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While her 5-year-old son attends kindergarten at west Denver’s Colfax Elementary School, Maelka attends class too. In a trailer near the playground, she and three other moms learn English.

On a recent Thursday, the group practiced letters and numbers by playing bingo.

“B eleven,” the teacher called out.

“Eleven! Eleven!” Maelka said. Then she translated the number into Spanish — “once,” pronounced on-say — for her classmates.

The trailer at Colfax Elementary is one of Denver Public Schools’ six “community hubs,” and the English language classes are among the most popular offerings. Launched in 2022 by Superintendent Alex Marrero, the community hubs were meant to take a two-generation approach to improving students’ lives by helping both children and parents with everything from food and clothing to financial counseling and mobile medical appointments.

Now, as more than 3,500 migrant students have enrolled in DPS since the beginning of the school year, the hubs are increasingly serving their families as they build new lives in Denver. The influx has stretched the hubs’ capacity, but district leaders said they remain committed to soliciting more donations and grant money to support the work.

“I need to learn English to understand, to work — and to learn, too,” Maelka said in Spanish. “It is important to know the language in the country where you are.”

Maelka and her family arrived in Denver from Venezuela in early December. After spending time in the city’s shelters, they found a house to rent near Colfax Elementary. Chalkbeat is withholding Maelka’s last name to protect her privacy.

The free classes do more than teach English, which offers the promise of higher-paying jobs. The hubs also foster a sense of community, said Manager Jackie Bell. On Maelka’s birthday, another mom baked her a cake and brought it to class.

The hubs are also a safety net. When one of the moms showed up to class in pain with a tooth infection, hub staff scrambled to connect her with a free dental clinic. When staff saw students were walking to school without warm jackets, the hub got a grant to buy brand new kid-sized puffy coats for students. When a grandmother who’s raising a grandson with autism told hub staff he would only eat one brand of rice, they were able to stock it in their mini market.

“That’s the message to our DPS parents that says, ‘We want you here,’” Bell said.

Karen Rodriguez picks up snacks for her daughter Carely, 11 months, at the mini market inside the community hub at John H. Amesse Elementary School.

There’s ‘magic’ in the hubs’ differences

The community hubs are an expansion of a previous program called the Family and Community Engagement Centers, often shortened to FACE Centers. The hub at John H. Amesse Elementary in far northeast Denver was one of two original FACE Centers.

Marrero toured the center at John H. Amesse early in his superintendency. On her wall, Manager Carla Duarte has a framed map of the city on which Marrero scribbled his vision to have a similar center in every region of Denver. Now, two years later, the six hubs offer the same programming that the centers offered and more, depending in part on the hub’s space.

Two hubs have micro grocery stores with fresh produce and frozen meat, while others have food pantries stocked with dry and canned goods. All hubs distribute diapers, but some partner with a local nonprofit to give away car seats and strollers. At least one has a thrift store-sized used clothing boutique. Some are now partnering with Denver Health, which parks its mobile clinic on the curb and sees patients for half-hour appointments.

The hubs’ staffing differs, too. They all connect parents to programs that help pay their bills, but some have financial coaches and classes on household budgeting. Others help parents find jobs. The workforce development coordinator at the far northeast hub recently helped a migrant father who’d worked as a barber in Venezuela for 24 years get a job at a Denver barber shop.

When a hub doesn’t have a particular service, the staff refer families to one that does.

“That’s the magic of the community hubs,” Duarte said. “We’re all so different.”

The hub at John H. Amesse is among the biggest and busiest. Its spaces are sprinkled throughout the school in converted classrooms and once-empty offices.

On a recent Wednesday morning, adult Spanish-speaking students in a GED class were practicing math and celebrating with pink-frosted cupcakes a classmate who passed their tests.

In a small room off the library, two women rocked the babies of the GED students. One of the women, a refugee from Afghanistan with children in DPS, first came to the community hub seeking help paying her family’s rent. Through a translator who spoke Dari, the woman’s native language, Duarte said the woman asked an important question.

“She just looked at me and said, ‘Do you have any jobs for me?’” Duarte said.

Duarte was looking to fill a child care position, but she was unsure about the language barrier. Nearly all hub employees speak Spanish, but none spoke Dari. But DPS said yes, and the woman is now learning English through the hub’s classes — and picking up Spanish, too.

“She’s so amazing,” Duarte said. “It’s like the best thing we ever did.”

There’s a similar story across the hall, where a former participant leads a “play and learn” class for toddlers and their parents, who on this day were busy blowing soap bubbles with straws.

Many of the “play and learn” parents also attend GED or English classes at the hub. Ingrid Alemán had to stop because her 2-year-old son, Dylan, cried too much when he was separated from her in the child care room. But the mother and son still come to “play and learn.”

“He’s learning how to socialize with other kids,” Alemán said in Spanish. “And as a mom, it helps me to be with other moms who can give me advice. Because in the house —”

“You and the kids —” Duarte said.

“In the house, it’s crazy,” Alemán said, laughing.

Teacher Mayra Lagunas, right, works with students Hugo Esparza, center, and Janeth Carhuamaca, left, on math during a GED class at the community hub at John H. Amesse Elementary School.

Migrants are among the more than 4,000 families served

The hubs cost approximately $737,000 each to run, for a total yearly cost of about $4.4 million, according to Esmeralda De La Oliva, the district’s hubs director. When Marrero announced the initiative in 2022, he said the hubs would be partly funded with savings from cuts he made to the district’s central office as part of a reorganization.

In the past two years, the hubs have served more than 4,000 families, De La Oliva said. That includes more than 1,000 parents who are enrolled in adult education classes. In addition to GED and English language classes, some hubs offer classes to help parents pass citizenship tests and classes that teach Spanish to English-speaking parents.

About 350 newly arrived adults are enrolled in the classes and the hubs have served 600 migrant families this year, De La Oliva said. The GED classes are at capacity, and De La Oliva said she’s seeking more funding for the GED and English language classes, mini markets, and food pantries from private donors and nonprofit organizations including the Denver Public Schools Foundation’s newly launched New Arrivals, Students & Family Fund.

The work of serving migrant families, many of whom have harrowing stories, can weigh on the hearts and minds of hub staff, De La Oliva said, which is why the district plans to offer intensive self-care training for staff starting next month. But the work is making a difference.

De La Oliva recalled a family who came into a hub this school year looking for diapers three weeks after arriving from Colombia. Within a month, the mom was enrolled in GED and English language classes. Within two months, the dad was working for the DPS transportation department, which has been notoriously short-staffed.

The hub at Swansea Elementary in north Denver is a 15-minute walk from the Western Motor Inn, which has served as an unofficial shelter for hundreds of migrants. As of a month ago, Swansea had enrolled more than 50 migrant students — and the hub was serving their families and others who heard about it through word of mouth, Manager Sandra Carrillo said.

People would walk through the hub door, sometimes in groups of six or more family members, Carrillo said. “They were like, ‘We just arrived today.’” Hub staff jumped in, providing everything from socks and underwear to help enrolling families’ 4-year-olds in Colorado’s new free preschool program.

Among the new arrivals at the Swansea hub was a 27-year-old man who is blind, Carrillo said. He doesn’t have any documentation from Venezuela that he’s legally blind. That has led to roadblocks in getting services such as RTD’s Access-a-Ride, which provides transportation to riders with disabilities. But the hub is doing its best to clear those roadblocks for its own offerings.

The man’s goal is to eventually study economics and computer science at a university, Carrillo said. He enrolled in the hub’s English classes but all of the materials were on paper. Carrillo said the hubs’ higher-ups were quick to approve the hub working with a local nonprofit to get the man the software he needs to participate in the classes.

“When families let us know they’re going through something, it’s working with everyone in the community to see who has resources,” Carrillo said.

While the work can be complicated, the goal is not.

As Carrillo noted, “Happier families, happier students.”

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

Inside a Colorado bill to provide extra funding to school districts serving migrant students

2024-03-16T00:37:32+00:00

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All Colorado school districts that have enrolled any migrant students since the Oct. 1 school funding cutoff date would get extra money — between $15,000 and $750,000 per district — under a draft bill approved unanimously on Friday by the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

But districts where the new arrivals have caused a net increase in students — meaning the district has more students now than on Oct. 1 — would get the most extra money. Those districts could get as much as an additional $4,500 for every newly arrived student.

The bill allocates $24 million to be distributed by May 31 to districts that have enrolled what it calls “new arrival students,” or students who moved to the United States less than a year ago, are not proficient in English, and are attending a U.S. school for the first time.

The city of Denver alone has served more than 39,000 new arrivals from Venezuela and other South American countries since it began keeping track more than a year ago, including families with children who have enrolled in public schools.

The details of how the $24 million would be doled out are somewhat complicated. First, there is a tiered system of lump sum payments to school districts based on the number of new arrival students they’ve enrolled since the October count. Districts would get:

$15,000 if they’ve enrolled between one and five new arrival students
$30,000 if they’ve enrolled between six and 10 new arrival students
$75,000 if they’ve enrolled between 11 and 30 new arrival students
$125,000 if they’ve enrolled between 31 and 50 new arrival students
$200,000 if they’ve enrolled between 51 and 100 new arrival students
$400,000 if they’ve enrolled between 101 and 200 new arrival students
$550,000 if they’ve enrolled between 201 and 500 new arrival students
$750,000 if they’ve enrolled 500 or more new arrival students

On top of that, districts with a net increase in enrollment would get $4,500 per student. Here’s where it gets complicated: Districts with a net increase would either get $4,500 for each migrant student they’ve enrolled or $4,500 per student based on the net increase, whichever is lesser.

If the $24 million isn’t enough to cover the costs, the bill says state officials can reduce the $4,500 per student to a lower dollar amount. If calculations show there will be leftover money, state officials could increase the $4,500 to a higher dollar amount.

State Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who sits on the budget committee, said in a text message that she’s happy that the bill could provide relief for districts statewide that are dealing with a “very out of the ordinary influx of new to country students arriving.”

Lawmakers have been working on the bill for over a month, debating various ways to dole out the $24 million. Sirota said the tiered funding proposal acknowledges districts incur fixed costs to educate any and all newly arrived students.

Friday’s vote by the budget committee finalized the language of the bill, but it has yet to be filed for consideration by the full Colorado General Assembly.

“I know my colleagues, our school districts, and our educators are going to be very excited to shepherd this bill across the finish line in the coming weeks,” Sirota said.

The funding is less than what school districts get for each student enrolled on Oct. 1: $10,614 on average. However, budget committee members wanted to earmark the $24 million to provide some relief for districts struggling with the extraordinary influx — money the districts would never get otherwise. (Students who stay enrolled next year will be factored into the school funding formula, and school districts will get money for those students.)

“This sudden influx has strained existing school infrastructure and staffing, led to overcrowded classrooms, stretched resources, and increased complexity to the student learning environment,” the bill says.

The bill also acknowledges that newly arrived students may need extra services, including English language development classes, mental health support, and more. Some may have been out of school for long stretches of time and need help catching up academically.

“New arrival students face unique challenges, including language barriers, cultural adjustments, and various academic backgrounds,” the bill says. “These unique challenges require specialized resources and support services.”

How much funding districts might get under the bill

Denver Public Schools and Aurora Public Schools have enrolled the most migrant students since the October count, according to data obtained through open records requests.

Denver has enrolled an additional 2,340 newcomer students, and Aurora has enrolled an additional 1,366 migrant students. Denver’s numbers were as of March 4, while Aurora’s were as of Feb. 29. The bill uses Feb. 29 as the date to calculate the difference between October count enrollment and how many students districts are serving now.

Accounting for students who left the districts between the October count and those dates, Denver had a net increase of 1,025 students, while Aurora had a net increase of 727 students.

Under the legislation, Denver Public Schools would get a lump sum of $750,000 for the 2,340 newcomers it has enrolled. The district would also get $4.6 million for the 1,025 net increase based on the $4,500 per student formula.

In Aurora’s case, the district would also get $750,000. And the district would get about $3.3 million for its total increase of students since the October count.

Most other districts that have enrolled more than 100 migrant students since the October count had either a much smaller net increase or a net decrease.

For instance, as of Feb. 29, the suburban Cherry Creek School District had enrolled an additional 532 newly arrived students since the October count. But the district has had a net decrease of 41 kindergarten through 12th grade students since Oct. 1.

Greeley-Evans School District 6 had enrolled 488 more migrant students, but only had a net increase of eight K-12 students. Adams 12 Five Star Schools had enrolled 389 additional students, but its school population only grew by 42 students.

And Jeffco Public Schools and Mapleton Public Schools had net decreases, despite enrolling 382 and 140 more new arrivals, respectively.

The student influx creates financial challenges for schools across the state, Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for Aurora Public Schools, said in an interview before the bill text was approved.

“There’s a real and specific impact of these 1,200 kids who have enrolled in our schools in terms of hiring new staff, repurposing classrooms for those schools,” Johnson said. “And those are real costs that are being incurred in real time.”

The challenges remain even in districts that have net decreases in overall enrollment.

A Cherry Creek spokesperson said the district has hired six staff members since January to support the new arrivals. Three of those hires are in newcomer classes and three are cultural liaisons who provide interpretation and other support to families who do not speak English.

Correction: This story has been corrected to update the per pupil figure districts get from the state.

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

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

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

To help address teens’ mental health needs, Colorado to launch Youth Mental Health Corps

2024-05-15T21:18:47+00:00

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Colorado is one of four states set to launch a new public-private program this fall aimed at addressing both the growing mental health needs of teenagers and a lack of providers.

Called the Youth Mental Health Corps, the program will train young adults ages 18 to 24 to act “as navigators serving middle and high school students in schools and in community-based organizations,” according to a press release from Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera’s office. The Youth Mental Health Corps website says corps members will “connect youth to needed mental health supports and resources in close collaboration with practitioners and community partners.”

The federal AmeriCorps service program will work with the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration and the Colorado Community College System to recruit and deploy the navigators, who will get a stipend and be eligible for student loan forgiveness and other help paying for college, the press release says.

“By joining this national initiative, we are not only addressing the urgent need for mental health resources but also creating meaningful pathways for our young adults to pursue careers in this vital field,” Primavera said in a statement.

Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a pediatric mental health “state of emergency” in 2021, and both public agencies and private organizations in the state responded with programs to address the crisis. The programs include the pandemic-era state-funded I Matter, which provides six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions to students in elementary through high school and which Colorado lawmakers recently made permanent.

The Schultz Family Foundation, founded by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and his wife, Sheri, and the online platform Pinterest are backing the Youth Mental Health Corps program, according to a press release from AmeriCorps.

The press release mentions “broad concern about the impact of social media on the mental health of young people” and says the Youth Mental Health Corps will “help students navigate social challenges online such as harassment, bullying and bias.”

Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas will launch Youth Mental Health Corps programs in September with “hundreds” of navigators across the four states, the press release says. Seven other states — California, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Utah — are set to launch programs in the fall of 2025, it says.

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

Denver Public Schools, teachers union in dispute over pay raises

2024-05-13T22:28:54+00:00

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The Denver teachers union says its contract with Denver Public Schools should mean bigger pay raises next school year. But DPS says it doesn’t have the money.

At issue is a provision in the contract between DPS and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. The provision says that if Colorado lawmakers boost funding to DPS by reducing the so-called budget stabilization factor, a mechanism that withholds state funding from K-12 schools to pay for other priorities, Denver teachers could get bigger cost-of-living raises.

After years of advocacy from both DPS and the teachers union, Colorado lawmakers did indeed vote this year to “fully fund” K-12 schools going forward. But DPS and DCTA disagree about whether the Denver district will have enough money to pay teachers those bigger raises.

“We did our part,” said Rob Gould, president of the DCTA. “We advocated.”

DPS should raise its teacher salaries to stay competitive with surrounding districts, Gould said, many of which are set to pay starting teachers more than Denver does.

“Just like everybody, we’re trying to put gas in our car to go to work, we’re trying to keep up with costs at the grocery store, we’re trying to keep up with rent,” Gould said of Denver teachers.

But DPS officials said the expected increase in state funding is not enough to trigger the provision about cost-of-living raises in the contract, which they said has been favorable to teachers overall. The average salary for Denver teachers has increased 47% since 2018, a year before the union went on strike for higher pay, according to a district presentation.

“We love teachers,” said district spokesperson Bill Good. “We value our teachers. This is a contract dispute, for lack of a better term, and has no bearing on how much we value our teachers and appreciate our teachers.”

The contract between DPS and DCTA dictates how much teachers are paid. Signed in 2022, it promised that if state lawmakers boosted DPS’ funding by enough money to cover the cost of teachers’ guaranteed step-and-lane raises, teachers could also get “full” — meaning more generous — cost-of-living raises in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.

That happened for the 2023-24 school year. Teachers and other union members got an 8% cost-of-living raise on top of raises for years of experience (steps) and education (lanes). In total, union educators got an average 11.5% raise this year, according to the district.

But DPS officials said the district doesn’t have enough money to do the same in 2024-25.

Next school year, officials argue that the expected increase in state funding to DPS won’t cover the cost of teachers’ guaranteed step-and-lane raises. DPS will be about $3 million short, said Chuck Carpenter, the district’s chief financial officer. As such, the provision in the contract granting teachers’ full cost-of-living raises won’t be triggered, district officials said.

Instead, DPS is proposing to give educators a 5.2% raise plus a $1,000 stipend next year. DCTA is asking for raises that would total an average of 8.3%.

To raise awareness of what the union characterized as DPS “backtracking” on its agreement, educators staged “walk-ins” at schools across the city last week and were set to hold a rally outside a Denver school board meeting Monday afternoon.

In an email from Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero to Gould, Marrero wrote that DCTA “knew, or should have known, that it was unlikely, if not impossible” for the district’s budget to increase enough for the contract provision to be triggered two years in a row.

Gould disagreed that the union knew its members wouldn’t get more generous raises. And he questioned the district’s integrity in making the contract deal.

“Why on earth would you make a deal if you had already known you couldn’t pay it?” Gould said. “To me, that’s bad faith bargaining.”

The teachers union disputes that DPS is $3 million short and has filed a grievance with the district. Union leaders said the district should take into account the annual “turnover savings” that result when veteran teachers at the top of the pay scale retire and are replaced by early-career educators who make less money. Over the past two school years, that savings has been about $10 million a year, according to district documents cited by the union.

But DPS said the turnover savings are not part of the calculus in the most recent contract.

“There is nothing in the contract that says if the money isn’t there on the [budget stabilization] factor buy down, we can go to these other sources to get that money,” Good said. “Our position is because the trigger wasn’t met, we are holding to the contract, which is 5.2% and $1,000.”

If the trigger was met and DPS had to pay the approximately 5,700 educators covered by the union contract a full cost-of-living raise, Carpenter said it would cost DPS another $16.9 million.

“That is a lot more than what we’ve got,” he said.

Gould, on the other hand, said the turnover savings are referenced in the contract. The provision in question mentions that costs to the district should be calculated “on actual expense,” which Gould said is shorthand for the cost of step-and-lane raises minus the turnover savings.

A hearing on DCTA’s grievance is scheduled for Tuesday, Gould said. If the district hearing officer sides with DPS, Gould said the union is prepared to request arbitration or eventually file a lawsuit.

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

The education bills that passed (and failed) in the 2024 Colorado legislative session

2024-05-10T20:35:02+00:00

Schools and money loomed large in the 2024 Colorado legislative session.

State lawmakers approved a new school funding formula 10 years in the making. They passed a “fully funded” K-12 budget, provided financial relief for districts enrolling an influx of newcomer students, and gave a big budget boost to public colleges and universities.

This year’s session, which wrapped on Wednesday, was the sixth in a row that both houses of the legislature were controlled by Democrats. Gov. Jared Polis is also a Democrat.

The new school funding formula prompted the most heated discussions. Lawmakers pushed it through in the waning days of the session, with the final vote taking place on the final day. The bill, which calls for $500 million in new spending over six years, follows a framework created by a 17-member task force but also includes compromises shepherded by sponsors.

The bill gained momentum after lawmakers ended the so-called budget stabilization factor, which withheld constitutionally mandated funding from K-12 schools in order to fund other priorities. Colorado is now in what lawmakers have called its “fully funded” era, though many advocates and district leaders say that schools still need more money.

College and university leaders raised similar concerns about their budgets, warning that they would need to hike tuition if the state didn’t provide more funding for their operations.

The powerful Joint Budget Committee, which has a heavy hand in crafting the state budget, provided millions more for higher education than Polis suggested. While the money will keep tuition increases lower, concerns about chronic underfunding remain.

Here’s a rundown, by topic, of education bills that passed (and a few that failed) this year. Some bills have already been signed into law by Polis, while others have not.

Student rights

Schools will be required to use a student’s preferred name under House Bill 1039. Refusing to use a student’s preferred name will be considered a form of discrimination.

Bullying based on a student’s weight, height, or body size will now be prohibited under House Bill 1285, which adds bullying related to physical appearance to the list of behaviors that are subject to school discipline policies and reporting requirements.

Preschool, public school, and college students will be allowed to wear objects of cultural or religious significance at their graduation ceremonies under House Bill 1323.

Students who are involved in the criminal justice system will have more support enrolling or re-enrolling in school and participating in school activities such as graduation ceremonies and sporting events per House Bill 1216. The state will also begin tracking attendance, dropout, and graduation rates for such students.

Student health

I Matter, a free therapy program for Colorado students started during the pandemic, will become permanent after lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1. I Matter provides six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions to students in elementary through high school.

Students will be allowed to carry and administer naloxone, a drug that can be used to reverse opiate overdoses, at school without risk of discipline or confiscation under House Bill 1003.

By the 2027-28 school year, an external organization will provide state-funded training to mental health staff in at least 400 public schools with an emphasis on rural schools and students who lack access to mental health support, per House Bill 1406.

Senate Bill 7 creates a behavioral health first aid training program that will contract with a Colorado nonprofit organization to train educators to recognize and respond to the signs of mental health crises and substance abuse in teens.

A grant program that funds school-based health centers will be expanded to include behavioral, preventative, and oral health care services under Senate Bill 34.

A bill to create a task force to study how much time schools give students to eat lunch — and ways to increase that time — never made it out of committee and did not pass.

Student and teacher safety

A task force created by House Bill 1320 will investigate incidents of student aggression against teachers, the effects of special education staffing shortages, and insufficient funding for student wraparound services. The task force will make recommendations for improvements.

Middle and high school sports coaches at public and private schools will have to complete an abuse prevention training program under Senate Bill 113.

Carrying a firearm, openly or concealed, will be prohibited on the grounds of any school, college, or child care center — with some exceptions — under Senate Bill 131.

The Colorado Department of Education will contract with an outside organization to develop best practices for how schools respond to reports of harassment and discrimination per Senate Bill 162. Public schools must begin training their employees in the 2025-26 school year.

Higher education

House Bill 1340 creates a tax credit for students enrolled in college. This bill would fund at least two years of in-state college for students whose families make less than $90,000 a year.

Students between the ages of 17 and 26 who have experienced homelessness at any time during high school will get help paying for college under House Bill 1403.

Colorado colleges and universities that enroll a higher-than-average proportion of students who are the first in their family to go to college will be designated as first-generation-serving institutions under House Bill 1082.

Students who transfer from one university to another will be able to retain the credits they earned, among other rights for transfer students enshrined in Senate Bill 164

Senate Bill 51 fixes an oversight in a law passed last year that was meant to expand adult diploma programs to help the more than 300,000 residents who never graduated high school.

Child care and early childhood education

A pandemic-era team that helps Spanish-speaking child care providers become licensed will continue its work after Colorado lawmakers approved ongoing funding in House Bill 1009.

Colorado’s child care subsidy program will get an overhaul that’s meant to boost aid for some families, make the subsidies easier to access, and attract more providers to accept subsidies. House Bill 1223 will also cover full tuition for child care employees with kids in child care.

Nature-based preschool programs can become licensed child care centers under Senate Bill 78.

House Bill 1331 creates a $5 million grant program for academic enrichment programs that occur when school is not in session. The programs must serve public school students.

Students with disabilities

House Bill 1063 puts stricter guardrails on the use of shortened schedules for students with disabilities and will require the state to collect data on how often students miss part of the school day because they are sent home early or placed on modified schedules.

A bill that would have banned seclusion, which is the practice of shutting students inside a room alone, was defeated at the request of the sponsor. State data shows that young students with disabilities are disproportionately secluded.

Senate Bill 69 requires the state to create a training program for parents and special education advocates “in plain and easy-to-understand language” about individualized education programs, or IEPs, which detail the services schools must provide students with disabilities.

Teacher workforce

School districts experiencing a teacher shortage will be able to hire more retirees to fill vacancies without impacting those retirees’ pension benefits under House Bill 1044.

Rural school districts will be able to hire retired superintendents and principals without impacting their pension benefits under Senate Bill 99.

Teachers will have an alternative way to get endorsed to teach special education or early childhood education, two fields with persistent shortages, per House Bill 1087. Instead of completing a college program, teachers can participate in a new induction program.

Out-of-state school psychologists who want to work in Colorado schools will be able to more easily transfer their licenses under an interstate compact created by House Bill 1096.

House Bill 1264 creates an online portal for educators to post resumés and school districts to post job openings. The portal will also include information about career incentives, stipends, loan forgiveness programs, mentorship opportunities, and more.

Teacher training

House Bill 1446 creates a free, optional training program for science teachers that will include “instruction on interventions for students who are below grade level or struggling in science, children with disabilities, and students who are English language learners.”

Experienced teachers will get paid stipends to mentor novice teachers with fewer than three years of experience under an expansion of an existing program, per House Bill 1376.

Some student teachers will get stipends under House Bill 1290.

School funding

Colorado lawmakers earmarked $24 million to be distributed to school districts that enrolled migrant students after the Oct. 1 student count under House Bill 1389.

Lawmakers passed House Bill 1390 in an attempt to shore up a new state program that provides free school lunches to all students. The program is facing a funding shortfall, and the bill delays implementing certain parts of the program in order to save money.

Charter schools

Charter schools authorized by the state’s Charter School Institute can now ask to share in some of the proceeds of local voter-approved tax increases when the schools need funding for construction or building renovation projects, per House Bill 1154.

CSI-authorized charters will also receive so-called mill levy equalization funding — state funding equal to the voter-approved tax revenue received by district-run schools in the same communities — under House Bill 1394.

A bill that would have significantly changed how Colorado charter schools operate and made it easier for local districts to close them was defeated by state lawmakers.

History and research

House Bill 1444 provides two more years of funding for a History Colorado research program “regarding the physical abuse and deaths that occurred at federal Indian boarding schools in Colorado.” The bill prioritizes collecting oral histories from survivors.

Climate education

Colorado high school graduates will now be able to earn a “seal of climate literacy” on their diploma to show they have the skills for green jobs or a background in managing Colorado’s natural resources under Senate Bill 14.

Prison education

House Bill 1461 will allow incarcerated students to take full advantage of a law that grants them early release for earning college degrees.

Career education

Colorado employers that employ an apprentice for at least six months can now get a tax credit of up to $12,600 per apprentice under House Bill 1439.

House Bill 1365 allocates $3.8 million for a fourth round of Opportunity Now grants to address workforce shortages in infrastructure and building trades.

Book bans

Colorado lawmakers voted down a bill that would have made it harder to remove content from a school or public library. But the issue resurfaced later in the legislative session in Senate Bill 216 — with a notable omission. School libraries are not part of the bill that passed.

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

2024 election: Colorado voters, what should the presidential candidates be talking about?

2024-04-08T17:10:04+00:00

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Educators, parents, and all Coloradans: What education issues would you like the 2024 presidential candidates to talk about, prioritize, and eventually take action on?

Tell us in a new statewide survey.

Called Voter Voices, the survey is part of a collaborative effort by newsrooms across the state to understand what Colorado voters want the candidates to focus on.

Why? Because voters are at the heart of every election. Your hopes and concerns will set the agenda for how we report and write about the issues — and the stakes — of the 2024 election.

Please take a few moments to share your thoughts. We will use your contact information only to reach out if a reporter wants to better understand your comments. If you chose to remain anonymous, your name will not appear in any story.

Please do not use autofill when completing this survey. Doing so replaces a key question with the name of your hometown.

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

Northeast Denver Innovation Zone to dissolve, reverting two middle schools to district control

2024-05-07T22:21:45+00:00

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The Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, an independent nonprofit organization that oversees three semi-autonomous Denver public schools, will dissolve as of June 30, according to a letter signed by the zone’s board of directors.

The dissolution will revert two of three schools in the zone — McAuliffe International School and McAuliffe Manual Middle School, which is in the process of changing its name — to the control of Denver Public Schools. The third school in the zone, Swigert International School, will seek to join the last remaining Denver innovation zone, the Luminary Learning Network.

The dissolution of the zone known as NDIZ also has symbolic significance as another pulled thread in the unraveling of a decade and a half of school reform policies in Denver.

Innovation zones are a reform-era invention that grant traditional public schools some of the same flexibility and freedom enjoyed by charter schools. The idea is that freeing schools from district bureaucracy allows them to experiment in ways they believe will help student learning, and several NDIZ schools have indeed posted high test scores.

But in a letter to families and staff, the zone’s board of directors said DPS’ “shifting philosophy on innovation zones” has created “an uncertain environment to operate NDIZ.”

Control of the Denver school board has changed in recent years from members who favored reform policies to reform skeptics who have questioned innovation zones.

A year ago, the board voted to dissolve another innovation zone called Beacon Network Schools at the recommendation of Superintendent Alex Marrero, who was concerned about Beacon’s organizational health and low student test scores.

DPS has also had concerns about — and conflicts with — NDIZ.

The former principal of McAuliffe International, Kurt Dennis, was fired by DPS in July in the aftermath of a televised interview he did with 9News expressing concerns about gun violence and school safety. In August, the district opened an investigation into the improper use of seclusion rooms at McAuliffe International. A summary of the findings revealed school staff were at fault, though Dennis’ attorney disputed the findings and NDIZ called for an independent investigation.

In connection with the seclusion investigation, DPS banned the executive director of NDIZ, Colleen O’Brien, from all district facilities and information systems in November. DPS and NDIZ also struggled to agree on a new version of the zone’s “innovation plan” after teachers at what was the largest school in the zone, Northfield High, voted last year to leave NDIZ.

The letter from the zone board says the board “engaged in mediation with DPS in January 2024 and were unable to resolve ongoing challenges,” according to a copy provided to Chalkbeat.

“After careful consideration and extensive dialogue with school leaders, we have concluded that sunsetting operations is the most prudent course of action currently,” the letter says.

The zone’s board of directors declined an interview with Chalkbeat.

The Denver school board does not have to vote on the dissolution of NDIZ, said DPS spokesperson Scott Pribble. However, the board will have to vote on whether Swigert International School, an elementary school in the Central Park neighborhood, can join the Luminary Learning Network, Denver’s first innovation zone and the last zone remaining.

Created in 2016 with four schools and since expanded to six, the Luminary Learning Network appears to be going strong. The Denver school board voted unanimously last month to add a seventh school, Merrill Middle School, to the zone next school year.

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

‘Ruthless in our pursuit of equity:’ How Denver is approaching its Black Student Success work

2024-04-29T15:57:39+00:00

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Giant easel-sized sticky notes hung on the walls of Nicole Saab’s classroom. On each, Saab had written a student’s name and a simple prompt: Ask me about banning books! Ask me about cyberbullying! Ask me about children and video games!

The topics had been chosen by her eighth grade literacy students at Denver Green School Southeast. The activity was a group brainstorming session to help guide students’ research. As Bob Marley played through the classroom speakers, Saab directed her students, pencils in hand, to move from poster to poster, writing questions about their classmates’ research topics.

“Write something you would want to know,” Saab told her students. “Be curious. Challenge that person. Like, really challenge them.”

The activity was typical of Saab’s approach to teaching: Students were up out of their seats, moving around, making noise, and engaging with each other. “No opt outs” is one of Saab’s classroom rules, although she makes exceptions for students who are tired or hungry, giving them short breaks or one of the snacks she keeps stashed in a corner.

Saab is one of 10 Denver Public Schools teachers who’ve helped their Black students achieve stellar academic progress and whose teaching methods are being studied by university researchers as part of the district’s Black Student Success work.

Saab’s syllabus includes literature ranging from George Orwell’s classic novel “Animal Farm” to rapper Tupac Shakur’s poem “The Rose That Grew From Concrete.” Saab also opens up to her students, sharing her heritage — she’s Lebanese — and her own experiences as a Denver Public Schools student whose father was a longtime principal.

“I am the warm demander,” Saab said in an interview. “I will love up on you, but I have super high expectations and this will be a rigorous class.”

Once the researchers have finished their study of Saab and the other teachers, the idea is to spread whatever effective teaching methods they find throughout the district, starting next year with six elementary schools.

“We want to be strategic,” said Michael Atkins, the district’s new director of Black Student Success. “These six schools are a learning lab so our babies can inform us of what we’re doing well or what we’re not before we full-scale do things we think will work.”

DPS has for the past five years put an emphasis on improving education for Black students, ever since the school board passed a Black Excellence Resolution in 2019. The Black Student Success team, led by Atkins, was created this school year and is the latest phase of that work. The district has budgeted $750,000 for the team’s work next year, a district spokesperson said.

About 14% of Denver’s 88,000 students are Black, and data shows the district is not serving them well. Black students are more likely to be harshly disciplined than white students, and they are less likely to score at grade level on state literacy and math tests.

The mandate of the 2019 resolution, and the idea behind the new Black Student Success work, is to change that. It’s a mission that’s personal to Atkins, who attended DPS during the era of busing to integrate Denver schools and faced discrimination and low expectations. Before he took this position, Atkins was principal of Stedman Elementary, one of Denver’s most integrated schools.

“My whole goal in education is to make sure that babies that look like me don’t have the same experience I did walking the halls of DPS,” he said.

Eighth graders Rishon Harvey, left, and Shahed Eissa work together in Nicole Saab's literacy class at Denver Green School Southeast.

Some principals see chance to ‘break the system’

Chris Fleming is principal of Joe Shoemaker School, an elementary school about five miles southeast of Denver Green School. Shoemaker is one the six schools in the inaugural Black Student Success cohort, all of which serve a significant population of Black students — and all of which have principals who want to do better by those students.

About a quarter of students at Shoemaker are Black, higher than the district average. Just 9% of Black students at Shoemaker met expectations on the state literacy test last spring, according to state data. That’s compared to 35% of white students who did.

The test score gap between Black students and white students — a persistent and pervasive problem at schools across the country — is the biggest issue Fleming hopes Denver’s new Black Student Success team can address districtwide.

“We want to be a place that has a lab site that’s like, ‘We’ve figured this out. We have a cadre of schools that, in my most aspirational dream, have eliminated the achievement gap,’” Fleming said. “That’s a big goal. But why not shoot for it?”

Shoemaker has had a taste of success already. For the past two years, the school has experimented with what it calls “equity cohorts.”

Each teacher picks four to seven students of color, with an emphasis on Black students, who are reading significantly below grade level, Fleming said. The teachers focus on building relationships with those students, nurturing them socially and academically. Out of about 450 students last school year, Fleming counted 187 who were getting extra attention.

When Fleming and other school leaders would go into teachers’ classrooms to observe, they zeroed in on the students in the equity cohorts. Whereas a teacher’s unconscious bias may have caused them to not call on those students as much or discipline them more, Fleming said, “when teachers knew we were watching those students, that changed.”

Test scores also improved. Although most Shoemaker students were still reading below grade level, students of color made higher-than-average gains, resulting in a splash of green on the school’s color-coded report card in a sea of yellow and red.

“That was the validation,” Fleming said. “We knew it was the right thing.”

But the equity cohorts have been harder to maintain this year, Fleming said. There are multiple reasons, including teacher turnover and a host of new district and school initiatives. That’s the reason Fleming wanted to participate in the Black Student Success work.

“Like with anything else, when you take on too many initiatives, it’s too much,” Fleming said. “Anytime you can narrow a focus, you have more success.”

Principals at other participating schools echoed Fleming.

“There are so many different competing priorities in a school district,” said Corey Jenks, principal at Columbine Elementary, located in a historically Black northeast Denver neighborhood where gentrification has caused Columbine’s Black student population to dwindle to about 21%. “I’m most excited to have a very clear, very specific and really relevant focus that I know will stay true.”

Gabriela Quiroga-Beck, principal at far northeast Denver’s Oakland Elementary, where about 20% of the student population is Black, said she was hesitant to join the cohort of six schools. She worried the initiative would be like others that gained steam but then petered out.

“But in this case, the six of us, we wanted to do something, we wanted to change the system,” Quiroga-Beck said of herself and the other principals. “So I said yes.”

“This is a great opportunity,” she added, “to kind of break the system in favor of our Black students.”

Nicole Saab is one of 10 Denver Public Schools teachers whose Black students have made stellar academic progress. University researchers have spent time in her classroom studying her teaching methods.

‘We have to be ruthless in our pursuit of equity’

The work is still in the beginning stages. The researchers, including Erin Anderson, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Denver, are finishing their study of Saab and the other highly effective teachers.

Anderson said her hope is to pull out “actionable change ideas” that teachers at the six schools in the cohort could try in their own classrooms next school year.

“We are really trying to take research and put it back into practice,” Anderson said. “From practice to research to practice is sort of the model here.”

Meanwhile, the principals of the six schools will attend leadership training this summer through the University of Virginia, a program widely used by DPS and other districts around the country.

But first, on a Friday afternoon in March, the principals gathered in a conference room at DPS headquarters to strategize. Atkins opened the session with a metaphor.

Students, he said, are like plants. Educators are like rain. And you know those little stickers, Atkins said, that come with plants? The ones that tell you, based on the number of raindrop icons, exactly how much rain the plants need? Every student has one of those stickers.

“What is that raindrop icon for our Black students?” Atkins said.

On sticky notes, the principals wrote problems they’re trying to solve. Students being bored and unengaged in class. Too many absences. Generational trauma from bad experiences in school. The principals asked big, brainstorming-type questions about possible solutions.

“How are you getting every single kid to soak up everything you say and collaborate in small groups without you having to monitor them because they are so excited about their own success?” said Jenks, the principal at Columbine Elementary.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero stopped by the session. He thanked the principals for agreeing to take part in something innovative — “Is it a bit of an exploration? Yes, it is.” — and pointed to where the word “equity,” one of the district’s core values, was written on the wall.

“We have to be ruthless in our pursuit of equity beyond just the fancy words we have plastered,” he said. “I’m excited for this work — we’re putting a lot into it — and I’m excited that it’s you all.”

It’s work that, if successful, could impact how the district serves other student groups. Marrero has talked about starting a Latinx Student Success team.

Improving classroom instruction by studying teachers like Saab will likely be just one prong of the district’s plan. Saab, who spends half her time teaching and half her time coaching other teachers at her school, said she felt proud to be chosen for the study.

She conceded it’s not possible to coach personality; some teachers are naturals at connecting with students, she said, while others are not. But she said it is possible to coach best practices: “How does a classroom look more collaborative? How do you engage with a student who looks like they’re opting out? Is it punitive or do you get to know them?

“You can do the work,” Saab said of teachers. “I think that’s what’s important.”

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

Denver’s McAuliffe Manual Middle School wants to change its name to avoid confusion

2024-05-03T01:03:36+00:00

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For years, people have mixed up McAuliffe Manual Middle School and McAuliffe International School. Substitute teachers have reported to the wrong building, job candidates have applied at the wrong school, and opposing sports teams have shown up on the wrong field.

Even parents have confused the two Denver middle schools, said Doug Clinkscales, principal at the Manual campus, registering their child for one school when they meant to register for the other.

Officials hope a name change will help clear up the confusion as McAuliffe Manual, which shares a building with storied Manual High School, proposes changing its name to Manual Middle School. The Denver school board is set to vote on the name change May 16.

Dropping the “McAuliffe” would sever ties between the 235-student middle school on the Manual campus and the 1,370-student McAuliffe International, which has experienced significant controversy this past year. The schools are about two and a half miles apart in northeast Denver.

The name change would also strengthen the connection between the middle school at Manual and Manual High School as more students matriculate from one to the other, leaders said.

“As we get more and more students choosing this campus, it made sense to be aligned as a campus and not aligned as an idea with someone down the street,” said Clinkscales, who became principal of the middle school last year after a decade as assistant principal of the high school.

The recent controversy experienced by McAuliffe International was not the main motivation for the name change, Clinkscales said. The former principal of McAuliffe International was fired last summer after speaking out about safety concerns, and school staff was the subject of a district investigation into the improper use of seclusion.

Denver Public Schools opened McAuliffe Manual in 2016 as a replication of the popular McAuliffe International. The idea was to bring a successful middle school model to the Manual campus and create a healthy feeder pattern for Manual High School, which has a storied past as one of the first Denver schools to serve Black students and women. Manual High has many notable alumni but has struggled over the years with test scores and enrollment.

At first, the two McAuliffe middle schools used a similar curriculum and were overseen by the same principal. But that changed over time. Today, the Manual middle school uses a different curriculum from McAuliffe International, Clinkscales said. It has its own leaders, too.

A letter from the McAuliffe Manual student council to the Denver school board says the two middle schools “have almost no connections.”

“We should be able to change our name so that it won’t get mixed up with McAuliffe International, and we will be more recognized with our high school and their legacy,” the letter says. “We want to be the school that represents our beautiful, thriving community. And per your approval, we could be our own school, once and for all.”

Manual Middle School would keep its school colors – blue and yellow – and its mascot – the Thunder, Clinkscales said. The mascot is a reference to the mascot of Manual High, home of the Thunderbolts, and speaks to the connection that already exists between the middle and high school.

According to Clinkscales: “We say, ‘You have to earn your bolt.’”

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

Bill to ban seclusion in Colorado schools defeated, but sponsor pledges to try again next year

2024-04-30T18:27:15+00:00

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Despite testimony that one Colorado lawmaker called “horrifying,” a bill to ban the practice of shutting students alone inside rooms was defeated at the state Capitol.

State Rep. Regina English, a Colorado Springs Democrat and the main sponsor of House Bill 1167, asked last week that her fellow lawmakers postpone the bill indefinitely, effectively defeating it.

With just days left in this year’s legislative session, English said the bill was experiencing too much last-minute pushback from defenders of the practice known as seclusion.

Though English didn’t name names, a handful of school district and special education administrators had defended the practice to lawmakers in a hearing last month. The administrators described seclusion as a “last resort” measure that is sometimes necessary.

