is set to end in February, the Herald said. The application window closed Wednesday evening. The district shared the applicants’ names with the Herald in a preliminary response to a public records request.

In a statement Thursday, Marrero said his candidacy was “not a decision I made lightly” but one made “after thoughtful reflection on several personal and professional considerations.”

“Regardless of the outcome of the Miami-Dade superintendent selection, my commitment to leading Denver Public Schools, our students, staff, families, and the important work ahead remains unchanged,” Marrero said.

“My focus continues to be on successfully closing out this school year, preparing for the year ahead, and ensuring stability and continuity in service of our shared priorities to continue to advance the district,” he said.

Marrero, who identifies as Afro Latino and is bilingual in Spanish, has been superintendent of 89,000-student Denver Public Schools since 2021. His current contract runs through 2028. His salary for this past school year was $346,529.

Marrero’s name has been floated for other high-profile superintendent jobs in the past. Earlier this school year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he was a finalist for Chicago Public Schools’ CEO position. But Marrero said he was staying in Denver. There was speculation that he might be in line to lead New York City Public Schools, but he did not get that job.

Denver’s graduation rates have risen in Marrero’s five-year tenure, and the district’s state rating jumped to green, the second highest, for the first time since 2019, before the pandemic.

But concerns about school safety have sown discontent among some parents. Marrero has also overseen unpopular school closures and disagreed with the school board about school autonomy.

Before coming to Denver, Marrero was the interim superintendent of a much smaller district in New Rochelle, New York. He was previously the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in New Rochelle and an assistant superintendent in East Ramapo, New York.

Marrero began his career in the country’s biggest school district, New York City, where he served as a guidance counselor, assistant principal, and principal. It’s also where he attended school as a child growing up in the Bronx.

This story has been updated to add a statement from Superintendent Alex Marrero.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

No more scrolling at lunch: Officials from 3 Colorado school districts discuss their cellphone bans

2026-06-10T23:42:52+00:00

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Before a ban on cellphones, Jill Haffley said her classroom “was like Vegas.”

“The cellphones were lighting up all the time,” said Haffley, who was a teacher for 30 years before being elected to the Colorado Springs School District 11 school board.

Weary of the distractions, Haffley ran for office in 2023 on a platform of banning cellphones, and the 23,000-student District 11 did it starting in the fall of 2024. Haffley said that if you ask a group of students what it’s been like to go phone-free, they’ll say they don’t like it.

“But you get them individually and one girl told me, ‘Thank you for this. I can breathe again. I don’t have to continue to look at my phone every time I get a notification and I can blame it on you,’” Haffley said. “Our job is to educate these kids and we can’t educate them when their minds are constantly on their cellphones.”

Haffley was one of four school board members and superintendents who spoke to the Colorado State Board of Education Wednesday about their experience with cellphone bans. Under state law, all 179 Colorado school districts must adopt a cellphone use policy by July 1.

That policy doesn’t have to be a prohibition, but many districts are moving in that direction. The state’s largest district, Denver Public Schools, adopted a bell-to-bell ban this week.

Panelists said adults were as much to blame for cellphone distractions as kids. Parents would send their teenagers cute emojis or “thinking of you” texts during class, Haffley said. That was sweet — but also frustrating if 35 students’ phones were dinging during a lesson, she said.

Brian Hill, the superintendent of Mesa County Valley School District 51 in Grand Junction, said students told him their parents were sending them TikTok videos of cats and their athletic coaches were texting them about practice. Haffley said a mother relayed that her anxiety would go “through the roof” if she couldn’t get ahold of her sophomore whenever she wanted.

Parents were especially worried about contacting their children during a school shooting or other emergencies, the panelists said. The superintendents said they understand that fear but there are safer ways of receiving emergency notifications and less distracting ways of relaying messages.

“Without trying to sound like a jerk, we have landlines in all of our schools,” Hill said. “You can call the front office if it’s an emergency and you can get a message through to your kiddo.”

The districts varied in how they made their decisions to ban cellphones and how they explained the reasoning to families. While District 51 relied heavily on research that shows cellphone and social media use leads to increased anxiety and depression in children, District 11 Superintendent Michael Gaal said his district is “not in the wellness game.”

Instead, Gaal stressed the importance of creating a “neutral learning environment” where the primacy of instruction is protected and students aren’t influenced “by one constituency or another.” In addition to banning cellphones, the district banned all flags except for the American and Colorado flags, with exceptions for geography classes, Gaal said.

Aspen School District Superintendent Tharyn Mulberry said his district gathered feedback from the community. Unsurprisingly, it was mixed. He decided it was important not to belabor the process.

“Spending too much time collecting the data and doing community outreach is probably not as necessary as you think,” he said, noting that districts can always change their policies later.

District 51 is doing just that. The policy that the district adopted in 2024 allowed high school students to use their cellphones when they weren’t in class. But this fall, District 51 will switch to a bell-to-bell ban for all grades. Hill said he’s only gotten one upset email.

“This notion that everyone is going to start bombarding your email inbox when you implement it — I haven’t seen it,” he said.

Not that making a cellphone ban work is easy. All four panelists said students will find creative ways around any ban. At schools that require students to lock their cellphones in pouches, teenagers will lock up dummy burner phones or even phones made out of Legos instead, the panelists said. They’ll hide wireless earbuds under their hair or wear knit caps with earphones built in.

Haffley said her nephew told her he could buy a $3 magnet on Amazon that would unlock the pouch that his school uses. She told him he could spend that $3 if he wanted, but if he got caught, the district’s policy would require his mother to come to the school to pick up his confiscated phone.

Consistent enforcement is key, the superintendents said. And the longer the bans are in place, they said, the more a school’s culture shifts from scrolling at lunch to talking at lunch.

“We went back into the cafeterias, we went back into the hallways, we went back into the gymnasiums, and you know what we heard?” Mulberry said. “Noise.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Public Schools Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith to take a top schools job in Oregon

2026-03-04T20:14:07+00:00

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Tony Smith, the deputy superintendent of Denver Public Schools, will leave his post as the second-in-command of Colorado’s largest school district to take a superintendent job in Oregon.

The Beaverton School District announced Tuesday that its school board had chosen Smith to be the district’s next superintendent. Smith will stay in Denver through the end of this school year and start in Beaverton on July 1, according to announcements from both districts.

Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero wrote in a letter to staff Wednesday that, “While we are sad to see him depart, this appointment is a testament to Dr. Smith’s exceptional vision, dedication and the impact he’s made here in Denver Public Schools.”

Smith, who holds a doctorate from the University of Denver, was a principal and principal supervisor in DPS before becoming the district’s chief of equity and eventually the deputy superintendent under Marrero. Notably, Smith was principal of Montbello High School when it was closed in 2010 for low performance and deputy superintendent when it reopened in 2022. Smith also previously worked for the KIPP charter school network in Texas.

The Beaverton district is smaller than Denver, with 37,000 students compared to Denver’s 89,000. But the two districts face similar challenges, including declining enrollment, potential funding cuts, and responding to the possibility of immigration enforcement activity near schools.

Marrero said DPS will begin the search process for a new deputy superintendent “in the coming weeks and months” and pledged to keep the community updated on the progress.

Marrero’s name had been leaked late last year as a finalist for the job of Chicago Public Schools’ next CEO. But a DPS spokesperson said last week that Marrero is not a candidate.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ ordered to close building over safety concerns

2026-01-10T20:23:43+00:00

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Pueblo County officials have ordered the closure of what’s been billed by backers as Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” citing unaddressed safety concerns at the school’s building.

Riverstone Academy officials must acknowledge by Monday evening their intent to close the school at its current location, according to a Jan. 6 letter sent by the assistant county attorney to Quin Friberg, Riverstone’s executive director.

If school leaders don’t comply, county officials will seek an emergency injunction from the courts requiring immediate closure, the letter says.

The county’s order marks the latest development in Riverstone’s short and controversial existence. It opened in August with about 30 kindergarten through fifth grade students, advertising itself as offering “a Christian foundation” and Christian curriculum.

It’s unclear if the closure of Riverstone’s building, a former office located in an industrial area, will spell the end of the school or if its leaders will seek to move it elsewhere or switch to an online format. In a December email to a county official, Friberg wrote that Riverstone had “gotten a bit ahead of ourselves” but wanted to find a way to keep its students in school, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat in a public records request.

Friberg did not respond to requests for comment Friday evening or Saturday. Ken Witt and Lis Richard, the executive director and board president, respectively, of Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, the public education cooperative that authorized Riverstone to open, did not respond to requests for comment either.

This ‘public Christian school’ opened quietly in Colorado. Now there could be a legal fight.

News of the school burst into the open in October, when Witt publicly declared it Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” surprising state education officials and members of the public.

Leaders from the Colorado Department of Education quickly warned that they could withhold public funding for the school because the Colorado constitution bars religious public schools. Witt countered that withholding public money from the school would amount to religious discrimination.

An email obtained by Chalkbeat suggests that Riverstone was created to spur a lawsuit over the question of whether public money can be used for religious schools. The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on such a case out of Oklahoma last spring. Brad Miller, a Colorado lawyer who represents Education reEnvisioned, wrote in the June email that he’d been approached by a Christian law firm about starting a new test case.

In July, Friberg met with county officials about his plans for a school in leased space inside a former office near concrete, landscaping, and marijuana businesses. In late August, county officials sent a six-page letter detailing numerous zoning and building changes that would be needed first, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request. But Friberg had opened Riverstone two weeks earlier.

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

In late October, shortly after Riverstone’s existence became widely known, Pueblo County health, fire, building, and zoning officials cited more than a dozen violations and put the school on “fire watch,” which requires someone to patrol the school every half hour to look for signs of fire.

The Jan. 6 letter to Friberg, signed by Assistant County Attorney Marci Day, outlined a series of failures by school officials in ensuring the school meets regulations and is safe for children.

“You were notified at a meeting with Pueblo County Planning and Development in July that the zoning for the property did not allow for the use but proceeded to open Riverstone Academy to the public in August,” she wrote.

She noted that as of Jan. 6, school officials had not turned in three required applications. They include one for a special use permit that would allow the school to be located in a light industrial zone, one for a site development plan, and one to change the building occupancy from a business use to an education use.

She said without the occupancy application, local fire and health officials can’t determine what changes will be required to bring the building up to code.

“Due to the current conditions and the construction that will be required to bring the buildings and property into compliance with all building, fire, health, and zoning codes it has been deemed unsafe to allow the continued occupancy of the buildings, particularly by school children, prior to final approval by Pueblo County,” she wrote.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ violated health and safety rules, documents show

The removal of multiple walls inside Riverstone’s building, new sinks, drinking fountains, fire safety fixtures, and the construction of a wheelchair ramp at the building’s entrance are among the changes necessary, according to architectural plans submitted by Riverstone officials in December and obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

Carmen Howard, the director of the Pueblo County Planning and Development Department, said by email Friday evening that the department had received Riverstone’s special use permit application.

Other documents obtained through public records requests show that Friberg knew the school’s future was in jeopardy because of zoning and other problems.

In a Dec. 30 email from Friberg to Howard, he thanked her for organizing a visit to the school site to “explore whether there’s a path forward that keeps these students in school.”

“I also appreciate your willingness to help us work through a situation where we have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves,” he wrote.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Pueblo District 70 board member resigns in wake of ‘public Christian school’ controversy

2025-12-10T18:05:34+00:00

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Pueblo District 70 school board member Anne Ochs abruptly announced her resignation during a board meeting Tuesday evening after a district parent called her out for helping quietly bring what’s been billed as Colorado’s “first public Christian school” into the district.

Hannah McDowell, who has three children in district schools, spoke during the public comment period at the end of the meeting. She criticized Ochs for keeping key information about the school, Riverstone Academy, from the public.

McDowell also expressed concern that Ochs failed to disclose she’d already signed a contract to work for Riverstone’s authorizer, Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES, when she voted in June to allow the school to open within district boundaries.

Pueblo School District 70 board member Anne Ochs.

McDowell said she learned about it from news coverage and cited details reported exclusively by Chalkbeat. She handed out copies of Chalkbeat stories and other documents to Ochs and the other Pueblo 70 board members after she spoke.

“Ms. Ochs, your lack of transparency and misleading statements are beyond disappointing,” she said. “Your constituents should not have to learn about a serious conflict of interest from a news article months after the fact.”

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ violated health and safety rules, documents show

McDowell then asked Ochs, who was first elected in 2021 and has two years left in her current term, to resign. Ochs had been the president of the five-member board until a new president was selected at Tuesday’s meeting.

After McDowell’s three-minute statement, Ochs responded angrily.

“First off, I didn’t start with ERBOCES until July 1,” she said. “Secondly, I have to work for a living and this had nothing to do with Riverstone. I don’t work with Riverstone. I didn’t even know about Riverstone being one of the programs.”

Ochs finished by saying, “You know what? You’re getting your wish come true, because I was planning on resigning anyway. I’m done.”

Ochs’ announcement was met with a “thank you” from the audience and a smattering of applause.

Ochs then stood up, closed her laptop, and walked out of the board room. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Ochs emailed a short resignation letter to the board and district superintendent on Wednesday morning.

“This decision has not been an easy one, but due to increasing time constraints and personal commitments, I am no longer able to devote the level of attention and energy that the students, staff, and community deserve,” she wrote.

Ochs said in the letter, obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request, that her resignation is effectively immediately.

Riverstone opened with about 30 K-5 students in August, in a light industrial area just outside Pueblo city limits. Its website describes it as a public elementary school offering “a Christian foundation” and Christian curriculum, but its religious affiliation wasn’t widely known until early October.

That’s when the head of the public education cooperative that authorizes Riverstone publicly declared it the state’s first public Christian school. The next day, the state warned that it could withhold public funding from the school because the state constitution doesn’t allow religious public schools.

In November, Chalkbeat obtained an email suggesting that Riverstone was created to spur a lawsuit over the question of whether public money can be used for religious schools. The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on the issue in April.

The email came from Brad Miller, a lawyer who represents District 70 and ERBOCES. When he sent it on June 4, Ochs quickly responded saying the Pueblo 70 board would discuss putting the issue on the agenda, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat.

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

But when the board voted in late June to allow Riverstone to open within district boundaries, Ochs didn’t publicly mention that Riverstone was a Christian school or that it was meant to spur a legal test case.

When asked in October by Chalkbeat if she’d known about Riverstone’s religious affiliation when she voted on it, Ochs first said no. The next day, she called back and said she knew the school planned to use Christian curriculum, but added, “to me that doesn’t make it a religious school.”

Ochs also acknowledged in October that she’d started a job with ERBOCES in July, but indicated that she’d interviewed for the position after the June vote on Riverstone.

But McDowell, the district parent who spoke Tuesday, said that Ochs signed the contract for her new job on June 9. That was two weeks before the June 24 Riverstone vote, according to a copy of the contract reviewed by Chalkbeat.

This story has been updated with information about Ochs’ resignation letter.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Xóchitl Gaytán elected as president of Denver school board for a second time

2025-12-03T01:54:19+00:00

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Xóchitl Gaytán, a Denver Public Schools parent who works as a real estate agent, was elected to a second nonconsecutive term as president of the Denver school board Tuesday.

Gaytán’s election by secret ballot means an experienced member will helm the seven-member board of Colorado’s largest school district at a time when it faces declining enrollment, the possibility of more school closures, and ultimatums from the Trump administration.

The other nominee for board president was Marlene De La Rosa, who served for the past two years as board vice president. The vote tally — determined by slips of paper filled out by board members and collected in a blue DPS baseball cap — was not made public.

Gaytán was reelected to the board last month, the only incumbent on the ballot to win a second term. First elected in November 2021, she previously served as board president from the time she was sworn in until November 2023. Her first term as president was marked by personality conflicts, power struggles, and tense debates among members.

A majority of Denver school board members are backed by the Denver teachers union, and Gaytán is the longest-serving union-backed member. Three other members backed by the teachers union — Amy Klein Molk, Monica Hunter, and DJ Torres — won election on Nov. 4 and were sworn in during a rare Saturday ceremony on Nov. 21 along with Gaytán.

Hunter, a former DPS teacher and current DPS parent, was elected vice president of the board Tuesday by a secret ballot. De La Rosa was also nominated for vice president.

The board was scheduled to elect a new president on Nov. 21. But after pushback from the community, the board moved the officers election to Tuesday.

Gaytán will take over as president from Carrie Olson, whose tenure on the board ended last month after eight years. Like Gaytán, Olson served two nonconsecutive terms as president, with Gaytán’s first term as president in the middle.

State law allows the use of a secret ballot to elect a school board president and vice president. Not all Colorado school boards use secret ballots, but Denver does. The president and vice president have significant power to set the agenda for the board, and they meet with the superintendent more often than other board members.

Torres was elected board treasurer and De La Rosa was elected board secretary. The secretary and treasurer votes were public and unanimous.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ violated health and safety rules, documents show

2025-11-26T00:12:33+00:00

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A Pueblo County school billed as Colorado’s “first public Christian school” has racked up more than a dozen zoning, building, and health code violations since opening this school year, according to documents obtained through a public records request.

And a local fire official said concerns about Riverstone Academy’s fire detection system prompted him to require patrols around the school every half hour.

The school employee tasked with that is “basically the fire alarm system,” said Rodney DeSiata, fire marshal and assistant fire chief at the Pueblo Rural Fire Protection District.

Riverstone, a K-5 school that describes itself as offering “a Christian foundation” and Christian curriculum, opened in August with about 30 elementary students, according to the school’s executive director.

Since then, four local departments have identified problems related to health, safety, and other rules and ordered school officials to make fixes, records show. The school is located in a former office in a light industrial zone near concrete, landscaping, and marijuana businesses.

Riverstone Academy occupies leased space in a building just outside Pueblo City limits.

Local officials said Riverstone skipped routine steps that should be followed when opening a school. While most public schools take more than a year to plan and launch, Riverstone opened in about three months.

In a statement emailed Tuesday, Riverstone Executive Director Quin Friberg said school officials have met with relevant county departments and are implementing their recommendations. Most updates, such as those from the health department, were completed weeks ago, he wrote.

“All departments confirmed that there are no health or safety concerns requiring closure, which is why we have been allowed to continue operating throughout this process,” he wrote. “ … We remain focused on serving our students and families with excellence and look forward to continuing to provide a safe, high-quality educational environment.”

An email obtained by Chalkbeat suggests that Riverstone was created to spur a lawsuit over the question of whether public money can be used for religious schools. The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on such a case out of Oklahoma last spring. The Colorado lawyer who authored the email said he’d been approached by a Christian law firm about starting a new test case.

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

State officials warned Riverstone’s authorizer in October that they could withhold funding from the school because of its religious character, a step the authorizer described as unconstitutional. If the state follows through and withholds funding, that could trigger a lawsuit and a test case.

Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, suggested that the school’s various code violations indicate its founders may have launched the school quickly to take advantage of the legal moment or because of a “move fast and break things” approach.

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t wait another year, create a more viable school and a stronger test case,” he said.

Riverstone faces 13 violations

Riverstone generated headlines and caught the attention of some public officials in mid-October when its authorizer’s leader publicly declared it Colorado’s “first public Christian school.”

Riverstone’s authorizer is Education reEnvisioned BOCES, or Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Colorado has 21 BOCES, which are public entities that typically provide special education services, teacher training, or other programming to member school districts.

Ken Witt, executive director of Education reEnvisioned BOCES, did not respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment for this story.

By late October, local officials in Pueblo County had found at least 13 violations related to the school, according to documents obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request. One, issued to the property owner, Jenna Wolfe LLC, was for locating a school in a zoning district where schools are not allowed. Wolfe declined to comment for this story.

County officials also found the building’s occupancy type was not changed from a business use to an educational use as it should have been, records show.

Another 11 violations were cited by the Pueblo County Department of Public Health and Environment during an Oct. 29 inspection. They included a lack of drinking fountains, lack of a bathroom near the health room, missing radon testing and asbestos management records, improperly stored chemicals, and a finding that “the school campus is not maintained to prevent fire hazards.”

In mid-November, Sheryl Gifford, a Riverstone official, told a Pueblo County health inspector by email that she was in the process of getting radon testing done and that an architect was working on site plans, records show.

She also noted that Riverstone students had access to bottled water and water from a dispenser, according to documents obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request.

It’s not clear if parents of Riverstone students have been notified about the violations. Chalkbeat asked Riverstone for any emails or letters sent to parents about the violations or compliance issues, and school officials said no such records existed.

Authorities worry about lacking safety features

Multiple local officials told Chalkbeat they were moved to issue violations or demand extra precautions because of safety concerns.

DeSiata, the fire marshal, said when he learned from a news report this fall that Riverstone was up and running with students in the building, it was “an ‘oh no’ type of situation.”

“It was kind of like, ‘Wait a minute. This can’t be happening,’” he said. “Parents are trusting you with their kids. We have to make sure the safety features that are required for this are in place.”

DeSiata said he put Riverstone on fire watch, which requires someone with the ability to call 911 and evacuate students and staff to check every part of the building where a fire could occur every 30 minutes.

He said he’s placed other schools on fire watch from time to time, for example if their fire alarm systems weren’t functioning properly.

Mark Guerrero, a building official with the Pueblo Regional Building Department, said Riverstone moved into space designed for an office and used it for a school.

“They’re not allowed to do that,” he said. “We had enough concern to put these folks under violation, because if we had done nothing and something would have happened, we would have been blamed.”

Guerrero said school officials should have gotten a commercial permit and submitted plans to the county showing how they’d comply with building code rules for schools such as the number of exits needed for the number and ages of children on the premises. He said his department will require Riverstone to hire a design professional to do a code study to see if the building can be safely used as a school.

But first, he said, Riverstone is working with the Pueblo County Planning and Development Department to see if it will be allowed in the light industrial zone where it’s now located. County officials recently changed zoning rules to allow private schools in such zones under certain conditions.

Is this Christian school public or private? The answer has financial and legal implications.

To meet those conditions, county officials said, Riverstone will have to go through the county’s site development plan process and obtain a special use permit. Friberg said in his emailed statement that Riverstone is finalizing the remaining administrative steps to do so.

While Riverstone advertises itself as a public school and is seeking state funding, school officials have simultaneously described it as a private school on certain paperwork and to certain officials. Carmen Howard, director of the Pueblo County Planning and Development Department, told Chalkbeat the department considers the school private based on information “from Riverstone.”

The school’s commercial insurance policy lists Riverstone as a private school. The policy, obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request, is through Mutual Brotherhood, an Indiana company that insures Christian ministries, including churches and schools.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero met some goals, missed others in latest performance evaluation

2025-10-31T01:53:48+00:00

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The Denver school board on Thursday unanimously approved Superintendent Alex Marrero’s latest performance evaluation, which found that he earned 73.5 points out of a possible 100.

The 22-page evaluation from the board says Marrero met his goals last school year related to boosting the number of young students reading at grade level, increasing the percentage of older students enrolled in rigorous courses, and recruiting diverse staff.

Marrero met some goals related to academic achievement, including increasing by two percentage points the number of third through eighth graders who met or exceeded expectations on state math tests. In 2023-24, 31% of students scored that way. In 2024-25, 33% did.

The evaluation says Marrero successfully carried out the board’s policy for closing schools with low enrollment. Ten such schools closed or partially closed at the end of last school year.

But Marrero missed his goals related to the percentage of third through eighth graders who met expectations on state literacy tests. He also missed goals related to the sense of well-being and belonging reported by students and staff in district surveys. Marrero’s goal was to increase it for both groups. While the metric for students was unchanged, it declined for staff.

“The decline was most pronounced among teachers and central office staff, who cited fatigue from reorganization, enrollment decline, and school closures,” the evaluation says.

School board members praised Marrero Thursday for his focus on raising the academic achievement of Black and Latino students, most of whom made gains on state tests last year even if their scores were lower than the goals set by Marrero.

Board member Kimberlee Sia asked how Marrero would continue that trajectory. Marrero said that while some might characterize the progress as insignificant, he would call it incremental, which he said “can become monumental if we all row in the same direction.”

Board member Scott Esserman thanked Marrero for reducing costs in the district’s central office in order to direct more funding toward schools. Board President Carrie Olson praised the superintendent for “taking on” President Donald Trump.

In February, Denver Public Schools sued the Trump administration in an attempt to protect students from immigration enforcement in and around schools. The district has also refused to get rid of its all-gender restrooms despite an order from the Trump administration to do so.

Those actions “strengthened public trust, safeguarded student rights, and solidified Denver Public Schools’ reputation as a national model for equity-driven leadership,” the evaluation says.

In past years, Marrero got a bonus based on his performance. But he won’t this year. The school board got rid of the bonus when it extended his contract in May.

The teachers union and others had decried the bonus structure as unfair. Marrero earned an $8,200 bonus in 2023 and a $17,300 bonus last year.

The contract extension was controversial, too. Some board members thought the board should have waited until after Marrero’s performance evaluation to decide whether to extend his contract. Under Marrero’s old contract, the board had until Jan. 1 to make that decision.

Marrero had far fewer performance goals in the 2024-25 school year than in prior years. In 2023-24, Marrero’s goals included more than 230 metrics. In 2024-25, there were just 27.

The evaluation includes a quote from Marrero’s self-evaluation noting that he considers the “degree of board influence” in shaping his goals this past year to be “outside the norms” of the governance structure that the board uses, known as policy governance.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Investigation finds Denver school board member John Youngquist likely exhibited bias

2025-10-28T02:48:41+00:00

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An independent investigation found that Denver school board member John Youngquist more likely than not engaged in “belittling, dismissive, and condescending behavior” toward some Denver Public Schools staff members and exhibited bias in interactions with some district leaders of color, according to a summary released Monday.

However, the investigation was inconclusive on whether Youngquist’s behavior toward the district leaders was deliberate, the summary says.

The Denver school board is set to meet Wednesday to discuss the full report, which was produced by the Denver law firm Garnett Powell Maximon Barlow & Farbes. In a statement Monday, board President Carrie Olson said she will carefully review the findings. She described this moment as a “difficult and consequential” one for the board.

Youngquist said in a statement Monday that he may take legal action. He said his attorney sent a letter to the investigator and the school board’s attorney “articulating our concerns about the investigation and the context on why it was being conducted.” He said that context suggests “a retaliatory motive for which I intend to take legal action at the appropriate time.”

Youngquist’s statement said his attorney advised him not to comment further.

The announcement of the findings comes a week before voters decide the fate of four school board seats. Youngquist’s seat is not among those on the ballot. The longtime educator and former principal of Denver’s East High School was elected in 2023 to a four-year term.

In an April letter to Olson, Superintendent Alex Marrero accused Youngquist of “belittling, dismissive, and condescending behavior toward district staff, especially employees of color,” among other allegations. Marrero asked that the board censure Youngquist.

In May, the board ordered an investigation into the allegations against Youngquist.

In his letter, Marrero wrote that Youngquist’s behavior was “destructive” and “aligns with someone who is threatened by diverse leadership and equity-centered progress.”

Marrero also accused Youngquist of wanting to harm the school district “in pursuit of personal ambition.” Marrero wrote that Youngquist has “an obsession” with removing him as superintendent.

Youngquist has said that he does not want to be superintendent. He applied once, in 2021, and did not get the position. Marrero was hired instead.

The 29-page report describes a board member who says it’s his responsibility to ask tough questions and staff members of color who say the way he asks those questions is hostile and condescending.

Investigators conducted 28 interviews, including with Youngquist and Marrero, 18 current and two former district employees, and the other six school board members. Other than Marrero and Youngquist, the witnesses are not identified by name in the report.

Several witnesses said Youngquist treats staff of color differently than white staff, addressing staff of color in a “‘nice nasty’ tone” and implying that they don’t know how to do their jobs.

Witnesses also said Youngquist ignores staff of color, cancels meetings with them, or raises his voice when speaking with them. One board member said Youngquist “immediately goes to a place of distrust instead of professional courtesy,” the report says.

Youngquist told investigators that the questions he asks are appropriate.

“Mr. Youngquist described himself as interested in ensuring transparency and engaging critically at a level that allows him as a board member to understand what is going on, question what results mean, and not just be ‘responsive to and led by the superintendent,’” the report says.

In a letter to the board Monday, Marrero said he was “deeply disappointed” by the findings of the investigation but not surprised, according to a copy of the letter provided to Chalkbeat.

“The details outlined in the report confirm what many have experienced firsthand: a sustained pattern of behavior that is both damaging and unacceptable in any professional environment. No one should be expected to work under such conditions,” Marrero wrote to the board.

Youngquist was one of two board members who voted in May against extending Marrero’s contract and making it more difficult to fire him. Youngquist said he voted against extending the contract because he disagreed with the timeline. Under the contract, the board had until Jan. 1 to decide whether to extend it. Youngquist said he supported waiting.

Fellow board members had raised concerns about Youngquist’s behavior before Marrero wrote his letter. In December, three board members accused Youngquist of “behavior unbecoming of a board member towards DPS staff” but did not discuss any details.

Youngquist previously said that he knows of three instances in which DPS staff of color said they took offense at something he said or did. But he said his conduct wasn’t deliberate.

“I’ve worked in diverse communities of color over the course of 30-plus years in Denver and beyond,” Youngquist told Chalkbeat in May. “I know and understand the importance of listening to people.”

The board discussed Youngquist’s behavior in vague terms during a January public meeting. Board members told Youngquist his behavior was disappointing and questioned whether he was taking accountability. Youngquist said he appreciated their feedback and committed to following district policy on board member conduct.

That meeting occurred after Youngquist accused the board of violating open meetings laws. Youngquist said he was improperly excluded from a closed-door executive session where the board discussed state pension rules that limit how much former district employees like him can be paid by the district for official school board duties.

The investigation found that Youngquist’s behavior “has not changed despite it being noted in public and private settings by staff and board members,” according to the summary.

The board last investigated one of its own members in 2021. The board censured then-member Auon’tai Anderson after the investigation found he flirted with a student on social media and made posts that could be perceived as intimidating to witnesses in the investigation.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver superintendent calls for censure of board member John Youngquist for ‘pattern of hostility’

2025-05-06T21:54:18+00:00

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Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero has asked the school board to censure member John Youngquist, writing in a letter that Youngquist “has consistently demonstrated a pattern of hostility, policy violations, racial insensitivity, and unethical conduct.”

Marrero sent the letter to school board President Carrie Olson on April 22, nine days before the board voted 5-2 to extend the superintendent’s contract. Youngquist voted no.

In the letter, Marrero accused Youngquist of behaving inappropriately toward DPS staff and wanting to harm the school district “in pursuit of personal ambition.” Youngquist is a longtime educator and former principal of East High School who was elected to the school board in 2023. Marrero wrote in the letter that Youngquist has “an obsession” with removing him as superintendent.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that his actions are driven by a personal ambition to become superintendent himself as he had previously pursued repeatedly, unsuccessfully,” Marrero wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained in an open records request. The Denver Post first reported on Marrero’s request that Youngquist be censured.

Youngquist said in an interview Tuesday he does not want to be superintendent. He applied once, in 2021, and did not get the position, he said. Marrero was hired instead. Youngquist said the letter feels like “a personal attack against me by the superintendent, and that’s something I don’t understand.”

Youngquist refuted Marrero’s claim that he wants to hurt DPS, where he said he started as a teacher in 1991.

“Every step of that way has been a complete commitment to supporting our children and families,” he said. “It is what I devoted my career to.”

Allegations include that Youngquist mistreated DPS staff

Marrero alleged in the letter that Youngquist has “repeatedly engaged in belittling, dismissive, and condescending behavior toward district staff, especially employees of color.” He wrote that Youngquist’s behavior “aligns with someone who is threatened by diverse leadership and equity-centered progress.”

“This is not simply a personality conflict or a matter of difference in opinion,” Marrero wrote. “I have tried to work beyond this behavior and even tried coaching members of my team who have been on the receiving end of his attacks — all for the betterment of the district.

“Despite my attempts, it is clear that Mr. Youngquist’s behavior is destructive.”

Three other board members accused Youngquist in December of “behavior unbecoming of a board member towards DPS staff,” though they did not disclose details.

In January, the board discussed Youngquist’s behavior in a similarly vague manner during a public meeting. Other board members told Youngquist his behavior was disappointing and questioned whether he was taking accountability. Youngquist said he appreciated hearing their feedback and committed to following district policy on board member conduct.

Youngquist on Tuesday said that he knew of three instances in which DPS staff of color said they took offense at something he said or did. But he said his conduct wasn’t deliberate.

“I’ve worked in diverse communities of color over the course of 30-plus years in Denver and beyond,” Youngquist said. “I know and understand the importance of listening to people.”

Deep Singh Badhesha, the district’s government political liaison, recalled an April meeting with Youngquist about DPS’ position on bills in the state legislature. Badhesha told Chalkbeat that Youngquist became aggressive when asking about a bill to require Colorado students to learn about financial literacy. When Badhesha told him DPS already has standards for teaching financial literacy, he said Youngquist questioned the truth of that.

“I’m fine with the pushback,” Badhesha said. But he said “the hostility, the condescension, and rudeness of it … was so off-putting” that he wrote an email to Marrero documenting the experience. A day later, Marrero sent his letter to Olson.

Badhesha, who is Indian American, said it wasn’t clear to him why Youngquist acted the way he did.

“I can’t read into it if it’s racially motivated or if it’s just how he treats people,” Badhesha said.

Youngquist said he did push back on the assertion that DPS already teaches financial literacy. But he said he didn’t hear until recently that Badhesha was offended by his conduct.

School board hasn’t responded to Marrero’s claims

Marrero urged the board in his letter to censure Youngquist for “repeated violations of Board policy, inappropriate conduct, and unethical behavior.” The board has only censured a member once in recent history. In 2021, the board censured member Auon’tai Anderson after an investigation found he flirted with a student on social media and made social media posts that could be perceived as intimidating to witnesses in the investigation.

Olson said in a statement that the board “has not taken any action or made any decisions in response to the complaint.” Board members voted against holding a closed-door executive session last week to discuss what was listed on the agenda as “a complaint of discrimination.”

“The Board did not have sufficient votes to convene in executive session, so it did not take place,” Olson said. “I am working on rescheduling one for next week.”

Marrero also urged the board to prohibit Youngquist from engaging with district staff “outside of official channels,” require him to take anti-bias training, and review potential conflicts of interest “if his intent is to seek leadership within the district.”

The letter includes a bulleted list of accusations against Youngquist, including that he challenged the validity of the district’s test scores and implied that its high school graduation data is “manipulated and dishonest.”

Youngquist said he questioned whether interim early literacy test scores, which went up last year, are a good measure of academic success. As for the district’s highest-ever graduation rate of 80% last year, Youngquist said he requested that the board discuss whether a 2020 “no Fs” policy during the early days of the pandemic might have boosted the 2024 graduation rate.

“It was not an accusation on any level of the superintendent, but a questioning of, how did a decision we made four years ago affect our current data here?” said Youngquist, who added that he supported the “no Fs” policy. The board never discussed his question because not enough members agreed to put it on a meeting agenda, he said.

Marrero also said in the letter that Youngquist “suggested the possibility of a buyout of my contract.” Marrero’s contract says that the district would have to pay him 12 months of his salary, which is $346,529 this year, if the board were to fire him without cause.

Youngquist said buying out Marrero’s contract is “not something I’ve ever heard or said or thought about.” He said he voted against extending Marrero’s contract last week because he disagreed with the timeline. Under the contract, the board had until Jan. 1, 2026 to decide whether to extend it. Youngquist said he supported making the decision later in the year.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero gets 2-year contract extension from school board

2025-05-02T02:21:17+00:00

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In a split vote, the Denver school board extended Superintendent Alex Marrero’s contract Thursday for an additional two years, a contentious decision at a key time for the school district.

Marrero’s contract was set to expire on June 30, 2026. It will now be extended until June 2028.

“We want to have conversations about moving our students forward? That’s what this man is doing,” board member Scott Esserman said at Thursday’s meeting. “You don’t have to like the way he’s doing it. You don’t have to like him at all. But he cares about our students and our families and our communities, and he shows it on a daily basis.”

The board also amended Marrero’s contract Thursday so that he can no longer earn performance bonuses, which have caused friction with the teachers union and others. Marrero earned an $8,200 bonus in 2023 and a $17,300 bonus in 2024 for meeting a certain percentage of his performance goals. His base salary this year is $346,529.

Board members also changed the process and timeline for terminating Marrero’s contract. They raised the number of votes needed to fire Marrero from a simple majority of the seven-member board to a supermajority and extended the timeline for giving him notice from 60 to 90 days.

Esserman was one of five board members to vote to extend Marrero’s contract. The other four were President Carrie Olson, Vice President Marlene De La Rosa, Michelle Quattlebaum, and Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán. Board members Kimberlee Sia and John Youngquist voted no.

Neither Sia nor Youngquist elaborated much on the reason for their vote.

“I don’t believe it’s appropriate at this point to extend the contract,” Youngquist said.

The timing of the board’s decision to extend Marrero’s contract has been controversial. Critics have argued that since four seats on the board are up for election in November, the new board members should get to decide on Marrero’s contract.

Marrero’s superintendency has been tumultuous at times due to issues that many large urban school districts are facing. Marrero, who was hired to lead Denver Public Schools in 2021, has recommended a slew of school closures due to low enrollment, prompting fierce pushback. In total, the board has agreed to close 10 schools and partially close three more during his tenure.

A spate of gun violence in and around schools reignited a debate about student safety and led to the controversial reintroduction of police officers in schools in 2023.

Academically, DPS achieved its highest-ever graduation rate last year. But the district’s recovery from pandemic-era learning loss has been uneven, with the test scores of students of color and those from low-income families lagging behind outcomes for white and wealthier students.

Many teachers are mad that they were denied higher cost-of-living raises while Marrero got a bonus. DPS has also found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration over an all-gender restroom, and it has sued the federal government to protect immigrant students.

“In the age of President Trump and the target he has put on Denver Public Schools’ back, we know that protecting our students and families is of utmost importance,” Olson said. “And stability in leadership is in the best interests of our district and our students.”

Critics have decried the board’s process of deciding on the contract extension as secretive and rushed. The board previously met in a closed-door session to discuss amending the superintendent’s contract, but didn’t have any public discussion until Thursday.

When Marrero became superintendent nearly four years ago, some community members questioned whether he was experienced enough to lead the 90,000-student district. But the school board members who hired him lauded his willingness to listen and his personal experiences as a bilingual student and educator in New York.

Five months into Marrero’s tenure, the board voted to extend his contract from two to four years with an automatic one-year extension. Two years later, the board voted to extend his contact for another year and raise his pay by 10%. Under that contract, the board had until Jan. 1, 2026 to decide whether to renew Marrero’s contract or allow it to expire and search for a new leader.

Newly elected or reelected board members are typically seated in December, which would have left a new board a few weeks to decide on the superintendent’s contract before Jan. 1.

If a new board were to fire Marrero without cause — meaning he hadn’t committed fraud or embezzlement, been convicted of a felony, or intentionally failed at his job — his contract says the district would owe him a severance payment equal to 12 months of his salary. The district would also be required to provide him with family health insurance benefits for a year.

Several community members spoke at Thursday’s meeting, some in favor and some against extending Marrero’s contract.

Longtime DPS educator and leader Darlene LeDoux said Marrero is a rarity as an award-winning, Afro-Latino superintendent and deserves the chance to continue leading the district.

“Dr. Alex Marrero is exceptional,” LeDoux said. “He leads with courage, clarity, and heart.”

Denver parent Lynne Ly, who co-founded a group that advocated for some board members to resign, said there hadn’t been enough community input on the contract extension or a new performance evaluation to show the improvements Marrero had made.

“If you truly believe this extension is deserved, then show us the evidence,” Ly said. “Don’t expect the community to quietly sit back while decisions are made in the dark.”

Marrero’s next performance evaluation, based upon a set of goals the board approved late last year, is scheduled for October.

Jason Gonzales contributed to this report.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Students should feel safe in schools: State Board passes resolution wading into immigration debate

2025-03-12T22:01:55+00:00

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Colorado State Board of Education members on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution signaling their support for students to feel safe in schools.

The board rarely votes on resolutions making a statement but the chair wanted to give members a chance to speak out. The resolution comes as school districts around the country are grappling with how to respond to the Trump administration crackdown on immigration and its impact on students.

First discussed in February, the resolution was amended multiple times by both Democratic and Republican board members in an attempt to find language that everyone agreed on.

As the board debated the language of the resolution, members argued about getting into political statements and the merits of immigration policies or actions. At one point, two Republican board members discussed the usage of illegal immigrant as opposed to the term illegal alien in a piece of language that failed.

The final approved resolution states that the board is “committed to supporting public schools to ensure that all students feel safe and supported in schools” and is “aware that Colorado schools serve diverse communities who may feel worried or uncertain about the safety of their students.”

“We should be advocating across the political spectrum to ensure that our schools are safe places where learning is not disrupted,” the resolution states.

State Board Chair Rebecca McClellan, who represents Aurora, one of the targets of federal immigration raids last month, introduced the resolution, saying she wanted to give the board an opportunity to speak in a unified voice “to affirm the right of every Colorado student to receive a free public education.”

The resolution also made a point of tying that affirmation to the state’s recent goals of improving attendance and reducing the number of students who are chronically absent as a way to help student achievement rise.

Some district leaders, including in Denver and Jeffco, have discussed attendance rates dropping in certain schools as they see some immigrant families afraid to leave their homes because of fears of encountering immigration enforcement agents. Local school districts have also passed resolutions in support of immigrant students, often with more direct language, but also with more authority to enact local policies on how schools will respond if immigration agents show up at a school.

The state board does not have much authority over such decisions, and so its resolution is more of a symbolic gesture.

McClellan thanked the board for having a professional discussion despite disagreements.

One amendment that was successful was introduced by Republican State Board member Kristi Burton Brown, who wanted to add a line that also signaled support for law enforcement.

“We support the actions of law enforcement to remove violent criminals from Colorado and, in so doing, making our school children safer when they walk to school and back home,” the final language of that amendment reads.

“The arrests we have seen happen in Colorado are of violent criminals, the arrests we have seen across the nation are of violent criminals who are endangering our children on their way to and from school,” Burton Brown said. “Violent criminals should be taken off of our streets if they are here illegally and so I think that my suggested amendment is coming from a bipartisan standpoint that’s saying if we want our kids to be safe in school we should want them to also be safe on their way to and from school.”

Some board members opposed the language saying that violent criminals exist in any group, and some of the immigration enforcement actions have instead been blanket door-to-door raids. Nationally, the raids have swept up many people with no criminal record.

The amendment passed with three board members opposed, but was not an obstacle for board members approving the final resolution.

State Board member Kathy Plomer, who represents areas of Thornton that were also targeted last month when federal immigration raids were conducted in Denver and Aurora, also introduced an amendment that would have acknowledged the Trump administration’s decision to rescind a decades-long policy that treated schools as sensitive or protected locations where immigration enforcement could only take place if there was an immediate danger to the public.

Aurora teachers provide a glimpse into their classrooms on the day of immigration raids

Her amendment would have read: “We’re aware that Colorado schools serve diverse communities who feel worried or uncertain about the safety of their students based on the removal of schools as protected spaces and recent neighborhood immigration enforcement activities.”

But Republican board members said they would not support the resolution with that language because it felt overly political.

State Board member Burton Brown said she felt the removal of any protected spaces where federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was blocked from entering to remove “someone including those who are violent criminals” was a good thing that made students safer.

State Board member Steve Durham said that if the board was going to open the door to be political by introducing such resolutions, he had in mind several more political resolutions he could introduce soon.

Plomer said her amendment was intended to add clarity so school districts knew that the State Board understood what had changed to make them deal with this issue now.

But, in the end, she said having a bipartisan statement was more important and revoked the amendment.

“I don’t want to just create chaos that’s not doing anything, and getting in the way of something that I hope could be productive, and a statement from this board, that we want kids to come to school and feel safe,” Plomer said.

State Board member Yazmin Navarro, also a Republican, thanked Plomer.

“I think it’s amazing that you want to work with everyone on the board and that you’re willing to do that. That’s hard,” Navarro said. “It goes back to the idea that everyone’s sentiment has been across the board that we’re all here for students.”

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

Denver schools superintendent’s goals for 2024-25 focus on test scores, staff retention

2025-01-02T22:21:49+00:00

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Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero has far fewer performance goals this school year. But the goals he does have are more ambitious, he said last month.

For example, Marrero wants the share of Denver students in grades 3-8 who meet or exceed expectations on the state literacy test to increase from 40% to 42%. His goal last year was for that percentage to increase by just 1 percentage point.

Marrero’s targets, which the school board unanimously approved at a meeting last month, might be more ambitious. But the district still isn’t on track to meet the academic goals he laid out in Denver Public Schools’ strategic plan in 2022.

That plan, for instance, calls for 49% of third- through eighth-graders to meet or exceed expectations on the state literacy test by 2025-26. Hitting that goal would require a big jump of nine percentage points over two school years; in recent years, district scores have either been flat or climbed by 1 percentage point each year.

Last school year, Marrero’s performance goals included more than 230 metrics by which the board evaluated him. This year, his performance goals include just 27 metrics.

At the December school board meeting, Marrero said he crafted his goals for the 2024-25 school year with several pieces of feedback in mind, including that he should narrow his focus and put more emphasis on academic outcomes.

Gone are goals related to student attendance, limiting tickets and arrests by police officers in Denver schools, and how much produce the district will harvest from its greenhouse. (Last year’s performance goals included a very specific target harvest of 8,160 pounds of tomatoes.)

Marrero kept goals related to student test scores, high school graduation rates, and staff retention rates. He also added a goal related to the board’s school closure policy, under which it recently voted to shutter or shrink 10 schools at the end of this school year.

The goals are officially known as “reasonable interpretations.” They are Marrero’s interpretation of how to carry out the board’s overarching goals for Denver Public Schools. The board uses Marrero’s performance goals to evaluate him, their sole employee, every October.

This past October, Marrero earned a $17,326 bonus for meeting 85% of his performance goals. That dollar amount is equal to 5% of his annual $346,529 salary. Marrero’s contract allows him to earn a bonus of up to 12.5% of his salary if he meets all of his goals.

Marrero’s 2024-25 performance goals say he will:

Increase the overall percentage of third- through 11th-grade students who are proficient in literacy and math by two percentage points, as measured by state standardized tests.
Do the same for groups of underserved students, including Black and Latino students, students with disabilities, and students who qualify for subsidized school meals.
Increase the four-year high school graduation rate by two percentage points, both overall and for the same groups of students.
Maintain or increase the pass rates for students taking college-level courses, as well as career and technical education courses.
Maintain or increase the number of students who graduate with an industry certificate.
Maintain or increase the number of students who graduate with a Seal of Biliteracy affirming that they can read, write, and speak in two or more languages.
Increase the participation of certain groups of students in internships or apprenticeships. Those groups include Black and Latino students, students with disabilities, students who qualify for subsidized school meals, and students learning English.
Increase the participation of those same groups of students in college-level courses.
Maintain or improve the retention rates of teachers, assistant principals, and principals of color; female leaders of color; and bilingual teachers.
Improve how students, families, and staff rate the district on annual surveys that measure perceptions of health, safety, belonging, and other metrics.
Audit three district systems to ensure they are equitable.
Ensure the district’s six community hubs meet the needs of the community.
Achieve the goals laid out in the district’s climate action plan.
Follow the requirements of the board’s school closure policy, officially known as Executive Limitation 18. The policy calls for the superintendent to present a comprehensive enrollment report to the board each June and then recommend schools for closure or consolidation by November.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero gets a $17,000 bonus with his third performance evaluation

2024-10-29T01:23:30+00:00

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Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero will earn a $17,326 bonus for meeting 85% of his goals last school year, according to his yearly evaluation approved by the school board Monday.

The bonus is equal to 5% of Marrero’s annual salary of $346,529.

The board voted unanimously to approve Marrero’s evaluation and performance pay with little discussion. Board President Carrie Olson briefly ticked off a list of the superintendent’s accomplishments, including his response to serving an influx of thousands of migrant students, the creation of six “community hubs,” and the district’s focus on environmental sustainability.

“We’re really grateful for all you’ve done for Denver Public Schools and we’re excited to see what you’ll do over the next year,” Olson said.

This was Marrero’s third evaluation since he was hired as DPS superintendent in 2021. Last year, he met just over 80% of his goals and earned a $8,325 bonus, equal to 2.5% of his salary.

The board’s 18-page evaluation of Marrero notes that the superintendent met many of his goals related to equity, health and safety, climate action, and graduation and post-graduation success.

Marrero missed several goals related to student and staff well-being and teaching and learning. The latter category is largely based on how DPS students score on state standardized tests.

Marrero’s contract allows him to earn a bonus of up to 12.5% of his base salary if he meets 100% of his goals. He does not get a bonus if he meets 75% of his goals or less.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org .

Two Aurora schools change partners, get more time to show academic improvements

2024-06-13T00:24:16+00:00

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Colorado State Board of Education voted Wednesday to allow two Aurora schools, North Middle School and Aurora Central High School, to continue their own improvement plans for another two years.

It’s a change for Aurora Central in particular, which before the start of the pandemic was facing more criticism and more possible intervention from the state.

On Wednesday, new district and school administrators told State Board members about the growth they’ve experienced and the changes they want to make to the plan.

The district’s plan for Central is to continue rolling out a K-12 arts program, further develop career and college options for students, and partner with a new group to help improve instruction. An analysis the district presented found that the school still has inconsistent teaching and planning.

