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Two-thirds of Colorado’s 1,700 schools and 55% of its 180 school districts earned high ratings from the state this year, according to preliminary state data released Wednesday. That’s slightly higher than the percentage that earned those preliminary ratings last year.
Despite little change in the overall numbers, there were bright spots and alarm bells for individual districts and schools. Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest district, jumped from a middle-tier yellow rating to the second-highest green rating. The last time DPS was green was in 2019, before the pandemic.
In a made-for-Instagram moment, Superintendent Alex Marrero celebrated by getting slimed by middle schoolers at Bear Valley International School as district staff recorded the moment for social media. The slime, ordered from Amazon, was green.
“This recognition is not just about numbers,” Marrero said before sitting in a kiddie pool of slime. “It reflects the collective effort of our entire DPS community.”
The preliminary ratings released by the Colorado Department of Education reflect the slow stop-and-start progress Colorado students have made toward their pre-pandemic achievement levels. The ratings are largely based on state standardized test results, which have inched up in recent years but have not yet hit pre-pandemic levels in all grades and subjects.
Schools and districts can appeal their ratings if they can present additional data to warrant a change. After considering appeals, the state will finalize the ratings later this fall.
Schools and districts with low ratings land on a state watchlist known as the accountability clock, because it ticks toward intervention. After five years on the clock, the State Board of Education must order schools or districts to undergo changes meant to improve student performance. Those changes could include closing a school or requiring a struggling district to merge with a better-performing one. But the State Board has avoided taking such drastic measures.
There are now 14 districts on the state’s accountability clock, up from 11 last year. Among the districts that are newly on the clock this year is Westminster Public Schools, which serves about 8,000 students just north of Denver. Westminster was last on the clock in 2017.
Brian Kosena, the district’s chief learning officer, said Westminster faced several challenges last school year, including a staff shortage. The district started last school year with 37 unfilled instructional positions, including seven unfilled multilingual interventionist roles. About 40% of Westminster students are learning English as a second language, and the district has enrolled more than 700 new immigrant students in recent years, Kosena said.
“With staffing shortages, we were not always able to provide the level of individualized instruction that students ultimately deserve,” he said.
That strain showed up in Westminster’s test scores for multilingual learners, Kosena said, which caused the district’s rating to drop. But he said Westminster is off to a better start this year.
The district had just seven unfilled positions at the start of school, Kosena said. Its pool of substitute teachers is also bigger, which means classroom teachers don’t have to give up their planning time to cover for one another. And the district has a new policy meant to incentivize teachers to take less time off by paying them more for unused vacation days.
“We know that we’re better than any state label,” Kosena said. “That ‘priority improvement’ places an unfortunate label on the district right now. But we’re confident we’re going to be able to bounce back out of the ‘priority improvement’ and get to the ‘improvement.’”
Montezuma-Cortez, a rural district with 2,400 students in southwestern Colorado, is also back on the clock after a reprieve of just one year. Two of Colorado’s 10 largest districts — Adams 12 in the Denver suburbs and District 49 near Colorado Springs — earned lower ratings this year than last year, dropping from green to yellow. They are not on the clock, however.
Adams 14, a long struggling 5,000-student district based in Commerce City, has spent the longest time on the clock: 12 years. In 2022, the state ordered the district to be reorganized but backed down in 2023 after community pushback.
Despite being on the watchlist for so long, Adams 14 made some modest gains. It earned more points toward the state rating calculation this year: 36.8% compared with 35.6% last year. One of its schools, Alsup Elementary, bumped up from the second lowest “priority improvement” rating to the next category, “improvement.” A few schools slipped in the ratings, most notably Rose Hill Elementary, which dropped from the second lowest rating to the lowest red “turnaround” rating. It’s the only red school in the district.
Statewide, 176 schools are now on the clock, down from 190 last year at this time. Denver’s Lake Middle School is among the schools that exited the clock for receiving back-to-back green ratings. But Denver’s Abraham Lincoln High School remains on the clock.
Denver’s superintendent unveiled a new policy this past spring that calls for the district to close or replace schools with four years of low ratings — before the State Board can step in. Known as the School Transformation Process, the policy went into effect last month.
Two Denver schools now have four years of low ratings: John F. Kennedy High School, which is run by the district, and Rocky Mountain Prep Noel, which is an independently run charter school. However, a spokesperson for Rocky Mountain Prep said the charter network, which is Denver’s second-largest, won’t be participating in the School Transformation Process.
Marrero had said the district would negotiate with Denver’s charter schools in the hopes they would agree to abide by the process. But essentially, it’s voluntary for those schools.
“We hold deep respect for Dr. Marrero and are firmly committed to accountability in all its forms,” the Rocky Mountain Prep spokesperson said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to partner with DPS to share the academic outcomes being achieved at RMP Noel.”
John F. Kennedy High won’t be closed under the policy this year either. Instead, it could face what Marrero calls “reconfiguration,” which might include shrinking a school by removing some grade levels. The potential for school closure will start next year.
“We’re honoring the process, as painful as it is,” Marrero said.
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.