English pledged to introduce a new bill banning seclusion next year.

“It is my mission to make sure Colorado is the ninth state in the nation to ban this horrific practice used against our students,” she told the House Education Committee last Thursday.

The committee voted unanimously to defeat the bill. Several lawmakers said they were voting against the bill reluctantly and only at the sponsor’s request. They praised English for her courage and said they agreed that seclusion is wrong.

“The testimony we heard was horrifying,” said Rep. Barbara McLachlan, a Durango Democrat and chair of the House Education Committee. Seclusion, she said, “shouldn’t ever be happening.”

Under current law, Colorado schools are allowed to seclude students in rooms with the door closed. Staff must monitor students through a window or by video camera. Seclusion rooms must be “free of injurious items” and cannot otherwise be used for storage, custodial, or office space.

Students are often placed in seclusion because of their behavior. Available state data shows that young students with disabilities are disproportionately secluded.

English said a case at a popular Denver middle school called McAuliffe International School spurred her to sponsor the bill. An investigation by Denver Public Schools found that McAuliffe staff were placing students in seclusion without proper supervision. A former Denver school board member told lawmakers that the seclusion room at McAuliffe “reminded me of a prison.”

The former board member, Auon’tai Anderson, was among the parents and elected officials who testified last month in favor of the bill to ban seclusion. The most emotional testimony came from mothers who said their children with disabilities had been secluded.

The mothers spoke about how their children soiled themselves inside seclusion rooms because they were so scared and how, even years later, their kids had nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Parents said they were unaware their children were being secluded, in part because the schools didn’t use the word seclusion. Instead, schools referred to the rooms in which their children were shut inside by innocuous names like “the relaxation room” and “the opportunity room.”

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

Redistricting: Denver school board chooses new map

2024-04-22T23:19:44+00:00

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The Denver school board has adopted a new map that redraws the boundaries of the districts that five of the seven board members represent.

The new boundaries won’t affect where children go to school. Redistricting only affects which neighborhoods of the city the five school board members represent. The two at-large board members will continue to represent the entire city.

Redistricting was necessary to ensure board members represent roughly the same number of residents. Based on population counts from the 2020 Census, District 4 in northeast Denver had too many residents. District 2 in southwest Denver had too few.

But in redrawing the maps, the board also considered the racial makeup of the proposed districts so as not to dilute the voice of any group. That aspect of the process raised concerns from community groups and sparked disagreements among board members.

The new map shrinks the size of District 4 but keeps the historically Black neighborhoods of Five Points and Whittier in the district, which has long been represented by a Black board member. The map expands District 2, long represented by a Latino board member, by adding several neighborhoods, including Sun Valley and La Alma/Lincoln Park.

The school board was divided on which map to choose. Board members faced three options, labeled Maps A, B, and C, at a meeting last Thursday. A first round of voting eliminated Map A.

In a second round of voting, five board members voted for Map C. Two board members — Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán and Marlene De La Rosa — voted for Map B.

Gaytán and De La Rosa noted that Map B was favored by the Latino Education Coalition, a local advocacy group, and also got the most votes in a community survey.

But board member Michelle Quattlebaum, who represents District 4, told fellow board members that supporting Map C was “a decision grounded in our collective pursuit of equity and justice.”

Other board members made similar comments. Like large swaths of Denver, the Five Points and Whittier neighborhoods have experienced significant gentrification in recent years. But board President Carrie Olson said choosing Map C continues the cultural heritage of the area and is, in some ways, an act of resistance and empowerment.

“We can’t stop where people move and who lives there, but we can, at least for the next seven years, make sure those cultural icons are preserved,” Olson said, referring to the number of years until the board must redistrict again based on the next federal census.

Thursday’s vote on a new map was the culmination of a year and a half of debate among board members and advocacy groups. But there was very little engagement from the broader community. Despite the district sending out text messages and posting on social media, only 159 people filled out a recent survey and about 30 people attended a pair of meetings this month, according to a district presentation.

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

Ex-Denver Public Schools PIO says board members not getting enough information, but some disagree

2024-04-19T03:13:52+00:00

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The former executive director of communications for Denver Public Schools accused the district this week of “limiting the flow of information” to school board members, which he said hinders the transparency of an organization that serves 88,000 of the city’s children.

Will Jones, whose position was eliminated from DPS in February, also criticized the district for asking the communications staff to sign confidentiality agreements shortly after his departure.

“I believe that information is a good thing, and more information is even better,” Jones said at a press conference Thursday at which he was the main speaker. Jones said he spoke up because “in my experience, and seeing what was happening with DPS, the board of education wasn’t getting as much information now as they used to.”

But board members, in statements and interviews, refuted many of Jones’ concerns. In a statement Thursday, the board said the change in its communication was intentional.

“The previous iteration of the Board, through policy, agreed to limit its information requests to reduce the administrative burden on District staff and resources,” the board’s statement said. That policy was adopted before six of the seven current board members were elected.

In an interview, board member Scott Esserman said he doesn’t feel uninformed.

“I don’t feel left in the dark. I don’t feel the rest of my board colleagues are being left in the dark,” said Esserman, who emphasized that he was speaking for himself and not the entire board. “By state law, we have access to every document in the district.”

Other board members did not return messages or declined to comment.

Esserman said he’s not concerned about any confidentiality agreements or non-disclosure agreements, known as NDAs. The agreement that the communications staff was asked to sign says they will not disclose confidential information about the operations of the district, personnel and employee discipline matters, and more, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat.

In a statement, the district said it “prioritizes the safeguarding of student and employee information.” DPS said it requires numerous employees with access to confidential information to sign NDAs “to remind them of their obligations under privacy laws.”

The NDAs “do not prevent employees from speaking out, as all who sign are still protected under the Federal Whistleblower Protection Program,” the district said.

It’s not clear how long DPS has mandated certain employees sign confidentiality agreements. District spokespeople said that the communications staff was first asked to sign the agreements two months ago, but that other employees may have had NDAs in place prior to that.

It’s also not clear how common such NDAs are. Melissa Gibson, deputy executive director for the Colorado Association of School Executives, which represents school administrators across the state, said the organization hadn’t heard about the use of NDAs by school districts until this week.

A spokesperson for at least one other metro area school district, Cherry Creek, said it doesn’t require its employees to sign confidentiality agreements.

Don Mayer, a professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver, reviewed a copy of the NDA signed by DPS communications staff. He called it “a little strange.”

“NDAs got started in corporate America, not in public schools,” Mayer said.

Mayer said the agreement does not appear to violate a state law passed last year restricting the use of NDAs for government employees. But he said it’s possible a judge would decide not to enforce it “because they’d see the need for some transparency in the operations of a publicly funded organization.”

At the press conference Thursday and in comments he made as a member of the public at a school board meeting Monday, Jones blamed the school board’s governance model for what he described as a lack of transparency between the district and the board.

Called “policy governance,” the model assigns clear roles: The board makes the high-level policy, while the superintendent runs the day-to-day operations of DPS.

For most of the nine years he worked in communications at DPS, Jones said board members could ask him directly about a specific issue and he’d be able to tell them all the details. But for the past couple years, he said all communication to the board was funneled through Superintendent Alex Marrero, who was hired by the board in June 2021.

“Your employee,” Jones told the board Monday, referring to Marrero, “came to my office one day and told me if board members come to me with questions, not to answer. To politely refer them to him and he would do the responding.”

In a statement, the board said that’s how policy governance is supposed to work.

“The Board interacts directly only with the superintendent, their sole employee, to ensure a streamlined management structure,” the statement says. The purpose, it says, is so DPS employees “receive their directions from one voice, not seven” board members.

The board adopted the policy governance model in April 2021, two months before Marrero was hired. The vote was unanimous, though six of the seven current board members were elected after that vote. Board President Carrie Olson, who was elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2023, is the only member of the board who voted on policy governance.

The board has at times struggled with policy governance and disagreed about how it should be implemented. But no board member has ever called for a vote to get rid of it.

“If the Board ever believes it is not receiving the information it requires, the Board may revisit and change this policy at any time,” the board said in a statement.

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

New data shows Denver schools are more closely following discipline rules

2024-04-16T03:22:04+00:00

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Denver schools are doing a better job complying with Denver Public Schools’ discipline matrix, according to data discussed at a school board meeting Monday.

The matrix is a guide for school staff about when they can suspend or expel a student and dictates when they should or should not call the police.

The data shows that 94% of about 8,000 discipline responses were “permissible” under the matrix this school year so far, meaning that the disciplinary action the staff meted out was appropriate under the district’s guidelines. That’s compared with 83% of incidents being permissible last school year.

“Discipline permissibility is an indicator of the climate of a school,” DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero told board members. “This measure focuses on whether or not schools are appropriately resolving discipline incidences.”

The permissibility measurement is new this year. District officials have been emphasizing to principals the importance of following the matrix to ensure that discipline is the same from school to school. At the same time, the district is revising the matrix in the hopes of reducing racial disparities.

The matrix came under scrutiny after a March 2023 shooting inside Denver’s East High School. The East student who shot and injured two deans had previously been expelled from a neighboring district and was being searched daily for weapons by East staff.

That the student was allowed to enroll in and remain at a traditional public high school caused parents and community members to question the district’s approach to discipline.

The discipline matrix was last updated in 2021. It is currently undergoing a rewrite that district leaders have promised will be informed by recommendations from a community committee that met between October and December. The new matrix is set to debut this fall.

The data discussed Monday is based on the 2021 matrix. It shows that schools are doing a better job complying with the discipline matrix overall and for different student groups.

For example, the data shows that last school year, only 80% of discipline responses to incidents involving Black students at district-run schools were permissible under the matrix. This year, 93% of responses to incidents involving Black students have been permissible.

The data also shows Black students continue to be disproportionately disciplined. Out of 8,086 discipline incidents at district-run schools this school year, 28% involved Black students, the data shows. Black students make up about 14% of the student population in DPS.

The suspension rate for of Black students is down from 14% last school year to nearly 10% so far this school year, the data shows. That’s far higher than the overall suspension rate of 3.5%.

Disproportionate discipline, especially with regard to Black students, has been an ongoing problem for DPS. One of the reasons the district is revising its discipline matrix is that DPS was facing corrective action by the state because of the disproportionality, Marrero said.

The new permissibility metric shows that while “there’s still a tremendous amount of growth and areas of improvement … we are trending better,” Marrero said.

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

School lunch time is too short. Colorado lawmakers’ solution? A task force to make recommendations.

2024-04-12T17:48:16+00:00

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Anyelin Ortega told Colorado lawmakers recently that the lunch line at her high school can be 25 minutes long, often leaving the 17-year-old only five minutes to finish her food.

“It is very disrespectful and demanding for any person to be rushed from eating,” said Ortega, who attends a Denver charter school. “After lunch, I have found myself feeling very anxious and irritated from the lack of energy from having an empty stomach.”

Ortega was among the students and advocates who testified in favor of a bill that would create a “time-to-eat” task force to evaluate topics including how much time the state’s school districts are giving students to eat lunch and whether students have recess before or afterward.

Colorado does not mandate schools set aside a certain number of minutes for lunch. Those decisions are left to school districts or individual schools.

The task force would examine the outcomes associated with those decisions, such as students’ academic performance, their behavior, and how much food is wasted because students can’t finish their lunches. The task force would write a report with recommendations for school districts to adopt policies “that allow for increased time to eat,” the bill says.

“It breaks my heart when I see students repeatedly pick up their tray and shovel a few more bites into their mouths as they hold (it) over a trash can and throw away half of their food,” Shannon Thompson of the Colorado School Nutrition Association told lawmakers at a hearing last week. “As a registered dietitian, I work in school nutrition to feed kids, not trash cans.”

Rep. Jenny Willford, a Northglenn Democrat, said House Bill 1301 is based on her personal experience as a parent. When her son started in elementary school, Willford said he was having behavior issues after lunch. She said she worked with the school to figure out the root cause: Her son would play hard at recess but then not have enough time to eat lunch.

“You can’t learn when your tummy is hungry,” Willford said.

House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican, said she agreed to co-sponsor the bill because she had a similar experience with her own children.

In addition to hungry students and wasted food, Pugliese pointed out another problem with short lunch periods: wasted money. Colorado voters approved a measure in 2022 making school meals free for all students, and this is the first year it’s in place. But more students are eating than expected, and the state is having to shore up the program with extra funding.

“From a fiscally conservative perspective, we don’t want to be investing money in food that’s being thrown away,” Pugliese said.

Cade Nelson, a sophomore at Legend High School in Parker, told lawmakers that he supports the free meals program. But he said it’s caused the lunch lines at his school to grow.

“The free lunch essentially does not matter because I’ve seen people run out of time to eat,” Nelson said. “If we had more time to eat, I think everybody would be much happier.”

The bill passed the House Education Committee last Thursday on a 10-1 vote. Most of the pushback and hesitation was not related to the task force but to a separate grant program in the bill meant to promote more physical activity and play during the school day.

An association of Colorado physical education teachers had concerns that the grant program could supplant P.E. teachers. But the committee approved an amendment requiring schools to have a P.E. teacher on staff in order to apply for the grant funding.

Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Parker Republican, was the only lawmaker to suggest scrapping the time-to-eat task force in favor of a mandate that school districts lengthen lunch times.

“Why not do a mandate?” Hartsook said. “They need more time to eat, they need more time to play. Duh. We all know that. So why are we waiting?”

But Willford said school scheduling is a tricky balance that must take into account the amount of instructional time required by the state. She said she worried a mandate would cause problems.

“If we move straight to a mandate, it becomes a bit of an unfunded mandate for local school districts,” Willford said. “My hope is that the task force comes back with a number of unique models of how we can implement longer periods for school lunch that is reflective of the diversity of schools we have across our state.”

Hartsook voted yes on the bill. The sole no vote was from Republican Rep. Don Wilson.

The bill says the task force would make its recommendations by Feb. 1, 2025. Task force members would include students, parents, educators, school board members, teachers union representatives, and representatives from community organizations.

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

Elecciones 2024: Votantes de Colorado, ¿de qué deberían hablar los candidatos presidenciales?

2024-04-09T21:06:51+00:00

Maestros y padres: ¿Creen que los candidatos presidenciales de 2024 deberían hablar acerca de educación y priorizar el tema? ¿Qué temas te preocupan más?

Cuéntanos en una nueva encuesta estatal.

La encuesta, llamada Voter Voices, es parte de un esfuerzo colaborativo de reporteros de todo Colorado para comprender en qué quieren los votantes que se centren los candidatos.

Los votantes son el corazón de cada elección. Queremos saber qué temas son más importantes para ti. Tus esperanzas e inquietudes marcarán la agenda sobre cómo informamos y escribimos sobre los temas, y las implicaciones, de las elecciones de 2024.

Por favor, tómate unos momentos para decirnos qué crees que los candidatos deberían estar discutiendo mientras compiten por tu voto. Utilizaremos tu información de contacto solo para comunicarnos contigo si un periodista desea comprender mejor tus comentarios.

Si decides permanecer en el anonimato, tu nombre no aparecerá en ninguna historia.

Melanie Asmar es la corresponsal jefa de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado Education Association elects current VP Kevin Vick as next president of the teachers union

2024-04-08T18:55:21+00:00

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Colorado’s largest teachers union has chosen its current vice president, Kevin Vick, to lead the organization of nearly 40,000 educators for the next three years.

Vick was elected president of the Colorado Education Association at a delegate assembly Saturday, a union spokesperson said. Vick, a high school social studies teacher, has been vice president of the union for the past six years. He is set to begin a three-year term as president in July.

Kevin Vick will be the next president of the Colorado Education Association.

Vick has been on leave from Colorado Springs Schools D 11 to serve in union leadership.

“Together, we have fought for better wages, fairer workplace conditions and a fully funded education system in Colorado,” Vick said in a statement.

“I am confident that together, we will continue to champion the rights of educators, advocate for the needs of our students, and foster a culture of collective unity and strength.”

In the past year, the Colorado Education Association pushed state lawmakers to end the budget stabilization factor, which is a process of withholding K-12 education funding to pay for other priorities. The union also backed Proposition HH, a ballot measure that could have increased school funding but that Colorado voters soundly rejected last November.

Union President Amie Baca-Oehlert could not run again due to term limits. In a statement, she praised Vick’s “unwavering commitment to bettering the educational landscape in Colorado.”

“His proven track record of leadership, coupled with his profound understanding of the nuances of our education system’s strengths and challenges, uniquely positions him to steer CEA towards even greater heights of success and impact,” she said.

Liz Waddick, a Spanish teacher at Summit High School in Breckenridge and a member of the local Summit County Education Association, was elected vice president of the statewide union.

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

A source of free food, mental health support, and more for Denver students will soon close

2024-04-04T22:52:37+00:00

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A center that provides free food, clothing, mental health support, workforce training, and more to students and families at six public schools in Denver will close in less than three months.

The middle and high schools served by the resource center are known as “pathways schools” and work with students who have struggled at traditional schools or are at risk of not graduating. Three years ago, the resource center — called The Village — opened at Contemporary Learning Academy, one of the pathways schools.

The Village was launched with grant funding and is now paid for by federal pandemic relief known as ESSER earmarked for schools, DPS spokesperson Scott Pribble said. The Village cost $771,690 to run this school year, he said.

But with that money expiring, Denver Public Schools must commit the last of its pandemic relief dollars by Sept. 30. Pribble said The Village is slated to close June 30.

At a March school board meeting where several people urged DPS to keep the center open, Etamar Prizament, a social worker at The Village, called its impending closure “a tragedy.”

“The good work is being done,” he said. “It’s in front of our face and the district is letting it go.”

Asked why the district wouldn’t absorb The Village into its own budget, DPS pointed to its six “community hubs,” which opened in 2022 and offer many of the same services as The Village, as well as English classes, GED classes in both English and Spanish, “play and learn” groups for parents and toddlers, mobile medical appointments, and more.

The community hubs are a signature initiative of Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero. Pribble said the hubs are meant “to support students and their families all across the district.”

But employees of The Village say their center is tailored to serve some of the district’s most vulnerable students, and fills the gap when the community hubs are at capacity.

“How will the district meet the needs of students and families in pathways schools if for the past three years, it was a village — this Village — that did that?” Hanna Pelican, manager of The Village, asked the Denver school board last month.

Pelican listed The Village’s impact: more than 200,000 pounds of food distributed to students and families, including fresh meat, eggs, produce, and milk; $100,000 in student earnings from paid internships; over $1 million in mental health care secured and available for students and alumni who are struggling.

Pelican asked that DPS at least continue funding the salaries of The Village’s five staff members, and pledged that the staff would find money for the programming through grants and donations.

“We want our kids to thrive, but how can you do that when there is no food in the fridge?” said Aaliyah Palma-Sanchez, a pathways school graduate who now works at The Village.

Tiffany Barrios, a social worker at a pathways school called DC 21, read testimonials that she said came from students and parents at her school. One was from a parent who described their family as teetering between living in an apartment and living in a tent.

“I know what it feels like to be hungry,” Barrios read from the parent’s statement, “but that’s something my daughter has not had to experience thanks to The Village.”

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

Student aggression against teachers spurs Colorado lawmakers to find solutions

2024-04-02T19:36:56+00:00

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Almost a third of Colorado teachers who took a recent teachers union survey said they had experienced physical abuse by a student in the past two years. A bill under consideration in the legislature aims to find solutions and stem teacher turnover.

“When I bring this bill up, every single person will then respond with, ‘Oh my gosh, this happened to my neighbor last week, this happened to my sister-in-law last week,’” State Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat and former high school teacher, said during a hearing on the bill, of which she is co-sponsor.

“It’s crazy how many personal stories I’ve gotten from folks in the education space ever since I started talking more about this bill.”

House Bill 1320, which passed the House Education Committee March 18 a 7-4 vote, would create a task force to investigate those incidents and other topics, including the effects of special education staffing shortages and insufficient funding for student wraparound services. The task force would make recommendations for policy or law changes needed to improve teacher safety.

The same Colorado Education Association survey that spurred Lukens to co-sponsor the bill found that 58% of teachers who responded said they are considering leaving the profession in the near future, though the reasons varied. National surveys have found similar results.

But balancing teacher safety and student needs can be difficult, especially when a student’s trauma or disability is the reason for their behavior. Educators have said the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated mental and behavioral health issues for many students and worsened already unsustainable special education caseloads.

In testifying for the bill, Kevin Vick, the CEA vice president, told a story about a pregnant teacher who he said was kicked in the stomach by a high school student “hard enough to cause bruising, but fortunately not hard enough to endanger the child.”

The teacher quit that very same day, Vick said. When a long-term substitute teacher took over, the same student beat the substitute with a metal water bottle, he said.

“I don’t blame the student,” Vick told state lawmakers. “He had a condition that manifested that.”

Vick said a diverse task force is needed to come up with solutions to what is a complex problem. Others, including Brandon Smith, a social worker in 27J Schools in Brighton, agreed.

“For years, my coworkers and I were told that being assaulted in various ways was part of the job and we signed up for — and we should know what we were getting into,” said Smith.

He spoke of a first grade student he said “would flood sinks, destroy walls, furniture, take their clothes off, pee, throw feces, play with electric sockets, [and] punch and kick” staff members. District staff tried to get the student into a private program that could better meet his needs, but Smith said they encountered long wait lists and hesitancy about accepting the child.

Erin Kane, the superintendent of the Douglas County School District, the third-largest in the state, was the only district leader to testify. Speaking in favor of the bill, she ticked off specifics: In a district with 8,500 staff members, Douglas County schools had 313 workers compensation incidents last school year related to student aggression against a teacher.

Kane said the incidents usually mean a staff member had to see a doctor or go to the emergency room. So far this school year, Kane said the district has had 269 claims.

“We need help,” said Kallie Leyba, the president of the American Federation of Teachers Colorado, which represents teachers in Douglas County.

“The kids are not all right. And the educators are not all right.”

The four Republicans on the House Education Committee voted against the bill. Several Republican lawmakers said they agreed that aggression against teachers is a problem, but they disagreed that a task force would help.

“Why are we not taking action instead of just a study?” said Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Parker Republican.

Republican lawmakers also expressed concern about an amendment that said the task force could not recommend policies that would increase student discipline or result in more students being referred to law enforcement. The amendment passed on a party-line vote.

“If a student is beating up teachers, then what is the task force supposed to do about that scenario? What is their policy supposed to be if it doesn’t include discipline?” asked Rep. Don Wilson, a Monument Republican.

“Those solutions are going to be coming from our group of experts,” answered Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat and one of the sponsors of the bill.

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said her yes vote doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t be disciplined or even charged criminally, but represents the hope that the task force can come up with solutions that get at the root causes of unsafe behavior.

“We need right now to think of something different,” Bacon said.

The bill says the task force would be made up of:

The director of the state Office of School Safety.
Three teachers at district-run schools, representing urban, suburban, and rural districts.
Two school administrators employed at district-run schools.
One school leader or administrator of a charter school.
One charter school teacher.
Two education support professionals, including one who works with English learners.
One school support professional, such as a school psychologist or social worker, who understands neurological and developmental disorders such as autism.
A representative of an organization that works with low-income families in a school district where most students identify as students of color.
A representative of an organization that works with students with disabilities.
A student representing a community that is disproportionately impacted by school discipline.
A person who works for a nonprofit organization focused on school safety and training.
A certified restorative justice professional experienced in community-based juvenile restorative justice, which focuses on repairing harm rather than punishment.

The task force would meet at least four times this year and three times next year to come up with a final report and recommendations by June 30, 2025, the bill says.

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

Seclusion in Colorado schools: Parents, school officials split on a bill to ban the practice

2024-03-28T16:24:38+00:00

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Calling the practice inhumane, unethical, and akin to solitary confinement, opponents of secluding children alone in separate rooms in response to their behavior testified for hours Wednesday in support of a bill to ban the practice in Colorado schools.

The most emotional testimony came from mothers who said their children with disabilities had been secluded. Teresa Vargas recalled walking into her son’s school to see the then-fifth-grader shut in an office, holding a stuffed sloth that he brought to school every day up to the window.

As school administrators stood outside with clipboards, her son was crying “and asking, ‘Can I get out?’” Vargas said. Her son was in the room because he’d thrown the stuffed sloth, she said.

Christie Nichol said she didn’t realize her young son had been secluded for hours a day in what his elementary school called “the quiet room,” until she attended an art show at the school. When her son and a friend from his special education classroom showed her the room, Nichol said the boys had coined their own name for it: “the torture room.”

Other parents spoke about how their children soiled themselves inside seclusion rooms because they were so scared. Parents testified that even years later, their kids had nightmares and PTSD from being shut alone in rooms with innocuous sounding names like “the opportunity room” and “the relaxation room.” In one case, an advocate said a teacher referred to a bare seclusion room as “Australia,” alluding to a country with roots as a penal colony.

“For far too long, these rooms have served as symbols of fear and isolation,” bill sponsor Rep. Regina English, a Colorado Springs Democrat, said at the hearing Wednesday, “places where the voices of our most vulnerable students are silenced and their dignity stripped away.”

House Bill 1167, of which English is the sole sponsor, would require the State Board of Education to make rules banning seclusion by Nov. 1.

The bill would also give the State Board until July 1, 2025, to create a resource bank of materials “regarding appropriate alternatives to seclusion and restraint to assist school personnel with appropriate responses to behaviors.”

Although the House Education Committee heard testimony Wednesday, English asked to delay a vote on whether to move the bill forward. English said in an interview that she wants more time to work on amendments aimed at increasing the chances that the bill will pass.

Bill spurred by case at Denver’s McAuliffe International School

Colorado schools are currently allowed to put students in seclusion rooms with the door closed. Students must be monitored through a window or video camera. Seclusion rooms must be “free of injurious items” and cannot be otherwise used for storage, custodial, or office space.

Students are often placed into seclusion because of their behavior, and available data shows young students with disabilities are disproportionately secluded.

The use of seclusion has long been controversial, but it came under greater scrutiny last year when allegations surfaced about the use of seclusion rooms at a large and popular Denver middle school, McAuliffe International School. A subsequent investigation by Denver Public Schools found that McAuliffe staff placed students in seclusion without proper supervision.

English said the McAuliffe case spurred her to introduce a bill to ban seclusion. Former DPS school board member Auon’tai Anderson testified in favor of the bill Wednesday, describing the seclusion room at McAuliffe as a hidden room the size of a storage unit with locks on the window and door, and holes punched in the drywall by the students shut inside.

“It was very triggering, because it reminded me of a prison,” Anderson said in response to questions from state lawmakers. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

A 2020 Chalkbeat investigation uncovered weak state oversight of seclusion, and Colorado lawmakers in 2022 passed new limits and reporting requirements. But the new requirements don’t go into effect until June, leaving lawmakers and others with little data — and conflicting opinions from parents and school officials — about how widespread the practice is.

Administrators argue for keeping seclusion option as a ‘last resort’

Most of the testimony on Wednesday was from parents, advocates, and local school board members who supported the bill. But a handful of school district and special education administrators testified that they’d like to see changes to the proposal.

The administrators described seclusion as a “last resort,” but said it is sometimes necessary.

Amy Lloyd, the director of special programs for Harrison School District 2 in Colorado Springs, described a young girl who would disrobe and urinate and defecate on the floor.

When the girl began to take off her clothes, school staff would take her to another room, standing outside if she was throwing feces, Lloyd said. When the girl calmed down, which Lloyd said usually took 12 minutes, the staff would help the girl clean up and return to class.

Moira Coogan, a longtime Denver principal, said she’d worked with nonverbal students with autism who would try to run out of the school and toward the nearest body of water. Because seclusion is defined in Colorado law as putting a student in a room alone and blocking their egress, Coogan said she and other principals worry that banning seclusion would also prevent school staff from stopping a student from running out of the school.

“We do have instances where the behaviors are frightening and are at a place where we have to protect the student, sometimes from their own behaviors,” Coogan said.

Lloyd described the seclusion rooms in her district as small, unlocked classrooms with rubberized walls and floors to prevent students from injuring themselves. She said some rooms have comfortable bean bag chairs and sensory items to help students calm down.

But parents and advocates painted a different picture of seclusion rooms they’d seen that were the size of closets, with scratch marks running down the walls. In contrast to the 12-minute seclusion Lloyd described, parents and advocates told stories of children secluded all day, every day. One mother said the school moved her daughter’s desk into the seclusion room.

Denver school board member Michelle Quattlebaum said some students at McAuliffe International School went straight from the school bus to the seclusion room, which staff members referred to by the names of the students who used it: “‘Oh, that’s such-and-such’s room.’” Quattlebaum said school staff explained to the district that they were trying to “get ahead” of the students’ behavior “so everyone else can have a good day.”

“Colorado is better than this,” Darlene Derbigny, a school board member in East Otero School District RE-1 in La Junta, said during the hearing. “We need to do better.”

If the bill passes, Colorado would join a handful of other states that have banned seclusion, including Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii.

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

Los centros comunitarios de las escuelas de Denver ayudan a las familias con comida, ropa, clases de inglés y mucho más

2024-03-19T17:16:37+00:00

Mientras su hijo de 5 años asiste a la guardería de la Primaria Colfax, al oeste de Denver, Maelka también asiste a clases. En un trailer cerca del parque de juegos, ella y otras tres mamás aprenden inglés.

Un jueves reciente, el grupo practicó las letras y los números en inglés jugando bingo.

“B eleven,” dijo la maestra.

“¡Eleven! ¡Eleven!” Dijo Maelka. Luego tradujo el número a español — “once” — para sus compañeras.

El trailer en la Primaria Colfax es uno de los seis “centros comunitarios” de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y las clases de inglés son de las más populares. Estos centros comunitarios, establecidos en 2022 por el Superintendente Alex Marrero, tenían el propósito de enfocarse en dos generaciones a fin de mejorar las vidas de los estudiantes, y por lo tanto ayudan tanto a los niños como a los padres con todo, desde comida y ropa hasta asesoramiento financiero y citas médicas en clínicas móviles.

Ahora que más de 3,500 estudiantes inmigrantes se han inscrito en las Escuelas Públicas de Denver desde que empezó el año escolar, los centros están prestándoles cada vez más servicios a sus familias mientras rehacen sus vidas en Denver. Este flujo de familias ha estirado bastante la capacidad de los centros, pero los líderes del distrito escolar dijeron que siguen estando comprometidos con solicitar más donaciones y subvenciones para apoyar la labor.

“Necesito aprender inglés para entender, para trabajar — y también para aprender”, dijo Maelka. “Es importante saber hablar el idioma del país en el que te encuentras”.

Maelka y su familia llegaron a Denver de Venezuela a principios de diciembre. Después de pasar un tiempo en los refugios de la ciudad, encontraron una casa de alquiler cerca de la Primaria Colfax. Chalkbeat no está revelando el apellido de Maelka para proteger su privacidad.

Las clases gratis enseñan mucho más que a hablar inglés, el cual ofrece la promesa de empleos mejor pagados. Los centros también fomentan un sentido de comunidad, dijo la administradora Jackie Bell. El día del cumpleaños de Maelka, otra mamá le hizo un pastel y lo trajo a la clase.

Los centros también sirven como lugar de ayuda. Cuando una de las mamás llegó a la clase con dolor por un diente infectado, el personal del centro rápidamente la conectó con una clínica dental gratuita. Cuando el personal vio a estudiantes caminando a la escuela sin abrigos, el centro consiguió una subvención para comprarles abrigos de invierno nuevos a los niños. Cuando la abuela de un niño autista le dijo al personal del centro que él solamente comía una marca de arroz, ellos lograron conseguirlo para tenerlo en la tiendita del centro.

“Ese es el mensaje a nuestros padres del Distrito: ‘Queremos que estén aquí’”, dijo Bell.

Karen Rodríguez compra refrigerios para su hija Carely, de 11 meses, en la minitienda del centro comunitario de la Primaria John H. Amesse.

Hay “magia” en lo que hacen los centros

Los centros comunitarios son una expansión de un programa anterior llamado Family and Community Engagement Centers, a menudo conocidos por su abreviatura como Centros FACE. El centro de la Primaria John H. Amesse, en el extremo noreste de Denver, fue uno de los dos Centros FACE originales.

Marrero visitó el centro en la John H. Amesse al principio de su superintendencia. En su pared, la gerente Carla Duarte tiene enmarcado un mapa de la ciudad en el que Marrero dibujó a mano su visión de tener un centro similar en cada región de Denver. Ahora que han pasado dos años, los seis centros ofrecen los mismos programas que los centros anteriores y más, dependiendo en parte del espacio disponible en cada uno.

Dos de los centros tienen minitiendas de comida con productos frescos y carne congelada, mientras que otros cuentan con despensas repletas de alimentos no perecederos y enlatados. Todos los centros distribuyen pañales, pero algunos están asociados con una organización local sin fines de lucro para regalar asientos protectores y carriolas. Al menos uno tiene una boutique de ropa usada similar a una tienda de segunda mano. Algunos están ahora trabajando con la red de atención médica Denver Health, que estaciona su clínica móvil en el centro y atiende a los pacientes en citas de media hora.

El personal de los centros también varía. Todos conectan a los padres con programas que les ayudan a pagar facturas, pero algunos tienen asesores financieros y clases sobre cómo establecer un presupuesto familiar. Otros centros ayudan a los padres a encontrar trabajo. El coordinador de desarrollo de mano de obra del centro del extremo noreste ayudó recientemente a un padre emigrante que había trabajado como barbero en Venezuela durante 24 años a conseguir un empleo en una barbería de Denver.

Cuando un centro no tiene un servicio en particular, el personal refiere a las familias a otro que sí lo tiene.

“Esa es la magia de los centros comunitarios”, dijo Duarte. “Todos somos muy diferentes”

El centro de John H. Amesse es uno de los más grandes y con mayor movimiento. Sus espacios están repartidos por toda la escuela en salones de clase convertidos y oficinas que estaban vacías.

Un miércoles reciente por la mañana, los estudiantes adultos en una clase de GED estaban practicando matemáticas y celebrando con cupcakes que un compañero había aprobado sus exámenes.

En un salón pequeño al lado de la biblioteca, dos mujeres acunaban a los bebés de las estudiantes de GED. Una de ellas, refugiada de Afganistán cuyos hijos asisten a las escuelas del distrito, vino por primera vez al centro comunitario buscando ayuda para pagar el alquiler de su familia. A través de un traductor que hablaba dari, su idioma materno, ella hizo una pregunta importante.

“Me miró y dijo: “¿Tienes algún trabajo para mí?”

Duarte estaba buscando cubrir un puesto en la guardería, pero no estaba segura si ella podía hacerlo por la barrera de idioma. Casi todos los empleados del centro hablan español, pero ninguno hablaba dari. Pero el distrito escolar dijo que sí, y ahora la mujer está aprendiendo inglés en las clases del centro — y también español.

“Ella es increíble”, dijo Duarte. “Es la mejor decisión que hemos tomado”.

Hay una historia similar al otro lado del pasillo, donde una antigua participante dirige una clase de “jugar y aprender” para niños pequeños y sus padres, y que ese día estaban ocupados soplando burbujas de jabón con popotes.

Muchos de los padres que van a las clases de “jugar y aprender” también asisten a clases de GED o de inglés en el centro. Ingrid Alemán tuvo que dejar de ir a las clases del centro porque su hijo Dylan (de 2 años) lloraba demasiado cuando lo separaban de ella en la guardería. Pero ella y su hijo todavía vienen a las clases de “jugar y aprender”.

“Él está aprendiendo a relacionarse con otros niños”, dijo Alemán. “Y a mí me ayuda estar con otras mamás que pueden darme consejos. Porque en la casa —”

“Eres solo tú y los niños — " dijo Duarte.

“En la casa es una locura”, dijo Alemán riendo.

La maestra Mayra Lagunas, a la derecha, ayuda a los estudiantes Hugo Esparza (centro) y Janeth Carhuamaca (izquierda) en matemáticas durante una clase de GED en el centro comunitario de la Escuela Primaria John H. Amesse.

Hay inmigrantes entre las más de 4,000 familias atendidas

Operar cada centro cuesta unos $737,000, lo que equivale a un costo anual total de unos $4.4 millones, según Esmeralda de la Oliva, directora de los centros del distrito. Cuando Marrero anunció la iniciativa en 2022, él dijo que los centros se financiarían en parte con los ahorros de los recortes que hizo en la oficina central del distrito como parte de una reorganización.

En los dos últimos años, los centros han atendido a más de 4,000 familias, según de la Oliva. Eso incluye a más de 1,000 padres inscritos en clases de educación para adultos. Además de las clases de GED y de inglés, algunos centros ofrecen clases para ayudar a los padres a aprobar los exámenes de ciudadanía y clases para enseñarles español a los padres que hablan inglés.

En las clases se han matriculado unos 350 adultos recién llegados y los centros han atendido a 600 familias inmigrantes este año, dijo de la Oliva. Las clases de GED están a capacidad, y de la Oliva dijo que está buscando más fondos para las clases de GED y de inglés, las minitiendas y las despensas de alimentos de donantes privados y organizaciones sin fines de lucro, que incluyen la recién establecida New Arrivals, Students & Family Fund de la Fundación de Escuelas Públicas de Denver.

La labor de prestarles servicios a las familias inmigrantes, muchas de las cuales tienen historias desgarradoras, puede pesar en los corazones y las mentes del personal del centro, dijo de la Oliva, y por esa razón el distrito planea ofrecer capacitación intensiva de autocuidado para el personal a partir del próximo mes. Pero el trabajo está marcando una diferencia.

De la Oliva recordó a una familia que vino a un centro este año escolar buscando pañales tres semanas después de llegar de Colombia. En un mes, la mamá se matriculó en clases de GED y de inglés. En dos meses, el papá estaba trabajando para el departamento de transporte del DPS, que se ha caracterizado por su escasez de personal.

El centro en la Primaria Swansea en el norte de Denver, está a 15 minutos a pie del Western Motor Inn, que ha servido como refugio no oficial para cientos de inmigrantes. Hace un mes, Swansea había inscrito a más de 50 estudiantes inmigrantes — y el centro estaba dándoles servicios a sus familias y a otras personas que se enteraban al correrse la voz, dijo la gerente Sandra Carrillo.

La gente entraba por la puerta del centro, a veces en grupos de seis o más miembros de la familia, dijo Carrillo. “Nos decían: ‘Acabamos de llegar hoy’”. El personal del centro se puso manos a la obra, proporcionando desde calcetines y ropa interior hasta ayuda para inscribir a los niños de 4 años en el nuevo programa preescolar gratuito de Colorado.

Entre los recién llegados al centro de Swansea había un hombre ciego de 27 años, dijo Carrillo. No tiene ningún documento de Venezuela que valide que es legalmente ciego. Esto ha resultado en obstáculos para que él consiga servicios como Access-a-Ride de RTD, que les ofrece transporte a personas con discapacidades. Pero el centro está haciendo todo lo posible por eliminar esos obstáculos.

La meta de este hombre es estudiar economía y ciencias de computadora en una universidad, nos dijo Carrillo. Él se matriculó en las clases de inglés del centro, pero todo el material era impreso en papel. Carrillo dijo que la administración aprobó rápidamente que el centro trabajara con una organización local sin fines de lucro a fin de conseguirle el software que necesita para participar en las clases.

“Cuando las familias nos hacen saber que están pasando por algo, acudimos a toda la comunidad para ver quién tiene recursos”, dijo Carrillo.

Aunque el trabajo puede ser complicado, la meta es sencilla.

Como nos señaló Carrillo, “Familias más felices, estudiantes más felices”.

Melanie Asmar es la corresponsal jefa de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Milly Suazo-Martinez

Social media: Denver school board considering policy about when members can block people

2024-03-08T03:25:56+00:00

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Amid ongoing court cases about public officials’ use of social media, the Denver school board is considering a policy about when board members can and cannot delete comments or block people from commenting on their posts.

The proposed policy says Denver school board members who want to discuss Denver Public Schools business on social media should do so on an official account — that is, an account that is “maintained or operated … in their official capacity” — rather than on a personal account.

“School District Board Members may not speak as a representative of the School District in the course of their personal use of social media,” the proposed policy says.

Board members cannot block anyone from posting comments on their official social media pages based upon the viewpoint that the person expressed, nor can they delete anyone’s comments for the same reason, the proposal says.

However, board members can disable commenting altogether or delete comments that are not protected by the First Amendment, including “threats, obscenity, and defamation,” it says.

The proposal comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a pair of related cases, including one involving school board members in California who blocked parents from their Twitter and Facebook accounts. It also comes on the heels of a first-of-its-kind state law passed last year that allows Colorado elected officials to ban people from their personal social media accounts.

A DPS parent sued former school board member Auon’tai Anderson in September in a test of that new state law after he blocked the parent on Facebook. Anderson, a prolific social media user, served a four-year term on the board from 2019 to 2023 but did not run for re-election this past November.

Current board members didn’t quibble with the gist of the policy during a discussion Thursday.

Derigan Silver, chair of the Department of Media, Film and Journalism Studies at the University of Denver, said in an interview that the Denver board is smart to address this issue.

He summarized the proposed policy like this: “This is like saying, ‘We are going to give you a government cell phone, and you can have a personal cell phone if you want to, but do not do government business on your personal cell phone.’”

The policy also makes clear that board members can’t ban people from their official accounts for criticizing them, he said: “You have to take your slings and arrows as a government official.”

During Thursday’s meeting, board members made some edits to the proposal, cutting phrases they felt were unnecessary. Some asked school district attorney Aaron Thompson clarifying questions, including whether posting about DPS business on their private social media accounts would convert the accounts to official — Thompson said yes — and whether members would still be able to express opinions on social media — again, Thompson said yes.

“The main concern is not about what you’re saying, but what you limit others to say,” Thompson said.

The board is set to vote on the policy later this month.

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

‘More kids, more joy:’ What happened when two small Denver elementary schools merged

2024-02-27T23:02:57+00:00

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In art class on a recent Friday, Cheltenham Elementary students made puppets out of paper bags. In instrumental music, they plinked out patterns — “ta, ti-ti, ta-ta” — on wooden xylophones. In dance class, they took turns doing a step-touch to a version of the disco hit “Stayin’ Alive.”

The west Denver school has a whopping six elective classes, often called “specials,” this school year, up from two last year. Cheltenham also has 10 mental health and behavioral specialists, two assistant principals, two reading interventionists, two math interventionists, and a full-time gifted and talented teacher.

For a school with 425 students, it’s an abundance of staff.