For that reason, the district leaders said they looked for a new partner that could help drill down on improving instruction. They will partner with TNTP, a nonprofit education group that is also helping the Adams 14 school district, which is also under state-ordered improvement plans. Aurora leaders said they are using more specific goals in their work with TNTP as a result of a move towards outcomes-based contracts, in which the contractor’s pay can be tied to achieving certain goals.

North will have a new principal and will be working with a new management partner, switching from EdDirection, formerly known as MGT Consulting, to also work with TNTP.

North’s major focus will also be to improve teaching and leadership’s coaching abilities.

Two State Board members — Steve Durham and Deb Scheffel — voted against both plans. Durham criticized the education system as a whole and said Aurora Central’s plan seemed not to call for enough change.

Other State Board members said change takes time, noting that even though changes being made in Aurora might be incremental, there are reasons to be optimistic.

North Middle School is in its sixth year of low state performance ratings but was less than a point away from receiving a higher rating in 2023.

Aurora Central High School has had low ratings for more than 10 years. In its November 2019 hearing with the State Board, the school was given one year to start showing more significant improvements. But when the pandemic began, the testing and the state’s performance ratings were put on hold.

And in the most recent year, Aurora Central did not receive a rating because the district is transitioning the school into a K-12 campus. The elementary and middle school portions of the K-12 school are new and don’t have previous data to use in growth calculations.

Because of the insufficient data for a rating, Aurora Central was not yet required to face the state again. Still, the district asked for the hearing earlier than required, so the state-approved improvement plan better reflected the district’s work in the school.

State Board members said they appreciated the district being proactive in coming for a hearing before it was required to.

However, State Board members expressed concern with Aurora Central’s attendance rates, another issue identified by the district.

In the school year that just ended, Aurora Central had a 41% chronic absenteeism rate, higher than the state average of 31%.

School and district leaders said Aurora Central’s work under the community schools model is one of the ways they have tried to address attendance issues, by trying to have students and families connect to outside resources that might help.

In discussing both schools, State Board members also asked the school leaders about newcomer students. Aurora leaders said both schools have received high numbers of newly arrived immigrant students.

In Aurora Central, the school opened a newcomer center within the school in the 2020-21 school year and principal Kurtis Quig said students there are making good progress with the more intensive support.

The State Board orders will require each school to return for another hearing in front of the state after the 2026 performance ratings if they haven’t improved.

“I agree with my colleagues, this is going to be hard work,” said State Board member Angelika Schroeder. “I have the faith you’re going to do enough here to make progress.”

The Aurora district has also had a decline in its state rating this year. The district would have to face the state for its own state-ordered improvement plan if the low ratings persist for five years.

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

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.

Sheridan picks new superintendent after deadlocking on previous finalists

2024-04-29T23:10:17+00:00

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Sheridan’s school board voted this month to select its next superintendent: Gionni Thompson was approved in a 3-1 vote.

It was the board’s third attempt over the past year at selecting a new leader for the small school district bordering Denver.

The Sheridan school board is supposed to have five members but has had a vacant seat for more than a year now. Throughout the superintendent search process, the four sitting board members have been evenly split.

First, the district was considering appointing the sole internal candidate recommended by the outgoing superintendent. But two board members wanted to open up a national search.

The Sheridan school board voted 3-1 to select Gionni Thompson, seen here in a screenshot from his applicant video, as the next superintendent.

After launching the search and ending up with three finalists earlier this spring, the board was unable to agree to a majority vote on any candidate. So it came up with a new list of finalists.

Out of fewer than 40 survey responses the district received in this round, mostly from district staff, Thompson had the fewest points in favor.

Board President Daniel Stange and Karla Najera, who was the lone vote against Thompson, believe that the Sheridan district needs a Latino leader, perhaps one who speaks Spanish, who can advocate for Spanish-speaking parents who often feel left out. The other two board members have disagreed on the importance of that kind of representation. Thompson is not Latino.

The issue goes back to the selection of the outgoing superintendent, Pat Sandos. There again, the community was split, with many interested in another candidate they thought could be a better advocate for Spanish-speaking families.

Stange said Thompson wasn’t his first pick, but he voted for him to avoid another stalemate.

“I had heard some good recommendations for him,” Stange said. “He seems to be very knowledgeable.”

Thompson, most recently an executive director overseeing 16 schools in the Boulder Valley School District, presented himself as an experienced educator who got into the field of education after seeing the disparities. He got his doctorate of education from the University of Colorado in Denver in 2020.

Thompson described himself as the “the fifth of six kids born in Colorado to an Italian immigrant mother and an African American father.”

“As a child, I witnessed firsthand the barriers my family faced in accessing a formal education. Seeing this, I developed my commitment to ensuring that every individual, regardless of their background, has access to the life-changing power of education and the ability to fulfill their aspirations and dreams,” Thompson wrote in his materials to the board.

In his application, he boasted about improvements he helped lead among schools in the Boulder district as well as in his time as principal of Lester Arnold, an alternative high school in Adams 14.

Thompson said if selected, he would listen to the community before developing a plan.

Sheridan, a tiny district bordering Denver, enrolled just over 1,000 students this year, of which more than 77% are Hispanic and about a third are learning English as a new language. Last year’s enrollment was 1,125. The district also has a high proportion of students experiencing homelessness, this year at about 14%.

The Sheridan district must now negotiate a contract with Thompson and then vote on that.

Stange said the board hopes Thompson can start soon. Sandos’ current contract, which was described as a transition year after his retirement, goes through the end of May.

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

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

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

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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.

Read the panel’s district report here:

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

Long-time charter educator to become new leader of DSST schools

2024-02-10T00:26:37+00:00

Nella García Urban, a Texas charter school educator, was named Friday as the next CEO of DSST Public Schools.

She said Friday she is driven to lead and was excited when she got to visit DSST schools and learn about the network’s mission.

“I’m very much called to the space,” García Urban said. “Every experience I’ve had thus far has left a real mark on me.”

Nella García Urban was named the next leader of DSST Public Schools.

DSST’s current CEO, Bill Kurtz, who had been with the network for 20 years starting as a founding principal of the Denver School of Science and Technology, announced in the fall that he would be stepping down at the end of this school year.

In a news release, the organization said it had been searching for a new leader that showed “alignment with the DSST mission and core values and had a proven track record of leading high-performing schools.”

García Urban was most recently a chief external officer for YES Prep Public Schools in Houston.

Kurtz will help García Urban as she starts in March. He said in a statement that he is “excited about the future of the organization and the leadership and perspective García Urban will bring.

“She is an incredibly talented leader, and I believe will lead DSST to a very bright future serving students and families in Denver and Aurora.”

DSST serves over 7,000 students at 16 schools across eight campuses in Denver and Aurora. The schools have a science focus and aim to get all students into four-year colleges.

While enrollment in Denver schools, including many charters, and other nearby districts, has been dropping, the DSST network has continued to have steady enrollment.

Part of the work García Urban has been responsible for in her past roles with YES Prep, has been growing enrollment. She said that work was about primarily working with families to understand their options and the dreams they have for their kids.

“One family at a time,” she said was her common reminder to her team.

For now, she says she’s eager to learn and get to know the schools, students, and families.”That is bringing me so much joy, thinking about meeting the community,” she said.

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

Former Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes wants to cool down culture war rhetoric

2023-12-09T01:05:00+00:00

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Former Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes faced plenty of anger in her old job. That’s motivated her to help school district leaders and educators in Colorado and beyond develop skills that promote conflict resolution and reduce polarization.

Anthes will work to build those skills in her new role as director of the FORWARD Initiative at the Public Education & Business Coalition, a Denver-based teacher training and advocacy organization. She started Dec. 1.

Katy Anthes, the former education commissioner of Colorado, is now the director of the FORWARD Initiative at the Public Education & Business Coalition.

“Part of it is just kind of getting back to some basics around listening, seeing the humanity in others, having curiosity, and being able to pause before you immediately react,” she said. “These are not rocket science, but they are skills we seem to have gotten away from.”

Anthes, who stepped down as commissioner in July after seven years on the job, said the idea for the initiative came out of the soul-searching she did after leaving the Colorado Department of Education.

She said she worked with the coalition’s director, Sue Sava, to launch the FORWARD Initiative in the hopes of moving education past some of today’s divisive rhetoric and culture wars. Anthes also works part time for Third Mile Group, an educational consulting firm.

Initially, FORWARD will consist of two offerings. The first is a book study facilitated by Anthes of “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped And How We Get Out” by Amanda Ripley. The second is individual or small group coaching sessions led by Anthes. Both are fee-based.

Anthes said without strong skills to probe disagreements and calm conflicts, superintendents and other education leaders can be forced to spend all their time putting out fires instead of attending to student needs.

Anthes, who was widely considered a steady and even-handed education commissioner, said she honed her ability to listen thoughtfully and de-escalate conflict during her years at the education department.

“Those are the skills you have to build,” she said. “They don’t come naturally to us. Especially in this world right now it’s fight or flight.”

Anthes said when people tagged her in angry Twitter posts as commissioner, she would often invite them to meet for a discussion. Not many took her up on the offer. But she said it signaled that screaming on social media wouldn’t do justice to the complex issues they raised.

“Social media is not the place for nuance,” she said.

Anthes said several other national organizations do work similar to the FORWARD Initiative, though they’re not necessarily focused on education. Those groups include Starts With Us, More In Common, Moral Courage College, and Braver Angels.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board revives proposal to raise members’ pay to $33,000 a year

2023-11-03T02:02:06+00:00

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The Denver school board has revived a proposal to quadruple members’ pay to up to $33,000 a year, and most members voiced support for the idea at a meeting Thursday.

The board is set to vote on the proposal Nov. 16, which would be after next week’s school board election but before the new board members are sworn in.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for election Nov. 7. Only newly elected or reelected board members would be eligible for the higher pay.

The board first considered this proposal in February but put it on hold because backers said it wasn’t ready. On Thursday, several members said raising pay would attract more diverse candidates to run for the school board, which one member called “a full-time job on top of a full-time job.”

“It’s definitely a problem that we don’t attract people to do this job because it doesn’t pay,” said board member Charmaine Lindsay, calling the current stipend ”a minimal amount of money.”

Only one board member, Scott Baldermann, said he was opposed. He said he agrees with raising pay but that the board needs to first have a more robust conversation about board member spending. Baldermann previously raised concerns about the lack of a policy on how much board members can spend on expenses such as traveling to conferences, which added up to more than $40,000 last fiscal year, according to the Denver Post.

A board policy passed in 2021 allows Denver board members to be paid up to $8,250 a year, with the rate to increase each year in accordance with inflation.

But not all seven board members are eligible to receive the pay. That’s because the 2021 state law allowing school board compensation doesn’t let sitting board members raise their own pay, and three of the current members were among those who voted on the first pay policy.

District records show only three board members were paid in the last fiscal year. Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum were paid the most, more than $13,000 each, which is a combination of pay and public employee retirement benefits. Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán got more than $12,000 in pay and retirement benefits.

Esserman, Quattlebaum, and Gaytán would not be eligible for the $33,000, though they would continue to receive the lower pay. The same would be true for board member Carrie Olson, who is halfway through her second term on the board but has not requested any pay.

Only the three board members elected on Nov. 7 would be eligible. Two current board members, Baldermann and Lindsay, are running to keep their seats.

The new proposal would allow board members to be paid up to $150 per day, five days a week — which is the maximum under state law. The board does not meet in July, so board members are only paid 11 months out of the year, hence the $33,000. The current policy allows board members to be paid up to $150 per day, five days a month.

Many Colorado elected officials draw salaries, though the amounts vary widely. Denver City Council members are paid $110,595 annually. The city council president makes $123,846.

At least two other Colorado school boards, in Aurora and Sheridan, have voted to pay their members. Aurora board members elected next week will be eligible for up to $450 a month. Sheridan board members can’t get paid for regular meetings, but can request $150 a day for conferences and board retreats.

Denver would be the only Colorado school board paying the maximum under the law if board members approve the increase.

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

Voter guide: 2023 Denver school board candidates answer 6 questions about their priorities

2023-10-11T18:59:07+00:00

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Voters will choose three Denver school board members on Nov. 7.

Eight candidates are running for the three seats. Two of the three races — in southeast Denver’s District 1 and northwest Denver’s District 5 — feature incumbents.

The third seat is at-large, meaning the board member represents the entire city. That race does not feature an incumbent since board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson dropped out of the running.

The election has the potential to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting between some members. It could also change the board’s approach to solving the problems of declining enrollment in Denver Public Schools and school safety, which has become a topic of debate after a shooting at East High School.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has endorsed the two incumbents: Scott Baldermann in District 1 and Charmaine Lindsay in District 5. The teachers union also endorsed Kwame Spearman for the at-large seat.

Denver Families Action, a group that supports education reform and charter schools, has endorsed a different set of candidates: Kimberlee Sia in District 1, Marlene De La Rosa in District 5, and John Youngquist in the at-large race. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston also endorsed these candidates.

To help voters make their decisions, Chalkbeat sent all of the candidates the same set of questions. Their answers are below. Responses may have been edited for formatting or trimmed for length, but otherwise each candidate’s answers are as submitted.

Note: Former at-large candidate Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race but will still appear on the ballot. We did not include him in our voter guide because votes for Ballenger won’t count.

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

Denver school board paid Auon’tai Anderson $3,500 settlement

2023-09-28T23:15:42+00:00

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The Denver school board paid board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson a $3,500 settlement in March, according to school district records.

Anderson said the payment represents reimbursement for legal expenses he incurred during a 2021 sexual misconduct investigation, in which the most serious allegations were not substantiated. Yet the board president said the board never voted on the payment.

The district declined to release details of the settlement, despite Colorado court rulings that say settlement agreements by political entities are subject to public records law.

The $3,500 payment to Anderson appears as a line item on a spreadsheet of board expenses posted publicly earlier this month. The spreadsheet contains little information to explain the payment. It says only, “Settlement Payment per agreement 10/10/22.”

On Wednesday, Denver Public Schools denied an open records request by Chalkbeat for the settlement agreement. “Details of the payment are confidential per the terms of the agreement,” a district spokesperson said in an email to Chalkbeat.

However, on Thursday, the district did release an invoice that shows a $3,500 payment in April 2021 from Anderson to the law firm Decker & Jones, which represented Anderson during the investigation.

Asked about the settlement and invoice Thursday, Anderson said in a statement that according to state law, “Board Members are eligible to receive reimbursement for Board related expenses. I was reimbursed for the out of pocket expenses I paid for representation during the ILG investigation.” ILG, or Investigations Law Group, was the firm that conducted the investigation.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said in an interview Thursday that the board never voted on the settlement agreement or the $3,500 payment to Anderson.

Gaytán said she didn’t know about either until three weeks ago, six months after records show Anderson was paid. Gaytán said she noticed the $3,500 payment on a spreadsheet of board expenses that board members discussed at a meeting on Sept. 7.

Colorado courts have repeatedly found that settlement agreements involving local and state governments are public documents, said Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. The state attorney general’s office has said the same.

“Why is this secret and why would they be keeping it secret?” Roberts said. “There’s so many questions about why the district would pay a school board member a settlement.”

Anderson is the board’s most high-profile member. He has experienced some turmoil since he was elected in 2019, including the unsubstantiated allegations in 2021.

The investigation, which was commissioned by the board, did find that Anderson had flirtatious contact with a 16-year-old student on social media, and that he made two intimidating social media posts during the investigation. The board censured Anderson for that conduct.

The $3,500 payment to Anderson was part of $101,994 in expenses attributed to the board as a whole between August 2022 and last June, records show. That total also includes $48,431 the board spent on facilitators and conflict consultants. The board has been beset by infighting and power struggles between some members for more than a year and a half.

Individual board members were paid or reimbursed another $87,923, records show, for a total of $189,917 spent by the board in that time period.

Individual board member expenses were mostly a combination of stipends paid to some eligible board members and reimbursements for some board members to attend conferences.

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

Parent of 3, former teacher Adam Slutzker running for northwest seat on Denver school board

2023-09-20T22:49:07+00:00

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A former elementary school teacher whose three children attend Denver Public Schools is running for a seat on the Denver school board.

Adam Slutzker, who taught in a neighboring district, is running to represent northwest Denver. His children attend Columbian Elementary School, which was one of 10 schools Superintendent Alex Marrero initially recommended closing last school year for low enrollment. Though Columbian was spared, Slutzker said that experience pushed him to run for the board.

“I don’t really believe that they did their job in effectively communicating with the potentially impacted communities in a way that gave people the opportunity to process and engage in a thoughtful manner,” Slutzker said of the district’s school closure process.

However, he said declining enrollment in DPS means more closures could be coming.

“We are going to have to find a way — whether it’s closures or consolidations or different ways of appropriating our funding” to deal with declining enrollment, he said. “Hard decisions are going to have to be made. We need to be conscious of how we’re making those decisions.”

Slutzker, 39, is one of three candidates running to represent District 5 on the board. He’ll face two opponents: incumbent Charmaine Lindsay and challenger Marlene De La Rosa.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7, and a total of nine candidates are in the running. Two of the seats, including District 5, represent specific regions of the city and the third seat represents the entire city at large.

The election has the potential to change the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for power struggles and infighting among some members. Also at stake is how DPS will deal with pressing issues including declining enrollment and school safety.

After a shooting inside East High School in March, the school board reinstated police officers in some DPS high schools. A previous board had voted in 2020 to remove school resource officers, or SROs, over concerns that SROs were over-policing students of color.

Slutzker said he’d rather the district spend money on social services and mental health support than on stationing police in buildings.

But since SROs are currently being funded by the city and not by DPS, Slutzker said he would be open to keeping them as long as they’re properly trained, and as long as the SROs are “there to protect and serve our students and not necessarily in a disciplinary fashion.”

Slutzker said he worked as an elementary school teacher from 2009 until 2014, mostly in neighboring Jeffco Public Schools. He said he left teaching when his oldest child was born and has spent the past nine years working part-time as a real estate agent, contractor, and carpenter while his wife works full-time as a nurse practitioner.

For the past two years, Slutzker said, he’s chaired Columbian Elementary’s collaborative school committee, a group of parents and teachers who advise school leaders.

“I left the classroom because it was a better financial decision for me to stay at home with our children,” Slutzker said. “I’ve always wanted to go back … I couldn’t think of a better way to be politically engaged than running for school board and making an impact on the education system.”

Slutzker said he believes it’s important for district decision-makers to listen to teachers.

“I consider myself an educator advocate, first and foremost,” he said. “Before I wear my parent hat, I put on my teacher hat.”

On issues such as how to boost teacher recruitment and retention, Slutzker said DPS needs to base its policies on educator feedback.

“They’re the experts and we need to be listening to them,” he said.

Successful Denver school board candidates are often backed either by the teachers union or by organizations supportive of education reform and independent charter schools. Asked his opinion on charter schools, Slutzker said that while he supports DPS having a variety of school types, he believes charter schools need more oversight.

He also said the expansion of charter schools in DPS has contributed to the district’s declining enrollment crisis because “we’ve opened too many schools.” In the few parts of the city where new housing is being built and school enrollment is increasing, Slutzker said he’d potentially be open to approving new charter schools, but not districtwide.

“I’m not anti-charter school, but I want to make sure every neighborhood has a thriving neighborhood school their child can attend before we go granting new charters,” he said. The term neighborhood school often refers to traditional, district-run schools.

Slutzker said his dual experience as both a former educator and a current parent make him stand out among candidates for the District 5 school board seat.

“My background in education and living it day to day, dealing with headaches of child care, the pickups and dropoffs, the healthy school start times, and how to get off of work and pick kids up at 2:40, is something I carry that other candidates are not directly experiencing,” Slutzker said.

Healthy start times is a district policy that pushes elementary school start times earlier and middle and high school start times later to ensure teenagers get more sleep.

“I think I can really empathize with other families in the district for the challenges we’re all facing in being parents in 2023,” Slutzker said.

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

Bill Kurtz will step down as CEO of Denver’s DSST charter school network after 20 years

2023-09-08T21:56:05+00:00

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Bill Kurtz, the CEO of Denver’s largest charter school network, announced Friday that he will leave DSST after 20 years with the organization.

Kurtz said he plans to step down at the end of this school year.

“It is the right time,” he wrote in a letter addressed to DSST families and friends. “DSST is ready for a new leader to take DSST to greater heights. A new CEO will bring different insights, skills and experiences to lead the organization into our next decade.”

Kurtz was the founding principal of DSST’s first charter school, a diverse high school in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood called the Denver School of Science and Technology that was focused on getting all of its graduates into four-year colleges.

Bill Kurtz

Over the past two decades, DSST has expanded to 14 schools in Denver and two in neighboring Aurora. The network serves a total of 7,200 students in grades 6-12, 80% of whom are Hispanic or Black and 73% of whom come from low-income families, according to DSST.

DSST’s high student test scores, a growing number of school-aged children attending Denver Public Schools, and a school board eager to replicate high-performing charters made DSST’s expansion possible. But while DSST still posts high test scores, enrollment in DPS is now declining and the new school board routinely says no to charters.

In 2020, DSST fought with the school board to open its seventh high school in Denver at the same time the network decided to close one of its middle schools due to declining enrollment.

The changing landscape has made things harder for charter schools in Denver. The second- and third-largest charter networks, STRIVE Prep and Rocky Mountain Prep respectively, recently merged under the Rocky Mountain Prep name. The founding CEOs of both networks are gone; STRIVE’s Chris Gibbons left in 2022 and Rocky Mountain Prep’s James Cryan left in 2021.

Kurtz said neither politics nor enrollment projections factored into his decision to step down from DSST.

“The adult politics around all this is necessary because we live in a democracy,” Kurtz said in an interview. “But ultimately, especially post-COVID, we need to have a laser focus on, ‘How are we serving students and families?’”

The students and their accomplishments are what Kurtz said he’s most proud of. The oldest DSST alumni are now in their 30s, and Kurtz said he routinely hears from graduates who are working as doctors, college professors, and engineers. One alumna of DSST’s first school is now a Spanish teacher at the DSST: College View campus. Kurtz said she took two buses two hours each way to high school because DSST promised her a path to college.

“We created DSST together on the premise that we have amazing young people in our communities in Denver and Aurora that did not have access to the opportunities they deserved and we promised,” Kurtz said. “We believed that once our young people had those opportunities, they would do amazing things.”

Kurtz said that while DSST’s mission has remained the same, the way it achieves that mission has changed. The network has worked to make its teacher training, curriculum, and school culture more inclusive, he said. One example, Kurtz said, is that DSST did not have any programs for students with significant disabilities when it started. It now has several.

“We’ve walked a very deep and meaningful journey around equity and inclusion,” Kurtz said.

Kurtz said he does not have another job lined up for when he steps down. Instead, he said, “I’m pretty focused on having my best year as a leader ever and ensuring DSST has our best year ever.” Kurtz said he announced his departure early to help with a smooth transition.

Gloria Zamora, the chair of DSST’s board of directors, said the board will communicate the next steps in the search for a new CEO in the coming weeks.

“We commend Bill for the high-functioning school system he is leaving to his successor,” Zamora said in a statement. “This solid foundation will enable DSST to continue growing to meet the needs of our students and families in the coming years.”

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

Denver school board to limit public comment to a total of 2 hours

2023-09-08T15:01:22+00:00

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Monthly public comment before the Denver school board will be limited to a total of two hours going forward, a restriction that board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán described Thursday as a “temporary solution” to the problem of too-long meetings.

“There’s been times where we’ve stayed until midnight or 1 in the morning to hear every single constituent and parent that was coming in to share any comments or concerns,” Gaytán said during a board work session Thursday night.

“To respect each other’s time as board members, to respect the time of staff, especially, that has to stay late and put in overtime to support the board in allowing for this public comment to take place, it’s important we consider all of that in setting time limits,” she said.

The Denver school board holds one regular public comment session per month at which students, parents, teachers, and community members can sign up in advance to address the board. The next session is scheduled for Sept. 18. The board sometimes also holds special public comment sessions on particular topics.

Speakers get three minutes each to address board members, who do not respond. If speakers go over their allotted time, the board rings a loud alarm to signal their time is up.

But until now, there was no limit on the total time for public comment, though the board has previously floated the idea. Public comment almost always stretches more than an hour, and sometimes much longer if the board is voting on a controversial issue.

A long list of speakers gave five hours of testimony in March 2022 before the board voted on a policy related to innovation schools. In November, students, parents, and teachers spent six hours pleading with the board not to close their schools because of declining enrollment.

In announcing the two-hour limit Thursday, Gaytán cited a district policy, known as policy BE, which says the board “shall set a time limit on the length of the public participation time overall, a time limit for each topic and a time limit for individual speakers.”

Two board members, Scott Esserman and Carrie Olson, volunteered to draft a new policy that would set permanent limits while the temporary two-hour limit is in place.

Member Charmaine Lindsay said she’d like to allow speakers to participate virtually like they did during the height of the pandemic. Olson floated the idea of allotting three hours instead of two because she said public comment is one of the only ways to address the board.

“We are not yet good at getting out into the community in a consistent way so that people have access to us,” said Olson, who added that she starts to fade after three hours of public comment. “It might feel like we’re cutting off more access by saying there’s only two hours.”

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

Longtime DPS volunteer Marlene De La Rosa running for northwest Denver seat on school board

2023-09-07T22:16:24+00:00

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A longtime Denver Public Schools volunteer and advocate and the mother of two DPS graduates is running to represent northwest Denver on the school board.

Marlene De La Rosa began serving on school committees when her twins, who are now 29, were in preschool. Her advocacy continued throughout their school career, from Denison Montessori elementary school to North and East high schools. She also served on several district and citywide committees, advocating for Latino parents and students while working full time as an immigration court specialist with the U.S. Department of Justice.

De La Rosa, 58, said her recent retirement and a lifelong passion for education motivated her to run for school board. She will challenge incumbent Charmaine Lindsay and candidate Adam Slutzker for a seat representing District 5, which encompasses northwest Denver.

“I am a public servant and have been all my life,” De La Rosa told Chalkbeat. “Leadership is a lifelong journey, and that’s the way I envision continuing on this path to serve my community.”

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting. Also at stake is how the board will deal with pressing issues such as declining enrollment and student safety.

De La Rosa said her top priorities include higher pay for teachers, diversifying the teacher workforce, and closing test score gaps between students of color and white students.

Declining enrollment and the possibility of school closures is a pressing topic in northwest Denver, where De La Rosa said her family has lived for four generations. The region has been hit hard by gentrification, which has pushed out families and driven down student counts.

De La Rosa said she understands how fewer students means less per-pupil funding, which often leads small schools to cut programs or staff. But she said DPS’ recent school closure decisions happened too quickly, and the community deserves more time to understand the issues and prepare for their children to switch schools.

Almost a decade ago, De La Rosa said she was hired by DPS to facilitate a community process that ended with the placement of Denver Montessori Junior/Senior High in a vacant elementary building. Some parents wanted the building to remain an elementary school, but De La Rosa said sharing Census data and demographic projections helped change their minds.

On school safety, De La Rosa said the district needs to monitor the effects of the board’s recent decision to return police officers to DPS campuses in the wake of a shooting inside East High. Her son had a positive experience with a school resource officer in high school, but De La Rosa said the board needs to ensure that’s the case districtwide by tracking the number of tickets SROs are issuing to students and for what offenses.

“They have a plan in place, and we should continue to monitor what’s going on with that plan,” De La Rosa said. “Is that meeting the needs of each specific school community? Are those school leaders happy with that plan? Do they think that’s sufficient?”

De La Rosa has been endorsed by Denver Families Action, the political arm of the organization Denver Families for Public Schools. Denver Families launched in 2021 with the backing of three local charter school networks and gets funding from The City Fund, a national organization that supports charter schools and school reform.

Successful Denver school board candidates are often backed by reform organizations or the Denver teachers union. Both spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mailers and canvassing, making it hard for candidates without endorsements to compete.

Asked her views on charter schools, De La Rosa said, “I don’t follow any specific ideology other than, ‘How do we offer the best we can for every kid?’”

De La Rosa said she supports school choice and used it for her own children, including enrolling her daughter at East High. But she also said that the choice system is not perfect.

“You have to evaluate as the parent: What’s the best for my particular child’s needs?” she said.

Both of De La Rosa’s children were competitive athletes, which influenced the high schools they chose, she said. De La Rosa served as a parent representative on the collaborative school committee at East High, advising school leaders on how to close academic gaps between students of color and white students, she said.

She also ran a student athlete leadership program at North High that aimed to boost students’ grades and self-esteem. One year, she said she got a grant to take five student athletes to a national social justice conference in Washington, D.C., where they shook hands with former President Barack Obama.

When Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet was superintendent of DPS from 2005 to 2009, De La Rosa served on a districtwide parent empowerment council that informed parents about everything from test scores at their children’s schools to how to plan healthy meals for their families.

De La Rosa currently serves as a mayoral appointee to the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Denver Latino Commission. She is also a founder of LatinasGive!, a circle of women who give small grants to organizations that serve the Latino community.

“I give my money, I give my time, I give my knowledge, I give my love,” De La Rosa said. “Passion is mainly what I’ve given over all these years to support the community.”

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

Fired McAuliffe principal Kurt Dennis sues Denver Public Schools, alleging retaliation

2023-09-05T21:36:01+00:00

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Kurt Dennis, who was fired in July from his job as principal of McAuliffe International School, sued Denver Public Schools, Superintendent Alex Marrero, and six of the seven Denver school board members in federal court Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed on Dennis’ behalf by civil rights attorney David Lane, alleges that DPS fired Dennis in retaliation for a televised interview he gave to 9News in March. In the interview, Dennis expressed concerns about a district practice that required McAuliffe staff to pat down a student charged with attempted murder to check for weapons.

Dennis gave the interview just days after a different student at Denver’s East High School, who was subject to the same type of weapons searches, shot and injured two school deans.

“Ultimately, Defendants are retaliating against Mr. Dennis, who exercised his right to free speech when he publicly criticized DPS and its unsafe policies in an effort to protect his students and staff from the horrifying specter of gun violence,” the lawsuit says.

A DPS spokesperson said Tuesday that the district could not comment on the allegations because “the lawsuit has not been served to DPS.”

“The allegations made in any complaint are not facts,” the district said in a statement. “We believe the preponderance of the evidence, some of which has already been released, will support our case and we look forward to responding fully in court.”

But district officials have commented before, and some of those comments are now cited in Dennis’ lawsuit.

Dennis’ initial safety concerns, his firing, rallies calling for him to be reinstated, and a subsequent district investigation into the improper use of a seclusion room at McAuliffe have been extensively covered by the local media for months.

In that time, DPS school board members made multiple public statements about Dennis, including at press conferences before and after the seclusion investigation was complete, and at meetings, such as when the board voted 6-1 last month to uphold his firing. Dennis is not suing Scott Baldermann, the one board member who voted no.

The lawsuit claims those statements were defamatory and “publicly advanced numerous pretextual reasons for the termination.” It claims board members tied Dennis to white supremacy and made statements “smearing him in public as a racist” by claiming that the seclusion room was used only for students of color, which Dennis disputes.

A district investigation found that Dennis placed students — or directed other staff to place students — in two seclusion rooms last year without proper supervision and then locked the door. But it did not find that Dennis disproportionately placed students of color in the rooms.

The lawsuit alleges DPS has not provided Dennis with an opportunity to clear his name, which has made it impossible for him to find a principal job in another school district.

In firing Dennis, DPS said he had improperly “divulged confidential student and legal records” in the 9News interview, put DPS at legal risk, caused the McAuliffe student who was being searched to be ostracized, and “repeatedly attempted to remove a young student of color” from the school, according to a document obtained by Chalkbeat.

The district also cited “a pattern of administrative actions” at McAuliffe that had a negative impact on students with disabilities and students of color, including the “overuse of out-of-school suspensions” for students of color, the document says.

The lawsuit doesn’t address the allegation about out-of-school suspensions. But it does claim that students of color achieved high academic results at McAuliffe, the district’s largest middle school. On average, McAuliffe students of color outperformed 88% of their peers statewide on state standardized tests in the 2021-22 school year, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also disputes that Dennis divulged confidential student records or caused the student who was being searched to be ostracized. The records Dennis provided to the press were redacted to remove personal information about the student, the lawsuit says.

Students who are subject to daily weapons searches “are already known by most everyone at the school, including fellow students, as ‘dangerous,’” the lawsuit says.

The student in this case was accused of shooting a liquor store clerk during a robbery attempt, the lawsuit says. The student wore a visible ankle bracelet as a condition of their bond and was escorted by a staff member at all times under a safety plan that deemed the student a threat, according to the lawsuit.

“Through no fault of Mr. Dennis, the identity of these students is, and always has been, widely known by other students and faculty throughout the school,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also claims that Dennis was within his legal rights to request that the student be transferred to an online education program or expelled. DPS denied both requests, the lawsuit says.

In the wake of the East shooting, district leaders have defended a policy that allows students facing criminal charges to attend their regular schools while on bond.

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

Denver school board upholds firing of McAuliffe Principal Kurt Dennis

2023-08-25T03:11:31+00:00

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In a 6-1 vote Thursday, the Denver school board approved the firing of McAuliffe International School Principal Kurt Dennis, backing a decision by the superintendent that sparked both fierce backlash from Dennis’ supporters and a new set of accusations against him.

The discussion was heated, with board members condemning both the existence of a seclusion room at McAuliffe in which students were locked inside alone and a televised news interview in which Dennis shared redacted documents about a student who’d been charged with a crime.

Board member Scott Baldermann was the sole no vote. He argued that the board didn’t follow its own policies. He especially took issue with a press conference at which other board members spoke about the seclusion room before a district investigation was complete.

Scott Esserman, one of the board members at the press conference, said Baldermann’s take was “troubling.” While Esserman denied that board members violated policy, he also said, “I happen to have a higher moral purpose that’s more important than any particular self-imposed piece of policy governance. And that’s to engage in ensuring our children are safe.”

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson read a poem he’d written that denounced the use of the seclusion room, which he and others have said was used with Black students.

“It pains my heart to know a child was in a cage,” he said, “viewed as a spectacle, fury, and rage.”

Dennis was the founding principal at McAuliffe International, a popular and high-performing middle school. He was fired in July in the aftermath of a televised March interview he did with local news station 9News expressing concerns about gun violence and student safety.

Dennis told 9News that the staff at McAuliffe was having to do weapons searches on a student accused of attempted murder. The searches were the same type that staff at East High School had been doing with a student who shot and injured two deans in March.

In firing Dennis, DPS said he had improperly “divulged confidential student and legal records” in the 9News interview in violation of district policy, put DPS at legal risk, and caused the student who was being searched to be ostracized, according to a document obtained by Chalkbeat.

The district also cited “a pattern of administrative actions” at McAuliffe that had a negative impact on students with disabilities and students of color. An investigator found the school’s “overuse of out-of-school suspensions … was having a disparate impact on students of color.”

Racial disparities in discipline did exist at McAuliffe last year, district data shows. While 14% of McAuliffe students were Black, 30% of suspensions were issued to Black students — a disparity that exists at several other district middle schools as well.

Dennis retained civil rights attorney David Lane, who has alleged the district retaliated against Dennis for the 9News interview in violation of his First Amendment rights. The Denver School Leaders Association, the union that represents DPS principals, filed a grievance on behalf of Dennis in July. The status of that grievance was not immediately available Thursday night. Lane expects to sue the district on Dennis’ behalf after the grievance process plays out.

In the meantime, school board members said an anonymous whistleblower who works at the school told them about a seclusion room in which students experiencing behavioral issues were locked inside alone. DPS opened an investigation, and Anderson, who got the initial tip, reported it to the Denver police.

DPS calls such rooms “de-escalation rooms” — and district policy states the door must be left open and an adult must accompany a student inside. The room at McAuliffe “was clearly not in compliance with DPS’ stated guidelines,” the district said in a media release last month, which also said the McAuliffe room was “identified as an incarceration room.”

In an interview with the Denver Post, Dennis acknowledged that he had a lock put on the door to the room but said it was removed after a week or two. He denied that students were left alone in the room because he said staff monitored them through a window in the door.

Pam Bisceglia, the executive director of Advocacy Denver, an organization that advocates for students with disabilities and their families, said she has filed more state and federal complaints on behalf of or involving students at McAuliffe than at any other school in the district.

Since Dennis’ firing in July, many McAuliffe parents and students have rallied to his defense. That continued at a school board public comment session Monday.

“I think you should put Kurt back in his place because he’s made McAuliffe into the best school,” said sixth grader Ella Rustici. Standardized test scores at McAuliffe are high, she said, “and he got fired and that’s not fair.”

Parents and students rally in support of Kurt Dennis outside McAuliffe International School in July.

“I hope from the bottom of my heart that the board of education rethinks this terrible decision,” said Chloe Vause, a freshman at Northfield High School who went to McAuliffe in middle school.

But the support for Dennis is not universal. Board member Charmaine Lindsay noted that the “majority of all people we saw speaking out on behalf of Kurt were white.”

Three of Deronn Turner’s children have attended McAuliffe. Turner, who is Black, said her two older children reported “stark differences in the way Black students were treated and white students were treated. Black students were punished much more harshly than the white students.”

Turner said that when she, as an involved parent volunteer, tried to suggest an essay writing contest for Black History Month, some McAuliffe staff members told her, “Oh, these kids can’t write.” The staff members were referring to Black students, Turner said.

Turner said she supports Dennis’ termination.

“I’m not celebrating anyone’s demise,” she said. “But I won’t promote someone that has been known to do some things as it pertains to children of color that just are not right.”

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

Anderson won’t seek waiver of Denver school board conflict-of-interest policy

2023-08-24T22:18:37+00:00

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Denver school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson says he no longer wants a waiver from a board policy that bars sitting members from working for Denver Public Schools.

The board planned to vote on temporarily suspending its conflict-of-interest policy Thursday but pulled the issue from its meeting agenda.

Anderson and two other board members, Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum, had requested that the board vote on suspending the policy, which would have allowed Anderson to take a job with the district. Anderson, who previously worked for DPS as a restorative practices coordinator, said earlier this week that he wanted to return to working for the district in the months before his school board term ends in November.

But on Wednesday, Anderson said his situation had changed.

“I’ve accepted a contract with a client that will last through the end of my term and I’m excited to join TEAM DPS later this fall!” Anderson texted to Chalkbeat.

The board has paused the policy before to allow newly elected members to finish the semester at their DPS jobs. But this would have been the first time the board considered suspending the policy to allow a sitting member to take a job in the district.

Anderson said he has been working for the past several months as a political and educational consultant. A DPS graduate, he was first elected to the school board in 2019. After initially announcing last year that he’d run for reelection, he said in June that he was withdrawing from the school board race to run for the state House of Representatives.

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

Denver school board to consider pausing policy barring board members from working for DPS

2023-08-22T23:26:54+00:00

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Update: The Denver school board pulled this item from the agenda after Anderson decided not to take a job in a Denver school.

The Denver school board will vote Thursday on whether to temporarily suspend a policy that prohibits board members from working for Denver Public Schools.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and two other board members placed the request to pause the conflict of interest policy on the agenda. Anderson said he is interested in working at a Denver school — though if the policy were suspended, any board member could pursue district employment during the suspension.

The board has paused the policy before to allow newly elected members to wrap up their jobs. But this would be the first time the board has allowed sitting members to take jobs in the district.

Anderson, who previously worked as a restorative practices coordinator at North High School, said that several DPS school leaders reached out to him “asking if I would like to join their school communities as an official employee” as his board term is ending in November.

He said he’d rather start a job now, at the beginning of the school year, rather than a few months into it because mid-year staff transitions can be difficult for students.

“There are folks that see the value of my knowledge and expertise as a policymaker who want that skillset in their building in different roles, so I’m happy to support when I’m being asked to serve,” said Anderson. He has not yet accepted any position.

Anderson was first elected to the board in 2019. After initially announcing last year that he would seek re-election, he said in June he was withdrawing from the school board race to run for a seat in the state House of Representatives.

Board members Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum confirmed that they requested the policy suspension proposal be put on Thursday’s board meeting agenda alongside Anderson. It takes three board members to add an item to the agenda. The board president can do so unilaterally, but that did not happen in this case.

In interviews, both Esserman and Anderson emphasized that the board has temporarily suspended this part of the conflict of interest policy before. The policy says that “no individual may simultaneously serve as a Board member and as an employee of the school district.” The policy covers district-run schools and independently run charter schools.

In 2017, the board suspended the policy so that Carrie Olson, a 33-year DPS teacher elected that November, could finish the semester with her students. Olson resigned as a teacher on Dec. 31 that year. She is still on the board, having been re-elected to a second term in 2021.

In November 2019, the board suspended the policy for Anderson when he was elected. That suspension allowed him to work as a restorative practices coordinator at North High for the rest of the semester. He resigned on Dec. 20 that year.

And in 2021, Quattlebaum said the policy was temporarily suspended after she was elected that November so she could work until early January 2022 at George Washington High School as a family and community liaison. Board meeting minutes don’t show any vote in 2021.

“It’s effectively the reverse of what’s been done,” Esserman said. “It’s roughly the same amount of time, just on the other side of the election and with somebody who is being made offers. This is the only way he can accept a job offer.”

Anderson said he’s been working as a political and educational consultant for the past several months. Before that, he worked as the operations director at Struggle of Love Foundation, a nonprofit organization in far northeast Denver.

While working at Struggle of Love, Anderson got into an argument with a district critic who worked in the same building. Anderson obtained a temporary restraining order, but a judge declined to make it permanent. His employment ended soon after.

Anderson also previously worked for neighboring Aurora Public Schools. But he said he wants to return to working for DPS because “I’m DPS through and through. I’m a DPS kid, a former DPS educator, and an outgoing DPS board member.”

Anderson is a graduate of Denver’s Manual High School. An outspoken member of the school board, he has championed many high-profile policy changes. But his time on the board has also been marked by controversy, including a 2021 third-party investigation into sexual misconduct allegations. The most serious allegations were not substantiated.

Anderson said that if he accepted a job at a particular school and a conflict of interest arose with a board vote, he’d follow the advice of DPS lawyers on whether to recuse himself.

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

Newly released recording of Denver board’s closed-door meeting reveals tensions

2023-07-24T02:14:54+00:00

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In a closed-door meeting the day after a shooting at East High School in March, Denver school board members worried about being blamed, about Superintendent Alex Marrero overriding their authority by returning police to schools, and about the technicalities of how to proceed.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, a chief proponent of removing school resource officers back in 2020, said he was scared for his personal safety. Marrero expressed frustration that board members had not asked right away about the health of the two East High deans who were shot and injured the day before by a student who later died by suicide.

Denver Public Schools leaders fought for four months to keep the conversation private. Chalkbeat and other media organizations sued in April, alleging that the meeting violated the Open Meetings Act. A Denver District Court judge agreed and ordered the recording released in its entirety. DPS refused and appealed that decision, but on Friday, the school board voted unanimously to release a redacted version.

Chalkbeat reviewed the four-hour recording that was released Saturday to the media organizations through their attorneys. The audio quality is poor, and the sound sometimes cuts in and out. But the recording provides new insight into how and why the Denver school board initially decided to approve returning school resource officers to Denver campuses — a major policy reversal made unanimously with no public discussion.

The recording shows that school board members mostly treated the return of SROs as inevitable, even as several said SROs would not entirely solve the problem of gun violence.

Tensions flared at times, especially between Marrero and Anderson.

A few hours after the shooting on March 22, Marrero informed board members that he would return armed police officers to high schools in violation of board policy.

During the March 23 closed-door meeting, known as an executive session, some board members were upset about it — not necessarily about what Marrero had done, but about how he’d done it.

“The school board is the ones being blamed for this,” Anderson said of the shooting. “You’ve made yourself the hero. Everybody is applauding you. … We got the emails thanking you: ‘Go SROs! Go SROs! Thank you for your courage, Superintendent Marrero. But f—k the rest of the seven board members.’ Those are the emails: ‘Resign today.’”

Marrero said he acknowledged that Anderson, who co-authored a 2020 policy banning school resource officers from Denver schools, was bearing the brunt of the criticism.

But Marrero said he too was getting calls to resign, and that his decision to reinstate police in schools could have repercussions for his career as a superintendent.

“People are calling for my resignation because I am pro-cop all of a sudden,” Marrero said. “I have a career beyond this. Fifty percent of the districts won’t see me from here on out.”

Meeting redacted after question about legal liability

Only 20 seconds of the recording were redacted. The redaction involves a discussion of the Claire Davis Act, named for a Colorado student killed in a school shooting. The state law creates a legal obligation for schools to exercise “reasonable care” to protect all students, faculty, and staff from “reasonably foreseeable” acts of violence that occur at school.

In the meeting, a DPS staff member asked DPS attorney Aaron Thompson if the Claire Davis Act could “open the door” to school board members or Marrero being held liable.

“Yeah, it could,” Thompson said. “I don’t think we’re there yet based on the incident that happened at East.” Then the recording cuts out.

Throughout the meeting, board members said the community wanted SROs back.

“I think that the community is clamoring for SROs,” board member Carrie Olson said. “And we all know that is not the answer.”

Board member Scott Esserman said, “We can’t simply respond with SROs. It’s the easy response. It’s the convenient response. But it can’t be the only response.”

Board member Michelle Quattlebaum said that if DPS moved to bring back SROs, “it needs to be thoughtful. They can’t come back the way they were.”

Anderson repeatedly said the board’s hands were tied. Marrero had said former Mayor Michael Hancock told him he would issue an executive order to put police in schools. Because of that, Anderson said, “the decision has already been made without the duly elected school board.”

But at another point, Marrero implied Anderson was in favor of SROs. In a tense exchange, Marrero said that Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas told him Anderson had called Thomas after the East shooting and demanded Thomas put 80 officers in the schools. And Anderson himself said he had asked for SROs to return after East student Luis Garcia was shot in February.

A previous school board that included Anderson, Olson, and board member Scott Baldermann voted unanimously in 2020 to remove SROs from Denver schools amid concerns about racist policing and how Black students were disproportionately ticketed and arrested.

Baldermann came to the executive session with a resolution he’d drafted to temporarily suspend the SRO ban. The resolution backed what Marrero had said he’d do the day before, but it put the decision back in the school board’s hands, where board members said it should be.

“What I’m most interested in is that we as a board take action,” Baldermann said. “And I think the public is expecting us to take action as well.”

However, Baldermann’s proposed resolution sparked a lengthy debate about a wonky topic that dominated the executive session: whether the board was acting in accordance with policy governance, the governance structure that dictates how the board should operate.

Under policy governance, resolutions that order the superintendent to take a certain action are discouraged. Instead, the board is supposed to govern by setting policies and goals that the superintendent must follow and achieve. The board can also set limitations that spell out what the superintendent can’t do. At the time, there was a limitation — called executive limitation 10.10 — that said the superintendent could not staff schools with SROs.

Marrero argued during the executive session that the board passing a resolution would violate his contract, which said the board must operate using policy governance.

Board members questioned if meeting should be public instead

In the end, the board members decided to turn Baldermann’s resolution into a memo. They spent an hour and a half wordsmithing it, debating changes as small as whether to capitalize certain words and as big as whether to delete a sentence that implied “trained professionals,” and not school staff, would pat down students for weapons.

The East High student who shot the deans had a safety plan that required him to be patted down daily by an assistant principal. On the day of the shooting, the assistant principal wasn’t available and a dean had taken over, Marrero said.

Some board members said the phrase “trained professionals” implied that SROs would be patting down students. But a DPS attorney told them that wouldn’t be allowed unless the SROs had probable cause. The board ended up deleting the sentence.

The board held a brief public meeting when it came out of the session. Board members read the memo aloud and voted unanimously to adopt it without discussion.

Chalkbeat and the other media organizations sued on the basis that the board made a major policy decision behind closed doors, and that the meeting was not properly noticed. State law allows elected officials to meet in private for certain reasons, but says that the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”

The meeting notice said the executive session would cover confidential matters, specialized details of security arrangements, and information about individual students who would be harmed by the public disclosure of that information.

After listening to the recording, Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen found the school board’s discussion didn’t match the meeting notice, and that the board didn’t discuss any confidential matters. He ordered DPS to release the recording, but the district appealed that decision.

The recording reveals that board members asked at various times during the executive session whether they should be meeting in public instead.

“As we are talking about suspending policy, this conversation doesn’t need to be public?” Anderson asked DPS attorney Thompson at one point.

“I think what we’ll have to do is present this memo and then vote to suspend the policy,” Thompson said.

The board’s decision to temporarily return SROs kicked off several months of intense community and board debate about whether to keep SROs next school year, and whether Denver has the right safety and discipline policies.

On June 15, the board voted again to reinstate SROs — but that time, the debate was public and the vote was divided. Anderson, Esserman, and Quattlebaum voted no.

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

Firing of McAuliffe principal is having a chilling effect, Denver educators say

2023-07-13T01:24:53+00:00

Natalie Barrios said her colleagues were worried about her taking the microphone at a rally Tuesday in support of fired McAuliffe International School Principal Kurt Dennis.

“They’re worried that speaking out will backfire on us,” said Barrios, the athletic director and assessment coordinator at the Denver middle school, who said she considers Dennis a friend and mentor.

Dennis was fired last week in the aftermath of a televised March interview he did with 9News expressing concerns about gun violence and school safety.

Current and former Denver Public Schools staff say Dennis’ removal reflects a new lack of tolerance for dissent at a time when discipline and safety policies are under intense scrutiny after a shooting inside East High School this spring.

Dennis, meanwhile, is gearing up to fight his dismissal with a grievance and a lawsuit. He’s most upset, though, that the timing means a school community he cherishes has little time to find a new leader before the school year starts.

