Commentary
When students spend every passing period, lunch period, and free moment looking at a screen, we lose opportunities for human connection. We lose opportunities for friendship, community, and belonging. We lose opportunities for trusted adults to notice when a student may be struggling.
Denver Public Schools has begun a months-long process of collecting feedback and studying options for redrawing its school boundaries. It’s sure to be a contentious process, akin to school closure debates. Perhaps that is one of the reasons the district hasn’t undertaken this task since 1955-96, when federally mandated busing for integration ended after 25 years. In this episode co-hosts Alexis Menocal Harrigan and Alan Gottlieb discuss the promises and pitfalls the district will face in the coming months. Gottlieb was a Denver Post reporter during the lasy boundary debate, and offers some historical perspective.
Not all co-locations feel the same. Some create a sense of direct competition; others feel more complementary. That distinction matters because successful co-location requires more than operational efficiency. It requires trust, structure, and intentional partnership.
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Our guest for this episode is Pat Donovan, who has been a leading Denver public-education advocate for many years. He led the advocacy and funding organization RootED, held a top leadership position at its successor, Denver Families for Public Schools. He heads the board of Rocky Mountain Prep, one of Denver’s largest, homegrown charter school networks. He’s also a board member at the Colorado League of Charter Schools.
Donovan has a long perspective on a variety of trends in Denver Public Schools, including how well the district is preparing students for life after high school and the narrowing of school choice. We invited Pat on for a wide-ranging discussion on these and other DPS-related topics.
Boardhawk wanted former Denver school board member Scott Esserman on the podcast because we vigorously disagreed with him on a range of Denver Public Schools issues during his tenure, and wrote about him in a harshly critical tone on several occasions. At times the tone of those criticisms might have obscured the substantive differences in policy and philosophy that underlay them. Some of those disagreements include the performance of Superintendent Alex Marrero, whether DPS is headed n the right direction, Marrero’s contract extension, and school safety.
But while holding the right people accountable to the implementation of schooling is critical, a primary focus on accountability of implementation is incomplete. How excellent teachers and administrators navigate the conditions/systems of school, are a) are impacted by constraints of a system and b) have an impact on what we all want from school: results.Â
Marrero clearly wants to consolidate as many as schools as possible under his control, returning to the bad old days of large urban districts being run by a bloated, inefficient system. The district’s las innovation zone is a big thorn in his side for that reason.Â
A proposed expansion of the Luminary Learning Network, Denver’s lone remaining Innovation zone, is being strongly opposed by Superintendent Alex Marrero. LLN Executive Director joins us to discuss the zone, and repeated attempts to curb its autonomies. The consolidation of school control under Marrero has implications for everyone with a stake in DPS.
In this second installment of our occasional series on the implications for public education of artificial intelligence in classrooms and homes, we welcome Dr. Richard Charles, the chief information officer for Denver Public Schools. A mathematician by training and inclination, Dr. Charles has deep knowledge of AI, its promises and pitfalls. This thought-provoking conversation is well worth a listen.
The potentially deadly ineptitude of Denver Public Schools’ approach to safety under the current regime is laid bare in a searing ruling issued this week by a federal judge in the lawsuit of an East High School dean shot inside the school by a student three years ago.
DPS, please don’t dilute committee’s cell-phone ban recommendations
When students spend every passing period, lunch period, and free moment looking at a screen, we lose opportunities for human connection. We lose opportunities for friendship, community, and belonging. We lose opportunities for trusted adults to notice when a student may be struggling.