Principal Felicia Manzanares has another word for it.

“It’s a dream,” she said. “But you only get that for one year.”

The one-year-only staffing bump is because Cheltenham was on the receiving end of a controversial school consolidation. In the face of declining enrollment, the Denver school board voted last spring to close tiny Fairview Elementary and reassign its students to Cheltenham.

A one-time agreement between DPS and the Denver teachers union is partly responsible for the huge staffing boost at Cheltenham — and once the agreement expires after this school year, Manzanares will have to make cuts.

More Denver school consolidations could be coming. Although an influx of migrant students from Venezuela and other countries has boosted Denver Public Schools’ enrollment this year, it’s not clear if those students will stay in DPS. If they leave, Colorado’s largest school district could once again be facing the prospect of declining enrollment and school closures.

The consolidation of Fairview and Cheltenham provides a window into what the future could hold. In some ways, because of the one-year staffing agreement, it’s a rose-colored window.

But Mazanares said this dream year has eased the consolidation. It has also shown her, as a longtime principal in schools where most students have high needs, what’s possible. At Cheltenham this year, 93% of students are students of color, 82% are from low-income families, 20% receive special education, and 18% are English language learners.

“This is the best case scenario for how you run a school that’s highly impacted: You flood it with resources,” Manzanares said. “Have I caught all kids up? No. But I have been able to make seismic change in their identity and in [students seeing] themselves as a scholar.”

Longtime Cheltenham music teacher Holly Charles has a simpler way of quantifying the changes brought on by the consolidation.

“More kids, more joy,” she said.

First grader Farhan Noor, 7, works on an illustration during library class at Cheltenham Elementary.

Declining enrollment led to shrinking resources

Before this year, Denver Public Schools was fast losing elementary students.

Years of decreasing birth rates resulted in smaller families, and rising housing prices pushed many of those families out of the city. Enrollment at a slew of Denver elementary schools, including Cheltenham, was dwindling. Several schools, including Fairview, had reached what Superintendent Alex Marrero called “critically low enrollment.”

Denver schools are funded per student, and low enrollment means less money for staff and programming. Before the consolidation, resources at both Fairview and Cheltenham were shrinking. With just 125 students last year, Fairview had only one class per grade level, depriving teachers of collaboration with teammates who teach the same grade.

Manzanares, who was the executive principal over both schools last year, said Fairview lacked support for students on both ends of the academic spectrum. About 85% of its students were reading below grade level. Although some students had incredible strengths, none were identified as gifted and talented. And many had mental health needs that were going unaddressed.

“I was struck by how underserved it seemed,” Manzanares said of Fairview when she became executive principal. “There was a lot of very visible trauma. Kids who were not regulated. It was very common to have a child in the hallway crying, dysregulated, screaming.”

With just under 300 students, Cheltenham was struggling, too. The school was down to two specials: music and P.E. With no art teacher, Manzanares was stepping in to teach art once per week. Cheltenham’s bilingual program for Spanish-speaking students who are learning English had shrunk so much that it was hard to provide quality instruction.

Both Cheltenham and Fairview had been at risk of closure by DPS for years. As district leaders played a will-they, won’t-they game with politically unpopular school closures, Manzanares said she and other principals of small schools decided to get ahead of the decisions. They began talking with their teachers about the possibility of consolidation.

But turnover on the Fairview staff made the conversation harder. So did the displacement of families in the Sun Valley neighborhood where the school is located and where the Denver Housing Authority has been tearing down older subsidized housing units to build new ones. Both factors meant the Fairview community was more caught off guard when the district recommended closure.

At district meetings, some parents and community members pushed back.

“It’s so unfair,” parent Najah Abu Serryeh said after the March meeting when the school board voted to close Fairview. “Fairview is not just a school for us. It’s like a community.”

That Manzanares stood up and supported the closure did not go over well.

“I was very visible at board meetings advocating for it,” she said. “That also created this distrust, like who is this person wanting to close our community school? To some people that felt villainous.”

But she said she remembered thinking, “I need you to trust you’re not seeing what I’m seeing.”

First graders take part in dance class at Cheltenham Elementary.

Parents’ fears have dissipated

When the consolidation happened, Cheltenham got doubly lucky in terms of resources. In addition to more students and more per-student dollars, the school benefitted from the one-time agreement between DPS and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association that guaranteed jobs at the welcoming schools for staff from the closing schools for this year only.

Not only did the union agreement provide job security for Fairview teachers, it resulted in a wealth of programming for students and families. Students have two types of music classes this year — instrumental and choral — as well as art, dance, P.E., and a library class.

There are multiple classrooms at every grade and a certified bilingual teacher for each. The gifted and talented teacher has already identified two former Fairview students for the program.

And because of a robust mental health team of four school psychologists, one therapist, two behavioral specialists, a restorative justice coordinator, a social emotional learning coordinator, and a dean of culture, Manzanares said, “students are regulated. Students are growing.

“By and large, I’m serving happier kids.”

The staffing boost has also made the transition easier for families who were wary about the merger. That includes Cheltenham parents who were worried that adding more students would make the school crowded and take support away from their own children.

But parents said the opposite has happened.

“They got more activities and programs for them, and I think she’s met some new friends,” parent Josephine Bernal said of her daughter Alyona, who’s in second grade. “She’s just been blossoming. I love the new staff. They merged like they’d been family the whole time.”

Most of the Fairview staff and 105 of the 125 students came to Cheltenham, Manzanares said. First grade teacher Amanda Mendez was one of the teachers who made the move.

“The families that came to Cheltenham, a lot would ask, ‘Are you going to go? Are you going to be there?’” Mendez said. “They were comforted by the idea that there would be familiar faces.”

Mendez was hard-pressed to name anything about the consolidation that has been challenging, aside from moving her belongings. Instead, she ticked off a long list of upsides.

One of the biggest, she said, is that with multiple first-grade classes, the teachers can mix-and-match students by academic level. During writing time, one first-grade teacher works with students who are above grade level while another works with students who are behind.

Family liaison Yuri Frias also came over from Fairview. There, she said parents barely ever came into the school to get groceries from the food pantry or help paying their heating bills, even though many needed it. Now at Cheltenham, Frias said she’s serving more Fairview families than ever, even if they have to travel an extra mile and a half to get there.

“I think the reason is the consolidation,” Frias said. “It gave them an empowerment to ask for help.” At first, she said, families felt like the consolidation was taking something away from them. But Frias said that quickly turned into “then what do you have to offer us?”

Not everything has gone smoothly. There have been logistical issues with the school buses that bring students from the Sun Valley neighborhood to Cheltenham. And some of the older students who spent most of their elementary years at Fairview want their school back.

When Laila Ali, boxer Muhammed Ali’s daughter, visited Cheltenham recently to speak to students about the power of their voice, Manzanares said some fourth graders said they wanted to protest the closure of Fairview and advocate for reopening the school.

Students' artwork hangs in the hallway at Cheltenham Elementary.

School events bring the communities together

On a recent Thursday night, Cheltenham held one of its three yearly “exhibition nights.” For an hour and a half after school, families wandered through the classrooms where students had displayed their work. Each grade’s projects had a theme: kindergarten was weather, third grade was famous scientists, fifth grade was space exploration.

In the auditorium, second graders who’d been studying volcanoes acted out the storybook “When the Giant Stirred.” Parents recorded on their cell phones and soothed fussing babies as the second graders held up laminated drawings of butterflies, turtles, and fish.

At the point in the story when the volcano erupts, the students dashed over to a folding table set with painted clay volcanoes and bottles of baking soda and vinegar.

“Three, two, one, pour!” they said in unison.

Second grade teacher Gracen Porreca said events like the exhibition night have brought the two school communities together. Whatever us-versus-them mentality may have existed at the beginning of the year has largely faded, he said. Looking out at the parents in the auditorium, he said you wouldn’t know which were from Fairview and which were from Cheltenham.

“It wasn’t like one side was sitting on one side and the other side was sitting on the other,” Porreca said. “They were all in there together and they were all engaged with what was happening on stage with their kiddos.”

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

Fútbol y fonética: un día en la Escuela Valdez de Denver con dos estudiantes recién llegados

2024-02-20T22:59:06+00:00

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Estudiantes de cuarto grado en la Escuela Primaria Valdez iban pasando uno por uno a través de la puerta del patio de recreo, formando una bola de energía serpenteante con los cordones desatados de los zapatos.

La mayoría subieron las escaleras a sus salones de clases. Solo un par se detuvieron para darle un abrazo rápido al integrante del personal escolar, quien tenía los ojos semicerrados por el sol que le pegaba de frente mientras mantenía la puerta abierta. Dos de los estudiantes que lo abrazaron fueron Jesus y Leiker, quienes llegaron a Denver de Venezuela hace un par de meses.

Los niños, de 9 y 10 años de edad, figuran entre las más de 38,000 personas migrantes que han llegado a Denver durante el último año después de escapar crisis políticas y económicas en sus países de origen.

Algunos de los recién llegados incluyen familias con niños como Jesus y Leiker. Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés) han inscrito a más de 3,200 de estas personas jóvenes desde el inicio del año escolar.

La mayoría llegó después de la fecha límite en octubre que determina cuántos fondos por estudiante DPS recibe del estado, lo cual ha creado un déficit financiero para este distrito escolar, el más grande en el estado, y causado que las escuelas enfrenten dificultades para obtener recursos.

Pero no todas las escuelas. Los nuevos estudiantes están concentrados en un par de docenas de las más de 200 escuelas de DPS, a las cuales el distrito llama hotspots (literalmente, focos o puntos calientes). La razón principal es porque las escuelas ofrecen enseñanza especializada tanto en inglés como en español.

Valdez, también conocida como Escuela Valdez, ha ofrecido por mucho tiempo un programa de lenguaje dual. También está ubicada cerca de un refugio que la ciudad administra adentro de un Quality Inn, el cual la directora Jessica Buckley dijo que todos simplemente le dicen “el Quality”. Valdez, una escuela que tuvo menos de 400 estudiantes el año pasado, ha dado la bienvenida a más de 100 estudiantes nuevos en los últimos meses.

Todos los salones de clases en la escuela primaria ubicada en el noroeste de Denver han alcanzado su límite de 35 niños — excepto los de cuarto grado, en los que antes de la semana pasada había 29 estudiantes por salón.

La Escuela Primaria Valdez—Escuela Valdez—es una escuela de lenguaje dual en el noroeste de Denver.

De frente a esta nueva realidad, Valdez ha tenido que hacer modificaciones. Algunos de los cambios han sido bellos. Otros han sido difíciles. “Los aspectos positivos son el crecimiento de nuestros niños y nuestra comunidad”, Buckley dijo. “El desafío son los recursos”.

Jesus y Leiker se conocieron en el Quality, donde sus familias se estaban quedando, y se hicieron amigos enseguida. Dicen: “Somos como hermanos”.

Así fue un día en la escuela la semana pasada para Jesus y Leiker, cuyos apellidos Chalkbeat no está publicando para proteger sus identidades mientras se guían por su vida en un nuevo país.

Valdez es un “excelente lugar para llegar”

Los niños fueron los dos primeros en entrar al salón de clases, caminando hombro a hombro y platicando.

“¡OK! Siéntate en un lugar donde creas que te vas a enfocar bien”, la maestra Isabelle King dijo.

Jesus y Leiker se apresuraron a ir a esquinas opuestas en la alfombra con un mapa de Estados Unidos que cubre el piso del salón. Jesus se sentó con las piernas cruzadas arriba del estado de Michigan, y Leiker logró agarrar un lugar cerca de California. Dijeron “buenos días” a sus compañeros sentados junto a ellos. Siguiendo las instrucciones de la maestra, también nombraron su deporte favorito.

“Fútbol”, Jesus dijo con una sonrisa.

El salón de cuarto grado había estado viendo videoclips sobre niños con discapacidades. En el videoclip de ese día apareció una niña con sordera que usaba un intérprete al lenguaje de señas en la escuela.

Cuando la maestra pausó el video para preguntar sobre una forma como los estudiantes se parecían a la niña y una forma como eran diferentes, Leiker levantó la mano. En español, dijo que él era diferente porque podía hablar directamente con sus amigos, sin un intérprete.

Jesus, con la camiseta azul tipo polo, escucha mientras la maestra Isabelle King da instrucciones durante la reunión de la mañana en su salón de clases de cuarto grado.

Esto es posible en Valdez porque todos los estudiantes hablan español. Como una escuela de lenguaje dual, Valdez no admite a estudiantes que hablan inglés como lengua materna después de kindergarten. En los grados para niños más pequeños, hasta el 90 por ciento de la enseñanza en el salón de clases es en español para que los niños estén inmersos en el idioma.

Mientras que otras escuelas en Denver y alrededor del país han tenido que usar tecnología, a veces tan rudimentaria como Google Translate, para comunicarse con estudiantes y familias nuevas de Venezuela, en Valdez no se necesitan intérpretes.

“Somos un excelente lugar para que estos niños lleguen”, Buckley dijo. Porque todos hablan español, dijo, los estudiantes nuevos “pueden interactuar y aprender y ser ellos mismos”.

Los estudiantes aprenden el idioma del juego

En el gimnasio, la maestra de educación física Jessica Dominguez pidió que los estudiantes que se dividieran en equipos.

“¡Yo y Leiker!” Jesus gritó.

Durante los siguientes 40 minutos, su equipo rotó entre básquetbol, cuatro recuadros y una pared para escalar. Los niños dominaron en básquetbol a la vez que corrían rápidamente por la media cancha y gritaban: “¡rápido, rápido!” mientras sus compañeros de equipo tiraban la pelota a la canasta.

Las niñas dominaron en cuatro recuadros. Jesus tuvo dificultades. Después de perder por haberle pegado a la pelota cuando no era su turno, una niña pausó el juego para explicarle las reglas en español.

“Él no sabía”, les dijo la niña en inglés a sus compañeros de clase.

Leiker, en el recuadro superior izquierdo, y Jesus, parado atrás de él en la fila, juegan a los cuatro recuadros con sus compañeros durante la clase de educación física.

El personal en Valdez está de acuerdo en que los nuevos estudiantes han enriquecido lingüísticamente a la escuela. Mientras que antes los estudiantes — y hasta los adultos — con frecuencia terminaban hablando en inglés cuando hablaban entre ellos, ahora es más práctico hablar en español. De esa forma, todos entienden.

El fenómeno también fue visible durante el recreo. El fútbol ha sido por mucho tiempo la actividad más popular durante el recreo, Buckley dijo. Pero ahora, el español es lo que se habla en la cancha.

“¡Leiker! ¡Leiker! ¡Atrás! ¡Atrás!” gritó un compañero de equipo, pidiéndole que le pasara la pelota hacia atrás.

El segundo juego más popular es uno nuevo llamado pelota gaga. En contraste con el español que se habla en la cancha de fútbol, todos los estudiantes que jugaron pelota gaga estaban hablando en inglés.

Al escuchar el agudo tuit-tuit del silbato, Jesus, Leiker y los otros jugadores de fútbol corrieron a la cafetería para almorzar. Leiker tenía las mejillas rojas mientras esperaba a que le dieran su macarroni con queso. Jesus trajo su almuerzo de casa, pero igual hizo la fila con su amigo.

Juntos, encontraron asientos en una mesa redonda con dos niños más de cuarto grado.

“¿Jugaron al fútbol hoy, chicos?” preguntó el subdirector Cesar Sanchez en español.

“¡Sí!” contestaron al unísono.

“Nosotros perdimos”, Leiker agregó.

“¿Importa si ganamos o perdimos?” Sanchez preguntó. “¿Qué es lo que importa?”

“¡Divertirse!” dijeron al unísono.

El fútbol es el juego más popular durante el recreo en la Escuela Valdez. En este día cálido de invierno, Jesus, pateando la pelota, Leiker, y otros estudiantes usaron el “piedra, papel o tijera” para elegir equipos.

Los maestros adaptan las lecciones

Siempre ha sido el caso en Valdez, como en todas las escuelas, que algunos estudiantes están más avanzados académicamente y algunos más atrasados, y los maestros deben adaptar sus lecciones. Pero con los estudiantes recién llegados, los maestros han tenido que diferenciar la enseñanza aún más. Valdez ha recibido a estudiantes de cuarto grado que no saben cómo escribir sus nombres, Buckley dijo.

Jesus y Leiker pueden leer y escribir en español. Dijeron que fueron a la escuela en Venezuela antes de venir a Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, sus maestros — especialmente el maestro de lectoescritura Giovanni Leon, a quienes los estudiantes llaman Don Gio — han tenido que realizar modificaciones, trabajando para fortalecer las aptitudes de lectura y escritura de los recién llegados en su lengua materna mientras también empiezan desde cero en inglés. Les están enseñando el alfabeto y los sonidos de las letras.

Este día, después de educación física, la clase de Jesus y Leiker empezó su sesión de lectoescritura en la alfombra, donde Leon explicó la tarea del día: leer un discurso de 1873 de la activista de derechos de la mujer Susan B. Anthony y contestar preguntas sobre el texto.

Leiker, a mano izquierda, y Jesus, tercero de la izq., trabajan para escribir oraciones completas.

Pero el texto y las preguntas eran en inglés, parte de la división 50/50 que Valdez hace entre el inglés y el español en grados más avanzados. Por años, la rotación del idioma era muy marcada. Con los nuevos estudiantes, se ha hecho más flexible.

Mientras la mayoría de los estudiantes se ponían en parejas para empezar a leer el discurso de Susan B. Anthony, Leon llamó a Jesus, Leiker y tres otros a una mesa en forma de C atrás del salón. Iban a leer y contestar preguntas sobre otro texto, un cuento de hadas, en español.

Sin embargo, primero Leon les pidió que practicaran escribir oraciones completas con un sujeto y un predicado, una letra mayúscula al principio, y un punto al final. Les dio un tema en español — el perro — y les pidió que terminaran la oración.

Muchos de los estudiantes recién llegados a Valdez están practicando sus aptitudes de lectoescritura en su lengua materna—español—a la vez que aprenden inglés.

“El perro está jugando en el patio”, Leiker escribió en español en su libreta.

“El perro está ladrando”, Jesus escribió.

Un poco después, cuando Leon señaló que a Leiker le faltaba un punto, el niño dio vueltas con la punta de su lápiz tantas veces que escribió un punto tan grande que hubiera sido imposible que el maestro no lo viera.

Jesus tiene un “momento ajá”

Aunque muchas cosas son diferentes en Valdez últimamente, algunas cosas son iguales. Una de esas es que los estudiantes, incluidos los recién llegados, siguen teniendo lo que los maestros llaman “momentos ajá” — el momento de alegría y descubrimiento cuando entienden un concepto académico.

Este día, Jesus tuvo un momento ajá en matemáticas.

Las matemáticas no son la materia favorita de Jesus. Ambos niños dijeron que lo que más les gusta es el recreo y el almuerzo, seguido por el bocadillo. Leiker dijo que piensa que la clase de música, donde aprenden a tocar instrumentos, es la más difícil. Moviendo la cabeza, Jesus dijo que para él, son las matemáticas.

Leiker, izq., y Jesus, der., se ríen mientras trabajan lado a lado en problemas de matemáticas en sus computadoras.

Durante parte de la sesión de matemáticas, los niños estuvieron sentados con King en su mesa en forma de C. Para explicarle cómo calcular 5 x 30 a Leiker, King sacó una cubeta con bloques amarillos pegados entre sí en grupos de 10. Leiker dividió los grupos de bloques en cinco montones de tres y los contó.

Jesus estaba sentado junto a él, trabajando en sumas. Pero los bloques amarillos le llamaron la atención.

Cuando Leiker obtuvo la respuesta correcta — 150 — a Jesus se le escapó un, “¡Aaahh!”

Jesus puso de lado su propia actividad y ayudó a Leiker con su siguiente problema: 30 x 40. Usando más bloques amarillos, los niños contaron en español. Hablaron al mismo tiempo, igual que lo habían hecho cuando hablaron de fútbol durante el almuerzo: “100, 200, 300, 400…

“¡1,200!”

“Eso es”, King dijo.

Los niños sonrieron orgullosamente.

Valdez necesitará más escritorios

Justo después de las 3 p. m., Jesus, Leiker y sus compañeros de cuarto grado salieron de Valdez por la misma puerta por la que habían entrado del patio de recreo unas horas antes, formando la misma fila desorganizada.

Buckley estaba parada en el asfalto, supervisando la situación.

Valdez tiene más estudiantes ahora que en cualquier momento en años recientes. La escuela está tan llena que cuando familias recién llegadas se presentan en la oficina para inscribir a sus hijos, como lo habían hecho tres de ellas ese día, la secretaria con frecuencia tiene que indicarles que vayan a otras escuelas primarias cercanas.

Jesus, izq., y Leiker, der., caminan a su salón de clases en la Escuela Valdez, la cual ha recibido a más de 100 estudiantes recién llegados este año, muchos de ellos de Venezuela.

Valdez contrató a más asistentes de maestros y un maestro de intervención para ayudar a que los estudiantes nuevos se pongan al día. También compró más libros y logró encontrar muebles usados. El subdirector, Sanchez, a veces ha tenido que manejar por la ciudad en su propia camioneta para recolectar escritorios disponibles en escuelas primarias que no tienen tantos estudiantes.

Un par de horas antes que terminara el día escolar, Buckley se enteró de que la escuela necesitaba dos escritorios más. El distrito se había comunicado para compartir que dos estudiantes recién llegados — en cuarto grado, el único grado en Valdez que todavía tiene cupo — se iban a inscribir la próxima semana.

Melanie Asmar es la corresponsal jefa de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

In split vote, Wyatt Academy’s charter board rejects plan to close the school this year

2024-02-13T23:23:21+00:00

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This story has been updated to include that five board members resigned from Wyatt Academy’s board after the meeting Tuesday.

Following the presentation of a plan by Wyatt Academy’s principal to keep the school open, the Denver charter school’s board of directors rejected a proposal Tuesday to close it.

Five of Wyatt’s nine board members voted to close the school, and four voted to keep it open. Although a majority voted for closure, the proposal needed a 60% approval rate to pass, board President Katie Brown said during the early-morning meeting. As such, the proposal failed.

Brown quickly adjourned the meeting without discussing next steps for Wyatt. In a statement released a few hours later, she implied the school would stay open.

After the meeting Tuesday, Brown and the four other board members who voted to close Wyatt resigned from the board, a spokesperson confirmed.

Wyatt Academy is one of Denver’s oldest charter schools. Opened in 1998, it now serves just over 200 students in kindergarten through fifth grade in northeast Denver.

Late last month, the Wyatt board took a different vote that signaled Wyatt would likely close at the end of this school year. Citing years of low enrollment at Wyatt and a decrease in per-pupil funding, the board voted to partner with a Denver-based charter school network called University Prep that runs two elementary schools in the same part of the city.

The unique agreement said U Prep would get whatever money remained in Wyatt’s bank account when the school closed. Wyatt would get a commitment that U Prep would consider continuing some of the community services Wyatt provides, including a food pantry, free clothing boutique, and laundromat.

Without such an agreement, any money left in Wyatt’s bank account would have gone to Denver Public Schools, the district that authorized it. That’s what usually happens when Denver charter schools close, as at least 14 have done in the past five years, many due to declining enrollment.

After the Wyatt board approved the partnership, it told Wyatt families to find new schools for next year and encouraged them to consider U Prep. The news caused swift backlash from parents, students, teachers, and community members who pleaded with the board to keep Wyatt open. It also caused confusion because the Wyatt board had not yet voted to surrender the school’s charter, a necessary step for closure.

So two weeks after approving the partnership, the board met Tuesday morning to vote on whether to surrender Wyatt’s charter. Wyatt Principal Melody Means gave a presentation outlining how Wyatt could boost enrollment and funding.

“We have not exhausted our options yet for us to close our doors today,” Means said.

Her plan focused on recruiting new students and raising money several different ways, some of which she said only surfaced after news got out about Wyatt’s potential closure. Means said she’d been in touch with big-money donors, at least one of whom is willing to give Wyatt a six-figure grant, though she said she couldn’t disclose names or details.

She said she’d also been approached by an organization serving migrant families from Venezuela. The organization floated the idea of encouraging Venezuelan families to enroll their children at Wyatt if the school would give the organization some classrooms.

The organization’s teachers would teach the migrant students for part of the day to more gradually acclimate them to school in Denver — an arrangement that Means said Wyatt could accommodate because it’s an independent charter school overseen by its own board.

In addition, Means said another elementary charter school in Denver reached out about subletting space in Wyatt’s building, a large, historical structure built in the 1880s. That arrangement would not boost Wyatt’s enrollment, but it would bring in revenue.

Through those efforts, plus the opening of a new apartment building nearby, Means said Wyatt could increase its enrollment to more than 230 students by the 2027-28 school year, which she said would bring in enough per-pupil funding to sustain the school.

Her plan also included a 13% salary boost for Wyatt’s teachers. One reason the Wyatt board was considering closing the school was that Wyatt’s salaries are lower than what DPS pays teachers to work at district-run schools, making it hard for Wyatt to hire and retain staff.

Most board members stayed silent during the meeting. Board member Brandon De Benedet was one of the few to question Means’ plan. He repeatedly called it impractical.

“My gut reaction is this is a very unrealistic set of circumstances,” he said.

De Benedet was one of the five board members to vote for closure. The other four were Brown, board Vice President Amy Younggren, and board members Tyler Lane and Harsha Sekar.

Later Tuesday, all five resigned from the Wyatt board.

Board members Nicole Servino, Terry Usry, Gamaliel Whitney, and Rob Hayes voted against surrendering Wyatt’s charter. None explained their vote, though Servino pointed out that Wyatt earned the highest state rating this year, signified by the color green, based on its test scores.

The Wyatt board released a short statement following the vote that included a quote attributed to Brown and Younggren. In it, they thanked the community for coming together “during the last several years of under-enrollment” and budget constraints, pointing out that paraprofessionals and even Means, the principal, “have stepped up to teach classes.”

“We know many challenges lie ahead, and we sincerely hope the Wyatt legacy carries on even stronger into the 2024-25 school year,” Brown and Younggren said in the statement.

John Loughridge has been one of the Wyatt parents fighting these past two weeks to keep the school open, and he watched the board’s 7 a.m. virtual meeting Tuesday.

“I’m just so incredibly thankful that the good side won,” he said in a phone interview after the vote. “My spouse and I, we cried. This has been an emotional roller coaster.”

Loughridge’s son is in third grade at Wyatt and his daughter attends a nearby preschool. Even though Wyatt told families to find new schools for next year, Loughridge listed Wyatt as the top choice for both of his children next year — his son for fourth grade and his daughter for kindergarten — on their DPS school choice applications, which were due Monday.

“I had faith that the right people would make the right decision,” he said.

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

Wyatt Academy charter school in Denver will likely close at the end of this school year

2024-02-07T23:07:18+00:00

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Wyatt Academy, one of Denver’s oldest charter schools, will likely close at the end of this school year, the latest casualty of declining enrollment and fewer per-pupil dollars. Wyatt has told families to find new schools for their children, but its board hasn’t yet taken a final vote to close.

The likely closure of Wyatt follows a pattern of single-site charter schools shutting their doors in Denver Public Schools, once one of the most charter-friendly districts in the nation.

But instead of simply going dark, Wyatt leaders say they’ve found a way to continue the 25-year-old elementary school’s legacy in northeast Denver. Wyatt’s board of directors has signed a unique legal agreement to partner with University Prep, a small homegrown charter network with two elementary schools in the same part of the city.

UPrep will get whatever money is left in Wyatt’s bank account. It will also get a first shot at hiring Wyatt’s staff and opportunities to pitch its schools to Wyatt families, who can choose to enroll or not. Wyatt gets a promise that some of its unique community programming, such as its free clothing boutique, food pantry, and laundromat, could continue at UPrep.

“Wyatt is more than just a school,” Amy Younggren, vice chair of the Wyatt board of directors and a former Wyatt teacher, said in an interview. “We have extensive family services available. Part of what was important to us was that those services also stay with and in the community.”

Not everyone is happy with the plan. Tim Lewis is a fifth grade teacher at Wyatt. He said staff was blindsided last week when they were called into an emergency meeting in a classroom after school and told Wyatt would close in the spring.

The school, he said, is thriving. Its student test scores have earned it the top state rating, signified by the color green. Just last year, DPS renewed Wyatt’s charter for another five years — the longest time period possible, reserved only for the highest-performing charter schools. Plus, he said, enrollment at Wyatt is slightly up this year.

Lewis said the news hit hard.

“Wyatt is a family,” he said. “We’re not just a school. I don’t have any kids of my own. But whenever anybody asks, I say I have 26 kids. It’s the students in my class.”

Denver Public Schools’ attorney has also questioned the Wyatt-UPrep plan. In a letter last week to the Wyatt board, DPS General Counsel Aaron Thompson noted that Wyatt’s charter contract says its assets would transfer to DPS if the school were to close — not to another entity like UPrep.

“We request a meeting with Wyatt Academy as soon as practicable to collaborate on a closure procedure to best serve families and students and ensure all legal obligations are met,” Thompson wrote.

A copy of the letter was shared in a press release Wednesday by former Denver school board member Auon’tai Anderson, who is head of a new organization called The Center for Advancing Black Excellence in Education and is advocating to save Wyatt.

Younggren said Wyatt’s slight boost in enrollment this year is not enough to reverse years of declines due to decreasing birth rates and rising housing prices that push families out of the city.

A chart on Wyatt’s website shows the trajectory. Wyatt has about 200 students this year, which is the highest enrollment since 2018. Colorado schools are funded per-pupil, and 200 doesn’t bring in enough money to sustain robust programming, Younggren said.

As a comparison, Wyatt had about 650 students when it opened in 1998. It was one of two charter schools to open that year, and together they were just the third and fourth charter schools in the entire district. DPS now has nearly 60 charters.

In recent years, less funding has led Wyatt to cut art and science classes, interventionists who help students struggling with math and reading, paraprofessionals from every grade except kindergarten, its school nurse, its deans, and other positions, the website says.

Wyatt also can’t afford to pay its teachers as much as district-run schools can, which makes it hard to recruit and retain staff, Younggren said. “We’ve made painful cuts year after year that impact teacher satisfaction and student outcomes,” she said.

It’s a familiar story in DPS. In the past five years, at least 14 other Denver charter schools have closed due to declining enrollment. Many were single-site charters like Wyatt, meaning they were not part of a larger network that could help them weather financial downturns.

UPrep is a network, albeit a small one. In addition to its two campuses in Denver — University Prep Arapahoe Street and University Prep Steele Street — it’s planning to open a new elementary school in the Adams 14 school district in Commerce City this fall.

Founder David Singer said UPrep was interested in the partnership with Wyatt because both serve the same community, which is largely low-income families of color, and have a similar mission. UPrep’s tagline is “College starts in kindergarten.”

“While it’s incredibly sad to see Wyatt’s likely closure on the horizon, we felt an obligation to lean in and help in any way we could to sustain Wyatt’s tremendous legacy of care, commitment, and love to families and students,” Singer said in an interview.

The partnership is different from a recent merger between two other Denver-based charter networks, STRIVE Prep and Rocky Mountain Prep. That agreement called for Rocky Mountain Prep to assume operation of STRIVE’s schools, most of which remained open.

Under the Wyatt-UPrep partnership, Wyatt will no longer be a school. The building it leases is historic; it was built in the 1880s and functioned as a DPS school until the 1980s. The building was left to decay until Wyatt, then called Wyatt-Edison, opened there in 1998. If Wyatt closes, Younggren said it’ll be up to the building owner to decide what happens next.

There’s still one more step before Wyatt’s closure is official. Its board of directors has to vote to surrender Wyatt’s charter. The board has not yet set a date to do so, Younggren said.

Because of that, teachers and parents are organizing to save Wyatt.

On Thursday, at the next meeting of the Wyatt board, Lewis said they plan to show up en masse and ask the board to give Wyatt one more year to recruit more students and boost its funding. If the board says no, the community will ask the board members to resign, he said.

“We’re going to fight hard, as hard as we can,” Lewis said. “I teach my students that you’ve got to stand up for what you think is right. This is what we think is right.”

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

5 students arrested, 25 ticketed by SROs in Denver schools in first semester, report shows

2024-01-26T00:41:11+00:00

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Police officers have returned to Denver high schools after a years-long hiatus, but new data suggests they are arresting and ticketing students less frequently than before.

In the first semester of this school year, school resource officers — or SROs — stationed at 13 Denver high schools arrested five students and ticketed 25, according to district data that Chalkbeat obtained through an open records request.

In 2019-20, the last full school year that SROs were stationed in Denver schools, there were 30 student arrests and 160 tickets issued on those same 13 campuses, according to data from the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.

It’s not clear from the 2019-20 data how many of those actions took place in the first semester, but it seems that the pace of ticketing and arrests has slowed this school year.

A similar slowdown occurred in the final two months of last school year, when SROs were temporarily reintroduced following a shooting inside East High School, which set off a heated debate about safety in Denver schools.

Though tickets and arrests are down, Black students are still disproportionately policed. A third of the students who were arrested or ticketed in the first semester of this school year, from August through December, were Black. But only 13% of Denver Public Schools students are Black.

Meanwhile, only 6% of the students ticketed or arrested in the first semester of this school year were white. A quarter of all DPS students are white.

About half of the tickets and arrests involved Hispanic or Latino students, who make up about 50% of DPS.

The data shows that two of the five student arrests were for motor vehicle theft. The other three arrests were for possession of a handgun, first degree assault, and robbery.

Eight of the 30 tickets were issued to students for public fighting. Seven tickets were for assault. One ticket was issued for unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon, which could be a firearm or a knife, and another was issued for possession of a handgun.

It does not appear that the student who was arrested for a handgun and the student who was ticketed for a handgun were the same student. The student arrested was a 14-year-old male and the student ticketed was a 16-year-old male. The report doesn’t explain why one student was arrested and the other was ticketed.

Police officers were phased out of Denver schools in 2020 and 2021 because of concerns about the over-policing of Black students. The Denver school board voted to remove SROs following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

The East High shooting in March sparked a push to bring SROs back. When the Denver school board voted in June to permanently return police to schools, board members asked DPS to monitor tickets and arrests and “notify the Board if the district is aware of a disproportionate number of citations and arrests across marginalized identities.”

Board President Carrie Olson said the board got its first monitoring report on Dec. 31. SROs returned to Denver schools in August, and the monitoring reports were supposed to be quarterly. But because DPS did not finalize an agreement about the SROs with the Denver Police Department until late September, the reporting timeline was pushed back.

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

‘Miss, I have anxiety’: Denver school mental health providers fighting to save pandemic-era program

2024-01-25T00:55:42+00:00

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When 50 students at Denver’s George Washington High School were flagged on a survey as having “extremely elevated risk” for mental health struggles, social worker Sarah Hartman was able to check in with all 50 and offer them services.

That’s a rarity given the bulging caseloads of most school social workers and psychologists, Hartman and others said — and it was only possible because Hartman is part of a pilot program launched in 2021 that originally added mental health providers to 10 Denver schools.

The program was aimed at helping the majority of students who don’t regularly see a school psychologist or social worker. Those providers are busy serving students with disabilities who are legally entitled to services, and they often don’t have time to help other students struggling with depression, grief, and the trauma of growing up during COVID.

Out of the 50 students to whom Hartman offered mental health services, only five said no.

“Kids would be like, ‘Miss, I have anxiety,’” Hartman said in an interview. “When you ask them if they want help, they want help.”

But that help could soon go away.

The pilot program is funded with temporary federal pandemic relief dollars known as ESSER. Because of a merger with an existing Denver Public Schools program focused on substance abuse prevention, the program has expanded to 31 schools at a cost of $3.4 million this year.

But the ESSER money is set to expire this fall, though federal officials recently announced a potential extension if districts spend it on certain efforts such as tutoring. Facing a likely funding cliff, the mental health providers are fighting to keep a program they see as fulfilling what had been an empty promise from DPS to do better on mental health.

Meanwhile, the district is evaluating whether it can afford to do so. A spokesperson said in a statement that the district “is examining the benefits / impact of programming for student outcomes, as well as feasibility to sustain programming as is.”

“How fair is it to identify a concern but then not have the resources to address the concern?” Joe Waldon, a social worker in the program at Hill Campus of Arts and Sciences, asked the school board Monday. “This is a huge ethical dilemma for me.”

A cadre of providers in what DPS calls the prevention and therapeutic specialists, or PTS, program pleaded with board members this week to find sustainable funding once ESSER expires. They shared with them a spreadsheet of more than 100 supportive comments they’d solicited from other school psychologists and social workers, teachers, parents, and students.

“She helped me calm down when I was angry,” one second grade student wrote of the provider at their school, according to the spreadsheet, which was also shared with Chalkbeat. “She taught me to let my emotions out whenever I need to by crying it out, and that it is okay.”

A fourth grade student wrote that the provider at their school taught them about “safe touch and who is allowed to see private parts.” A fifth grader wrote that they spoke to the provider about their mom’s abusive boyfriends and addiction to drugs and alcohol. “She helped me work through all of those memories and experiences,” the student wrote.

A student at East High School wrote that if not for the counseling support they received, “I don’t know how much I would (have been) able to attend classes last year because of my anxiety.”

Maria Hite, a PTS social worker at North High School, has a box of fidget toys and a mini Zen garden in her softly lit office, where students can trace a tiny rake through the sand as they talk.

Hite and the PTS team at North “have supported students in a way that our school-based mental health team do not have capacity for,” an educator at the school wrote, adding that the traditional psychologists and social workers “are already drowning as it is.”

District statistics show that in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, the PTS providers did one-on-one therapy with 415 students and group therapy with 783 students. More than 80% of those students were Black or Latino, and 83% came from low-income families — percentages that are higher than the district averages.

The providers also taught suicide prevention lessons to more than 2,400 students, and lessons on dealing with stress and anxiety or the dangers of vaping, drinking, and using drugs, to more than 17,000 students. If a student gets caught with drugs on campus, the PTS providers can provide counseling and intervention as an alternative to out-of-school suspension.

School psychologists and social workers are in high demand in DPS, and the PTS providers are not worried about finding jobs if the program ends. But they are worried that they will once again be pulled into the paperwork-heavy and crisis-heavy work of serving students with high needs and disabilities, and that the students they serve now will fall through the cracks.

Said Waldon: “How do you tell a child, ‘I don’t have time?’”

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

Group’s new ‘Mile High School Guide’ serves as data dashboard for Denver schools

2024-01-19T01:39:20+00:00

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It’s been three and a half years since a committee recommended that Denver Public Schools develop a dashboard of data about its schools. The district has not done so — but an advocacy organization launched its own dashboard this week.

The Mile High School Guide allows families to look up information about all 197 of Denver’s public schools. The information includes teacher-to-student ratios, standardized test scores, student attendance rates and discipline data, whether the school requires uniforms or offers preschool classes or after-school child care, and more.

“We just saw a gap in this information,” said Pat Donovan, the managing partner at RootED, the Denver-based group behind the website. He said that as time went on and DPS did not debut a dashboard of its own, RootED felt it “had a moral imperative to be responsive to the community: ‘We have the ability to do this, so we should.’ So we did.”

The information in the dashboard came from the Colorado Department of Education and from DPS itself, Donovan said, adding that the district was cooperative throughout the process. Some of the data is already accessible on school, district, and state websites, but much of it is hard to find or not publicly available without submitting an open records request.

The dashboard’s launch coincides with DPS’ school choice window, during which families can apply to send their children to any school in the district next year. The school choice window opened Jan. 11. Families have until Feb. 12 to submit their applications.

In addition to English, the Mile High School Guide is available in eight languages, including Spanish and Arabic, the second- and third-most common languages among DPS families.

Parent Yaeel Duarte worked with RootED to gather input for the dashboard from Spanish-speaking families at schools, churches, and food banks across the city.

A mother of four whose youngest child is an 11th grader at Girls Athletic Leadership Academy charter school, Duarte said she believes the dashboard is important because it shows parents they have choices for where to send their children to school — especially if their current school isn’t a good fit, as Duarte experienced with one of her children.

“I want them to know that there are options out there,” Duarte said in an interview.

The Mile High School Guide is available in nine languages.

The idea of a data dashboard has been controversial. It first came up in the spring of 2020, when a 30-member community committee recommended it. The committee was commissioned by DPS and tasked with “reimagining” the district’s color-coded school rating system, which many educators and parents found frustrating and unhelpful.

The committee recommended scrapping DPS’ rating system and using the state’s rating system instead — which the district did. But since the state ratings are based almost entirely on standardized test scores, the committee suggested DPS launch a separate data dashboard with information that would give parents “a more accurate picture of each school.”

The committee suggested the dashboard could include information like average class sizes, the reliability of a school’s buses, and the ratio of mental health staff to students.

In November 2022, more than two years after the initial recommendation, DPS asked for family members, students, teachers, and others to apply to serve on a new committee to develop the dashboard. The committee was supposed to start meeting in February 2023 and wrap up its work this June, with the dashboard set to go live this fall.

But the committee still hasn’t gotten started. DPS spokesperson Scott Pribble said the district is waiting on direction from school board members, some of whom have been wary about how the district and community would use the data in a dashboard.

Member Michelle Quattlebaum said at a 2022 board meeting that she worried the data would be used punitively against schools. Former member Auon’tai Anderson wondered how a dashboard would help students and whether DPS should invest resources in developing one.

Former board member Scott Baldermann was one of the most vocal critics.

“What I’m worried about is how parents could weaponize this data,” Baldermann said in 2020.

Baldermann was also critical of school choice and what he saw as the competition it creates between schools. RootED, the organization behind the new Mile High School Guide, supports school choice and charter schools, as do its funders such as The City Fund.

But Donovan said the organization isn’t solely focused on those issues and has backed a variety of projects, including a training film for teachers on how to support LGBTQ+ students. He noted that the guide doesn’t even label schools as district-run or charter.

“Parents don’t care about that,” Donovan said. “They’re not like, ‘My primary consideration is whether it’s a charter or not.’ They want a good school.

“This is the type of information they would like to see.”

In addition to the Mile High School Guide, RootED launched a separate data dashboard aimed at policymakers, advocates, and journalists. Called Denver School Insights, it includes district-level data — rather than school-level data — broken down by neighborhood, as well as by school board, city council, and state legislative districts.