“Waiting until the middle of July to do this was really punitive,” Dennis said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s not fair to the kids or our staff. That part really bothers me. It’s one thing if you’ve got a bone to pick with me and you want me gone, but to take it out on the kids and my teachers just to me feels like it’s not a very student-centered approach.”

In a letter to staff last week, Superintendent Alex Marrero said accusations that Dennis was fired for speaking up were “100% false,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by Chalkbeat. Rather, Marrero said, Dennis was terminated for sharing private student information.

Dennis had expressed concerns in the 9News interview about McAuliffe International staff being required to pat down a student who was accused of attempted murder.

In his letter, Marrero referenced a 2022 district memo that said principals should keep any concerns about district policies or decisions internal and report them only to their supervisors.

“As an organization dedicated to continuous improvement, we cherish the feedback we receive from our leaders, even if it is sometimes hard to hear,” Marrero wrote in the letter.

The impact of Dennis’ firing is being felt beyond McAuliffe International. Two recently retired DPS principals said they worry it will have a chilling effect on the speech of other DPS staff.

“I feel like everyone needs to be on watch,” said Suzanne Morris-Sherer, a longtime DPS educator who retired earlier this year as principal of McAuliffe Manual, the sister middle school to McAuliffe International. “That’s not a good way to feel.”

John Youngquist, the former principal of East High who’s now running for a seat on the Denver school board, said the timing of Dennis’ firing “lends to leaders having less confidence in what their status might be and what their situation might be. We retain leadership when they have confidence that people believe in them and they’re being invested in.”

In a statement, DPS said it followed its normal process for terminating an employee. “It is important to note that not all employee discipline data would be publicly known or shared with other school leaders,” the statement said.

The principals union has filed a grievance

The Denver School Leaders Association filed a grievance Tuesday alleging that Dennis’ termination violated the process outlined in an agreement between DPS and the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, which oversees McAuliffe International and two other schools, according to a copy of the grievance obtained by Chalkbeat.

Innovation zones are groups of semi-autonomous public schools. The schools are governed by a separate zone board of directors, but their teachers and principals remain DPS employees, which can create confusion over who’s in charge. An agreement between the zone and DPS says the district won’t remove principals without seeking the zone’s approval.

But zone leaders said they were blindsided by Dennis’ firing. In addition to the grievance, the zone’s board of directors sent a letter to DPS Tuesday. It says that if DPS doesn’t admit it acted improperly, the zone board will invoke its right under state law to have a neutral third party review the firing, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Chalkbeat.

Ulcca Joshi Hansen, a McAuliffe parent and zone board member who’s also running for a seat on the Denver school board, said Dennis’ firing is “an indication that the district is not operating as it should. That things are arbitrary. That things can be capricious. That we can’t trust the processes. The community — this says to them, ‘Well, yeah, you don’t matter.’”

A Denver Public Schools spokesperson said Wednesday that the district can’t comment on the grievance because it is a personnel issue.

Dennis’ attorney, David Lane, said he is planning to file a lawsuit on Dennis’ behalf after the grievance plays out “alleging retaliation for First Amendment free speech.”

The Denver school board is set to vote next month on whether to accept Dennis’ termination. Such votes are usually routine and merit no discussion. But this one could be different.

Supporters hold homemade signs in support of Kurt Dennis, who was recently fired as principal of McAuliffe International School.

District alleges disparate discipline

In March, Dennis gave the televised interview to station 9News in which he expressed concerns about his staff having to search students for weapons, including the student who was accused of attempted murder. He said the district had blocked McAuliffe’s attempts to transfer the student to an online school or expel the student.

A few days before the interview, an East High student shot and injured two deans during a search for weapons. The search was part of a safety plan developed because administrators feared the East student, Austin Lyle, might pose a threat. Lyle had a prior weapons charge.

Dennis told 9News he was speaking out because parents deserved to know that the weapons searches happening at East were happening at other schools, too, and that “it needs to stop.”

The East shooting sparked intense debate and calls for change. The school board voted last month to reverse its ban on police in schools, and Marrero released a new safety plan that calls for armed safety officers to help school staff with weapons searches.

Dennis’ attorney Lane told 9News that DPS put Dennis under investigation after the televised interview, which did not name the student accused of attempted murder.

But a DPS investigator concluded that Dennis “divulged confidential student and legal records” in the interview, which violated district policy, put DPS at legal risk, and caused the student to be singled out and ostracized, according to a document provided to Chalkbeat.

The investigator also concluded that Dennis “repeatedly attempted to remove a young student of color from McAuliffe International,” despite being told removal “was not available or appropriate.” In the wake of the East shooting, district leaders have repeatedly defended a policy that students facing criminal charges can attend their regular schools as long as a judge has decided the student can be out in the community and not behind bars.

A July 3 letter informing Dennis that he was terminated cited those findings, according to a copy of the letter provided to Chalkbeat. The letter also cited “a pattern of administrative actions” that had a negative impact on students with disabilities and students of color.

More specifically, an investigator found that McAuliffe International’s “overuse of out-of-school suspensions … was having a disparate impact on students of color,” the letter said.

Data shows McAuliffe not alone

McAuliffe International is the district’s largest middle school with nearly 1,500 students, and one of its most diverse. In the 2022-23 school year, McAuliffe issued 106 out-of-school suspensions for a rate of 7%, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat in a public records request.

That’s a lower rate than many other large Denver middle schools. Hamilton Middle School had a suspension rate of 26%, while Skinner Middle School had a rate of 22%. Lake Middle School had a rate of 12%, and Merrill Middle School had a rate of 10.5%.

Racial disparities in discipline did exist at McAuliffe International last year. The data shows 14% of McAuliffe students were Black, but 30% of the suspensions were issued to Black students.

The same type of disparity existed for Black students at Hamilton and Merrill, though not at Lake. Skinner had too few Black students to calculate a percentage.

Colleen O’Brien, the executive director of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone and Dennis’ direct supervisor, said McAuliffe was aware of the discipline disparity and was taking steps to address it, including hiring a new part-time staff member to mentor boys of color.

She also pointed out that students of color at McAuliffe International scored higher than students of color districtwide in both literacy and math on state tests last year.

O’Brien called Dennis’ termination “a shock” and said the timing “is unbelievable to me.”

O’Brien said that in her opinion, as the person responsible for conducting Dennis’ annual evaluations, his performance as a principal did not warrant being fired.

“I would not have terminated him, no,” she said.

Supporters want Dennis back at McAuliffe

On Tuesday evening, hundreds of parents, students, and community members gathered outside McAuliffe International before a wall of television news cameras to rally for Dennis’ return. The rally was organized by Denver school board candidate Kwame Spearman. Most of the crowd was white. But several speakers were staff or alumni of color.

Shemar Magee was a student when McAuliffe International opened in 2012. He said Dennis, the founding principal, always promoted doing the right thing and “swiftly corrected” any unkindness. Magee said he left McAuliffe a stronger student and became the first person in his family to graduate college and go on to graduate school.

“Without Kurt, the little small boy who walked through those doors in 2012 would not be standing here today doing big things that he never thought he could do,” Magee said.

Barrios, the school’s athletic director, said it was Dennis who encouraged her to take a job in the public schools 20 years ago when she was a young single mom.

“It has been my goal to make sure my kids are better than me,” Barrios said. “But I had to do that by showing them you have to work hard and have integrity. Kurt taught me that.”

Barrios’ daughter, Cecilia Pablo, also spoke. A former McAuliffe International student who now works at the school with students learning English as a second language, Pablo said Dennis — who she calls “Great Uncle Kurt” — has been a role model for her.

“I am proud to say I broke the cycle of teenage pregnancy and am the first in my family to graduate college with a degree in social work,” Pablo said. “If it were not for the opportunities and doors Mr. Dennis opened for my family and I, we would not be where we are today.”

Prateeti Khazanie, whose son will be in eighth grade at McAuliffe International this fall, stood in the crowd and listened to the speeches. She said she disagrees that the school is an unwelcome place for students of color like her son. Dennis’ firing, she said, was wrong.

“This feels like retaliation,” she said.

For his part, Dennis said in an interview that he wants one thing most.

“I’d like my job back,” he said. “I want to be with my kids and my staff. I want to get this school year off to a great start.”

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

Former East High principal John Youngquist is running for a seat on the Denver school board

2023-07-05T10:00:00+00:00

John Youngquist, a longtime Denver educator who spent about a decade as principal of East High School, announced Wednesday that he’s running for a seat on the Denver school board.

Youngquist said he will run for an at-large seat representing the entire city. Although he lives in southeast Denver, where a school board seat is also up for election, Youngquist said the work of the at-large seat better reflects his decades-long experience in Denver Public Schools — as a student, a teacher, a principal, a district administrator, and a parent.

“My experience has been across the city over time,” he said, adding that he’s running at large “because it’s every student and every school that really does matter to me in my heart.”

Youngquist, 57, will have two opponents: Kwame Spearman, a former mayoral candidate and part-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstore, and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral student. Another candidate, Paul Ballenger, dropped out of the race in late September.

The seat is currently held by Auon’tai Anderson, who is running for a state House of Representatives seat instead of seeking re-election to the board.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to change the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting. Also at stake is how the board will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns, especially after a high-profile shooting inside East High in March.

Youngquist’s two teenage daughters are students at East, where he served two stints as principal, from 2007 to 2012 and 2017 to 2022. He returned to East in 2017 after the previous principal mishandled complaints against the cheerleading coach.

Youngquist said student safety has always been his top concern. When he was principal of Newlon Elementary in southwest Denver in the 1990s, he recalled having to develop his own protocol to deal with the drive-by shootings that were prevalent at the time: sounding an air horn so students on the playground knew to get down.

East had a school resource officer during Youngquist’s tenure — and he said he was among the principals in 2020 who signed a letter asking the school board not to remove police officers from schools. He said he agrees with the board’s recent decision to reinstate them.

But SROs are only one aspect of school safety, Youngquist said.

“My belief is that safety is grounded in the daily operation of the school, in the culture of the school,” he said. “And then you create structures to ensure your responses to behavioral challenges at the school site are responsive and supportive of young people.”

Youngquist was himself a DPS student, graduating from Thomas Jefferson High. He started his career there as a social studies teacher. He’s been principal of three DPS schools: East, Newlon, and the now-closed Smedley Elementary in northwest Denver.

He’s also worked as a principal supervisor and as a central office administrator developing programs to recruit more principals of color and help all principals stay in their jobs longer.

Youngquist also worked in the Cherry Creek School District and in Aurora Public Schools, where he was chief academic officer. He said he’s spent the past year as a consultant for districts including Denver and Aurora, as a principal coach, and as part-time chief operating officer for the Denver Youth Program, a nonprofit that aims to reduce youth violence.

If elected, Youngquist said he’d focus on pulling the board together to craft a clear vision for the district, recruiting and retaining diverse teachers and principals, and ensuring students are academically successful. To do that, Youngquist said he wouldn’t try to write policy as a board member, but rather would set goals and limitations so the experts — the superintendent and his staff — could recommend policy for the school board to consider.

“Every element of work we put into play in a district and in a school has to have the intention of creating successful teaching and learning experiences,” he said.

The board also has to make tough decisions. One recent example was the decision to close three schools with low enrollment, which the board voted on one day after the superintendent publicly recommended it.

Instead of reacting when a school’s enrollment is already too low, Youngquist said the district should develop a plan “for how and when we might engage in school closure conversations” so that parents better understand the process.

“That is an 18-month conversation that moves toward a decision,” Youngquist said. “That is not an 18-day or week-(long) conversation that moves toward closure.”

Although Denver school board candidates historically fall into one of two political groups — those backed by the teachers union and those backed by education reform organizations — Youngquist said he doesn’t see himself as an exclusive member of either camp.

Youngquist said he’s running because DPS is “in a lull.”

“I know the real work that it takes to fully engage a community in the success of a school … and the success of a district,” he said. “I’m fully optimistic that we can pull in that direction again and gain momentum so that over the course of the next several years, we’re seeing the experience turn into a fully positive one and seeing results that matter for kids in their school lives.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the at-large seat. It was also updated to reflect that former candidate Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race in late September.

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

Aurora school board won’t take any action on report into discrimination

2023-06-29T01:50:09+00:00

The Aurora school board came out of a closed-door session Wednesday and voted, with no discussion, to take no action on a report that substantiated a discrimination complaint from former superintendent Rico Munn.

The public vote was unanimous. The executive session meeting lasted about an hour. The board agenda did not list a public meeting, but a spokesperson for the district had said the board would decide whether to meet publicly after the closed session.

Colorado law generally requires that public meetings be announced 24 hours in advance.

The former superintendent alleged racial discrimination by the board, and specifically two members, Stephanie Mason and Tramaine Duncan. Munn said the board members had called his Blackness into question in part because they didn’t think he was doing enough to retain Black educators.

An initial fact-finding report in May concluded the claims weren’t backed up because the board members are also Black, because Munn resigned rather than being fired, and because the Board didn’t admit to making some of the statements Munn alleged they had made. A second decision-making report completed in June used the fact-finding report, but found that Munn was effectively pushed out or fired and that racial discrimination did play a role.

That report recommended that the board censure Mason and Duncan, that the report be published on the district’s website for the public to read for at least a year, and that the board receive training on the district’s anti-discrimination policy and on federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws.

With the vote, it appears the board will do none of these things. Three of the seven board members, including Mason, are up for re-election this November.

A new superintendent, Michael Giles, is scheduled to start July 1.

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

Denver’s first big merger of charter school networks poses leadership test

2023-06-28T20:48:25+00:00

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It was portrayed as an exciting plan with lofty goals: Two of Denver’s homegrown charter school networks would join forces to strengthen academics, support students’ mental health, and better prepare them for life beyond high school. English learners and students with disabilities would achieve exceptional results.

The merger of Rocky Mountain Prep and STRIVE Prep, announced last summer, also would help the organizations survive a host of challenges: declining enrollment, tighter budgets, and more scrutiny of their academic records by a skeptical school board.

To shepherd the merger, the schools’ leaders chose a charter school executive named Tricia Noyola, who had overseen a major charter expansion in Austin, Texas.

But the past year has been tense and chaotic, with hundreds of employees from the two networks leaving, an about-face by network leaders on which name the new network will carry, and a chorus of concerns about Noyola’s leadership. Now, with just days until the merger becomes official, it remains to be seen if the two networks will be stronger together or an ill-fated match.

The new network will take the Rocky Mountain Prep name and serve nearly 5,000 students in preschool through 12th grade across a dozen campuses. It will be the second largest charter network in the city and carry the hopes and dreams of thousands of Denver families, many of them low-income parents of color and immigrant families who fear their children won’t get the education they deserve in district-run schools.

Meanwhile, STRIVE Prep, once a key player and thought leader in the charter sector, will cease to exist.

Supporters of Noyola, who has been CEO of both networks for the past eight months though they are still separate organizations, see a Latina leader who comes from the same background as many students, champions student achievement, and brings a strong hand to management decisions.

Patrick Donovan, chair of the Rocky Mountain Prep board, said Noyola has tremendous expertise in running schools, particularly when it comes to academics and school culture.

Detractors paint a different picture, describing a leader who rules through fear, drives away experienced educators, and fails to support new teachers. They also see a single-minded pursuit of higher test scores and a diminished focus on student mental health, support for students with disabilities, and programming that elevates student voices, such as middle school speech and debate classes and social justice-themed events for high schoolers.

Tricia Noyola, CEO of STRIVE Prep and Rocky Mountain Prep

Under Noyola, who’s on track to earn $340,000 from the two networks this school year — more than any superintendent in Colorado — teachers have been urged not to unionize and warned not to talk to the media about the merger.

“There’s only one reason people want to unionize, and it’s because there’s mistrust and dissatisfaction, and you feel unappreciated,” said Jenny Bisha, whose job as STRIVE Prep’s director of continuous improvement is being cut at the end of June. Bisha has not been involved in any unionization efforts.

Several educators said their recent experiences at Rocky Mountain Prep or STRIVE Prep schools were so toxic or upsetting, it soured them on charter schools or teaching for good. Two said they counseled families to leave Rocky Mountain Prep because the schools weren’t meeting their children’s needs.

Chalkbeat spoke to more than three dozen people for this story, including current and former employees, network board members, parents, students, and education policy experts. Some asked that their names not be used for fear they could lose their jobs, have trouble getting references, or face retaliation.

Noyola declined repeated requests for interviews, but provided written answers to questions.

“I certainly set a high standard and expect everyone to meet it. To do any less would be a disservice to our students and families,“ she wrote. “I may be demanding, but I always strive to be fair.”

Board members from both networks suggested that Noyola’s critics are holding her to a higher standard than they did the former leaders of STRIVE and Rocky Mountain Prep, both of whom were white men.

“As a woman of color in this space, sometimes you’re subjected to more criticism than, I think, white men,” said Amber Valdez, vice chair of the STRIVE Prep board. “I think that Tricia came in with a clear vision and made no apologies. She’s not conflict averse, because she wants to get things done.”

STRIVE, Rocky Mountain make plans to merge

Leaders from STRIVE Prep and Rocky Mountain Prep publicly announced plans to join forces last August, saying the merger would create a cohesive preschool through 12th grade pathway — something they said families had sought for years.

Rocky Mountain has four elementary schools and STRIVE, since the closing of two middle schools this month, has eight mostly secondary schools.

Last summer, both organizations were in moments of transition.

“No [charter] network that I know of came out of a pandemic feeling like they were in a strong position,” said STRIVE Prep founder and former CEO Chris Gibbons.

Schools were also facing the end of a huge influx of federal COVID stimulus dollars that had helped pay for extra staff and services over the last few years, he said. Budget cuts were inevitable.

Valdez also said STRIVE families and stakeholders told leaders “that what STRIVE was missing was a clear vision, a clear goal.”

She and other board members say that’s what Noyola brought to the table.

Noyola had moved to Denver from Austin in spring 2021 to take the helm of Rocky Mountain Prep when founder and CEO James Cryan left.

In spring 2022, Gibbons announced he was leaving STRIVE for a job with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (The foundation is a supporter of Chalkbeat. See a full list of our funders and read our ethics policy.)

Noyola applied to replace Gibbons, proposing that STRIVE and Rocky Mountain Prep merge and that she lead the combined network, according to STRIVE Board member Ulysses Estrada, who chaired the network’s CEO succession task force.

Gibbons said STRIVE leaders had previously considered the possibility of merging with another charter school or network. Rocky Mountain Prep had gone further, doubling the size of its network by taking over two struggling schools — a charter school in Denver and a district-run school in Aurora — by 2018.

STRIVE Prep and Rocky Mountain Prep serve similar populations, mostly students of color, with many coming from low-income families. About half of Rocky Mountain Prep students and nearly three-quarters of STRIVE students are English learners.

“Quite frankly, we were evaluating Tricia as any other CEO candidate,” said Estrada. “If we didn’t think Tricia had the right skills to lead STRIVE, we wouldn’t pursue [the merger].”

By July of 2022, the board decided that Noyola and the merger both were right for STRIVE. The two networks decided she would continue leading Rocky Mountain Prep for another year and become CEO of the united network when the merger was final on July 1, 2023.

Denver is a tough market for charter school expansion

Experts say the number of charter school mergers around the country has ticked up in recent years, sometimes fueled by the departure of founders who launched networks in the early 2000s, declining enrollment, or financial pressures.

STRIVE has closed three schools in the last three years, including the Lake and Kepner campuses earlier this month. Denver has seen a spate of other charter school closures and other networks have slowed their growth.

“Sadly, this wasn’t a merging. It was a takeover.”

A 2021 analysis by the Charter School Growth Fund concluded that if charter networks want to grow in the Denver market, mergers are the only reasonable path. The growth fund, which has provided funding to both STRIVE and Rocky Mountain Prep, helps fund charter school expansion around the nation.

Gibbons said the step is an important long-term strategy to address shrinking enrollment, financial sustainability, and a political climate in Denver that’s become less friendly to charter schools.

As for the recent spate of staff departures and simmering discontent in some quarters, he said, “We always knew this would be a very disruptive strategy in the short term.”

Merger prompts major cultural change at STRIVE Prep

When leaders from the two charter networks unveiled the merger plan last August, they said the new network would bear the STRIVE name. STRIVE leaders tapped the network’s lead attorney, Jessica Johnson, to serve as interim CEO until the union was official.

But within three months, Johnson was gone — a major personnel change that current and former employees said happened abruptly with no explanation.

Both Johnson and the network agreed to “communicate to everyone that Ms. Johnson’s departure from STRIVE Prep was voluntary,” according to a copy of Johnson’s severance agreement obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request. The agreement promised Johnson would receive her interim CEO salary through June 30.

Johnson declined to comment for this story.

On November 2, the STRIVE Prep board named Noyola the new CEO of STRIVE Prep, making her the leader of two different charter school networks simultaneously. She received a base annual salary of $220,000 from Rocky Mountain Prep and, when she took the top job at STRIVE, her monthly consulting fee was upped from $4,000 to $5,000. In April, that consulting fee was doubled to $10,000 a month, retroactive to Oct 1.

That means Noyola’s pay, including a $24,000 bonus she received from Rocky Mountain Prep this year, totals $340,000. That’s more than the CEO of DSST, Denver’s largest charter school network, or the superintendents of Denver and Jeffco, Colorado’s two largest school districts, earned this year.

Noyola wrote, “I was asked to do the job of two individuals when I became CEO of both networks, and my compensation remains lower than that of the combined compensation of both roles.”

Next school year, Noyola will earn a base salary of $290,000, with the possibility of a bonus.

In February, STRIVE board members announced a reversal on the new network’s name. Rocky Mountain Prep’s name, practices, and standards would replace those of STRIVE. They cited data from a consultant’s report that showed better academic and instructional results at Rocky Mountain Prep than STRIVE.

In 2022, fewer than 10% of students at five STRIVE schools were proficient on state math tests. The same was true in literacy for one STRIVE school. About 30% of all Rocky Mountain Prep students were proficient on math and literacy tests, still below the state average.

Parent Tracy Hill said her fourth grader has had a good experience at Rocky Mountain Prep–Berkeley since preschool. Keeping the Rocky Mountain Prep name feels like a win.

But this spring, Hill was surprised to learn from a reporter that the closest STRIVE school — the Lake campus — would close and won’t be an option when her daughter goes to sixth grade.

“That is a shame, because that’s walking distance from our house,” she said.

Meanwhile, the name change rocked some STRIVE students and families.

“Everyone in my neighborhood has probably gone to a STRIVE Prep school,” said Jacobo Gracia-Meza, who graduated from STRIVE Prep–SMART Academy in June and is headed to Colorado State University in the fall.

“The thought of our name being taken away, it’s also taking the hard work we put in,” he said.

His parents, meanwhile, are worried about the cost of buying new school uniforms for his younger brother.

This summer, STRIVE Prep–SMART will become Rocky Mountain Prep–SMART.

Educators see new emphasis on test prep amid merger plans

Zion Gezaw, an assistant principal at STRIVE Prep’s Westwood middle school for most of the 2022-23 school year, noticed a shift around the time Noyola was named CEO of STRIVE schools.

First, it was little things. Teachers were told they had to use the same colors and borders on their bulletin boards. Then rules came down requiring strict adherence to the lessons and pacing in the curriculum.

The adaptations that Gezaw and the school’s eighth grade English teacher had made to create more culturally responsive and engaging lessons, such as adding the young adult novel “The Poet X,” were no longer acceptable.

Student grades and interest in those classes plummeted, Gezaw said.

“They made sure we knew they didn’t like it,” she said. “They would just not do it. They would put their heads down; they would sleep.”

Jeremy Story, a public relations contractor who emailed answers to Chalkbeat on behalf of the networks, said STRIVE schools continued to use their own curriculum, and there were no pacing guides last school year. He didn’t address questions about whether modifications were allowed to make lessons more culturally responsive.

As a Black educator, Gezaw said she’d been attracted by STRIVE’s focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, but grew disillusioned as the emphasis shifted to test scores and uniformity. She quit in April.

Some former Rocky Mountain Prep employees say this approach is typical of the network’s philosophy, even with the youngest children, and they’re dismayed to see it spread.

Ellarie Anderson said when she learned of the merger, she thought, “Wow, we really don’t need more schools becoming like Rocky Mountain Prep.”

Anderson spent two years at Rocky Mountain Prep, starting a year before Noyola’s arrival. Throughout that time, she said her students, kindergartners and third graders, were expected to sit up straight at their desks, with their hands folded and eyes following the teacher. She said when supervisors observed, they’d count the number of students who met those standards. Those children were considered “engaged.”

Rocky Mountain Prep officials denied that students are expected to sit this way, with Story writing, “Absolutely not.”

Anderson also said she was expected to follow rigid lesson plans prescribed by the network.

“You’d show up every day and read your script to the kids, and if the kids got it or didn’t, it didn’t matter. You just moved on the next day,” she said.

Story said Rocky Mountain Prep schools do use scripted curriculum, but that teachers can make adjustments based on the needs and best interests of students.

Annie Nelson, a former fifth grade teacher at Rocky Mountain Prep who left a year ago, said as state tests approached during the 2021-22 school year, she was asked to put more focus on students who were on the cusp of reaching proficiency at the expense of students who were far behind.

An English teacher at one of STRIVE’s high schools described a change this year that required math and English teachers to drop their regular lessons starting in February to focus on SAT prep until the tests in April.

“It’s been SAT all day every day for kids, which has not been great,” the teacher said in late March. More kids were missing classes and their behavior was getting worse, he said.

But Adam Lenzmeier, the vice president of schools for STRIVE, sees test prep in a different light. “The best thing we can do for kids is to position them to go into those assessments with the confidence they deserve,” he said.

Asked about whether there is a growing emphasis on test prep and test scores, Noyola wrote that test scores are “only one way we measure success,” and that other measures include state ratings, student attendance, and whether students and teachers return each year.

STRIVE Prep evolved to focus more on equity

The history of STRIVE Prep traces the evolution of Colorado’s charter sector. STRIVE launched in 2006 with a single school called West Denver Prep. The idea was to provide a rigorous alternative to district-run middle schools with low test scores. Gibbons promised the mostly Latino families in southwest Denver eight hours of school per day, no summers off, strict discipline, and a focus on getting their children to college.

With high test scores and a long wait list, West Denver Prep opened more schools. By the time the network changed its name to STRIVE Prep in 2012, it was growing from four schools to seven. That same year, Rocky Mountain Prep opened its first school in southeast Denver.

By 2014, test scores at STRIVE’s eight schools began to fall. Gibbons pointed to high teacher turnover, curriculum changes, and too many innovations at once. Around that time, STRIVE began accepting a larger share of students with disabilities than in the past, part of the network’s “equity agenda.”

Josue Bonilla, left, gets a high five from special education teacher Wendi Sussman at STRIVE Prep–Federal in 2016.

In many ways, it signaled a shift away from the network’s “no excuses” style origins and a commitment to serving all students.

Bisha, STRIVE Prep’s director of continuous improvement who oversaw a grant related to special education, worries that Gibbons’ legacy is “being destroyed” through the relentless push for better test scores and the state’s top green rating.

“Is that the be-all end-all that gives kids equitable access after high school?” she said. “No, it’s not.”

Some current and former STRIVE employees worry the merger will rob the schools of STRIVE’s unique traits, including its focus on antiracism, its commitment to serving students with disabilities, and its robust college and career readiness programming.

A current STRIVE employee who helps oversee college and career programs said impending staff cuts will make it impossible for the merged network to continue offering overnight college trips, extensive concurrent enrollment classes, work-based learning, and career and financial aid advising for alumni.

“College and career readiness is not a priority from this new central team,” the employee said. “Sadly, this wasn’t a merging. It was a takeover.”

Noyola acknowledged the cuts and said each high school “is now empowered” to lead its own college and career programming.

Noyola disputed that the focus on students with disabilities and antiracism is diminishing, and said the network’s commitment to both “is greater than it has ever been.”

Through the changes, Noyola has maintained the support of both boards.

Estrada, the STRIVE board member who himself attended the network’s first middle school, said it’s misleading to say the network is moving away from its commitment to antiracism.

“I think our priority as an organization and the most antiracist work we can do is giving each student a college prep education,” he said.

Who is Tricia Noyola?

Noyola grew up in the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas and has often talked about being underestimated by her teachers growing up. She has described herself as opinionated and headstrong, and said she fell in love with education while working in an elementary school during college.

On the weekly podcasts Noyola records with updates for STRIVE and Rocky Mountain Prep staff, she strikes a conversational tone, discussing movies she plans to see with her husband and children and network goals like getting students to read a million words.

Noyola started her career at a large Texas-based charter network called IDEA Public Schools, which promotes a no excuses, college-for-all philosophy. Prior to her arrival in Colorado two years ago, Noyola helped IDEA grow from four to 16 schools in the Austin area.

Lenzmeier, who started as a STRIVE principal in 2020 and will manage four principals in the new network, said Noyola is uncompromising in what she believes is possible.

A former army officer, he believes that “Tricia Noyola shares a lot of similarities with the best commanders I worked with.”

But many STRIVE and Rocky Mountain Prep employees describe her as harsh and intimidating, with little tolerance for dissent. Under her leadership, staff have been fired with little or no notice, and others have been notified of impending job cuts on group Zoom calls that lasted just a few minutes, according to current and former employees.

“At my campus, staff were very afraid of her,” said one former mental health provider at Rocky Mountain Prep. “I’m very afraid of her. I do not want to be on her list or her radar.”

Noyola’s most recent performance review from the 2021-22 school year at Rocky Mountain Prep credited her with achieving three of five key goals and praised her for showing “leadership, resolve, and courage to make the necessary changes to achieve student results.” The review urged Noyola to give more attention to how changes are communicated, show more “vulnerability and humility,” and work with the board to avoid the strained relations that sometimes occurred over the previous year.

Gibbons said he hasn’t followed every change that Noyola has made, but said, “Tricia is coming into this experience with a lot of urgency, appropriately so, around raising results for kids,” he said. “I have tremendous confidence in her.”

Cryan, the founder and former CEO of Rocky Mountain Prep, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Hundreds of employees left their jobs before the merger

About half of STRIVE Prep staff and two-thirds of Rocky Mountain Prep staff — nearly 400 of 730 total employees — left their jobs between June 2022 and mid April 2023, according to numbers provided by the networks. Districts around the country are grappling with high turnover and teacher burnout, but teachers and staff interviewed by Chalkbeat say the level of turnover reflects a punitive network culture and hurts students.

Several educators told Chalkbeat the flood of departures meant that students missed out on legally required special education services, English language development instruction, or mental health support. Sometimes, students felt confused or hurt after a trusted teacher disappeared without notice.

Among the departures, which resulted from resignations, firings, and job cuts, were more than 160 teachers and 40 principals, assistant principals, deans, or principal fellows. STRIVE lost 32 high-level central staff — chiefs, directors, and managers — and Rocky Mountain Prep lost 24. The networks lost 18 mental health providers, including social workers, social emotional learning specialists, and a psychologist.

Eleven STRIVE employees, most of whom are Black or Latino and half of whom were central administrators, have left since last June with severance agreements that awarded them between one and eight months of pay but also banned them from criticizing the network. Chalkbeat obtained the agreements through a public records request. No Rocky Mountain Prep employees received severance pay or signed separation agreements during that period.

“We want teachers in our network who are behind our new mission, all of our values, and our new leadership.”

Noyola attributed some of the turnover to the so-called “Great Resignation,” a pandemic-era trend in which many employees, including teachers, left their jobs. More STRIVE administrators left because their network is undergoing bigger changes, she said. Some of the employees who left were in temporary positions, and their departures may have inflated the turnover rate, she added.

Noyola acknowledged that the networks have suffered from a shortage of special education providers but said her team aims to rectify problems immediately when they are identified. She did not address the claim that English learners have missed language development sessions.

Valdez, vice chair of the STRIVE board, said, “We knew with the change of leadership … some people were going to leave and that we were okay with that because we want teachers in our network who are behind our new mission, all of our values, and our new leadership.”

Donovan, the Rocky Mountain Prep board chair, said the board has monitored departures and that turnover is slowing.

Nelson, the former fifth grade teacher, said the network struggles with teacher retention in part because it recruits young, inexperienced teachers, provides them insufficient support, and holds them to an impossible standard.

Noyola said the network “has a number of positions whose responsibilities include directly coaching and supporting teachers. I’m confident based on our outcomes that our system is effective.”

Even as Noyola cut some employees in response to purported budget pressures, she gave generous raises and bonuses to others — a move she said was warranted by the additional work those employees are doing and the value they provide to students.

School staff protest their working conditions

Throughout fall of 2021, teachers or other staff members at Rocky Mountain Prep–Berkeley seemed to be quitting almost every week, said Meghan Mallon, a former music teacher at the school. Teachers who stayed were constantly juggling extra kids or classes to cover for departed colleagues. For students who were supposed to get daily instruction to improve their English language skills, that meant sometimes missing three or four sessions a week because their teacher was assigned elsewhere, she said.

In late January 2022, after one lead teacher was told she’d be removed from her position and reassigned elsewhere in the building, Mallon and a colleague organized a one-day sick-out in protest. About a dozen teachers participated, sending an email to Noyola and other Rocky Mountain Prep administrators with a list of the group’s concerns, including the teacher’s abrupt demotion, the missed sessions for students learning English, and the lack of coaching for teachers.

Cesar Chavez Academy, a struggling single-site charter school, was taken over and became Rocky Mountain Prep–Berkeley in 2018.

Mallon and the other main organizer were fired the day of the sick-out, and other participants were given a warning and told they couldn’t talk about it, according to a charge later filed by Mallon with National Board of Labor Relations.

A lawyer for Rocky Mountain Prep responded to the labor board’s charge with a nine-page letter arguing the case should be dismissed because charter schools don’t fall under the labor board’s jurisdiction. The labor relations board ultimately agreed and dismissed the case.

Grievances describe ‘worst’ work environment

Shortly after Mallon and the other sick-out organizer were fired, Ana de Vries, the principal of the Berkeley campus, filed a grievance against Noyola.

In response to a public records request, Rocky Mountain Prep provided a copy of the grievance that was heavily redacted to protect the privacy of minors. A less redacted copy of the complaint obtained by Chalkbeat contends Noyola used her power to “harass, intimidate, discriminate against, and coerce RMP staff.” It describes a meeting in which Noyola demanded that a teacher “admit her white privilege” as well as wrongdoing unrelated to the reason for the meeting.

De Vries, who is Latina, said in an interview she felt Noyola’s demands of the teacher were inappropriate. She filed the grievance after Noyola refused to meet with her to discuss the meeting. After she submitted the complaint, she said Noyola cut her out of all communications related to the Berkeley campus.

It “created the worst environment I’ve ever worked in,” said de Vries, who resigned in February 2022 after two and a half years with the network and 12 years in the charter sector.

Rocky Mountain Prep officials said de Vries’ grievance prompted the board to adopt a policy outlining how conflicts should be addressed in select circumstances. (Chalkbeat is not describing the circumstances to protect the privacy of children.)

In a second grievance, a Berkeley teacher named Alyssa Papiernik described a culture of fear and constant hostility between Noyola and some employees.

Papiernik closed by writing, “I dread coming to work everyday ... I am hoping next year Tricia changes her attitude towards her staff.”

The Rocky Mountain Prep board found no substance to Papiernik’s claim.

A third grievance came last November, shortly after Noyola was named CEO of STRIVE Prep and was conducting a series of town hall meetings to introduce herself to STRIVE staff. Mallory Tozier, a white assistant principal at STRIVE’s Smart Academy, described a tense exchange during the question-and-answer period in which she felt Noyola implied she had a white savior complex.

A staff member of color whose account was included in the grievance echoed Tozier’s account and said Noyola’s reaction “seemed cruel and unnecessary” and “painfully silenced people like me.”

Chalkbeat obtained Tozier’s grievance through a public records request. STRIVE Prep officials said an investigation found no wrongdoing by Noyola.

“I doubt there is a principal or CEO in [Denver Public Schools] who hasn’t had a complaint filed against them at some point,” Noyola wrote in response to questions. “Grievances reflect a single point of view, and we have a process that takes every grievance seriously.”

Rocky Mountain Prep enters a new era

When the new school year starts in August, STRIVE Prep will no longer exist, and Rocky Mountain Prep will have triple the schools it had last year.

Some current and former staff from both networks have serious misgivings. They say Rocky Mountain Prep’s “rigor and love” slogan now rings hollow.

But for Noyola and other network leaders, it’s an exciting time.

They say student achievement is increasing, and almost all families are planning to return next year. Enrollment projections provided by the network suggest K-12 student numbers will hold steady at about 4,700 even with this summer’s closure of two STRIVE schools.

“The sheer optimism is remarkable,” Rocky Mountain Prep’s Chief of Staff Indrina Kanth said in an email.

In a recent message to staff, Noyola thanked those who remain and those who have joined her for the “awe-inspiring” results produced this school year.

“I know this came at costs and sacrifices that each of us made to further the mission,” she wrote.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Public Schools appeals release of recording of closed-door board meeting about police

2023-06-26T19:06:36+00:00

Denver Public Schools is resisting releasing a recording of a March closed-door meeting of the school board as a Denver District Court judge had ordered the district to do.

DPS appealed the district court ruling Monday to the Colorado Court of Appeals. The school district’s lawyers had indicated at a court hearing earlier this month that they would continue to oppose the release of the recording of the five-hour meeting.

The meeting, called an executive session, occurred on March 23, one day after an East High School student shot and injured two deans inside the school before fleeing and taking his own life. The school board emerged from the executive session and with no discussion voted unanimously to temporarily suspend its policy banning police in schools.

Chalkbeat and six other media organizations sued DPS for the recording of the executive session. The media organizations argued that the topics of the meeting were not properly noticed and that the board made its decision in private, despite the public vote. State law says the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”

Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen listened to the recording and ruled Friday in favor of the media organizations. He ordered DPS to release the recording publicly at noon Monday.

But DPS’s appeal now puts the process on hold. In its notice of appeal, the school district’s lawyers asked the appellate court to consider whether the district court judge was wrong to listen to the recording and determine that the discussion in the executive session did not meet the criteria under state law for when boards can meet privately.

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

Judge: Denver school board must release recording of closed door meeting

2023-06-23T19:54:03+00:00

Denver Public Schools must release a recording of a five-hour closed-door meeting at which the school board discussed returning police officers to schools, a judge ruled Friday.

The meeting occurred on March 23, one day after a student shot and injured two deans inside East High School before fleeing and later taking his own life. After the closed-door executive session ended, the school board voted unanimously to suspend its policy banning police officers in schools with no public discussion.

That decision would become the subject of three months of intense community debate before the board voted 4-3 this month to make the policy change permanent and allow police in schools at the discretion of the superintendent.

Chalkbeat and six other media organizations sued Denver Public Schools for the recording of the executive session, arguing that the topics were not properly noticed and that the school board may have made a decision in private that was merely rubber-stamped by the public vote.

Colorado’s open meetings law says the “formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.”

Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen listened to the meeting recording and ruled Friday that the school board “did engage in a substantial discussion” or “adopt a proposed policy, position, resolution, rule, regulation, or formal action” in the closed-door executive session in violation of state law.

DPS said Friday that it will appeal the ruling.

“While we respect the Court, we disagree with the ruling and will be appealing the decision,” school district spokesperson Bill Good said in a statement.

Attorney Rachael Johnson, who represented the media organizations along with attorney Steve Zansberg, said in a separate statement that she was pleased with the court ruling.

“A discussion about the public’s business, especially school safety, cannot be conducted in secret,” said Johnson, who is with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

At least one Denver school board member disagrees with DPS’s decision to appeal the ruling. In an email to fellow board members that was obtained by Chalkbeat, board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson expressed concerns about transparency and legal costs.

“Appealing this decision erodes public trust in the school board,” Anderson said in an interview.

He said the board is “already suffering from a low approval rating” and that an appeal “would endorse the message that we are hiding something. And I don’t believe we have anything to hide.” The board should admit it was wrong and do things differently next time, he said.

State law allows elected officials to meet in executive session to discuss certain legally sensitive matters, including staff or student information that must be kept confidential, some contract negotiations, lawsuits, and other topics. The topics and the legal justification for the executive session must be described in a public agenda item.

The day of the East High shooting, Superintendent Alex Marrero told board members in an email obtained by Chalkbeat that he was committed to returning police to schools even though it violated board policy at the time — and he asked for a closed-door meeting for the following day.

But the public agenda item for the executive session didn’t include any mention of the policy around school resource officers.

Instead, the meeting notice said the executive session would cover matters required to be kept confidential according to state or federal law, specialized details of security arrangements, and information about individual students who would be harmed by the public disclosure of that information.

After listening to the recording, the judge found the Denver school board’s discussion didn’t match the meeting notice.

Luxen wrote that he couldn’t identify any matters required to be kept confidential under federal or state law or any discussion of specialized security arrangements.

Instead, he wrote, there was a “lengthy discussion of general security arrangements … including the return of school resource officers to Denver public schools.”

Nor did the discussion cover information that would adversely affect an individual student, the judge found.

“Although there was discussion of an individual student during the executive session, the nature of that discussion would not adversely affect the person involved,” Luxen wrote.

By the time of the Denver school board’s executive session, the student who shot the deans at East High, 17-year-old Austin Lyle, had taken his own life.

The judge ordered DPS to release the recording by Monday at noon.

In a hearing on June 16, DPS attorney Jonathan Fero said the district might object to the recording’s release as contrary to the public interest, even if the judge ruled against the district.

This story has been updated throughout with additional comments and details from the ruling.

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

Conozca a Susana Córdova, primera latina en el máximo cargo de educación en Colorado

2023-06-23T16:33:45+00:00

Read in English.

Susana Córdova es la primera latina en ocupar el máximo cargo de educación en Colorado.

Córdova, nació en Denver, donde estudió y llegó a ser superintendenta del distrito escolar más grande del estado, y está asumiendo el cargo de comisionada de educación después de haber trabajado en el Distrito Escolar Independiente de Dallas y en una organización educativa sin fines de lucro.

En una entrevista, Córdova dijo que le entusiasma volver a casa. Describió el cargo de comisionada como una forma poderosa de “influir en la educación del estado que me hizo ser quien soy”.

Córdova recibió el apoyo unánime de la Junta Estatal de Educación. Ella juramentará su cargo el 26 de junio y recibirá un sueldo anual de $300,000.

La comisionada saliente, Katy Anthes, se quedará hasta el 10 de julio con el título de asistente especial de la comisionada.

“Es difícil alejarse de algo en lo que se ha puesto el corazón y el alma, pero es mucho más fácil saber que le estoy entregando esto a una líder con experiencia, profesional, amable y conocedora”, dijo Anthes. “Estoy convencida de que Susana va a hacer cosas maravillosas”.

Córdova fue un educadora de carrera en Denver, donde fue maestra bilingüe y directora antes de convertirse en superintendenta. En noviembre de 2020 anunció que se ida de Denver para aceptar un trabajo como superintendenta adjunta de liderazgo y aprendizaje en el Distrito Escolar Independiente de Dallas. Córdova dejó el distrito de Dallas en agosto después de que otra candidata, Stephanie Elizalde, fuera elegida para reemplazar al Superintendente Michael Hinojosa, que se jubiló.

Desde que dejó el distrito de Dallas, Córdova ha sido superintendenta residente de la organización educativa sin fines de lucro Transcend. Allí, Córdova dirige una red de superintendentes y dice que ha aprendido más sobre los retos y las fortalezas de los distritos pequeños y rurales, así como los de los distritos urbanos y suburbanos.

Córdova dijo que en sus primeros 100 días se enfocará en conocer al personal del departamento de educación y ponerse a disposición de los superintendentes, el gobernador y otros líderes.

Córdova dijo que el papel de comisionada es muy diferente al de superintendente. Los distritos escolares de Colorado tienen mucha autoridad para tomar sus propias decisiones. La comisionada puede destacar los ejemplos positivos, ofrecerles a los distritos vías para que aprendan los unos de los otros, y asegurar que la investigación sobre cómo los niños aprenden se refleje en los salones de clase.

Córdova dijo que sus prioridades incluyen:

Mejorar la enseñanza de lectura y matemáticas
Ayudar a los estudiantes a recuperarse de las interrupciones por la pandemia
Apoyar a los estudiantes multilingües
Asegurar que los estudiantes estén preparados para la universidad o el campo laboral después de la secundaria
Ayudar a los distritos a manejar presupuestos reducidos y la reducción en inscripciones

En el primer año de Córdova en el cargo, un grupo de trabajo considerará hacer cambios en el sistema de responsabilidad de las escuelas, un proceso que expondrá los desacuerdos entre la comunidad educativa. Córdova dijo que ahora es un buen momento para estudiar este sistema, que mide la calidad de las escuelas basándose en los resultados de los exámenes estandarizados.

Los resultados de los exámenes ayudan a los funcionarios a entender qué los niños están aprendiendo y qué no, y eso sigue siendo importante, dijo Córdova.

“Pero también podría ser una oportunidad para fijarse en otras cosas que hacen que una escuela sea de calidad”, dijo.

Córdova pasó muchos años supervisando los esfuerzos de Denver por mejorar la educación de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés. Ella aprendió español de adulta después de haber crecido en una época en la que hablar ese idioma era motivo de mucha estigma.

Córdova dijo que está orgullosa del trabajo que Colorado ha hecho para desarrollar un sello de alfabetización bilingüe. Ese sello permite que los graduados de secundaria reciban un reconocimiento en su diploma por leer y escribir con fluidez en un idioma distinto del inglés. Ella espera ayudar a los distritos más pequeños y con menos recursos a apoyar mejor a los estudiantes en el aprendizaje del inglés y a valorar sus idiomas maternos.

“Siempre empiezo pensando en cómo enfocar nuestro trabajo con los estudiantes desde una perspectiva basada en las ventajas”, dijo. “Lo más importante que podemos hacer por nuestros estudiantes multilingües es valorar su primer idioma. Eso se puede lograr con enseñanza en su idioma materno o con otras maneras de reconocerlo como una ventaja”.

Erica Meltzer es directora de la oficina de redacción, cubre temas de política educativa y supervisa la cobertura de educación de Chalkbeat Colorado. Para comunicarte con Erica, envíale un email a emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Sheridan necesita un nuevo superintendente. El proceso ha dividido a la comunidad — otra vez

2023-06-20T22:57:44+00:00

Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación dos veces al mes.

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El distrito escolar de Sheridan no tiene superintendente este mes — y tampoco un plan claro para abrir una búsqueda.

Algunos miembros de la junta escolar quieren nombrar al candidato interno recomendado por el superintendente saliente, Pat Sandos. Esta propuesta ha dividido a la junta, y uno de sus miembros está acusando al presidente de intentar sobornarla para que esté de acuerdo.

Mientras tanto, la junta ha acordado pagarle a Sandos su salario completo durante un año de transición a partir de julio, aunque se haya jubilado oficialmente el 31 de mayo. Los miembros de la comunidad han lanzado una petición para poner fin a la extensión de Sandos. Dicen que por mucho tiempo el distrito ha pasado por alto e ignorado las necesidades de padres y estudiantes, y es hora de un nuevo liderazgo.

El distrito, situado en el suroeste de Denver, atiende a unos 1,100 estudiantes, que incluyen un gran porcentaje de estudiantes de familias con bajos ingresos o identificados como sin hogar. Como muchos en el área metropolitana, el distrito está luchando con una reducción en la inscripción, lo que significa menos ingresos y presupuestos más ajustados.

El sindicato de maestros está buscando aumentos similares a los que se han acordado en los distritos vecinos, pero las negociaciones se han estancado. Mientras tanto, tanto los maestros como los padres reportan una alta rotación de personal y que hay puestos importantes vacantes.

Alejandra Balderrama, una madre de Sheridan, se involucró en la petición para solicitar que el superintendente actual se vaya antes porque a ella le preocupa la rotación de personal, especialmente la salida repentina del director de la escuela primaria después de que la escuela fuera reconocida por el crecimiento académico excepcional de sus estudiantes.

“No me parece justo”, dijo Balderrama.

Ella dijo que espera que un nuevo líder represente más estabilidad entre el personal y una mejor comunicación con los padres.

“Me gustaría que hubiera una comunicación constante no solo entre los maestros y los directores o la administración, sino también con los padres”, dijo Balderrama. “Es importante que nos permitan participar de verdad”.

La junta está dividida en cuanto a cómo buscar un superintendente

El superintendente Pat Sandos fue contratado en 2018 en medio de resistencia por los miembros de la comunidad que preferían a uno de los otros candidatos — un educador hispano del suroeste de Denver. Sandos, un candidato interno, fue elegido en una votación dividida.

En aquel momento, el miembro de la junta Daniel Stange dijo que el distrito necesitaba a alguien externo que escuchara las peticiones de cambio de la comunidad.

Esta vez Stange es presidente de la junta y cree que no es necesario gastar miles de dólares en una empresa de búsqueda de superintendente si hay un buen candidato interno.

“Nos envían el mismo tipo de superintendentes, filtran a su manera, y obtienes lo que obtienes”, dijo Stange. “Si queremos un resultado diferente, un tipo nuevo de superintendente, ¿por qué gastar dinero en contratar a una empresa de búsqueda?”

“Nuestra búsqueda interna está realmente enfocada en la cultura de nuestras escuelas”, añadió Stange. “Queremos una mujer bilingüe. La mayoría de la junta apoya a un candidato interno que cumpla ese requisito”.

