Boardhawk interviewed Shakira Abney-Wisdom, founding principal of the Robert F. Smith STEAM Academy, the district-managed high school in Far Northeast Denver that will open later this year.
The degree of autonomy over how innovation zone schools approach teaching, learning and the academic calendar allows them some creativity in how they move forward this summer to mitigate widespread 2020-21 learning loss.
The Denver school board's decision to reopen two comprehensive high schools that struggled in the past is popular with some people, and baffling to others.
Overall, more than traditionally-schooled children, Black homeschooled students experience physical and emotional safety, score higher on math and literacy assessments, and are able to adjust to a variety of social situations.
To continue the current, flawed approach to financial literacy education means maintaining economic inequities. All students, but especially students of color and those not classified as having “high” social-economic status, need and deserve access to these courses.
We are just in our first year, and yet the American Indian Academy of Denver (AIAD) is making history, providing an education that seemed unimaginable even 10 years ago.
It has been unsettling to our families and staff that until now, the conversation about our fate has been avoided in the Reimagining Montbello process. Our families are part of the Montbello community.
These women, these brown women, mattered to me and made a difference in my educational journey. We should celebrate them this Women’s History Month for all of the lives they have touched.
Should Colorado test its public school students this year to get some data on how the pandemic has affected different groups of kids? Or is the idea absurd on its face during a pandemic?
Colorado charter schools will receive more than $2 million in state grants to support innovative solutions to help state students affected by the economic, social and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Denver school board's focus on Black excellence is important, but looks two-faced when board members are ignoring the Black excellence at a Far Northeast Denver charter school.
There is no need to mince words: Remote learning has failed the children who need it most. Districts must pivot immediately or be held to account for their failure.
UPDATED: The Denver school board has decided to postpone its vote on allowing a DSST Rachel Noel High School to open next year. District officials worked this week with board members and DSST leadership to craft a compromise, but were unable to come up with a solution. An agreement satisfactory to all seemed a distant prospect at best.
The recently released school board evaluation of Denver Public Schools Superintendent Susana Cordova is a vague document that sheds light on little more than board members' divisions over her future.
The 6-1 vote masks significant divisions on the board and, more importantly, indefinitely delays the development of any kind of new accountability system parents can use to figure out which schools would work best for their children.
What if we put aside for a moment labored debates about how to get kids and teachers back into school safely for as many days as possible, whether or not to mandate masks, and how many hours a day of screen-based learning is too much? What if, instead of being paralyzed by fear, we moved forward in hope for a better transformed tomorrow?
A new report from A+ Colorado highlights the importance of transparent, collaborative, and vulnerable conversations about where we are and where we go in education. Now is the time to share all available information across district, professional, and political lines.
If you're like me and following the debate on proposed changes to the way schools are measured in Denver, you too may have concluded the color-coded school report cards - known as the School Performance Framework or SPF - do not necessarily reflect the culture of a school, or how satisfied a learner your child might be - even at a highly rated school. Color me disappointed with the SPF’s efficacy informing parents.
Mike Miles, CEO of First Future Schools, has deftly threaded the needle in a letter to his staff about reopening school next month. Read the full letter here.
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