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

Denver school board vote on Academy 360 charter turns into debate on how to measure academic success

2024-01-12T22:52:14+00:00

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A Denver school board discussion about the future of struggling Academy 360 charter school turned into an at times heated debate over a thorny question: How should the district measure academic progress at low-scoring schools?

Academy 360 is an elementary charter in the Montbello neighborhood focused on health and wellness. Its supporters describe it as both a nurturing school for some of the city’s most vulnerable children and a community hub. But Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero has said Academy 360 is academically failing the majority Black and Latino students it serves, most of whom are from low-income families.

At a school board meeting Thursday, Marrero recommended using state standardized test scores, a common metric, to measure Academy 360′s progress.

He proposed that if the school’s test scores this spring weren’t high enough to boost its rating from the lowest, signified by the color red, to the second-lowest, orange, that the charter should be closed at the end of next school year.

Board member Scott Esserman offered an alternative: Academy 360 could stay open if its students showed academic growth on a lower-stakes test that he argued is a better measure of what students have learned.

Among the advantages, Esserman said, is that all Academy 360 students in kindergarten through fifth grade would take lower-stakes tests, such as i-Ready, several times a year. The state tests, known as CMAS, are only given once per year to students in grades 3, 4, and 5.

“We aren’t saying CMAS won’t be used as an assessment,” Esserman said. “What I believe we’re saying here is that internally, we want to move on from this. We don’t have control over CMAS. But we do have control over how we evaluate our own schools.”

Similar debates have played out in other school districts around Colorado and at the state level, where a task force is currently discussing whether the color-coded state rating system based on CMAS scores is indeed how Colorado wants to measure school quality.

Marrero originally recommended closing Academy 360 at the end of this school year. His advice was based on CMAS scores: Last spring, the school’s third through fifth graders scored in the 1st percentile in math and literacy, meaning 99% of Colorado students scored higher.

But in November, the school board rejected Marrero’s closure recommendation. Members cited the mental health support that Academy 360 provides its students and families, and the fact that nearby elementary schools don’t have high test scores either.

“We want to give you another chance,” Carrie Olson, who is now the board president, said in November. “And we have to see that you’re doing right by all students. Because I don’t want to incur more pain and I know the trauma of having a school being closed.”

For two hours Thursday, board members debated what to do next. They proposed amendment after amendment, tinkering with Esserman’s suggestion by adding requirements for how many Academy 360 students would have to take the tests and clarifying how much academic growth the students would have to make to justify keeping the school open.

At times, a majority of board members said they agreed with Esserman’s idea. But district officials were skeptical. Marrero said Thursday’s meeting was the first time he’d seen the proposal. General Counsel Aaron Thompson noted that using a test like i-Ready instead of CMAS could change the rules for other DPS charter schools too.

“This is creating sort of a brand new accountability framework,” Thompson said. “And I think that’s something we could put together. But it’s not something we currently have.”

Grant Guyer, the district’s associate chief of strategic operations, said that on a computerized test like i-Ready, which gives students harder or easier questions based on how they answer, it can be difficult to calculate how much progress students make over time. Esserman had proposed that Academy 360 students’ scores improve by 20% before the end of the school year, but Guyer said the district would have to “get very creative” to figure that out.

Esserman became frustrated during the meeting. He accused district staff of trying to undermine his proposal by getting too technical. The board’s job is to set the high-level policy and direction, he said — and he said district staff need to “do your jobs and figure this out.”

“We’d rather draw lines in the sand, we’d rather beat this up, because we want this school closed,” Esserman said, smacking the table. “It’s distressing and it’s disappointing.”

Academy 360 leaders were not given an opportunity to speak at the meeting.

In the end, some board members flip-flopped and Esserman’s proposal failed on a 3-4 vote. Esserman, Olson, and board member John Youngquist voted for it. Marlene De La Rosa, Kimberlee Sia, Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, and Michelle Quattlebaum voted against it.

Quattlebaum, who represents the Montbello neighborhood, said the proposal had grown so complicated that she feared “many, many possible unintended negative consequences.”

“We’re so far in the weeds with so many questions out there in the ether right now,” Quattlebaum said. “We have no idea what will actually happen. With the original recommendation, it may not have been to everyone’s liking but it was simple, it was clean, it was agreed upon, and I do believe that there was still room to leverage equity.”

Marrero’s recommendation to use CMAS passed on a 4-3 vote. If Academy 360 doesn’t boost its rating from red to orange next school year, the charter school will close in June 2025.

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

‘The language of teenagers’: New grant brings Crisis Text Line to Denver and its schools

2023-12-21T17:09:10+00:00

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In the midst of what experts say is a youth mental health emergency, Denver has a new response: a text line that lets teenagers seek help in a way that’s comfortable for them.

Teens — or anyone who’s struggling with stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, or other issues — can text “Denver” to 741741 and be connected within a few minutes to a trained volunteer counselor through the national Crisis Text Line. The service works much like a traditional crisis hotline but with texting, in both English and Spanish, instead of talking.

“This is the language of teenagers,” said Lucy Roberts, a school nurse at Denver’s Manual High School. “This is meeting them exactly where they need to be.”

As a school nurse, Roberts is trained in skills like how to give medication and manage asthma. But more and more, she said the questions she gets are related to mental – not physical – health.

The other day, she was doing a round of routine vision screenings. In the past, Roberts said students would ask her if she thought they might need glasses or how to get contact lenses.

This year, she said, “there were multiple kids who said to me, ‘What do you know about anxiety, and how do I know if I have it?’ And we weren’t talking about that at all.”

The Crisis Text Line is an international organization founded in 2013. But Roberts said she didn’t know about it until recently, when the Caring for Denver Foundation, which is funded by voter-approved tax dollars, awarded the text line a $326,000 grant to promote its 24/7 services through social media posts and outreach in Denver Public Schools.

Spurred in part by the pandemic, DPS and other Colorado school districts have boosted the number of mental health services available to students, including through the state’s “I Matter” program that offers students six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions.

But although 300-student Manual High has two outside therapists who see students in addition to the psychologist, social worker, and counselor on staff, the therapists’ schedules are completely booked, Roberts said.

Being able to refer students to the Crisis Text Line is a much-needed alternative that Roberts said is quicker, more convenient, and often more comfortable for teens than meeting a therapist face-to-face.

“Otherwise, I give a student and their family the name of a person who’s got a waiting list who says they can take them in six months,” Roberts said. With the Crisis Text Line, “within two minutes, a student is going to get a response. That’s incredible.”

The Crisis Text Line is one of many youth-focused initiatives funded by the Caring for Denver Foundation. Another is a recently announced $1.7 million investment in five additional therapists that will be stationed inside DPS middle and high schools.

Two of the five therapists will specialize in substance abuse and the other three will provide on-demand therapy when students are in crisis so they don’t have to wait for an appointment.

“We want to make sure there are as many pathways for young people to get the help they need in ways that work for them,” said Executive Director Lorez Meinhold.

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

These are some of the education issues Colorado lawmakers expect to tackle in 2024

2024-01-09T23:12:13+00:00

Increasing school funding. Expanding career and technical education. Retaining teachers.

Those were among the topics that a panel of five Colorado lawmakers said they plan to prioritize in the 2024 legislative session, which starts tomorrow. The panel was part of Chalkbeat’s annual Legislative Preview event, where lawmakers interested in education talk to us and answer questions about the big issues they plan to tackle.

This year, we were joined by:

Sen. Janet Buckner, an Aurora Democrat and chair of the Senate Education Committee
Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and vice chair of Joint Budget Committee
Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat and House assistant majority leader
Rep. Barbara McLachlan, a Durango Democrat and chair of the House Education Committee
Rep. Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican and House assistant minority leader

The event was moderated by Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales and Maryori “MJ” Guzman, a student at CU Denver who is active with Young Invincibles, an organization that amplifies the voices of young adults.

A full video of the event is posted below. Here are excerpts of the discussion:

The rollout of universal preschool, free preschool for Colorado 4-year-olds, has been rocky. How can lawmakers strengthen the program for preschool providers and families?

Buckner: Any new program that’s that big and that important, we’re going to have some bumps in the road. But we are continuing to save parents an average of $6,000 per month. And we’re going to keep focusing on supporting families, because we know how important it is to have responsible and amazing child care and education for all of our kids.

I stay in close contact with Dr. Lisa Roy, who is the director of the Department of Early Childhood, and her exact words are — and this is my commitment, too — “We will be self-correcting during this upcoming year to make that program even more viable, more accessible, and better for all students.”

Zenzinger: Just prioritizing early childhood within our budget this year.

Making sure that we are increasing the provider payments … so that we have the right incentives, and that we’re paying the providers the right amount, so that they can continue to deliver universal preschool.

Making sure that we have a resource bank and additional supports for staff, so that they can develop and so that they can address problems when they come up.

Making sure that we’re providing enough funding for our local coordinating organizations — those partners that we’re working with in the community that know what is happening on the ground, so that we can address problems and better support our LCOs.

And then lastly, having a plan for what to do when our federal funds expire. We did stand up a lot of the universal preschool program utilizing one-time funds. So how can we position our budget so that we can continue to support the universal preschool program — and, in fact, grow that program into the future — if those one-time funds are going away?

Families in Colorado pay more to send their children to public colleges than families in many other states. How will lawmakers address college affordability, especially when the governor’s budget doesn’t keep pace with inflation?

Zenzinger: You’re right. Part of the problem is that when you are so underfunded, when your higher education system is at the bottom of the pack compared to all the other states in the United States, that’s going to have an impact. … The only way that you can address it is by having us, the legislature, prioritize higher education and make sure that we properly fund our institutions, so that then they don’t have to pass those costs on to our students.

Pugliese: One of the other conversations is: Is higher education right for everyone? And what has the legislature put in place in order to give students some alternatives? … Coming up with creative solutions with the money that we do have to make it go further for our students is definitely one of the options the legislature has.

Teachers statewide have complained that pay hasn’t kept pace. While lawmakers can’t direct districts to increase pay, what are some solutions or ways to help increase pay statewide, as well as make the profession more attractive?

Pugliese: When I meet with my school districts, they say, “Hey, maybe you can slow down on some legislation and regulations to allow us to work through some of the laws that have already been passed, so that we can alleviate some of the burdens on our teachers.”

McLachlan: I taught high school for 20 years, so I know. … It’s important that we don’t ever forget that our teachers are really the backbone of all of childhood for kids. And if we do that right, then we are producing productive adults. And some of it is pay, and we’re trying really hard to increase the pay. If we could legislate respect and kindness, we would do that.

What role, if any, should state lawmakers play in so-called culture wars issues? For instance, should state lawmakers get involved in book bans in school libraries?

Pugliese: I’m pretty sure you probably started with me because I might have written a letter about this. … I think that there’s a lot of angst. We’ve seen this in Colorado Springs in our communities between parents and what is available to our kids in school libraries.

My letter was more directed at making sure that parents are communicating with our school board members that we have appropriate books in our schools and maybe getting an outside perspective, which in my letter was the district attorney, to maybe just put parents’ minds at ease that the books that their kids have access to are the right books and are appropriate.

McLachlan: I’m not a fan of having other parents tell my children what they can read and what they can’t read. … I taught freshman honors English. … One of my assignments was that everybody had to find a banned book and read the book and then write a report on why they thought it was banned. … I had parents who were just furious with me for having kids read books. And I said, “Well, you read the book. Find one with your child.” After they did that, not one parent ever came back and said, “We could not find a book that my child could read.”

I’m just not sure that we as a legislature need to start saying yes or no.

Bacon: A lot of the notions behind book banning, I just struggle with as a concept in an internet-based society. Book banning comes from an antiquated perception of how people get access to knowledge, and it is a tool that is being repeated from a century ago.

Ultimately, when it comes to parents and having input in what it is that their kids are reading, it doesn’t always go one way. My mom had to fight so that we could read “Roots” on a seventh-grade accelerating reading list, because the only stories we had were from Mark Twain. That was parental choice as well.

I do think what the legislature and local school districts have an interest in is saying: What should all Colorado students be prepared for by the time that they’re 18? And I do think as legislators we need to recognize we are in not only a multicultural country but world. And so it’s important for us to be able to support our young people in being able to pursue that knowledge.

Watch the full video from Chalkbeat’s Legislative Preview event below.

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

For Colorado’s class of 2023, the graduation rate was up and the dropout rate was down

2024-01-09T18:00:00+00:00

Colorado’s graduation rate ticked slightly up for the class of 2023, continuing a long-running trend of rising graduation rates except for a brief dip during the pandemic.

The dropout rate for the class of 2023 was slightly down, which was more good news. But the 2023 dropout rate, which counts how many seventh through 12th grade students disenroll from schools, was still higher than the historic lows the state saw just a few years earlier.

The Colorado Department of Education released graduation and dropout rates for the 2022-23 school year on Tuesday. Statewide, 83.1% of the class of 2023 graduated on time last spring, meaning within four years of starting high school. That was up from 82.3% in 2022.

In a statement, Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova called the 0.8% graduation rate increase “modest.” She credited the hard work of educators, families, and students and nodded to the educational difficulties of the pandemic.

“Given the challenges that our students and educators have faced over the last four years, I am glad that in Colorado we continue to see an improved graduation rate and a decreasing dropout rate,” Córdova said. “It shows students know the value of staying in school and receiving a quality education.”

The statewide dropout rate dipped to 2.1% in 2022-23, down from 2.2% in 2012-22. That’s higher than the 1.8% dropout rate in 2019-20 or the 2% rate in 2018-19, before the pandemic.

Black, Hispanic, and white students all posted higher graduation rates in 2023 than in 2022. But wide gaps by race remain: In 2023, about 90% of white students in Colorado, 80% of Black students, and 77% of Hispanic students graduated in four years.

The class of 2023 were freshman in their second semester of high school when the pandemic began in 2020 and schools were closed. Experts have said that the worst impact on graduation rates may be years ahead, as students who were in elementary school during the pandemic, or switching from elementary into middle school, or middle school into high school, make their way through high school. That’s unless schools are successful in helping students get back on track.

This coming spring, the graduating class will be made up mostly of students who missed out on a typical start to their high school years due to remote learning.

Among the 10 largest Colorado school districts with the highest percentages of students of color, just three districts — Mapleton, Aurora, and Adams 14 — saw a decrease in graduation rates compared to the previous year. Both Aurora Public Schools and Adams 14, in Commerce City, are on a state watchlist for persistently low student achievement.

The largest increases among these 10 districts were in East Otero, Pueblo 60, Weld Re-8 in Fort Lupton, and Denver. East Otero had the highest increase of 6.6 percentage points, rocketing from an 85% graduation rate in 2022 to a rate of 91.6% in 2023.

Rick Lovato, the superintendent for East Otero in southeast Colorado, said he attributes the jump in graduation rates to the district’s alternative education school, which is in its third year.

The school has worked with around 30 students that may not have graduated otherwise, and that “has made a big difference,” he said. East Otero offered some online programs before opening its own campus with in-person courses and workforce readiness programs that help students connect their learning to the workforce.

Denver Public Schools’ graduation rate rose from 76.5% in 2022 to 79% in 2023, the highest rate for the state’s largest district in at least a decade. Its dropout rate remained the same at 3.8%, which meant that about 1,680 students left Denver schools in 2022-23.

Although the graduation rates for white students and Hispanic students in Denver both rose, the gap between the rates widened to more than 13 percentage points in 2023, worsening a problem that has plagued the district and the state for many years. More than half of the students in DPS are Latino, and about a quarter are white.

In Boulder, where gaps by race have also historically been among the largest in the state, the graduation rate for Hispanic students decreased to 81% in 2023 from 81.8% in 2022. By comparison, 94.3% of Boulder’s white students graduated in 2023, which is more than 13 percentage points in difference, a larger gap than in the previous year.

The graduation rate for Latino students at Adams 14′s main high school, which has often been higher than the state rate for Latino students, decreased significantly in 2023 compared to the previous year. Adams City High’s graduation rate for Hispanic students was 84.8%, down from 86.8% in 2022.

Look up your school or district’s four-year graduation rates below:

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

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

Split Denver school board approves superintendent’s goals on safety, test scores, and more

2023-12-20T01:41:51+00:00

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Revising Denver Public Schools’ discipline code, screening all young students for dyslexia, and increasing the percentage of students reading and doing math at grade level are among the Denver superintendent’s goals for this school year.

At a Denver school board meeting last week — the first voting meeting since three new members were elected — the board approved a long list of metrics by which to evaluate Superintendent Alex Marrero. The metrics are officially known as “reasonable interpretations.” They are Marrero’s take on how the board, which hired him in 2021 and oversees his work, will know if he’s accomplishing the overarching goals the board has set for DPS.

The vote to approve the metrics was split, with the three newly elected board members voting no and the four veteran members voting yes, revealing a potentially new divide on a board that has been known for its divisiveness.

The tone of the hourlong debate last Thursday was polite, if impatient at times. The three new board members, who were sworn in Dec. 1, said they hadn’t had enough time to review the more than 230 metrics since they’d gotten the documents two days before.

“It is a lot to go through, to evaluate, to research as a very brand-new, 13-days-in board member,” said new member Marlene De La Rosa.

The four other board members said they sympathized. But they said the board had already delayed the vote so the new members could weigh in, and that delaying it any further would cause, as member Scott Esserman put it, “stress and uncertainty.”

“It’s really important that we take care of this and move on,” Esserman said.

An attempt by the new board members to delay a vote on all of the metrics until January failed 4-3. So did a separate attempt to delay voting on a select number of high-profile metrics related to school safety, student discipline, and academic curriculum.

The metrics are tied to Marrero’s performance evaluation, which happens each October. Last school year, Marrero met 80% of the metrics, earning him a $8,235 bonus, which was equal to 2.5% of his salary. Under his contract, the more metrics he meets, the higher the bonus.

This school year’s metrics range from hyper-specific — that the district’s new greenhouse will harvest 8,160 pounds of tomatoes by June — to more broad, including that Marrero will “guard against the … endangerment of the district’s public image or credibility.”

Other metrics specify that Marrero will:

Publish a revised “discipline matrix” by the end of this school year. The discipline matrix dictates when educators can suspend or expel a student or refer a student to police. It came under intense scrutiny after a previously expelled student brought a gun to Denver’s East High School in March and shot two deans before taking his own life.
Ensure all police officers stationed inside DPS high schools are certified by the National Association of School Resource Officers and ensure school leaders with a new officer in their building attend a training put on by the same organization. The board voted to return police officers to some DPS high schools after the East High shooting.
Ensure that school resource officers who don’t follow district policy, don’t comply with the discipline matrix, or don’t abide by best practices are “promptly removed.”
Monitor tickets and arrests by school resource officers and ensure that students are not ticketed for “low-level violations” of the city municipal code.
Increase by at least one percentage point the share of students who score at grade level on state literacy and math tests, both overall and for specific student groups, including Black and Latino students, students with disabilities, and students who qualify for subsidized meals.
Ensure all students in kindergarten through third grade take a universal reading screener to help detect reading problems such as dyslexia.
Increase high school graduation rates, the reporting for which lags a year behind. The graduation rate for the class of 2022 was 76.5%. The goal for the class of 2023 is 79%.
Improve student attendance. The district fell short of its attendance goals last year.

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

Metas del superintendente de Denver incluyen mejorar resultados y actualizar el código disciplinario

2024-01-09T00:24:59+00:00

Actualizar el código disciplinario de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, evaluar a todos los estudiantes pequeños para identificar dislexia, y aumentar en por lo menos un 1 por ciento el porcentaje de estudiantes que leen y hacen matemáticas a nivel de grado figuran entre las metas del superintendente de Denver para este año escolar.

El consejo escolar de Denver aprobó recientemente una larga lista de estándares que se usarán para evaluar el desempeño del superintendente Alex Marrero. El voto para aprobar los estándares estuvo dividido. Los tres integrantes nuevos del consejo escolar que empezaron en diciembre votaron en contra porque dijeron que no habían tenido suficiente tiempo para examinar los más de 230 estándares. Los cuatro integrantes veteranos votaron a favor.

El año escolar pasado, Marrero cumplió con el 80 por ciento de los estándares, lo cual resultó en que recibiera un bono de $8,235. Según su contrato laboral, mientras más estándares cumpla, más grande es el bono.

Algunos de los estándares para este año escolar son muy específicos, como que el nuevo invernadero del distrito produzca 8,160 libras de tomates antes de junio. Otros son más generales, incluido que Marrero “protegerá [para que no] … se ponga en riesgo la imagen o credibilidad pública del distrito”.

Otros estándares especifican que Marrero:

Publicará una “tabla disciplinaria” actualizada para finales de este año escolar. La tabla disciplinaria determina cuándo los educadores pueden suspender o expulsar a un estudiante o derivar a un estudiante a la policía. La tabla fue examinada intensamente después de que un estudiante previamente expulsado trajera una pistola a East High School en Denver en marzo y le disparara a dos decanos antes de acabar con su propia vida.
Asegurará que todos los agentes de la policía a quienes los asignen para estar dentro de las high schools de DPS estén certificados por la Asociación Nacional de Agentes Escolares Armados, y asegurará que los líderes escolares con un nuevo agente en su edificio reciban capacitación a través de la misma organización. El consejo votó a favor de que regresaran los agentes de la policía a algunas high schools de DPS después del evento en East High.
Asegurará que a los agentes escolares armados que no cumplan con las pautas del distrito, no cumplan con la tabla disciplinaria o no se adhieran a las mejores prácticas los “saquen prontamente”.
Monitoreará las multas y los arrestos de los agentes escolares armados y asegurará que a los estudiante no los multen por “violaciones de bajo nivel” del código municipal de la ciudad.
Aumentará en por lo menos el 1 por ciento el porcentaje de estudiantes que obtienen resultados a nivel de grado en las pruebas estatales de lectoescritura y matemáticas, tanto en general como en grupos específicos de estudiantes, incluidos estudiantes negros y latinos, estudiantes con discapacidades y estudiantes que cumplen requisitos para recibir comida subsidiada.
Asegurará que todos los estudiantes de kindergarten a tercer grado tomen una prueba universal de lectura para ayudar a detectar dificultades como la dislexia.
Aumentará las tasas de graduación de high school, cuyos informes están retrasados un año. La tasa de graduación entre los estudiantes que se graduaron en 2022 fue del 76.5 por ciento. La meta para la generación de 2023 es del 79 por ciento.
Mejorará la asistencia de los estudiantes. El distrito no alcanzó sus metas de asistencia escolar el año pasado.

Melanie Asmar es la corresponsal jefa de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Programas bilingües de Denver enfrentan problemas por muy pocos estudiantes y amenaza de cierres

2022-07-12T11:55:00+00:00

El primer día de la escuela de verano en Denver, seis niños que empezarán el primer grado tomaron un examen de deletreo. Usando lápices con gomas de borrar nuevas, deletrearon palabras como noche, jugo, pequeño y vecino.

“Número tres es la palabra — es un poco larga — ‘pequeño,’” dijo la maestra.

Una niña con espejuelos y un lazo grande color rosa miró el papel que tenía en frente y trató de hacer los sonidos.

“P–p-p-pequeño,” susurró en voz baja mientras escribía una “p” al lado del número 3.

Estos niños de 6 y 7 años están matriculados en el programa de educación bilingüe de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y por eso aprenden deletreo, lectura y matemáticas en español. Mientras van adquiriendo más destrezas académicas básicas, también aprenden inglés, y con el tiempo hacen la transición a una enseñanza que se da cada vez menos en español.

Los padres y educadores de Denver lucharon por este tipo de programa bilingüe — conocido como enseñanza de transición en el idioma nativo, o TNLI (transitional native language instruction) — y una orden de un tribunal federal requiere que el distrito lo ofrezca en cada escuela que tenga un mínimo de 60 estudiantes que hablan español y están aprendiendo inglés.

Sin embargo, los programas bilingües de Denver están enfrentando una gran amenaza: cada vez hay más escuelas con muy pocos estudiantes.

Los altos costos de vivienda y reducciones en las tasas de natalidad están reduciendo la matrícula en las escuelas públicas, y en especial en las comunidades históricamente latinas de Denver. Ha sido difícil llenar los salones de clase bilingües en las escuelas primarias, y los métodos alternativos, como combinar dos grados en un salón, no sirven bien los alumnos. El distrito ya había decidido cerrar cuatro programas pequeños TNLI — pronunciado “tin-li” — a principios de este año, pero después cambió de parecer.

El distrito también está considerando cerrar algunas escuelas completamente. Más de la mitad de las escuelas que cumplen los criterios recomendados para un posible cierre tienen programas TNLI. Esas 15 escuelas representan casi una cuarta parte de las 65 escuelas del distrito que tienen salones de clase bilingües.

Consolidar escuelas podría permitir programas más robustos, pero eso conlleva su propio costo.

“Esta escuela es parta de nuestra comunidad,” dijo Yuridia Rebolledo-Durán, madre de dos estudiantes de la Escuela Primaria Colfax, en una manifestación frente a la escuela el pasado mes de abril. “Es muy importante para nosotros como padres que nuestros hijos puedan hablar dos idiomas.”

Padres y maestros pelearon por educación bilingüe

Las investigaciones apoyan generalmente la eficacia de una educación bilingüe. En Denver, los estudiantes que aprenden inglés y adquieren dominio de ese idioma históricamente han tenido buenas puntuaciones en los exámenes estandarizados del estado. Los administradores de alto rango de las escuelas de Denver también apoyan esa idea.

“Nos entristece mucho el hecho de que la reducción en matrícula esté impactando nuestras escuelas bilingües,” dijo Nadia Madan Morrow, antigua maestra bilingüe que dirigió el programa de educación multilingüe del distrito hasta que fue recientemente promovida a Jefe de Asuntos Académicos, (CAO). “Estamos esforzándonos para determinar cómo ofrecer enseñanza en idioma nativo en las escuelas que están continuamente volviéndose más pequeñas.”

Las madres de los estudiantes de la Colfax Elementary School en Denver en la manifestación en abril en contra del cierre de Colfax por las Escuelas Públicas de Denver a causa de la reducción en matrícula.

No obstante, ese no siempre ha sido el caso.

Algunos educadores castigaban a los estudiantes que hablaban español en clase, una práctica que terminó en feroces protestas. En 1980, un grupo local llamado Congress of Hispanic Educators demandó al distrito por violar los derechos de los estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés.

La determinación del juez federal en ese caso fue en contra del distrito. En 1984, Denver entabló su primer decreto de consentimiento, un acuerdo legal de brindar educación bilingüe. Ese decreto se ha modificado dos veces.

La versión más reciente, en vigencia desde 2013, dice que el distrito tiene que ofrecer programas TNLI en las escuelas que tengan más de 60 estudiantes de habla hispana que estén aprendiendo inglés, emplear maestros bilingües calificados, y usar currículos y exámenes de alta calidad en español.

“Nuestros padres bilingües quieren que sus hijos sean bilingües,” dijo Kathy Escamilla, miembro del Congress of Hispanic Educators y profesora jubilada de la Universidad de Colorado de bilingüismo y alfabetización bilingüe, lo cual significa poder hablar, leer y escribir en dos idiomas. “Ellos quieren la oportunidad para que su cultura y su historia estén representadas.”

El decreto de consentimiento se aplica únicamente a los estudiantes que hablan español, y que representan la porción más grande de estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en Denver. Los demás estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés reciben enseñanza totalmente en inglés, a veces con la ayuda de maestros o tutores que hablan su idioma. El árabe y el vietnamita son el segundo y el tercer idioma nativo más común.

La cantidad de estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés en Denver ha subido y bajado durante una década, y lo mismo ha ocurrido con la cantidad de estudiantes inscritos en programas TNLI y el número de escuelas que los ofrecen.

En el pasado, el distrito revocaba el programa TNLI de cualquier escuela que tuviera menos de 60 estudiantes de habla hispana que estuvieran aprendiendo inglés, dijo Madan Morrow. Pero cuando el distrito trató de hacer esto el invierno pasado en cuatro escuelas primarias — Colfax, Cheltenham, Traylor y Schmitt — los miembros del Congress of Hispanic Educators pusieron resistencia.

Se acercan posibles cierres de escuelas

Tres de las cuatro escuelas han perdido tantos estudiantes, que están en riesgo de ser cerradas en el futuro cercano. Esto aumentó la preocupación de la comunidad de perder el TNLI.

Hace un año, la junta escolar electa en Denver aprobó una resolución que dice que los padres, maestros y otras personas deben ayudar a desarrollar un plan para consolidar las escuelas pequeñas. Las escuelas de Denver reciben fondos por cada estudiante, y las escuelas pequeñas batallan para poder pagar cosas como clases electivas y personal de salud mental.

El distrito hizo una lista de 19 escuelas que participarían en el proceso. La meta era que las comunidades en esas escuelas sugirieran ideas de cómo consolidar las escuelas.

Pero la lista causó pánico, y el Superintendente Alex Marrero la eliminó.

Cambiando la estrategia, el distrito este año seleccionó un comité asesor de la reducción en matrícula y le asignó definir los criterios para cerrar una escuela con poca matrícula.

El comité reveló los criterios propuestos el mes pasado: Se deben considerar para consolidación las escuelas primarias e intermedias con menos de 215 estudiantes el próximo año, así como las escuelas con menos de 275 estudiantes que anticipen perder entre un 8% y 10% de los estudiantes en los próximos años; de igual manera se deben considerar las escuelas chárter independientes que estén teniendo dificultades financieras.

Veintisiete escuelas operadas por el distrito tuvieron menos de 275 estudiantes este pasado año. Como las 19 escuelas en la lista original, la mayoría de las 27 escuelas atienden a poblaciones estudiantiles con más de 90% estudiantes de minorías raciales, y más de un 90% provenientes de hogares de pocos ingresos.

Quince de las 27 escuelas tienen programas TNLI, incluida la Colfax Elementary, donde los padres y defensores tuvieron en abril una manifestación en contra del cierre de la escuela. Varias madres dijeron que viven cerca y caminan con sus hijos a la escuela porque no pueden manejar.

“Me preocupa, porque ¿cómo voy a llevar a mis hijos a otras escuelas?” Esto nos dijo Cecilia Sánchez Pérez, madre de dos estudiantes de Colfax.

Escamilla, del Congress of Hispanic Educators, también asistió a la manifestación.

La Escuela Primaria Colfax es una de cuatro escuelas de Denver que casi perdió su designación para ofrecer “instrucción transicional en idioma nativo” en este pasado año escolar debido a la reducción en matrícula.

“Entendemos que DPS está enfrentando decisiones difíciles con respecto a presupuesto y a la reducción en matrícula,” dijo. Sin embargo, agregó: “con demasiada frecuencia estos cambios afectan de manera desproporcionada a las comunidades de raza negra, latina y pobres.”

Si el distrito les quita la designación TNLI a la Colfax y las otras tres escuelas, los defensores temen que los estudiantes se van a quedar sin programas bilingües. Aún con autobuses gratis a una escuela TNLI cercana, las familias van a dudar en dejar las escuelas que conocen y aman.

El Congress of Hispanic Educators también cuestiona las proyecciones de matrícula del distrito y le preocupa que los padres no han sido consultados, dijo Escamilla.

Debido a la resistencia de los padres, Denver acordó mantener la designación TNLI en Colfax, Cheltenham, Traylor y Schmitt. Pero Madan Morrow dijo que la reducción en estudiantes de habla hispana significa que los programas podrían no ser tan robustos.

Menos estudiantes significa cambios en el salón de clase

Muchas de las escuelas TNLI de Denver todavía tienen una matrícula saludable. Pero en las escuelas que no tienen suficientes estudiantes que hablan español en cada grado, el TNLI se ve diferente.

A menudo, dijeron los educadores, las escuelas mezclan dos grados en el mismo salón, algo que no es académicamente ideal ni popular con los padres. O las escuelas combinan estudiantes que hablan español nativo con estudiantes que hablan inglés nativo, una asignación difícil hasta para los maestros de más experiencia.

Kim Ursetta, que enseña preescolar bilingüe en la Traylor, tuvo este pasado año una combinación de estudiantes de inglés nativo y de español nativo por segunda vez en sus 28 años de carrera.

“Es difícil,” dijo ella. “Uno está constantemente saltando de un idioma a otro, y no importa lo que hagas, solamente les podrás enseñar la mitad del tiempo que normalmente tendrías.”

Si combinar estudiantes no es posible, a veces las escuelas ponen estudiantes que hablan español en salones que solo enseñan en inglés y envía a otro salón para aprender ciertas materias en español. Eso puede hacer que los estudiantes se sientan marginados o que se pierdan algunas actividades electivas divertidas.

Esto es algo que Carrie Olson, miembro de la junta escolar que fue maestra bilingüe en Denver por 33 años antes de su elección, vio con sus propios ojos. A Olson le preocupa cómo la reducción en matrícula está afectando los programas TNLI y le ha pedido repetidamente a la junta que hablen del tema.

Madan Morrow dijo que los directores y el personal del distrito están trabajando en planes para el próximo año escolar.

“Sabemos que cualquier cantidad de enseñanza en el idioma nativo es mejor que nada,” dijo ella. “Lo que estamos tratando de determinar en estas cuatro escuelas es, ‘¿qué cantidad es perfecta? ¿Cuánto les podemos dar para que sea beneficioso sin que tengan que estar en un sistema así todo el día?’”

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Los estudiantes de Denver buscan soluciones a la violencia con armas de fuego

2023-03-21T20:00:00+00:00

Una semana después de que cientos de estudiantes de la secundaria East High School de Denver marcharan hasta el Capitolio del Estado en protesta por la muerte a tiros de su compañero de clase, un grupo más pequeño asistió a una cumbre organizada por estudiantes para pedirles soluciones a la violencia con armas de fuego a los funcionarios locales.

“No deberíamos tener que estar aquí”, le dijo a la multitud la estudiante de décimo grado Gracie Taub, miembro del club East Students Demand Action. “Luis debería estar aquí”.

Luis García, jugador de fútbol de 16 años y estudiante de la secundaria East High, fue balaceado a las puertas de la escuela el 13 de febrero y murió a consecuencia de las heridas dos semanas y media después. El Superintendente de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, Alex Marrero, dijo en la cumbre que el incidente no fue el primer caso de violencia con armas de fuego en y alrededor de las escuelas de Denver este año escolar, y tampoco el último.

“No ocurre porque nuestros pasillos son amenazantes”, dijo Marrero. “No ocurre porque nuestros maestros son monstruos. No está ocurriendo en nuestras escuelas. Es lo que está ocurriendo en nuestra comunidad”.

Los 14 panelistas, entre los que también se encontraban dos miembros del consejo de la Ciudad de Denver, dos legisladores estatales, tres médicos, tres expertos en prevención de la violencia, la directora de la secundaria East High, Terita Walker, y el jefe de policía de Denver, Ron Thomas, coincidieron en que limitar el acceso de los adolescentes a las armas debe ser parte de la solución. Los padres y familiares deben mantener las armas bajo llave en casa, dijeron.

El senador estatal Chris Hansen y el representante estatal Alex Valdez, ambos Demócratas de Denver, se refirieron a otros proyectos de ley que los legisladores de Colorado están considerando este año, los cuales incluyen uno para requerir un período de espera de tres días para comprar un arma de fuego, otro para aumentar la edad para comprar un arma de 18 a 21 años, y otro para añadir a los maestros a la lista de personas que pueden pedir que a alguien se les prohíba ser dueño de un arma de fuego.

Pero los panelistas también coincidieron en que se necesitará algo más que leyes para frenar la violencia con armas de fuego entre los niños y adolescentes.

“La violencia siempre va a existir”, dijo Felicia Rodríguez, gerente del programa de prevención de la violencia juvenil de la Oficina de Asuntos de la Infancia de la ciudad. “Creo que lo más importante que todos han estado expresando aquí esta tarde es la importancia de establecer relaciones sanas y positivas con los niños y adolescentes. Ese es el impacto, desde el punto de vista de los adultos, en el que tenemos que enfocarnos”.

Johnathan McMillan, director de la Oficina de Prevención de la Violencia con Armas de Fuego de Colorado, dijo que los niños y adolescentes que cuentan con un adulto de confianza en su vida, “ya sea un oficial de la ley, un maestro, un consejero, un director, un miembro de la comunidad”, tienen menos probabilidades de verse afectados por la violencia.

La Junta Escolar de Denver votó en 2020 para eliminar a los oficiales de policía de las escuelas de Denver. La secundaria East High era una de las 18 escuelas que tenían un oficial armado en ese momento. Cuando se les preguntó si la policía debería volver a tener una mayor presencia en las escuelas de Denver, tanto el Superintendente como el Jefe de Policía dijeron que la respuesta la deben dar los estudiantes.

“Si los niños y adolescentes que van a estas escuelas y sus padres sienten que la solución para tener escuelas más seguras es tener oficiales en esas escuelas, entonces ciertamente eso es algo que cumpliré, y claro, con la dirección de la Junta Escolar”, dijo el Jefe Thomas.

“Pero no creo que la policía sea la única solución”.

El Dr. Joseph Simonetti, médico e investigador de la Universidad de Colorado que se dedica a la prevención de lesiones por armas de fuego, dijo que la presencia de la policía en el campus puede provocar un aumento de las detenciones y multas a estudiantes. Antes de eliminar los policías de las escuelas, conocidos como school resource officers (o SRO), los datos mostraban que los estudiantes negros en Denver eran desproporcionadamente multados y arrestados. Desde que se retiraron los SRO de las escuelas, los datos muestran que menos estudiantes de Denver han sido referidos a la policía.

Los panelistas también pidieron más inversión en servicios de salud mental para los niños y adolescentes. El Dr. Steven Federico, pediatra que trabaja como jefe de asuntos gubernamentales y comunitarios de Denver Health, dijo que, aunque el número de clínicas de Denver Health dentro de las escuelas ha crecido con los años, la necesidad de servicios de salud mental es “insaciable.”

“Es el servicio que más piden nuestros equipos clínicos”, dijo. “Hay que financiarlo mejor. Y necesita más personal”.

No importa cuáles sean las soluciones, la directora Walker dijo que se necesitan lo antes posible.

“Lo que yo sueño es que los niños que estoy viendo ahora y los que están haciendo este trabajo vean respuesta inmediata para que puedan beneficiarse y sentir los efectos del trabajo que están haciendo”, dijo. “No queremos que otro niño se vea afectado”

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Martha Urioste, la ‘Madrina de Montessori’ en Denver, luchó por la educación bilingüe

2022-12-28T18:24:37+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.

Cuando Martha Urioste visitaba las escuelas de Denver como defensora de la educación bilingüe, con frecuencia se acercaba a los estudiantes para decirles algo que su abuela le dijo a ella.

“No dejes tu español”.

Sus esfuerzos con el Congreso de Educadores Hispanos de Denver ayudaron a establecer programas bilingües que, con el paso de las décadas, beneficiaron a miles de niños en Denver. Urioste, que fue maestra y luego directora, también trajo la educación Montessori a las escuelas públicas de Denver, empezando en una comunidad en la que la mayoría de los estudiantes eran de familias negras y latinas de pocos ingresos.

Urioste falleció el 8 de diciembre, a la edad de 85 años, y siempre estaba pensando en la educación. Su amiga y colega Kathy Escamilla la visitó en el hospital un par de días antes, y dice que Urioste le pidió que le contara las últimas novedades en las escuelas de Denver.

“Se la pasaba instigando cosas buenas”, dijo Darlene LeDoux, educadora latina desde hace mucho tiempo que ahora trabaja en la oficina del ombudsman de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y que conoció a Urioste por décadas. “Siempre estaba asegurando que siempre fuéramos más lejos, hiciéramos más y nos esforzáramos más por los niños.”

Según su obituario y las personas que hablaron en su servicio de recordación esta semana, Urioste nació en Nuevo México y se mudó a Denver cuando era adolescente. Después de graduarse de universidad en 1958, inició una carrera como maestra de primer grado en la Escuela Primaria Gilpin, que ya está cerrada. Urioste fue maestra de primaria y de intermedia, y hasta dio clases de español para el distrito en la televisión pública.

Obtuvo dos maestrías y un doctorado, y con el tiempo llegó a ser directora asistente en la Escuela Secundaria North y luego directora de la Escuela Primeria Mitchel en el noreste de Denver a mediados de la década de 1980. Un tribunal federal ordenó que el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver dejara de segregar sus escuelas, pero la migración de estudiantes blancos a los suburbios y a las escuelas privadas hizo más difícil que la Mitchell y un par de escuelas más pudieran cumplir la cuota de estudiantes blancos ordenada por el tribunal.

En un breve documental producido por la ciudad como parte de la serie “I Am Denver”, Urioste contó: “Nos dijeron, ‘¿Qué van a hacer para asegurar que niños blancos y niños de clase media se suban a un autobús y vayan al noreste de Denver?’”

Urioste eligió la educación Montessori, que en ese momento no estaba disponible en ninguna de las escuelas públicas de Colorado. Fue a Roma a estudiar el currículo, que alienta a los niños a trabajar de manera independiente en tareas prácticas y aprender de los demás en salones de clase con niños de múltiples edades.

En su velorio, su amiga Erlinda Archuleta recordó cómo la maleta de Urioste se abrió cuando salía del vuelo de regreso a Denver.

En vez de recoger su ropa, Urioste le dijo a su hermano (que había ido al aeropuerto a buscarla): “‘¡Encontré la solución! ¡Montessori!’”, contó Archuleta. “Lo menos que le importaba era su ropa.”

La hija mayor de Honey Niehaus estaba en Kinder el primer año que se ofreció Montessori en la Mitchell. El programa era maravilloso, dijo ella. No obstante, Urioste y otros notaron que los estudiantes blancos estaban progresando más rápido que los de minorías, dijo Niehaus — una desigualdad que Urioste quería eliminar estableciendo un programa Montessori para bebés y niños pequeños.

Un edificio abandonado al frente de la escuela Mitchell fue la oportunidad. Niehaus miró adentro un día y le preocupó lo que vio. Dice que corrió a la oficina de Urioste y le preguntó a la directora qué iba a hacer con respecto a las actividades de drogas al otro lado de la calle.

“Ella me miró y dijo, ‘Cariño, ¿qué vas a hacer tú al respecto?’”, nos contó Niehaus. “Dondequiera que iba, conseguía más personas para el sistema. Siempre que conocía gente que auténticamente se preocupaba por los niños y la educación, ella los apoyaba”.

Con ayuda de los líderes de la comunidad, políticos y voluntarios, Urioste y otros compraron el edificio y lo transformaron en Family Star, una escuela Montessori de niñez temprana que abrió sus puertas en 1991. La escuela capacitó a las mujeres de la comunidad para ser las primeras maestras. Más tarde, Niehaus fue la directora ejecutiva.