Pero la veterana miembro de la junta Sally Daigle, que votó por Sandos en 2018, cree firmemente que la junta necesita hacer una búsqueda exhaustiva. El desacuerdo comenzó en la misma reunión de diciembre, cuando Sandos anunció su jubilación.

Sandos le recomendó a la junta que nombrara a su directora académica, Veronica Maes, como reemplazo. Él podría capacitarla durante su año de transición.

Daigle abogó por que el distrito contratara a la Colorado Association of School Boards, de la que es miembro activo, para encargarse de la búsqueda. A ella le preocupa que solo se considere a un candidato interno.

“Hay algo que no encaja en todo este asunto”, dijo Daigle. “Si no lo pensara, no hubiese argumentado por hora y media que debemos hacerlo así”.

En una tensa reunión de la junta celebrada esta primavera, que en ocasiones se convirtió en un griterío, Daigle leyó mensajes de texto de Stange que ella describió después como un intento de sobornarla para que aceptara el plan utilizando los pagos de reembolso como palanca. Sheridan es uno de los pocos distritos escolares de Colorado que les paga a los miembros de la junta, y permite que se les reembolse por ciertas reuniones y gastos.

“Te dije que aprobaría los costos para que trabajes con CASB si no mostrabas tanta resistencia con este tema”, dice el mensaje de texto de Stange que Daigle compartió con Chalkbeat. “Parece que nos quieres empujar a un proceso largo y costoso. Espero que recuerdes que somos una junta de 5 miembros. La mayoría manda, pero tener consenso siempre será una imagen de confianza a nuestros electores”.

“Fue amenaza, coacción o como quieras llamarlo. Estaba bastante enojada”, dijo Daigle.

Daigle es quien cuida a su mamá a tiempo completo y también es parte de un comité CASB que requiere reuniones mensuales. Ella quiere recibir compensación cuando el trabajo le requiera conseguir a otra persona para que cuide a su mamá.

Stange dijo que el mensaje no era soborno ni coerción, pero dijo que sabe que “a algunas personas les puede sonar así”.

Stange dijo que estaba molesto porque Daigle estaba “haciendo un alboroto” sobre la búsqueda de superintendente y dijo que había desacuerdo sobre si el trabajo de la conferencia CASB de Daigle debería contar como trabajo de la junta escolar.

Según una solicitud de expedientes, hasta el 21 de mayo solamente dos miembros de la junta habían recibido un pago desde que esa política entró en vigencia. Daigle recibió $1,725 y María Delgado-García, $1,093.

Las escuelas de Sheridan, incluida la Academia SOAR de la escuela secundaria alternativa, vista aquí en agosto de 2020, ofrecieron aprendizaje en persona durante la mayor parte de la pandemia.

La candidata interna dijo que su pasión es trabajar para cerrar las brechas de igualdad

Maes, que llegó a Sheridan como directora académica el año pasado, dijo que quiere ser superintendente para seguir trabajando en proyectos importantes.

“Toda mi vida, mi pasión ha sido cerrar brechas de igualdad, trabajar con estudiantes multilingües — es la razón por la que trabajo”, dijo Maes. “De niña solamente hablaba español, y mi experiencia para aprender inglés no fue notable. Cuando llegué a Sheridan el año pasado, este trabajo realmente fue de gran satisfacción”.

“Cuando Pat anunció que iba a jubilarse, me preocupó el trabajo”, dijo. “Estamos logrando mucha tracción”.

Stange se mostró encantado de contratar a Maes para ocupar el puesto más alto del distrito, y alabó su enfoque de la igualdad y el hecho de que es una mujer hispana.

Maes ha estado de acuerdo en no solicitar un salario más alto durante el año de transición para que el pequeño distrito solamente pague un sueldo de superintendente — el de Sandos. Sandos, por su parte, dijo que él todavía se considera como superintendente.

Daigle dijo que una búsqueda más amplia garantizaría que el distrito encuentre al mejor candidato. Y si ese candidato es Maes, ella se destacará aún más, dijo Daigle.

La junta podría votar para nombrar a Maes este mismo mes. En ese momento la junta espera recibir un informe sobre la opinión de la comunidad acerca de los objetivos y la dirección del distrito basado en una encuesta y en algunas reuniones. Si Maes está de acuerdo con las prioridades de la comunidad, tiene sentido nombrarla, dijo Stange.

Daigle está frustrado porque el distrito le ha pagado $12,000 a un par de consultores, el doble de lo que CASB habría cobrado, por llevar a cabo una búsqueda de superintendente que incluyera la participación de la comunidad. Stange señaló que los contratos de consultoría incluyen un plan estratégico, y que las opiniones de la comunidad también servirán de apoyo a ese plan.

Aunque los padres están de acuerdo con el presidente de la junta en que la representación es importante en un líder, a algunos les preocupa que cualquier candidato interno, hispano o no, pueda seguir ignorando sus peticiones.

Alexis Márquez, líder del grupo de defensa Sheridan Rising, dijo que el año pasado los padres de Sheridan presentaron una lista de peticiones al distrito — incluyendo que el distrito proporcione intérpretes de español para las reuniones de la junta escolar para que más padres puedan participar.

“No era una petición difícil, pero esta carta fue completamente ignorada. Ni siquiera se habló de ello”, dijo Márquez. “Esto es una evidente indiferencia hacia la comunidad. Si no hablas el idioma, no puedes participar”.

Sandos dijo que le gustaría añadir intérpretes a las reuniones de la junta escolar, pero que la logística y el costo han sido un reto. Otros distritos escolares con muchas familias hispanas, como Adams 14, han ofrecido servicios de interpretación desde hace años.

Maes dijo que no tenía conocimiento de la carta ni de la petición. Ella se ha asegurado de que las escuelas ofrezcan intérpretes para las reuniones con los padres, dijo. No era algo que había considerado para las reuniones de la junta escolar.

Maes dijo que una mejor comunicación con la comunidad sería una prioridad si ella es elegida como superintendente, junto con el reclutamiento de estudiantes y maestros nuevos.

“Solo quiero hacer el trabajo”, dijo. “Este tipo de cosas se interponen en ese camino”.

Yesenia Robles es reportera de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre temas sobre los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un mensaje a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Sheridan needs a new superintendent. The process has divided the community — again.

2023-06-20T22:57:31+00:00

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The Sheridan school district has no superintendent this month — and no clear plan to open a search.

Some board members want to appoint the internal candidate recommended by the departing superintendent, Pat Sandos. That proposal has divided the board, with one member accusing the board president of trying to bribe her to go along.

Meanwhile, the board has agreed to pay Sandos his full salary for a transition year starting in July, even though he’s officially retired as of May 31. Community members have launched a petition to terminate Sandos’ extension. For too long, they say, the district has overlooked and ignored the needs of parents and students, and it’s time for new leadership.

The district on Denver’s southwest edge serves about 1,100 students, including a large percentage from low-income families or identified as homeless. Like many in the metro area, the district is struggling with declining enrollment, which means less revenue and tighter budgets. The teachers union is seeking raises similar to those neighboring districts have agreed to, but negotiations have stalled. Meanwhile, teachers and parents alike report high turnover and important positions sitting vacant.

Alejandra Balderrama, a Sheridan parent, got involved in the petition requesting the current superintendent leave sooner because she’s concerned about staff turnover, especially the sudden departure of the elementary school principal after the school was recognized for students’ exceptional academic growth.

“I really don’t find that to be fair,” Balderrama said.

She said she hopes a new leader will mean more stability among staff and better communication with parents.

“I would like constant communication between not only the teachers and principals or administration, but also with the parents,” Balderrama said. “It’s important for us to really be involved.”

Board split on how to search for a superintendent

Superintendent Pat Sandos was hired in 2018 amid pushback from community members who preferred one of the other finalists — a Hispanic educator from southwest Denver. Instead, Sandos, an internal candidate, was selected in a split vote.

At the time, board member Daniel Stange said the district needed someone from outside to listen to the community’s calls for change.

This time, Stange, now the board president, believes that there is no need to spend thousands of dollars on a superintendent search firm if there’s a good internal candidate.

“They turn out the same type of superintendent, filtering the way they do, and you get what you get,” Stange said. “If we want a different result, a new type of superintendent, then why would we be spending money to hire a search firm?”

“Our internal search is really focused on the culture of our schools,” Stange added. “We want a bilingual female. The majority of the board is supportive of an internal candidate that matches that.”

But veteran board member Sally Daigle, who voted for Sandos in 2018, feels strongly that the board needs to do a comprehensive search. The disagreement began at the same December meeting when Sandos announced his retirement.

Sandos recommended the board appoint his chief academic officer, Veronica Maes, to be his replacement. He would train her during his transition year.

Daigle advocated for the district to hire the Colorado Association of School Boards, of which she is an active member, to lead a search. The push to consider only one internal candidate concerns her.

“There’s something just not right about the whole thing,” Daigle said. “I would not argue for an hour and a half that we needed to do this if I didn’t think so.”

At a tense board meeting this spring that sometimes turned into shouting, Daigle read text messages from Stange that she later described as an effort to bribe her into agreeing with the plan using reimbursement payments as leverage. Sheridan is one of a few Colorado school districts that pays board members, allowing reimbursement for certain meetings and costs.

“I told you I would approve the costs for you to work with CASB if you didn’t give us a lot of pushback with this issue,” reads the text message from Stange, which Daigle shared with Chalkbeat. “It really feels like you are trying to push us into a costly and lengthy process? I hope you remember that we are a 5 member board. Majority rules but consensus will always provide a confident image to our constituents.”

“It was threatening, coercion, or whatever you want to call it. I was kind of pissed,” Daigle said.

Daigle serves on a CASB committee that requires monthly meetings and is a full-time caretaker for her mom. She wants to get compensated when she does work that requires her to make other care arrangements for her mom.

Stange said it wasn’t meant as a bribe or coercion, but said he knows that “to some people it might sound like that.”

Stange said he was upset that Daigle was “making a fuss” about the superintendent search and said there was disagreement over whether Daigle’s CASB conference work should count as school board work.

According to a records request, as of May 21, only two board members have received any payment since the policy took effect. Daigle received $1,725, and Maria Delgado-Garcia received $1,093.

Sheridan schools, including the alternative high school SOAR Academy, seen here in August 2020, offered in-person learning through most of the pandemic.

Internal candidate says her passion is in working to close equity gaps

Maes, who joined Sheridan as chief academic officer last year, said she wants to be superintendent to keep working on important projects.

“My entire life, my passion is closing equity gaps, working with multilingual learners — that is my why,” Maes said. “I was a Spanish-only speaking child, and I did not go through a great sink-or-swim experience. When I moved over to Sheridan last school year, it really was filling my bucket.”

“When Pat announced he was going to retire, it concerned me for the work,” she said. “We are getting a lot of traction.”

Stange said he’s happy to hire Maes into the top district role — lauding her approach to equity and the fact that she’s a Hispanic woman.

Maes has agreed not to request a higher salary during the transition year so that the small district will pay only one superintendent salary — to Sandos. Sandos, meanwhile, said he considers himself to still be the superintendent.

Daigle said a broader search would ensure the district finds the best candidate. And if that is Maes, she will still stand out even more, Daigle said.

The board could vote to appoint Maes as soon as this month. That’s when the board expects a report on community feedback on the district’s goals and direction, based on a survey and some meetings. If Maes agrees with the community priorities, it makes sense to appoint her, Stange said.

Daigle is frustrated because the district has paid a pair of consultants $12,000, twice what CASB would have charged to conduct a superintendent search that included community engagement. Stange said the consultant contracts include work on a strategic plan, and the community feedback also will support that work.

While parents agree with the board president that representation matters in a leader, some worry that any internal candidate, Hispanic or not, might continue to ignore their requests.

Alexis Marquez, a leader of the advocacy group Sheridan Rising, said that last year, Sheridan parents presented a list of requests to the district — including that the district provide Spanish interpreters for school board meetings so more parents could participate.

“It wasn’t a hard ask, but this letter went completely ignored. It was never even acknowledged,” Marquez said. “This is just a blatant disregard for the community. If you can’t speak the language, you can’t partake.”

Sandos said he would like to add interpreters to school board meetings but logistics and cost have been a challenge. Other school districts with large numbers of Spanish-speaking families, such as Adams 14, have offered interpretation for years.

Maes said she wasn’t aware of the letter or the request. She has ensured that schools offer interpreters for meetings with parents, she said. It wasn’t something she had considered for school board meetings.

Maes said better communication with the community would be a top priority if she’s chosen as superintendent, along with recruitment of new students and teachers.

“I just want to do the work,” she said. “This kind of stuff gets in the way of that.”

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

Scott Baldermann is running for re-election to represent southeast Denver on the school board

2023-06-20T15:55:30+00:00

Scott Baldermann, who represents the southeast part of the city, is running for re-election to the Denver school board.

Baldermann filed his candidacy Friday. The 47-year-old father of two Denver Public Schools students was elected in 2019 as part of a historic “flip” of the school board to candidates backed by the Denver teachers union.

Over the past four years, Baldermann has advocated for curtailing school autonomy and ending competition among schools over enrollment and test scores.

He championed ensuring more teachers can earn Colorado’s version of tenure by no longer allowing semi-autonomous innovation schools to waive it, and has taken a harder line with charter schools. Most recently, he proposed bringing police officers back to schools — a contentious policy that won approval on a 4-3 vote.

Baldermann’s seat representing District 1 is one of three seats up for grabs on the seven-member Denver school board on Nov. 7. He’ll face one challenger: DPS parent and former KIPP Colorado charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia.

Baldermann largely self-funded his 2019 campaign, ultimately spending more than $330,000 to win his seat. He said he must do so again “because of the dark money hovering over the district.” Groups supportive of education reform, which Baldermann opposes, spent more than $1 million in the last Denver school board race.

There’s a lot at stake in this election, including how the largest district in the state will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns after shootings in and around schools.

The election comes at a time when power struggles among some board members have eroded confidence in the board. A recent survey found many Denver voters have an unfavorable view of the board, and some parents have called for the entire board to resign.

Baldermann is the only incumbent currently running for re-election. Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson recently dropped his re-election bid to run for the Colorado House of Representatives instead.

Baldermann has mostly stayed out of the interpersonal conflicts that have dogged the board. A quieter board member, he is a strong supporter of the board’s switch to policy governance, a change that has at times contributed to the turmoil.

Under policy governance, board members set goals and limits but don’t get involved in the day-to-day operations of the district, which is the job of the superintendent.

“This board, I feel, has been very productive,” Baldermann said in an interview. “But a lot of interpersonal dynamics have overshadowed that work.”

An example of that productivity, he said, was the passage of a policy called “Ends 4 Health and Safety,” which the board adopted with no fanfare in February, a month before a student shot and injured two deans at East High School in March. Just three sentences long, the policy says that in light of a recent increase in gun violence, the district will collaborate with law enforcement and others “to proactively mitigate internal and external threats to safety.”

Those three sentences served as the framework for the district’s response to the East shooting, Baldermann said. A memo the board adopted the day after the shooting temporarily suspending its ban of police in schools and directing Superintendent Alex Marrero to develop a long-term safety plan by June 30 was simply telling him “to accelerate that work,” Baldermann said.

“The good work is boring,” Baldermann said of that policy and others that lay out the board’s goals for the district. “But at the end of the day, that’s the stuff that helps me sleep at night [knowing] that we were doing the right stuff and we were being proactive.”

He believes he has more policy work to do.

Baldermann was among the board members who voted unanimously in 2020 to remove police officers from schools in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

Three years and several gun incidents later, he said his position changed. Baldermann’s original proposal to bring back school resource officers included training requirements for the officers and limits on their interactions with students, but a majority of his fellow board members stripped out those provisions before the proposal passed.

Baldermann also recently voted to close three district-run schools with low enrollment.

“I do believe that we need to close schools,” he said. “I want to make sure that our marginalized communities aren’t the ones shouldering all of this burden. This needs to be a holistic, citywide solution to address what our schools are going to look like.”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the District 1 seat.

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

Colorado shaped Susana Córdova. Now she wants to make an impact as education commissioner.

2023-06-14T23:40:26+00:00

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Susana Córdova has been named Colorado’s next education commissioner.

A Denver native who attended Denver schools and then rose to be superintendent of the state’s largest school district, Córdova will hold Colorado’s top education job after stints with the Dallas Independent School District and an education nonprofit.

In an interview, Córdova said she’s excited to come home. She described the commissioner job as a powerful way “to make an impact on education in the state that made me who I am.”

The State Board of Education voted unanimously to approve Córdova’s appointment Wednesday. After the vote, board members stood and applauded Córdova. She’ll take her oath of office June 26 and earn an annual salary of $300,000.

Board Chair Rebecca McClellan said Córdova was “uniquely positioned” to understand the challenges facing Colorado schools and the lived experiences of students, teachers, and district leaders.

Outgoing Commissioner Katy Anthes will stay until July 10, with the title of special assistant to the commissioner.

“It’s hard to step away from something you’ve put your heart and soul into, but it makes it so much easier to know I’m turning this over to a seasoned, professional, kind, knowledgeable leader,” Anthes said. “I am so confident that Susana is going to do wonderful things.”

Anthes announced in December that she would be stepping down in July. The board received 23 applications. It interviewed six candidates — four women and two men — and voted unanimously in May to name Córdova the sole finalist for the job.

Córdova was a career Denver educator, working as a bilingual teacher and principal before joining the administration and eventually becoming superintendent. She announced in November 2020 that she was leaving Denver to take a job as deputy superintendent of leading and learning in the Dallas Independent School District. Córdova left the Dallas district in August after another candidate, Stephanie Elizalde, was chosen to replace retiring Superintendent Michael Hinojosa.

Since leaving the Dallas district, Córdova has been the superintendent in residence for the education nonprofit Transcend. There, Córdova said she’s learned more about the challenges and strengths of small, rural districts as well as those of urban and suburban districts as she leads a network of superintendents.

Córdova said in her first 100 days, she’ll focus on getting to know the education department staff and making herself available to superintendents, the governor, and other leaders.

Córdova said the role of commissioner is very different from that of a superintendent. Local control is a deeply held value in Colorado. The commissioner can shine a light on positive examples, provide avenues for districts to learn from one another, and make sure research on how kids learn shows up in the classroom, she said.

Córdova said that in many ways her agenda is already set. She wants to continue Colorado’s efforts to improve reading instruction, support a new initiative to improve outcomes in math, bolster efforts to prepare students for life after high school, and help districts navigate the expiration of pandemic relief dollars and the challenges of declining enrollment.

Making sure dollars are spent well to support student mental health and academic tutoring will be critical, she said. Districts that have hired lots of new staff to support students will face tough decisions.

In Córdova’s first year on the job, a task force will consider changes to the school accountability system, a process that will expose fault lines among the education community.

“We’re at a really ideal point in time to look at our accountability system,” Córdova said. “It’s important to get a read on where kids are academically, and I hope that would continue. Colorado is a leader with its focus on growth [over proficiency]. But it also might be an opportunity to look at other things that make a quality school.”

Córdova spent many years overseeing Denver’s efforts to improve education for English learners. She learned Spanish as an adult after growing up in an era when its use was heavily stigmatized.

Córdova said she’s proud of the work Colorado has done to develop a seal of biliteracy. The seal allows high school graduates to receive recognition on their diploma for reading and writing fluently in a language other than English. She hopes to help smaller districts with fewer resources better support students in learning English and valuing their home languages.

“I always start with thinking about how we approach working with students from an asset-based way,” she said. “The most important thing we can do for our multilingual learners is valuing their home language. That can be instruction in their home language or other ways to recognize it as an asset.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Aurora proposes new approach at struggling Gateway High School in wake of mismanagement allegations

2023-06-13T00:05:07+00:00

The State Board of Education this week is considering a new plan from Aurora leaders to improve Gateway High School, a low-performing school that hasn’t improved with past efforts, and was recently in the spotlight for allegations that a previous principal had misused money and changed student grades.

The district is proposing a plan under state innovation status, which grants the school more autonomy from various state and district rules. An independent review panel found it’s the best option of the ones the state can mandate.

Gateway, which serves about 1,400 students including 90% students of color, has been under state orders since 2019. Ronald Fay, the principal initially hired to oversee the plan, is now under investigation for allegedly embezzling more than $100,000 from the school over a two-year period, starting in 2019, according to a report by Fox31. The report names Fay’s secretary as a possible accomplice.

A whistleblower alerted the district in 2021, prompting an audit, resignation, and criminal investigation. When Aurora Public Schools completed its own internal audit, it sent the information to law enforcement for criminal investigation.

A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said there was no update on the status of the investigation into the former principal. According to court records, he has not been charged.

State officials say they weren’t aware of the allegations or the problems before this year, when details were first reported by Fox31. In Colorado, state officials don’t oversee school-level finances, and state leaders said they depend on schools being honest in reporting academic data such as grades and graduation rates.

Aurora Public Schools declined an interview request, and board members did not return calls seeking comment.

Groups that worked inside Gateway High School to improve student achievement, Communities in Schools and Zero Dropouts, also said they had no idea about the alleged mismanagement.

The Aurora school board has not discussed the accusations publicly, nor what they mean for district oversight of struggling schools. The district has two other schools on state-ordered improvement plans, and more than a dozen that could be headed for state intervention if they don’t improve in the next few years.

That the alleged misconduct went undetected speaks to the limits of Colorado’s accountability system, which looks at achievement on state tests and some other academic measures, but typically leaves nearly all aspects of district and school governance to local authorities.

“In Colorado there’s local control and a lot of that responsibility falls to the local board,” said Lindsey Jaeckel, executive director of school and district transformation for the state department of education. “In our experience, districts do have strong checks and balances.”

School’s improvement efforts first focused on targeted needs

By 2019, Gateway had received four consecutive years of low ratings — due to low standardized test scores and graduation rates. Rather than wait for a fifth year of low ratings, when state law would then require the State Board to intercede, district leaders proposed their own improvement plan to get ahead of the state and avoid being told what to do. It was the first district to propose a plan ahead of the five-year timeline.

State officials at the time praised the district for the initiative and approved the plan local leaders crafted.

Gateway’s plan was to hire a partial external manager to focus on social emotional learning support. The external manager, Communities in Schools, placed three caseworkers at the school to work with students who needed extra help with nonacademic issues, and help train teachers on how to integrate social and emotional learning support in their classroom work.

But one of the complaints about Fay, at the time, was that he hired a large culture team with unclear job responsibilities at higher pay rates than teachers at the school.

Christopher Murray of Communities in Schools said that his team saw the large number of resources in the school as a bonus, but they weren’t used as well as they could have been.

“We felt it was great, the district and the community are committed to addressing needs in this school,” Murray said. “What I felt was the missing piece was, how are we integrating all of that? There was continued confusion around roles and what we were there to do, and ultimately a lack of trust or buy-in in the school.”

Communities in Schools ended their contract with the district in 2021. Murray said that the organization wanted more cooperation with leadership, a role in decision making, and ultimately felt they were no longer “achieving the outcomes and goals that we wanted to achieve.” The district then revised its improvement plan, which the state approved in the fall of 2021.

In the second version of the improvement plan, Gateway contracted with another organization, Zero Dropouts. This time, the contracted work focused on credit recovery as students were returning to in-person school after initial pandemic disruption.

According to email correspondence obtained through public records requests, there was disagreement about how many students benefited from Zero Dropouts’ work. The independent State Review Panel’s report details problems with the work including no communication with teachers on which of their students were working with the group, whether they needed to approve the recovery work, and a lack of student participation in afternoon and weekend tutoring opportunities the group offered.

The latest state rating, for 2022, showed the school again in “turnaround,” the lowest rating given to schools.

And while the graduation rate improved significantly for the Class of 2020, it has since dropped again to 64.2%, for the Class of 2022, lower than the state rate of 82.3%.

Multiple teachers at the school raised concerns about grades being changed, according to the Fox31 report. A district audit reports that the district investigation had found there were more than 400 grade changes, far more grade changes than at other district high schools. The audit found there was no evidence of grade changes in exchange for payment, but that teachers did feel inappropriately pressured to change them. The audit also states that the internal district investigation into the grade changes may have been inadequate.

Sentinel Colorado reported that during a school board meeting with superintendent finalists this spring, Andre Wright, who was identified as the administrator who oversaw the possibly inadequate investigation into the grade changes, claimed that most of the changes weren’t beneficial to the students and that grades were actually lowered.

“APS should consider whether additional inquiries should be made with respect to the grade change practices at Gateway,” the audit recommendations state. “As Gateway is a turnaround school, metrics related to student performance and graduation are important to the school’s status.”

Since Gateway first got a state-ordered improvement plan in 2019, the school has received a total of $500,000 in state school improvement dollars. State officials said they don’t have any concerns about those dollars having been misspent.

The money is given to districts, not schools themselves, and state officials say they track that the work that is supposed to happen with the grant money does, in fact, happen. In Gateway’s case, the money has gone mostly to pay for the external managers.

Asked if the state could impose penalties related to accounting practices or other financial concerns, Jennifer Okes, chief school operations officer for the Colorado Department of Education, said in an email that districts could face downgraded ratings “if CDE determines a district or charter schools are not in substantial, good-faith compliance.”

“We have not had any instances of this during the past 10 years. While we do have districts that are out of compliance with some provisions from time to time, these have not risen to the level of substantial, good-faith compliance,” she wrote.

A new approach

Gateway’s newest principal, Scott Fiske, hired in January 2022, evaluated the school’s needs and determined that a more comprehensive plan to improve instruction is necessary. The push to use innovation status came after a visit from the state review panel in the fall.

District leadership has also changed, including the chief academic officer, and a new superintendent will start next month.

The school held focus groups with staff and students, and created a plan that would push the school to offer “experiential learning” tied to college and career experiences. Students would get opportunities to do job shadowing, internships, service work, and earn industry certifications.

The school is requesting innovation status waivers including to hire unlicensed teachers for certain career class offerings, have flexibility in the school calendar, and change graduation requirements to offer different diploma options. Graduation requirements would need to at least meet, if not exceed, the district’s requirements.

The local school board approved the plan unanimously in April, after members praised it, as well as the community engagement done while creating the plan. Some school board members asked why this work hadn’t been the focus from the start.

The district and school staff working on Gateway’s improvement plan are all new. They said they believed the people who worked on the original plans hoped more targeted work would be enough. Now district officials want a more comprehensive approach.

Jaeckel, executive director of school and district transformation for the state department of education, said that when state officials do site visits, they focus on systems and helping school and district leaders narrow their focus to a few improvements that can be done well.

“We do seek information about, how are you supporting students who are failing?” Jaeckel said. “We get to see that. But we don’t get down to an individual level, talking to a teacher or even a principal about how did a student end up with a D? It’s more about, are there systems in place?”

Jaeckel said that when the state publicly posts academic data offered by schools, it helps provide accountability because the public can see what is being reported, and ask questions of their local officials.

In Aurora, although the district denied an interview request and school board members haven’t questioned the district’s policies in a public board meeting, the district issued a statement defending their policies.

“We have multiple policies and protocols in place to ensure that funding is used appropriately to serve Aurora Public Schools students,” the district’s statement reads. “We do not tolerate misconduct and hold staff to high standards. We work to fully investigate complaints and concerns. In this case, the actions of the two former employees are appalling. We remain committed to upholding high standards for all employees.”

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

Auon’tai Anderson is dropping out of the Denver school board race to run for a state House seat

2023-06-12T16:26:53+00:00

Denver school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson is dropping his re-election bid and will run instead for a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives.

The 24-year-old is the most high-profile member of the Denver school board, and his exit from the race will mean a change in the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting, including between Anderson and President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán.

“The Anderson era of the school board has been consequential and we’ve made a lot of progress,” Anderson said in an interview. “But it’s also an opportunity to go back to being boring. You won’t have a lightning rod of one person of seven being outspoken on the school board.”

Anderson was elected in 2019 to an at-large seat representing the entire city as part of a historic “flip” of the school board to members backed by the teachers union. His four-year term ends in November. Anderson had announced more than six months ago that he was running for re-election to the board. Two other candidates — Kwame Spearman and Paul Ballenger — announced this spring that they would challenge him for the seat.

But on Monday, Anderson said he plans instead to run for the House District 8 seat representing northeast Denver in 2024. The seat is held by state Rep. Leslie Herod, a Democrat who is barred from running again due to term limits. Four other candidates have already filed to run for the seat, according to the secretary of state’s office database.

Other politicians have simultaneously served in the state legislature and on local school boards, including in Denver, but Anderson said the timing of the races would have made that difficult.

In the wake of a shooting inside East High School in March, Anderson said he began thinking about the limitations of the school board to make broad political changes. For instance, Anderson said the school board can’t enact gun control measures, while state lawmakers can. He recalled a conversation he said he had with a Black mother and student.

“The student said, ‘You’re telling us everything you can’t do. What are you going to do about it?’” Anderson said. That conversation helped push him to run for the legislature, he said, where he hopes to advocate for gun safety, rent control, and reproductive rights, among other issues.

In a campaign video, Anderson said he accomplished everything he set out to do on the school board, a claim he repeated in an interview. In the video, he listed reunifying Montbello and West high schools — two schools in communities of color that the district previously closed for low student test scores. West High reopened in 2021, and Montbello High reopened last year.

Anderson mentioned raising the minimum wage for district employees to $20 an hour, stocking school bathrooms with free menstrual hygiene products, and passing policies inclusive of LGBTQIA students, such as mandating all-gender restrooms — all of which he championed.

“I am walking away with my head held high,” Anderson said in an interview. “Even if I am never elected to another seat in government again, I’m walking away having no regrets.”

Anderson also helped lead the push in 2020 to remove police officers from Denver schools following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But the future of that policy is uncertain. The board voted to temporarily suspend it after the East shooting, and some board members now want to bring school resource officers back more permanently.

Board members Michelle Quattlebaum and Scott Esserman have joined Anderson in publicly opposing the return of SROs. Anderson said he’s confident that Quattlebaum, Esserman, and others will “keep that work going” after he leaves the board.

A poll taken in April before other candidates had declared found just 9% of respondents said they planned to vote to re-elect Anderson and more than half said it was “time for someone new.” A third of respondents were undecided.

Anderson’s time on the school board has been controversial. In 2021, his fellow board members censured him for violating expectations of board member behavior.

The censure came after a five-month investigation into sexual assault and misconduct allegations, the most serious of which were not substantiated. But investigators did find that Anderson had flirtatious contact with a student while he was a board member and made social media posts that were coercive and intimidating toward witnesses during the investigation.

“Leadership always comes with bumps, and people make mistakes,” Anderson said. “But it’s about how we learn from those mistakes and keep moving the mantle forward.”

This will be the third time Anderson has run for office. A graduate of Denver’s Manual High School, Anderson first ran for school board in 2017 when he was just a teenager. Though he lost that race, he ran again two years later and won.

In announcing his now-canceled re-election bid last November, Anderson said he’d considered running for a seat on the Denver City Council but changed his mind after the board’s debate last fall on whether to close schools with low enrollment.

Superintendent Alex Marrero initially recommended closing 10 small schools. Anderson was a vocal opponent of that plan, which Marrero whittled down and the board rejected.

But four months later, in March, the board came back and voted to close three of the 10 schools. Anderson voted to close Math and Science Leadership Academy and Denver Discovery School, however, he cast the sole vote against closing Fairview Elementary, where enrollment projections were in dispute.

Declining enrollment and school closures will be among the issues the next school board will need to tackle, and Anderson left open the possibility that he could run for the board again someday. But he also said that this coming election, when three of the seven seats are up for grabs, “is an opportunity for us to hit a good restart.”

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

Raw emotions, shouting, and prayers as Denver school board debates police in schools

2023-06-06T18:45:21+00:00

A Denver school board discussion of police in schools Monday began with board members shouting to be heard after the president cut off their microphones and ended with a series of ministers praying that the district’s children be safe and that its leaders show good judgment.

“This topic is too important for us to gloss over,” board member Michelle Quattlebaum, who opposes stationing police officers inside schools, said after her microphone was cut off. “I will continue to press back on structures of oppression.”

The tumult at Monday night’s Denver school board meeting reflected ongoing conflict on the board, the deep division in the community over police in schools, and how strongly each side feels their solution is safest for students. The debate follows several incidents of gun violence, including a shooting inside East High in March that prompted the board to temporarily lift a ban on police in schools.

Now the board is weighing whether to bring the officers back on a long-term basis. But with dueling proposals on the table, the seven board members don’t agree.

Superintendent Alex Marrero invited Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas to Monday’s meeting to explain how police would partner with Denver Public Schools if the board reinstates school resource officers, known as SROs. The agenda item read only “Superintendent’s Update.”

Thomas promised specialized training in de-escalation and the adolescent brain. He pledged that the officers would come from the community and want the assignment. He said they would focus on positive interactions with students and deterring crime, not on discipline.

“I’ve seen it work where young people have had a great opportunity to develop relationships with police officers in their schools,” Thomas said.

Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith then read off a long list of just-in survey results overwhelmingly in favor of police: 95% of students at Montbello High, 90% of parents at Northeast Early College, and 85% of staff at Lincoln High are in support of SROs, Smith said.

The results were notably different from previous survey results. An April survey conducted by the district found just 41% of students in favor of SROs. At a series of telephone town hall meetings last month, parents consistently ranked SROs second behind weapons detections systems as the resource they wanted DPS to invest more money in.

Quattlebaum questioned the validity of the survey results presented by Smith. Black students, she said, “do not feel safe speaking their truth” for fear of being seen as opposing school safety. The survey, she said, supports what Marrero, board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, and board members Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay want: to return SROs to schools.

“But have we done the real research, is what I’m asking,” Quattlebaum said. “Creating and holding the space that’s actually required to address the situation?”

Gaytán tried to cut Quattlebaum off. She said it wasn’t Quattlebaum’s turn to speak.

“Please, I ask for your respect,” Gaytán said. “As president of the board, I’m asking you kindly and respectfully to respect procedure.”

Quattlebaum kept speaking. “When we go down the list of traits of white supremacy, this is actually one of them,” she said.

Gaytán gestured toward the technical crew controlling the microphones. Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson jumped to Quattlebaum’s defense. “Do not cut her mic!” he said.

But Gaytán did. Quattlebaum stood up and spoke loudly.

“I will continue to be a voice and a beacon,” Quattlebaum said.

Anderson’s microphone was cut off a few minutes later, after Marrero said it was “impossible to fathom” that Denver’s students of color would be over-policed by SROs under his watch, even though it happened in the past. “Then is not now,” Marrero said.

“Respectfully, Dr. Marrero, I have to just,” Anderson began.

“Vice President Anderson,” Gaytán said. “Would you please follow procedure and ask for the floor?”

“I’m not doing this with you today,” Anderson said to Gaytán.

When Anderson’s microphone went dead, he also stood up and shouted.

“Just because we have new faces doesn’t mean we trust what you’re going to do!” he said.

The board is considering two proposals. One, authored by Baldermann, would let the superintendent decide when, where, and for long SROs should be stationed in schools. While Gaytán and Lindsay have not formally endorsed Baldermann’s proposal, Gaytán called the return of SROs “inevitable,” while Lindsay has said they could help.

Another proposal, backed by Quattlebaum, Anderson and board member Scott Esserman, says the district should instead work with the city to create community resource officers who would be available to schools only when necessary.

The bulk of Monday’s meeting was set aside for public comment — and the topic of SROs dominated among the speakers in the packed auditorium. Nearly all speakers, including a large group with the advocacy organization Movimiento Poder, were opposed to bringing back SROs.

They said SROs cause trauma, ticket and arrest Black and Latino students, and do nothing to stop school shootings. They accused the school board of being reactionary and ignoring data.

“For my sake, and thousands of students’ sake, please stop ignoring the Black and brown voices,” said Carold Carter, a sophomore at Denver School of the Arts.

“It’s important we show our community of beautiful students that we truly care about them and will refuse to treat them as criminals or their schools as prisons,” the 15-year-old said.

At a press conference just a half hour before the meeting Monday, some parents expressed a more complicated view. Dorian Warren, a Black mother with a son at East High, said that the SROs at East have tried to build a rapport with her son.

Warren is part of a group called Resign DPS Board that is calling on all seven board members to step down — or at least for voters to get rid of any incumbents who run for reelection.

In a year filled with gun violence, Warren said there were no incidents after the SROs returned.

“I don’t want to see another child die and more finger pointing,” Warren said. “This board needs to be proactive and stop dragging their feet, stop making excuses, stop being divisive.”

Before Monday’s board meeting was over, Quattlebaum had apologized for “stepping out of order.” More than three hours of public comment ended with a series of nine ministers who used their allotted three minutes each to stand at the microphone and pray.

“I’ve been here for a few hours, so I’m tired,” said Brandon Washington, pastor of Embassy Christian Bible Church. “And I know you are too. One of the things that was fatiguing was not just the passage of time, but the manner in which this conversation occurred. So I want to be careful to give some attention to remembering that the agenda here is not self. It is others.”

School safety, Washington said, is “a complex matter.” “Let everyone here think the best of the other,” he said, “knowing that everyone here desires the welfare of children.”

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

Susana Cordova, former Denver superintendent, named finalist for Colorado education commissioner

2023-05-30T22:54:23+00:00

Former Denver Public Schools Superintendent Susana Cordova is the sole finalist to be Colorado’s next education commissioner.

The State Board of Education voted unanimously to name Cordova their preferred candidate at a brief meeting Tuesday morning. By law, the State Board must wait at least 14 days before voting to hire Cordova. The next scheduled board meeting is June 14.

“Her extensive experience working in schools and districts along with her thoughtful and caring approach to addressing the issues facing students and educators will be a tremendous asset to the state of Colorado,” board Chair Rebecca McClellan said.

The selection of Cordova drew praise from education advocates across the political spectrum. Groups that represent superintendents and educators said they appreciate that Cordova would bring a wealth of classroom and district experience to the job. Groups that favor education reform said they appreciate that she worked for the Denver district during a time when that district had its own school accountability system and embraced school choice and charters.

“This was an excellent choice for Colorado particularly at this moment in time,” said Van Schoales, senior policy director at the Keystone Policy Center. “Susana has a remarkable background, having been a successful teacher, school leader, district leader, and she knows how to drive student achievement, particularly for low-income kids and English learners.”

Education Commissioner Katy Anthes announced in December that she would be stepping down in July. The State Board hired the search firm McPherson and Jacobson to help find a replacement. The board received 23 applications. It interviewed six candidates — four women and two men — in closed-door meetings Wednesday and Thursday.

The board discussed candidates in closed session for more than four hours on Friday before adjourning without a vote. The board reconvened for about 30 minutes Tuesday before announcing Cordova would be the only finalist.

Cordova was a career Denver educator, working as a bilingual teacher and principal before rising to lead the district where she was once a student herself. Her tenure included a teachers strike, a political sea change on the school board, and COVID-related school closures. She worked hard to find common ground and win over critics.

Cordova announced in November 2020 that she was leaving Denver to take a job as deputy superintendent of leading and learning in the Dallas Independent School District. Though Cordova said she was leaving Denver to pursue an exciting opportunity, many in the community blamed dysfunction on the Denver school board for driving her away.

Cordova left the Dallas district in August after another candidate, Stephanie Elizalde, was chosen to replace retiring Superintendent Michael Hinojosa. Since then, Cordova has been the superintendent in residence for the education nonprofit Transcend.

McClellan said the State Board was looking for a candidate with a history of leading by example and closing gaps between student groups, someone with good people skills who would represent a positive image for the department.

Unlike other states where the education commissioner is appointed by the governor or elected, Colorado’s education commissioner is hired by the independently elected State Board of Education.

Anthes, the departing commissioner, has led the department since May 2016 and. During her tenure, Colorado implemented a school accountability system that allows state intervention in struggling school districts, adopted new academic standards, and stepped up efforts to improve reading instruction in the early grades and career learning opportunities for high school students.

“The Colorado commissioner is somewhat unique in that the power the commissioner has is limited because of local control,” Schoales said. “It requires a combination of carrots and sticks, and the commissioner has to be very thoughtful and artful to bring people along.”

The next commissioner will serve a larger nine-member board with an expanded Democratic majority, some of whom are more skeptical of the accountability system and state intervention in school districts.

“We have a divided State Board and a larger State Board,” said Brenda Dickhoner, president and CEO of the conservative education group Ready Colorado. “The commissioner plays a role in taking all the different signals from the State Board and synthesizing those and transmitting those to schools and districts and families.”

The next commissioner will have to deal with ongoing pandemic recovery, efforts to improve math and reading instruction, teacher shortages, and the challenges that come with declining enrollment in many parts of the state.

Colorado also is about to convene a task force that will recommend changes to the accountability system — a process welcomed by many education advocacy groups but one that will force difficult conversations.

Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, said his membership’s top priority was having as commissioner “someone who knew the day-to-day struggles as much as the policy.” Every law and policy has to be turned into rules that superintendents, principals, and teachers can put into action, Miles said, and Cordova’s background means she is well-positioned to approach those decisions with care.

Dickhoner said she was glad to see a finalist who understands “how choice is part of our education ecosystem” and brings experience working in Denver Public Schools when that district was considered a national model for education reform.

“Her track record in DPS, demonstrating that she’s been able to work with families who attend schools of choice, that she worked in a system that valued accountability and high expectations for all schools, regardless of where you fall on the specific policy recommendations, having that familiarity will benefit her and Colorado,” Dickhoner said.

Jen Walmer, state director of Democrats for Education Reform, was chief of staff in Denver when Cordova was chief academic officer.

“She was the most consistent, even member of the leadership team,” Walmer said. “She is always focused on the work, student-focused. She listens before she speaks. She has an ability to build bridges and bring people together, and I think that’s exactly what Colorado needs.”

Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association, the state teachers union, said she is hopeful that Cordova’s background as a classroom teacher will lead her to lift up and center educator perspectives on how to solve long-standing education problems.

Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, executive director of the Colorado Association of Bilingual Educators, said she was “thrilled” with Cordova’s selection and hopes that Cordova promotes biliteracy, bilingual education, and diverse and inclusive approaches.

“Our children need not just her leadership, but her advocacy as well,” she wrote in an email.

Gov. Jared Polis praised the choice in a press release and said he looks forward to working with Cordova.

“Her prior work boosting academic progress and improving access to high-quality education for learners of all backgrounds as Superintendent of Denver Public Schools is sure to benefit students across the state as she brings this passion and experience to this new role,” he said.

This story has been updated throughout with additional comments and interviews.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Father and security consultant Paul Ballenger is running for Denver school board

2023-05-25T20:19:36+00:00

Update, Sept. 29: Paul Ballenger announced that he is dropping out of the race for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

A Denver father who served in the military and is concerned about school safety announced Thursday that he’s running for an at-large seat on the school board.

Paul Ballenger, 46, referenced a recent high-profile shooting at East High School in his announcement on the sidewalk in front of Denver Public Schools headquarters. He said the shooting on March 22 “changed everything.”

“That was the day I came to realize the ineffective safety policies my family and our school felt were felt by all,” said Ballenger, who is a single dad to a daughter who finished middle school at McAuliffe International School this week and will attend Northfield High next year.

Ballenger will have three opponents for the seat, which represents the entire city: Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate who was until recently the CEO of independent bookstore chain Tattered Cover; John Youngquist, who was formerly principal of East High; and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral stuent.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who currently holds that seat, is not seeking re-election.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to change the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting and power struggles between some members over the past year. Also at stake is how the board will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns.

Ballenger said he joined the U.S. Marine Corps more than 20 years ago. After his military service, he worked as a firefighter and EMT. He said he came to Colorado in 2016 to help start a security company. In 2020, he and his daughter moved to Denver, where they live in the Central Park neighborhood. Ballenger still works in security as a consultant.

In an interview, he said his security experience would be an asset to a district struggling with how to keep its schools safe. He said the board’s 2020 decision to remove police officers from schools — which it temporarily reversed in the wake of the East shooting — was made without enough community feedback. Schools should be able to choose whether or not to have a police officer, known as a school resource officer, or SRO, Ballenger said.

“I think there should be much more autonomy at the principal level to make decisions,” he said. “If a principal … says ‘Hey, you know what, there’s a lot of violence in the neighborhood, there’s been gang activity, … I’m a little concerned with guns coming to school, I want to ramp up for a bit until things cool off,’ I think that’s a very reasonable request.”

Ballenger said he’s been frustrated by the school board’s infighting. If elected, he said he wants to “restore some dignity” to the board and get members back to business.

“I want to make school board meetings boring again,” Ballenger said.

He said he knows the board faces tough decisions, including about whether to close schools with low enrollment. But Ballenger said the closure process has fallen short.

“I’ve heard the word ‘blindsided’ over and over again,” he said. “In the event that school closures have to happen, we have to make sure that they are fair, make sure that they are equitable, and that we’re involving the community early on so they can either advocate for their school or at least understand that changes could be happening.”

Ballenger neither aligned himself with nor distanced himself from the philosophy of education reform, which is often a dividing line in Denver school board elections. Rather, he said he believes that “if a school is working well for the children and the staff, it should be left alone.”

In his announcement, Ballenger said his experience as “an Army guy, a businessman, a security expert, and a dad to a really great kid,” makes him “uniquely positioned to assist.”

“More than anything, I want every parent in Denver to be free from worry as to whether their child is in danger, but instead to know in full faith that their child is thriving,” he said.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the at-large seat. It was also updated to reflect that Auon’tai Anderson is not seeking re-election.

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

Charter school centering Black students misses enrollment target, won’t open in Denver this fall

2023-05-23T21:17:30+00:00

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A charter elementary school centering Black students won’t open as planned in Denver this fall. 5280 Freedom School did not enroll enough students for next school year, and the Denver school board isn’t considering giving the charter school more time.

The refusal is a departure from past practice and emblematic of the increasingly tough outlook for charter schools in Denver, which was once among the friendliest districts for the publicly funded, privately run schools. But declining enrollment and shifting politics have changed that — even for a school aiming to fulfill one of the school board’s priorities: improving education for Black students.

“It’s unfortunate because the longer we wait, there are still Black students entering schools … and not learning, not getting the quality instruction they need,” said Branta Lockett, founder of 5280 Freedom School. “That’s what’s most devastating to me.”

The school board initially denied the application of 5280 Freedom School last June along with the applications for two other charter schools that wanted to open in Denver Public Schools.

The district feared 5280 Freedom School would fail to enroll enough students, with Superintendent Alex Marrero noting that “school models of this limited size are not in the best interests of pupils, the district, or the community.”

More than a dozen charter schools have closed in recent years, often because of low enrollment. Denver schools are funded per pupil, and schools with low enrollment struggle to afford enough staff to offer robust programming. District-run schools are closing, too. The school board recently voted to close three small district-run schools at the end of the school year.

5280 Freedom School appealed its denial to the State Board of Education, which ordered the Denver school board to reconsider. State Board members said it was unfair to assume that 5280 Freedom School would face the same enrollment challenges as other Denver charters.

In September, the Denver school board complied with the State Board’s order and approved 5280 Freedom School to open this fall. But the approval came with conditions, including that the charter fill all of its open seats in its first year. 5280 Freedom School pledged to open with 52 students in kindergarten and first grade, and gradually build the school from there.

But the school wasn’t able to enroll 52 students. Lockett said only 38 students — 27 kindergarteners and 11 first graders — enrolled in 5280 Freedom School during the school choice window this spring, when families submit their choices for next school year.

The school’s agreement with DPS said failure to enroll 52 students “would result in a breach of contract and would prevent the school from opening.”

In March, 5280 Freedom School sent DPS a letter proposing two other options, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat. The school proposed opening this fall with kindergarten only or delaying its opening until 2024, giving it more time to recruit students.

“5280 is providing this letter as a demonstration of its interest in working proactively with DPS to address any concerns as early as possible,” the letter said.

But school board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said in a statement this week that the board “is not currently considering” 5280 Freedom School’s request.

That was news to Lockett, who said Tuesday that neither the board nor DPS ever answered 5280 Freedom’s School’s letter. “They’re not obligated to respond to us,” Lockett said. “But if you believe in equity, if you believe in students first, if you believe in supporting Black families and communities, the least you could do is respond.”

Past school boards have given other nascent charter schools more time to recruit students. In 2018, the board allowed a charter school called The CUBE to delay its opening after it missed its enrollment target. The board did the same for the American Indian Academy of Denver in 2019. However, both schools continued to struggle with enrollment. The CUBE closed in 2021, and the American Indian Academy of Denver will close at the end of this school year.

5280 Freedom School is now considering reapplying to DPS next year or opening as a private school, Lockett said. It already runs a successful summer program that teaches children about Black history, African drumming, poetry, nutrition, and more.

“It has been a difficult journey,” Lockett said. But she said not everything has been a loss. “There were a lot of obstacles placed in front of us that we were able to overcome time and time again,” she said. “The only one we didn’t meet was enrollment.”

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

Superintendent Alex Marrero wins 10% raise from divided Denver school board

2023-05-18T19:28:28+00:00

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The Denver school board voted 4-3 Thursday to immediately raise the salary of Superintendent Alex Marrero to at least $305,000, a 10% boost to his base salary. The new contract also includes performance pay of up to 12.5% of his base salary if he achieves all of his goals.

Denver Public Schools is the largest school district in the state, measured by enrollment, and Marrero’s salary will now be among the highest for a superintendent in Colorado.

Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and board members Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum voted against the raise. Anderson and Quattlebaum said they disagreed with the process of renegotiating Marrero’s contract, which they criticized as not transparent.

“We did not come to a genuine consensus on how the negotiations were going to happen,” Quattlebaum said. “We were flawed in the approach.”

But board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said Marrero deserved a raise.

“A pay raise better aligns with his compensation when we look at his peers across the state,” Gaytán said.

