In the end, supporters of innovation schools and zones did not get everything they wanted out of a new state law offering an added layer of dispute resolution when innovation zone plans are changed or status is revoked, but they’re framing it as a step forward nonetheless.
One by one, each school paraded its seniors to the stage to make their big announcement. Each announcement was followed by thunderous cheers and more than a few tears.
If Superintendent Alex Marrero and his team intended to calm the storm that has erupted during the past month over the attempt to limit innovation school freedoms, a letter intended to muzzle dissent appears to have backfired. In fact, district employees are becoming more outspoken in their displeasure over a multitude of issues they say are being mishandled by the current administration.
Four Denver school board members have requested from Superintendent Alex Marrero a school-by-school inventory of how recently approved changes to policy could negatively affect the school district’s 52 innovation schools.
The extent to which Denver Public Schools and its board are stumbling and bumbling through an ill-conceived effort to limit the freedoms of their 52 innovation schools would be comical if the stakes for children weren’t so high
If passed, this legislation would update Colorado’s policies, practices, and data frameworks to make data about students’ experiences at school more transparent and to ensure that every student learns in an environment that is positive, safe and inclusive.
The initial idea to champion a financial literacy campaign started in 2019 when alumni partners came together in Ednium’s Design Lab to identify issues they could impact in public-school education.
For the last 19 years as a parent and 15 years being professionally engaged, I have heard the rhetoric of engagement and longed for the reality of it. But the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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 story that you'll see in my professional arc, is working to ensure that as many kids as possible, especially those who come from a background similar to mine and face similar challenges, have access to high quality education, regardless of what they look like, how much money their parents have, or what zip code they they live in."
The Denver school board approved contract renewals for 16 charter schools Thursday, even as the board president continued to spread false information about charter schools' impact on district enrollment.
The two dissenting board members and a vociferous champion of the contract extension explained their votes at the conclusion of last Thursday's DPS board meeting.
The percentage of K-3 DPS students reading “significantly below grade level” had remained steady between 21% and 23% in the past five years. This year, that number jumped up to 31%.
The new Denver school will vote Thursday to extend Superintendent Alex Marrero's contract from two to four years, just five months into his tenure and before any kind of performance evaluation has been started, let alone completed.
Some board members made it clear that, in a perfect world, they would like to shorten the length of charter renewals and have an option not to renew a charter if its enrollment slips below a certain, as-yet undefined threshold.
"We tend to drift into adult issues, and I’m worried that there won’t be a laser focus on how students are doing,” eight-year incumbent Barbara O'Brien said moments after her board service ended Tuesday evening.
Some 217 DPS employees are out of compliance with vaccine mandates, and if they're let go, they’ll be tacked onto the already existing 42 bus driver openings, 96 food service openings and 525 teacher and paraprofessional openings.
A Denver-based youth activist group invited the 12 candidates running for four seats on the Denver Public Schools Board of Education to Montbello High School last week to hear how they plan to provide a more equitable education for Black, Brown and Indigenous students. The basis for the group’s questions was a research report put together by several local advocacy groups.
A consulting business set up by Denver school board member Tay Anderson in mid-August has received $5,000 over the past two months from the campaign of at-large school board candidate Scott Esserman, records show.
The basic issue, some board members said, is one of fairness and equity. Board service is out of reach to people who lack leisure time and means to put in what amounts to almost full-time hours for what is now a volunteer position.
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