Más de 30 años después, Family Star tiene dos escuelas en Denver y las Escuelas Públicas de Denver cuentan con cinco escuelas Montessori. A Urioste se le conoce como “La Madrina de Montessori”. El programa original de la escuela Mitchell ahora está en la Denison.

Además de ser la pionera de Montessori, Urioste fue miembro del Congreso de Educadores Hispanos (CHE), que demandó a las Escuelas Públicas de Denver por su tratamiento de los estudiantes que hablan español. La demanda resultó en el decreto modificado actual de consentimiento, que requiere que el distrito proporcione educación bilingüe para los estudiantes cuyo primer idioma es el español.

Urioste fue miembro del CHE por 50 años. Escamilla, que se unió al grupo en la década de 1990, dijo que aparte de por su defensa de la educación bilingüe, Urioste también será recordada por ser mentora de los maestros más jóvenes, a quienes alentaba a obtener diplomas de educación avanzada y ser líderes.

Carrie Olson, miembro del Consejo Escolar, fue contratada por Urioste como maestra bilingüe de primer año en la Mitchell en 1985. Olson recuerda cómo Urioste la encontró llorando un día en su salón de clases.

“Entró, me tomó de las manos y dijo, ‘Carrie, vas a ser una maestra excelente. No te puedes dar por vencida. No puedes dejar de ayudar a estos niños’”, dijo Olson en el evento de recordación.

Otros dijeron que Urioste tenía un excelente sentido del humor. Era bien fanática de los Denver Broncos, le encantaba jugar en las máquinas tragamonedas, y era una “bonafide groupie de Cher” que solía viajar a Las Vegas con su hermano Richard para ver a la cantante en concierto, dijo Archuleta.

Craig Peña, cuyo padre Robert trabajó junto a Urioste en el CHE, dijo que la recordaba como “una mujer increíblemente capaz, increíblemente atenta, sumamente amable y bien cariñosa.

“Pero tampoco era alguien que se dejara manipular”, dijo. “No se puede confundir la amabilidad y gentileza por debilidad”.

Melanie Asmar es reportera sénior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre historias sobre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, envíale un mensaje a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Agentes de seguridad armados permanecerán en 13 escuelas de Denver según el plan final de seguridad

2023-07-11T21:45:55+00:00

Policías permanecerán en grandes escuelas preparatorias este otoño, agentes armados de seguridad en el distrito escolar ayudarán con la búsqueda de armas, y los líderes de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver “examinará[n] exhaustivamente las prácticas actuales de disciplina estudiantil”.

Esos son algunos de los detalles en el borrador final de un plan de seguridad a largo plazo que el superintendente Alex Marrero publicó a finales de junio. El plan entrará en vigor el próximo año escolar, pero quizás siga modificándose.

“Por ningún motivo quiero que alguien piense que esto es uno y se acabó”, Marrero dijo en una entrevista. “Es el principio de una conversación más amplia, no solo aquí sino también a nivel nacional”.

El consejo le ordenó a Marrero crear un plan después de un tiroteo adentro de East High School en marzo. Un estudiante de 17 años a quien la escuela debía inspeccionar a diario para ver si tenía armas le disparó e hirió a dos administradores. El estudiante se escapó de la escuela y más tarde terminó con su propia vida.

El tiroteo desató un intenso debate y activismo comunitario, incluida la formación de un grupo de padres que exigió mayor seguridad, al igual que una reacción contra el regreso de los policías a las escuelas. Un consejo escolar dividido votó para permitir el regreso de agentes de seguridad armados, conocidos como SRO (School Resource Officers, en inglés).

Un consejo anterior votó en 2020 para sacar a los SRO de las escuelas—una prohibición que se suspendió temporalmente después del tiroteo en East High School.

El consejo de educación no necesita votar por el plan.

Los cambios incluyen que las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés):

Harán que regresen los agentes de seguridad armados a escuelas secundarias y preparatorias integrales.

El plan no especifica qué escuelas, pero Marrero dijo en una entrevista que los SRO regresarán este otoño a las 13 escuelas donde fueron colocados esta primavera después del tiroteo en East.

Esas 13 escuelas son: las preparatorias East, North, South, West, Northfield, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Montbello y Manual, al igual que Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early College y el campus de Evie Dennis.

Dieciocho escuelas secundarias y preparatorias tenían un SRO cuando el consejo votó para prohibirlos en 2020. Marrero dijo que el distrito desarrollará un protocolo para decidir qué escuelas tienen agentes de seguridad.

Permitirán que las escuelas decidan, después de una amplia interacción con la comunidad, si van a usar sistemas de detección de armas.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver ya cuentan con cuatro unidades móviles para la detección de armas de la compañía Evolv Technology que el distrito usa para “eventos deportivos y eventos solicitados por administradores”. Un memorándum fiscal dice que “los sistemas de detección considerables y de amplio uso en todas las escuelas o solo en escuelas preparatorias probablemente superen los $5 millones”.

Realizarán un análisis del personal para evaluar la presencia de agentes de seguridad desarmados en las escuelas.

A los agentes sin armas los colocan en escuelas secundarias y preparatorias y son distintos a los SRO. El análisis determinará “dónde puede necesitarse más personal o cómo pueden compartirse los recursos”, el plan dice. Marrero dijo en una entrevista que quizás demuestre que el distrito necesita contratar más agentes desarmados.

Proporcionarán más apoyo al personal escolar para realizar inspecciones de los estudiantes, especialmente si es posible que se encuentren armas.

Por ejemplo, el plan dice que si un estudiante debe pasar por una inspección porque se encontró que tenía un arma afuera de la escuela, un agente de seguridad armado de DPS “se designará un agente de patrulla de seguridad de DPS para que brinde apoyo durante la ventana de tiempo específica que permita realizar una inspección segura y supervisada y el ingreso al edificio”.

Los agentes de patrulla de seguridad son diferentes a los agentes de seguridad desarmados y a los agentes de seguridad armados (SRO). Son parte de una unidad móvil que responde a llamadas en todas las Escuelas Públicas de Denver.

Después del tiroteo en East High School, algunos padres y educadores dijeron que la policía o el personal de seguridad debe realizar las inspecciones, en lugar de los administradores, lo que estaba sucediendo en East. El distrito ha dicho que los SRO no pueden hacer inspecciones de estudiantes sin pruebas suficientes, pero un agente de patrulla de seguridad de las DPS—quien es un agente jurado de policía—sí puede.

Trabajarán con las agencias locales de seguridad para organizar reuniones sobre la violencia juvenil en cada región de la ciudad.

Las reuniones serían “para vigilar las tendencias de violencia que afectan a las comunidades escolares y reforzar las asociaciones para desmantelar las barreras que afectan [el] acceso de los jóvenes a los programas,” según el plan.

Ampliarán la enseñanza preparatoria en línea del distrito y posiblemente ofrecerán aprendizaje híbrido.

Después del tiroteo en East, algunos padres cuestionaron por qué el estudiante que disparó el arma, a quien habían expulsado de un distrito escolar vecino y quien tenía un cargo por posesión de armas, estaba asistiendo a la escuela en persona y no virtualmente.

Aunque Marrero dijo que el distrito cree que el aprendizaje presencial es mejor y “no está en el negocio de solo despachar a los niños”, dijo que las DPS están considerando un protocolo que permita que los estudiantes aprendan virtualmente mientras el distrito desarrolla un plan para que regresen al aprendizaje presencial de manera segura.

Crearán un panel informativo virtual para darle mejor seguimiento y monitorear los “planes de acción e intervención”, los cuales se establecen para estudiantes que quizás presenten una amenaza para sí mismo o para otras personas.

Realizarán auditorias de seguridad en los edificios escolares de DPS y ofrecerán “recomendaciones sobre infraestructuras físicas, como vestíbulos seguros, colocación de cámaras, iluminación, etc.”, el plan dice.

Esas recomendaciones podrían incluir botones de pánico para que usen los maestros, Marrero dijo. Las auditorias ya están realizándose con la ayuda del consultor Murphy Robinson, exdirector del Departamento de Seguridad Pública de Denver.

Harán que los líderes del distrito asistan al Instituto del Programa de Liderazgo en Educación Pública en la Universidad de Harvard este verano para colaborar con otros distritos urbanos grandes en asuntos como la seguridad.

Los líderes de DPS luego examinarán las prácticas disciplinarias estudiantiles con el objetivo de aumentar la seguridad a la vez que protegen los derechos de los estudiantes y promueven la equidad e inclusión de todos los estudiantes, el plan dice.

Aumentarán la capacitación del personal de DPS sobre temas como la prevención del suicidio, las amenazas que presentan los estudiantes, la gestión de emergencias y la recuperación tras una crisis.

Aumentarán los programas que ofrecen a los estudiantes, incluidas clases avanzadas de educación preparatoria, cursos de nivel universitario, aprendizaje basado en el trabajo y programas extraescolares y de verano.

Exigirán programas anuales sobre la prevención del suicidio para todos los estudiantes en 5º, 6º, 9º y 12º grado. Estos programas antes eran opcionales, Marrero dijo.

Exigirán que se evalúe la salud social y emocional de todos los estudiantes tres veces al año, lo cual “representa un aumento drástico” en el uso de la herramienta de evaluación, según dice el memorándum de impacto fiscal. Las DPS planean pagar por las evaluaciones del año próximo con fondos federales del estímulo económico por COVID.

Ofrecerán por lo menos una sesión sobre el duelo y la pérdida para el personal y los padres que lo necesiten.

Melanie Asmar es una reportera principal para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Los candidatos a la alcaldía de Denver Mike Johnston y Kelly Brough hablan sobre temas de educación

2023-05-19T17:42:49+00:00

Ninguno de los candidatos a la alcaldía de Denver favorece que la alcaldía controle la junta escolar, que se ha visto acosada por luchas internas y de poder entre sus miembros.

Esa fue una de las conclusiones de un reciente foro de alcaldes enfocado en la educación y organizado por EDUCATE Denver, Chalkbeat Colorado y CBS Colorado.

La segunda votación de las elecciones entre Kelly Brough, ex directora de la Cámara de Comercio Metropolitana de Denver, y Mike Johnston, ex educador y legislador estatal, está fijada para el 6 de junio.

En una primera votación llevada a cabo en abril, Brough y Johnston obtuvieron el mayor número de votos entre un grupo de 17 candidatos. Sin embargo, ninguno de los dos obtuvo más del 50% de los votos, por lo que se necesita la segunda votación.

Aunque el alcalde de Denver no controla las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS), la educación está entre los temas más importantes para los electores de la ciudad, según encuestas recientes. DPS enfrenta varios retos grandes, entre ellos el aumento de la violencia juvenil con armas en y alrededor de las escuelas.

Más adelante te mostramos lo que Brough y Johnston dijeron sobre ese tema y otros más. Las preguntas y respuestas fueron editadas para acortarlas. Mira el video completo del foro aquí.

La violencia juvenil con armas de fuego está aumentando. Después de un tiroteo en la secundaria East High School en marzo, el Departamento de Policía de Denver acordó asignar a 14 agentes de policía en 13 escuelas secundarias de DPS. ¿Cuál es su postura sobre la policía en las escuelas? ¿Y quién debe pagar por ese servicio?

Johnston: Mi posición desde el principio ha sido que las escuelas deben decidir si necesitan ese apoyo. ... Creo que en cuanto a quién lo debe pagar, es una decisión que podemos tomar juntos. Si el distrito tiene los recursos, debe pagar por eso. Si el distrito no dispone de los recursos necesarios, entonces la ciudad debe intervenir y encontrar la manera de hacerlo.

Brough: La responsabilidad más fundamental del gobierno es mantener la seguridad de nuestros residentes. Por eso, la pregunta de quién lo debe pagar es la última preocupación que deberíamos tener. Históricamente, el distrito ha pagado por los policías en las escuelas (conocidos como oficiales de recurso escolar). Pero dije muy claramente que como alcalde, pagaría por esos oficiales si eso es lo que un director y una escuela han dicho que les gustaría en su escuela.

Hay estudios que muestran una correlación entre la presencia de la policía en las escuelas y las disparidades en disciplina, así como efectos poco claros sobre la seguridad escolar. Si la policía de Denver permanece en las escuelas, ¿cómo asegurará que el distrito logre sus metas de equidad e información sobre traumas?

Johnston: Es cuestión de saber a quiénes apruebas para que hagan este trabajo, qué capacitación tienen para hacerlo y cuál es su alcance de autoridad en la escuela para llevarlo a cabo.

Cuando soy director de un escuela, no necesito que un policía de Denver intervenga en la discusión de dos estudiantes en la cafetería. No necesito que un agente le dé infracciones a la gente por maldecir en el pasillo.

Para lo que uno necesita un policía es para cuando sabes que un estudiante tiene acceso a un arma, temes que está trayendo una a la escuela, y necesitas que alguien que ayude a cachear a ese estudiante para asegurar que no tiene un arma en su posesión.

Brough: Yo también enfatizaría asegurar que se cuenta con los policías adecuados en las escuelas, y que se les de capacitación, apoyo y retroalimentación.

Pero también quiero hablar de que en todos los aspectos de nuestra sociedad hay sistemas de prejuicio, y en particular en torno a la raza. Y por eso creo que en cada una de nuestros escuelas, haya o no un policía de recurso escolar, tenemos que monitorear y estar pendientes de lo siguiente: Qué estamos haciendo en cuanto a la disciplina... y si estamos viendo disparidad basada en la raza, para poder responder y corregir nuestros propios problemas.

¿Consideraría la posibilidad de que la alcaldía controle la junta escolar?

Brough: No creo que puedas decírle al próximo alcalde: ¿Por qué no solucionas los graves problemas que enfrentamos en la ciudad y el condado de Denver y te encargas del mayor distrito escolar del estado de Colorado para ver qué puedes hacer allí también?

No, yo no me encargaría del distrito escolar.

Johnston: No, no creo que sea un buen plan.

Creo que el proceso democrático funciona. Hay mucha gente muy motivada y movilizada por las elecciones a la junta escolar en noviembre, probablemente más de lo que he visto en mi vida adulta, porque los padres están realmente prestando mucha atención. ... Y creo que sus voces serán muy poderosas en lo que suceda en las elecciones a la junta escolar y ellos volverán a tener la junta escolar que quieren y que sienten que les responde.

Como indican los datos más recientes de los exámenes estatales, las escuelas públicas de Denver no están apoyando adecuadamente el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes de minorías raciales o de bajos ingresos. ¿Qué papel puede desempeñar el alcalde a la hora de resolver la brecha de equidad entre los estudiantes?

Brough: Una es asegurar que tengamos un gobierno que no se enfoque en otra cosa que no sea brindarles a nuestros hijos la educación que merecen, apoyar a nuestros maestros para que puedan hacerlo y mantener a todo el mundo protegido mientras lo hacemos.

El segundo es saber qué papel tiene la ciudad para ayudar a nuestros hijos a graduarse. Para mí, eso incluirá cosas como más colaboración entre la ciudad y las escuelas públicas de Denver. ...Hay más oportunidades para que la ciudad y las escuelas trabajen juntas para mantener los terrenos, y en una variedad de asuntos, desde compras hasta cómo podemos ahorrar dinero.

Lo tercero que me interesa muchísimo es la función de la ciudad como empleador, que podamos trabajar junto con las escuelas públicas de Denver y que los estudiantes tuvieran prácticas y aprendizajes con salario.

Johnston: Todo parte de la convicción de que todos los estudiantes de Denver son nuestra responsabilidad.

Una de las formas más importantes de hacerlo es fijarse en todo el tiempo de aprendizaje que ahora mismo está ocurriendo fuera de la escuela. Todo lo que ocurre fuera del horario de 8 a. m. – 3 p. m., cuando sabemos que los estudiantes tienen acceso a programas después de la escuela, programas de verano, tutorías, programas de arte, atletismo y campamentos de ciencias... impulsa una gran parte de la pasión que quién eres como persona joven.

Quiero expandir los programas para asegurar que los estudiantes, sobre todo los que reciben comidas gratis o a precio reducido, tengan acceso a esas oportunidades que les ayudarán a encontrar su pasión.

La otra área clave de colaboración en la que la ciudad nos ha defraudado es el de la salud mental. ... Una de las cosas que Denver hace es apoyar a Denver Health, la red de salud que mantiene clínicas en las escuelas de toda la ciudad. No hemos proporcionado suficientes recursos para asegurar que en todas las escuelas secundarias de Denver haya suficientes consejeros de salud mental.

La junta escolar de DPS recientemente propuso una política que excluiría los resultados de los exámenes estandarizados de una página de información pública. ¿Usted apoya la creación de una plataforma en la página de la ciudad para compartir esta información con las familias y la comunidad y responsabilizar al distrito?

Brough: No soy experta en exámenes estandarizados. De hecho, soy terrible en exámenes estandarizados porque soy disléxica. ... No creo que sea menos inteligente que otra persona solo por obtener notas más bajas, y tampoco que mis maestros fueran peores solo porque mis calificaciones fueron menores.

Sin embargo, como madre también quiero saber cómo se está desempeñando la escuela en general. Y me parece que podemos encontrar una manera de comunicar esa información sin simplificarla demasiado ni juzgando o culpando injustamente... a una escuela, un distrito o un grupo de maestros.

Johnston: Yo no apoyaría que a los padres se les niegue acceso a esa información, como tampoco apoyaría que se les negara acceso a la información sobre la estatura y el peso de su hijo en un examen médico anual. Y también sé que, aunque le digan a mi hijo que está en el percentil 15 de estatura, eso no será su valor total como ser humano.

Hay diferentes tipos de información que se recogen, y son indicio de cosas diferentes sobre el progreso de tu hijo. Y lo que uno quiere ver es un conjunto de datos completo que ayude a saber qué hacer a continuación.

Cada vez es más caro vivir en la ciudad de Denver. Esto está causando que muchas familias de bajos ingresos en el DPS se muden fuera de la ciudad. ¿Cómo usted resolverá este reto?

Johnston: Lo que yo haría es construir o reconvertir 25,000 unidades en toda la ciudad para que sean viviendas permanentemente a un precio permanentemente razonable. Esto significa que cualquiera que gane unos $100,000 al año o menos puede ser elegible para mudarse a una de estas unidades. Y la forma en que estarán estructuradas es que el alquiler nunca sería más del 30% del salario de la persona.

El próximo paso más importante es ser propietario de casa. ... En ese aspecto, haría dos cosas. Una es proporcionar ayuda para el pago inicial, lo cual ayuda a alguien a poder comprar una casa por primera vez. ... Y la otra es asociarnos con organizaciones como Habitat for Humanity o Elevation Land Trust, en las que se pueden crear fideicomisos de terrenos para viviendas que se puedan comprar a buen precio.

Se compran con descuento y las vendes con descuento. Es decir, podrías comprar una casa por $300,000 en lugar de $600,000. Pero cuando la mantienes durante 10 años y luego la vendes, es posible que solo la puedas vender $350,000... así se mantiene a precio razonable para otro maestro, otra enfermera, otro bombero.

Brough: Una de las estrategias se conoce en inglés como ‘master leasing’. Esto es cuando, como alcalde, básicamente solicitas propuestas y dices: ‘Quiero arrendar 3,000 unidades durante tres años. ¿Qué me puedes ofrecer?’ Y en esencia, lo que estoy haciendo es ‘comprar’ un alquiler a menos precio y bloquearlo durante unos años. También tiene la ventaja adicional de que si alguien tiene problemas y no puede pagar el alquiler ... la ciudad recibe una llamada antes de desalojar a la persona, lo cual también nos ayuda a empezar a enfocarnos en prevenir que la gente se quede sin vivienda.

Otro ejemplo... y este es uno de los que más me entusiasma, es lograr que la gente tenga casa propia. ... Tuve la oportunidad en Munich de recorrer un edificio sobre un estacionamiento. ... Y si nos fijamos en nuestra ciudad, tenemos bastantes estacionamientos que son propiedad de los contribuyentes. Piensen en nuestras estaciones de policía, parques de bomberos, bibliotecas, centros recreativos. Pero aún más valiosas serían nuestras escuelas públicas de Denver, donde podría haber oportunidades para construir un proyecto de viviendas para venta junto a las escuelas en el que los maestros vivan si lo desean.

Y el último ejemplo que daré es el de la gentrificación. ... Hemos hecho algunas cosas, como aprobar la opción de construir una unidad de vivienda adicional, o ADU (accessory dwelling unit). ... Pero la verdad es que las áreas que no se han gentrificado todavía, es porque esos son propietarios probablemente no cuentan con los fondos [para construir una].

Creo que como ciudad podemos tomar medidas mucho más proactivas: Diseñar la ADU según la comunidad en que estará. Incluso se podría construir a precisión para que cueste un es 30% a 50% menos. Ahora estamos ayudando a ese propietario a construirla de inmediato y empezar a recibir alquiler para poder permanecer en la propiedad que ya tienen y tener ingresos adicionales.

Como alcalde, ¿qué tres cosas haría para hacer de Denver el mejor lugar para criar hijos?

Brough: Asegurar que tengamos un alcalde capaz de restablecer la seguridad en nuestra ciudad, en toda nuestra ciudad, porque creo que las familias están muy preocupadas.

Creo que la falta de vivienda a precio razonable es el segundo problema que está causando, obligando a muchas familias a abandonar nuestra ciudad. ... La vivienda es la estrategia #1 para resolver esa falta de vivienda a buen precio.

Y no hay que ir muy lejos, cuando se habla con un agente de bienes raíces, la decisión #1 de dónde una familia elige comprar una casa es la escuela a dónde irán sus hijos y cuánto confían en esa escuela. Y también creo que debemos enfocarnos en cómo hacer que nuestros residentes vuelvan a confiar en que tenemos un sistema escolar que será bueno para sus hijos y les ofrecerá los resultados que desean.

Johnston: Creo que los tres mayores factores para que la gente abandone la ciudad serán: ¿El costo de la vivienda es razonable? ¿Es un área segura? ¿Sienten que tienen acceso a buenas escuelas?

Ya hablamos sobre el costo de la vivienda. Y ahora quiero hablar... de la seguridad.

Creo que necesitamos 200 agentes de primera respuesta adicionales en las calles de nuestra ciudad, y utilizo el término ‘agentes de primera respuesta porque sabemos que se necesitan diferentes personas para responder a diferentes situaciones según sea el reto.

Si alguien está teniendo una crisis de salud mental, en realidad lo que se necesita no es un policía.

Si alguien está en medio de una crisis de salud física y una posible sobredosis, lo más adecuado es que sea atendido por un paramédico o un técnico de emergencias médicas. No siempre se necesita un agente de policía.

Pero si está ocurriendo un asalto, un robo, un robo de auto o un tiroteo, hay que asegurarse de tener policías disponibles. Ahora mismo, tenemos muy poco personal en cada una de esas funciones.

¿Qué es lo que más le distingue de su oponente? ¿Y en qué se parecen?

Johnston: Primero hablaré de las similitudes. Creo que ambos tenemos experiencia de liderazgo. Ambos hemos dirigido organizaciones grandes y complejas. Ambos hemos estado en el sector público y en el privado.

Para mí, la característica clave que nos distingue... es que creo que la ciudad se enfrenta a muchos problemas muy complejos de resolver. Y creo que resolver esos problemas complejos requiere tener una visión grande de lo que es posible. Y luego ser capaz de construir una coalición bastante amplia para resolverlos, a menudo con gente que probablemente no se llevan bien. Y poder seguir haciéndolo.

Eso es lo que he tenido la oportunidad de hacer durante décadas. ... Eso hice como director de escuela, trabajando con los maestros para conseguir que todos nuestros estudiantes se graduaran. Así ocurrió en la legislatura, donde trabajé para ayudar a los niños indocumentados a tener acceso a matrícula estatal. ... Eso hice cuando trabajamos en la educación preescolar universal por primera vez en todo el estado y tuvimos que reunir a todo el mundo, desde las grandes empresas tabacaleras y las industrias de la salud, hasta grupos defensores de la educación preescolar.

Creo que lo que me hace único en este campo es mi capacidad para tener una visión grande, afrontar los problemas más difíciles, crear coaliciones amplias y obtener resultados realmente históricos.

Brough: Iba a decir que tenemos el mismo sentido del humor, pero en realidad soy más graciosa que Mike, así que en eso no nos parecemos. Diría que nuestra pasión y amor por la ciudad es algo en que somos similares.

Para mí, la mayor diferencia que veo es que ya he dirigido la ciudad antes, cuando fui jefe del gabinete de John Hickenlooper. En ese puesto es responsable de las operaciones cotidianas de una ciudad.

Mi experiencia de vida ha sido muy parecida a la de muchos en Denver hoy en día. Esto es relevante porque creo entender lo fácil que es perder la esperanza.

Cuando pierdes a un ser querido a causa de un crimen violento. O lo fácil que es sentir tanta vergüenza que no estás dispuesto a seguir adelante porque tu familia recibe ayuda del gobierno. O creer que somos la única familia que lucha contra la adicción y sufre por perder a un ser querido.

Y le diría a cada residente de Denver que mi familia no solo es resistente y fuerte, sino que también me identifico con ustedes y puedo ayudar a encontrar un camino hoy para superar esos problemas.

Y lo último que diría es que es la primera vez que me postulo para un cargo público. ... Pero lo más importante es que no me estoy postulando para otro cargo. Cada decisión que tome tendrá que ver con la ciudad y sus residentes, y lo que es mejor para nosotros. Nunca se basará en mi futuro político.

Mira el debate completo a continuación. Para ver los subtítulos en español, haz click en la tuerca que abre los settings en la parte de abajo, dentro de la pantalla del video. Ve a la sección que diga “subtitles.” De allí, donde dice “off” selecciona para que se abra otra lista, y puedas seleccionar “Spanish.”

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Tres escuelas de Denver cerrarán al final del año escolar

2023-03-20T20:54:10+00:00

Debido a la reducción en las inscripciones, las Escuelas Públicas de Denver cerrarán al final de este año escolar dos escuelas primarias, la Fairview Elementary y la Math and Science Leadership Academy, y una escuela intermedia, la Denver Discovery School.

La junta escolar tomó la decisión en una reunión celebrada el 9 de marzo. Algunos miembros de la junta se sintieron tristes durante la votación. El Vicepresidente de la Junta, Auon’tai Anderson, dijo que estaba votando “con el corazón encogido”. El miembro de la Junta Scott Esserman calificó el cierre de la Denver Discovery School ”un fracaso institucional”.

Varios miembros de la junta lloraron después de la primera de las tres votaciones. El fiscal del distrito repartió pañuelos desechables para secarse los ojos. La Presidenta Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán pidió un receso.

Carrie Olson, miembro de la Junta, dijo que le costó preparar los comentarios para la reunión del jueves “porque es muy difícil hablar del cierre de una escuela.”

“Son decisiones realmente difíciles y ninguno de nosotros las toma a la ligera”, dijo Olson.

La votación se celebró un día después de que la recomendación formal del Superintendente Alex Marrero se hiciera pública en una presentación de diapositivas publicada en línea. La junta se estaba reuniendo para tener un retiro de todo el día. Aunque los retiros están abiertos al público, normalmente la junta no vota en estas reuniones.

Marrero dijo que el personal de la escuela le urgió que le presentara la recomendación a la junta antes de la reunión de votación regular programada para el 23 de marzo.

A los estudiantes de Fairview se les garantiza inscripción y transporte a la Cheltenham Elementary, a menos de 1.5 millas de distancia. Al personal de Fairview se le garantiza un empleo en Cheltenham. Las dos escuelas ya comparten un director ejecutivo que supervisa ambas, dijo Marrero.

La Autoridad de la Vivienda de Denver resistió el cierre de Fairview, argumentando que las viviendas económicas que pronto estarán disponibles en la comunidad de Sun Valley podrían representar cientos de estudiantes más. Pero Liz Méndez, directora ejecutiva de inscripción y planificación de campus de DPS, dijo que las proyecciones del distrito son más bajas.

Todos los votos de la junta fueron unánimes, excepto el voto para cerrar a Fairview. Anderson votó en contra. Marrero dijo que el distrito podría reabrir y “reimaginar” a Fairview si aumenta la cantidad de niños en edad de primaria en esa comunidad.

En el momento de la votación solamente había entre el público un padre de los estudiantes de las escuelas que se van a cerrar. Najah Sabu Serryeh, cuya hija menor cursa el primer grado en Fairview, se enjugaba las lágrimas.

“Es tan injusto”, dijo ella después. “Fairview no es solamente una escuela para nosotros. Es como una comunidad”

Dominic Díaz, padre de Fairview, vio la reunión virtualmente.

“Voy a recoger a mi hija dentro de una hora y 20 minutos, y estoy pensando cómo voy a compartir esta noticia con ella, o incluso si quiero hacerlo”, dijo Díaz, cuya hija está en preescolar.

La presidente del Consejo Municipal de la Ciudad de Denver, Jamie Torres, también criticó la decisión en una carta que le envió a la junta y compartió en Twitter. Ella dijo que el distrito había tomado esta decisión cuando la escuela estaba en “su estado más grave de transición” y que no se había tenido en cuenta a las familias que se mudarán dentro de poco tiempo a esa comunidad.

Los estudiantes de la Math and Science Leadership Academy (MSLA) serán inscritos automáticamente en la Escuela Primaria Valverde, justo al lado, pero Marrero prometió que el distrito se comunicará con cada familia para preguntarle si eso es lo que quieren. Las familias podrían elegir otras escuelas.

Al personal de la MSLA se les garantizará un trabajo en Valverde. Marrero dijo que Valverde está feliz de incorporar parte del currículo de matemáticas y ciencias de la MSLA el próximo año.

Los estudiantes de la Denver Discovery School (DDS), una de las varias escuelas de un área grande que el distrito llama un área de inscripción, no serán inscritos automáticamente en otra escuela intermedia. En vez de eso, el distrito ayudará a las familias de DDS a conseguirles lugar a sus hijos en otra escuela secundaria de su preferencia. El distrito también ayudará al personal del DDS a encontrar otro trabajo.

Las tres escuelas tienen lo que Marrero llama “inscripción críticamente baja”. Las proyecciones del distrito muestran que la DDS tendría solamente 62 estudiantes el próximo año, la MSLA tendría 104 y la Fairview tendría 118.

“El sistema no puede seguir funcionando así”, le dijo Marrero a la junta escolar. “Es una difícil realidad. Tiene que pasar algo”.

El distrito financia sus escuelas asignando una cantidad de dinero por estudiante. Las escuelas con pocos estudiantes tienen dificultades para contratar suficiente personal, lo que a menudo lleva a combinar los salones y reducir las clases electivas como arte y música.

La inscripción en las Escuelas Públicas de Denver está disminuyendo, y las reducciones más drásticas ocurren en los grados de primaria. Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS) informan que tienen 6,485 menos estudiantes de primaria que en 2014 y proyectan que perderán otros 3,000 estudiantes de kindergarten a 12º grado en los próximos cinco años.

La junta escolar rechazó una recomendación previa de Marrero en noviembre para cerrar la DDS y la SLA. Originalmente él había recomendado cerrar 10 escuelas, incluida la Fairview, pero revisó su recomendación a solamente las dos escuelas después de una fuerte resistencia por parte de la comunidad y la junta escolar.

Los miembros de la junta elogiaron el jueves la forma en que el distrito trató al personal, a las familias y a los miembros de la comunidad en las escuelas Fairview, MSLA y DDS. Dijeron que fue un trato muy diferente al que DPS tuvo con las 10 escuelas cerradas este otoño, que en su opinión fue deficiente.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Te presentamos a los ocho candidatos al consejo escolar de Denver

2023-10-12T09:54:44+00:00

Ocho candidatos se están postulando para tres puestos vacantes en el consejo escolar de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés).

Las elecciones llegan en un momento en el que muchos integrantes de la comunidad están preocupados por la seguridad en las escuelas y la violencia con armas de fuego, y en el que el distrito enfrenta la posibilidad de cerrar escuelas debido a que pocos estudiantes se están inscribiendo.

Los integrantes actuales del consejo han tenido dificultades para llevarse bien, y encuestas muestran que muchos residentes en Denver no confían en el consejo escolar.

Hay siete puestos en el consejo escolar, así que la mayoría no cambiará. Pero las elecciones podrían traer nuevas voces o resultar en que dos de los directores actuales, Scott Baldermann y Charmaine Lindsay, regresen para ocupar su puesto por un segundo plazo. Ninguno de los directores actuales se está postulando para el puesto at-large, en el cual se representa a todo el distrito.

Los tres puestos vacantes incluyen un puesto at-large, un puesto para el 1er Distrito, el cual representa al sudeste de Denver, y un puesto para el 5º Distrito, el cual representa al noroeste de Denver.

Les hicimos algunas preguntas a cada candidato al consejo escolar para que los votantes puedan informarse más sobre cada uno de los candidatos antes de votar. Lee las respuestas a continuación.

Para obtener más detalles sobre qué hacen los integrantes del consejo escolar, lee nuestra historia aquí.

Cuéntanos un poco sobre ti y cómo estás conectado/a con el distrito. ¿Cuánto tiempo has vivido en el distrito escolar? ¿Cuál es tu profesión?

Candidatos al puesto at-large (para representar a todo el distrito escolar)

Brittni Johnson: No respondió.

Kwame Spearman: La educación va más allá de un compromiso en nuestra familia; es un legado que empezó hace tres generaciones, con mi bisabuelo, director de una escuela en [el estado] segregado de Texas, y continuó con mi mamá, una educadora por 38 años aquí mismo en DPS. Como el hijo de una maestra de DPS y un [estudiante] graduado de DPS, sé personalmente dos cosas sobre DPS: su papel es apoyar a nuestros estudiantes, maestros y comunidad, y, en su mejor papel, DPS puede transformar vidas y resultados positivamente. Esto último es lo que me pasó a mí. DPS está en un momento decisivo. Necesitamos un tipo de experiencia diferente para ayudarnos a abordar la seguridad, la compensación de los maestros y nuestra brecha de logros. Veo un futuro donde el 100 por ciento de nuestros estudiantes de tercer grado puedan leer a nivel de grado, el 100 por ciento de nuestros estudiantes de high school se puedan graduar, y el 100 por ciento de nuestros estudiantes se sientan seguros en la escuela. Tengo la experiencia de vida, la visión y la determinación para guiar a DPS por los desafíos que enfrenta actualmente. Debido a mi postura política y método a favor de los maestros, también me respalda la Asociación de Maestros de Salones en Denver [(DCTA, por sus siglas en inglés)] y el sindicato AFL-CIO. Cuando eres el hijo de una maestra, abogar a favor de los estudiantes y maestros no es solo una promesa política; es profundamente personal. Creo que cada niño se merece una escuela en su vecindario que sea segura y garantice la excelencia de todos.

John Youngquist: Soy un [estudiante] graduado de DPS y un educador de toda la vida con 35 años de experiencia en DPS y distritos escolares en el área de Denver. He vivido en Denver por 46 años y tengo dos hijas que van a East High. Actualmente soy el director ejecutivo de operaciones para el Proyecto de Rescate y Apoyo para Pandillas y soy el presidente de PrincipalEd Consulting, donde apoyo a distritos y asesoro a líderes escolares y distritales.

1er Distrito

Scott Baldermann: Tengo dos estudiantes que van a su escuela de DPS en [nuestro] vecindario. He vivido en el distrito escolar desde 2002 y me crie en Aurora, Colorado. Este trayecto empezó para mí en 2016 cuando fui el presidente de la [Asociación de Padres y Maestros] en la Escuela Primaria Lincoln, y estuve muy involucrado en la huelga laboral de maestros en 2019. Mi título universitario es en arquitectura, y actualmente dirijo una pequeña compañía de software [enfocada] en la industria del ejercicio.

Kimberlee Sia: He sido educadora toda mi vida y apasionada por abogar a favor de la educación de calidad. Traigo más de 25 años de experiencia profesional, un sólido liderazgo ejecutivo y un profundo entendimiento sobre las diversas necesidades de los estudiantes, y una fuerte creencia en el poder de las colaboraciones. He interactuado con el distrito escolar como líder de una red escolar, como líder de organizaciones sin fines de lucro y como integrante de comités distritales y de los Consejos Colaborativos Escolares. También soy madre de dos estudiantes de DPS, un [estudiante de] cuarto grado y uno de séptimo grado, con diferentes necesidades de aprendizaje e intereses educativos, quienes han ido a escuelas de DPS desde el principio de sus trayectorias escolares. Mi familia y yo hemos vivido en Denver por 10 años. Profesionalmente, he sido maestra, directora, administradora a nivel distrito y la líder de una organización sin fines de lucro dedicada al desarrollo de los jóvenes. Actualmente, soy una asesora ejecutiva y consultora estratégica que trabaja en espacios educativos y sin fines de lucro.

5º Distrito

Marlene De La Rosa: Soy parte de la 4ª generación [de mi familia] en Denver, he vivido en el distrito la mayor parte de mi vida, y soy madre orgullosa de dos [estudiantes] graduados de DPS. He trabajado por más de tres décadas en los Tribunales de Inmigración del Departamento de Justicia de EE. UU. y recientemente me retiré como especialista en tribunales legales. Esto me ha ofrecido una extensa experiencia trabajando en una agencia que atiende al público [y] que trabaja con personas de diferentes orígenes culturales y socioeconómicos. Además, tengo décadas de experiencia participando en mi comunidad ofreciendo servicios en North e East High School, el Consejo Asesor de Educación Hispana de DPS, el Consejo Asesor de Padres de DPS, el Círculo de Líderes Latinas y, más recientemente, como la persona nombrada por el alcalde al consejo asesor del [Departamento de] Parques y Actividades Recreativas. Mis más de 20 años como voluntaria en DPS siempre se han enfocado en mejorar los resultados académicos de cada estudiante de DPS, al igual que en dedicarme a la participación de los padres y la comunidad.

Charmaine Lindsay: He vivido en el vecindario de Baker por 28 años. En junio de 2022, tuve el honor de ser elegida para representar al 5º Distrito como integrante del consejo de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Ser elegida por encima de los otros candidatos, altamente calificados e impresionantes, me otorga una gran responsabilidad hacia las padres y estudiantes del 5º Distrito y de todo DPS. Mi única motivación era y es promover el éxito de los niños de DPS. He sido una abogada practicante en Colorado desde 1996. Mi enfoque principal es en leyes familiares, y la mayoría de mis clientes son [personas con] bajos ingresos. He pasado mi carrera legal lidiando con el sistema de servicios sociales y tengo experiencia representando a niños y padres en tribunales familiares y [en casos] de negligencia. También defiendo en casos de desalojos y cobranzas, principalmente sin cobrar. Tengo un certificado en Resoluciones Alternativas de Disputas de la Universidad de Denver, y soy mediadora certificada y tengo experiencia y creo en la justicia reparadora.

Adam Slutzker: Soy padre de tres niños en edad escolar (3 años, 6 años y 8 años). He vivido en el noroeste de Denver desde 2019, pero he sido residente de Denver desde 2009. Tengo una maestría en educación (énfasis en matemáticas y ciencias en educación primaria) de la Universidad de Colorado en Denver y enseñé en escuelas primarias del Condado de Jefferson de 2010 a 2014. Me desempeñé los 2 últimos años como presidente del CSC. Entre 2014 y 2022, trabajé independientemente como agente de bienes raíces, carpintero y contratista y enfoqué gran parte de mi tiempo en ser el padre principal ya que mi esposa estaba cursando estudios graduados y ha seguido trabajando como enfermera practicante. Actualmente soy gerente de proyectos en un estudio de diseño en arquitectura. Nota de la editora: CSC significa Comité Colaborativo Escolar, por sus siglas en inglés, el cual es un grupo de padres, maestros e integrantes de la comunidad que ayuda en el proceso para tomar decisiones en una escuela.

¿Cuál crees que es el mayor problema que las Escuelas Públicas de Denver enfrentan y cómo esperas tener un impacto en ese problema como integrante del consejo escolar?

Candidatos al puesto at-large (para representar a todo el distrito escolar)

Brittni Johnson: No respondió.

Kwame Spearman: La seguridad es nuestro mayor problema singular—pero nuestras inquietudes de seguridad corren paralelas a un problema igualmente grande: tenemos una crisis de confianza en nuestro consejo actual y los líderes de DPS. Este problema naturalmente influye en todos los asuntos en cuestión en DPS, y presenta una amenaza para nuestra habilidad de tener escuelas seguras. Para recobrar la confianza, DPS debe demostrar que podemos enfocarnos en los logros de los estudiantes y el éxito de los maestros en lugar de las peleas internas, la arrogancia política y las redes sociales. Debemos innovar para resolver la epidemia de la salud mental juvenil, contratar maestros dedicados a la educación especial y negros, indígenas y personas de color [(BIPOC, por sus siglas en inglés]] y reducir el tamaño de las clases, para que nuestros maestros puedan apoyar mejor a los estudiantes. Este nivel de innovación en todo el distrito solo puede lograrse con un liderazgo cohesivo. Ayudaré a construir un consejo cohesivo para que podamos reemplazar los carteles que dicen “Renuncien DPS” con el optimismo de que podemos tener un distrito que nuevamente sea líder en el país.

John Youngquist: El rediseño de los sistemas de seguridad y salud mental es el problema más apremiante que DPS enfrenta actualmente. Como un director [escolar] con 18 años de experiencia, sé que abordar las inquietudes de seguridad y salud mental es vital para la participación de nuestros niños, y que debemos implementar medidas ahora. Tendré un impacto en [este problema] al obligar al superintendente a que: cree un acuerdo formal con la Policía de Denver y otros colaboradores de seguridad en mis primeros 60 días en el consejo; requiera que las voces de los estudiantes, padres y directores estén presentes en un rediseño completo de las pautas disciplinarias de DPS; indique que se aumenten significativamente los servicios para la salud mental en las escuelas y recomiende que se tripliquen las Clínicas de Salud Escolares; y, requiera un rediseño de los servicios para la salud mental en el distrito con medidas innovadoras como una adaptación de los sistemas de Respuesta de Apoyo Asistido en Equipo [(STAR, por sus siglas en inglés)] de Denver en las instalaciones escolares.