Tracy Dorland, superintendent of Jeffco Public Schools, the state’s second-largest district, makes $279,916 this year. Erin Kane, superintendent of the third-largest district in Douglas County, was hired last year at $250,000. Aurora Public Schools, which is the fifth-largest district, just agreed to pay a new superintendent, Michael Giles, $285,000 starting in July.

Don Haddad, superintendent of the St. Vrain Valley School District, seventh-largest in the state and headquartered in Longmont, makes at least $328,000.

Marrero was hired by the Denver school board in July 2021 at a salary of $260,000. That was the same salary earned by previous superintendent Susana Cordova. Marrero’s contract said his salary would rise each year at the rate of the local consumer price index.

Prior to Thursday’s vote, Marrero’s salary for this year was $276,354.

If he earns the maximum performance pay possible under his new contract — for achieving 100% of his goals — his salary would be $343,125 this year.

Marrero’s contract also allows for performance pay if he achieves 95%, 90%, 85%, or 80% of his goals. If he achieves 75% or less, he doesn’t get a bonus.

The percentage refers to the extent he meets a set of metrics known as “reasonable interpretations.” Last year, for example, some of the metrics were to identify at least two oppressive systems to dismantle and for the district to retain educators of color at the same rate as white educators.

Marrero’s pay boost is retroactive to Jan. 1, according to the new contract. His base salary of $305,000 will continue increase annually on Aug. 1 at the rate of the local consumer price index.

In his nearly two years as superintendent, Marrero has dealt with several controversial and high-profile issues, including rising gun violence and a shooting inside the district’s largest high school, as well as the decision to close schools due to declining enrollment.

Marrero has only had one performance evaluation — and it was somewhat controversial. In October, the board voted 6-1 to accept Marrero’s self-evaluation as his formal evaluation. Anderson was the sole no vote, explaining in a statement that he didn’t believe the evaluation was robust enough. It should not be “a rubber-stamp exercise,” he wrote.

Marrero’s evaluation differed markedly from the last time the board evaluated a superintendent. For Cordova’s evaluation in 2020, the board hired an outside firm to collect feedback from students, parents, staff, and community members in addition to considering Cordova’s self-evaluation. The board also gave her a score: 3 out of 5.

Some speculated that the middling evaluation led Cordova, who grew up in Denver and had worked her entire career in DPS, to resign a few months later.

“That prior process was far from perfect, and we should learn from what did not work well,” Anderson wrote in his statement about why he voted against Marrero’s self-evaluation. “That said, I believe the current Board has over-corrected.”

Gaytán said in an interview Thursday that renegotiations over Marrero’s contract date back to October, after the board accepted his self-evaluation. She also defended the process, which she said involved attorneys for DPS and Marrero trading drafts, and the DPS attorney asking school board members for feedback via email.

Board members have consistently supported Marrero publicly, even if they haven’t always agreed with his recommendations, especially on school closures. In December 2021, before any evaluation took place and just five months into his tenure, the school board extended Marrero’s contract from two years to four years with automatic one-year extension.

Board members said they wanted to give Marrero more time to make a difference in Denver. His contract now has the potential to go through 2027.

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

Denver Public Schools has lacked a safety chief for 6 months amid rising gun violence

2023-05-16T21:55:50+00:00

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Denver Public Schools has lacked a safety chief for six months as the district grapples with rising youth gun violence and a shooting inside its largest high school.

The district attributed a delay in filling the position to several factors, including media coverage of the school board, whose infighting has been widely reported, and a desire to find a candidate who understands both safety and students’ social and emotional needs, according to a district document obtained by Chalkbeat.

The former chief of the DPS climate and safety department, Mike Eaton, left the district in November after more than a decade. The department has other vacancies as well. The interim safety chief, Robert Grossaint, is out on medical leave, according to a district spokesperson. And one of two deputy chiefs, Melissa Craven, left DPS last month.

The short staffing comes at a time when students, parents, and educators are particularly worried about school safety. Three shootings in and around East High School this school year have heightened those concerns, leading to student protests, the formation of a parent advocacy group, calls for the school board to resign, the reintroduction of school police officers, and the hastened development of a long-term safety plan for the entire district.

Two East High students died in shootings this year. Sixteen-year-old Luis Garcia was killed while sitting in his car outside the school in February, a crime that remains unsolved. And Austin Lyle, 17, took his own life in March after shooting and wounding two East High deans.

But Trena Marsal, the district’s chief of operations, said in an interview that despite the vacancies in the DPS safety department, Denver’s public schools are safe. Other staff members have been stepping in to fill the empty roles, she said.

“I want to make sure people understand that our buildings are safe,” Marsal said. “We have highly trained experts in the field of safety that are in place and continue to be in place.”

The district’s safety chief is responsible for setting a long-term vision for safety in DPS, overseeing investigations, leading the response to emergencies, coordinating with law enforcement, and other duties, according to the job listing.

Safety chief role is ‘a key player’

The vacancy came up at a school board meeting last month when Superintendent Alex Marrero was giving a brief update on the long-term safety plan the board directed him to develop in the wake of the March shooting at East.

Board member Michelle Quattlebaum said to Marrero: “A pressing question for me is centered around: You’re doing all of this work, and you’re missing a key player.”

Marrero promised to explain why it’s been difficult to hire a new safety chief, but he declined to do it publicly. “It’s best for you all to receive it in memo form,” he said to the board.

When Chalkbeat filed an open records request for that memo or any documents that explain the hiring difficulty, the district provided a two-page document that appears to have been last updated in late March.

It says the chief job was posted on Sept. 28, and 121 people had applied as of March 20. Twelve candidates were “brought forward,” the unsigned document says.

But five candidates withdrew and seven were eliminated after interviews. One candidate who made it to the second round of interviews backed out “after a student death in his current district” outside of Colorado, the document says.

“While we’ve interviewed numerous people for the role, we’ve had trouble finding a candidate that has both the safety and security chops in addition to a student-centric mindset — and in particular a person who understands the needs of communities and students of color,” the document says.

It notes that the district hasn’t had a shortage of candidates, but rather “a shortage of qualified candidates (based on both experience and mindset).”

About three-quarters of DPS students are students of color. The district’s approach to safety and discipline leans toward keeping students in school rather than suspending or expelling them — a philosophy that has come under scrutiny since the March shooting at East.

The document also says the salary DPS was offering “was initially a concern for many candidates,” but that a salary increase “has gotten us much closer.” The job posting currently lists the salary range as between $123,711 and $143,466.

Board turmoil is a concern for some candidates

Media coverage of the school board has also complicated the hiring process, the document says. The board has been plagued by infighting and power struggles for a year. Many media outlets have covered the turmoil, and newspaper editorials have decried the dysfunction.

“Some candidates researched the district, in particular the Board of Education, and declined to pursue the opportunity,” the document says. “In two specific cases, desired candidates withdrew applications due to the Board media coverage.”

Bill Good, a spokesperson for the board, said Tuesday that the board had no comment.

But at the meeting last month, Quattlebaum implored her fellow members to “focus on what’s important.” At that same meeting, President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán had tried to get the board to discuss accusations of policy violations she’d levied against Vice President Auon’tai Anderson. But the other board members refused.

“Our community expects us to lead, not to be wrapped up in a title that we all hold,” Quattlebaum said. “And leading is staying focused on the task at hand.”

Marsal said the search for a new chief continues, and that DPS has hired two search firms to help find candidates. She said the district hopes to announce a hire in the next several weeks.

“We want someone aligned with DPS’s core values around students,” Marsal said. “We want a balanced leader — a leader that understands the needs of emergency management and safety, but also understands the needs of our students.

“We are a district. We’re here to educate kids. We have to make sure we’re creating safe learning spaces that are cognizant of all students.”

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

Denver mayoral candidates Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston on education, safety in schools

2023-05-15T12:00:00+00:00

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Neither of Denver’s candidates for mayor favors mayoral control of the school board, which has been beset by infighting and power struggles among board members.

That was one of the takeaways from a recent mayoral forum focused on education and hosted by EDUCATE Denver, Chalkbeat Colorado, and CBS Colorado.

The runoff election between Kelly Brough, the former head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, and Mike Johnston, a former educator and state legislator, is set for June 6.

Brough and Johnston won the most votes among a crowded field of 17 candidates in an initial election in April. But neither got more than 50% of the vote, necessitating a runoff election.

Although Denver’s mayor does not control Denver Public Schools, education ranks among the top issues that matter to the city’s voters, according to recent polls. DPS faces several big challenges, including rising youth gun violence in and around schools.

Below, read what Brough and Johnston had to say about that topic and more. The questions and answers have been edited for length. See the full video from the forum at the bottom of this story.

Youth gun violence is on the rise. After a shooting at East High School in March, the Denver Police Department agreed to station 14 police officers on 13 DPS high school campuses. What’s your position on police in schools? And who should pay for it?

Johnston: My position from the beginning has been that schools should get to decide whether they need that support. … I think that in terms of who pays for it, that’s a decision we can make together. If the district has the resources, they should pay for it. If the district doesn’t have the resources, then the city needs to step in and figure out how we get it done.

Brough: The most fundamental responsibility of government is to keep our residents safe. And so the question of who pays for it is the last concern we should have. Historically, the district has paid for school resource officers. But I said very clearly, as mayor, I would pay for those officers if that’s what a principal and a school have said they would like in their school.

Research shows a correlation between the presence of police in schools and discipline disparities, as well as unclear effects on school safety. If Denver police remain in schools, how would you ensure the district achieves its equity and trauma-informed goals?

Johnston: This is a matter of who you approve to do this work, what training they have to do this work, and what their scope of authority is in the building to do this work.

When I’m a school principal, I do not need a Denver PD officer to be intervening in two students arguing in the cafeteria. I do not need an officer to be ticketing people for cursing in the hallway.

What you need an officer for is when you have a student that you know has access to a gun, who you are afraid is bringing one to school, and you need someone to assist in a pat-down of that student to make sure they’re not armed.

Brough: I too, would emphasize making sure you have the right officers in schools with the training and support and feedback.

But I also want to talk about, you know, we’ve built systems throughout every aspect of our society that have bias in them around race in particular. And so I think each of our schools, whether we have a school resource officer in them or not, we have to be monitoring and tracking: What are we doing around discipline … and is there disparity based on race that we’re seeing there, so we can respond and address our own issues.

Would you consider mayoral control of the school board?

Brough: I don’t think you can tell the next mayor: Why don’t you fix the severe challenges we face in the city and county of Denver and take on the largest school district in the state of Colorado and see what you can get done over there too?

So I would not take on the school district.

Johnston: No, I don’t think that is a good plan.

I think that the democratic process works. There are a lot of people that are very motivated and very mobilized about the school board elections coming this November, probably more than I’ve ever seen in my adult life, because parents are really paying attention. … And I think their voices will be very powerful in what happens in the school board races and that they will get back the school board that they want and they feel like is responsive to them.

As indicated by the most recent state testing data, Denver Public Schools is not adequately supporting academic achievement among students of color or those who are low-income. What role can the mayor play in addressing the equity gap among students?

Brough: One is making sure we have a governing body that is focused on nothing else but delivering the education our kids deserve, supporting our teachers to be able to do it, and keeping everybody safe while we get it done.

The second is the role the city plays in supporting delivering our kids to the finish or starting line of graduation. For me that will include things like more partnership between the city and Denver Public Schools. …There’s more opportunity for the city and the schools to work together on maintaining grounds, on a range of issues from purchasing that we can save money.

The third thing I’m really interested in is the city serving as an employer, where we could partner with Denver Public Schools and kids would have paid internships and apprenticeships.

Johnston: It starts with the belief that Denver students are all of our responsibility.

One of the most important ways that we can do that is looking at all of the learning time right now that happens outside of the school building. All the things that happen outside of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., where we know young people’s access to after-school programming to summer school programming to tutoring and arts and athletics and science camps …drive a big part of the passion that makes you who you are as a young person.

I want to expand programming to make sure young people, particularly those on free and reduced [price] lunch, have access to those opportunities to help them find their passion.

The other key area of partnership the city has let us down on is on mental health. … One of the things that Denver does is support Denver Health, which supports school-based health clinics around the city. We’ve not provided enough resources to make sure that in all of Denver’s high schools, we have an adequate supply of mental health counselors.

The DPS school board recently proposed a policy that would exclude standardized test scores from a public-facing information dashboard. Would you support building a platform at the city to share this information with families and community and to hold the district accountable?

Brough: I’m not an expert in standardized testing. Well, actually, I am really terrible at standardized testing because I’m dyslexic. … I don’t think I’m less smart than any other kid, even if my scores were lower, and I don’t think my teachers were any worse if my scores were lower.

I also want to know, though, how a school is overall doing as a parent. And it feels to me like we can find a way to try to communicate that information without oversimplifying it or unfairly … judging or burdening a school or a district or teachers.

Johnston: I would not support denying parents access to that information any more than I would support denying parents access to information on their kid’s height and weight chart on a yearly physical check-in. And also know that even if you tell my kid he’s in the 15th percentile of height, that I don’t think that’s his total measure of worth as a human being.

There are different data points that you gather, and they tell you different things about the progress of your child. And what you want to look at is a well-rounded group of data that helps inform me on what to do next.

It is getting increasingly expensive to live in the city of Denver. This is causing many lower-income DPS families to relocate outside of the city. How will you address this challenge?

Johnston: What I would do is build or convert 25,000 units across the city to become permanently affordable units. And what that means is that anybody that makes about $100,000 a year or less can be eligible to move into one of these units. And the way they’re structured is that you would never pay more than 30% of what you make for rent.

The next most important step is homeownership. … There I would do two things. One is to provide down payment assistance, which helps someone be able to buy a home for the first time. … And the other is to partner with organizations like Habitat for Humanity or Elevation Land Trust, where you can create land trusts where there are affordable homes you can buy.

You buy them at a discounted rate, and you sell them at a discounted rate. So you might buy a home for $300,000 instead of $600,000. But when you keep it for 10 years and you sell it at the end, you might only sell it for $350,000 … so that you keep it affordable for the next teacher on the next nurse on the next firefighter.

Brough: One of the strategies is called master leasing. This is where, as your mayor, you basically put out [a request for proposals], and you say, ‘I’d like 3,000 units for three years. What kind of deal will you give me?’ And in essence, what I’m doing is buying down the price of rent and locking it in for a few years. It also has the added benefit that if somebody gets in trouble and they can’t make their rent, … the city gets a phone call before someone’s evicted, which also helps us start to focus on prevention of people becoming unhoused.

Another example … and this is one that’s most exciting for me, is homeownership. … I got the chance in Munich to tour a building on a surface parking lot. … And when you look around our city, we have quite a bit of surface parking lots that we own as taxpayers. You can think of our police stations, our firehouses, our libraries, our rec centers. But even more valuable would be our Denver public schools, where there could be real opportunities for us to build a for-sale housing product next to schools that if teachers wanted they could live in.

And then the last thing I’ll give an example for is gentrification. … We’ve done some things like approving the option to build an ADU, an accessory dwelling unit. … But the truth is where we haven’t had gentrification yet, those are homeowners who probably can’t afford to [to build one].

I think we as a city can take way more proactive steps: We design the ADU by neighborhood that would fit in. We could even do a precision build where it’s 30% to 50% less expensive. Now we’re helping that homeowner get it in immediately and start to be able to get rent so they can stay on the property they already own and have additional income.

As mayor, what are the top three things you would do to make Denver the best place to raise children?

Brough: Making sure we have a mayor who can restore the safety in our city, throughout our city, because I think families are extremely concerned.

I think affordability is the second issue that is causing, pushing many families to leave our city. … Housing is the No. 1 strategy to address that affordability.

And you don’t have to go very far when you talk to a Realtor about the No. 1 decision of where families choose to buy a home is their school and their confidence in that school. And so I also think really focusing on how do we restore confidence in our residents that we have a school system that will be great for their kids and deliver the results they want.

Johnston: I think the three biggest drivers of people leaving the city will be: Do they feel it’s affordable? Do they feel it’s safe? And do they feel like they have access to great schools?

We’ve talked about affordability. And so I want to talk … about safety.

I believe we need 200 more first responders on the streets of our city — and I use the term first responders because what you know is you need different people to respond to different situations based on what the challenge is.

If you have someone in a mental health crisis, you actually don’t want to send an officer at all.

If you have someone who’s in a physical health crisis and potential overdose, you want to have a paramedic or EMT on site. You don’t necessarily need an officer.

But if you have places where there is an assault, or there’s a break in, or your car’s been stolen, or there’s been a shooting, you do want to make sure that you have officers that can respond. Right now, we are so short-staffed on each of those roles.

What is the main thing that distinguishes you from your opponent? And what is a similarity?

Johnston: I’ll do similarities first. I think we both have leadership experience. We’ve both led large and complex organizations. We’ve both been in the public sector and the private sector.

The key distinguishing characteristic for me … is I think the city faces a large number of very complex problems to solve. And I find solving those complex problems requires having a big vision for what’s possible. And then being able to build a really broad coalition to take that on, often with unlikely partners who don’t get along together. And then being able to stay at it.

That’s what I’ve had the opportunity to do over decades. … That was true as a school principal, working with teachers to get all of our kids to graduate. That was true in the legislature working to help undocumented kids get access to in-state tuition. … That was true when we were working on universal preschool for the first time statewide and had to bring together everyone from big tobacco companies to health industries to preschool advocates.

I think that ability to set a big vision, take on the hardest problems, build broad coalitions, and then deliver really historic results is what makes me unique in this field.

Brough: I was gonna say our sense of humor, but I’m actually funnier than Mike so you can’t do that one. I would say our passion and love for the city I think is a similarity.

For me, the biggest difference I see is I’ve actually run the city before when I was John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff. You’re responsible for the day-to-day operations of a city.

My lived experience has been much of what I think many in Denver are struggling with today. This is relevant because I think I understand how easy it is to give up hope.

When you lose someone you love to violent crime. Or how easy it is to feel so much shame that you’re not willing to keep going because your family receives assistance from the government. Or to believe that you’re the only family struggling with addiction and losing a loved one.

And I would say to every Denver resident, not only is my family resilient and strong, but I see it in you too, and I can help find a path through those issues today.

And then the last thing I would say is, I’ve never run for office before. ... Maybe more importantly, though, I’m not running for another office. Every decision I make will be about the city and its residents and what’s best for us. Never about my political future.

Watch the entire forum below.

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

Kwame Spearman says he’s running for Denver school board after short bid for mayor

2023-05-08T12:00:00+00:00

After dropping out of Denver’s mayoral race two months ago, Kwame Spearman announced Monday that he is now running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Spearman, 39, was until recently the CEO of the Denver-based independent bookstore chain Tattered Cover, of which he is still part owner. He is also a graduate of Denver’s East High School. His mother is a longtime educator in the system, and Spearman serves on the board of the Denver Public Schools Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises money for the district, though he said he’ll step away from that appointment during the campaign.

Spearman will have two opponents for the seat, which represents the entire city: John Youngquist, the former principal of East High and a parent of two East students, and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral student. Another candidate, Paul Ballenger, dropped out of the race in late September.

School board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who currently holds that seat, is not seeking re-election.

The election is set for Nov. 7. Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs. There’s a lot at stake, including how the largest district in the state will deal with declining enrollment and respond to safety concerns after shootings in and around schools.

The election also has the potential to change the dynamics of the board. Power struggles among some members have eroded confidence in the board.

Spearman said he’s running for school board because DPS is “not headed in the right direction.” The board spends too much time infighting and not enough time talking about academic outcomes for students, school safety, and “the mental health quagmire,” he said.

“My belief is that your neighborhood deserves great schools, and foundational to that is representatives from the school board starting and ending every conversation with a focus on student outcomes and academic excellence,” Spearman said.

The community deserves a board member who is going to spend their time listening “rather than tweeting during district meetings or fighting against other board members,” he said.

Spearman shied away from calling himself a reformer but said that school choice has worked. School choice is a key tenet of the education reform philosophy that lets families choose the schools they think best fit their kids’ needs. Board members need to stop focusing on whether a school is district-run or charter, he said, and focus on whether it’s great.

“We can’t get rid of that,” Spearman said of school choice. “That’s what made Denver Public Schools in its heyday so successful — is that parents were finally given the opportunity to figure out the best type of environment for their student.”

Tattered Cover’s flagship store is located across the street from East High, and Spearman is a non-parent member of the Parents - Safety Advocacy Group, a group formed to push for change in the wake of a March shooting inside the school.

After the shooting, the school board suspended a policy banning police from schools and allowed 14 officers to be stationed at 13 campuses, including two at East. If elected, Spearman said he’d support allowing each school to decide whether they want an officer on campus.

But he said it’s not feasible to let all 200 DPS schools come up with their own plan. He said the board should “entrust principals with the ability to make the decision around [school resource officers] and give them guidance on how to make that decision and options to choose from.”

Spearman dropped out of a crowded field of 17 candidates running for Denver mayor in March, just a few weeks before the election. He said he got into the mayoral race late, which is what prompted him to enter the school board race early. His late entry didn’t allow him to build alliances with community groups, he said, which he hopes to do this time around.

As for which groups he’ll seek out, Spearman named both reform groups and the Denver teachers union, which have historically been on opposite sides in school board elections.

“My concern is we’re not focusing on the right outcomes, and you’re seeing a deterioration of the district because of it,” he said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after the ballot was finalized with the names of all candidates running for the at-large seat. It was also updated to reflect that Auon’tai Anderson is not seeking re-election and that former candidate Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race.

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

Students hated the no-hat policy. This Colorado superintendent heard them out.

2023-04-28T22:51:48+00:00

Hats had become a battleground in the Harrison school district in Colorado Springs. Teachers tried to enforce the no-hat policy, but students pushed back.

Eventually, the dress code debate surfaced in one of the meetings Superintendent Wendy Birhanzel holds throughout the year with student advisory groups at every district middle and high school. Students told her they don’t find hats distracting in class and see the accessories as a form of personal expression — something the district normally supports, they said.

Birhanzel subsequently shared the students’ concerns with various staff groups and everyone agreed: The hat ban needed to go. Such mutually agreeable outcomes are one of the things Birhanzel loves about the student feedback sessions.

“These meetings are not only one of my favorite parts of the job, they remind me of the power of voice,” she said.

Birhanzel, who was named the 2023 Colorado Superintendent of the Year by the Colorado Association of School Executives, also talked to Chalkbeat about the district’s efforts to reduce out-of-school suspensions, a silver lining that came out of COVID, and her frustration with state education funding.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What was your first education job and what sparked your interest in the field?

I started my tenure in education as a first grade teacher in South Central Los Angeles. During this time, inequities in education became very apparent. I taught in an overcrowded school that looked more like a prison than an elementary school. We had barbed wire around our playground, which was strictly concrete and no grass. I also saw classes staffed with multiple substitutes and ongoing turnover of staff. This is when I realized my purpose was to ensure all students regardless of background are provided a high quality education to allow them to be whatever they desire.

What is an effort you’ve spearheaded in your district that you’re particularly proud of?

One effort that I am proud to have been a part of is our Dakota Promise Scholarship. I do not believe that any family’s financial situation should be a barrier to them achieving their goals including college or certificate programs. However, for many of our students that has been the case. They can get accepted to amazing programs but can’t attend due to financial barriers. Working closely with Dr. Lance Bolton, president of Pikes Peak State College and an amazing donor, we developed a program to help.

Graduates from any of our district high schools can attend two years at Pikes Peak State College at no cost, with tuition, fees, books, and academic support covered. Students can earn an associate degree, credits to transfer to a 4-year school, or an industry certificate. In addition, they are provided coaches who help them persist through school and find jobs aligned to their field. Since the program launched in 2020, 225 students have received the scholarships.

Under your leadership, discipline referrals have dropped 47% and out-of-school suspensions have dropped 38% in three years. What changes led to this?

The simple answer is mindset. However, to make it happen takes a lot of conversation and support. When students struggle with math or reading, we don’t send them home and think they will come back proficient. Students who exhibit challenging behaviors are no different.

Data has shown us that suspending students doesn’t change behavior, but working through the behavior does. As a district, we have changed our perspective on suspensions. We are looking at alternatives that hold students accountable in a different way and actually change future behavior.

We continue to train staff on the power of relationships. We know relationships matter for students, and teachers work on relationships from day one. We also have restorative practices in all schools. Many of these conversations with students are led by their peers as they determine the impact of their behavior and what they need to do to right the wrong.

We have added Student Success Centers in our high school counseling offices where students can de-escalate after certain code-of-conduct infractions. This is also a supportive place to connect with a caring adult and develop skills to engage in learning.

Tell us about an interaction with a student (or group of students) who made a particular impression on you.

I meet with student advisory groups at every middle and high school multiple times a year. I am so amazed each time I meet with our students by their insightful and honest feedback.

I met with a middle school group about school and district rules – they don’t like the no cell phone rule. We discussed how it can take away from learning and they agreed but said there should be times they can use phones such as lunch or breaks. I asked the group to propose a new policy and present it to their school administrators. Their phone policy started this week, with students rolling it out and having a chance to prove they can handle it.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

COVID was especially hard for our low-income families, who were struggling with basic needs. During this time, we set up a food bank at one of our high schools and delivered groceries to our families, providing supplies such as diapers, body wash, and food.

Learning and school were the least of their needs at this time as they were losing jobs, housing, and any sense of normalcy. As a district we stepped in with community partners to help them through this crisis. It reminded me and our staff that students can learn when their basic needs are met. The positive from this experience is that our families and community trust our school district, and we have built stronger relationships by showing up when times are tough.

What issue in the education policy realm is having a big impact on your district right now? How are you addressing it?

Unfortunately, Colorado has one of the lowest funded education systems in the nation. On top of that, the state has not fully funded education since 2009. That means our current students have never attended a fully funded school. This sends a sad message about priorities to our students and staff.

In a district like ours — where more than half of students qualify for free or discounted school meals — we cannot ask our families to fundraise, to write a check, or to host a gala in order to make up the difference. To counter this lack of funding, we strategically seek grants to add programming that our students need. In addition, our community passed a $180 million bond in 2018 that allowed us to rebuild a school, add on to two schools, and renovate every other school.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

“The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work” by Shawn Achor

What’s the best advice about educational leadership that you ever received?

Remember your why. It can be easy to get caught up in the stress of day-to-day tasks, the political pressures, and the criticism. However, you need to stay focused on your why to help ensure every day is meaningful regardless of outside distractors. This is why being in classrooms or with students is my favorite part of the job.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Giles named as next Aurora Public Schools superintendent

2023-04-28T02:14:51+00:00

This story first appeared in the Sentinel Colorado and is republished here with permission.

After spending his entire educational career in Cherry Creek Schools, Michael Giles will be moving one district over this summer.

Giles was named as the next superintendent for Aurora Public Schools at a special board meeting Thursday evening by a unanimous vote. He was one of three finalists for the role, along with Aurora Public Schools chief academic officer Nia Campbell and former chief academic officer Andre Wright.

“This is a community that I’ve lived in for 25 years, and I’m very engaged in it, and to be able to lead our students and our community forward in this school district is really humbling and exciting for me,” Giles said when contacted after the announcement. “There’s a lot of brilliance. There’s a lot of talent and a lot of opportunity for our community. So, all of that being said, I’m just extremely excited. I can’t wait to get started.”

The board deliberated for just 10 days after hearing final interviews from the three candidates on April 17. Few policy differences separated the candidates, who all have long careers in public education and who emphasized the importance of supporting teachers and valuing the district’s diversity during interviews and public meetings.

On Thursday, board president Debbie Gerkin said Giles embodied “the knowledge, skills, leadership traits and competencies that our community identified as priorities.” Gerkin also thanked community members, district staffers and fellow board members for the time they invested in picking the right man for the job.

“The most important job that a board of education has is to hire a superintendent who will uphold the community’s vision and values, improving what students know and are able to do while behaving in ways that will uplift the organization,” Gerkin said. “This is a job you each took seriously. This is a job you each took to heart.”

She said the board would vote on Giles’ contract as soon as possible, once negotiations conclude.

Giles was born in Queens, N.Y. and moved around frequently as a child while his father was in the military. The family moved to Colorado when he was in high school and he has lived in Aurora for the last 25 years.

“The opportunity to be able to lead the district in my home, it just really speaks to me,” Giles said during last week’s board interviews. “So that’s why I wanted to put my name in the hat and to apply to be the next superintendent of this district.”

After working as a juvenile corrections counselor in Grand Junction and the Denver area, Giles joined the Cherry Creek School District in 2002. He began as a counselor at Falcon Creek Middle School and moved through myriad roles in the district throughout the years.

He became an administrator in 2014, and in 2018 joined the cabinet as assistant superintendent of performance. He assumed his current role as assistant superintendent of diversity, equity, culture and community engagement in 2021.

In a Cherry Creek news release from when he joined the cabinet, Giles said he initially had no aspiration to being an administrator.

“I always feared the political game of administration, but the more I started to travel down that path, the more I saw an ability to have a systemic impact and to have more leverage to create access and opportunity for all students,” he said.

At Cherry Creek, Giles has been at the forefront of the district’s attempts to boost achievement for students of color, a priority he signaled would continue at APS. During interviews last week, he also highlighted the importance of rebuilding trust, improving teacher recruitment and retention and making sure the district has an effective safety plan.

The board began the search for a new superintendent after former superintendent Rico Munn announced in December that he would not be seeking to renew his current contract, which expires at the end of June.

A survey conducted by the firm the board contracted to lead the search found that a background in public education, experience in a large school district and a proven track record with diversity were some of the top characteristics that people wanted the next leader to have.

Giles’ first day as superintendent will be July 1.

Denver school board dissolves Beacon Network, plans to take control of Grant and Kepner

2023-04-11T05:08:58+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Colorado newsletter to keep up with education news from Denver and around the state.

In a split vote Monday, the Denver school board dissolved one of the district’s three innovation zones, placing a group of semi-autonomous schools back under district control.

Kepner Beacon and Grant Beacon middle schools will no longer be under the umbrella of Beacon Network Schools, a zone overseen by an independent board of directors.

It was not immediately clear Monday what the change will mean for students, parents, and teachers. Many parents fear that programs and services they love at Beacon schools will go away. District leaders have said being under district control will improve the schools.

Superintendent Alex Marrero recommended revoking Beacon’s innovation zone status because of low test scores at Kepner Beacon and concerns about the zone’s organizational health, including what he said was inadequate financial oversight by the zone board.

Marrero also said Denver Public Schools no longer supports the Beacon zone’s unique employment structure, which was set up under a previous superintendent. The zone’s executive director, Alex Magaña, is an employee of the district but answers to the zone board.

Several school board members were conflicted on whether to dissolve the zone. But Scott Baldermann, whose son attends Grant Beacon, was firm in his vote to get rid of the zone.

For a zone executive director to be an employee of DPS but answer to an unelected zone board that Baldermann called “hand picked” constitutes “self dealing,” he said.

“This is what holding schools accountable looks like,” Baldermann said.

The board voted 5-2 to revoke Beacon’s innovation zone status. Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and board member Carrie Olson voted no. Both said they were worried about Kepner Beacon in southwest Denver, a community whose schools have repeatedly been closed, reopened, and reinvented in the name of improving student test scores.

At a meeting last month, Beacon parents pleaded with the board not to dissolve the zone.

“The lived experiences of the people in the community don’t match what we’re talking about here,” said Olson, a former teacher who taught for years at Kepner Middle School before it was restarted as Kepner Beacon. “All they see once again is that Denver Public Schools is coming into the neighborhood and saying, ‘We know best.’”

Several parents said they feared that getting rid of the innovation zone was the first step to getting rid of the schools’ individual innovation status. Schools with innovation status can waive rules, laws, and teachers union contract provisions to do things they believe will improve student learning. But unlike schools in zones, individual innovation schools are overseen by DPS.

“Our school is not broken,” parent Claudia Carillo told the school board at a lengthy public hearing last month. “So why fix our school if it’s not broken?”

But Marrero said repeatedly Monday that the Beacon schools won’t lose anything.

“They maintain all the great things you saw,” he said, referencing visits to the schools by board members. The district, he said, would “simply have more visibility” into the operations and academics at Beacon schools and be able to intervene “without any obstacles.”

A state law passed last year gives innovation zones some recourse when they disagree with district decisions. The law allows a neutral third party to hear disputes and issue recommendations. It also allows the State Board of Education to review and comment on local revocation decisions but not override them. Magaña said Beacon may consider that recourse.

While innovation schools — district-run schools with charter-like flexibility — exist throughout the state, these types of innovation zones are unique to Denver Public Schools. As part of education reform policies supported by the previous school board, the district encouraged school autonomy. Part of that was creating innovation zones, groups of semi-autonomous schools that share leadership and resources and have additional flexibilities.

The current board has placed new limits on individual innovation schools and placed innovation zones under more scrutiny. However, the Beacon Network is the first zone to be dissolved.

The Denver school board directed another innovation zone, Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, or NDIZ, to submit a new plan for how it will operate after teachers at its largest school, Northfield High, voted last month to leave the zone next school year.

NDIZ charges each of its schools a per-pupil fee to fund the zone’s operating expenses. The school board directed the district to review if NDIZ will be financially viable without Northfield.

The board also unanimously approved without comment the plan for the Luminary Learning Network, which was the first innovation zone in DPS when it was formed in 2016.

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

Denver school board rejects effort to censure Auon’tai Anderson

2023-04-11T00:38:15+00:00

A move by the Denver school board president toward censuring the board vice president was squashed by the other board members Monday.

The board quickly voted 6-1 to remove from Monday’s meeting agenda a discussion of accusations made by President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán that Vice President Auon’tai Anderson violated board policies after a March 22 shooting at East High School.

Gaytán was the only board member to vote against removing the discussion from the agenda. She’d previously said she planned to move for a vote to censure Anderson on April 20.

Board member Michelle Quattlebaum said that in the wake of the shooting at East and other youth violence, student safety should be the board’s top priority.

“Anything that’s happening amongst us is not even secondary,” Quattlebaum said. “It shouldn’t even make the top 10. It shouldn’t matter at all. Because our babies don’t feel safe.”

Personality conflicts, power struggles, and attempts at reconciliation have marked interactions between board members, especially Anderson and Gaytán, for the past year.

Among other violations, Gaytán had accused Anderson of disclosing to the press confidential information from a closed-door executive session of the board on March 23, one day after a student shot and injured two deans at East High School. Anderson said the information he disclosed to the press was shared with him outside of the executive session.

Denver school board members met in executive session, then voted unanimously to return police officers to Denver schools. On March 27, Anderson, who helped lead a controversial 2020 effort to remove police officers from schools, held a press conference in which he said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock forced the board’s decision to bring them back.

Anderson said Hancock “had an executive order ready to be drafted and declare a public health emergency … to deploy school resource officers back to schools.”

After the press conference, Gaytán wrote Anderson a memo outlining what she described as violations of board policy. The alleged violations included that Anderson “disclosed information discussed in Executive Session. Specifically, naming the Mayor’s private communication with the Superintendent regarding the creation of an Executive Order to address school safety,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Chalkbeat.

Anderson has said that Superintendent Alex Marrero told him about the potential mayoral order before the executive session. Hancock’s office has denied he had an order ready to go.

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

Denver school board President Xóchitl Gaytán to move to censure Vice President Auon’tai Anderson

2023-04-07T23:07:45+00:00

Update: On Monday, the Denver school board removed any discussion of a potential censure from the agenda. Read more.

Denver school board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said she will move to censure board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson for alleged violations of board policy in the wake of the March 22 shooting at East High School.

Gaytán has accused Anderson of disclosing to the press confidential information from a closed-door executive session of the board, among other violations. Anderson has said the information he disclosed was shared outside of the executive session.

The board is set to discuss the alleged violations at a meeting Monday before the matter moves to a vote on April 20, Gaytán said.

Anderson declined to comment Friday.

The move comes after a year of personality conflicts, power struggles, and attempts at reconciliation between board members. The board is under more public scrutiny in the wake of the shooting at East, which has raised questions about school safety and discipline policy.

Censuring a board member requires a majority vote of the board.

On March 23, the day after a student shot two staff members at East, Denver board members met in a closed-door session, then voted unanimously to return police officers to Denver schools. On March 27, Anderson, who previously led the effort to remove police from schools, held a press conference in which he said the mayor forced the board’s hand.

Anderson said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock “had an executive order ready to be drafted and declare a public health emergency … to deploy school resource officers back to schools.” Hancock’s office has denied this.

Gaytán described Anderson’s comments as a violation of board policy in a memo last month.

According to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat, the memo alleges that Anderson “disclosed information discussed in Executive Session. Specifically, naming the Mayor’s private communication with the Superintendent regarding the creation of an Executive Order to address school safety.”

Anderson has said that Superintendent Alex Marrero relayed that information to him before the executive session.

Gaytán’s memo also chastises Anderson for holding the press conference at all and for making “inaccurate statements” about the shooter at East, student Austin Lyle, and his history of expulsion from the neighboring Cherry Creek School District.

The memo lays out what Gaytán sees as the potential impacts of Anderson’s actions.

“Statements from the press conference being held by VP Anderson may be used as part of a lawsuit against the District regarding the Board’s culpability for the violence at East HS,” it says.

Anderson was censured by the board in 2021 for violating expectations of board member behavior after an investigation found he’d had flirtatious contact with students on social media. Investigators also found that Anderson made two social media posts during the investigation that could have been seen as coercive or intimidating to witnesses.

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

Aurora names 3 local administrators as superintendent finalists

2023-03-29T04:10:03+00:00

This story first appeared in Sentinel Colorado and is republished with permission.

Candidates from across the country applied for the role of the next Aurora Public Schools superintendent, but the three final candidates are all current or former leaders in Aurora’s two school districts.

The school board announced the three finalists at a special meeting Tuesday evening, after deliberating in closed session for about two hours. The finalists are:

Nia Campbell, Aurora Public Schools’ current chief academic officer
Michael Giles, Cherry Creek Schools’ assistant superintendent of equity, culture and community engagement
Andre Wright, senior vice president at consulting firm MGT and former Aurora Public Schools’ chief academic officer

From left, Aurora Public Schools Chief Academic Officer Nia Campbell, former Aurora Public Schools Chief Academic Officer Andre Wright and Cherry Creek School District Assistant Superintendent Michael Giles are finalists to fill the vacant APS superintendent position.

The school board voted 6-1 to announce the selected finalists, with board member Michael Carter the sole no vote. Carter declined to comment on his vote after the meeting.

The board began the process of searching for a new leader after former Superintendent Rico Munn announced in December that he would not be seeking to renew his current contract, which expires in July, and would step down a semester early. Munn said his departure was prompted by a “conflict of vision” with the school board, which he has clashed with at times.

The school board contracted with the firm HYA, an education-focused search firm which has worked with a number of other metro districts, to lead the search. The firm held a series of community meetings and focus groups in February to solicit feedback on the process, finding that people wanted the new superintendent to have a background in public education, a track record with diversity and experience in a large school district.

Overall, the district received 28 applications for the positions. At Tuesday’s meeting, board president Debbie Gerkin said that 17 applicants were men and 11 were women. Eight candidates were from Colorado, seven were from Texas and three were from California, with the other 10 from states across the country, including Alaska.

Six were selected by HYA with the approval of the board to move on to further interviews. The semifinalists, who were not named, were selected based on the community feedback gathered by HYA.

The board met in closed session on Sunday and Monday to interview the candidates, one of whom ended up dropping out of the process for undisclosed reasons, according to APS.

The final candidates are scheduled to visit the district in person the week of April 10, where each will spend a full day touring schools and meeting with APS students, employees and community members.

The board will then hold additional interviews on April 17 and anticipates naming a designee in late April or early May for an anticipated start date of July 1, Gerkin said.

Both the search firm and Gerkin have previously said that the district had a strong candidate pool to draw from, and on Tuesday Gerkin said she was “extremely pleased” by the number and quality of applicants the search received.

The three candidates, all of whom are people of color, match the criteria that the community told the search firm that it wanted. All of them have worked in two of Colorado’s largest school districts and have years of experience in public education.

A Georgia native and the son of educators, Wright worked in the Dekalb County School District for six years and the Fulton County Schools for seven years in a variety of administrative positions. In 2014 he joined Aurora Public Schools as the director of learning for community schools, and then was promoted to chief academic officer in 2017. He served in that role until 2021, when he left to join MGT as a senior vice president for educational transformation.

MGT is the consulting firm that was selected to work with the beleaguered Adams 14 school district after the State Board of Education stripped the district of most of its authority. In an interview with Chalkbeat, Wright said his philosophy centered around putting children first.

“It does not mean I won’t make decisions that may not be as popular with adults, but I’m doing it from a student perspective of what’s best for our children, what’s best for our families. That’s priority one for me,” he said.

Wright was also one of three finalists for the 2021 superintendent search in Denver Public Schools, which he lost out to current superintendent Alex Marrero.

Giles has worked in Cherry Creek Schools since 2002, serving in a number of roles in schools before joining the administrative team in 2014. He became assistant superintendent of performance improvement in 2018 before assuming his current role in 2021.

In a Cherry Creek news release from when he joined the cabinet, Giles said he initially had no aspiration to being an administrator.

As the head of Cherry Creek’s Department of Equity, Culture and Community Engagement, which was formed several years ago, Giles has been at the forefront of the district’s attempts to boost achievement for students of color, which historically has lagged behind the academic performance of white students. The district has become more focused in recent years about its diversity efforts.

Campbell is new to APS, having joined the district as chief academic officer in July after a long educational career in Florida. She worked in Hillsborough County Public Schools in a variety of roles for over 12 years, was a principal in the School District of Osceola County for three years and was assistant superintendent for secondary education in the Highlands County school district from December 2020 until joining Aurora Public Schools.

Munn had been with APS for almost a decade when he stepped down, making him the longest-serving current superintendent among the state’s five largest districts. During that time APS improved its graduation rates and narrowed the achievement gaps between white students and students of color, but also dealt with the educational fallout of the pandemic and a decline in enrollment. The latter issue led the district to implement a new long-term facilities plan that included closing a number of district schools, which prompted backlash from families and teachers.

The new superintendent will face a number of challenges, including navigating a divided school board, boosting student achievement post-pandemic and addressing social issues such as a rise in youth violence and mental health concerns. The superintendent will also be tasked with trying to rebuild trust in the organization, something that was highlighted as a challenge in HYA’s report.

“The superintendent is the leader who sets the tone for everybody else in the organization,” Gerkin said in an earlier interview.

Carina Julig is a reporter for Sentinel Colorado covering education in Aurora. Contact Carina at cjulig@sentinelcolorado.com.

Complex community needs and a divided board: Next Aurora superintendent must tackle big challenges

2023-03-24T22:11:59+00:00

A divided board. A mistrustful public. Lagging academic achievement. Rising youth violence.

The Aurora school board is searching for a new superintendent, who will face these issues and more.

“It’s the superintendent who sets that tone and builds that team and drives that momentum,” said Aurora school board President Debbie Gerkin. “So what’s at stake is whether we get a leader who can do that or one who can’t.”

Aurora’s next superintendent will be the district’s first new leader in nearly a decade. That person will have to navigate a feuding board, restore trust with the community, and get buy-in for their vision. At the same time, the ideal candidate would figure out how to meet the needs of a diverse student body, improve mental health services and academic performance, and find a fair way to deal with school closures and shifting enrollment.

A look at recent years shows how challenging the job is. Superintendent Rico Munn abruptly announced in December that he’d leave at the end of the school year, and stepped into the background while the board named an interim leader.

Board members declined to speak on reasons for Munn’s departure and about whether they want a change in course for his long-term projects. Recent disagreements in public meetings included anger over school closures and a lack of trust in efforts to engage the community.

School board members are interviewing six unnamed semi-finalists from among 28 applicants and are expected to announce three finalists as soon as next week.

The search profile describes an ideal candidate as having a background in education, something that the previous superintendent didn’t have, and a track record working with diverse communities and in a large school district.

An immediate challenge would be navigating dynamics of a divided board, which could change in the fall, when three of seven members are up for election.

A divided board splits on priorities

How the school board relates to its next superintendent will affect how much trust people feel in the district.

For a superintendent to be effective, they need clear guidance from the board. But the school board has struggled to agree on how the superintendent should manage the district.

A report on the community’s views of the district named board governance as one of the district’s main challenges.

“Comments included that the Board does not appear to understand their role and the governance model, can be ineffective in their communication, unfocused, and have appeared divisive and not aligned on priorities resulting in the appearance to work against each other and district leadership,” the report presented earlier this month said.

Board members have not contradicted the finding. In an interview, Gerkin said that it didn’t come as a shock.

“It is hard to see it in writing of course, but not a surprise,” she said.

She said that the board is committed to addressing their challenges and is united in understanding the importance of selecting the next superintendent.

“We’re seven different individuals, and every one of us is passionate about kids and passionate about education,” she said. “Different people with different ideas and lots of passion don’t always agree on how to put that together.”

Linnea Reed-Ellis, president of the teachers union, said she thought “productive disagreement” among the board members was OK. The board majority often has voiced similar criticisms of the district to those of the union, particularly in discussions about the facilities plan Blueprint APS and certain pandemic-era measures.

The report also mentioned a lack of trust across the organization, which search firm associate Scott Siegfried speculated was driven by issues with the Blueprint APS.

Reed-Ellis framed the issue as “a lack of clarity in vision as to what we are pursuing as a district.”

Whether or not the district’s next leader and the board want to change course, they still will face the same issue of changing enrollment patterns.

Aurora enrollment has fallen as families flee the western parts of the district closest to Denver, where rents and home values are rising faster than family incomes, and as lower birth rates contribute to fewer students. However, new developments out east are attracting more families with children. The demographics of the two sides differ. Munn wanted to make changes equitable, to avoid putting the new schools only in the east and closing campuses only in the west.

Gerkin said that ensuring that the Blueprint changes are implemented transparently and equitably will be a critical task for the new superintendent.

“We definitely don’t want the east side of town to be all new and shiny and older parts of the district to just look old and uninviting,” she said. “It depends on what the buildings look like, what kind of resources you’re putting into the buildings, all those things are important for the next superintendent to be working on.”

Aurora Public Schools opened a college and career center at every high school in the district, including this one at William Smith High School.

Achievement has risen in Aurora

Munn’s administration boosted student achievement. Graduation rates rose, expulsions dropped, and the gap in graduation rates of students of color and their white peers narrowed. Together, those gains lifted Aurora off the state’s watchlist for low performance.

Still, some schools have struggled to raise academic achievement. Student engagement plummeted when the pandemic forced students to learn remotely. And now, academic achievement at those schools still lags.

That worries Mordecai Brownlee, president of the Community College of Aurora and a parent in the school district.

To boost opportunities for Aurora graduates, the community college partners with Aurora schools on concurrent enrollment — where students earn college credit for classes taken in high school — and plans for a new program in construction management on the college’s CentreTech campus.

“You’ve certainly got to look at the amount of students who are failing to achieve a credential of higher education once they leave APS,” Brownlee said. “We owe it to this community to figure that out together.”

The school board set goals to close achievement gaps and accelerate learning but set them aside two years ago to focus on the emotional and social needs of children.

Munn worried that would hurt school ratings once the state’s accountability system returned in full force. In Colorado’s system, schools that have five years of low ratings face state-mandated improvement plans that could include closure. This past year’s ratings were meant to only give the public an indication of where academics stand and don’t move schools closer to outside intervention. But if Aurora schools score similarly this year, many more may be on a path toward state intervention.

For schools with multiple years of low ratings, Munn’s approach was to create district plans to turn them around before the state stepped in. He succeeded in preempting state-ordered plans. That approach is one of many things that may change with new district leadership.

Reed-Ellis said she hopes that the new superintendent will be willing to see students “holistically” and investigate other ways to measure learning and growth besides standardized testing.

“We all know our students are more than a test score,” she said.

Aurora’s diversity is a strength and a challenge

The superintendent search firm’s community surveys and forums found that people view the diversity of the Aurora school community as special and a challenge. The district struggles at times to meet the needs of all of its students and to retain a workforce that is reflective of its student body.

According to the district’s website, the district’s 38,000-plus students come from over 130 countries and speak more than 160 languages. About 56% of students are Hispanic, 18% are Black, 13.4% are white, and 5% are Asian. Nearly 75% of the district’s students qualify for subsidized meals, an indicator of poverty.

“We need a good leader in our school because schools often serve as anchors for the community and often serve as safe spaces for immigrants and refugee youth,” said Harry Budisidharta, executive director of Aurora’s Asian Pacific Development Center.

“We need a leader that has experience working with diverse communities and has a track record of building bridges.”

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said he hopes the district continues its after-school programs, supported by a 2018 voter-approved tax increase. They are a great place for kids when parents are working late, he said, and the city needs to offer students safe spaces. These programs also offer physical activities and help students with academics and social and emotional needs.

“Here you have essentially working families that are relatively poor and to relieve them of essentially a lot of day care costs and in a great environment for the kids, we couldn’t replicate that as a city, yet it’s something we’re trying to do,” Coffman said.

Community members overwhelmingly said APS needs someone who has a record of addressing the needs of a diverse student body, including breaking barriers for non-English speaking students and their families.

“We’re quick to talk about diversity, how diversity-rich Aurora is, but that also comes with responsibility,” said Brownlee of the Community College of Aurora. “We can’t just dwell here; we’ve got to take care of and create these pathways for economic mobility for these families. The American dream has to be realized, and education is critical in that.”

Students in an Aurora elementary school work on massaging pressure points in their hands that help relieve tension. Many Aurora leaders want the next superintendent to focus on mental health support.