1er Distrito

Scott Baldermann: El mayor problema que el distrito enfrenta es la reducción en los estudiantes inscritos. Está causando que se desvíen fondos de los salones de clases en todo el distrito. El problema nace por la reducción en las tasas de nacimiento a partir de 2014. Cuando los edificios no se usan eficientemente, el tamaño de las clases aumenta, y los fondos se invierten en la administración duplicada. También hace que otros programas y servicios, como el transporte en autobuses amarillos, sean más costos y menos eficientes. Estas ineficiencias inevitablemente resultan en recortes del presupuesto en todo el distrito.

Kimberlee Sia: Mi prioridad principal para el distrito es implementar iniciativas relacionadas con la seguridad y el bienestar de los estudiantes, incluidos recursos para la enseñanza socioemocional, tener niveles de personal dedicado a servicios para la salud mental que cubran las necesidades de todos los estudiantes, asegurar que medidas preventivas como la implementación de prácticas reparadoras reciban fondos completos y tengan empleados en todas las escuelas, y asegurar que los protocolos y las prioridades de seguridad se implementen y monitoreen completamente para asegurar el éxito e identificar las brechas. Los resultados académicos de los estudiantes mejorarán si nos centramos en apoyar la salud mental, crear un sentido de pertenencia en la escuela, y abordar proactivamente las inquietudes de seguridad. La seguridad de los estudiantes es de suma importancia e incluye la seguridad social y emocional además de la seguridad física.

5o Distrito

Marlene De La Rosa: El rendimiento académico según se ve reflejado en la brecha de logros es el mayor problema que el distrito enfrenta actualmente. Denver tiene la brecha de logros más amplia entre todas las ciudades en el estado y eso es algo que no podemos aceptar. Casi un tercio de los estudiantes en el 5º Distrito son estudiantes multilingües, y el distrito debería tomar en consideración el crecimiento académico a lo largo del tiempo al igual que cubrir las necesidades específicas del niño completo. Aseguraré que estemos examinando el crecimiento académico, al igual que el rendimiento. Además, aseguraré que estemos proporcionando los recursos necesarios para las necesidades del niño completo, incluidos aquellos con desafíos en el aprendizaje. También tenemos que avanzar en la identificación de estudiantes que se puedan colocar en clases de educación avanzada.

Charmaine Lindsay: Durante las más de 20 visitas a escuelas que realicé este último año, la mayor inquietud que los líderes escolares expresaron fue cómo la pandemia había afectado las habilidades básicas de lectura y matemáticas. Como integrante del consejo escolar, planeo hacer que esto sea una prioridad al identificar áreas donde se necesitan más recursos y al continuar visitando las escuelas y colaborando con los maestros y padres. Necesitamos cerrar la brecha de logros para que nuestros estudiantes más marginados puedan triunfar.

Adam Slutzker: abordar la disminución de estudiantes inscritos y los cierres de las escuelas: Trabajaría para asegurar que los cierres de escuelas sean bien pensados y que estemos examinando cuidadosamente cuáles son las comunidades afectadas y tratemos de tomar esas decisiones difíciles de la manera más equitativa posible en todo el distrito.

El consejo escolar volvió a poner agentes armados en las escuelas de DPS después de un tiroteo adentro de East High este año. ¿Estás de acuerdo con esa decisión? ¿Cómo debe DPS garantizar que los estudiantes estén seguros?

Nota de la editora: En sus respuestas, muchos candidatos mencionan “SRO”. SRO son las siglas en inglés que se usan para describir a agentes armados de seguridad. Los SRO son agentes de la policía de la ciudad asignados adentro de las escuelas.

Candidatos al puesto at-large (para representar a todo el distrito escolar)

Brittni Johnson: No respondió.

Kwame Spearman: Nunca debimos haber sacado a los SRO de las escuelas sin un plan claro sobre cómo asegurar que los estudiantes y maestros estuvieran seguros sin ellos. Apoyo [la presencia de] SRO en las escuelas en este momento, como lo hacen el 70 por ciento de nuestros residentes. Para seguir avanzando, debemos reimaginar el papel que los SRO desempeñan para prevenir la criminalización y acoso injusto de estudiantes negros y latinos. A la vez que creamos estrategias para asegurar que nuestras escuelas sean [lugares] seguros, también creo que debemos esforzarnos por sacar todas las armas de fuego de las escuelas y trabajar para [crear] una realidad donde podamos mantener seguras nuestras escuelas sin agentes armados de seguridad. También necesitamos reinvertir en entornos alternativos de aprendizaje para los estudiantes de DPS que no están creando problemas serios de disciplina ni enfrentando cargos penales. Cada estudiante se merece una educación maravillosa en DPS, pero debemos aceptar que se necesitan diferentes entornos de aprendizaje para apoyar individualmente a los estudiantes y a nuestras escuelas en general.

John Youngquist: En noviembre, 2021, le escribí mi primer mensaje electrónico al superintendente porque no había una respuesta a las muchas amenazas en mi escuela y otras. Se ignoraron cuatro cartas más hasta que, después de más de un año, a un niño le dispararon y después murió. Después de que a dos más integrantes del personal les dispararan, la única medida tomada fue que regresaran los SRO. Sí, estoy de acuerdo con la decisión de que regresen los SRO porque el consejo y el superintendente siguen fracasando para tomar otras medidas. Hasta un nuevo “Plan de seguridad a largo plazo” incluye pocas ideas nuevas y está fracasando en su implementación inicial. Con SRO presentes como socios necesarios, debemos obligar a DPS para que cree e implemente finalmente un plan de seguridad que incluya: un acuerdo sólido con nuestros socios externos de seguridad; el fortalecimiento de la cultura, el comportamiento y los sistemas de salud mental en las escuelas; la capacitación y el apoyo de nuestros profesionales que atienden a nuestros estudiantes cada día.

1er Distrito

Scott Baldermann: Desarrollé [la versión] borrador de la norma para el regreso de los agentes armados de seguridad, la cual se aprobó en 2023. Sí, apoyo que regresen con un énfasis en que los SRO establezcan relaciones positivas con los estudiantes y seguridad—no la disciplina que la administración escolar puede abordar. Debemos priorizar el desarrollo del carácter a temprana edad y proporcionar más servicios integrales para los estudiantes que se desvían del camino. Necesitamos que el estado y la ciudad aumenten los fondos para ayudar a lograr esto. En el caso en el que a un estudiante lo acusen de un crimen violento, el estudiante debería recibir aún más servicios integrales y se debería colocar al estudiante en un entorno de aprendizaje alternativo, como asistir a clases por Zoom, a una escuela virtual o a una de las escuelas pathway del distrito, para que continúe su educación y retome el camino. (Nota de la editora: DPS tiene 22 escuelas pathway. Estas escuelas de educación media y high schools ofrecen a los estudiantes que no están avanzando para graduarse una opción diferente para que logren hacerlo.)

Kimberlee Sia: Estoy de acuerdo con la decisión del consejo de volver a colocar agentes armados de seguridad (SRO) en algunas escuelas de DPS. Los SRO tienen la oportunidad de ser integrantes clave de la comunidad escolar, y deben participar en capacitación en las escuelas relacionada con la cultura escolar y del personal, medidas de seguridad escolar, participación familiar y comunitaria y procedimientos y expectativas escolares. DPS debe asegurar que los estudiantes estén seguros al crear entornos acogedores y alentadores y promover un sentido de pertenencia entre todos los integrantes de la comunidad. Esto se puede hacer al proporcionarle al personal escolar capacitación en prácticas reparadoras y la escalera y matriz disciplinarias, proporcionar apoyos fuertes para la salud mental en cada escuela que ayuden a identificar y abordar los riesgos potenciales y creen un entorno favorable para los estudiantes, y designar recursos para financiar y contratar personal de programas socioemocionales que aseguren medidas preventivas más sólidas en cada escuela.

5º Distrito

Marlene De La Rosa: Apoyo la decisión actual del consejo de que regresen los SRO a las escuelas. DPS debe continuar monitoreando un plan integral de seguridad para incluir la intervención temprana en las necesidades de la salud socioemocional de los estudiantes, fortaleciendo las medidas de seguridad, cámaras, puntos de acceso, un programa de Safe2Tell y capacitación regular sobre seguridad para los empleados, los estudiantes y las familias. Monitorear las modificaciones que el distrito hizo en la matriz disciplinaria para enfocarse en la intervención temprana y en alternativas a infracciones por ciertas ofensas. Examinar los informes trimestrales de infracciones para asegurar que no haya desigualdades raciales/étnicas. DPS debe asegurar que toda la comunidad escolar sepa sobre el plan de seguridad integral, también interactuar con la comunidad para que los padres sepan que sus hijos están y se sienten tan seguros como sea posible. La decisión actual del Consejo de organizar una reunión crucial sobre seguridad ocultándola como una Sesión Ejecutiva, al igual que su decisión de limitar los comentarios del público, fueron simplemente malas [decisiones] y resultan en que se confíe menos en nuestras escuelas.

Charmaine Lindsay: La seguridad de los maestros, los niños y el personal es mi prioridad. Me siento orgullosa de haber liderado la votación para que regresaran los agentes armados de seguridad a las escuelas. Las pláticas iniciales fueron de 6 a 1 que se oponían a que regresaran permanentemente los SRO. El voto final para que regresaran fue 4 a 3. Mi título en justicia penal combinado con mi experiencia como abogada en leyes familiares abogando a favor de niños con bajos ingresos me ayudan a examinar todas las partes de un problema de seguridad. Trabajaré de cerca con DPS para monitorear a los SRO y prevenir los abusos que han ocurrido en el pasado. Soy una defensora de los derechos de los estudiantes y reconozco el impacto desproporcionado que esas normas han tenido en los estudiantes de color.

Adam Slutzker: Si sigue[n] siendo financiado[s] por la oficina del alcalde, estoy dispuesto a colaborar con los SRO siempre y cuando estén bien capacitados en el trabajo que se espera de ellos. Generalmente hablando, no creo que sean la mejor fuente para mantener seguros a nuestros estudiantes y preferiría ver que se invierta más dinero en servicios sociales y para la salud mental.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Ricardo Martínez es recordado como ‘un guerrero’ de la justicia

2022-02-04T23:00:31+00:00

Durante tres décadas, Ricardo Martínez, cofundador del grupo de defensa Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, ayudó a padres y estudiantes a luchar contra el racismo en las escuelas públicas de Denver.

El 21 de enero, Denver perdió a este humilde y feroz organizador. Murió a causa de un derrame cerebral y sus complicaciones, según un recuerdo escrito compartido por su familia.

“En su esencia, era un guerrero”, dijo su esposa, Pam Martínez, cofundadora de la organización. “En su esencia, creía incuestionablemente en los derechos democráticos básicos de todas las personas”.

La organización ayudó a los padres y a los estudiantes a enfrentarse a cuestiones que iban desde la reforma disciplinaria hasta la parcialidad de los directores de las escuelas. Martínez también fue activo a nivel estatal y nacional en materia de educación y en la lucha por los derechos de los inmigrantes.

Aunque gran parte de su trabajo se centró en las comunidades chicana y mexicana, su esposa dijo que aplicó esa misma gentileza, compromiso y pasión “para todos los pueblos oprimidos.”

Ricardo Martínez, de 69 años, se retiró en 2019 de Padres & Jóvenes Unidos, que recientemente cambió de nombre pero mantiene una misión similar.

“No solo luchó por los estudiantes latinos”, dijo el secretario municipal de Denver, Paul D. López, que conoció a Martínez en su juventud. “Luchó por todos los estudiantes, por el acceso de todos a una educación igualitaria, sin importar de dónde fueras o qué idioma hablaras”.

Martínez creció en el sur de California, hijo de trabajadores agrícolas, dijo Pam Martínez. Cuando tuvo la edad suficiente, trabajó junto a ellos en los campos y las fábricas de conservas. En su adolescencia, Martínez y su hermana iban en autobús de pueblo en pueblo repartiendo periódicos del sindicato United Farm Workers y del partido político La Raza Unida.

Ricardo Martínez (izquierda) con el ex-alcalde de Denver Federico Peña en una marcha por los derechos de los inmigrantes en Denver en mayo de 2006.

Con el tiempo, Martínez se afilió tanto al sindicato como al partido, y participó activamente en el movimiento antibélico, según relata. Los Martínez se conocieron en un piquete y se mudaron a Denver en 1982 siendo padres jóvenes. Una década más tarde, cuando Ricardo Martínez trabajaba como organizador sindical, recibieron una llamada de los padres de la escuela primaria Valverde de Denver sobre un director que castigaba a los alumnos por hablar en español.

Los Martínez ayudaron a los padres a conseguir cambios en la escuela. En una celebración de la victoria de los padres, recuerda Pam Martínez, un padre de Valverde sugirió que mantuvieran la organización, y así nació lo que entonces se llamaba Padres Unidos.

Durante los siguientes 30 años, la organización presionó a las escuelas públicas de Denver en cuestiones importantes, desde la conservación de la educación bilingüe y la mejora de la calidad de los almuerzos escolares hasta la reducción de las suspensiones y expulsiones, que afectan de forma desproporcionada a los estudiantes negros y latinos.

Padres y Jóvenes Unidos contribuyó a la apertura de una escuela primaria bilingüe Montessori en el noroeste de Denver, la Academia Ana Marie Sandoval, y a la introducción de reformas en otras escuelas de la ciudad, como la North High School y la antigua Cole Middle School.

La revisión en 2008 de la política disciplinaria de las escuelas públicas de Denver para reducir las suspensiones, las expulsiones y las remisiones a la policía fue en gran parte el resultado de años de organización por parte de Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, que trabajó con el distrito para dar forma a las reformas.

“Eran perros de presa, y no iban a dejarlo pasar”, dijo Theresa Peña, que era presidenta del consejo escolar en aquel momento. “Donde hubo compromiso, consiguieron el 85% de lo que pusieron sobre la mesa porque tenían razón”.

Alex Sánchez trabajó para las escuelas públicas de Denver y ahora dirige una organización de defensa, Voces Unidas de las Montañas, en Glenwood Springs. Recuerda a Martínez como un defensor incansable que era “uno de los mejores en cuanto a la construcción de movimientos”.

“Tengo un recuerdo vívido de haber estado en una mesa con Ricardo cuando estaba desafiando al distrito escolar cuando un director suspendió a varios estudiantes porque llevaban una bandera mexicana”, dijo Sánchez. “Ricardo, los padres y los jóvenes acudieron a la mesa y exigieron la rendición de cuentas, como debía ser, de ese director y del sistema escolar”.

Aunque los Martínez dirigieron la organización, su enfoque siempre fue el de capacitar a los padres y a los estudiantes para que hablaran por sí mismos, dijeron los observadores.

“Un verdadero organizador no está al frente persiguiendo cámaras o titulares”, dijo López. “Un verdadero organizador se pone detrás y empuja. ... Y él lo hizo”.

El senador estadounidense Michael Bennet, superintendente de las escuelas públicas de Denver de 2005 a 2008, dijo que Martínez cambió para siempre la forma en que la ciudad atiende a sus niños de color al asegurarse siempre de que los estudiantes y las familias estuvieran al frente del movimiento.

“Se organizaron, se manifestaron y subieron al podio para exigir justicia y oportunidades académicas”, dijo Bennet en un comunicado. “Forjaron cambios duraderos en los barrios y las escuelas de Denver. Y a través de sus muchos logros, el legado de Ricardo perdurará”.

Pam Martínez dijo que fue su amor por la justicia y el empoderamiento de los demás lo que impulsó su trabajo.

“Le encantaba ver a la gente tomar conciencia”, dijo. “Le encantaba que la gente superara el miedo y lo convirtiera en fuerza y poder. Le encantaba ver cómo toda la comunidad cobraba vida”.

Traducido por Juan Carlos Uribe, The Weekly Issue/El Semanario.

4 estudiantes de la Secundaria North dicen por qué Denver necesita más maestros de color

2022-05-23T18:53:47+00:00

Martin Castañon, estudiante de duodécimo grado de la Secundaria North, creció en una comunidad en la que la mayoría de la gente se veía como él. Pero ahora, dice, los nuevos residentes blancos se muestran irritados con él, cuando ellos fueron los que “se mudaron a mi comunidad y me arrancaron la cultura.”

La decisión de la Secundaria North de no renovarle el contrato a Tim Hernández, maestro de inglés, Literatura Latinx y una clase de Liderazgo Latinx, y que también dirigía un club de estudiantes, todavía se siente como otro golpe para el estudiantado (en su mayoría de origen Latino) de una escuela situada en una de las comunidades más gentrificadas de Denver.

“Es triste. Es deprimente,” dijo Martin. “Fue como cambiar de muchos colores y alegría a un ambiente de depresión y oscuridad. Es terrible que le quiten eso a uno.”

Hernández creció en el Norte de Denver y comenzó a enseñar en la Secundaria North el pasado año escolar. Fue contratado nuevamente este año con un contrato de un año. Cuando solicitó seguir enseñando en North el próximo año, Hernández dijo que no le renovaron el contrato.

En una declaración, el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver no dijo por qué no se le renovó el contrato a Hernández. La declaración decía que el distrito está comprometido con reclutar y retener maestros de color calificados, y que la decisión de a quién contratar está de parte del comité de personal de la escuela (que en la Secundaria North incluye al director, Scott Wolf). Si el comité no puede llegar a un consenso, el director tiene la última palabra de conformidad con el contrato del sindicato de maestros.

Los estudiantes de Hernández dicen que ha sido devastador perder al maestro que les enseñó sobre el movimiento Chicano, sobre estudiantes activistas de Colorado como Los Seis de Boulder, y las marchas en la West High en 1969, cuando los estudiantes de Denver protestaron contra el racismo y la discriminación. Hernández mantuvo un refrigerador que los estudiantes del Club llenaban de despensa para distribuir gratuitamente. Su salón de clases estaba decorado con banderas y un cartel pintado a mano con la frase “casa de la cultura.”

“Sabemos que nuestra cultura no está destacada en ninguna otra de las paredes de nuestro edificio,” dijo Hernández, “pero sí en mi salón de clases.”

El maestro Tim Hernández posa cerca de la Secundaria North a principios de este mes.

Los datos del distrito y el estado muestran que un 75% de los estudiantes de Denver son minorías raciales. Sin embargo, solo un 29% de los maestros son personas de color. Los estudiantes hispanos o latinos representan un 52% del distrito, pero solo un 19% de los maestros de Denver son hispanos o latinos.

“Esto es y siempre ha sido algo más grande que el caso del Sr. Hernández,” dijo Nayeli López, estudiante de noveno grado de la Secundaria North, y que es miembro del club llamado SOMOS MECHA. “La razón por la que hablamos tanto sobre él es que era uno de los pocos maestros de color en la escuela. Retener maestros de color es más que solo ofrecerles empleo, es hacer que la escuela sea un lugar seguro para ellos.”

Durante las últimas semanas, los estudiantes de la Secundaria North han tenido una sentada y dos abandonos del edificio para exigir que la escuela vuelva a contratar a Hernández. El jueves, unos 50 estudiantes y apoyadores marcharon hasta las oficinas centrales del distrito para decir a voces, “¿A quién queremos? ¡Al Sr. Hernández! ¿Dónde? ¡En la Secundaria North!” Aproximadamente 20 personas se apuntaron en una lista para hablar sobre Hernández y la Secundaria North en la reunión de la Junta Escolar el jueves por la noche.

Al terminar la reunión, la junta votó unánimemente que Hernández fuese eliminado de la lista de maestros “sin renovación de contrato.” El superintendente Alex Marrero dijo que aunque eso no significa que Hernández regresará a la Secundaria North, sí significa que “lo apoyaremos en su camino a encontrar otro puesto dentro de DPS el año próximo.”

Chalkbeat habló con cuatro estudiantes — Nayeli, Martin, la estudiante de duodécimo grado Daniela Urbina-Valle y la estudiante de undécimo grado Viridiana Sanchéz — sobre Hernández y la necesidad de que el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver contrate y retenga más maestros de raza negra, indígenas, y de otras minorías raciales (categoría conocida como BIPOC, Black, Indigenous and People of Color). Esto es lo que nos dijeron.

Estudiantes de la Secundaria North protestan frente a las oficinas centrales del Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver el 19 de mayo.

¿Cuál ha sido su experiencia en cuanto a tener maestros BIPOC en la escuela?

Martin: En total he tenido dos maestros de color. … el Sr. Hernández fue uno de los únicos maestros que realmente mostraba orgullo por su raza y cultura. Es lamentable que no podamos aprender sobre nuestra cultura de los maestros. … Contratar maestros de color nos ayudaría mucho. Nunca sabremos quiénes somos en verdad si no aprendemos de dónde venimos.

Viridiana: Finalmente tener un maestro que habla exactamente como tú, que viene de un trasfondo exactamente como el tuyo... fue revelador. Fue algo refrescante.

Nayeli: Yo crecí en una comunidad de personas que fueron parte del movimiento Chicano. Así me crie, pero nunca había escuchado sobre eso en la escuela.

Daniela: Aunque tengamos maestros que se ven como nosotros, la expectativa es que se conformen a un sistema creado por hombres blancos… Muchas veces el hombre blanco piensa que la educación se trata de control, y el Sr. Hernández nos enseñó que eso no es cierto.

¿Qué aprendieron en las clases del Sr. Hernández? ¿Y cómo se sintieron?

Martin: Aprendí quién soy. Aprendí lo que significa ser Chicano. Por ser hijo de padres mexicanos, la palabra Chicano tiene bastante peso. La definición de ellos es completamente diferente a la verdadera. Para ellos, Chicano significa haragán; alguien que vive del sistema. Pero ese no fue el significado original. Chicano se trata del poder latino.

Las primeras semanas del año escolar, [el Sr. Hernández] nos llevó a la reunión de la West [Secundaria]. Y no era solo una reunión, fue una celebración de las protestas de la West. Lo primero que aprendí del Sr. Hernández sobre la raza latina fue eso.

Nayeli: Yo conocí al Sr. Hernández en la actividad de la Secundaria West. Mi papá [Paul López, Denver City Clerk y exmiembro del consejo de la ciudad] es exalumno de la Secundaria West y era uno de los oradores. Yo era la única estudiante pensando, “Uf, soy de la Secundaria North y aquí estoy, en la escuela rival.”

Fue entonces que vi un grupo grande de estudiantes marchando con un letrero que decía “From North to West, Chicano Power.” Entonces pensé, “Oh wow, ¡qué cool!” Nunca había escuchado la frase “Chicano Power” fuera de mi casa.

Daniela: Mi mamá nació en México y mi papá en Nicaragua, así que soy la primera generación nacida aquí. … no era normal que yo dijera que soy Chicana porque para ellos, es un término negativo. … [Hernández] nos enseñó a sentirnos orgullosos mostrándonos la historia. … no se trata únicamente de César Chávez. No se trata solamente de Dolores Huerta. Es mucho más que esas personas.

Viridiana: Yo conocí al Sr. Hernández cuando comenzó el año. … recuerdo que le dije lo mucho que odiaba estar en la clase de Lenguaje AP porque no sentía conexión con el currículo. Todos en la clase eran blancos. Solo éramos tres estudiantes de color, contándome a mí, y me sentía horrible. Me sentía sumamente aislada.

Entonces él me dijo que era el maestro de Literatura Latinx y que la clase era divertida. … tan pronto llegué, me sentí bienvenida, sentí comunidad, y él únicamente quería que uno se mostrara de manera auténtica.

La Secundaria North.

¿Qué les gustaría que los adultos a cargo del Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver sepan?

Nayeli: Queremos que nuestro maestro regrese. ... para nosotros no es un simple maestro. Es alguien que nos hace sentir seguros. … Él, siendo uno de los únicos Chicanos en la Secundaria North, era un excelente sistema de apoyo.

Martin: No solo queremos que nuestro maestro regrese, también queremos más maestros que se vean como él, que representen su cultura. No queremos gente que se vea como nosotros pero que no nos represente.

Daniela: Ser inclusivos y diversos es más que celebrar el Mes de la Historia LGBTQ+ o el Mes de la Historia Negra. … la North piensa que esa es la manera inclusiva de apoyarnos. Pero de ninguna manera lo es.

Martin: Es como que somos una inconveniencia para ellos.

Nayeli: Es como que nos anotan en un cuaderno pero luego nos desechan.

Daniela: Sé de personas que han dicho que les han dicho a los orientadores o maestros de AP que se van a inscribir en clases de estudios étnicos y les han dicho, “Eso no se verá bien en tu transcripción de créditos.” No creo que aprender y actuar de conformidad con quienes somos sea algo que nos haga menos atractivos para las universidades. Los maestros no deberían decirnos eso.

Viridiana: Nos han llamado “problemáticos.” O que los maestros saben cómo manejar a “estudiantes como nosotros” porque han trabajado en otras escuelas donde la mayoría del estudiantado es “como nosotros.”

Martin: Siempre usan frases como “you people” (la gente como ustedes).

Viridiana: Lo hemos reportado, pero no hacen nada.

Nayeli: Los mismos estudiantes que los maestros y muchos administradores tildan de “problemáticos” son los que maestros como el Sr. Hernández ven como chicos que van a lograr algo en la vida.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre historias sobre el Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Cierre de escuelas: Cómo Denver, Jeffco y Aurora están abordando la decisión

2022-11-10T13:54:01+00:00

Tres de los distritos escolares más grandes de Colorado — Denver, Jeffco y Aurora — están enfrentando el mismo problema: reducción en el número de estudiantes. Pero cada uno está manejando las decisiones de cuáles escuelas cerrar de manera diferente.

El distrito de Aurora ya ha cerrado ocho escuelas en los últimos dos años, y algunas todavía están en proceso de cierre. Los miembros de la junta escolar han luchado con las decisiones, votando inicialmente en contra de dos recomendaciones de cierre este año antes de cambiar su voto.

Ahora el distrito está iniciando un proceso para averiguar qué hacer con los edificios vacíos, incluso cuando es posible que haya más cierres.

En Jeffco, después de cerrar dos escuelas abruptamente en los últimos dos años, una nueva administración recomendó cerrar 16 escuelas primarias todas a la vez al final de este año escolar. La junta escolar de Jeffco tiene prevista una votación sobre esta recomendación el jueves. Es probable que el distrito también recomiende el cierre de escuelas intermedias o secundarias el próximo año.

Denver ha iniciado, pausado y reiniciado un proceso de cierre de escuelas en los últimos dos años. Finalmente, el superintendente recomendó cerrar 10 escuelas primarias y secundarias al final de este año escolar. La junta escolar de Denver tiene previsto votar el 17 de noviembre.

Los padres tienen muchas preguntas sobre estas decisiones: ¿Cómo se selecciona cuál escuela cerrar? ¿Por qué algunos distritos están cerrando tantas escuelas a la vez? ¿Por qué los distritos escolares no tienen en cuenta los aspectos académicos o el papel que desempeñan las escuelas en sus comunidades?

A continuación, contestamos algunas de las preguntas más comunes y explicamos las diferencias de enfoque entre los tres distritos.

¿Qué factores tuvieron en cuenta los distritos a la hora de seleccionar las escuelas que iban a cerrar?

Denver y Jeffco basaron su decisión mayormente en el número de estudiantes, mientras que Aurora tuvo en cuenta una serie de factores, entre ellos de qué manera se podrían reutilizar los edificios escolares.

En Denver y Jeffco, se consideraron para cierre las escuelas con muy pocos estudiantes: menos de 215 en Denver y menos de 220 en Jeffco.

Los líderes de ambos distritos también consideraron si otra escuela o escuelas situadas a pocas millas de distancia podrían acoger a los estudiantes de la escuela cerrada. Por ejemplo, Denver decidió no cerrar cuatro escuelas pequeñas porque los funcionarios dijeron que no hay ninguna escuela en un radio de 2 millas que pueda recibir a sus estudiantes.

También se consideraron otros factores. En Denver, los administradores querían asegurar que los estudiantes que hablan español pudieran continuar su educación bilingüe o en dos idiomas. Y en Jeffco, los administradores también tuvieron en cuenta la cantidad de espacio del edificio que se está utilizando.

Aurora, que inició su proceso de cierre de escuelas en 2018, adoptó un enfoque diferente. El distrito creó siete regiones y se fijó en las tendencias de matrícula en cada zona, cuántos edificios el distrito podría necesitar, y qué edificios podrían albergar nuevos programas magnet o utilizarse para otros fines.

Una de las razones por las que la comunidad y la junta escolar ayudaron a Aurora a seleccionar este método es porque el distrito está perdiendo estudiantes en algunas regiones, mientras que está añadiendo nuevas subdivisiones en el este de la ciudad. Los líderes vieron una oportunidad de combinar el cierre de escuelas con un plan estratégico más amplio.

¿Por qué Denver y Jeffco están cerrando tantas escuelas a la vez?

La baja en matrícula no es un problema nuevo. Los líderes de Denver y Jeffco dicen que retrasar las decisiones en el pasado ha llevado a las escuelas a carecer de los recursos necesarios para atender bien a los estudiantes, a pesar de contar con subsidios presupuestarios substanciales. Jeffco también quiere evitar decisiones de emergencia que dejen a las familias en apuros, como ocurrió en las escuelas primarias Allendale y Fitzmorris.

Tanto en Denver como en Jeffco, los superintendentes le han pedido a la junta escolar que haga una votación de las recomendaciones de cierre como un paquete: todas las escuelas o ninguna.

“Creemos que resolver esto rápidamente apoyará a nuestra comunidad escolar para que haga algo realmente difícil y luego siga adelante para crear experiencias más prósperas para nuestros estudiantes”, dijo la Superintendente de Jeffco, Tracy Dorland.

Los líderes de Jeffco también dijeron que querían evitar tomar decisiones de cierre cada año, dejando a las familias preocupadas durante mucho tiempo. En Aurora, un proceso más largo con años de participación de la comunidad todavía dejó a las familias frustradas y sorprendidas por las recomendaciones de cierre.

Sin embargo, el superintendente de Aurora, Rico Munn, dijo que trabajar en fases permite que el distrito lleve cuenta del impacto.

“Es un campo muy dinámico en el que estamos hablando sobre matrícula y cambios demográficos, en particular después de la pandemia”, dijo Munn. “Queríamos detenernos y reflexionar durante el proceso”.

Este otoño, el distrito reabrió dos escuelas como escuelas magnet y está comenzando a llevar cuenta de cómo el interés en esas escuelas podría afectar la matrícula en toda la región y el distrito. Pero es demasiado pronto para saberlo, dijo Munn.

¿Por qué no se ha tenido en cuenta el aspecto académico?

El cierre de escuelas basado en los resultados académicos y de los exámenes ya no cuenta con el visto bueno político, y ninguno de los distritos tuvo en cuenta el desempeño para decidir qué escuelas cerrar y cuáles salvar.

En Aurora, el superintendente Munn dijo que el estado ya tiene un sistema de rendición de cuentas que registra el desempeño académico de las escuelas y puede emitir órdenes, entre ellas el cierre, como consecuencia cuando una escuela no mejora. “Pero no había interés en crear un segundo sistema”, dijo.

Sin embargo, eso ha hecho que los padres y la comunidad tengan preguntas: ¿Por qué cerrar escuelas que están funcionando para los estudiantes?

¿Qué pueden hacer las comunidades escolares para frenar los cierres?

No mucho, parece.

En los tres distritos, los administradores han tratado de evitar situaciones en las que los padres, los maestros y los miembros de la comunidad se unan para salvar sus escuelas.

En Aurora, los miembros de la junta escolar cedieron ante la presión pública y rechazaron dos recomendaciones de cierre, aunque cambiaron de parecer dos meses después.

Los miembros de la junta, cuya mayoría aún no habían sido elegidos cuando se puso en marcha el plan Blueprint de Aurora, se preguntaron por qué el distrito no tenía en cuenta la participación de los padres en su escuela o cómo una escuela encajaba en su comunidad al momento de hacer recomendaciones de cierre.

Munn dijo que no sería justo considerar la participación de la comunidad. Los padres que tienen varios trabajos pueden amar su escuela, pero no pueden asistir a las reuniones. Las escuelas más grandes pueden lograr que más padres luchen contra el cierre.

“Todos queríamos evitar que las comunidades escolares pelearan entre sí”, dijo Munn. “No conviene crear una competencia de popularidad”

Denver y Jeffco han seguido en gran medida el ejemplo de Aurora en este sentido, y es una de las razones por las a los miembros de la junta se les está pidiendo que aprueben los cierres como un paquete de escuelas, en vez de una por una.

Dorland, superintendente de Jeffco, llegó a decir que la participación de la comunidad no cambiará el resultado. En Denver, sin embargo, algunos miembros de la junta escolar parecieron sentirse preocupados por la falta de oportunidades para que las comunidades se involucraran en las decisiones para cerrar una escuela individual.

¿Cómo ha influido la comunidad en la toma de decisiones?

De los tres distritos, Aurora tuvo el proceso de participación comunitaria más amplio. Pero en los tres, los administradores tuvieron la última decisión de qué escuelas recomendar para el cierre.

Ahora los líderes de Denver y Jeffco están pidiendo la opinión de los padres y maestros sobre cómo ayudar a que la transición ocurra sin problemas, un enfoque que ha causado ira y frustración.

Aurora inició en 2018 la planificación de lo que se convirtió en Blueprint con consultores que ayudaron con encuestas, grupos de discusión y reuniones en la comunidad. El distrito concluyó que las familias querían más opciones escolares, pero que esas opciones debían ser escuelas del distrito, no escuelas chárter.

El distrito creó regiones con especializaciones únicas y está desarrollando nuevas escuelas magnet que se ajusten a esos temas. La necesidad de cerrar escuelas (o de usarlas con otros fines) estuvo presente en este proceso desde el principio, aunque no todos los miembros de la comunidad lo entendieron así. El distrito no tuvo mucha resistencia en las primeras rondas de cierres de escuelas. Este año los padres resistieron, pero finalmente no tuvieron éxito.

Denver convocó a grupos comunitarios a partir de 2017. El Strengthening Neighborhoods Committee se reunió con la meta de combatir la segregación en las escuelas y abordar los efectos de la gentrificación. Una de sus recomendaciones fue tener un “proceso transparente de consolidación de escuelas” que les permitiera a las comunidades “reimaginar” sus propias escuelas.

Un segundo comité formado este año, llamado Declining Enrollment Advisory Committe, estableció criterios de cierre de escuelas que fueron aplicados a la recomendación más reciente. Pero los miembros del comité estaban divididos porque muchos querían hablar de evitar la necesidad de cerrar escuelas, un tema que los administradores del distrito dijeron que no estaba sobre la mesa.

Ahora la participación de la comunidad de Denver se ha transferido a las escuelas individuales. Cada director de escuela está explicándole la recomendación a su comunidad escolar y haciendo todo lo posible por contestar las preguntas, una estrategia que el Superintendente Alex Marrero describió como “íntima e intensa”

“Creo que la gente que conocen, quieren y adoran, y que siguen, es la que puede decirles: ‘Ok, este es el plan y se necesita por esta razón”, dijo Marrero.

La junta escolar de Denver también organizará una sesión de comentarios públicos el 14 de noviembre.

En Jeffco, Dorland dejó claro que los comentarios de la comunidad no cambiarán las recomendaciones. El propósito de la participación de la comunidad era para determinar qué necesitan las familias para superar la transición.

De todos modos, cada escuela que se va a cerrar ha tenido una sesión de comentarios públicos de una hora con la junta escolar, lo cual es un total de por lo menos 16 horas de comentarios públicos.

Pero en un informe del grupo de consultores que dirige ese trabajo, quedó claro que las familias no estaban contentas. Muchos todavía querían hablar de las recomendaciones y obtener más respuestas a sus preguntas, y el Keystone Policy Center dijo que habían encontrado mucha desinformación y falta de confianza en el proceso.

¿Cómo decidieron los distritos el plazo para informar a los padres?

De los tres distritos, el proceso de Denver es el más breve, con poco más de tres semanas entre el anuncio de la recomendación el 25 de octubre y la votación programada para el 17 de noviembre. Si la junta vota que sí, las 10 escuelas cerrarían al final de este año escolar.

Pero Marrero, superintendente de Denver, argumentó que el proceso en realidad comenzó en junio de 2021 cuando la junta escolar aprobó una resolución que le ordena al superintendente consolidar las escuelas pequeñas.

La junta necesita votar este mes para que haya tiempo suficiente para poner en marcha el plan del próximo otoño, dijo Marrero. También dijo que detener el proceso haría que los estudiantes y el personal huyeran de las escuelas recomendadas para el cierre, empeorando la pérdida de matrícula.

En Jeffco, las familias tendrán más tiempo que en cierres de emergencia anteriores.

Por ejemplo, cuando el distrito cerró Allendale y Fitzmorris, las familias se les informó a las familias en la primavera, cuando faltaban pocas semanas para que terminara el año escolar y la escuela cerrara.

Las familias se perdieron la primera ronda para inscribirse en la escuela de su preferencia, y el distrito trabajó individualmente con las familias para asignar a los estudiantes a otra escuela para el próximo año escolar. Esta vez, la votación de la junta el 10 de noviembre está programada antes de que el distrito empiece su proceso del año para matricularse en la escuela de preferencia. Si las familias quieren elegir una escuela diferente a la que recomienda el distrito, pueden hacerlo.

Aurora también ha aumentado el plazo entre las recomendaciones y los cierres.

En la primera ronda de cierres que se decidió por votación en enero de 2021, la primera escuela cerró en junio de 2021 y las demás se irán eliminando poco a poco. En la segunda ronda de cierres, la junta votó en la primavera de 2022 y las escuelas cerrarán al final del año escolar 2022-23.

¿Los distritos han tenido en cuenta cuántos estudiantes podrían tener en el futuro?

Sí. Los tres distritos usaron un análisis que incluye factores como tasas de natalidad, desarrollo de vivienda y movilidad para pronosticar las tendencias en la población en edad escolar.

En Denver, el análisis más reciente, hecho esta última primavera, muestra que la ciudad tiene menos niños ahora que hace una década. La tasa de nacimientos está bajando más rápido entre las familias hispanas, y el distrito pronostica que eso “tendrá un impacto negativo significativo” en la matrícula. Actualmente, un poco más de la mitad de los casi 90,000 estudiantes de las escuelas públicas de Denver son hispanos.

El análisis también señala que la mayoría de las viviendas planificadas o permitidas son condominios, apartamentos y townhomes, que históricamente representan menos estudiantes que las casas de familia. Sin embargo, algunos miembros de la comunidad y hasta organizaciones como la casi municipal Autoridad de la Vivienda de Denver están cuestionando las proyecciones de Denver.

En Jeffco, un análisis similar presentado ante la junta escolar el miércoles demostró que los estudiantes que proceden de familias en pobreza están abandonando el distrito en mayor proporción que los estudiantes más acomodados. Los dos códigos de salida más comunes que registra el distrito muestran que los estudiantes se están mudando a otros distritos o a otro estado. Los líderes del distrito dijeron que sospechan que la falta de vivienda asequible está expulsando a las familias.

En Aurora, se proyecta que la cantidad de estudiantes crecerá de nuevo, pero no necesariamente en las mismas comunidades que antes.

En el este del distrito están surgiendo nuevas áreas de vivienda, que podrían requerir nuevas escuelas. Las escuelas en el oeste del distrito, más cerca de Denver, siguen experimentando un fuerte descenso porque el alto costo de la vivienda hace que las familias se vayan.

Originalmente, los líderes de Aurora esperaban que la matrícula comenzara a aumentar en 2021, pero el superintendente Munn dijo que la pandemia aceleró las bajas en el oeste, cambiando la expectativa. Todavía se espera un crecimiento, pero el distrito está observando de cerca los datos para analizar cuándo podría ocurrir.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado, y cubre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, escríbele a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Yesenia Robles es reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre asuntos relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, envíale un mensaje a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

El superintendente del DPS propone un plan para invertir en cuatro iniciativas

2022-05-12T17:35:22+00:00

Los millones de dólares que las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS) ahorrarán al recortar los empleados de la oficina central se gastarán en cuatro iniciativas, incluyendo la creación de “centros comunitarios” para proporcionar servicios a las familias, tales como clases de GED, apoyo a la salud mental y ayuda con la colocación de empleo.

Eso es lo que dice el plan presentado por el superintendente Alex Marrero en una reunión del consejo escolar el 5 de mayo. Dos días antes, el 3 de mayo, el distrito dijo a 131 empleados de la oficina central que sus puestos de trabajo iban a ser recortados. Debido a que algunos puestos están siendo reubicados, en algunos casos con nuevos títulos de trabajo, la reducción neta de los puestos de la oficina central es de 76, dijo un portavoz del distrito.

La eliminación de esos 76 puestos ahorrará al distrito 9 millones de dólares el próximo año, dijeron los funcionarios. El presupuesto total del distrito es de unos 1.200 millones de dólares.

Marrero dijo a la junta escolar que planea invertir esos 9 millones de dólares en:

Abrir seis centros comunitarios este otoño en asociación con la ciudad de Denver y organizaciones comunitarias, incluyendo la Autoridad de Vivienda de Denver, el Comité Organizador de Montbello, Westwood Unidos, y otros. Los centros comunitarios utilizarían un enfoque de dos generaciones, prestando servicios a los jóvenes estudiantes y a sus familias.

Estos servicios podrían incluir asistencia para cubrir necesidades básicas como la alimentación, la ropa y la vivienda; ayuda para el desarrollo de la mano de obra, como la elaboración de currículos y la preparación de entrevistas; clases de GED, ciudadanía e inglés; y servicios de salud mental para adultos, entre otras cosas.

Marrero dijo que aún no se ha decidido la ubicación de los centros comunitarios, pero espera que haya uno en cada región de la ciudad. Las ubicaciones serán probablemente temporales, ya que el distrito pilotará los centros el próximo año escolar, dijo.

Aumentar los salarios de los trabajadores por hora, incluidos los paraprofesionales, los trabajadores del servicio de alimentos, los conserjes, los técnicos de salud que ayudan en las oficinas de las enfermeras escolares, y otros. Marrero dijo que alrededor de 1.200 empleados del distrito ganan actualmente el salario mínimo de la ciudad de $ 15,87, y esta inversión aumentaría eso, aunque no dijo por cuánto. El objetivo, dijo, es aumentar los salarios con el tiempo a 20 dólares por hora, una prioridad del vicepresidente de la junta Tay Anderson.

Compensar el aumento de los gastos de salud de todos los empleados del distrito. Las primas de los planes de salud más grandes del distrito aumentaron un 10% este año, dijo Marrero. El distrito tiene la intención de utilizar algunos de los ahorros de la oficina central para pagar eso para que los empleados no tengan que asumir el costo total.

Apoyar a las escuelas con disminución de la matrícula complementando sus presupuestos. Las escuelas de Denver se financian por estudiante, y menos estudiantes significan menos dinero para contratar a profesores y otro personal. Mientras el distrito debate cómo cerrar o consolidar las escuelas pequeñas, Marrero dijo que este dinero ayudaría a las escuelas a capear los descensos de financiación.

La presentación de Marrero no especificó cómo se dividirán los 9 millones de dólares entre las cuatro iniciativas. La junta escolar está programada para votar el presupuesto del próximo año a principios de junio.

Melanie Asmar es reportera senior de Chalkbeat Colorado, y cubre las escuelas públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, envíale un mensaje a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Juan Carlos Uribe, The Weekly Issue/El Semanario.

Comunidad frustrada con las reuniones cerradas de DPS, el debate limitado

2022-04-14T02:03:27+00:00

A medida que Denver avanza hacia un tenso debate sobre el cierre de escuelas con baja matrícula, los críticos están atacando un proceso de comité asesor que dicen ha sido empañado por el secreto y la frustración.

Algunos miembros del comité y de la comunidad se quejan de las reuniones cerradas, de la escasa traducción para los padres de habla hispana, de las preguntas ignoradas, del debate sofocado y de los comentarios filtrados.

“Cada vez que alguien hace una pregunta, se le dice que no va a ser respondida y que no hay tiempo suficiente, que vamos a seguir adelante”, dijo Karimme Quintana, una madre hispanohablante de dos estudiantes que forma parte del comité asesor del distrito sobre la disminución de la matrícula.

“Parece que todo está ya hecho, todo está ya decidido”, dijo. “Sólo nos tienen ahí para que al final puedan decir que estos miembros del comité decidieron”.

La falta de participación de la comunidad y la sensación de que las decisiones ya están tomadas en el momento en que el distrito pide su opinión son críticas frecuentes a las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS). El consejo escolar dejó claro que esta vez quería escuchar las voces de la comunidad. En junio, la junta aprobó una resolución diciendo que la comunidad debe liderar, y el distrito apoyar, el proceso de producción de opciones para gestionar la reducción de la matrícula - aunque la resolución implicaba que los cierres de escuelas eran inevitables.

Pero algunas de las personas que participaron en el proceso dijeron que adolece de los mismos defectos de siempre.

“No se siente auténtico”, dijo Cynthia Trinidad-Sheahan, el director ejecutivo de la Asociación de Colorado para la Educación Bilingüe y otro miembro del comité. “Sólo se siente como una cosa de cumplimiento - marcarlo, tuvimos los comités”.

Después de algunas polémicas, el distrito nombró un comité asesor sobre la disminución de la matrícula que comenzó a reunirse a principios del mes pasado. El propósito declarado del comité es recomendar criterios al Superintendente Alex Marrero para cerrar o consolidar escuelas. Las recomendaciones deben presentarse el mes que viene, pero el distrito dice que no se cerrarán escuelas hasta 2024.

Los cierres de escuelas son muy impopulares y a menudo injustos. Denver corre el riesgo de repetirlo. Sus escuelas más pequeñas atienden a un alto porcentaje de estudiantes de color procedentes de familias con bajos ingresos, según los datos del distrito. Varios miembros del comité han expresado su frustración por no poder cuestionar la justicia del cierre de escuelas o discutir otras soluciones para abordar la disminución de la matrícula.

“Cuando dicen ‘comité de disminución de la matrícula’, pienso: ‘¿Qué ideas tenemos para abordarlo? No sólo, ‘¿Cuáles son las recomendaciones para cerrar y consolidar?’” dijo Gene Fashaw, un padre y ex maestro de Denver en el comité. “Eso es lo único que quieren oír”.

‘Un poco desarticulado’

Grant Guyer, jefe de estrategia y servicios de cartera del distrito, dijo que el enfoque estrecho es intencional. “Aunque entiendo que este es un tema increíblemente complicado con muchas capas y perspectivas, el comité se centra en los criterios”, dijo Guyer. “Si la gente quiere abogar por otros enfoques, tenemos que dirigirlos a través de otros canales”.

Mientras tanto, los padres y los defensores de la educación que no están en el comité se sienten frustrados por lo que dicen que ha sido un proceso secreto. Las reuniones de los miércoles del comité no están abiertas al público, ni las sesiones virtuales se graban y se comparten después - lo que Guyer dijo es para asegurar que el comité tenga un espacio seguro para discutir un tema complicado.

Después de que las organizaciones de la comunidad plantearan su preocupación por la falta de transparencia, el distrito comenzó a organizar reuniones separadas los viernes para algunas organizaciones. Los participantes dijeron que el distrito les muestra los mismos materiales y datos que dice que muestra al comité el miércoles y luego pide a las organizaciones sus comentarios que promete transmitir al comité.

Pero los participantes también tienen dudas sobre ese proceso, que según algunos parece un juego telefónico: ellos dan su opinión al personal del distrito, que se la da a los miembros del comité.

“DPS está controlando la información que se transmite”, dijo Shantelle Mulliniks, una madre de Denver que fue invitada a las reuniones del viernes como representante de la Asociación de Vecinos de West Colfax, una asociación de vecinos en una parte de la ciudad que ha perdido estudiantes.

El distrito también contrató a una organización de compromiso cívico, Warm Cookies of the Revolution, para que recogiera las opiniones de las familias y las entregara al comité.

Warm Cookies subcontrató a otra organización, Community Organizing for Radical Empathy, que contrató a enlaces para realizar el trabajo a mediados de abril. Uno de los enlaces dijo que el proceso se siente apresurado, con los enlaces luchando para establecer reuniones en las bibliotecas, las escuelas y en línea.

“La participación de la comunidad, en mi opinión, debería ser reflexiva y consciente y debería llevar todo el tiempo que sea necesario”, dijo Erin Phelan, una madre de Denver que fue contratada como enlace. “En esta situación en la que nos encontramos, sólo estamos tratando de obtener la retroalimentación que podemos en el corto plazo que tenemos”.

El proceso “parece estar un poco desarticulado”, dijo Ambar Suero, que antes trabajaba en la oficina de participación comunitaria del distrito y ahora está a cargo de las asociaciones en RootEd, una organización de Denver que financia escuelas autónomas, grupos comunitarios e iniciativas de equidad.

Aunque Suero ha seguido de cerca este asunto, dijo que sólo se enteró de los enlaces porque vio una publicación que solicitaba comentarios en Facebook.

‘Nos están dejando de lado’

Un director de escuela ya ha renunciado al comité asesor sobre la disminución de la matrícula.

Dominique Jefferson es directora de la Academia Hallett, una escuela primaria del distrito con menos de 300 alumnos. Dijo que se presentó al comité para asegurarse de que los criterios evitarían el cierre de Hallett, pero que se desanimó rápidamente por las reuniones virtuales en las que el distrito cortó a los miembros que intentaban discutir los factores que llevaron a la disminución de la matrícula.

“No creo intrínsecamente en el cierre o la consolidación de escuelas”, dijo Jefferson. “Si nos han amonestado para que no hablemos de las razones por las que llegamos aquí, no permitiré que se pierda mi tiempo”.

No todos los miembros del comité están frustrados. Onsi Fakhouri, padre de tres estudiantes de Denver, dijo que se unió al comité con pocas expectativas más allá de querer ayudar. Antiguo ejecutivo de una empresa de tecnología, Fakhouri dijo que el proceso se está desarrollando como lo haría cualquier proceso en el que un grupo diverso de personas intenta llegar a un consenso sobre un tema complicado.

“Estoy viendo esto y es como, ‘Esto es totalmente normal’”, dijo Fakhouri.

Mientras que las primeras reuniones del comité se centraron en proporcionar los antecedentes del problema de la matriculación -explicando cómo la disminución de las tasas de natalidad y los altos costos de la vivienda están llevando a un menor número de niños en Denver- Guyer dijo que la reunión de la semana pasada fue la primera en la que los miembros comenzaron a hacer una lluvia de ideas.

Después de haber planeado inicialmente publicar las notas de la sesión en el sitio web del distrito para recibir comentarios, los funcionarios del distrito dijeron que los miembros del comité no habían llegado a un acuerdo suficiente para compartir nada públicamente. Sin embargo, el distrito tiene previsto publicar una encuesta para recabar más opiniones.

Pero algunos miembros de la comunidad siguen siendo escépticos. Sostienen que la desconfianza en el proceso llevará a la desconfianza en las recomendaciones. La comunidad latina se siente particularmente excluida, lo que es preocupante dado que el cierre de escuelas probablemente afectará de manera desproporcionada a los estudiantes latinos.

La matriculación en barrios como el que vive Quintana, miembro del comité, está disminuyendo rápidamente debido en parte al aburguesamiento. Quintana dijo que se unió al comité para discutir soluciones, pero que ahora está desanimada. La traducción al español en las primeras reuniones fue la peor que ha experimentado, dijo. Guyer dijo que los problemas de traducción se han solucionado.

Milo Márquez, un padre de Denver y copresidente de un grupo comunitario llamado Coalición de Educación Latina, dijo que parece que el distrito está suprimiendo intencionadamente las voces latinas.

“DPS ha dicho una y otra vez que quieren que las voces de la comunidad sean escuchadas”, dijo, “y una y otra vez vemos que nos están dejando fuera”.

Melanie Asmar es reportera principal de Chalkbeat Colorado, y cubre las escuelas públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, envíale un mensaje a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Juan Carlos Uribe, The Weekly Issue/El Semanario.

Reducción drástica en evaluaciones de educación especial en Denver durante la pandemia

2022-02-04T11:58:00+00:00

El hijo de 8 años de María Barraza pasó la mitad del primer grado y todo el segundo grado aprendiendo en línea debido a la pandemia. Cuando comenzó el tercer grado este otoño, Barraza estaba preocupada. La escritura y la ortografía de su hijo estaban, en opinión de Barraza, “muy por debajo”, y él todavía no podía leer por sí mismo, lo que significaba que también estaba teniendo dificultades en matemáticas porque no podía entender los problemas descritos verbalmente.

Ella lo llevó a hacer una costosa evaluación privada en septiembre. Después de dos días de pruebas, los resultados confirmaron lo que ella sospechaba: Él necesitaba ayuda adicional en la escuela. Sin embargo, Barraza dijo que por meses nadie atendió sus repetidas peticiones para que su hijo recibiera servicios de educación especial.

“No puedo entender eso”, dijo Barraza. “¿Cuál es el problema?”

Y Barraza no está sola. En las escuelas públicas de Denver, el número de evaluaciones iniciales de servicios de educación especial para estudiantes de 3 a 21 años se redujo aproximadamente un 35% desde el año escolar 2018-2019 hasta el año escolar 2019-20 (interrumpido por la pandemia) y se mantuvo a un nivel bajo el año siguiente.

En todo el estado, las evaluaciones iniciales se redujeron alrededor de un 16% y tampoco se han recuperado. Eso significa que en 2019-20 se evaluaron 4,200 niños menos en todo Colorado que en 2018-19.

Los niños que no se evalúan a tiempo y no empiezan a recibir servicios pueden retrasarse aún más, lo cual extenderá el tiempo que les tomará ponerse al día y afectará su autoestima.

Esto no es solamente un problema en Colorado. Los distritos de todo el país, incluidos los de Chicago y Nueva York, han experimentado una reducción en el número de estudiantes referidos o evaluados para recibir servicios de educación especial, y esto causa la preocupación de que los niños con discapacidades no están recibiendo la ayuda que necesitan.

Los administradores de los distritos y los maestros de educación especial citan una serie de retos: escasez de personal, aumento del papeleo, nuevas exigencias relacionadas con el aprendizaje a distancia y dudas a la hora de decir que un niño tiene problemas de aprendizaje si en lugar de eso, quizás esté sufriendo los efectos del aprendizaje a distancia y el trauma familiar relacionado con la pandemia.

“No queremos dejar a un niño rezagado si necesita esos servicios [de educación especial]”, dijo Julie Rottier-Lukens, directora de educación especial para las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, que atienden a unos 90,000 estudiantes. “Sin embargo, no queremos hacer presunciones basadas en lo que estamos viendo en este momento y descontar que los niños han pasado por mucho”.

Los padres dicen que comprenden los desafíos, pero que sus hijos no deberían pagar el precio.

No hay excusas

Elisa Aucancela, directora ejecutiva de El Grupo Vida, (una red local de padres latinos de niños con discapacidades) dijo que cree que las escuelas a veces utilizan la pandemia como excusa para esperar a evaluar a los niños que necesitan una ayuda más inmediata.

Esto es particularmente frustrante cuando ocurre con familias que hablan español y sus hijos ya tienen un diagnóstico del médico, dijo Aucancela.

“Cuando es una discapacidad, es una discapacidad”, dijo.

La hija de 4 años de Marta Edith Flamenco tiene el Síndrome de Dandy-Walker, una enfermedad cerebral congénita que afecta al cerebelo y puede causar retrasos en el desarrollo. Su hija ha recibido terapia a través del condado desde que nació para ayudarle a comer, caminar y hablar.

En 2020 (cuando la niña tenía 3 años) Aucancela trató de referir a la familia a una evaluación de educación especial del distrito escolar para que pudiera matricularse en el preescolar de una de las escuelas públicas. Sin embargo, citando una larga lista de espera, el distrito le dijo a la familia que matriculara a su hija en un preescolar primero y que la evaluación se hiciera luego, dijo Aucancela. Flamenco lo hizo, pero dice que en las próximas dos semanas le llegó una factura de $550 dólares del preescolar que su familia no podía pagar porque su esposo estaba desempleado.

“La escuela nos decía que teníamos que pagar”, dijo Flamenco, que solamente habla español. “Dejamos de llevarla a la escuela porque iba a ser demasiado”.

Denver cobra matrícula por educación preescolar según los ingresos de la familia, pero los estudiantes que califican para recibir servicios de educación especial asisten gratis. En estos momentos la hija de Flamenco lleva más de un año sin ir a la escuela. La niña llora porque quiere regresar, dijo su madre.

“Solía estar tan contenta y lista, y compartía lo que veía, lo que aprendía, y llegaba [a casa] y estaba lista para descansar”, dijo Flamenco. “Ahora, tiene mucha energía. Solamente está aquí, y realmente quiere ir a la escuela. Tiene rabietas por eso”.

Aucancela presentó recientemente otro referido para servicios de educación especial, y Flamenco dijo que su hija ahora tiene una cita en marzo para ser evaluada. Aucancela está contenta, pero dice que es preocupante que la familia haya tardado tanto en conseguir lo que necesitaba.

“La pandemia está aquí”, dijo Aucancela. “Pero no podemos utilizar la pandemia como excusa y esperar y esperar hasta que el niño tenga tres años de retraso”, agregó.

Sobrecargados

Mientras tanto, los maestros de educación especial están “sobrecargados de trabajo y abrumados”, dijo Hillary Daniels, maestra de educación especial en la escuela primaria Hallett Academy de Denver.

Cuando la pandemia llegó en marzo de 2020 y las escuelas cerraron, las evaluaciones de educación especial se detuvieron. Los maestros no recibieron instrucciones reales sobre cómo enseñar en línea, y mucho menos realizar el tipo de pruebas necesarias para identificar que un estudiante necesita educación especial. El distrito podría considerar evaluaciones hechas por proveedores externos, como la que Barraza obtuvo para su hijo, pero no están obligados a aceptarlas a la hora de tomar decisiones, dijo un portavoz del distrito.

Las evaluaciones que el distrito tenía programadas para la primavera de 2020 se atrasaron hasta el otoño — y aunque los funcionarios establecieron directrices para hacerlas virtualmente, no fue fácil, dijo Rob Gould, presidente de la Denver Classroom Teachers Association y ex maestro de educación especial.

“Es muy difícil determinarlo a través de una pantalla de computadora: ¿Se trata de un problema de aprendizaje? ¿O es un problema emocional? ¿O es frustración porque no pueden oír al maestro?”, dijo.

Conoce tus derechos

Si un padre sospecha que su hijo tiene una discapacidad, puede iniciar el proceso de evaluación de educación especial diciéndole a la escuela de su hijo que desea una evaluación.

Los distritos escolares tienen que completar las evaluaciones iniciales de educación especial en un plazo de 60 días a partir de la firma del consentimiento por parte de uno de los padres o tutores legales.

Los estudiantes y sus familias son elegibles para recibir ayuda mientras navegan por el proceso. En Denver, la organización Advocacy Denver tiene personal disponible para ayudar en inglés y en español.

Si un padre no está de acuerdo con los resultados de la evaluación de educación especial de su hijo, puede solicitar que el distrito escolar pague una evaluación educativa independiente hecha por un evaluador que no trabaje para el distrito.

Por otro lado, algunos padres pagan ellos mismos las evaluaciones independientes. Aunque el distrito escolar tiene que tomar en cuenta las recomendaciones del evaluador privado, no está obligado a aceptarlas.

Para más información, pulsa aquí.

La situación también presentaba sus desafíos. Cuando Daniels evaluaba a un estudiante antes de la pandemia, lo hacían ella y el estudiante en un salón tranquilo de la escuela. En la casa, dijo, un estudiante puede estar en una evaluación virtual mientras su hermana grita o se escuchan bocinas afuera.

Por eso, si los maestros hacían una evaluación virtual los resultados podrían no ser los correctos. Daniels recuerda a un estudiante que, cuando las escuelas volvieron a abrirse y él regresó para el aprendizaje en persona, no coincidía con el programa individual de educación (IEP) diseñado según su evaluación virtual. Las metas incluidas en su IEP se enfocaban en prestar atención, mantenerse en la tarea y mejorar su habla. Cuando llegó a la escuela, los maestros se dieron cuenta de que aún no sabía sostener un lápiz, una destreza importante que no se podía evaluar en línea y que se había pasado por alto completamente.

“Este niño llegó, y las necesidades que demuestra delante de nosotros en persona son muy diferentes a las del papel que nos entregaron para tratar de explicar cómo es él”, dijo Daniels.

En ese caso, el estudiante tuvo que ser reevaluado para determinar sus destrezas motoras y si tenía problemas cognitivos, dijo Daniels. Estas reevaluaciones inesperadas, cuando se añaden al flujo regular de evaluaciones iniciales, reevaluaciones planificadas y revisiones anuales del IEP, hacen que los maestros de educación especial se retrasen.

Y los datos lo reflejan. Según las leyes federales, los distritos tienen que completar las evaluaciones en un plazo de 60 días a partir de que los padres del estudiante den su consentimiento. Mientras que las Escuelas Públicas de Denver completaron un 93% de las evaluaciones iniciales para estudiantes de 3 a 21 años en los 60 días en el año 2018-19 (antes de la pandemia), ese porcentaje se redujo a 87% en 2019-20 y a 84% el año escolar pasado, según los datos estatales.

Además de hacer evaluaciones, el distrito pidió que los maestros de educación especial redactaran planes de contingencia que explicaran cómo cada estudiante recibiría sus servicios durante el aprendizaje virtual. Más tarde, el distrito les pidió a los maestros que revisaran si los servicios que cada estudiante estaba recibiendo virtualmente eran adecuados o si el estudiante calificaba para recibir servicios de recuperación había perdido mucha instrucción.

Rottier-Lukens, directora de educación especial de Denver, dijo que las decisiones se basaron en equidad. Por ejemplo, en lugar de esperar que los padres más avispados soliciten los servicios de recuperación (cuyo nombre oficial es servicios de compensación, o compensatory services), el distrito está revisando el caso de cada niño de forma proactiva. No obstante, ella reconoció que esto toma tiempo y ha contribuido a que los maestros y especialistas de educación especial tengan la sensación de que están siendo “arrastrados a derecha, izquierda y centro”.

Daniels conoce bien esa sensación. Mientras que algunos maestros o especialistas de educación especial podrían verse obligados a dedicar menos tiempo trabajando directamente con los estudiantes para poder completar lo que Gould denominó un “tsunami de papeleo”, Daniels ha acabado llevándose su papeleo a casa.

“El equilibrio entre mi vida y trabajo no existe”, dijo.

Poco personal

La escasez de personal también ha contribuido al problema. A los distritos les resultaba difícil cubrir los puestos de educación especial antes de la pandemia, pero los funcionarios dicen que ahora es aún más difícil. Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver tenían 19 vacantes de maestros de educación especial y 118 vacantes de paraprofesionales de educación especial en enero.

Rottier-Lukens dijo que también está viendo más renuncias a mitad de año que nunca.

“Normalmente, la mayoría de los maestros cumplen su contrato como mínimo”, dijo. “Ellos buscan la manera de llegar al final del año. Ahora estoy viendo a mucha más gente renunciar en octubre”.

Debido a todos estos factores, algunos defensores de la causa dicen que hay que tener cuidado a la hora de dar la alarma sobre los retrasos en las evaluaciones de educación especial. Al preguntarle por los posibles efectos de la situación en los estudiantes, Gould (jefe del sindicato) volvió a hablar de la dotación de personal.

“El efecto es que no es seguro que los estudiantes tengan un instructor”, dijo. “Todos estamos en un punto de quiebre ahora. Me preocupa que la gente elija otra profesión en vez de ésta”.

Barraza (que lleva meses luchando para que su hijo de 8 años sea evaluado) no culpa a los maestros, y dice que se espera demasiado de ellos. Ella ha experimentado las consecuencias de primera mano: La maestra de tercer grado de su hijo renunció el semestre pasado, diciendo que era por angustia mental.

Pero la compasión de Barraza no significa que sea menos inflexible a la hora de conseguir que su hijo reciba los servicios y adaptaciones que necesita para tener éxito en la escuela. Ella dice que sabe que existen.

“Eso es todo lo que quiero”, dijo.

Pruebas para detectar dislexia: Colorado busca identificar a los estudiantes temprano

2021-04-02T20:35:20+00:00

El distrito escolar de Denver tendrá un programa piloto de pruebas para detectar dislexia este otoño, después de que los padres frustrados las pidieran por años, los grupos de trabajo del distrito las recomendaran, y la pandemia causara un retraso en la educación.

Y el programa piloto de Denver no es el único. El Distrito Escolar Boulder Valley empezó un programa piloto de pruebas de dislexia en 10 escuelas el otoño pasado y ya ha evaluado a 345 estudiantes de Kinder.

También es posible que comience un programa piloto estatal en los próximos meses, pero la escasez de solicitantes significa que su futuro es incierto.

Los funcionarios de educación en Colorado estaban listos para seleccionar cinco escuelas primarias para participar en el programa piloto de un año (con un costo de $92,000) a fines de abril. El viernes, último día para solicitar, solamente cinco escuelas lo habían hecho y los funcionarios de educación están todavía determinando si esas cinco cumplen los requisitos para participar.

Las nuevas iniciativas para detectar dislexia en Denver y Boulder (además del posible programa piloto del estado) han surgido en medio de un empuje nacional para mejorar la lectura, que incluye prestarles más atención a los estudiantes que tienen discapacidades que dificultan la lectura. Los expertos calculan que la dislexia afecta entre un 5% y 15% de la población. En Colorado, eso podría representar más de 100,000 niños en edad escolar.

La dislexia es una discapacidad de aprendizaje que dificulta la lectura. Las personas con dislexia tienen problemas para identificar sonidos, descifrar palabras, y deletrearlas.

“Estos niños no pueden distinguir entre los sonidos ‘eh’ e ‘ih’ de palabras en inglés como como ‘pen’ y ‘pin,’” dijo Robert Frantum-Allen, director de educación especial de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, y que también sufre de dislexia. “Uno les puede mostrar letras, pero ellos no las entienden porque todas parecen iguales.”

Los tres programas piloto cubren diferentes grados escolares y usan diferentes herramientas de evaluación. Los programas de Denver y Boulder incluyen evaluaciones en español para los estudiantes que estén aprendiendo inglés, mientras que el programa estatal no las tiene.

En Denver, los padres han estado por años pidiéndole dos cosas al distrito: Una mejor manera de evaluar a los estudiantes para detectar dislexia, y el uso de métodos basados en ciencia para enseñar a leer.

En septiembre de 2019, Nicole Wallerstedt le contó a la junta escolar el caso de su hija Finley. El año antes, Finley se había ‘descarrilado por completo’ del tercer grado, dijo su mamá. Tercer grado es cuando muchos estudiantes cambian de ‘aprender a leer’ a ‘leer para aprender’. Finley no pudo hacer la transición y se quedó rezagada.

Fue un año lleno de lágrimas, ansiedad social, citas de terapia, y días de ausencia en la escuela. Wallerstedt dijo que observó cómo su hija, que siempre había sido bulliciosa y amigable, se retraía en su mundo. Finalmente, un diagnóstico de dislexia hizo que pudiera recibir ayuda y acomodos en la escuela, y logró que Finley regresara a ser como siempre, dijo ella.

“Imagínense qué tan diferente fuera si a Finley le hubiesen hecho una prueba de detección al salir de Kinder y [su dislexia] se hubiese identificado temprano,” Wallerstedt dijo. “Ella no se hubiese sentido tan mal. Habríamos tenido un plan. Y no hubiese habido ningún estigma.

“Aparte de que no se habría quedado rezagada en el tercer grado.”

‘No hay mala intención’

A principios de 2019, un grupo de trabajo de Denver formado por padres, educadores y defensores de las personas con discapacidad había recomendado que todos los estudiantes que entraran en el distrito fueran examinados para detectar predictores de futuros problemas de lectura, incluida la dislexia. Y en abril de 2020, un grupo de trabajo del distrito recomendó que se pusieran a prueba dos herramientas particulares de detección.

El grupo sugirió que se examinara a todos los alumnos de Kinder y primer grado de 20 escuelas utilizando una herramienta llamada Shaywitz DyslexiaScreen, que al parecer cuesta $1 por estudiante. Esta herramienta, administrada por un maestro, identifica a los estudiantes como “en riesgo” o “sin riesgo” de dislexia.

El grupo también recomendó que se pruebe un segundo método de detección, más caro, en 10 de las 20 escuelas. La evaluación, conocida como Predictive Assessment of Reading, cuesta $7 por estudiante y se les daría a los estudiantes que tuvieron una puntuación de “riesgo” en la evaluación Shaywitz. La meta sería darles más información a los maestros sobre dónde los estudiantes en riesgo pudieran necesitar ayuda adicional.

Y algo importante es que la Predictive Assessment of Reading está disponible tanto en inglés como en español, según el primer informe del grupo de trabajo. Eso es crítico para las Escuelas Públicas de Denver, que bajo la orden de un tribunal federal tienen que ofrecer materiales de currículo en ambos idiomas.

“Ha llegado el momento de iniciar nuestro programa piloto de detección de la dislexia”, escribió Holly Baker Hill, facilitadora del grupo de trabajo y especialista en educación especial del distrito.

Pero 11 meses más tarde, el programa piloto todavía no ha comenzado. El retraso ha frustrado a los padres y estudiantes.

En una reunión de la junta escolar celebrada el mes pasado, Forest Hansen, estudiante de segundo grado, dijo que había estado vendiendo mascarillas faciales cosidas por su abuela para recaudar dinero a fin de que Denver pudiera iniciar el proyecto piloto. Forest tiene dislexia, algo que no sabía hasta que su familia pagó por unas pruebas privadas. Con la ayuda de un tutor externo, le va bien en la escuela. Forest dijo que quiere que otros niños reciban ayuda también.

“Dr. Hill, yo creo que usted ahora está escuchando,” dijo Forest. “Mi mamá le enviará este cheque.”

El cheque era por la cantidad de $136.

Los funcionarios del distrito dijeron que ellos nunca abandonaron la idea de un programa de detección de dislexia. Frantum-Allen, director de educación especial de Denver, dijo que la pandemia de COVID-19 (que empezó justo antes de que el grupo hiciera sus recomendaciones) puso el proyecto piloto en pausa.

“No hay mala intención y no estamos tratando de ocultar nada,” dijo él. “Estamos tratando de lidiar primero y primordialmente con las prioridades de esta crisis.”

Ahora que los maestros están siendo vacunados y las escuelas han reabierto para el aprendizaje en persona, Frantum-Allen dijo que el distrito tiene planes de reanudar el trabajo relacionado con el programa de dislexia, el cual dijo será parte de un proceso más amplio para identificar a los estudiantes con problemas de lectura.

“Lo veo como una forma de identificar las verdaderas necesidades para poder ayudar a los maestros a satisfacerlas”, dijo Frantum-Allen.

Un examen estatal modesto

En 2019, los defensores de la dislexia impulsaron una ley estatal que autorizara la detección de la dislexia en todo el estado para los niños con problemas de lectura, pero terminaron respaldando una propuesta más modesta para un programa piloto en cinco escuelas. Se supone que comenzara el pasado otoño, pero se pospuso. Este invierno se abrió un nuevo plazo para solicitar, pero con menos solicitudes de las esperadas, el futuro del piloto está en el aire.

Si sigue adelante tal como está previsto, los estudiantes de Kinder a tercer grado de las escuelas participantes serán examinados a partir del otoño.

Un grupo de la Universidad de Oregón dirigirá el proyecto piloto, que además de detectar el riesgo de dislexia en los niños, busca mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza de la lectura y de los programas de intervención mediante un programa desarrollado por la universidad llamado ECRI (Enhanced Core Reading Instruction).

Nancy Nelson, profesora de investigación de la Universidad de Oregón que está ayudando a dirigir el proyecto piloto, dijo que el objetivo es garantizar que los niños reciban el tipo adecuado de enseñanza de lectura: es decir, explícita y sistemática, con ayuda especial para los niños que tienen dificultades para leer y que está alineada con las lecciones de toda la clase. El proyecto piloto incluirá mucha capacitación para el personal de las escuelas, y posiblemente comience a finales de esta primavera.

“Pasar por una prueba de detección no significa que un niño va a ser asignado a educación especial,” Nelson dijo.

De todos modos, el formato del programa piloto tiene la intención de darles a los niños un acceso mucho más temprano a ayudas especializadas en vez de esperar hasta que se hayan rezagado demasiado, dijo ella.

El piloto incluye un sistema de detección de dos pasos, donde el primero se basa en la prueba de lectura Acadience, que ya está siendo usada en muchas escuelas de Colorado para cumplir con la ley estatal sobre la lectura, la Ley READ.

Los estudiantes identificados por la prueba Acadience recibirían 30 minutos diarios adicionales de instrucción sobre habilidades básicas de lectura, con lecciones que anticipen lo que se cubrirá al día siguiente durante las lecciones de toda la clase. Los líderes del proyecto calculan que un 20 a 25% de los estudiantes estarán en este grupo, pero la proporción podría ser más alta en algunas escuelas.

Después de dos meses, los estudiantes que no progresen con las clases adicionales pasarían por una segunda evaluación, esta vez con información proveniente de varios exámenes y fuentes, e incluyendo el historial familiar de dificultad para leer. El personal de la escuela entonces intensificaría la instrucción para los estudiantes identificados.

Los que todavía no mejoren probablemente calificarán para servicios de educación especial, estando en una categoría general (conforme a una ley federal) conocida como ‘discapacidad específica de aprendizaje’, y que incluye la dislexia. (Las escuelas no diagnostican la dislexia, y no se necesita un diagnóstico oficial para que los estudiantes entren en la categoría de discapacidad de aprendizaje específica.)

Nelson dijo que entre un 5% y 10% del total de estudiantes en los grados K-3 de la escuela podrían terminar calificando para educación especial.

El programa piloto del estado solamente incluirá exámenes de lectura en inglés. Nelson dijo que los protocolos del programa piloto requerirán modificarse para funcionar en español u otros idiomas, y que aunque eso es un paso importante, su equipo de trabajo quiere primero demostrar los resultados posibles para los estudiantes que reciban la instrucción en inglés.

Todos los niños del Kinder - eventualmente

El distrito Boulder Valley comenzó su programa de detección de dislexia el otoño pasado, evaluando a 345 estudiantes de Kinder en 10 escuelas, entre ellas una escuela chárter. Los funcionarios del distrito volverán a examinar una muestra aleatoria de esos niños esta primavera para determinar si el momento del examen durante el año produce alguna diferencia. Hasta entonces, el distrito no dará a conocer el número de estudiantes que resultaron tener características de “alto riesgo” de dislexia en el examen.

“Todavía estamos definiendo la validez”, dijo Michelle Qazi, directora de lectura de Boulder Valley, señalando que a los padres no se les notificó el pasado otoño si sus hijos estaban en la categoría de alto riesgo, pero se les notificará al final de este año escolar.

Para la mayoría de los estudiantes, el programa piloto de Boulder utiliza una evaluación gratuita llamada Mississippi Dyslexia Screener. Los niños cuyo primer idioma es español son evaluados con la versión en español de un examen de lectura común combinado con un examen de ortografía de otra evaluación.

Qazi dijo que los estudiantes que obtengan una puntuación de alto riesgo en el examen de dislexia no necesitarán automáticamente servicios de educación especial. El distrito ya usa un programa de fonética de alta calidad — llamado Fundations — para todos los estudiantes de primaria, dijo. Saber qué estudiantes de Kinder tienen rasgos de dislexia a través del proceso de detección ayudará a los maestros a darles una ayuda más intensiva a los que la necesiten, dijo.

“Este es un dato más que puede ayudarnos a reducir el número de niños que se quedan rezagados”, dijo Qazi.

El proyecto piloto de Boulder, de tres años de duración, se ampliará a 22 escuelas el próximo año y al resto de las 37 escuelas de primaria y K-8 del distrito el año siguiente. Qazi dijo que el otoño pasado el distrito capacitó al personal que normalmente administra los exámenes de visión y audición para realizar los exámenes de dislexia. Algunas pruebas de detección se hicieron en persona y otras en línea. El distrito cuenta con un presupuesto de $102,000 para el programa piloto.

Traducción por Milly Suazo.

A ‘mixed bag’ — again — for test scores at Colorado innovation schools, new report finds

2023-12-22T19:55:16+00:00

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For at least the third time in the 15 years since Colorado lawmakers created them, innovation schools have gotten middling marks in a new report meant to measure whether freeing the schools from bureaucracy boosts student test scores.

The report by the Keystone Policy Center found that students who attend innovation schools did no better on state math and literacy tests last spring — and, in many cases, performed worse — than students who attend traditional district-run schools and independent charter schools. The report did find some bright spots, such as students of color performing better on some tests and higher scores in Denver’s innovation zones, which have been controversial.

State policymakers had hoped innovation would be an effective strategy for turning around low-performing schools. That hasn’t necessarily turned out to be the case, as indicated by the report’s title: “A Decidedly Mixed Bag.”

Van Schoales, senior policy director at the Keystone Policy Center, said there’s nothing particularly new or different about the report’s conclusion.

“What’s different is that this started in 2008, so we’re now 15 years later … and it’s sort of like a, ‘Meh,’” Schoales said in an interview.

On the spectrum of school autonomy, Colorado’s innovation schools fall between district-run schools, which are the least autonomous, and charter schools, which are the most.

Under state law, innovation schools can waive certain rules to do things such as extend the school day or opt out of granting teachers Colorado’s version of tenure. The idea is that giving schools more autonomy allows them the flexibility to better meet students’ needs.

While the report says innovation schools’ academic results last school year were “lackluster,” innovation supporters argue that it’s hard to make generalizations. There are more than 100 innovation schools in Colorado and lots of variation between them, from the population of students they serve to the reasons they sought innovation status.

While some schools wanted the freedom to grow their own vegetables or focus on the arts, others sought innovation status in the hopes of boosting persistently low student test scores.

“Innovation is a strategy that has been used across the state in many different contexts and for many different reasons,” said Bailey Holyfield, executive director of an innovation zone in Denver called the Luminary Learning Network. “As we look at high-level aggregate data, it is unsurprising then in some ways that the data reflects a mixed bag, to quote the author’s title.”

What the report found

At least two other reports, in 2014 and 2019, concluded that innovation schools fared about the same academically as district-run schools.

Those reports were done by different research groups and focused only on Denver, which has more innovation schools than any other district in the state. The Keystone report looks at all innovation schools in Colorado.

Among its conclusions:

Overall, fewer students at innovation schools met expectations on state math and literacy tests this past spring than students at district-run or charter schools.
But there were some bright spots. For instance, Black and Hispanic students in grades three through eight at innovation schools outperformed Black and Hispanic students at district-run schools on the state literacy test. The same was true for students experiencing poverty at innovation schools on both the literacy and math tests.
A “more robust longitudinal study” is needed to figure out whether innovation status is an effective way for a school to boost student test scores. The Colorado State Board of Education has the power to order changes at chronically low-performing schools, and innovation status is considered the least disruptive option. But State Board members have wondered if it works — or if harsher options, such as closure, are warranted.
Innovation schools face barriers in being innovative. “At least some evidence exists that district systems may be slow to evolve, if they do at all, and may functionally prevent innovation schools and zones from fully implementing approved autonomies.”
Some innovation schools actually aren’t innovative, either because leaders are “simply ‘checking boxes’ that higher-ups want to see” or because higher-ups block ideas they see as too revolutionary. Innovation schools “may not actually be empowered to innovate in deeper ways that might truly transform outcomes for students.”

A zoom in on Denver and innovation zones

Another bright spot in the Keystone report is the academic results of innovation zones. The zones are groups of innovation schools. In some districts, innovation zones are run by district administrators. In Denver Public Schools, the zones are overseen by nonprofit organizations.

The report shows that statewide, innovation zone schools fared better on state tests last spring than did innovation schools that were not in zones.

A separate analysis of Denver data provided to Chalkbeat by Keystone shows the innovation zones in Denver did particularly well, outperforming every other type of school in DPS.

The report comes at a tumultuous time for Denver innovation schools. Of all the districts in Colorado, DPS has most embraced innovation and is home to about half of the state’s innovation schools. But a few years ago, shifting politics led to a backlash of sorts.

In 2022, the Denver school board voted to limit innovation schools’ autonomy in an effort to shore up teacher job protections. All seven board members had been elected with help from the teachers union, which didn’t like that innovation schools could waive parts of its contract.

This year, the school board dissolved one of the district’s three innovation zones. Instead of being overseen by a nonprofit organization, the two schools in that zone, Kepner Beacon and Grant Beacon middle schools, will now be overseen by the district.

Of the two Denver zones left, one has experienced a string of controversies, including the high-profile firing of a school principal and an investigation into the improper use of seclusion.

That zone, called the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone, is still in negotiations with the district over the renewal of a plan for how it will operate. Earlier this month, the school board met behind closed doors with the district’s attorney to discuss “legal options” for the zone.

Innovation supporters are hopeful that the election last month of three new school board members perceived as more friendly toward innovation will turn the tide.

“I’m hopeful we are getting to a generally less contentious place where folks doing good work and getting outcomes for kids can keep doing that work,” said Holyfield.

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

The cost of the 2023 Denver school board election? $2.2 million

2023-12-14T22:48:52+00:00

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Candidates and outside groups spent $2.2 million in November’s Denver school board election, according to final campaign finance reports.

That total surpasses spending in the last board election in 2021 and nearly ties the all-time record of $2.3 million spent in 2019.

The cost of Denver school board races has increased over the years as outside groups have poured more money into helping elect candidates that align with their views.

Groups and donors supportive of education reform and charter schools outspent the Denver teachers union 5 to 1 for the 2023 election. It’s a familiar strategy that hasn’t always paid off. But this year, it did.

This year’s election result was a mandate for change on a board that has been criticized as dysfunctional in a year when Denver schools experienced a spike in gun violence.

With three board seats up for grabs, voters ousted two incumbents who were backed by the Denver teachers union, instead choosing challengers endorsed by a pro-charter group. In a third race that didn’t have an incumbent, voters chose the candidate aligned with the challengers.

The result was a total loss for the union-backed candidates, ending a two-year streak where all seven Denver school board members had been endorsed by the teachers union.

Though concerns over school safety and criticism of the board’s infighting dominated the rhetoric this election, the spending fell along the familiar lines of union versus reform.

As usual, the bulk of the spending was by independent expenditure committees, which cannot coordinate with the candidates. Only two committees spent money in Denver this year: one union-funded and one funded by reform groups and donors. That’s a change from past elections, when different reform organizations each set up their own committees.

The streamlined approach on the reform side resulted in a single deep-pocketed committee — Better Leaders, Stronger Schools — that spent a whopping $1.4 million in support of the three winning candidates: John Youngquist, Marlene De La Rosa, and Kimberlee Sia.

Much of the funding for Better Leaders, Stronger Schools came from a group called Denver Families Action, which is the political arm of a relatively new organization called Denver Families for Public Schools. Its board is made up of local charter school leaders.

But individual donors gave to the committee, too. Kent Thiry, the former CEO of dialysis provider DaVita, contributed $350,000 to Better Leaders, Stronger Schools.

Better Leaders, Stronger Schools spent big on digital ads and mailers, including one that was decried as racist. It also ran TV ads, which was a first for a Denver school board race.

By comparison, a union-funded committee called Students Deserve Better spent about $155,000 on digital ads and mailers for candidates Kwame Spearman, Charmaine Lindsay, and Scott Baldermann, all of whom lost. The Denver and Colorado teachers unions also gave money directly to the candidates for a total investment of about $286,000.

The candidates themselves spent far less than the committees. The candidate who spent the most was Baldermann, who lost his bid for reelection to a seat representing southeast Denver’s District 1. Baldermann spent about $156,000, much of it his own money.

The candidate who spent the least was Adam Slutzker, who ran unsuccessfully to represent northwest Denver’s District 5. Slutzker was not endorsed by either the teachers union or by Denver Families Action. He spent a total of $117.

Youngquist, De La Rosa, and Sia were sworn in to the board on Dec. 1.

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

Denver schools are investing in teaching techniques like finger breathing. Here’s what that means.

2023-12-08T00:18:06+00:00

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Wednesday was a big day in Inmaculada Martín Hernández’s class. The students in her college-level conversational Spanish class at Denver’s North High School were conducting a Model United Nations presentation, and their teacher sensed they were nervous.

So after Martín Hernández went over the objective for the day, but before the students paired off to strategize, she led them in an exercise called finger breathing.

Gripping her right thumb with her left hand, she instructed the students to do the same.

“Inhale,” she told the students in Spanish. “Hold. Exhale.”

She repeated the exercise for all 10 fingers.