Student needs include mental health alongside academics

Several people said the next superintendent must ensure the district cares for its diverse community — including its mental health.

Students in Aurora are dealing with a lot. Teachers report that many are disengaged after frequent pandemic-related school disruptions. Some are juggling jobs and caring for siblings or have lost housing due to rising rents.

In 2021 two shootings outside high schools injured nine students and renewed conversations about gun violence and youth gang activity. More recent shootings haven’t occurred on school property, but community violence continues to affect students.

In focus groups with high school students, the search firm found that two main issues were violence and drugs in schools. Some students don’t feel safe walking to school and have called for better transportation options.

Aurora’s school district added mental health supports for students and staff and budgeted millions of dollars in federal pandemic relief funding for social and emotional learning programs designed to boost students’ well-being.

Reed-Ellis said that she believes continuing to provide these types of support — for employees as well as students — is paramount.

“How do we create schools that are truly responsive to our new world?” she said. “A lot of that seems to be around mental health and social emotional learning for students and adults.”

Budisidharta agrees that youth mental health is one of the area’s most pressing issues.

“We need a leader that will champion and prioritize mental health services and work with local community partners to make sure these youth get the mental health services they need regardless of their ethnicity or immigration status or income,” he said.

None of this will be easy, but the right superintendent candidate will see more than challenges, community leaders said.

“You don’t see problems, you see opportunities,” Brownlee said. “For someone that’s looking at this opportunity, it needs to be purpose work. It needs to be why you’ve been put here to do this work.”

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

Carina Julig is a reporter for Sentinel Colorado covering education in Aurora. Contact Carina at cjulig@sentinelcolorado.com.

One of Denver’s innovation zones could be dissolved, while another is shrinking

2023-03-16T22:53:07+00:00

Innovation zones are an invention of Denver’s education reform era that grant traditional public schools some of the same flexibility and freedom enjoyed by charter schools.

A new Denver Public Schools board and administration is less supportive of these experiments in school autonomy, and the future of some zones is in doubt.

Superintendent Alex Marrero is recommending the school board dissolve one of the zones, Beacon Network Schools, and delay approval for the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, or NDIZ, until district officials can be sure its plan aligns with district policy.

Meanwhile, NDIZ is losing its largest school, Northfield High, after teachers there overwhelmingly rejected an innovation plan they feared threatened their contract rights and then voted Thursday to leave the zone. Northfield is the third school to leave the zone in two years.

Innovation zones are groups of semi-autonomous schools known as innovation schools. The idea behind innovation schools is that freeing them from rules, laws, and teachers union contract provisions allows them to do things they believe will help student learning.

For example, one school extends each school day by seven minutes, which lets it hold extra teacher training days while still giving students the legally required amount of instruction. Others hire non-licensed teachers for gardening classes or after-school Spanish programs. Many innovation schools start hiring teachers before the district’s hiring cycle, giving them first pick.

The idea behind innovation zones is that freeing schools from district management allows for more tailored support for principals and for idea-sharing among like minded schools.

Denver Public Schools has three innovation zones. The oldest, the Luminary Learning Network founded in 2016, appears to be going strong. But the other two face challenges.

The challenges come after a difficult three years for innovation zones, which a former school board member once called “one of the most exciting things we’ve done.”

A union-backed school board paused approving new innovation schools and expanding zones, then imposed limits on freedoms that innovation school leaders said made their schools work for students. School board members said their aim was to expand job protections for teachers who previously waived them to work at innovation schools.

Innovation zones account for 12 schools and 7,200 students, a small portion of Denver’s 88,000 students. But observers say the recent challenges are yet another sign that political winds have shifted in DPS, which was once known nationwide as a model of education reform.

“I would call it adversarial,” Eliot Lewis, chair of the Beacon Network Schools zone board of directors and a former Beacon parent, said of the new administration’s relationship to zones. “For reasons we can’t fathom, they’re against it.”

Who works for whom?

In November, Alex Magaña, executive director of the Beacon Network Schools zone, said he met with Marrero to talk about adding another school to the zone — a request the school board had rejected the year before.

Magaña said Marrero told him he wouldn’t support the Beacon zone at all because of its current employment structure. Magaña and Lewis said district officials gave them two choices: Dissolve the Beacon zone and revert Magaña to district supervision, or have Magaña resign as a district employee to work for the zone, a move that could reduce his pension benefits.

“I was dumbfounded,” Magaña said.

Unlike the two other innovation zones, where the executive directors work for the zones, Magaña is a district employee and the zone reimburses the district for his salary.

Beacon’s structure goes back to the zone’s origins, when Magaña moved from being the principal at Grant Middle School, where test scores were improving, to oversee both Grant and struggling Kepner Middle School. In 2018, when the two schools became a new innovation zone, then-Superintendent Tom Boasberg allowed Magaña to remain a district employee.

But a DPS memo says this arrangement doesn’t allow for proper oversight and “is no longer supported by DPS.”

“Before, you were supported by DPS,” Magaña said. “Now you’re fighting DPS.”

Alex Magaña, executive director of Beacon Network Schools, greets students in Ms. Bienz’s class at Kepner Beacon Middle School in March 2022.

District cites test score concerns

DPS reviews innovation zones every three years. Zones must submit a new innovation plan outlining their structures and goals. Under state law, the school board has options including to approve the plan, revise it in collaboration with the zone, or revoke the zone altogether.

Marrero is recommending the board revoke the Beacon zone at its March 23 meeting. The reasons, as explained at a board meeting last week, are that Kepner Beacon’s test scores are low and that DPS has concerns with the zone’s organizational health, including the employment structure and an accounting issue that’s now been fixed.

Zone supporters wonder if there’s another reason. Magaña testified in support of a bill — opposed by Marrero — that gave innovation zones a limited right of appeal when leaders disagree with school board decisions. The bill is now law.

Shortly after the testimony, Denver Public Schools sent a letter to principals prohibiting them from advocating for proposed state laws during work time if their opinion differs from the district’s position, as was the case with the innovation zone bill.

“I do not have any concrete evidence that this is personal,” said Lewis, chair of the Beacon zone board, “but it sure feels like it is.”

In a statement, Marrero said his recommendation has nothing to do with the innovation zone bill. He recommended unconditional renewal for the Luminary Learning Network, whose executive director and principals also testified in favor of the bill.

District officials pointed to Kepner Beacon’s test scores. Only 21% of students met expectations in reading and writing on state tests last spring, while just 6% met expectations in math.

Seven Denver middle schools scored lower than Kepner Beacon in math. Marrero pointed out that four of them will close at the end of this school year, including STRIVE Prep - Kepner, a charter school that shares the building.

Marrero isn’t recommending Kepner Beacon be closed, but both zone supporters and board members questioned how dissolving the zone would raise test scores.

“If the zone goes away, how does that address the academic outcomes of the students on campus?” board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson asked at the meeting.

“It brings it over to my administration and the resources and expertise we can trust,” Marrero said. Zones, he added, have “blind spots.” Bringing the Beacon schools back under district control allows for “a line of sight” and “the entire organization” behind those schools, he said.

Northfield High School, as pictured in a photo from April 2021.

Northfield teachers cite confusion, vote to leave

Marrero is recommending delaying approval of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone plan until later this spring. District staff said new plans for the four schools within NDIZ — Northfield High, McAuliffe International, McAuliffe Manual, and Swigert International — contain provisions that conflict with new school board policies.

By the time that’s sorted out, the zone will have just three schools.

On Thursday, Northfield teachers voted to leave the zone. According to multiple sources, including an email from a Northfield administrator, only 27% of educators voted to stay in the zone. Teachers had requested the vote. Marrero said he got a petition signed by more than 70 Northfield educators who wrote, “We feel held hostage to the NDIZ.”

Teachers at two elementary schools, Willow and Montclair, voted to leave NDIZ in 2021.

Northfield will remain an innovation school. But it needs a new innovation plan. Earlier this month, Northfield educators overwhelmingly rejected a proposed plan because it contained wording they feared undermined union contract rights now protected by board policy.

NDIZ Executive Director Colleen O’Brien acknowledged that language in the plan that was meant to provide clarity about next steps instead caused confusion, which O’Brien said “unfortunately leads to distrust.”

An email from a Northfield administrator obtained by Chalkbeat says educators now have 10 working days to review a new, non-zone innovation plan for next year before another vote.

“We fully commit to working with educators to ensure that our revised plans reflect the desires of the Northfield community,” Northfield Principal Resident Jessica Rodriguez Bracey wrote.

In a written statement after the vote, O’Brien and NDIZ board members said they respected the Northfield teachers’ decision, and they would work to make the transition as smooth as possible. There would be no immediate changes, but Northfield’s departure could affect the zone’s budget and programming next year.

O’Brien said the smaller zone will still be financially viable, and zone leaders are working with the district to align the remaining schools’ plans with board policy.

“My north star is, what do the educators and community want for children?” O’Brien said. “NDIZ schools are doing their very best to make a really coherent plan for our dreams for our kids.”

Political shift contributes to challenges

Mary Seawell, a former school board president and fierce zone supporter, said all of this — the possible revocation of the Beacon zone, the confusion in NDIZ — feels like evidence of a shift.

She said it seems as though the current board and superintendent don’t understand the purpose of innovation, which she said is to empower educators to design schools that best serve their students. With the exception of Northfield, teachers at the other 11 zone schools voted overwhelmingly to support their school and zone plans.

“I feel worried that we actually have this pretty unique and special set of schools in DPS where the educators are really managing themselves, they are really empowered to figure out the best way to serve their students, and it’s discouraging that no one will take a deep breath and pause and say, ‘Why do teachers want to stay in these schools?’” said Seawell, who is president of Lyra Colorado, which helps innovation zones get outside funding.

Van Schoales, an education policy expert who favors innovation, said he’d describe the shift as going “very much back to a traditional model of one-size-fits-all with the same schedule and the same programming and everybody reporting back up to the superintendent.”

“It’s of no surprise to me that the district is trying to claw back power and control from schools that they think they can,” Schoales said.

Rob Gould, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, sees it differently. He said the school board’s recent policies have strengthened innovation because teachers know they’re not giving away key contract rights when they approve the plans. Even though DPS only has three innovation zones, about a quarter of its schools are innovation schools.

“In the past, it was a top-down creation,” Gould said. “And now it is a bit more bottom-up.”

Anne Rowe, another former school board president who now sits on the NDIZ board, said she wonders to what end. “It does feel like a shift to a new direction,” she said. But she said it’s unclear to her “what the end goal from the district is.”

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

Some Denver mayoral candidates want more city voice in public schools

2023-03-14T11:16:00+00:00

Several candidates in the crowded and competitive Denver mayoral race want the mayor’s office to have a louder voice or even a formal role in running the state’s largest school district.

Seventeen mayoral candidates are on the ballot, and no front-runner has emerged. It’s the first wide-open mayoral race in Denver in 12 years, and it follows both interpersonal conflicts on the school board and rising youth violence, including a fatal shooting outside East High, which has prompted candidates to weigh in on returning police to schools.

The state of Denver Public Schools — and the question of public confidence in the officials who run it — have put education on the agenda, even as crime, homelessness, and the cost of housing dominate the mayoral candidate debates.

Some candidates have criticized the school board’s behavior, with Mike Johnston saying in a survey that the board has made Denver Public Schools “more of a public embarrassment than a source of pride.” Most recently the head of Gary Community Ventures, Johnston has broad political connections, as well as ties to education reform. As a state senator, he authored Colorado’s teacher evaluation law and the READ Act.

Others, including state Sen. Chris Hansen and finance expert and social entrepreneur Trinidad Rodriguez, have called for the city to be more involved in district decision-making.

Their ideas stop short of mayoral control of Denver schools. Rodriguez, who is the son of former Denver school board member Rosemary Rodriguez, is proposing to give the mayor the authority to appoint additional members of the school board.

Hansen, who sponsored legislation to support semi-autonomous groups of schools , favors having a single mayoral appointee serve as a non-voting member. In a survey from the group Educate Denver, Hansen said a mayoral appointee would enable “the city to have a hand in the hiring and accountability of the superintendent to serve the city and students well.”

State law says the Denver school board can only have seven members who must be elected by voters, not appointed. Changing that would require action by state lawmakers, DPS General Counsel Aaron Thompson said.

Former Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce President Kelly Brough has said she’d designate a mayoral cabinet member to work with the district, but she said she’s open to other ways of having an impact, including mayoral appointees on the school board.

“A city is only as good as its school district, and ours needs help,” Brough said in a video interview with El Comercio de Colorado. “Whether you look at the disparities and achievement gaps based on race, which are some of the largest in the nation, or you look at just the functioning of our board, we can do better in both regards — and we have to.”

School board responds to criticisms

Other candidates — including Lisa Calderón, community activist Terrance Roberts, GreenLatinos state director Ean Tafoya, and Al Gardner, an IT executive with Salud Family Health — have said the mayor should not interfere in the elected school board.

“The mayor and city departments will develop partnership programs with DPS, providing resources and support [to] positive initiatives,” Calderón, who is a college professor and head of an organization that helps Democratic women run for office, said in response to a question on a Chalkbeat survey.

“The mayor shouldn’t interfere with an independently elected school board.”

Calderón placed third in the 2019 Denver mayor’s race and served as chief of staff for progressive City Council Member Candi CdeBaca.

Asked to respond to the candidates’ criticisms, the school board issued a joint statement.

“Rather than respond to this negativity,” it says, “we have kept our heads down and focused on continuing to do the vital work of supporting all of our students and community members.”

The board statement lists several accomplishments, including a rising graduation rate, higher salaries for teachers and a $20 minimum wage for paraprofessionals, and a new sustainability policy.

“As a duly elected member of the Denver school board, I‘m looking for a partner in the mayor’s office,” board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said in an interview. “I’m not looking for someone who is trying to be adversarial.”

Member Scott Baldermann issued his own statement pointing to the politics behind the criticism.

“Some mayoral candidates align with education reform proponents that introduced market-driven ideologies into DPS the past two decades,” Baldermann said.

“Those conservative policies led to resource inequities, union busting, privatization, and an obsession with standardized test scores. I can understand why they would not support certain policies implemented by the current board.”

But Paul Teske, dean of the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs, said he doesn’t hear much debate about actual education policy, in contrast to past years.

“I’ve heard some candidates talk about safety officers in school and how crime and homelessness even intersects with some of the issues in our schools, but straight-ahead policy — like what DPS should be doing — I don’t hear much about,” he said.

Education is still in the mix

The Denver mayoral race is wide open since Mayor Michael Hancock, who’s served in that role for 12 years, can’t run again due to term limits.

Voters will have until April 4 to return their ballots or vote in person. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote — a likely outcome — the city will hold a runoff election between the top two contenders on June 6.

Mayoral candidates address a crowd at Denverite’s People’s Forum debate at the Carla Madison Recreation Center on March 7.

Education arguably played an even bigger role when Hancock was elected from a crowded field in 2011, as the school district was in the midst of controversial reforms. Hancock ran a television ad about driving his son 18 miles from the family’s home in far northeast Denver to East High because their local school was “failing.”

Education is still in the mix this year, said longtime political analyst Eric Sondermann, but it’s been dwarfed by two pressing problems: rising crime and a lack of affordable housing.

The role education is playing, Sondermann said, is that it “is one more contributing factor for the very downcast attitude that most voters have about the city at the moment. … The state of DPS is not the number one contributor to that, but it is on the list.”

In a 9 News/Metropolitan State University of Denver poll, 46% of respondents ranked education a top issue, just below crime, homelessness, and housing.

Conflicts among Denver school board members and tense debates at public meetings were common last year, despite the board being composed entirely of candidates backed by the teachers union and opposed to many previous reform policies. The district also faces real challenges with unpopular solutions. Enrollment is declining, and the school board just voted to close three schools. More school closures could be coming next year.

The district also hasn’t solved longstanding inequities, including a yawning test score gap between white students and Black and Latino students. Denver’s gap is the biggest in Colorado.

Ideas for city and schools to work together

Mayoral candidates have repeatedly referenced the test score gap in forums and questionnaires. Most of their ideas for addressing it focus on how to help students outside of school by providing more after-school and summer programs and paid apprenticeships with city departments, in addition to ensuring families have stable housing and safe neighborhoods.

“DPS has their own elected officials and they have their own billion dollar budget,” Roberts, a community activist who was once a gang member, said at a debate hosted by two education groups, Ednium and Transform Education Now. “But you know what the city of Denver can do? Make sure we attack the cycle of poverty in this city for Black and brown youth.”

Other candidates have proposed ideas to help the district save money so it can invest those dollars back into schools. Hansen, whose two sons attend DPS, has proposed that the city and district team up to electrify their bus fleets and buildings.

“This could save both entities tens of millions of dollars per year, and that would free up more funds to improve services and increase teacher pay,” he wrote in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire.

Taela Johnson, 14, left, and Gete Mekonen, 14, put henna on their hands during an Arabic language class at North High School on Jan. 23.

Brough, whose two daughters attended DPS, floated the idea that the city parks and recreation department could maintain DPS athletic and recreation facilities in return for community access.

Johnston, who previously worked as a teacher and principal and whose children attend DPS, has proposed increasing city funding for school mental health clinics.

Several candidates have also suggested building affordable housing for teachers. They include Brough, Tafoya, Tattered Cover bookstore owner Kwame Spearman, and state Rep. Leslie Herod.

“It is extremely important that we have more diverse housing stock so young people can become first-time home buyers and build generational wealth so they can get on their way,” Herod said at a debate held by CBS 4. “We do that by … using Denver’s land — land owned by Denver, DPS, and RTD — to build diverse housing across the city and county of Denver.”

Some candidates support police in schools

The mayoral candidates have also weighed in on how to curb youth gun violence and stop shootings like the one that killed a 16-year-old East High School student, Luis Garcia, who died earlier this month after being shot outside the school in mid-February.

At a debate hosted by 9News, six candidates — Johnston, Brough, Hansen, Spearman, Rodriguez, and City Councilor Debbie Ortega — raised their hands to signal they’d support bringing back school resource officers to Denver schools, as long as Denver schools agreed. The school board voted in 2020 to remove school resource officers.

At a debate hosted by PBS 12, Ortega said some East High students asked the city council to return police to schools. School resource officers were jointly funded by the city and DPS.

“This is where school board, city council, mayor, and superintendent need to come together and listen to community, listen to our students, our teachers, so we are addressing these issues how they want to see them addressed in their school environment,” Ortega said.

Other candidates, including Tafoya and Calderón, pointed to solutions other than police.

“It’s more important than ever that we provide peer support and mentorship, extracurricular activities, job training, and mental health support,” Tafoya wrote in response to a Chalkbeat questionnaire. “When our youth have hope, our entire community is stable.”

Calderón mentioned increasing the number of school social workers and counselors trained in de-escalation techniques, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and crisis intervention.

Most mayoral candidates have said they will get involved with Denver Public Schools by endorsing candidates for school board, which Hancock has done in the past. The next school board election is in November. Three of the seven seats will be up for grabs.

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

A Denver charter school teacher’s push to start a union could set precedent

2023-03-07T20:39:44+00:00

A teacher at a KIPP charter school in Denver is leading a unionization push that could determine whether charter schools in Colorado are public or private employers, a key factor in whether their teachers can unionize under state law.

Cody Taffet is in his second year of teaching at KIPP Northeast Denver Leadership Academy, a charter high school in far northeast Denver. In January, after administrators abruptly changed the school’s schedule without input from teachers, Taffet filed paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board to form a union called the Colorado Charter Teachers Association.

“I was talking with some teachers and we wanted more democracy in the workplace,” said Taffet, who left a corporate job to become a teacher because he wanted to give back. “We wanted our input to be not only valued and appreciated but also considered and reckoned with.”

But the union organization effort was rejected by the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in Denver, who found that charter schools are essentially public employers. While federal law protects the rights of private sector employees to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining, public sector education workers don’t have those rights under state law.

Now Taffet is appealing that decision to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., which has upheld the right of charter school workers to unionize in other cases.

The outcome could open the door for charter school unions in Colorado or close off that option in a sector where educators are sometimes asked to work longer hours and often paid less than teachers at traditional public schools. The average charter school teacher salary in Denver in the 2021-22 school year was $44,475, while the average traditional public school teacher salary was $70,910, according to the Colorado Department of Education.

Charter schools have what University of Colorado Boulder law Professor Ahmed White describes as “features of both public and private entities.” All Colorado charter schools are publicly funded but privately run by nonprofit organizations. None are unionized.

An attempt last year by teachers at another Colorado charter network, New America School, failed after the charter network’s board rejected the teachers’ bid to unionize.

State labor department officials have speculated that charter schools could be seen as nonprofits that contract with the government rather than government employers. That would mean they are private sector employers.

But when the KIPP case came before Regional Director Paula S. Sawyer, she disagreed. In a dismissal decision last month, she found that charter schools in Colorado are a “political subdivision” and answer to government officials.

For example, Colorado law gives the State Board of Education the power to revoke the charter of an underperforming charter school, Sawyer wrote. She also noted that the state education commissioner can appoint and remove members of the unelected boards that govern individual charter schools and make changes to the schools’ governing documents.

Because of that, Sawyer found that charter schools are in the same category as public schools. State law says Colorado school districts don’t have to recognize teachers unions, though several dozen districts do so. A public sector collective bargaining law passed by state lawmakers last year specifically left out K-12 employees.

Private employers, on the other hand, are required to recognize unions if a majority of employees indicate they want to form one.

Taffet says KIPP feels like a private employer to him, and employees need a way to have a voice. Having to weather unilateral changes without the chance to give input is “destabilizing and demoralizing as a teacher in the building,” he said. Turnover is high, he added.

KIPP Colorado officials did not return emails and a phone call seeking comment.

Many charter leaders say collective bargaining agreements would limit their flexibility and take away from their ability to serve students.

In his request to review the dismissal, Taffet noted that charter teachers are paid by their networks. His paychecks, he said, are signed by KIPP, a nationwide network started in Texas that has 280 schools across the country, not by Denver Public Schools.

The district doesn’t control the day-to-day operations of his school, either, he said. And charter teachers like him can’t join the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

The lack of clarity about the status of charter school employees in Colorado “creates an exploitable loophole” for employers, Taffet wrote in his request for review.

“While these entities are ultimately required to respond to the demands of the state and its authority, they are granted a unique privilege in that they are functionally inoculated from the concerns of their employees,” he wrote.

If the National Labor Relations Board under President Joe Biden agrees with him, the case could set a sort of precedent for Colorado. But White, the law professor, cautioned that the precedent would be a temporary one that future administrations could change.

“To the extent that other schools are funded and managed in an identical and very similar fashion, then it would establish an administrative precedent,” White said.

“But I say that with a caveat that the precedent established by an administrative agency at this level in particular is not really set in stone in the way precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court would be.”

Still, Taffet has hope. He named the union the Colorado Charter Teachers Association with the thought that if his bid is successful, teachers from other charter schools could join.

“For me, personally, I’m in a place where I’m trying to be more authentic every day and use my existence to do something meaningful,” he said.

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

Denver school board pay could increase to as much as $33,000 per year

2023-02-27T23:52:20+00:00

More than a year after the Denver school board voted to pay new members up to $750 a month, the board is considering raising the amount significantly. A proposal introduced last week but quickly put on hold would quadruple the stipend to as much as $3,000 a month.

The proposal would allow board members to earn up to $33,000 a year: $150 per day for up to five days a week except in July, when the board doesn’t meet. Only a few other Colorado school boards pay members at all, and none pay members more than a small stipend.

Board Treasurer Scott Esserman said the resolution was indefinitely postponed Thursday because it wasn’t ready, not because there isn’t support for the idea. He and other board members said they expect the board to revisit the issue as soon as next month.

The goal of raising pay, board members said, is to make serving easier for community members who otherwise couldn’t afford to miss work or hire a babysitter to attend meetings.

“Currently, the majority of the school board is white, and the majority of students in Denver Public Schools are students of color,” said Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, a longtime proponent of board member pay. “This can help for folks who want to run.”

The resolution appeared on the board’s public agenda after a closed session to receive legal advice related to board member compensation. The resolution doesn’t say who asked for it to be drafted, though several members said they agree it needs to be addressed.

Even if the board passes a resolution this spring, no members would receive the increased rate until after November’s election, district spokesperson Bill Good said. Even then, only the newly elected or re-elected members would be eligible for higher pay, he said. The 2021 state law allowing school board compensation doesn’t allow sitting members to raise their own pay.

The seats held by Anderson and board members Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay are up for election in November. The winners of those seats would be eligible for the new, higher salary, while the other four board members would not be eligible until 2025.

Several board members said they spend from 10 to 40 hours per week on board duties for no pay. Although four of the seven board members have been eligible for the $750 per month stipend since they were elected in late 2021, none have been paid yet because the district is still developing the process, Good said. Once it has, they will be eligible for backpay, he said.

“As a board member that is eligible for board member compensation, I have yet to receive payment,” said President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, who was elected in 2021. “However, the DPS administration is in process to ensure that that happens very soon.”

In addition to three public school board meetings and work sessions each month, Gaytán said board members have several optional work sessions and committee meetings, as well as non-public meetings with district staff to understand data and recommendations. The non-public meetings are informally called “two-on-twos” because only two board members attend at a time. Any meeting with three or more board members must be held in public.

Board members also regularly visit schools and attend events, such as groundbreaking or graduation ceremonies. They also sometimes attend conferences, community meetings, and forums, and meet with parents and other constituents. Board members don’t have aides so they are responsible for returning their own phone calls and emails. Gaytán said she gets about 200 emails in a typical week and many more if the board is debating a hot topic.

A previous Denver school board, which included current members Anderson, Baldermann, and Carrie Olson, voted in November 2021 to allow stipends of $150 per day for up to five days a month, or a yearly maximum of $9,000. The vote was a compromise. Some former board members didn’t want to approve any pay at all given the district’s financial needs.

“The original resolution to pay board members was more symbolic than anything else,” Esserman said. “If the goal is to eliminate some of the obstacles to having board members who are more representative of our communities and people who can afford to spend the time because at least they’re getting paid something for their labor, there’s a need to increase that.”

Many Colorado elected officials draw salaries, though the amounts vary widely. Denver City Council members are paid $101,167 annually. The city council president makes $113,288.

Under the Denver school board’s current policy, members can only be paid for days when they perform official board duties. Those duties include attending board and committee meetings or “other activities approved in the future by the board or the board’s designee.”

At least two other school boards in Colorado have voted to pay their members. The tiny Sheridan school district south of Denver was the first in the state to allow compensation in 2021: $150 for a full day of board work or $75 for a half day.

Polly Plancarte, a district employee who serves as executive secretary for the board, said in an email that Sheridan board members don’t get paid to attend board meetings, only conferences like the annual conference held by the Colorado Association of School Boards.

All together, the five Sheridan board members were paid a total of $1,650 in 2022, Plancarte said. No board members have been paid this year, she said.

The Aurora Public Schools board voted last year to allow compensation of up to $450 a month: $150 a day up to three days per month. But no Aurora board members have been paid yet. The compensation will kick in for new board members elected this November.

Correction: This story has been updated with correct salaries for Denver city council members and the city council president.

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

Denver school board wants better communication with parents as district weighs school closure

2023-02-24T05:14:23+00:00

Denver school board members said Thursday night that they expect better communication with parents and educators as district officials consider next steps — including possible closure — for 15 schools with low enrollment.

At the same time, board members who previously voted against school closures said they now believe some schools have such low enrollment that the situation is unsustainable.

Superintendent Alex Marrero presented an update on enrollment and possible steps toward closure at Thursday’s board meeting. He identified three schools with especially low enrollment that could close as soon as the end of the school year: Denver Discovery School, Math and Science Leadership Academy, and Fairview Elementary.

Marrero emphasized that he has not yet made a formal recommendation to close those schools or any others, and that he’s open to new ideas from the community. He said he is approaching the process differently than he did in the fall, when he made a recommendation to close 10 small schools and then directed school leaders to hold community meetings to hear from affected families.

The board rejected a narrowed down version of that recommendation in November, saying the process was rushed and didn’t give families enough of a chance to weigh in.

This time, Marrero is proposing meeting with the affected school communities before making a recommendation — a change that school board members said they appreciated.

“Yes, these three schools can be recommended for closure, and these 12 schools can be recommended for closure next year, but that’s not what I’m bringing forward today,” Marrero said in an interview after the board meeting Thursday night. “I want everybody to be prepared that that could be the case, but we’re also looking for creative solutions.”

Marrero said the process could move quickly for the three schools with “critically low enrollment.” He said district staff could begin engaging with families and teachers at Denver Discovery School, MSLA, and Fairview Elementary immediately, and he could bring a formal recommendation to the board next month.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who was sharply critical of the school closure recommendation process this fall, said he feels differently now about the three smallest schools.

“I believe that we are at a point with the three schools that we need to take action immediately,” Anderson said. “I’m seeing a number of 62 kids at a middle school and it’s not feasible. And I think we have to have some tough decisions.”

Denver Discovery School is projected to have just 62 students next year, while MSLA is projected to have 104 excluding preschoolers. Fairview Elementary is projected to have 118. Denver schools are funded per student, and schools with low enrollment struggle to afford enough staff.

Anderson acknowledged that families may have avoided schools previously flagged for closure in the just-closed school choice window, leading to even lower enrollment at those schools.

“I do wonder if some parents were scared off from enrolling their kids because they saw these schools on a list before,” he said, referring to Marrero’s previous recommendations.

The process would move more slowly for 12 schools Marrero identified as having “concerning enrollment,” meaning they are projected to have fewer than 215 students next year.

A proposed timeline calls for district staff to meet with the 12 school communities from March to August, and for Marrero to present a formal recommendation to the school board in September. Any closures or other changes, which the proposal says could include revising school boundaries or co-locating one small school with another, wouldn’t happen until fall 2024.

The 12 schools are Ashley Elementary, Beach Court Elementary, Cole Arts and Sciences Academy, Colfax Elementary, Columbian Elementary, Eagleton Elementary, Hallett Academy, International Academy of Denver at Harrington, Kaiser Elementary, Palmer Elementary, Schmitt Elementary, and Whittier K-8. Projected enrollment ranges from 131 students excluding preschoolers at IAD at Harrington to 209 students at Cole Arts and Sciences Academy.

Board members offered suggestions Thursday for what they’d like the meetings with the school communities to look like. Anderson said Marrero should lead the meetings himself.

Families should be assured their children will get priority to enroll at other schools if their school closes, Anderson said, and staff should be assured they’ll get other jobs in the district. He also suggested the meetings be held both in-person and virtually so more families could participate.

Board member Carrie Olson said one of the most uncomfortable parts of the meetings this fall was when parents would ask questions that principals didn’t know the answer to. She requested that “people who can answer questions” be in the room at all community meetings.

“Clear communication with answers at meetings is going to be vital and imperative,” she said.

The board is considering a new policy that directs the superintendent on how to approach school closures. It acknowledges that district enrollment is declining and says the board “believes it is necessary to consolidate and unify schools to maintain the financial viability of the district and to maximize the resources, staff, and programs offered to students.”

Consolidation and unification are how Denver officials describe school closures.

The policy outlines a long list of information that the district should provide to families and educators at schools recommended for closure, including the “positive implications of proceeding” and the “negative implications of not proceeding.”

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

Judge: Denver school board member doesn’t have grounds for restraining order against critic

2023-02-21T23:51:31+00:00

A Denver County Court judge has lifted a restraining order against community activist and Denver school district critic Brandon Pryor.

Denver school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson obtained a temporary restraining order last month after Pryor and Anderson had a heated argument at the nonprofit where Anderson works. Anderson said Pryor threatened him and used abusive language and that the incident was part of an escalating pattern of behavior that included intimidating phone calls and negative social media posts.

Pryor said he had begun the conversation because he disagreed with Anderson’s vote to move the Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy to a new building in a different neighborhood and felt that Anderson had misrepresented certain information about the move to the community. Pryor is a founder of the school, which is modeled on historically Black colleges and universities.

Pryor said Anderson got angry and escalated the argument first. Though Pryor acknowledged he raised his voice, he said he never threatened Anderson.

On Tuesday, Denver County Court Judge Kerri Lombardi found there wasn’t enough evidence to support a permanent restraining order.

Lombardi said that while Anderson testified that he felt afraid of Pryor, he hadn’t provided evidence that Pryor had assaulted him in the past or was likely to do so in the future. She told Pryor that she suggested he avoid interacting with Anderson at work but that she would not order any restrictions.

The two men work for different organizations located in the same office building in the Montbello neighborhood.

Even under the temporary restraining order, Pryor could address the school board at public comment.

Anderson’s attorney, Josh Amos, called three witnesses as part of his case to make the restraining order permanent: a woman who works for Denver Human Services who overheard the argument; Joel Hodge, who stood between Anderson and Pryor and walked Pryor out of the building; and Anderson himself.

Hodge’s testimony ended up complicating the case. In a statement to police, Hodge previously wrote that Pryor told Anderson he would “kick your ass” and made a similar threat against Hodge for standing between the two men.

Hodge is a co-founder of Struggle of Love, an organization that works on violence prevention among Denver youth. Anderson is Struggle of Love’s operations director.

On the stand, Hodge said he initially got between the two men because Anderson had stood up from his desk and was yelling at Pryor, and he wasn’t sure what would happen. He said Pryor’s comments came after Anderson stood up.

Hodge stopped his testimony several times to express frustration that the situation was being heard in court.

“We couldn’t come to a conflict resolution amongst ourselves, and I don’t think the court should be involved,” he said at one point. A few moments later, he interrupted his own retelling of the incident to say, “This is so stupid. God. Jesus. I can’t believe y’all are doing this.”

Pryor planned to call two other Struggle of Love employees as his own witnesses and take the stand himself, but after Anderson concluded his case, the judge ruled he had not met the burden of proof necessary to issue a permanent restraining order.

Samantha Pryor, Brandon Pryor’s attorney and wife, said she believed the restraining order was an act of retaliation for Brandon Pryor’s federal civil rights lawsuit against the district — even though Anderson made statements supportive of Pryor back in the fall.

Superintendent Alex Marrero and five of the six other school board members attended the hearing in support of Anderson.

Brandon Pryor said he had no intention of changing how he approaches his advocacy as a result of the case. Samantha Pryor said that while she was glad the judge ruled in their favor, if their witnesses had been called, they would have further established that Brandon Pryor did nothing wrong.

In a statement issued after the ruling, Anderson said he appreciated that the judge suggested Pryor stay away from his work and noted that he could seek another restraining order or pursue criminal charges if he experienced “continued aggressive acts.”

But Anderson also said he was disappointed that the judge didn’t feel Pryor’s behavior already met the bar for a permanent restraining order.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board member obtains restraining order against district critic

2023-01-26T02:48:59+00:00

Denver school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson has obtained a restraining order and filed a criminal complaint against vocal district critic Brandon Pryor, who recently won a court victory overturning Denver Public Schools’ efforts to bar him from district property.

Both men agree they had an argument Friday morning about Anderson’s December vote to move the school Pryor founded, Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy, from its current location to a former elementary school miles away from the Far Northeast community it serves. But their accounts of what happened differ.

In an affidavit filed with Denver County Court and in an interview with Chalkbeat, Anderson said Pryor swore at him, used abusive language, and threatened him in his place of employment. Pryor said he works in the same building and stops by regularly. He said the affidavit is a lie, that he never threatened anyone, and that Anderson swore at him first.

Anderson also filed a municipal criminal complaint against Pryor on Monday. A Denver Police Department spokesman declined to release a police report on the incident, citing an open investigation.

The restraining order issued Tuesday is temporary, according to Denver County Court. A hearing is set for Feb. 7 to determine whether it will be extended.

The restraining order requires Pryor to stay 10 yards away from Anderson at public forums and otherwise stay 100 yards away from Anderson. Pryor is not allowed to contact Anderson while the order is in place.

Pryor attended Tuesday’s school board meeting with his wife and several Robert F. Smith STEAM parents and students who all spoke against moving the school.

The podium was set farther back from the board dais than usual, roughly aligning with the sixth row of audience seating rather than the first row. District spokesman Scott Pribble said it was to comply with the restraining order while still allowing Pryor to participate in the meeting.

In an affidavit to support the restraining order, Anderson said Pryor swore at him, used racial slurs, and told Anderson to “meet him outside” and that “he would ‘wait for me outside.’”

“The clear import of his statements and actions was that I felt physically threatened, unsafe, and believed Mr. Pryor would physically harm me,” the affidavit reads.

Anderson said he agrees with the county court judge’s decision not to bar Pryor from board meetings and that he opposed the previous district ban that Pryor is challenging in federal court.

Anderson said he sought the restraining order reluctantly and only because he perceived Pryor to be escalating their disagreements.

“I am an unpaid elected official,” Anderson said. “I love serving on the Denver school board. I should not fear coming to my private place of employment because of a vote I took on the school board.”

Auon’tai Anderson, seen here speaking against school closures in November, said elected officials deserve to feel safe at work.

Pryor said the affidavit is “completely false and filled with lies.”

“I work in the same building, right down the hall,” he said, adding that he visited Anderson’s place of employment, the Struggle of Love Foundation, two or three times a week.

Pryor said Anderson responded angrily when Pryor wanted to talk to him about the school move, in particular the claim that Smith STEAM Academy’s principal supports it. Pryor said school families are divided and some are angry at the principal because they blame her for the pending move.

“Because he didn’t have a valid answer for me, he got defensive, and now he’s the victim,” Pryor said.

Pryor said he swore at Anderson after Anderson swore at him but he didn’t use the language that Anderson accuses him of using. He said he did not ask Anderson to meet him outside.

“I did not threaten anyone,” Pryor said. “We all fall short in the heat of the moment, cussing and stuff. I was responding to him. I feel like he fell short. He is an elected official and he should be responsive to his constituents.”

Pryor and Anderson were once political allies, and each expressed disappointment and sadness about the situation. Anderson said he considered Pryor “a big brother or a mentor,” and Pryor said he defended Anderson from charges that he was too young to serve on the board and again when he was accused of sexual misconduct. An independent investigation found no basis for the most serious allegations against Anderson.

Pryor, a parent, community activist, and football coach, provided the initial vision for Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy, a high school modeled on historically Black colleges and universities. Before the school opened in 2021, the district promised to find it a permanent home, but at Tuesday’s meeting, Pryor, along with parents and students, said the Barrett Elementary site was not acceptable.

In the 1960s, Barrett was used as part of a plan to keep Black children from attending predominantly white schools in the Park Hill neighborhood, a plan that ultimately led to the Keyes school desegregation case. Parents and students cited that history, along with the size of the building, its location 9 miles from the Far Northeast in a largely gentrified neighborhood, and the lack of a clear transportation plan to say Barrett was not the right home for their school.

In mid-October, the district served Pryor with an eight-page letter banning him from district property, except the schools his sons attend. The district also barred him from volunteering as a football coach and from speaking during the public comment portion of school board meetings.

District officials said the decision was made based on “a long pattern of conduct toward district staff,” including yelling and cursing at people in person, over the phone, and in virtual meetings.

But a federal judge said the ban was not warranted.

Pryor had sued Denver Public Schools, alleging the district violated his First Amendment rights, and the judge ordered the ban lifted before that case even goes to trial. The district is appealing the decision.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Former Pueblo charter leader Stephen Varela appointed to State Board of Education

2023-01-20T23:37:37+00:00

Stephen Varela will represent Pueblo and western Colorado on the State Board of Education.

Varela, 38, is a military veteran and father of four children ages 7 to 15 who attend schools in Pueblo. Varela previously served three years on the board of Pueblo charter school Chavez Huerta Preparatory Academy, including time as board president. He holds a master’s degree in social work and volunteers helping other veterans in the community, he said.

A vacancy committee of Republican Party members chose Varela to replace board member Joyce Rankin of Carbondale, who resigned earlier this month. Varela will represent the Third Congressional District on the State Board of Education.

Stephen Varela

Varela was sworn in Thursday. His term runs through November 2024, when an election will determine who will serve the remainder of Rankin’s term through January 2027.

Varela becomes one of three Republicans on the nine-member board and one of three new members. He is the first Latino to represent CD-3 on the State Board and the only board member with school-age children.

In an interview, Varela said he wants to represent the perspectives of parents, work to improve educational quality and reduce achievement gaps, and make sure all students have opportunities after high school, whether going to college or pursuing a trade. He also wants to reduce unnecessary burdens on teachers and school systems and do more to support student mental health.

“Our public schools face many challenges as far too many students aren’t learning grade level material,” he wrote in a press release. “We need to take the politics out of our classrooms, return to teaching basics, honor parents, strengthen collaboration between teachers and parents, and support our high performing, dedicated education professionals.”

Varela said he’ll also be an advocate for southern Colorado and represent the diversity of rural Colorado.

Varela ran for the Colorado Senate last year but lost to incumbent Democrat Nick Hinrichsen.

Varela faced controversy during his time on the Chavez Huerta board, the Pueblo Chieftain reported, including calls for his resignation related to a basketball tournament being moved to make room for a Republican Party event and staffing reductions. Varela also helped the school secure a $30 million Building Excellent Schools Today or BEST state school construction grant to expand the middle and high schools.

When Varela resigned from the charter school board in November, he told the Chieftain it was to spend more time with his family.

In an interview, Varela said he believes much of the criticism came from misunderstanding the role of the charter school board — they aren’t involved in day-to-day operations — or was politically motivated. He said the people who criticized him didn’t attend board meetings until he was a state Senate candidate.

Varela said he grew and learned during his time on the charter board and looks forward to learning more in a new role.

“I’m going to give it my all and do my best for my community,” he said.

The State Board of Education is an independently elected body that hires the education commissioner, sets academic standards, oversees the school accountability and teacher licensure systems, hears charter school appeals, and sets rules for grant programs.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board votes to close STRIVE Prep - Kepner charter school

2023-01-13T02:19:50+00:00

STRIVE Prep - Kepner, a charter middle school in southwest Denver, will close at the end of this school year after the Denver school board voted Thursday to shutter it for low test scores.

The school has a “red” rating and its students scored in the first percentile on state math and reading tests last spring, according to a district memo recommending closure.

The closure vote was rare for two reasons. The Denver school board hasn’t voted to close a charter school since 2011, though more than a dozen have surrendered their charters voluntarily over the past decade, often because of low enrollment. The STRIVE Prep network is surrendering the charter for another of its schools, Lake, this spring.

The school board also hasn’t voted to close a school — district-run or charter — for low test scores since 2016 when it closed district-run Gilpin Montessori. It hasn’t voted to close schools for low enrollment, either. In November, the board rejected a recommendation from Superintendent Alex Marrero to close a set of small district-run schools.

Though school closures are often controversial and spark forceful pushback, the vote to close STRIVE Prep - Kepner was quick. There was little discussion among board members. Vice President Auon’tai Anderson was the only member to vote no. He said he opposes closing any school without robust community engagement, which he said didn’t happen in this case.

“I want to acknowledge the pain that some families may be sitting with right now,” he said.

STRIVE Prep didn’t publicly oppose the superintendent’s recommendation to close its Kepner school, and no teachers or parents spoke during a special public comment session Tuesday.

In a letter to families last month, STRIVE Prep acknowledged that it fell short at its Kepner school, which opened in 2016 as a replacement for struggling district-run Kepner Middle School.

“STRIVE Prep asked for the opportunity to operate Kepner to better deliver for kids and families, and despite our best efforts, we did not live up to our promises,” the letter reads.

Charter schools can appeal closures to the State Board of Education. But STRIVE Prep will not appeal the Kepner closure, spokesperson Julia Virnstein said.

STRIVE Prep - Kepner has 178 students this year, Virnstein said. District data for last year shows 91% of the school’s students were Hispanic, 86% qualified for subsidized school meals, and 82% were English language learners, which is far above the district average.

The school is part of Denver’s second-largest charter network. Its sixth and seventh graders will need to find new middle schools next year. Denver Public Schools’ window for families to choose schools for next year opens Friday. Some STRIVE Prep students may choose to attend Kepner Beacon, a district-run middle school that shares the Kepner campus.

The board on Thursday approved 19 other charter schools to keep operating within Denver Public Schools. The board voted to renew their charters for periods ranging from one to five years, depending on the schools’ academic performance and other factors.

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

Colorado State Board of Education gets more Democrats, picks new chair

2023-01-11T21:08:05+00:00

Two new State Board of Education members took the oath of office Wednesday and joined a board with an expanded Democratic majority that will hire a new Colorado education commissioner and oversee the state response to numerous learning challenges.

The board unanimously chose Rebecca McClellan, a Littleton Democrat, as its new chair, replacing Angelika Schroeder of Boulder. McClellan won reelection to her second term in November.

Board member Lisa Escárcega, a Denver Democrat, is the new vice chair, replacing Republican Steve Durham of Colorado Springs.

Both Schroeder and Durham, who also won reelection in November, continue to serve on the State Board of Education.

“I want to make sure I run a clean meeting where everyone has a chance to be heard,” McClellan said in an interview. “Every one of these members was sent here to represent their districts and in the case of board member Plomer, the entire state.”

The board is growing to nine members, up from seven, with six Democrats and three Republicans. The board members are elected from each congressional district. Due to Colorado’s growing population, there’s a new district in northern Colorado and a new statewide, at-large seat.

Rebecca McClellan takes the oath of office for her second term on the Colorado State Board of Education. She was unanimously chosen as the new board chair.

Kathy Plomer, a former Adams 12 Five Star Schools board president, is the new at-large member, and Rhonda Solis, a former Greeley-Evans school board member, represents the new 8th Congressional District.

Solis said she’ll seek to represent community perspectives as the State Board works to improve school performance, and said she would balance her passion as an advocate with the responsibilities of being a board member.

Plomer said she’ll work to elevate the concerns she heard on the campaign trail from school communities around the state and make sure state programs work on the local level. She pointed to that morning’s detailed discussion about how to administer a newly approved free school lunch program as an example of the issues she’s excited to work on.

Republican board member Joyce Rankin, who represented western Colorado, resigned effective Tuesday, and a vacancy committee made up of local party officials still needs to select a replacement. The new member will serve through November 2024 and then need to seek election to finish the rest of Rankin’s term.

Education Commissioner Katy Anthes plans to resign this summer after six years leading the state education department. One of the new board’s first jobs will be developing a process to hire the next commissioner. On Wednesday, the board agreed to look for a search firm to lead a national search.

The State Board also is overseeing the reorganization of the Adams 14 school district after more than a decade of persistently low test scores — an effort district leaders have resisted — as well as improvement efforts in other schools on a state watchlist and the larger pandemic recovery effort.

In addition to hiring the commissioner, the State Board sets academic standards, oversees the school accountability and teacher licensure systems, hears charter school appeals, and sets rules for grant programs.

The State Board also implements laws passed by the Colorado General Assembly and can put its own stamp on policies through the rules governing the administration of new programs and grants.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver officials recommend closing STRIVE Prep - Kepner charter school for low test scores

2023-01-06T02:51:59+00:00

A Denver charter middle school could close at the end of this school year if the school board follows a recommendation to shutter STRIVE Prep - Kepner for low test scores.

Superintendent Alex Marrero is recommending the board take the rare step of not renewing STRIVE Prep - Kepner’s charter. A memo notes the school, which opened seven years ago, earned the lowest state rating last year, signified by the color red.

Kepner students scored in the first percentile on state math and reading tests last spring, the memo says, which means 99% of Colorado students did better.

School closures are controversial. In 2018, the Denver school board began backing away from a previous policy of closing schools with low test scores. No district school has been closed for low performance since then.

In November, board members rejected a recommendation to close several district-run elementary schools with low enrollment. But board members didn’t offer much pushback Thursday on the recommendation to close STRIVE Prep - Kepner, with a few even saying they agreed with it. The board is set to vote Jan. 12.

Vice President Auon’tai Anderson was the sole member to express reservations.

“I’m struggling with the Kepner decision because the optics would look as if we are closing the school versus a school acknowledging, ‘We have not met the mark and we are going to surrender’” our charter voluntarily, Anderson said.

STRIVE Prep - Kepner has 178 students this year, according to network spokesperson Julia Virnstein. District data shows 91% of its students last year were Hispanic and 86% qualified for subsidized school meals, an indicator of low family income.

STRIVE Prep - Kepner opened in 2016 after the district decided to close district-run Kepner Middle School for low test scores. The hope was that STRIVE Prep - Kepner and another school that opened at the same time, Kepner Beacon, would better serve students.

In a letter to families last month, STRIVE Prep acknowledged its shortcomings.

“STRIVE Prep asked for the opportunity to operate Kepner to better deliver for kids and families, and despite our best efforts, we did not live up to our promises,” the letter says.

Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run by their own boards of directors. The Denver school board authorizes charters to open and votes to renew their contracts periodically. A vote against renewing a school’s contract is a vote to close the school.

Charter surrenders are more common than closures. The school board hasn’t voted to close a charter in at least a decade, officials said. In 2011, the board voted to close Life Skills Center, a high school that served students who’d struggled elsewhere. In the years since, another 13 Denver charters closed voluntarily, often because of low enrollment.

With 10 schools, STRIVE Prep is Denver’s second-largest charter network. It is currently in the process of merging with another homegrown charter network, Rocky Mountain Prep, after the departure of its founder last year.

STRIVE announced in October that another of its schools, 188-student STRIVE Prep - Lake, will voluntarily close this spring. Denver schools are funded per student, and STRIVE said the Lake closure is to ensure “students have access to well-resourced schools.”

Marrero is recommending that the board renew the contracts of 19 other charter schools for periods ranging from one to five years. The length of a renewal recommendation is based on a school’s academic performance and other factors.

Denver has a total of 56 charter schools this year.

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

Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes stepping down next summer

2022-12-21T01:08:48+00:00

Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes plans to resign in July.

Anthes, who has led the Colorado Department of Education for six years, announced Tuesday her plan to step aside. Her decision comes as an expanded, nine-member State Board of Education is set to take office in January and as Colorado schools settle into long-term pandemic recovery after more than two years of severely disrupted learning.

Advocates, superintendents, and State Board members praised Anthes as someone who listened to all sides and strove for consensus on politically contentious issues.

“She was pretty exceptional at managing really disparate views and threading the needle to implement policy,” said Van Schoales, senior policy director at the Keystone Policy Center.

Anthes said in a press release that she was proud of the work the department has done during her tenure.

“Through all the challenges, I’ve always been committed to listening to diverse perspectives, and aiming for the productive middle ground on issues that could have divided us — with a clear focus on students,” she said. “I’m proud to have helped build a culture of responsiveness, transparency, and pride in providing excellent customer service at CDE.”

Anthes, 48, acknowledged in an interview that the pandemic took a toll — ”I don’t have all the 110% energy that I did before” — and said the arrival of new State Board members makes now a good time for leadership transition.

“We have new board energy, new board leadership,” she said. “I just think it’s time for someone with fresh ideas and that a fresh look on things at the state would be good.”

Unlike other cabinet-level department heads who are appointed by the governor, Colorado’s education commissioner is hired by the independently elected State Board of Education to run the state Education Department.

While on the job, Anthes could have stayed in her silo, said Jen Walmer, state director of Democrats for Education Reform. Instead, she worked closely with the governor’s office and other state departments, including with the Colorado Department of Higher Education on ways to improve the quality of teacher instruction and open more pathways for aspiring educators, Walmer said.

Anthes first was hired as an interim commissioner by a Republican-majority board in May 2016 but largely served under a Democratic majority that took office in January 2017. During her tenure, Colorado implemented a school accountability system that allows state intervention in struggling school districts, adopted new academic standards, and stepped up efforts to improve reading instruction in the early grades and career learning opportunities for high school students.

And she led the department through the pandemic, which saw many students in remote learning for extended periods of time and schools experimenting with new instructional models.

“She got Colorado through one of the most disruptive times with the pandemic,” Walmer said. “She was a consistent leader who always put students first. I have no doubt that it took a tremendous toll on her personally to lead through that time.”

Rob Stein, who retired earlier this year as superintendent of the Roaring Fork school district, said he could call Anthes and vent during some of the most difficult decisions around school reopening, when state guidance was limited and inconsistent. She would always hear him out.

“Through COVID, there was a lot of conflict, and she put her head down and tried to find solutions,” he said. “She was a real servant-leader.”

Colorado’s system of local control gives school districts broad autonomy and constrains the role of state government.

Board Chairwoman Angelika Schroeder said in a press release that Anthes created a positive foundation for challenging school improvement work. In Colorado, schools and districts with persistently low test scores qualify for extra help but schools that still don’t improve can lose autonomy. Under Anthes’ leadership, the Colorado education department often has endorsed district-developed improvement plans.

“Many of the districts that came before the board are now seeing positive trends, and I credit Katy for these outcomes because she understands that we can go farther when we listen to each other and work together respectfully to support students,” Schroeder said.

A notable exception has been the Adams 14 school district, whose superintendent ousted a state-mandated external manager and unsuccessfully took the state to court to fight a State Board order that the district be reorganized after more than a decade of low test scores.

But after district officials testified in court about how the largely symbolic loss of accreditation had hurt the district’s ability to hire bilingual teachers, Anthes recommended that accreditation be restored while reorganization efforts proceed.

Aurora Public Schools has several schools under state orders to improve student achievement. Superintendent Rico Munn frequently has disagreed with the state approach, but he said he always found Anthes willing to listen and consider alternatives.

“I appreciated that because we always had a lot of alternative ideas for how things should work,” Munn said.

And as a former State Board member, Munn said he appreciates the tightrope that the commissioner walks, serving students, district leaders, educators, and the State Board of Education.

Anthes served a board that was deeply divided on key issues, such as the adoption of new social studies standards that included perspectives from diverse racial and ethnic groups and LGBTQ people. But many State Board decisions have been unanimous or nearly so, and there has been broad consensus on new approaches to reading instruction and workforce training.

Vice Chair Steve Durham, a Colorado Springs Republican, said Anthes always has respected different perspectives while keeping a focus on student achievement.

“We’ve been able to make great strides in several key areas under her leadership — especially the expansion of work-based learning opportunities for our high school students and the meaningful implementation of the READ Act to ensure all students are reading at grade level,” Durham said in the press release.

The State Board is expected to discuss the replacement process in early 2023, after the new board takes office and chooses a chair. Anthes said she gave six months’ notice because she wants the new board to have some time to work together before making a decision and to avoid the disruption of an interim commissioner.

Anthes replaced Rich Crandall, who abruptly resigned in 2016 after only four months on the job, during a time of turnover and turmoil at the state Education Department. She was hired as commissioner after serving as interim for seven months.

She first joined the department in 2011 to oversee the state’s rollout of a landmark teacher evaluation law. She later served as the department’s chief of staff, earning a reputation for being a consensus builder amid often tumultuous policy debates, before becoming commissioner.

Anthes’ career with the state spans a period during which a broad bipartisan consensus around certain education reform policies has frayed.

Anthes said she has never stopped believing in the power of data to shed light on problems in education and drive solutions. She also worries that the accountability system is seen as punitive, when it should be seen as a source of help.

“It takes strong leadership and a strong culture in the organization to counter that natural tendency” to reduce schools and teachers to ratings, she said. “You have to say, ‘No, this is about improvement. This is about serving our students. This is about understanding where we are so we can get better and so we know what to hone in on.’”

Stein said that Anthes’ focus on finding a middle ground didn’t necessarily move Colorado closer to real resolution of policy differences.

“Under her tenure, there were some important questions that remained in stalemate,” he said. “I don’t know that she could have driven that to more consensus or closure. I don’t know if a stronger hand might have broken the logjam or just led to more conflict.”

Anthes said she wishes she could have done more to offer leadership training for principals, who hold some of the hardest and most important jobs in the education system.

She said some of her most rewarding times as commissioner were announcing Teacher of the Year awards and recognizing Blue Ribbon schools.

“You see how important teachers are in the lives of students and in the lives of their colleagues,” she said. “I just think there are a lot of really creative, innovative things going on in schools.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

You’re invited: Chalkbeat’s 2023 Legislative Preview

2022-12-20T23:08:53+00:00

Join Chalkbeat Colorado for our annual discussion of key education topics likely to surface during the upcoming legislative session. This year’s conversation will be held virtually on Zoom Webinar from noon - 1:30 MT on Thursday, Jan. 5.

Last year, our conversation with lawmakers ranged from school funding to student mental health and child care challenges to higher education access. The 2022 session saw big investments in K-12 education and career education training, plus the signing of a historic universal preschool bill. There were lost opportunities as well.

This year, we’ll discuss a potential rewrite of the school funding formula, student discipline and school safety, the state of math instruction, the future of the accountability system, the impending launch of universal preschool, and how to make higher education pay off.

We’re excited to be joined by:

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, R-Monument
Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Janet Buckner, D-Aurora
House Education Committee Chair Rep. Barbara McLachlan, D-Durango
Joint Budget Committee Chair Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, D-Arvada
House Education Vice Chair Rep. Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista

A special thanks to our event sponsor, the Colorado Education Association. And thank you to our event partner, the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver.

Please RSVP for this event so we’re able to provide the webinar information and can hear your ideas for questions. Chalkbeat Colorado is a nonprofit organization, and tickets are priced at a suggested donation of $25 to support our journalism and events such as this one. Please note that price shouldn’t be a barrier to anyone who wants to attend, and we encourage you to give as you are able.

Caroline Bauman is the community engagement manager at Chalkbeat.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat Colorado’s bureau chief.

Denver board OKs moving HBCU-style Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy to new building with space to grow

2022-12-16T04:31:44+00:00

To provide space for it to grow, Denver’s HBCU-style high school will move next year from a converted office building to a former elementary school in northeast Denver that district leaders said has amenities, such as a full kitchen, that its current space lacks.

The Denver school board unanimously approved relocating the Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy to the former Barrett Elementary building Thursday night. A program for students with disabilities now located at Barrett will move to a different location, district officials said.

Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said he voted yes reluctantly. He said he struggled with moving Smith STEAM out of the far northeast Denver community where it was founded.

“I was in a position today not to even want to attend this board meeting because I did not want to take the weight of this decision because I want to value what the original plan was,” Anderson said. “For me this is now centering on, I don’t see a Plan B.”

Modeled on historically Black colleges and universities, Smith STEAM opened in fall 2021 in a converted office building. The building was already occupied by another school, Montbello Career and Technical High, and the placement was supposed to be temporary. The district promised to find Smith STEAM a permanent location within two years.

This fall, Superintendent Alex Marrero said that wasn’t possible. Instead, he and his staff recommended closing Montbello Career and Technical High, known as MCT, to make room for Smith STEAM. After both schools pushed back, Marrero scrapped his recommendation.

But Smith STEAM and MCT can’t continue to share the building. Smith STEAM has about 135 ninth- and tenth-graders this year, and plans to add 11th and 12th grades over the next two years. There’s not enough room at the current location to do that.

What’s more, Smith STEAM doesn’t want to stay there. The school’s founders, along with students and parents, have said the building doesn’t meet their needs. Its hallways are narrow, some of its classrooms are small, and it doesn’t have a full kitchen, an auditorium, a competition-sized gym, or outdoor athletic fields.

“The building we’re in is not a school,” sophomore Jessie Matthews told the school board in October. “The ninth grade biology classes have to come into the 10th grade chemistry room to do experiments because the biology class is the size of a prison cell.”

The plan to move Smith STEAM to the former Barrett Elementary building in near northeast Denver was introduced at Thursday’s board meeting without an explanation from Marrero.

Anderson asked Marrero a series of questions, including whether the Smith STEAM principal was in favor of the move, whether the building would be retrofitted for high schoolers, and whether there was any empty land in the far northeast to build a new school instead.

Marrero answered the first two questions with a yes and the last question with a no.

“There is no land,” he said.

Smith STEAM Principal Shakira Abney-Wisdom did not respond to a request for comment.

Marrero said the board needed to vote Thursday so the district could publish Smith STEAM’s new address in a guide aimed at helping families choose schools. The window for students to apply for schools for next school year opens in mid-January.

The first year Smith STEAM was included in the guide, its address was listed incorrectly. Denver schools are funded per student. The mistake affected Smith STEAM’s enrollment and led the district to agree to fund the school as if it were fully enrolled.

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

Aurora school board and superintendent had ‘different visions’ for the district

2022-12-09T01:06:50+00:00

Aurora Superintendent Rico Munn and the school board have “different visions” for the future of the district.

That’s all either side would say about the decision to end a nine-year relationship. The board voted 4-3 this week not to extend Munn’s contract, which expires at the end of the school year.

Of the four who voted in favor, only Nichelle Ortiz commented before her vote, saying the district needed change and healing.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Munn said he’s proud of the equity lens he brought to improving education in the diverse district and hopes that key programs — such as a partnership with CSU Global that expanded college access — continue.

Munn said he would have been interested in staying — if certain conditions were met. He had asked board members to begin considering the direction they wanted to take over the summer, ahead of the February deadline to inform him of whether they planned to renew his contract.

“In my contract there’s pretty clear language around governance structure and how that works,” Munn said. “And ultimately it would be good to be aligned in vision with the board. What’s become clear is we have a conflict in our vision.”

Board President Debbie Gerkin echoed that sentiment.

“The board and Rico have different visions for the future,” she said, declining to go further.

Gerkin and board members Michael Carter and Anne Keke voted against the transition agreement and would have preferred to extend Munn’s contract. Board members Stephanie Mason, Vicki Reinhard, Tramaine Duncan and Ortiz voted not to renew Munn’s contract.

Now that the decision has been made, Gerkin said, the board is focused on doing a thorough search with the help of the community for the next superintendent.

The board is meeting in a closed-door session Sunday morning to receive legal guidance about how to kick-off the search. Munn wrote a transition plan approved by the board in which he steps back at the end of December, but still helps the district through the end of the school year. He will then continue in a consulting role to help onboard the new superintendent next fall.

Before he steps back at the end of this month, Munn said two of his priorities are to leave the district with a clear strategy for advocacy at the legislature and to start the budget-drafting process in January.

Although neither Munn nor school board members elaborated on what puts their visions at odds, tensions have been evident in public meetings in recent years.

The governance stipulations in Munn’s contract require the school board to use a policy governance model to oversee him. Policy governance calls for the board to stay out of day-to-day decisions. Instead, the superintendent handles daily operations, and the board sets goals and restrictions for the superintendent to follow as he carries out his work.

In recent years the board modified the model to take back more control over certain issues. And they’ve struggled with keeping discussions focused on evaluating the superintendent’s work toward their goals. They’ve also changed goals multiple times.

Munn’s contract also requires that he receive an evaluation every year, but that hasn’t happened. This year, the school board decided not to evaluate Munn because the pandemic had caused disruptions, meaning they had limited data, and the most recent goals were set less than a year ago.

Munn wrote a two-page memo in objection.

“I utilize your direction for how I set goals and evaluate the overall performance of the district,” he wrote. “Despite the clear challenges of the year we were able to conduct formal evaluations for every other employee of APS. The board’s decision to not perform my evaluation hinders the effectiveness of the system by not providing new direction or standing by its prior direction.”

Munn went on to write that if the board went with the evaluation tool they adopted in February 2021, which accounts for limited data and allows for alternative approaches, his performance would earn a “satisfactory” evaluation.

He noted that he sought guidance from the board to clarify expectations in early 2022, but that the board was unable to reach any conclusions after several meetings.

Most recently, some board members expressed frustration about Munn’s recommendation to close two small elementary schools as part of the district’s long term facilities plan, Blueprint APS. A divided board initially rejected the recommendation, but Munn brought it back unchanged. Several board members struggled with that, but a majority approved it.

Munn said he was unable to change the recommendations without the board changing the criteria he should use to consider which schools should close.

Now, the future of Blueprint, policy governance, and other district projects are open questions. Gerkin said board members have not discussed those issues. Other than Gerkin, board members did not respond to interview requests from Chalkbeat.

Monica Colbert, a former school board member who wanted Munn to stay, said she hopes the district will keep moving forward with the work he started.

“It is a transition,” Colbert said. “This has to be viewed as an opportunity for growth — not wiping the slate clean and starting over.”

The district has made significant progress in academics, Colbert said. “We don’t want to lose that momentum.”

Kayla Armstrong-Romero, another former board member who was often at odds with Munn, said that during the pandemic she came to see Munn’s leadership abilities and is now sad his contract isn’t being renewed.

“Throughout the pandemic his leadership was amazing,” Armstrong-Romero said. “Hands down, he led Aurora in such a collaborative, impeccable manner that I would have voted to renew his contract based on his performance.”

Linnea Reed-Ellis, the president of the Aurora teachers union, said she hopes the school board will look for a superintendent who values all voices.

“It’s making sure all voices in the community are included,” Reed-Ellis said. “Valuing the professionals in the schools who work daily with students and considering their voice in each decision-making.”

The teachers union in the past has had a strained relationship with Munn. Reed-Ellis did not want to speak Thursday about Munn’s performance or the board’s decision.

Colbert and Armstrong-Romero both spoke to Munn’s ability to build relationships as a key asset that the school board should consider as they search for the next district leader.

“We have to be a school district that talks about kids more than it does about adults,” Colbert said. “That’s one of the most laudable things about Rico. He was willing to take the arrows and face the backlash for recommendations or decisions that had to be implemented. That politically agnostic superintendent is really important in a district like Aurora.”

Even though current board president Gerkin said she would have liked to see Munn’s contract extended, she also believes the district will find someone to carry on important work.

“I have every confidence as we move forward, we’re going to find the next great superintendent for APS,” Gerkin said.

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

Aurora Superintendent Rico Munn resigning at end of school year

2022-12-03T03:03:15+00:00

Aurora Superintendent Rico Munn plans to resign at the end of this school year and assume a less active role in leading one of the state’s most diverse districts starting in January.

Aurora Public Schools announced the change in a letter from school board President Debbie Gerkin Friday afternoon.

The Aurora school board plans to vote on a transition agreement and plan at its Tuesday meeting. Munn’s contract expires at the end of this school year. This fall, the board and superintendent had been in conversations about Munn’s evaluation and contract.

Munn “will begin transitioning to a support role” for the remainder of the school year, with a modified schedule, the announcement says. The board plans to hire an acting superintendent for the rest of this school year.

The district will launch the search for its next permanent superintendent later this month. Munn has agreed to help the new superintendent adjust to their job during the first semester of the 2023-24 school year.

“I am incredibly proud of the difficult and crucially important work that we have done together to accelerate learning for every APS student every day,” Munn said in the announcement. “I thank the community for allowing me to serve our diverse and dynamic students.”

Gerkin thanked Munn for his years of service and dedication to the community.

Aurora Public Schools serves more than 38,000 students in the southeast Denver suburbs. The district is the state’s fifth largest and one of its most diverse, with students coming from 130 countries and speaking 160 languages.

Munn was the 2019 Colorado superintendent of the year. His more than nine years at the helm of the district have been marked by significant improvements as well as challenges — and an often tense relationship with the school board.

Munn oversaw a substantial increase in the district’s graduation rate, including the largest increase in Hispanic graduation rates in the state, as well as decreases in the dropout rate, expulsions, and referrals to law enforcement.

Aurora is losing students in parts of the district closer to Denver, where many low-income families find themselves priced out, and gaining students on its eastern edge, where new subdivisions are sprouting from the plains. Munn led the development of Blueprint APS, the plan to adapt to shifting enrollment patterns, close some schools, and reimagine others.

But the decision to close schools has upset parents and community members and even school board members, some of whom rejected his recommendations before ultimately approving them.

Several Aurora schools are under state intervention orders due to low academic performance. Munn has fought to maintain district autonomy and shape these schools’ improvement plans.

His relationship with the Aurora school board has been marked by a push and pull over who gets to make key decisions. At various points, the board has overridden his decisions about when to open schools during the pandemic and whether to lay off employees due to budget pressures.

Few superintendents serve for as long as Munn has led Aurora Public Schools. Denver’s Tom Boasberg led the state’s largest district for 10 years before departing in 2018. Among the state’s five largest districts, Munn is the only superintendent still serving who was in office before the arrival of COVID.

Across the state, dozens of superintendents have left their jobs or been fired in the last two years. Some lost their jobs after the election of new school boards with differing philosophies. Some pursued other opportunities. Others said they were just tired.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

After COVID delays, Colorado will add new measures to how schools are rated

2022-12-01T22:49:02+00:00

Colorado is changing how it rates the academic performance of schools to include how many students are on track to reach proficiency and to reward high schools where students meet tougher graduation requirements.

Next year, these measures will be used to provide more information about schools. They’ll be incorporated into school ratings and used for school accountability starting in 2024.

The changes have been planned for several years but were delayed because of pandemic disruptions and a pause in testing due to the emergence of COVID.

A similar measure tracking how likely English learners are to reach a higher level of English proficiency within a certain amount of time is already included in ratings.

Colorado’s school rating system uses test scores — and other measures such as graduation rates in the case of high schools — to place schools in one of four tiers. Schools in the lowest two tiers can get extra help to improve, but if they receive low ratings for five years or more, the State Board of Education has to step in to require more significant changes.

The state board approved the plan in November to start rolling out these changes, but asked the state to hold off on changing performance targets this year.

The state last changed the percentage of points elementary and middle schools needed to earn to be considered in the highest tier of performance in 2019. The state had the option of lowering those scores, given how much lower schools across the state are performing after COVID disruptions, or could have also raised them, but opted to keep them the same for now.

The board wanted to keep expectations high, said Lisa Medler, the state’s executive director of accountability and continuous improvement.

While the state board is moving ahead with some changes to ratings, the entire accountability system could see a much bigger overhaul. An audit to determine if the system is meeting its goals of improving education across the state is due later this month.

“It’s been a little bit of a hard thing to account for,” Medler said. “Our plan has been to keep moving things forward.”

In 2024, barring other drastic changes to the accountability system, the state’s current plan calls for the new on-track growth measure to count for 10% of an elementary or middle school’s rating.

Currently, elementary and middle school ratings consist of two measures: achievement, or how well students score on standardized tests, and growth, or how much progress students made compared to other students with similar scores in the past.

The new on-track growth measure is meant to account for whether students are making progress fast enough to get them to proficiency within a certain amount of time. Some experts have argued that even with what may be considered high growth, some students are so far behind, they may not be on track to catch up.

When the measure starts counting towards scores, achievement scores on state tests will account for 35% of school ratings, down from 40%, and the existing growth measure will account for 55%, down from 60%, with the new on-track measure accounting for the rest of the rating.

The new on-track growth measure is likely to be ready for elementary and middle schools but may not be available for high schools until a year later.

For high schools, one of the measures that will be added in 2023 for information and for points in 2024 will reward schools where students meet higher requirements than the state minimums to graduate. Another new measure will look at the rates of students who pass advanced courses in subjects other than English or math, including Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or concurrent enrollment classes. The state is still working out how to define what classes are not English or math and whether the list considered will be limited.

Another change to the high school ratings in 2023, also prompted by lawmakers, will be that when the state considers how many students move on to postsecondary education, students enlisting in the military will be included in the count. Previously, only students enrolling in college or trade school had been considered as pursuing a postsecondary option.

These changes fall into a category unique to high schools called postsecondary and workforce readiness that make up 35% of a high school’s score.

The inclusions of the measures give schools more ways to show positive student outcomes.

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

Auon’tai Anderson announces he’s running for re-election to the Denver school board next fall

2022-11-30T10:01:00+00:00

Update: Auon’tai Anderson announced in June that he was dropping out of the school board race to run for a seat in the state House of Representatives. He will not appear on the Nov. 7 ballot for Denver school board.

The Denver school board’s most high-profile member announced Wednesday — 11 months before the next election — that he’s seeking a second term on the board.

Auon’tai Anderson, 24, was elected in 2019. His election helped “flip” the board majority to members backed by the teachers union and opposed to education reform strategies. A Denver Public Schools graduate who worked for the district before being elected, Anderson represents the city at large and has been board vice president for the past year.

In an interview, he said he was set to run for Denver City Council next year but changed his mind after the board’s recent school closure debate. Superintendent Alex Marrero had recommended closing 10 schools with low enrollment. Anderson, along with hundreds of parents and teachers from the targeted schools, spoke out against the closures. In the end, the superintendent narrowed his recommendation before the board voted down all closures.

“I realized through the debate on school closures the communities that are hurting,” Anderson said. “I truly believe that if I was not on this board when that conversation took place, I believe that this board may have made the decision to close those schools.”

Anderson is running for re-election next fall.

Anderson has been outspoken on many issues. After George Floyd’s murder, he helped lead an effort to remove police officers from Denver schools. He has supported LGBTQIA+ students, including by pushing to mandate all-gender restrooms in schools.

Inspired by the advocacy of Black students, Anderson helped shepherd a resolution directing Denver Public Schools to diversify its curriculum to include more Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous history. And he pushed the district to raise pay for paraprofessionals to $20 an hour.

But his tenure also has seen controversy. Anderson’s board colleagues censured him last year, saying his behavior had violated expectations.

The censure came after a five-month investigation into sexual assault and misconduct allegations, the most serious of which were not substantiated. But investigators did find that Anderson had flirtatious contact with Denver students on social media and made social media posts that could be perceived as intimidating toward witnesses in the investigation. Some community members and students called for Anderson to resign from the board.

Asked about the investigation findings, Anderson said he has stumbled in his leadership.

“That process of the last year showed gaps in my leadership, areas where I have been able to reflect and grow from,” he said. In the aftermath of the investigation, which he said caused him to have a mental health crisis, he said he has “a renewed spirit to continue this work.”

More recently, Anderson has clashed with board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, who was elected last year. During a board meeting Monday, Anderson apologized to Gaytán for “our interpersonal relationship sometimes rising to the level where it has been a public show.”

“I know that I have contributed personally to some of what some folks would describe as dysfunction,” Anderson said. “I just call it interpersonal issues. We may not always agree with one another or the approach or how it’s executed, but that’s never warranted to some of the infighting that has been caused that I have contributed to on this board.”

In an interview, Anderson said he respects Gaytán and wants to support her for however long she is president. (Board officers are elected every two years.) He said it’s time to move past the distractions and “get back to work for kids.”

The board has a lot of work ahead, he said, including addressing declining enrollment, increasing graduation rates, and closing the district’s test score gaps, which are the largest in the state between Black and Hispanic students and white students. He noted that if he’s re-elected, his 1-year-old son will start as a student during his second term.

“He’s a multilingual Afro Latino student,” Anderson said of his son, Khalil. “I want to make sure he has everything he needs to be well equipped to read and do math at grade level. That’s something that he’s not guaranteed at this moment.”

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

‘We are staying’: Students at American Indian Academy of Denver speak up for their school

2022-11-29T20:51:34+00:00

Charlie Windy Boy was one of dozens of students, parents, and community members who pleaded with the Denver school board Monday night not to close the American Indian Academy of Denver, a charter school that is struggling with low enrollment and funding.

Native American students told stories of being bullied in their previous schools but not at AIAD. They introduced themselves in Navajo and Lakota, and their parents spoke of the power of restoring those languages to their families. Community members wore black T-shirts that said, “DPS has a strange way of celebrating Native American Heritage Month.”

“You already took our land,” Windy Boy said. “Why are you trying to take our school?”

AIAD supporters were at the meeting because district officials have said they’re considering the unusual step of revoking the school’s charter for educational and financial reasons, including that the school may run out of money. But Superintendent Alex Marrero said he was “flabbergasted” by the demand to save the school when he hadn’t yet recommended closing it.

AIAD was planning more advocacy Tuesday, on the anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre, with a rally featuring officials from five tribes whose ancestral homelands are now Colorado.

“The advocacy is always welcome but, quite frankly, it’s premature because no one is deliberating on a closure,” Marrero said. He apologized to the school board for what he called “misguided” comments from the speakers. “I do want to apologize to this board that there’s been accusations that you all are considering closure when I know that you’re not.”

Because AIAD is a charter school, Marrero said the responsibility for its struggles lies with its independent governing board, not the district. He suggested that even if AIAD lost its charter, the district could provide the same type of education in another school.

“This school is not going to disappear, folks,” he said. “It may look different in the future.”

Supporters of American Indian Academy of Denver listen to public testimony.

But students repeatedly spoke about how other public schools hadn’t worked for them, how teachers had ignored them or told them to cut their long hair. The meeting was tense at times, with Marrero asking anyone to stand up if they’d heard him say he wanted to close their school.

“No one is going to stand up,” a man in the audience said.

“Because it never happened,” Marrero said.

AIAD opened in the fall of 2020, just months after the start of the pandemic. It was founded to educate Native American students, who have long been underserved by the district.

But halfway through its third year, the school is struggling with low enrollment and funding. Charters are funded per pupil, and AIAD has just 134 students in grades six through 10.

In an interview with Chalkbeat earlier this month, Grant Guyer, the district’s chief of strategy and portfolio services, said Denver Public Schools is considering revoking AIAD’s charter, though district officials have not yet formally recommended it.

The school board authorized AIAD’s charter and would have the final say in revoking it. AIAD’s contract runs through June 30, 2024, but the board can vote to revoke the charter at the end of any semester for several reasons, including financial insolvency.

If AIAD doesn’t raise $428,000 by January, it will run out of cash and be unable to make payroll, according to a “notice of concern” the district issued the school last month.

That notice cites other concerns too, including low student test scores, high turnover of special education staff, and a high percentage of students leaving the school midyear last year.

But the students and parents who spoke Monday night described the school differently. Ruby Cardenas said her eighth grade son, a gamer and football player who “does not wake up for anything,” wakes up at 6:30 a.m. every day to take the bus to AIAD.

Ninth-grader Sa’mya Black Calf said that in her previous schools, she was called racial slurs and taught that Native Americans were extinct. At AIAD, she said, she’s participated in traditional buffalo harvests and helped bring indigenous knowledge to state parks.

“AIAD has shared how amazing and how much I love my culture, how I should embrace it and not be embarrassed by it,” Black Calf said.

Students said AIAD’s curriculum is like nothing they’ve been taught before. The school’s founder, Terri Bissonette, describes it as an “indigenized” curriculum focused on science, technology, engineering, art, and math, which is abbreviated as STEAM.

“We learn about real world topics without all of the sugar coating,” ninth grader Isabelle Estrada said. “We learn the ways of our ancestors before us. We learn about our culture and how beautiful it is. Here, we don’t have to be ashamed of where we come from.”

American Indian Academy of Denver student Autumn Whatley, of the Oglala Lakota tribe, speaks before the Denver school board.

Bissonette acknowledged that AIAD has struggled with enrollment. Opening during the pandemic was hard, she said, and the mental health challenges experienced by some students had a profound impact on the school. But she took issue with how AIAD has been treated by district officials, including Marrero, who sent an email blast to all district families laying bare the school’s problems after supporters gave similar testimony at a meeting last month.

That email caused three AIAD staff members to resign, Bissonette said. On Monday, she pushed back on Marrero’s assertion that AIAD was not threatened with closure, saying district officials had laid out several options, including that AIAD close on its own or be closed by the school board — options that Marrero said were “news to me.”

“We have it in writing,” Bissonette said.

A memo to AIAD from district officials dated Nov. 4 says the most viable options are that AIAD relinquish its charter or the school board revokes it. The memo says AIAD could consolidate with an existing school or reopen as a district-run school but notes those options aren’t realistic, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat.

AIAD is not the only Denver school struggling with low enrollment. Still, the school board has been hesitant to close small schools. Less than two weeks ago, the board rejected a recommendation from Marrero to close two district-run schools — Math and Science Leadership Academy and Denver Discovery School — with fewer students than AIAD. Another small school, Montbello Career and Technical High School, was spared from closure last month.

A dozen charter schools with low enrollment have voluntarily closed in the past four years. Last month, homegrown charter network STRIVE Prep announced it will close its 188-student Lake middle school campus at the end of this school year.

But it seems unlikely AIAD will do the same.

“We are American Indian Academy,” said student Shawna Talk, holding back tears, “and we are staying and we’re not going to go anywhere.”

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

Denver board’s inaction on school closures cheered, jeered

2022-11-19T00:48:44+00:00

To some, the Denver school board’s decision not to close any schools next year is a victory for the students, parents, and teachers who pleaded to save their schools and a rebuke of a process they said was top-down and rushed.

“The ‘no’ vote demonstrated the will of the community,” said Milo Marquez, a Denver Public Schools parent and co-chair of the Latino Education Coalition.

To others, the board’s action — or rather, inaction — is bad for students who will now remain in under-enrolled schools and amounts to kicking the can down the road.

“By not taking any action, I think they’ve put off the inevitable,” said Rosemary Rodriguez, a former board member and co-chair of EDUCATE Denver.

Either way, the decision marks the next stage of the journey rather than the end of a road that has been full of starts and stops and twists and turns.

First, a prior board acknowledged that declining enrollment is a problem and tasked the superintendent with consolidating small schools. The district released a list of 19 schools, but community groups reacted with concern and Superintendent Alex Marrero scrapped it.

Switching tactics, he formed a community committee to come up with criteria for which schools to close. He applied that criteria — schools with 215 students or fewer — last month and released a new list of 10 schools to close. After pushback, he narrowed his recommendation last week to five. He narrowed it again Thursday to two.

But the school board said no. In a 6-1 vote Thursday, they rejected Marrero’s whittled-down recommendation. They also revoked the prior board’s directive, sending Marrero back to the drawing board on addressing declining enrollment, which they all agree is a problem.

The superintendent said hard decisions are coming

In an interview Friday, Marrero said the ‘no’ vote doesn’t make the problem go away. Denver schools are funded per pupil, and he said some will still be too small to afford robust programming. The district will have to keep subsidizing them, which will eat at its budget. On Thursday, Marrero said the district is facing a $23.5 million deficit for next year.

“Will we go bankrupt next year? No,” Marrero said in Friday’s interview. “But anybody who has their eye on the prize is going to say, ‘That did not make financial sense.’ It doesn’t make educational sense, either.”

Marrero said as far as he is concerned, there are still 10 schools on a list. And it’s likely that he’ll soon come back to the board with a recommendation to close the two smallest of those schools — 115-student Math and Science Leadership Academy and 93-student Denver Discovery School — because they won’t have the budget to operate anymore.

“The reality is, at several points in the near future, we’re all going to have to make unpopular decisions,” Marrero said. “Voting no is easy to do. It’s a very popular thing to do.

“But sometimes we have to make decisions that are unpopular, misunderstood, or taken out of context in certain cases, and that comes with the territory.”

Marrero rejected an accusation made by at least one board member that he whittled down his recommendations in order to get a majority of the board to agree, though he said he assumed closing fewer schools “would be an easier thing to digest.”

“Under all likelihood, if it passed, I would have said, ‘We got two. Here come the next three.’”

Board and community criticize the process

In voting no, several board members criticized the process the superintendent used to arrive at his recommendations while at the same time praising him as the right person for the job.

Community members also criticized the process, saying the district did a poor job explaining to families the financial and educational reasons for the proposed closures.

“It doesn’t appear as if they understand what the problem is and why they’re doing this in the first place,” said Van Schoales, senior policy director at Keystone Policy Center.

In contrast, neighboring Jeffco Public Schools shared extensive information about each of its under-enrolled schools over the summer, then released a recommended closure list in August. Board members voted unanimously last week to close 16 elementary schools, overriding the pleas of some parents and teachers.

In Aurora, where the district has engaged in a multiyear process to close schools in regions with declining enrollment while planning for growth in other areas, the school board did vote down two recommended closures, only to approve them a few months later. Superintendent Rico Munn simply returned with the same recommendation, saying nothing had changed.

The Denver board’s main complaint was that the closure recommendations came from Marrero and not from the community. Marrero disagreed; he said community members from across Denver came up with the closure criteria. But board members said parents and teachers from the 10 under-enrolled schools should have been the ones brainstorming solutions.

“Today we have shown through our values that we don’t close schools without community leading us through this process,” Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said after Thursday’s vote.

Board pledges to give more direction

Several members said the board shares part of the blame. Scott Baldermann said he and others should have given clearer direction to Marrero on how to apply the school closure criteria — and, more broadly, on how to address declining enrollment — by adopting what the board calls “executive limitations,” which are policies that tell Marrero what is off limits.

In doing that, Baldermann said, “we can determine the following: Do we need to consolidate schools at all? Is the community content with smaller enrollment and fewer resources? I don’t believe the answer is yes. But we need to ask.”

Aside from closing schools, Baldermann floated other ways to address under-enrolled schools, including adjusting school boundaries and no longer funding schools per student.

Denver Board President Xóchitl Gaytán stops Vice President Auon’tai M. Anderson from continuing with his comments during a tense moment of debate Thursday.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said the district’s embrace of school choice, which allows students to apply to attend any school in Denver, has hurt district-run schools that lose students to independent charter schools with bigger marketing budgets.

“We all, as a board, need to look at, in terms of policy, how to protect our families and our students that are in these public elementary schools,” she said Thursday.

The ‘no’ vote creates uncertainty

Now that they’ve rejected Marrero’s recommendation, board members need to take the lead on what happens next, community members said.

“The board is going to have to, fairly quickly, set up a framework by which they’re going to ask the administration to act,” Rodriguez said. “Everybody is looking at DPS with concern right now.”

The next steps for the board, Gaytán said in an interview Friday, are to pass new executive limitations on declining enrollment and decide whether to pull money from the district’s budget reserves to fund the 10 under-enrolled schools for now.

“Right now, we’ve got this BAND-AID and the wound is bleeding,” Gaytán said. “We need to rip the BAND-AID off and get the surgeon to put in stitches to start the healing.”

Regardless of whether community members agree with the board’s ‘no’ vote or not, they said it has created uncertainty — not just for the 10 small schools that have been threatened with closure, but for every school in the district that could one day be in that position.

“You go from 10 schools being uncertain to now every school in DPS has to wonder how the superintendent and board is going to move forward on this and if it’s going to affect them,” said Clarence Burton, Jr., the CEO of Denver Families for Public Schools.

“That uncertainty is now spread throughout the district.”

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

Denver board votes down school closures, restarts declining enrollment conversation

2022-11-18T03:48:03+00:00

Denver Public Schools will not close any schools next spring, after the board rejected a last-minute recommendation from Superintendent Alex Marrero to shutter two small schools.

At the Thursday meeting, Marrero apparently surprised even some board members by dropping three other schools that he had recommended be closed.

The Denver school board had been set to vote on the closure of five small schools that receive budget subsidies. Marrero instead recommended closing only the two smallest schools: Denver Discovery School and Math and Science Leadership Academy.

Board members voted down even that recommendation and revoked a resolution adopted in June 2021 that directed the superintendent to address declining enrollment and that kicked off the process of finding criteria to close schools.

Board members said the process was rushed and did not involve enough opportunity for families and teachers to weigh in.

“If we vote yes to close the schools in this manner, we are saying we don’t respect you,” board member Michelle Quattlebaum said. “If we vote no to close the schools in this manner, we are saying we respect you enough to have an honest conversation with you and come up with a plan.”

The decision sends Marrero back to the drawing board but doesn’t mean school closures are off the table in the future. Board members said gentrification, declining birth rates, and limited state funding mean the problem isn’t going away.

“I’m not going to paint a pretty picture that no school will ever close from now on,” board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said. “The budget is showing us there are a lot of constraints. And we need to make sure this district will continue to be responsible with the funding.”

The vote against closing Denver Discovery School and Math and Science Leadership Academy was 6-1, with board member Scott Baldermann casting the only yes vote.

Denver Board of Education member Auon’tai M. Anderson, right, said he felt “blindsided” by the new recommendations and the process has not respected families.

DDS is a middle school with just 93 students this year. MSLA is an elementary school with 115 students. Denver funds its schools per pupil, and schools with fewer students have less money to pay for staff and programming.

But a majority of board members objected to the process the district used to come up with the school closure recommendations because it didn’t directly involve the students, families, and teachers from the affected schools.

Instead, Marrero applied criteria suggested by a community committee that the district should close schools with 215 students or less. Marrero’s first recommendation, which he announced three weeks ago, was to close 10 schools that met the criteria.

Last week, after hearing pushback from parents and board members, Marrero slashed his recommendation in half from 10 schools to five. And on Thursday, he cut it again to two, sparing Fairview Elementary, Schmitt Elementary, and International Academy of Denver at Harrington.

“After listening to feedback from the community, I’m going to shift,” Marrero said.

The last-minute change upset some board members.

“I feel like we’re playing politics with a bunch of kids and their education and I’ve had enough of it,” board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said. “I’m pissed, to be totally frank with you.”

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero initially recommended the closure of 10 schools, then five schools, then two. Ultimately the board voted not to close any schools.

Other board members spoke passionately about the need to restart the entire process and include the community from the beginning.

“We’re going to engage in those dialogues and conversations,” Scott Esserman said, “and we’re not going to promise them we’re not going to close their school.

“But we’re also going to ask them for alternatives.”

Board member Carrie Olson called school closures “the most difficult task that any board or superintendent will undertake” and noted that “they rarely go well.” But she said “we cannot do it without the community.”

On Monday, families and educators packed a public comment session to plead with the board not to close their schools. It was the only opportunity for the community to address the full board before Thursday’s vote. Each person was allotted three minutes to speak, and the session stretched for six hours. Many speakers were from the schools Marrero spared.

No one from MSLA or DDS spoke on Monday.

Declining enrollment is affecting several metro districts, including Aurora and Jeffco. A week ago, the Jeffco school board unanimously voted to close 16 small elementary schools.

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

Denver board could rescind resolution directing superintendent to close schools

2022-11-09T00:19:16+00:00

Three Denver school board members want to erase the directive that prompted the superintendent to recommend closing small schools.

At the Nov. 17 meeting where the board is set to vote on Superintendent Alex Marrero’s recommendation to close 10 small schools, board members will also be asked to rescind a 2021 resolution that directs the superintendent to review under-enrolled schools and come up with options for closing some schools and consolidating their students.

“The rescission of the policy allows the board to give Marrero a new direction,” said board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson. “How do we as a board articulate our vision to the superintendent to address declining enrollment through a humane, community-supported way?”

Anderson requested that the motion to rescind the resolution be placed on the Nov. 17 agenda. Board members Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebuam said they support the request. It takes three board members to place an item on the agenda. A district spokesperson confirmed that the item will appear.

Those same three board members said last week that they oppose the superintendent’s recommendation to close schools. Board members Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay said last week that they were undecided. Carrie Olson said Tuesday that she is also undecided.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán declined last week to say how she would vote but said she is concerned that under-enrolled schools aren’t providing students with robust services.

The lack of services for students at small schools was what prompted a previous school board to pass the resolution, officially called the Small Schools Resolution, in June 2021. Denver schools are funded per pupil, and schools with low enrollment struggle to afford enough teachers. That can sometimes lead to schools cutting electives like art or music, combining two grade levels into a single classroom, or losing bilingual programming.

Four of the current board members were either elected or appointed after the resolution was passed. Of the three others, only two — Olson and Baldermann — voted for it. Anderson was on a leave of absence when the vote took place.

The resolution directs the superintendent to work with school staff, students, parents, neighborhood groups, and advocates to come up with ideas for consolidating schools so that each elementary school has at least 300 students and two classrooms per grade.

It says the process of coming up with those ideas should be “community-led and district-supported.” And it says the superintendent should give the school board several options for consolidating schools and list the pros and cons of each.

But Marrero only presented the board with one option: a recommendation to close 10 elementary and middle schools that have fewer than 215 students, not counting preschoolers, and to reassign those students to nearby schools.

At a school board meeting last Thursday, Marrero and some board members disagreed on whether his process of arriving at that recommendation was community led.

Marrero argued that it was, because the criteria he used to identify the schools recommended for closure — 215 students or less — was developed by a committee of 34 parents, teachers, district staff members, and community advocates.

“The community, albeit a small portion of the community, was involved because they created the criteria,” Marrero said at the meeting.

Using Whittier ECE-8 as an example, Marrero said there was no way to include families from the 10 schools recommended for closure in the discussion up front “because we didn’t know that Whittier was going to be selected once we applied the criteria.”

Some board members pushed back.

“When we have not had direct conversations with the impacted communities until we have come forward with the plan,” Esserman said, “that is district led. That is not community led.”

Marrero told board members he was struggling with how to engage communities in a productive discussion that wouldn’t simply result in pleas to not close their schools.

“Yes, we can engage and perhaps there can be a different solution,” Marrero said. “But reality is — we’ve all experienced it — the answer is going to be, ‘Please do not.’ And then what?”

In interviews, Esserman and Anderson said a better approach would be to give parents, educators, and advocates the plain facts — such as, for example, that their school with 190 students can’t afford an art teacher but schools with 400 students can — and then ask them to brainstorm solutions that could include consolidation. The district has been subsidizing small schools, and officials said the subsidies are getting more expensive as enrollment declines.

At Thursday’s meeting, Marrero said the Small Schools Resolution is prescriptive in that it calls for the district to close schools. “It doesn’t call for necessarily innovation and creativity, which is what I’m hearing” from board members, Marrero told them.

Rescinding the resolution, Anderson and Esserman said, would allow the board to be clearer about what it wants. For them, they said, that’s a process that ends not with a list of schools from the superintendent but a list of options from the community.

“It takes more time,” Esserman said, “but we have a better chance of getting it right.”

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

Denver superintendent recommends closing 10 schools

2022-10-25T23:37:25+00:00

Eight Denver elementary schools, one K-8 school, and one middle school could close at the end of this school year if the school board follows recommendations Superintendent Alex Marrero announced Tuesday. The 10 schools would consolidate with other schools in the district.

All 10 of the schools are district-run schools. The school board will hear a presentation on the recommendations Nov. 3. A vote is scheduled for Nov. 17.

“We know that these decisions are not easy for our community, but they are necessary for our scholars,” Marrero said in a press release.

“These recommendations will not only help right-size our school district,” he said, “they will allow our scholars access to more well-rounded educational experiences, and will also put the school district in a position to better address our staffing needs across the district.”

The schools Marrero is recommending for closure are:

Columbian Elementary. Columbian students would be reassigned to Trevista at Horace Mann, though all students can choose to attend any school in the district.

The district didn’t include this year’s enrollment numbers in its announcement, but Columbian had 218 students last year, according to district data. Of those 218 students, 74% were Hispanic, 15% were white, and 7% were Black. More than three-quarters of students — 78% — qualified for subsidized school meals, an indicator of family poverty.

Palmer Elementary. Most Palmer students would be reassigned to Montclair School of Academics and Enrichment. Kindergarten through fifth grade would be at Montclair and preschool would be at Palmer.

Palmer had 258 students last year, according to district data. Of those 258 students, 56% were white, 17% were Hispanic, and 16% were Black. Less than a third of students — 26% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Math Science Leadership Academy. MSLA students would be reassigned to Valverde Elementary.

MSLA had 154 students last year, according to district data. Of those 154 students, 86% were Hispanic, 6% were Black, and 4% were white. Nearly all students — 95% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Schmitt Elementary. Schmitt students would be reassigned to Godsman Elementary.

Schmitt had 201 students last year, according to district data. Of those 201 students, 68% were Hispanic, 18% were Black, and 8% were white. Nearly all students — 93% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Eagleton Elementary. Eagleton students would be reassigned to Cowell Elementary.

Eagleton had 258 students last year, according to district data. Of those 258 students, 84% were Hispanic, 8% were white, and 3% were Black. Most students — 90% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Fairview Elementary. Fairview students would be reassigned to Cheltenham Elementary.

Fairview had 174 students last year, according to district data. Of those 174 students, 49% were Hispanic, 39% were Black, and 7% were white. Nearly all students — 95% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Colfax Elementary. Most Colfax students would be reassigned to Cheltenham Elementary. Kindergarten through fifth grade would be at Cheltenham and preschool would be at Colfax.

Colfax had 255 students last year, according to district data. Of those 255 students, 66% were Hispanic, 16% were Black, and 11% were white. Most students — 88% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

International Academy of Denver at Harrington. IAD at Harrington would close and its students would join a new enrollment zone containing Columbine Elementary and Swansea Elementary. Students who live in enrollment zones are not assigned to a specific school but rather asked to choose between several schools in the zone.

IAD at Harrington had 167 students last year, according to district data. Of those 167 students, 75% were Hispanic, 11% were Black, and 2% were white. Most students — 88% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Denver Discovery School. Denver Discovery would close and its students would be sent to other schools in the Greater Park Hill/Central Park Enrollment Zone.

Denver Discovery had 113 students last year, according to district data. Of those 113 students, 44% were Black, 36% were Hispanic, and 5% were white. Most students — 83% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Whittier K-8. Whittier would close and its students would be sent to other schools in the Greater Five Points Elementary Enrollment Zone and the Near Northeast Middle School Enrollment Zone.

Whittier had 227 students last year, according to district data. Of those 227 students, 49% of were Black, 39% were Hispanic, and 7% were white. Most students — 90% — qualified for subsidized school meals.

Denver’s seven-member elected school board has the final say on which schools close. Four of the seven board members have past experience with school closures, and some have said they oppose them. The board recently pushed back on a recommendation to close an alternative school, Montbello Career and Technical High School, which spared it from closure.

Marrero cited declining enrollment as the reason for recommending closing schools. The 90,000-student Denver Public Schools has lost about 6,000 elementary students since 2014, when elementary enrollment peaked.

Decreasing birth rates and rising housing costs that push families out of the city will cause continuing enrollment decline, district officials predict.

Fewer students means less funding. Denver schools are funded per pupil, and schools with low enrollment struggle to afford a robust staff of teachers, mental health workers, and others, which sometimes leads the schools to cut programming or combine classes.

But closing schools is a controversial solution. Closures can be traumatic for students, families, and teachers, who all often vehemently oppose the option.

Closures also often have an outsize impact on low-income communities of color. That’s true of Marrero’s recommendations, too. At nine of the 10 schools, most students are Black and Hispanic and come from low-income families.

Marrero’s recommendations are informed by criteria developed by a committee of parents, teachers, and community members. In June, the committee recommended Denver close elementary and middle schools with fewer than 215 students, as well as those with fewer than 275 students that expect to lose 8% to 10% more students over the next two years.

The committee also recommended that charter elementary or middle schools that have not been financially solvent for two or more years should close.

Charter schools are publicly funded and approved by the Denver school board but independently run by their own boards of directors. In the past four years, 11 charter schools have closed on their own, many due to low enrollment.

In a separate announcement Tuesday, Denver’s STRIVE Prep charter network said it is closing one of its middle schools, STRIVE Prep - Lake, at the end of the school year.

Marrero refers to the closures he’s recommending as consolidations or unifications. The difference, district officials have said, is that in a consolidation, some of the norms, values, and programs from the closing school — such as dual language or arts programs — would move to the school receiving its students.

Denver is not the only district considering school closures. The superintendent of neighboring Jeffco Public Schools has recommended closing 16 elementary schools due to low enrollment. Jeffco announced that recommendation Aug. 25, and its board is set to vote Nov. 10, giving the community about 11 weeks to provide feedback.

Denver will have a little more than three weeks until its vote.

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

Two Denver schools share a building. One wants to stay. One wants to go. Neither may get its wish.

2022-10-18T22:31:13+00:00

In far northeast Denver, two public schools share a former office building. But the building isn’t big enough for both of them — and on Thursday, the school board is set to vote on a recommendation that makes neither school happy.

District leaders are recommending closing Montbello Career and Technical High School, an alternative school for students at risk of dropping out. MCT has been in the building longer and serves about 70 students, most of whom are on track to graduate this year.

Closing MCT would make room for the newer school in the building, an HBCU-style high school called Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy. The academy serves about 135 ninth- and tenth-graders this year, and plans to add 11th and 12th grades over the next two years.

MCT students and staff don’t want their school to close. And Smith STEAM families don’t want their school to be located in an office building that doesn’t have a library, a kitchen to cook hot meals on site, or a regulation-size gym.

Meanwhile, several of the school board members who must make the decision said they feel conflicted about closing one school that serves Black and Latino students to expand another.

“Let’s say — and this is very, very hypothetical — that MCT closes,” said Michelle Quattlebaum, who represents the northeast region on the board. “Do you know what’s going to happen to the students at STEAM? They’re going to know that we only got our school because other students that look like us, that are marginalized, lost their school.”

School closures are always controversial, and there are likely more of them coming in Denver as elementary school enrollment declines. The situation with MCT and Smith STEAM is both a precursor to those difficult decisions and an entirely unique situation.

MCT pushes back against closure

Smith STEAM is a district-run high school that was founded by a group of Black parents and community members with technical help from district staff. In 2020, the school board approved temporarily co-locating it with MCT for two years while the district continued to search for a long-term facility. The first-of-its-kind school opened in fall 2021.

Students stand outside the former office building that houses the two schools.

MCT is what the district calls a pathways school. Intentionally small, pathways schools are designed to serve teens who have been expelled from other schools or who are behind on credits. The far northeast area has other pathways schools, and the district has said MCT students can go to either Vista Academy or Legacy Options High School next year.

But MCT staff say their school is unique. It offers the only automotive technology program in that part of the city, and many students go straight from MCT to good-paying jobs at auto dealerships, staff said. The school also earned the highest-possible academic performance rating from the state this year, signified by the color green.

“How do you close a green school?” Principal Arnetta Koger asked the school board at a public comment session Monday, three days before Thursday’s scheduled vote.

MCT’s 70 students face many challenges, staff said. Some are experiencing homelessness. Others are teen parents. Most, if not all, work full-time jobs in addition to school. Some students have severe anxiety that makes it hard for them to attend large high schools.

“MCT gives them a place to feel at home,” teacher Laura Hutchinson told the board. “It gives them a place to feel like they belong and feel like they have a family.”

Senior Kim Rojas said she didn’t know what to expect when she came to MCT last year. She said she found friends who care and teachers who make her feel heard.

“This school, it’s a good environment for the students to feel welcome and not ashamed,” Rojas said in an interview. “I love this school a lot.”

Teacher Whitney Homra told the board that the former office building where MCT is located may be lacking “but it is our home and we want it.”

Smith STEAM wants the facility it was promised

During the same public comment session, students, parents, and educators at Smith STEAM asked the district for what it promised them two years ago: a different facility that could accommodate their growing high school. They didn’t talk about the recommended closure of MCT but rather focused on the deficiencies of the building.

“The building we’re in is not a school,” said sophomore Jessie Matthews, who is also student body president. “The ninth grade biology classes have to come into the 10th grade chemistry room to do experiments because the biology class is the size of a prison cell.”

Freshman Camille Harley said the cafeteria — which doesn’t have a kitchen to make hot lunches on site — “is small and the food is just bad.”

“We deserve to have a space where we can be ourselves,” said sophomore AiVory Pearson. “We don’t have a field. We don’t have an auditorium. We don’t have a gym that is up to code.”

School board members said they too are concerned about the facility. Vice President Auon’tai Anderson (who no longer goes by Tay) said the district should be uplifting the school, which is modeled after historically Black colleges and universities, especially in light of its 2019 commitment to recognize and foster Black excellence.

“Every time I’m walking into that building, I should feel like I’m walking into Wakanda,” he said.

District staff said at a board meeting last week that they looked for another facility for Smith STEAM but couldn’t find one. While a facility might not be available right now, Superintendent Alex Marrero said, one could be available in the near future “depending on what action the board takes.” He recently said his team is working on recommendations to close some elementary schools and that the board is expected to vote next month.

But the elementary schools, and any others recommended for closure, likely wouldn’t shutter until 2024. MCT and Smith STEAM will run out of room to cohabitate next year.

“I’m struggling with this immensely,” said board member Scott Esserman. “I’m not questioning anybody’s intent, but we’re not getting this right — and we have to.”

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

Ahead of school closures, 5 takeaways about the number of schools and students in Denver

2022-10-18T14:37:00+00:00

A decade ago, Denver Public Schools was opening new schools at a rapid pace as enrollment in Colorado’s largest school district continued to climb. But school openings far outpaced the growth in enrollment, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

Now, enrollment is dropping and Denver is considering closing some elementary schools.

Superintendent Alex Marrero says some schools have gotten too small to offer robust programming. Marrero hasn’t yet announced which schools he will recommend for closure, but he said the school board is expected to vote on the recommendations next month.

With those difficult decisions looming, Chalkbeat took a look at how the number of students in Denver Public Schools — and the number of schools — have changed over time.

Both enrollment fluctuations and the philosophy of school reform contributed to why Denver opened and closed so many schools in the past 20 years. School reform calls for closing and replacing struggling schools in the hopes that the new schools will do better.

Denver was also friendly to new charter schools, sharing tax revenue and school buildings and encouraging high-performing charter networks to expand. But charter schools have also closed at a higher rate than district-run schools, often of their own volition.

In the past few years, new school board members have steered the district in a different direction, away from reform and school closures. But they’re now being forced to confront the possibility of consolidating small schools, effectively shuttering some.

Here are five takeaways from Chalkbeat’s analysis of student enrollment data and school openings and closings between the 2001-02 and 2021-22 school years.

Denver added schools faster than students

Over the past 20 years, Denver Public Schools has added a lot of schools. It has added students, too — but at a much slower rate.

The number of public schools in Denver grew 55% between the 2001-02 and 2021-22 school years, while the number of students grew just 12%.

Denver went from having 132 schools serving about 72,000 students in 2001-02 to 204 schools serving nearly 89,000 students in 2021-22.

The same trend holds true for elementary schools, where the superintendent has said closures are imminent. The number of elementary schools in Denver grew 23% over the past 20 years, while the number of students grew just 4%.

Denver’s school-to-student ratio is shrinking

Because of that uneven growth, Denver’s ratio of schools to students has shrunk.

In 2001-02, Denver had one school for every 545 students. In 2021-22, it had one school for every 435 students. That has led to a rise in the number of small schools, or schools with so few students that they struggle to operate on their per-pupil funding.

At the elementary level, Denver had one school for every 396 students in 2001-02. Twenty years later, it had one elementary school for every 335 students.

Denver officials have said the district struggles to maintain robust programming at elementary schools with fewer than 300 students. A committee has recommended Denver shutter elementary schools that have fewer than 275 students and expect to lose even more.

New schools were both district-run and charter

The openings of both new district-run and charter schools helped drive the increase in the number of schools in Denver over the past 20 years.

Between 2001-02 and 2021-22, Denver opened 72 new charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently run, and 70 new district-run schools.

Some were new schools. Others were efforts to restart existing schools with new names and new programming in an attempt to boost test scores.

At the elementary level, Denver opened 20 new charter schools between 2001-02 and 2021-22, most of them new schools in growing parts of the city or offering unique programming. It also opened 33 new district-run schools, though more than a third were restarts of existing schools, such as the transition of Ford Elementary to DCIS at Ford.

But charter schools grew at a faster rate

The number of new district-run and charter schools was nearly equal, but the rate at which each type of school grew was vastly different. While district-run schools saw steady, modest growth, charter school growth skyrocketed over the past 20 years.

That’s partly because charter schools were a fairly new concept in 2001. Colorado passed the law authorizing them in 1993, and Denver didn’t get its first charter school — P.S. 1 — until 1995.

By 2001-02, Denver had eight charter schools, which made up 6% of all schools. Twenty years later, Denver had 57 charters, which accounted for 28% of all schools.

Meanwhile, the number of district-run schools went from 124 in 2001-02 to 147 in 2021-22. Their proportion of all schools shrank from 93% to 72%.

At the elementary level, charter schools accounted for 5% of all Denver elementary schools in 2001-02. Twenty years later, they accounted for 18%.

Charters also closed at a higher rate

Denver charters have also closed at a higher rate than district-run schools. Twenty-two charter schools closed between 2001-02 and 2021-22. That’s about 27% of all charter schools that existed in Denver at any time during those 20 years.

Some of those 22 charter schools closed voluntarily, meaning the charter school’s own board of directors voted to close the school. In other cases, the Denver school board didn’t renew a school’s charter, often because of low test scores.

Four of the 22 closed charters were elementary schools that closed for good, meaning they didn’t immediately reopen with a new name and new programming.

In that same time period, the Denver school board voted to close 38 district-run schools because of low test scores or low enrollment. That’s about 20% of all district-run schools that existed in Denver at any time over those 20 years.

Twelve of the 38 closed district-run schools were elementary schools that closed for good.

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

These are the systems Denver’s superintendent wants to dismantle

2022-10-07T21:18:13+00:00

As part of his annual goals, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero has identified four “persistent and enduring systems of oppression” within the district to tackle.

Two of the systems are related to special education. The other two are related to the central office and the role of the school board, which hired Marrero last year.

Marrero’s goals for the year — which the school board will use later this month to evaluate him for the first time — called for him to identify two systems to dismantle. But he identified four systems instead.

The systems give an indication of how Marrero, who spent his entire career in New York before coming to Colorado, is approaching the superintendency in this state’s largest school district — including by undoing the way some things have been done for decades.

Now that he’s pinpointed what to change, Marrero said, “the next step is the ‘how.’” He said he intends to spend this school year coming up with detailed plans.

The first system he identified to dismantle was the target of a recent damning state investigation: “affective needs centers,” which are separate classrooms for students with emotional disabilities. The district has more than 30 such centers.

Black boys are assigned to the centers at disproportionately high rates. The state investigation found that the district sent Black boys to the centers without thoroughly evaluating them and then failed to monitor their progress while they were there, among other violations.

Although the district once called the centers “one of our most glaring examples of institutional racism,” Marrero said it won’t shutter them completely. District officials have said they can’t serve students with emotional disabilities without the centers. Instead, Marrero said, they will revamp the way students are placed there. The details will be laid out in a corrective action plan Denver Public Schools must submit to the education department by Monday.

“This has been a persistent and historical issue,” Marrero said of the problems with the centers. “This doesn’t happen overnight. This has been neglect over years and years.”

The second system Marrero identified to change is the one that oversees students who are entitled to accommodations under a section of federal disability law known as Section 504. Some examples of accommodations are preferential seating in the classroom, extended time on assignments, and the ability to take tests orally rather than written.

Last school year, 3,506 of Denver’s approximately 90,000 students — or about 4% — had Section 504 Plans that entitled them to accommodations. That’s fewer than the 10,806 students who had Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, which entitle students to special education services such as therapy, counseling, and extra academic help.

But Marrero said there was only one 504 specialist at the district’s central office who oversaw the coordinators at each school — a ratio he said was shortchanging the program.

“We have to create more centralized support,” he said. “That was a glaring disparity.”

The third system Marrero identified was the district’s central office. Marrero announced in February that he was planning to shrink the size of the central office, which he had described as bloated. The aim of the cuts, Marrero said, was to reduce “redundancies and inefficiencies” and support a new way of sorting schools into groups — Montessori schools with other Montessori schools, for example — for the purposes of overseeing and supporting them.

Marrero made the cuts in May. They totaled 76 positions, including 15 executive-level jobs, freeing up $9 million, Marrero said. He reallocated that money to four initiatives, including raising the hourly pay for paraprofessionals to $20 this year.

Chalkbeat filed an open records request in May for a list of the 76 cut positions, but the district declined to release the records, citing a “work product” exemption. Chalkbeat repeated its request this week and was provided a list.

The cut positions range from part-time office assistants who were earning $8,700 a year to executives making as much as $147,000 and overseeing departments including community engagement and higher education initiatives, according to district documents. The median salary of the employees who were cut was about $77,000.

Chalkbeat also requested a list of the positions that Marrero added as part of the central office reorganization. But the district said “there are no documents that show added positions.”

The fourth system Marrero identified isn’t one to dismantle, exactly. Rather, it’s a system to strengthen in order to prevent the school board from “stepping into operations, which is catastrophic for a superintendent and district operations,” Marrero said.

Under the new system, called policy governance, the elected school board makes policies and the superintendent carries them out. The school board adopted policy governance in the spring of 2021 to help attract a new superintendent after Denver’s mayor and others accused the board of being dysfunctional and micromanaging the previous superintendent.

But the switch to policy governance has been rocky. To help, Marrero said, he hired a policy governance expert, Richard Charles, who has been advising the school board.

Policy governance is now part of Marrero’s contract. While he said it wasn’t what initially attracted him to apply for the top job in Denver, it helped seal the deal.

“What that told me is that, ‘We’re going to allow you to lead, but we’ll hold you accountable,’” Marrero said. “The blurred lines gets very difficult.

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

Denver board approves charter school centering Black students

2022-09-23T00:59:22+00:00

After the state ordered Denver to reconsider a charter school centering Black students and culture, the Denver school board Thursday approved the school to open next fall.

But the approval comes with conditions, including that 5280 Freedom School must fill all of its open seats in its first year. The school plans to open with 52 students in kindergarten and first grade, and add grades each year up to fifth grade.

Denver schools are funded per pupil, and other new charter schools have had to delay opening because they didn’t enroll enough students. Existing charter schools have closed because their enrollment declined, and the district is considering closing some of its own schools due to low student counts. The school board initially rejected the 5280 Freedom School for fear it would struggle to attract enough students to be financially viable.

The 5280 Freedom School appealed the board’s denial. Last month, the State Board of Education ordered Denver to reconsider its decision. State Board members said it was unfair to assume that 5280 Freedom School would face the same challenges as other charters.

The school grew out of a summer camp program focused on the well-being of Black children, teaching them about Black history, African drumming, poetry, nutrition, and more. Families loved the camp so much they asked for a year-round school, founder Branta Lockett said.

“A reason our school is so needed is that DPS has failed Black students and other marginalized students over time,” Lockett told the State Board of Education at a hearing last month. She pointed to several examples, including the disproportionate discipline of Black students and the under-identification of Black students as gifted. The state recently found the district violated the rights of Black boys with disabilities who attend specialized programs.

The Denver school board approved the school unanimously without discussion.

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

Some Colorado schools cancel class amid high heat forecast

2022-09-07T21:01:20+00:00

Record-breaking heat in Colorado this week has prompted public schools without air conditioning to close or announce plans to send students home early.

More than 30 Denver schools are calling “heat days,” according to a district press release. Most schools are releasing students early Wednesday and Thursday, but four schools are closing altogether for at least one day this week.

They include:

Godsman Elementary was closed Tuesday.

Columbine Elementary will be closed Wednesday and Thursday.

Knapp Elementary will be closed Wednesday and Thursday.

Next Steps at Barrett will be closed Wednesday and Thursday.

Denver Montessori Junior/Senior High will release students early Thursday.

George Washington High will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

KIPP Denver Collegiate High will release students early Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Manual High will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Montbello High will release students early Thursday.

South High will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Thomas Jefferson High will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

West High will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Lake Middle will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

McAuliffe International School will release students early Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Skinner Middle will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

West Middle will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Asbury Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Bradley International School will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Bryant Webster Dual Language School will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Carson Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Cory Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Cowell Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Denison Montessori will release students early Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Doull Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Ellis Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Goldrick Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Math and Science Leadership Academy will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

McMeen Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Park Hill Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Polaris Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Sabin World Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Stedman Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Steele Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Stephen Knight Center for Early Education will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Traylor Academy will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

University Park Elementary will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Whittier ECE-8 will release students early Wednesday and Thursday.

Other Colorado school districts have announced similar closures. All schools in the Poudre district, based in Fort Collins, and the Thompson district, based in Loveland, will release students two hours early on Wednesday and Thursday. Most Poudre schools don’t have air conditioning, the district said in a press release.

Forty-eight Denver campuses don’t have air conditioning. (See the list here.) Thirty-one of those are not scheduled to get it anytime soon. But 17 campuses are slated to get air conditioning later this fall or next school year with funding passed by Denver voters in 2020.

That funding was earmarked to add air conditioning at 24 Denver campuses. Work has been completed at seven campuses and is nearly complete at eight more. Supply chain issues have slowed the work at those eight campuses, district officials said. The district is scheduling work at the remaining nine campuses to start next summer.

Tuesday was the fourth day this September with temperatures above 95 degrees, breaking a record for the month, and Wednesday and Thursday could both see temperatures near 100 degrees, according to Denver meteorologists.

Denver has posted 62 days this year above 90 degrees, the third most on record.

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

Denver recommends closing a far northeast alternative high school

2022-09-01T22:56:45+00:00

A small alternative high school in far northeast Denver could close if the school board follows a recommendation from district leaders.

Denver Public Schools leaders are recommending that Montbello Career and Technical High School shutter at the end of this school year, partly to make room for another school. Montbello Career and Technical, which serves students who are off track to graduate, shares a campus with an HBCU-style high school, Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy, which opened last year.

But sharing a campus will no longer be viable after this school year, according to the district’s written recommendation. Montbello Career and Technical has about 70 students this year. Robert F. Smith currently has about 150 ninth- and tenth-graders and plans to add 11th and 12th grades over the next two years. The building holds 275 students. If Robert F. Smith adds another class of students next year, the building would be over capacity.

Instead, district leaders are recommending closing Montbello Career and Technical and sending its students to two other alternative schools in far northeast Denver: Vista Academy and Legacy Options High School. Vista Academy is two miles away.

The new Montbello High School, a nearby comprehensive that reopened this fall, also plans to offer credit recovery and GED classes, the recommendation says.

Students stand in front of doors to a building housing Montbello Career and Technical High School and Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy.

The recommendation to close Montbello Career and Technical is separate from a high-profile discussion about how to consolidate Denver elementary schools. Enrollment is declining in elementary schools, and a district committee has come up with suggested criteria for when to close small schools. But the superintendent has not put it into practice yet.

Alternative schools, which Denver calls pathways schools, would likely be exempt from any closure criteria based on enrollment. Pathways schools are designed to be small to give more individualized attention to students who are at risk of dropping out.

Montbello Career and Technical was previously called P.U.S.H. Academy. Before the district closed the old Montbello High School, it served as the school’s credit recovery program.

The idea for Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy came from a group of Black parents and community leaders in far northeast Denver. In a first-of-its-kind step in 2019, the school board directed the district to work with the group to hone their application to open a new district-run school modeled on historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

Najja Shakir Al-Islam hands out papers to students on the first day of school at Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy in August 2021.

The school board approved the school, then called the Michelle Obama STEAM Academy, in August 2019. (The school was renamed after Robert F. Smith, a Denver graduate described by the district as “a Black American investor, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.”)

But the school didn’t have a location. In November 2020, the board approved temporarily co-locating it with Montbello Career and Technical for two years. It opened in August 2021.

“The district shall continue to search for a long-term facility placement for the Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy,” the school board’s 2020 resolution said. “District staff shall be authorized to take any reasonable actions necessary to facilitate said placement.”

The school board was originally scheduled to hear the closure recommendation at its meeting Thursday. But the board voted to delay the recommendation until Oct. 6. The reason for the delay was so the member who represents northeast Denver, Michelle Quattlebaum, who wasn’t at Thursday’s meeting, could be present for the discussion.

A vote on the closure recommendation has not yet been scheduled.

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

Pay, caseloads among sticking points in Denver teacher contract negotiations

2022-08-26T18:25:14+00:00

The Denver school district and teachers union are renegotiating the teacher contract for the first time since the union went on strike in 2019 for higher wages.

The deal that ended the strike resulted in big pay boosts. Over the past three years, the median union member has seen their pay grow 31%, according to district calculations. But the three-year, post-strike deal expires Wednesday, and with the cost of living soaring in Denver, the two sides have yet to reach a new agreement.

As usual, salary and benefits are the biggest sticking points. The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has proposed a three-year contract with a 12% cost-of-living raise for 2022-23, on top of educators’ “step and lane” increases, which are the raises they get based on experience and education.

Union President Rob Gould said teachers “want to have a significant cost-of-living increase so we can continue to attract and retain the best educators for our students.”

The district has countered with a 3.5% cost-of-living raise for this school year. When added to step and lane increases, the district calculates that would result in a 6.2% raise.

Teachers in other metro-area districts have gotten sizable raises this year. Aurora Public Schools teachers got an average 8.5% raise, and teachers in Jeffco Public Schools got an average 9% raise. The starting salary for a teacher in Jeffco is now $50,000, which was higher than Denver’s starting salary of $47,291 last year.

Superintendent Alex Marrero said he wants Denver Public Schools to offer the highest teacher pay in the area but the district doesn’t have enough state funding this year. He said recent agreements with other employee unions, including one that raises the pay for paraprofessionals to $20 an hour this year, show his commitment to providing competitive wages.

He also cut employees from what he has called a “bloated” central office and used some of the $9 million in savings to offset rising health care costs for employees.

“I’ve been dealt an unfair hand with me wanting to do what’s right and not having the resources to do it,” said Marrero, who has been superintendent for a little more than a year.

Pay isn’t the only issue on the table. The union is also advocating for lower class sizes for teachers and caseload caps for specialized service providers, such as occupational therapists and speech language pathologists. Many providers say their caseloads are unsustainable.

“We don’t feel heard,” speech therapist Shana Cook told the school board during public comment this week. “I do think there’s a money-first mentality in DPS.”

The union wants class size caps of 24 students for kindergarten through third grade and 25 students for fourth through 12th grade. The current class size cap is 35 students. The contract requires paraprofessionals to help in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms with more than 25 students, and in fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms with more than 27 students.

The district doesn’t currently have a caseload cap for specialized service providers or special education teachers, which educators say leads to burnout and high turnover.

“One of the few new employees who chose to join our team shared that colleagues in our field that previously worked in DPS have warned them not to work in the district, stating that they were underpaid, undervalued, and overworked,” speech therapist Jenni Scobey said.

But Marrero disagrees that caseload or class size caps are the solution. Instead, he said the union and district should form a committee to review class size data and figure out how to respond. He pointed to statistics from the Colorado Department of Education that show Denver has a student-to-teacher ratio of 14.5-to-1. Union leaders are skeptical.

To provide relief to overworked specialized service providers, Marrero would like to hire a central team of speech therapists and others to deploy to schools in need.

The district and the union met three times this week and have another bargaining session scheduled for Wednesday, the day the contract expires. In past years, the two sides have extended the expired contract so they can keep negotiating.

Marrero said he’s confident they can reach a deal by Wednesday.

“I am not only hopeful, I am committed to reaching an agreement by the 31st,” he said.

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

A first look at Denver Public Schools’ new strategic plan

2022-08-19T15:41:23+00:00

A year into his tenure, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero is rolling out a new strategic plan to guide Colorado’s largest school district.

The plan, which Marrero calls a roadmap, focuses on three broad goals: improving the student experience, improving the adult experience for educators and families, and replacing “ineffective, destructive systems” with “equitable, transparent systems,” according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat.

It also comes with a new catchphrase: Every Learner Thrives.

“If we are to accomplish our vision that every learner thrives, we must reframe education as a series of experiences that promote an exchange of ideas, the pursuit of passion, and a quest for justice,” the plan says. “This is the DPS experience.”

Marrero said in an interview that he intentionally framed the plan as a fluid roadmap, with goals to be accomplished by 2026, rather than a rigid plan with annual benchmarks.

“That means that even if, God forbid, we’re in a situation like a COVID-19 pandemic, we can still recalculate, just like a navigation system, and still know where we want to be in 2026,” he said.

Denver has been operating without a strategic plan since 2020, when the previous plan developed by then-Superintendent Tom Boasberg expired. Marrero’s plan comes as Denver prepares to welcome back some 90,000 students who have experienced three pandemic-disrupted school years, which has led to lost learning and lower test scores.

“We have a deep, deep hole to climb out of,” Marrero said.

The plan is based on a 100-day listening tour Marrero conducted last year, recommendations from internal and external advisers, and goals set by the school board. Originally promised by early summer, the much-anticipated plan was released to district leaders first. A district spokesperson said it will be widely released in the next few weeks.

The pandemic has made the past few school years hard, with educators reporting major challenges with student behavior, mental health, and engagement with classwork. The plan sets goals not only for improving test scores and high school graduation rates, but also for raising participation in extracurriculars and creating a sense of belonging.

“I want our kids to look well beyond the scope of their neighborhood and block, and that can come in many ways,” Marrero said.

There is a focus throughout the plan on equity — closing academic gaps between student groups, expanding ethnic studies, hiring more teachers of color, and increasing access to culturally competent mental health services.

The plan calls for ongoing equity audits to improve district systems, as well as deeper partnerships with the community, competitive pay for teachers, and a more diverse workforce. It also calls for expanded opportunities for students, such as more career and technical education, access to advanced coursework, and health and financial education.

And the plan aims for 10 percentage-point gains by 2026 across a range of areas, from grade-level student performance to graduation rates to participation in parent-teacher conferences. Marrero also has a set of annual goals tied to his own evaluation.

The plan revives an idea to create an information dashboard that lets parents compare schools in more nuanced ways after Denver abandoned its previous school rating system and reverted to the state system, which is heavily dependent on test scores.

The plan also calls for more clearly defining how flexible different types of schools can be when carrying out district goals. Denver has long prided itself on its “family of schools,” which includes district-run schools, semi-autonomous innovation schools, and independent charter schools. With the move away from education reform policies and a contentious debate this spring about innovation schools, it’s been unclear how much autonomy building leaders have.

“In 2026, we’ll all discover how successful we were,” Marrero said of the roadmap’s goals, “but I’m very confident we will be.”

Below, find a more detailed description of the plan. Under each of the three broad goals, Marrero has laid out a set of more specific goals, strategies to achieve them, and ways to measure progress over the next four years.

The specific goals for improving the student experience include:

That students are on track to graduate ready for college, a career, and “life in a post-pandemic global society, with an accelerated trajectory for marginalized students”
That they “feel a strong sense of belonging, are emotionally supported in school, and have the capacity to advocate for themselves and for justice”
That they “grow in and pursue their areas of passion,” such as athletics and art

The strategies to achieve those goals include:

Improving access for all students to rigorous courses and high-interest curriculum
Enhancing academic programming in math and literacy, science and technology, humanities, ethnic studies, languages, and health and financial education
Expanding career and technical education
Speeding up student growth through specialized plans for students of color, multilingual learners, students with disabilities, and other marginalized groups
Providing “culturally affirming mental health resources and support”
Supporting student-led affinity groups “to build a sense of belonging and social identity”
Making it easier for students to sign up for and participate in enrichment and extracurricular activities

To measure progress, the plan calls for Denver schools to make gains of at least 10 percentage points in the number of students performing at grade level, graduating within four or five years, and graduating with college credit, apprenticeship or internship hours, or an industry certificate, all by 2026. The district’s four-year-graduation rate in 2021 was 74%.

The plan sets similar progress markers for more students earning a seal of biliteracy, which means they can read and write well in two or more languages, participating in “passion-sustaining programming,” and reporting a sense of belonging on district surveys.

The specific goals for improving the adult experience include:

That every staff member sees themselves as an educator
That the district’s workforce “reflects the diverse identities of our learners”
That families participate in making decisions that affect their children’s education

The strategies to achieve those goals include:

Countering “a narrative that views difference as a deficit”
Expanding efforts to recruit and retain staff from marginalized backgrounds
Paying employees salaries that are at or above market rates
Improving community engagement, especially with families of marginalized identities

To measure progress, the plan will look for 10 percentage-point improvements by 2026 in the proportion of staff who report on district surveys that they feel supported, as well as in families who report that they feel informed about their students’ progress, among other measures. The district hopes to see similar growth in the portion of family members from marginalized backgrounds who participate in parent-teacher conferences and district events.

The plan also calls for retaining more educators and for recruiting and hiring more employees from diverse backgrounds, with targets to be set next year. Though a majority of Denver students are students of color, most Denver teachers are white.

The specific goals for changing district systems include:

Disrupting, dismantling, and redesigning inequitable systems
Providing resources and services equitably and transparently
Ensuring the district is “recognized locally, regionally, and nationally as a leader in practices for equity and sustainability”

The strategies to achieve those goals include:

Regularly auditing operational and academic systems for equity
Increasing access to “clear and transparent information about the characteristics and effectiveness of different schools” that goes beyond school ratings issued by the state
Developing a way to measure progress at the district, school, and classroom levels
Partnering with external organizations to meet community needs
Defining which flexibilities will be available to traditional district-run schools, semi-autonomous district-run innovation schools, and independent charter schools

To measure progress, the plan calls for auditing 10 district systems for equity by 2026 and aligning the district budget and school-level strategic plans with the district strategic plan.

The district also plans to open six community hubs that will offer services such as mental health help, GED and citizenship classes, and food and school supplies.

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

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a link to the finalized strategic plan.

Charter school centering Black students wins appeal to open in Denver

2022-08-18T17:10:16+00:00

Two months after the Denver school board turned down a charter school focused on Black students, the school won an appeal before the State Board of Education.

The 5280 Freedom School was one of three elementary charter schools whose applications were denied by the Denver school board in June but the only school to appeal. After hearing arguments from both sides Wednesday, the charter-friendly State Board sided with the 5280 Freedom School in a 5-2 vote, which will force Denver to reconsider its denial.

State Board members were unconvinced by Denver Public Schools’ argument that the 5280 Freedom School would struggle to attract enough students and balance its budget. Elementary school enrollment in Denver is shrinking, and the district pointed out that 11 charter schools have closed in the past four years, in large part because of a lack of students. Once fertile ground for charter schools, Denver has become less hospitable politically as well.

But State Board members said it was unfair to assume the 5280 Freedom School would meet the same fate. “It seems unfair to hold this would-be operator responsible for challenges that another operator experienced,” Democratic board member Rebecca McClellan said.

McClellan joined Democrat Angelika Schroeder and the three Republican board members in voting in favor of the 5280 Freedom School. Though they voted yes, Republicans Joyce Rankin and Steve Durham questioned the school’s proposed focus on culturally relevant curriculum and its mission to combat anti-Black racism in Denver Public Schools.

“I may disagree with many of the premises of this school,” Durham said. But, he added, “what schools like this do is at least they’re innovative.”

A student who attended the 5280 Summer Freedom School shows her artwork.

The 5280 Freedom School is proposing to open in central Denver in the fall of 2023 with up to 52 students in kindergarten and first grade. The school plans to add grades each year until it reaches 300 students, a benchmark the district argued will be hard to achieve.

Founder Branta Lockett disagrees. A former Denver teacher, she and others have run a successful summer camp focused on the well-being of Black children, teaching them about Black history, African drumming, poetry, nutrition, and more. Families loved the camp so much they asked that the program become a year-round school, Lockett said.

“A reason our school is so needed is that DPS has failed Black students and other marginalized students over time,” Lockett said. She pointed to several examples, including the disproportionate discipline of Black students and the under-identification of Black students as gifted.

The Denver school board has acknowledged that the district has served its Black students more poorly than its white students, and has ordered its schools to do better. But wide disparities still exist. State standardized test scores released Wednesday reveal that Denver has the largest gap between the scores of white and Black students in the entire state.

“This school being unique in centering the experiences of Black students, it takes us away from trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” McClellan said. “It gives students and families a chance to try something they think will work better.”

The Denver school board could reject the 5280 Freedom School again. The charter school could appeal again too. A second State Board decision would be final.

This is the second time in two years that the State Board has overturned a charter school decision by the Denver school board. In 2020, the State Board ordered Denver to reconsider its decision to delay the opening of a new high school in the DSST charter network. Upon reconsideration, the Denver board voted unanimously to allow the school to open sooner.

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

‘One voice’: A new approach to governance is dividing the Denver school board

2022-07-29T17:21:05+00:00

Personality conflicts, power struggles, and tense debates have marked the past several months on the Denver school board. The strife is driven less by political differences than by disagreements about how the board should operate. Some community members worry the disagreements are eroding trust in the board and distracting from the goal of advancing equity for students.

The school board’s latest retreat, held in mid-June, was facilitated by a consultant who specializes in conflict resolution. Forty-five minutes into the eight-hour meeting, the facilitator noted the tension in the glass-walled, high-rise meeting room.

“I absolutely feel the energy in this room of mistrust and fear and hesitation,” she said.

The facilitator asked the board to suspend those feelings and imagine what could be possible if all seven of them worked together — an outcome that is all the more crucial as Denver Public Schools heads into a new school year with lots of ground to make up.

“The interpersonal challenges we’re facing right now is something we need to overcome immediately,” board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said in an interview, “so we can meet the focus and intent of doing policy work that impacts our students.”

This board was expected to be more unified than any in recent history because all members were backed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and pledged a new approach after more than a decade of education reform policies. But over the past six months, board members have interrupted one another in meetings, raised their voices, and accused each other of gaslighting, misogyny, and playing the “oppression Olympics.”

Who is on the Denver school board?

Carrie Olson was elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2021 to represent central-east Denver.

Tay Anderson was elected in 2019 to represent the city at-large.

Scott Baldermann was elected in 2019 to represent southeast Denver.

Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán was elected in 2021 to represent southwest Denver.

Scott Esserman was elected in 2021 to represent the city at-large.

Michelle Quattlebaum was elected in 2021 to represent northeast Denver.

Charmaine Lindsay was appointed in 2022 to represent northwest Denver after member Brad Laurvick, who was elected in 2019, resigned.

How long do board members serve?

Board members are elected for four-year terms. They can only serve two terms, or eight years total. The terms are staggered so that new members are elected every two years.

What does the board do?

The board sets policy for Denver Public Schools, which serves more than 90,000 students. The board hires the superintendent, who is tasked with putting that policy into action.

They disagree on matters as small as whether to call each other by their first names in work sessions and as big as how to gather feedback from the community, which has led some members to hold public events without inviting others.

The board spent much of the winter and spring debating a single policy related to school autonomy and teachers rights, which critics said left little time to talk about important issues such as helping students learn to read and improving their mental health.

The tensions boiled over at a June meeting to fill a vacant board seat. It took nine rounds of voting and several heated and emotional exchanges for a majority of members to agree.

“I’ve shared with each of you privately that I’m really worried about the health of our board in moving forward,” member Carrie Olson said at the meeting.

A few days later, Gaytán told local media outlets she feared at-large board members Tay Anderson and Scott Esserman were planning to replace her as president. The fear stemmed partly from comments Anderson made on a local internet talk show about wanting to “decrease and decentralize the role of the president and empower it in the board as a whole.”

A coup didn’t happen. But apprehension and accusations permeated what was supposed to be a meeting to work through differences. When the mediator tried to pair Gaytán and Esserman for an exercise, Gaytán said she didn’t want to be alone in a room with him.

The board headed into summer break with conflicts unresolved.

Differing views of how board should run

Chalkbeat spoke with six of the seven board members, as well as more than a dozen parents, educators, and community members who watch the board closely. Some said adult politics and personalities have gotten in the way of children’s needs.

“I believe each one of our board members is a good person because you don’t volunteer for this job if you don’t care about kids at some level,” said Nicholas Martinez, co-founder of local advocacy group Transform Education Now.

“But I don’t see folks being willing to put their own goals aside to do right by kids.”

Others see passion and a new board finding its way.

“From my perspective, we have a group of passionate leaders that chose to be in service of the students of Denver Public Schools,” said board member Michelle Quattlebaum, who was elected last year. “And so with that passion sometimes you have disagreements.

“As far as us being functional, dysfunctional, something in between, I guess I’d say it’s in between. We’re trying to find our synergy and what does that look like.”

With the exception of the newly appointed member, the board has been working together since November. That’s when three new members — Gaytán, Quattlebaum, and Esserman — were elected. Their first meeting included a surprise: In a secret ballot, Gaytán was chosen as president over Olson, who had led the board for the past two years.

Denver school board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, seen here at a 2021 climate rally, acknowledges that personal conflicts are getting in the way of board work.

Quattlebaum was elected secretary and Esserman was elected treasurer. Anderson, who joined the board in 2019, was elected vice president.

The vote created a leadership group representative of the board’s diversity. It also elevated brand-new members while the board was transitioning to a new, little understood governance structure that has become its own source of tension.

Called policy governance, it is meant to set clear expectations for the board and superintendent. Board members set goals for the district. The superintendent comes up with a strategic plan to reach those goals. The board then evaluates the superintendent — and decides whether to fire or rehire him — based on the progress he made toward those goals.

The previous board adopted it in the spring of 2021 to help attract a new superintendent. Some in Denver, including the mayor, blamed a dysfunctional school board for the resignation of former Superintendent Susana Cordova in 2020. Board members wanted to assure her successor that they wouldn’t be micromanaged or undermined.

But most board members said the switch to policy governance has been bumpy.

“Part of what’s going on with policy governance is that we have seven board members with seven different understandings of what policy governance should look like and how it should be implemented and how to interpret what it is,” Esserman said.

Pushback on how the president monitors behavior

Current board policy says the president should “monitor board behavior” to make sure members are following rules and policies, as well as state law. But the board is still drafting some of its rules, including around how to engage the community and gather feedback, which has led to disagreements about what members can and can’t do.

Early this year, Anderson, Esserman, and Quattlebaum planned to host a virtual town hall meeting about a proposal introduced by Gaytán and board member Scott Baldermann. The proposal aimed to shore up teacher job protections but also limited the autonomy enjoyed by innovation schools. It was controversial from the start.

Gaytán told the other board members to hold off.

“I am pausing any impending town halls,” she wrote in an email to board members that was obtained by Chalkbeat. She also asked board members to refrain from meeting with teachers or principals “until we implement a plan for our community engagement.” Gaytán has said policy governance requires the board to speak with “one voice” and engage the community together.

In emails, Anderson and Esserman pushed back. Anderson said that while he respected Gaytán as president, he disagreed with her “unilateral” decision to nix the town hall.

“I have always held town halls on significant issues like this without the board president pushing back,” he wrote, adding that he’d followed her directive for 11 days but couldn’t continue to do so when the board was considering voting on the job protections as early as the following month. “I must be accountable to those who sent me to this seat and at least hear them out.”

President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán and Vice President Tay Anderson do a teambuilding activity during a school board retreat in March.

Anderson, Esserman, and Quattlebaum held the town hall.

How board members interact with the public continues to be a point of contention. Anderson and Esserman are launching a series of community meetings starting Saturday. They didn’t coordinate with Gaytán to plan the session in her own southwest Denver district.

Gaytán also has chided board members about comments they’ve made publicly. For example, she confronted Esserman for saying at a community meeting that a district decision to move a storied JROTC program from Manual High School, where most students are Black and Latino, was an example of institutional racism.

Gaytán summarized her conversation with Esserman in an email that she provided to Denver media outlet Westword. She wrote that his comments at Manual were “egregious” and put the integrity of the board and superintendent at risk.

“Esserman responded with an aggressive tone and was dismissive by telling me that I had limited authority as president of the board,” Gaytán wrote. “He told me that the authority I believed I had was in fact ‘imaginary authority.’ He continued with his verbal abuse and stated that my interpretation of policy governance is a ‘garbage interpretation.’”

In an interview, Esserman declined to comment on allegations that he verbally abused Gaytán.

“I don’t think that it serves the students, families, teachers, and community members of Denver Public Schools to get into that,” he said. “I’m not interested in engaging in that dialogue publicly.”

Gaytán has made similar allegations of bullying against Anderson.

“There are some people who will question a woman leader,” Gaytán said in an interview. “That’s one aspect of what could potentially be some of the dynamics at play here.”

Anderson said his disagreements with Gaytán are because they have different opinions on policy governance and the role of the board president.

“There have been several times where our president has been misguided on her power or her roles and we’ve had to correct that in private settings,” Anderson said. “Any time we push back, we are met with, ‘We are anti-Latino, we are anti-women, we are anti-something.’

“It’s truly just stating, ‘This is the role of the board president.’”

School board Vice President Tay Anderson, seen here just after being sworn in in 2019, believes holding community meetings is part of his job as an elected official.

Anderson said he voted for Gaytán for president but now regrets it.

“If I could do it again,” he said, “I would have cast my ballot for President Olson.”

Worries that board division could affect students

Why does it matter if the school board is getting along? In short, community members said, because dysfunction on the board can get in the way of schools making progress for students.

“The power struggle will overshadow the board doing anything,” said Milo Marquez, who belongs to a group called the Latino Education Coalition, which supports Gaytán as president. “It’s taking away from the larger focus, and that is that our children come first.”

TeRay Esquibel, who heads an organization for young Denver Public Schools alumni called Ednium: The Alumni Collective, agreed.

“I hope at some point we can get to a point where we’re having conversations on, ‘What does it mean to serve students and families?’” he said.

Those who helped elect the board members also worry that any dysfunction could be used as political fodder for their opponents. Retired Denver teacher Margaret Bobb runs a popular pro-union Facebook page with more than 5,000 members. She shut it down for the summer because acrimonious comments, especially in the wake of a split vote to appoint new board member Charmaine Lindsay, were raising public awareness of divisions on the board.

“I thought we were all headed in the same positive direction together,” Bobb said of the board members. “I hope they’re using this time in the summer to meet one-on-one with each other and resolve whatever is simmering below the surface.”

After the contentious retreat in June, the board took July off. Their first meeting of the new school year will be another hourslong retreat Aug. 8.

“We’re all committed to the kids,” Olson said. “We have a lot of the right ingredients to make a recipe of a strong board. We’re just not there yet.”

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

Denver board reverses parts of controversial innovation schools policy

2022-06-17T01:12:12+00:00

The Denver school board Thursday partially reversed an earlier decision, returning control to the district’s semi-autonomous innovation schools over their school calendars, the structure of their school leadership teams, and other aspects of how the schools are run.

The 5-to-2 vote came three months after the board adopted a controversial policy requiring Denver’s 52 innovation schools to abide by the entire teachers union contract, as well as the state law that grants teachers Colorado’s version of tenure.

Under the revisions passed Thursday, innovation schools will still have to abide by the state tenure law. But the schools won’t have to follow the entire teachers union contract. Instead, some provisions will be mandatory and others will be flexible.

For example, it will be mandatory for innovation schools to pay their teachers according to the salary schedule in the contract. But schools will be able to start the year early or end it late.

The revisions came about because a majority of board members argued that the policy they passed in March had unintended consequences. While the goal of the policy was to strengthen job protections for teachers, some board members said they never meant to curtail the flexibilities that let innovation schools try new things and operate differently from traditional schools.

Board members said they didn’t realize the March policy would curtail innovation schools’ ability to set their own calendars, for example, until after the vote when district staff wrote a memo about the policy’s ramifications.

“We have to make sure we correct things that were an oversight for us when we first voted on this,” said board member Michelle Quattlebaum.

Quattlebaum joined board members Carrie Olson, Scott Esserman, Charmaine Lindsay, and board Vice President Tay Anderson in voting for the revisions. Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán and member Scott Baldermann voted no. Gaytán and Baldermann were the architects of the original policy, while Anderson took the lead on drafting the revisions.

Enshrined in state law, innovation schools are district-run schools that can waive certain parts of the tenure law and teachers union contract. The March policy put limitations on those waivers, prohibiting Denver schools from seeking waivers to hire teachers on one-year contracts, for example, or paying teachers stipends to work extra hours.

Those waivers also won’t be allowed under the revised policy. Innovation school teachers will be able to earn “non-probationary status” after three years of effective performance evaluations, providing them job protections if they are laid off or due process if they are fired. They will have access to a mediator to help settle grievances. And if they work extra hours, they will be paid at a rate that meets or exceeds the hourly rate spelled out in the teachers contract.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association supported the policy passed in March, while many innovation principals and parents opposed it, worried it would hamper the unique practices at their schools. Unlike when the board voted in March, there was no lengthy public comment session Thursday with educators and parents pressing the board on the pros and cons.

Much of the board discussion Thursday centered on the timing of the vote. A motion to postpone it until the end of the month failed. Some board members wanted to give the superintendent and teachers union more time to come to an agreement on which parts of the contract should be flexible and which should not. But a majority of board members said delaying the vote only would have delayed the uncertainty for innovation schools.

“Innovation schools deserve some resolution,” said board member Charmaine Lindsay, who was appointed last week to fill a vacant seat. Thursday’s meeting was her first on the board.

The policy will go into effect when innovation schools apply to renew their innovation plans. Nearly all Denver’s innovation schools — 49 of the 52 — are up for renewal in the 2022-23 school year.

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

Deeply divided Denver school board appoints Charmaine Lindsay to vacancy

2022-06-10T12:00:00+00:00

After nine rounds of voting and a tense discussion Thursday that revealed frayed relationships between Denver school board members, the board appointed family law attorney Charmaine Lindsay to fill a vacant seat.

Lindsay will serve the remaining 17 months of the term of former board member Brad Laurvick, a Methodist pastor who resigned from the board because he is relocating for his job. Elected in November 2019, Laurvick served through most of Thursday’s board meeting, stepping down at the end so the other members could appoint his replacement.

The discussion among the other six members was marked by sadness, frustration, and concern about the board’s ability to work together. Allegations of dysfunction have dogged the board since 2020, when the Denver mayor and others blamed board members for the resignation of former superintendent Susana Cordova. A new superintendent, a new board governance structure, and new board members elected in 2021 who shared the backing of the Denver teachers union presented the board with a chance for a fresh start.

But despite sharing similar political views on education, board members haven’t been united, with much of the spring taken up by extended debate on school autonomy that isn’t settled yet.

For several rounds of voting Thursday, the six remaining members were split on who to appoint. Five people applied to fill the vacancy but one later dropped out, leaving four candidates.

“I can see where we’re headed, and I’ve shared with each of you privately that I’m really worried about the health of our board in moving forward,” board member Carrie Olson said. “No matter where we land on this vote, I’m concerned that we need to all be able to come together.”

Charmaine Lindsay speaks at a forum in May.

Board Vice President Tay Anderson and members Scott Esserman and Michelle Quattlebaum initially supported Lindsay, while Olson, President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán and member Scott Baldermann supported another applicant, former Denver teacher Julie Bañuelos.

Gaytán noted that Bañuelos ran for the board seat representing northwest Denver in 2019 and came in a close second behind Laurvick in a three-way race. Olson said Bañuelos understands the district and has deep roots in the northwest community, which is home to many Latino families. Bañuelos is Latina, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and bilingual.

But Anderson and Quattlebaum expressed concerns, including about an interaction in which Bañuelos asked Quattlebaum, who is Black, “Do you speak for the Latinos too? Do you speak Spanish?” The interaction happened last month while the board was publicly interviewing applicants for the vacancy. Quattlebaum said she found Bañuelos’ questions condescending and was hurt her colleagues didn’t speak up.

Anderson said that while he and Bañuelos share many of the same views, he could not vote for her because of how she reacted to secondhand sexual assault allegations levied against him last year. A district investigation found those allegations were unfounded. Anderson grew emotional as he described the impact of the accusations, including threats against his family.

Esserman and Gaytán had a heated exchange about a Zoom meeting that took place between Esserman, Anderson, and Bañuelos as part of the board’s efforts to interview applicants. Bañuelos brought an attorney to the virtual meeting, a decision Esserman said was problematic.

Gaytán defended Bañuelos’ actions.

“As a woman of color, I understand that,” Gaytán said. “I understand when there’s two men that behaved a certain way in an interview, if you’re not sure if they’re going to come at you some kind of way, you’re going to feel —”

“I will not be attacked by you in any comment,” Esserman said, interrupting her. “I did not behave in any way inappropriately in any interview at any point, and I will not be told that I was.”

Anderson also objected to Gaytán’s characterization. “I take great offense to that, as you painted me as an aggressive Black man trying to attack a woman,” he said.

“I did not say that,” Gaytán said.

In supporting Lindsay for the vacancy, Anderson touted her experience as a parent and her legal experience as a trained mediator, saying the board could use her skills. He noted that Lindsay holds no political allegiances and told the board she’s uninterested in running for election when the northwest seat comes open in November 2023.

“This has been one of the most tumultuous times I have sat on this board because of the way that we govern, the way that we interact with one another,” Anderson said.

“Charmaine may not be our No. 1 choice, for some, but I do believe Charmaine brings the perspective of a trained mediator, and we gotta get our house together.”

Following Anderson’s comments, Olson joined Anderson, Esserman, and Quattlebaum in voting to appoint Lindsay to the board. Olson had voted no on Lindsay in four prior rounds of voting.

“I agree with Director Anderson that this vote has been particularly stressful,” Olson said, “and in speaking with many of my board colleagues, we’ve shared tips on panic attacks. It’s been a rocky road. There’s just a lot going on. I think it’s healthy for our board to get somebody in this seat and for us to be able to move forward to start building a team together.”

The board plans to hold a retreat next Thursday, and several members said it was important for the newest member to be there. The board will also hold a special meeting that afternoon to vote on revising a controversial new policy affecting semi-autonomous innovation schools.

The five people who applied to fill Laurvick’s seat were Lindsay, Bañuelos, Leonard “Leo” Darnell, David Diaz, and Adeel Khan. Diaz dropped out of the running before the vote and threw his support behind Bañuelos, who also had the support of a number of Latina elected officials.

Over the next 17 months, the board will grapple with several big issues, including how to address declining enrollment and the possibility of closing or consolidating small schools.

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