Quick mindfulness breaks are a staple in Martín Hernández’s class. They are also part of a growing number of strategies, including free virtual and in-person therapy, to address student mental health needs that were amplified by the pandemic. The finger breathing lesson is courtesy of a Denver-based nonprofit organization called Upstream Education that provides bite-sized well-being lessons for middle and high school students.

North High was one of the first schools to use Upstream, which is now in more than 40 Denver public schools, according to Upstream Executive Director Tessa Zimmerman.

After seeing Upstream in action, school district leaders decided to spend just under $60,000 in federal pandemic relief to partly fund that expansion, said Bernard McCune, the executive director of extended learning, athletics, and activities for Denver Public Schools. The Caring for Denver Foundation, funded with voter-approved tax dollars, is also backing the expansion.

“You can’t leave a school that’s doing Upstream and not be impressed,” McCune said.

Zimmerman started Upstream because she herself had anxiety as a child and panic attacks at school. That changed when she got a scholarship to a private high school where the principal led the students in mindfulness activities every day during homeroom.

Those activities changed her life, Zimmerman said. “I changed from a student who hated going to school to a student who loved to go to school,” she said.

When Zimmerman was in college, she realized the inequity of her experience: She had access to mindfulness activities at her private school, but many other students did not.

So Zimmerman came up with an idea for a social and emotional learning curriculum for teenagers, and in 2016, entered a design contest run by the DPS Imaginarium, the district’s former in-house innovation lab, which the district dissolved in 2019 due to budget cuts. Zimmerman won $9,000 from DPS that helped her start Upstream.

For the past seven years, the organization has refined its tools with the help of students, including a 10-student task force that Upstream pays during the summer to review a couple dozen of its lessons with an eye to making them more relevant. Teachers have provided feedback, too.

“We found from teachers that they really wanted to do this work, but if they had a 30-minute lesson, it was not feasible,” Zimmerman said.

So Upstream made all of its lessons 10 minutes or less. The finger breathing lesson clocks in at 4 ½ minutes. Another lesson meant to teach students to show themselves grace is 7 ½ minutes. In it, students briefly write down a challenging moment they had recently and then listen as their teacher reads phrases like “I am not alone” and “I can restart my day over at any time.”

The lesson plan includes a script for what teachers should say next: “You can recite these phrases to yourself in the middle of class or during a performance — whenever you need some reassurance or a moment of self-compassion.”

North High School teacher Brandi Garcia sits behind her laptop, which has an Upstream "box breathing" sticker on the front.

North High teacher Brandi Garcia started using Upstream in 2020 during remote learning and continued using the tools when students came back to her classroom in person. She said she loves that they are “super easy to follow. It’s plug and play.”

After students do an Upstream exercise, Garcia said, “they feel a lot lighter.” She’s noticed that even students who are resistant at first eventually come around.

“There’s some kids that are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do this,’” she said. “Then before you know it, they’re right there with the breathing. Then they’re like, ‘Are we going to breathe today?’”

North High social worker Maria Hite uses Upstream with students in her therapeutic groups and in her one-on-one sessions. Posters with Upstream techniques hang in her office, which features soft lighting, a box of fidget toys, and a mini Zen garden with a rake.

On Wednesday, Zimmerman handed Hite a stack of square stickers. The stickers, which were an idea from Upstream’s student task force, have a bumpy texture and instructions for how to do the “box breathing” exercise, which involves tracing a finger around the edge of the square and breathing in for four seconds on one side and out for four seconds on another.

Hite revealed her own box breathing hack: She has students flip their cell phones screen-down and trace their phones with their finger.

“A lot of my time is spent working with students who are anxious,” Hite said. “If you can show a tool that works really quickly, it’s easier [to get] buy-in.”

Spanish teacher Martín Hernández said she likes that the exercises create “that moment of connection, even when not all the students want to do it.

“But everyone is calm and quiet, and everyone respects it.”

On Wednesday, junior Audrey Gilpin was among the students who took part in the finger breathing exercise. Gilpin said it’s nice to come into Martín Hernández’s classroom from the chaotic hallway of the 1,600-student high school and take a few minutes to pause. It’s a small respite that several students said improves their own mental health and helps them feel more comfortable in class.

“It makes me feel like my teacher cares about how I feel mentally,” Gilpin said.

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

Eligen nuevamente a Carrie Olson como presidenta del consejo escolar de Denver

2023-12-01T19:57:29+00:00

La exmaestra de Denver Carrie Olson fue elegida el viernes para su segundo mandato como presidenta del consejo escolar de Denver. Su elección, realizada bajo voto secreto, pone a una líder experimentada al timón de un consejo escolar con una reputación de ser disfuncional y tener peleas internas.

Los nuevos integrantes del consejo, Marlene De La Rosa, John Youngquist y Kimberlee Sia, juraron su cargo el viernes por la mañana y fueron elegidos al poco tiempo para los otros tres puestos de vicepresidenta, secretario y tesorera, respectivamente.

El presidente y vicepresidente del consejo escolar se nominan y eligen bajo voto secreto. La integrante del consejo Michelle Quattlebaum también fue nominada para presidenta, y el integrante del consejo Scott Esserman fue nominado para vicepresidente. Los totales de la votación no se dieron a conocer públicamente.

El secretario y tesorero se seleccionan públicamente con una votación en voz alta. Youngquist fue elegido secretario unánimemente. Sia fue elegida tesorera en una votación de 4 a 3. Scott Esserman, quien ocupó el puesto de tesorero durante los últimos dos años, recibió los otros tres votos.

De La Rosa, Youngquist y Sia fueron elegidos para el consejo el 7 de noviembre en una victoria total para los candidatos respaldados por grupos que apoyan la reforma educativa y las escuelas charter—y en una desaprobación de los dos exintegrantes que se postularon para su reelección.

Los integrantes del consejo que recibieron el respaldo del sindicato de maestros de Denver ocupan los otros cuatro puestos en el consejo de siete, manteniendo una mayoría pero ahora con solo un puesto entre los líderes del consejo.

El consejo escolar de Denver posa para una fotografía el viernes después de que juraran su cargo los tres integrantes nuevos. De izq. a der. en primera fila: la presidenta del consejo Carrie Olson, el superintendente Alex Marrero, la vicepresidenta del consejo Marlene De La Rosa. De izq. a der. en segunda fila: los integrantes del consejo Xóchitl "Sochi" Gaytán, Kimberlee Sia, John Youngquist, Michelle Quattlebaum y Scott Esserman. (Imagen cortesía de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver)

A Olson la eligieron por primera vez para el consejo en 2017 y se desempeñó anteriormente como presidenta de 2019 a 2021. La volvieron a elegir en 2021 para que fuera integrante del consejo por un período adicional de cuatro años.

En sus seis años en el consejo, ha demostrado tener una personalidad calmada caracterizada por darse su tiempo para tomar decisiones. Cuando el consejo está dividido en algún asunto, Olson con frecuencia tiene el voto decisivo. Reemplazará como presidenta a la integrante del consejo Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, quien a veces chocaba con Esserman y el exintegrante Auon’tai Anderson, quien no buscó la reelección. Anderson fue el único exintegrante del consejo que asistió a la ceremonia del viernes.

“Quería ser presidenta nuevamente porque este es, para mí, el año 39 en las Escuelas Públicas de Denver y es mi vida”, dijo Olson, quien fue maestra bilingüe en DPS durante más de 30 años y ahora es profesora adjunta en la Facultad de Educación Morgridge en la Universidad de Denver.

“Creo que este consejo será muy colaborador”, Olson agregó. “Y realmente pienso que estamos en un momento en el que el consejo puede mejorar nuestro perfil público en todos los sectores de Denver”.

El nuevo consejo enfrentará varios desafíos, entre ellos la reducción de estudiantes inscritos y el posible cierre de escuelas pequeñas, debates intensos sobre la autonomía de las escuelas y la necesidad de abordar la seguridad escolar en un momento en que la violencia con armas de fuego está aumentando.

Los tres integrantes nuevos prometieron durante su campaña que restablecerían la colaboración en el consejo. Los últimos dos años han sido caracterizados por peleas internas y luchas por el poder, desplomando la confianza en el consejo y haciendo que tenga una reputación por ser disfuncional. Esto probablemente contribuyó a que los exintegrantes perdieran sus puestos.

“Sin comparar con el pasado, me gustaría que avancemos pensando sobre las cosas que todos nosotros traemos al consejo que nos gustaría cambiar”, Olson dijo. “Todos nosotros somos parte de eso, y realmente espero sacar eso de todos y escuchar cuáles son sus ideas”.

Melanie Asmar es una reportera principal para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Former teacher Carrie Olson elected to second stint as president of the Denver school board

2023-12-01T18:17:13+00:00

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Former Denver teacher Carrie Olson was elected Friday to a second stint as president of the Denver school board. Her election, by secret ballot, puts an experienced leader at the helm of a school board that had a reputation for dysfunction and infighting.

New board members Marlene De La Rosa, John Youngquist, and Kimberlee Sia were sworn in Friday morning and elected shortly thereafter to the other three officer roles of vice president, secretary, and treasurer, respectively.

The board president and vice president were nominated and chosen by secret ballot. Board member Michelle Quattlebaum was also nominated for president, and board member Scott Esserman was nominated for vice president. The vote totals were not made public.

The board secretary and treasurer were elected publicly by a voice vote. Youngquist was elected secretary unanimously. Sia was elected treasurer on a 4-3 vote. Esserman, who served as treasurer for the past two years, got the other three votes.

De La Rosa, Youngquist, and Sia were elected to the board Nov. 7 in a sweep for candidates backed by groups supportive of education reform and charter schools — and a rebuke of the two incumbents running for reelection.

Board members backed by the Denver teachers union hold the other four seats on the seven-member board, maintaining a majority but now holding only one leadership position.

The Denver school board poses for a portrait Friday after three new board members were sworn in. From left in the front row: Board President Carrie Olson, Superintendent Alex Marrero, board Vice President Marlene De La Rosa. From left in the back row: Board members Xóchitl "Sochi" Gaytán, Kimberlee Sia, John Youngquist, Michelle Quattlebaum, and Scott Esserman.

Olson was first elected to the board in 2017 and previously served as president from 2019 to 2021. She was reelected in 2021 to another four-year board term.

In her six years on the board, she has been a calm figure known for taking her time to make decisions. When the board is divided on an issue, Olson is often the swing vote.

Olson will take over as president from board member Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, who sometimes clashed with Esserman and former member Auon’tai Anderson, who did not run for reelection. Anderson was the only former board member to attend Friday’s swearing in.

“I wanted to be president again because this is, for me, year 39 in Denver Public Schools and it’s my life,” said Olson, who was a bilingual teacher in DPS for more than 30 years and is now an adjunct professor in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver.

“I think this board is going to be very collaborative,” Olson added. “I really think we are at a point where the board can improve our public profile in all sectors of Denver.”

The new board will face several challenges, including declining enrollment and the potential closure of small schools, fierce debates over school autonomy, and the need to address school safety amid rising gun violence.

The three newly elected board members promised on the campaign trail to restore a sense of collaboration to the board. Infighting and power struggles among some board members have marked the past two years, tanking confidence in the board and earning it a reputation for dysfunction that likely contributed to the incumbents losing their seats.

“Without comparing to the past, I’d like to move forward thinking about what are things that all of us bring to the board that we want to see change,” Olson said. “All of us hold a piece of that, and I really look forward to bringing that out in everybody and hearing what their ideas are.”

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

Hoping to boost math scores, Colorado invests in second year of Zearn online learning program

2023-12-01T01:32:21+00:00

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As camera shutters clicked and politicians and policymakers huddled in the back of a Denver classroom Thursday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis walked between the desks of sixth graders whose eyes and ears were glued to their computer screens, multiplying fractions.

The program the students were using, Zearn Math, is a key part of Polis’ plan to boost math scores in Colorado and help students recover from the pandemic. Just 1 in 3 students scored at grade-level in math on state tests last spring.

Polis was at Marie L. Greenwood Early-8 in far northeast Denver to hype Zearn in the hopes that more school districts will adopt the program, which the state is offering to schools for free this year. About 65% of Colorado districts are already using it, Polis said.

“We want to really take this opportunity to get the message out across the state: We would love that other 35% of schools to also take advantage of what the state is supporting,” he said.

And districts will have another year to do so. Polis announced Thursday that the state is investing an additional $3 million in federal COVID relief, on top of the $6 million in COVID aid it already set aside, to extend to the 2024-25 school year the offer to pay for Zearn licenses. The state has also been paying to train teachers to use the digital platform.

“We know this will lead to major improvements in math achievement,” Polis said, “which is so important for success in today’s world. Whether you go to college or not, no matter what field you enter, basic math skills — numeracy — is so incredibly important.”

Noire Lin, the teacher whose classroom Polis visited, said in an interview that Zearn has helped students “take more charge of how they’re learning.” Lin’s students — and all students at Greenwood — use Zearn for 30 minutes a day, three times per week.

“It’s aligned to what I teach in class,” Lin said. “But sometimes they’ll go home and be like, ‘I really don’t know if the teacher was teaching it correctly to me.’ So they go home [and] they do Zearn. They get to watch a video. They get to have step-by-step breaking down the problems.”

Colorado Department of Education officials said the state doesn’t yet have data showing whether Zearn is making a difference since schools started using it this fall. The governor’s team chose Zearn without running a competitive bidding process, based on studies provided by the company that showed students who used Zearn regularly made more progress than those who didn’t.

After Polis left, several of the 11-year-olds in Lin’s class gave Zearn mostly positive reviews.

Kevin Villalba said he likes “the sprint,” which is when Zearn gives students a limited amount of time to answer as many math questions as they can. Mia Villa likes the practice questions, and how, if she gets an answer wrong, Zearn explains why and shows her the right steps.

“I sometimes have trouble with math,” Villa said. “Before I had a D or a C, and now I have a B or an A in math.” Zearn, she added, “helps a lot of kids get better in their math.”

But across the table, Valeria Sierra said she’s “not that big of a fan.”

“It could be stressful,” Sierra said, especially a Zearn feature called “the tower of power.”

“If you do a mistake, it removes all your progress,” Sierra said. “And at the same time, it’s kind of hard because it’s a little bit different [from] how our teachers teach us math. And it’s sometimes difficult because the videos they show us doesn’t explain that much.”

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

Denver school board rejects superintendent’s recommendation to close Academy 360 charter school

2023-11-17T18:12:30+00:00

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In a 5-2 vote, the Denver school board rejected a recommendation from Superintendent Alex Marrero Thursday to close Academy 360, a small charter school with low test scores.

Board members cited several reasons for keeping the school open, including the mental health support it provides students and families, school leaders’ commitment to boosting academic achievement, and the fact that nearby schools don’t have high test scores either.

“I don’t believe in shifting around Black and brown children from one failing school to another failing school,” board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said.

Board member Carrie Olson, who was a teacher at a Denver middle school that was closed for low test scores, also noted that school closures can be traumatic for students.

“We want to give you another chance,” she said, addressing Academy 360 staff and supporters, “and we have to see that you’re doing right by all students. Because I don’t want to incur more pain and I know the trauma of having a school being closed.”

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán and member Scott Baldermann were the only two to vote yes on closing Academy 360. Given Denver Public Schools’ declining enrollment, Gaytán said that refusing to close low-performing charter schools would make the district’s problem of too few students and too many schools worse, especially for district-run schools.

Academy 360 opened in 2013 in Montbello, the brainchild of a young educator who imagined a charter school focused on mental and physical health and wellness that would outperform the neighborhood’s struggling district-run schools.

Ten years later, Academy 360 serves 230 students — with five classrooms of preschoolers, one classroom each of kindergarten through fifth grade, and a special education program for students with autism. Nearly 90% of students are students of color, 78% are from low-income families, 34% are English language learners, and 24% have disabilities.

Academy 360 has struggled academically. This year, it earned the lowest possible state rating, signified by the color red. Its students in grades 3-5 scored in the first percentile on state literacy and math tests last spring, meaning 99% of Colorado students scored higher.

The board voted earlier this year to close a different charter school with similar scores. But that school, STRIVE Prep - Kepner, then in the midst of a merger with the higher-performing Rocky Mountain Prep charter network, didn’t protest Marrero’s closure recommendation. Academy 360 did protest — and the majority of board members sided with the school.

Irrespective of the STRIVE vote, Marrero previously expressed concerns that allowing Academy 360 to remain open would set a precedent that Denver Public Schools doesn’t close charter schools, no matter how low their test scores. He said the premise of independently run charter schools is that they’re granted extra flexibility but also held accountable for their results.

Board members said they understood Marrero’s reasoning, but didn’t agree in this case.

“My stance is not an attempt to excuse charter schools from their obligations,” board member Michelle Quattlebaum said. “Rather, it reflects the nuanced nature of the learning process and the exceptional circumstances that may warrant deviations from established norms.”

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

Denver school board votes to increase pay to $33,000 a year for new members

2023-11-17T16:56:26+00:00

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Three newly elected Denver school board members will be eligible for $33,000 in pay per year, after the current board voted 6-1 Thursday to quadruple members’ compensation.

Board members said they hoped the higher pay would attract more diverse candidates to run for school board. Denver Public Schools is the largest district in the state, and board members have compared serving to a full-time job that was, until recently, unpaid.

“We owe it to our students to ensure that we remove barriers that prevent a school board that looks like and reflects them,” board member Scott Esserman said.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán was the sole no vote. She said she couldn’t justify increasing pay for board members when that money could be spent in classrooms. Her son’s high school only has one Spanish teacher who is stretched thin, she said, and the school recently cut a jazz band elective that her son enjoyed due to a lack of funding.

“These funds could be redirected to address critical needs in southwest Denver schools,” Gaytán said, referencing the region of the city she represents.

Incoming board members John Youngquist, Marlene De La Rosa, and Kimberlee Sia, who were elected Nov. 7 and are set to be sworn in Nov. 28, will be able to invoice Denver Public Schools for up to $150 a day, five days per week, which is the maximum allowable under state law.

The board doesn’t meet in July, so members are paid 11 months of the year, hence the $33,000 in annual pay. The board previously voted in 2021 to pay members up to $150 a day, five days a month. That’s $8,250 per year, with public employee retirement benefits on top of that.

The other four members on the seven-member board are not eligible for the higher pay. State law doesn’t allow sitting board members to raise their own compensation.

District records show that only three board members — Esserman, Gaytán, and Michelle Quattlebaum — were paid in the last fiscal year. Carrie Olson did not collect any money.

At least two other Colorado school boards, in Aurora and Sheridan, have voted to pay their members, though their members’ compensation is much lower than in Denver.

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

Denver’s superintendent wants to close Academy 360 charter school. But the school board has questions.

2023-11-15T22:34:48+00:00

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The Denver superintendent has recommended closing another charter school for low test scores — a once-rare option that he used last school year as well.

This time, it’s Academy 360, a small charter school serving preschool to fifth grade in the Montbello neighborhood. Academy 360 supporters describe the school as a village where students grow vegetables on asphalt, where kids who used to kick walls now sit attentively during math, and where 90 3- and 4-year-olds attend preschool in a child care desert.

“Our children are more than their test scores,” parent Ashley Chapman told the school board.

By contrast, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero described Academy 360 as having one of the lowest state ratings he’s ever seen. At a board meeting earlier this month, Marrero acknowledged the school serves a population of students with high needs, most of whom are Black and Latino, but said “they’re not doing it well.”

“So it’s my duty to make sure we can meet the needs of those students,” he said.

For Marrero, there’s another consideration, too. He said keeping Academy 360 open would set a precedent that DPS does not close charter schools, no matter what.

“Charter schools are built on the promise of autonomy and flexibility, and in turn, accountability,” Marrero said. “So we’re delivering on our promise in terms of holding them accountable.”

The school board is set to vote Thursday on whether to close Academy 360. But five of the seven board members have expressed reservations. That’s notable because they were all elected with the help of the Denver teachers union, which has been hostile to charters. What’s more, the board voted to close another charter school with low test scores earlier this year.

But this recommendation sparked pushback. Board members worried that closing the school — where 88% of students are students of color, 78% come from low-income families, and 24% have disabilities — would be deeply disruptive to a community that one board member described as having “need upon need upon need.”

“Are we sure this is going to make things better?” board member Carrie Olson asked Marrero. “I don’t know what the answer is, but it doesn’t feel like the answer is to close the school.”

Academy 360 Executive Director Becky McLean speaks to a third grade student during class on Friday.

School is in a community hub

Academy 360 opened in 2013 with the promise of being better than “failing” district-run schools.

Its founder, who’d taught in Hawaii through Teach for America and worked for Google, was only 25 when she came up with the concept for a health and wellness charter school where students got an hour of physical activity per day, sugary drinks were banned, and teachers emphasized social-emotional learning and restorative justice.

The school’s founder no longer works there, but current Executive Director Becky McLean has been at Academy 360 since the beginning, when the school was in a leased church space. It now occupies two floors of a building that has become a hub of community organizations.

“This building buzzes from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. most times,” McLean said. “It’s a safe space. It’s a known space. What happens if that gets taken away?”

Child Find, the state agency that evaluates young children for disabilities, had an office there so it could easily see students who might qualify for Academy 360′s inclusive preschool classes.

WellPower, formerly known as the Mental Health Center of Denver, has two clinicians in the building who see students regularly. So does the Struggle of Love Foundation, which provides free mental health support and runs a daily food pantry so popular that McLean said the line of cars snakes all through the parking lot and the food is gone in an hour.

McLean estimates that 43% of the school’s 230 students see either a community-based clinician, the school’s psychologist or social worker, or a University of Denver graduate student for one-on-one mental health sessions or group counseling.

“That is unique to our model,” McLean said. “That is not every elementary model.”

That approach extends to the classroom and hallways, too. When a girl streaked down the hallway last Friday morning, sobbing heavily, Director of Academics Kristen Freeman knew just what was wrong: challenges at home and an issue at breakfast.

“We believe that relationships are the most powerful tool an adult has in this building,” McLean said, after watching Freeman follow the girl into a classroom. “I’m assuming the reason you’re sprinting down the hallway screaming is because you have a need you can’t name.”

School board member Michelle Quattlebaum, who represents the Montbello neighborhood, said she worries that if Academy 360 closes, students’ safety net will disappear.

“What we’re introducing is potentially a significant disruption of wraparound services,” she said. “How are we to ensure that these students will still receive the support that they need?”

Students line up for recess on Friday at Academy 360.

Low scores signal academic struggles

Many aspects of Academy 360 have remained the same or strengthened in the decade it’s been open. The school still partners with local nonprofit organizations, such as Children’s Farms in Action and Swallow Hill Music, to provide enrichments to its students.

In early spring, the bigger students plant vegetables in the school’s raised beds, and in late spring, the younger students harvest them. The school has two therapy bunnies, Baca and Chili, that live in a hutch outside. After learning that Academy 360 had no grassy field, the professional Colorado Rapids soccer team built the school an artificial pitch.

But in other ways, the school has struggled. In 2013, Academy 360 received the highest school rating, signified by the color green, based on its student test scores.

This year, the school received the lowest rating, signified by the color red. Its third- through fifth-graders scored in the 1st percentile on state math and literacy tests, meaning that 99% of Colorado students scored higher. When district officials visited the school in September as part of the charter renewal process, they noted that many students were disengaged.

“Most of the instruction time was spent on correcting behavior, rather than the content, as there were behavior interruptions from multiple students in each class,” a report says.

After Academy 360 got its test scores, McLean said school leaders made a two-year plan to strengthen its academics. The school hired a math instructional coach, as well as a dedicated English language development teacher for the 34% of students who are multilingual learners.

The school holds “skill-and-drill” sessions with students who are behind, and is using a new interim test it hopes will better predict how students will do on the all-important state tests.

Leaders also point out that the school’s younger students, who don’t yet take state tests, are making fast progress. The number of kindergarten through third graders reading “significantly below grade level” fell by 20 percentage points in a single year, Freeman said.

McLean acknowledges that the school has work to do. But earlier this week, she made a public plea to the school board to give Academy 360 two years to turn things around.

“We have a great game plan,” she said in an interview. “We know if we don’t turn around in two years, we will have to look in a mirror to say, ‘What’s the next step for A360?’”

Students walk on the "yellow brick road," a safe path through the parking lot, on their way to the playground Friday at Academy 360.

Are there better options?

Ten years after its founding, Academy 360 is in the same position as the district-run schools it hoped to outperform, a trajectory that has also befallen other charter schools in Denver, more than a dozen of which have closed in the past five years.

But the closest district-run school to Academy 360, McGlone Academy, is also red. Nearly all of the nearby district-run elementary schools are red, orange, or yellow.

“When I look at neighboring schools that are also red, I’m trying to figure out … how we improve outcomes for students by shuffling them around red schools,” board member Scott Esserman said when Marrero presented his closure recommendation in early November.

Marrero said the difference is that his team is working with the district-run schools to improve. Charter schools are independently run, and DPS has little power over their programming.

“Can we visit? Yes,” Marrero said. “But visibility and support? No.”

The superintendent has used that line of reasoning before to explain his recommendations to close other charter schools and to dissolve a semi-autonomous innovation zone — and it represents a departure in philosophy from previous DPS superintendents who believed that giving schools flexibility would lead to better academic outcomes.

Most board members didn’t seem swayed by Marrero’s reasoning. The board is considering a policy that would bar the district from closing district-run schools based on test scores or state ratings. So, some wondered, why shouldn’t the board do the same for charter schools?

Note: This story has been updated to reflect that Child Find had an office in Academy 360′s building but does not anymore.

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

Denver Public Schools bars administrator over McAuliffe from district facilities amid investigation

2023-11-15T02:16:52+00:00

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As part of the ongoing fallout from an investigation into the use of a seclusion room at Denver’s McAuliffe International School, the school district has barred an administrator responsible for overseeing the school from all district facilities and information systems.

The administrator is Colleen O’Brien, the executive director of the Northeast Denver Innovation Zone. She oversees three semi-autonomous Denver schools, including McAuliffe, a popular middle school that has been involved in several high-profile controversies this year.

Families and educators at McAuliffe have been on edge for months and staged a “walk in” Tuesday morning to protest what they see as Denver Public Schools’ attempts to dismantle their school. Principal Kurt Dennis was fired in July after he spoke up about gun violence and safety concerns, and the district opened an investigation into the improper use of seclusion rooms at McAuliffe in August. McAuliffe’s innovation status — which allows the school extra flexibility in scheduling and programming — is also up in the air right now.

The actions against O’Brien appear to be further fallout from the seclusion room investigation.

“After a thorough and careful review of the outcomes from the ongoing investigation, it has become clear that the actions and oversight under Dr. Colleen O’Brien have been in direct conflict with district policy and the values and standards we uphold in Denver Public Schools,” the district said in a statement Tuesday.

O’Brien did not respond Tuesday to phone calls and messages seeking comment.

Anne Rowe, the chairperson of the innovation zone’s board and a former president of the DPS school board, said in an interview that a district administrator informed O’Brien of the ban at a DPS school board meeting Monday. O’Brien was at the meeting to give public comment.

“What they’ve done has made it impossible for Colleen to do the work that she does really well to support our schools, our educators, and our kids,” Rowe said, “and we’re working really hard as a board to ensure that support continues until we find a resolution to this.”

It’s not clear which policies were the basis for the district’s action against O’Brien. O’Brien is an employee of the zone, not of DPS. Even if the district concludes that she violated DPS policy, she would not be subject to firing the same way as Dennis, the former principal.

“However,” the district said in its statement, “the schools within NDIZ are filled with DPS employees and students. Given the gravity of these findings, it was necessary to take appropriate action to limit Dr. O’Brien’s access to students and staff, as well as student information.”

Last year, DPS banned vocal district critic and school founder Brandon Pryor from DPS property, but a federal judge overturned that ban in January.

At the school board meeting Monday, O’Brien expressed concerns that McAuliffe educators were worried, wondering when the internal investigation would end. She also asked that DPS hire a third party instead to conduct an investigation.

Rowe said the zone board wants the same thing and “is in the process of engaging with an independent investigator” to look into the use of the seclusion rooms.

Rowe said DPS recently gave her and another zone board member a 2½-page summary of the investigation, which DPS says is ongoing. The summary said that the use of the seclusion rooms had violated district policy, Rowe said. She said it was clear that DPS wanted the zone board to take action regarding O’Brien based on the summary.

“We said, ‘Well, as a governing board, we would like to see the evidence and the facts that underlie this summary of findings from your internal investigation,’” Rowe said.

But ultimately, Rowe said DPS denied that request.

In its statement, DPS said its ban of O’Brien “does not reflect DPS’ view of (the zone) as a whole, but is a direct response to the actions and decisions of the individual in question.

“We remain committed to the principles of innovation and excellence in education and believe that this decision is a step towards upholding these ideals,” the statement said. “We look forward to future collaborations that align with our shared goals for educational excellence.”

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

Denver voters just sent the school board a message. Will they hear it?

2023-11-10T01:11:34+00:00

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It’s clear from the ousting of two incumbents on the Denver school board that voters are mad.

Mad that a student with a previous weapons charge was allowed to enroll at East High School, and that he brought a gun to school in March and shot two deans.

Mad that staff at several schools across Denver, including high-performing schools where the city’s power brokers send their children, were being asked to pat students down for weapons. Mad that after a middle school principal spoke out about it, he was fired.

And mad at a school board whose members snipe at each other on social media and in print, who held a key meeting behind closed doors, and who repeatedly say decisions about Denver Public Schools — the nitty-gritty stuff like bus schedules — are not up to them.

Three seats on the seven-member Denver school board were up for election Tuesday, and challengers handily defeated two incumbents. In the third race, which didn’t feature an incumbent, voters chose the candidate who was aligned with the challengers.

But if it’s clear that anger and dissatisfaction drove the result, what’s less clear is whether that result was a rebuke of the individual incumbents, or of DPS as a whole — and if it’s the latter, how the sitting board members and superintendent will respond to a clear call for change.

“We have to show the public that we can become a fully functioning board that they would like to see,” board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said in an interview.

The incumbents’ records on school safety

The two incumbents on the ballot, Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay, largely steered clear of the sniping and infighting that earned the Denver school board a bad reputation.

Of the seven board members, Baldermann and Lindsay pushed the hardest to bring school resource officers, or SROs, back to schools after the East shooting. Lindsay, who was appointed to fill a vacancy, wasn’t even on the board in 2020 when SROs were removed, a change that many blamed for the increase in school violence.

And Baldermann was the sole “no” vote on firing Kurt Dennis, the popular middle school principal who spoke out about safety policies.

Yet Steve Katsaros, an East High parent who started a group with a large Facebook presence called Parents - Safety Advocacy Group, said the incumbents’ individual records didn’t matter.

“We’re supposed to look at the board as a whole,” Katsaros said in an interview. “While [Baldermann and Lindsay] might have made some smart decisions around SROs, in totality, they’re part of a septic organization and a board that needs such a hard reset.”

Katsaros said the group worked hard over the last six months to keep the media’s attention focused on what was wrong in DPS, especially with regard to safety.

“DPS kept doing dumb things like getting rid of Kurt Dennis, and a lot more violent things,” including a non-fatal stabbing at George Washington High School last week, he said.

“How could you live in Denver and not know that DPS is a dumpster fire?” Katsaros said.

Another parent group, called Resign DPS Board, pushed a similar message, even running anti-incumbent Google ads that are now the subject of a campaign finance review.

Heather Lamm, a founder of Resign DPS Board, said that while she agrees voters were dissatisfied with the board as a whole, it’s not fair to say voters didn’t consider Baldermann and Lindsay’s records. Nor is it fair, she said, to imply they weren’t part of the dysfunction.

“Even if they’re quiet and they voted for the SROs, that was a little too little too late,” Lamm said. “A lot of people really took up the message that we started saying early on — that being on this board and not speaking up against the dysfunction means you’re complicit.”

Baldermann said in an interview that he should have seen the writing on the wall.

“Just looking back, it all makes sense,” he said. “I was kind of naive to even think I was going to win. … It was one crisis or distraction after another.”

Group backing winners sees ‘mandate’ for change

The three candidates who won — John Youngquist, Marlene De La Rosa, and Kimberlee Sia — were endorsed by Denver Families Action, which is the political arm of a group called Denver Families for Public Schools, whose board is made up of charter school leaders.

As recently as 2017, the school board consisted entirely of members supportive of education reform and charter schools. That fall, two members backed by the teachers union — which generally opposes education reform — won election. By 2021, the Denver school board consisted entirely of members backed by the teachers union. The current board has been less friendly to charter schools and more lenient toward low-performing district-run schools.

Now candidates backed by education reform supporters have a foothold on the board again.

Denver Families Action spent $1.3 million and counting to support its candidates, and much of the funding came from pro-reform sources and donors. But Denver Families CEO Clarence Burton said this election wasn’t about “the education wars” of the past.

The candidates Denver Families backed, Burton said in an interview, “don’t have a common ideological thread through them. They were candidates that represented this value … that every public school in Denver, whether traditional, innovation, or charter, plays an important role in ensuring we have the quality options we need to serve every family well.”

Burton said he sees the decisive wins as not only a celebration but a mandate.

“One of the challenges and frankly, I think, a mandate that these new board members have is whether they deliver on that promise of a unifying vision for the district,” he said.

The losing candidates — Baldermann, Lindsay, and Kwame Spearman — were endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. In an interview, union President Rob Gould pointed to Denver Families’ outsized spending as a big reason the incumbents lost.

But union-backed candidates have beat big reform money before, including in 2019 and 2021. Gould acknowledged that there were other factors at play this year, including the “constant bombardment” of messages about DPS being unsafe and “the frustration that a lot of people felt with the current board,” who were all previously endorsed by the union.

“What’s at the bottom is the reform groups, and they’re seeing that disruption that’s going on, and then I think they’re tagging it to all of the members of the board,” Gould said.

“It’s just unfortunate that there were casualties,” he said of Baldermann and Lindsay.

‘The board needs to do a better job’

Whereas many parents were supportive of the union after a 2019 strike that led to higher teacher wages, Katsaros and others said they didn’t trust the union on safety issues.

“They endorsed nine of the last 10 [Denver school board members] and everybody has seen the district fall to hell,” Katsaros said. “They appear to be focused on just financial outcomes for the teachers and anti-reformer movements. What they need to learn is we don’t care if our kids are educated at charter or reform or innovation or traditional schools. We don’t even understand all that stuff. … We want our kids to be in healthy environments.”

Gould disagrees that the union doesn’t care about safety. Two days after the East High shooting, the union organized a gun control rally at the State Capitol so big that DPS canceled school, he said. It also supported the return of SROs, and its members are helping to revise the district’s discipline matrix, which some parents have criticized as too lenient.

“I’m not out advertising that on Facebook,” Gould said. “We’re actually doing the work.”

But Lamm said the changes aren’t happening fast enough. She said the superintendent and board’s focus this year on reducing out-of-school suspensions and expulsions doesn’t make sense at a time when more students are bringing weapons to school.

When Baldermann ran in 2019, he said he and other candidates were constantly asked how they would improve DPS for students of color and those living in poverty. This year, the questions from the public were about why DPS doesn’t send students with behavior issues to alternative learning environments instead of big high schools like East.

“In 2019, it was all about equity,” he said. “This year it was like, ‘Whoa, not too much equity.’”

Carrie Olson, who has been on the board since 2017 and still has another two years left of her second term, said she sees this election as a call for change. But while she’s hopeful board members will get along better, she said she’s not sure what that change will look like.

“The board needs to do a better job,” she said in an interview. Then she hesitated to finish her sentence. “Maybe even just putting a period there.”

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

Denver school board election results: Voters signal they want change by electing three new members

2023-11-08T05:24:49+00:00

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In a year of rising gun violence in and around Denver schools, and persistent allegations of dysfunction on the school board, Denver voters signaled Tuesday that they want change by electing three new board members.

In the citywide at-large race, former East High School Principal John Youngquist beat Tattered Cover bookstores co-owner Kwame Spearman by a wide margin. Youngquist will replace the board’s most high-profile member, Vice President Auon’tai Anderson.

Two incumbents, Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay, lost their seats. Former KIPP charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia bested Baldermann for the board seat representing southeast Denver’s District 1. In northwest Denver’s District 5, longtime DPS volunteer and Latina advocate Marlene De La Rosa defeated Lindsay.

“I’m feeling like there is a lot of support for the message that we need experience and people close to the community and people who know schools and districts,” Youngquist said at a joint election watch party with De La Rosa Tuesday night.

Taking the microphone at the party, De La Rosa promised to listen “to all sides.”

“I am not a reformer,” De La Rosa said. “I am not a union [candidate]. I am not a particular ideology, but I am the ideology that we need to support students.”

Denver Public Schools is Colorado’s largest district, with more than 89,000 students. The next board will face several challenges, including how to deal with declining enrollment and how to address school safety concerns after several shootings in and around DPS high schools.

From left, Marlene De La Rosa, Kimberlee Sia, and John Youngquist won seats on the Denver school board Tuesday.

In DPS election politics, the teachers union is typically on one side, while groups supportive of charter schools and education reform are on the other side. That was true in this election, too.

The candidates who won — Youngquist, Sia, and De La Rosa — were backed by Denver Families Action, the political arm of a group called Denver Families for Public Schools whose board is made up of local charter school leaders. The losing candidates — Spearman, Baldermann, and Lindsay — were backed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the teachers union.

For the past four years, board members backed by the union have held a majority of seats. Tuesday’s election won’t change that because the other four members on the seven-person board were backed by the union and will still hold the majority.

But the election of three new members is likely to shake up the interpersonal and political dynamics on the board. The winners are all supportive of keeping police in schools and, to varying degrees, allowing schools to have more academic and programmatic autonomy and encouraging families to choose the school they deem best.

The current board has restricted principal autonomy and been less friendly to charter schools.

This election has been expensive, with candidates and outside groups spending nearly $1.9 million as of last week, according to reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

The biggest spender has been an independent expenditure committee called Better Leaders, Stronger Schools, which spent more than $1.3 million on digital ads, mailers, and even TV ads to support Youngquist, Sia, and De La Rosa. The pro-charter committee outspent the teachers union by 4 ½ to 1 in the lead up to the election.

The new board members are set to be sworn in on Nov. 28.

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

Los votantes de Denver indican que quieren cambios, eligen a tres integrantes nuevos para el consejo escolar

2023-11-09T19:41:16+00:00

Watch the candidates debate here.

En un año en el que aumentó la violencia con armas de fuego adentro y alrededor de las escuelas de Denver, y persistentes acusaciones de disfunción en el consejo escolar, los votantes de Denver indicaron el martes que quieren ver cambios al elegir a tres integrantes nuevos.

En la contienda general para elegir a un representante de toda la ciudad, el exdirector de East High School John Youngquist venció al copropietario de las librerías Tattered Cover Kwame Spearman por un amplio margen. Youngquist reemplazará al integrante más notorio del consejo, el vicepresidente Auon’tai Anderson.

Dos integrantes actuales, Scott Baldermann y Charmaine Lindsay, perdieron su puesto. La exdirectora ejecutiva de la red KIPP de escuelas charter, Kimberlee Sia, superó a Baldermann en el puesto para representar al 1er Distrito en el sudeste de Denver. En el 5º Distrito en el noroeste de Denver, la voluntaria de DPS por años y defensora comunitaria latina Marlene De La Rosa venció a Lindsay.

“Estoy sintiendo que hay mucho apoyo por el mensaje de que necesitamos experiencia y personas cercanas a la comunidad y personas que conocen las escuelas y los distritos”, Youngquist dijo durante una fiesta organizada junto con De La Rosa para observar los resultados de las elecciones el martes por la noche.

Al tomar el micrófono en la fiesta, De La Rosa prometió escuchar “a todas las partes”.

“No soy una reformadora”, De La Rosa dijo. “No soy una [candidata] del sindicato. No soy una ideología en particular, pero soy la ideología de que necesitamos apoyar a los estudiantes”.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver forman el distrito más grande de Colorado, con más de 89,000 estudiantes. El próximo consejo enfrentará varios desafíos, incluido cómo lidiar con la disminución de estudiantes inscritos y cómo abordar las inquietudes relacionadas con la seguridad en las escuelas después de varios tiroteos en y alrededor de high schools de DPS.

De izq. a der., Marlene De La Rosa, Kimberlee Sia y John Youngquist ganaron un puesto para el consejo escolar de Denver el martes.

En lo relacionado con la política de las elecciones para el consejo de DPS, el sindicato de maestros usualmente está de un lado, mientras que otros grupos que apoyan a las escuelas charter y la reforma educativa se encuentra del otro. Lo mismo sucedió durante estas elecciones.

Los candidatos que ganaron—Youngquist, Sia y De La Rosa—recibieron el apoyo de Denver Families Action, la rama política de un grupo llamado Familias de Denver a favor de Escuelas Públicas cuyo consejo está integrado por líderes de escuelas charter locales. Los candidatos perdedores—Spearman, Baldermann y Lindsay—estaban respaldados por la Asociación de Maestros de Salones de Clase de Denver, el sindicato de maestros.

Durante los últimos cuatro años, integrantes del consejo escolar respaldados por el sindicato han ocupado la mayoría de los puestos. Las elecciones del martes no cambiarán eso porque los otros cuatro integrantes en el consejo de siete fueron respaldados por el sindicato y continuarán siendo la mayoría.

Pero la selección de tres integrantes nuevos probablemente sacuda la dinámica interpersonal y política en el consejo. Todos los ganadores apoyan que se mantengan a agentes de seguridad armados en las escuelas y, en diferentes niveles, permitir que las escuelas tengan más autonomía académica y programática y animar a las familias para que elijan la escuela que mejor les parezca.

El consejo actual ha limitado la autonomía de los directores y sido menos amistoso con las escuelas charter.

Estas elecciones han sido costosas, con candidatos y grupos externos gastando casi $1.9 millones hasta la semana pasada, según informes presentados en la oficina de la Secretaría del Estado de Colorado. Partidarios de las escuelas charter gastaron cuatro veces y media más que el sindicato de maestros en el período antes de las elecciones.

Se espera que los nuevos integrantes del consejo acepten su cargo el 28 de noviembre.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Melanie Asmar es reportera sénior de Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre historias sobre las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Para comunicarte con Melanie, envíale un mensaje a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

The day before the Denver school board election, spending in the races nears $1.9 million

2023-11-06T19:04:30+00:00

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On the eve of the Nov. 7 election, spending in the Denver school board races has climbed to nearly $1.9 million, according to reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

It’s not a record yet — but it’s close. The most expensive Denver school board race ever was in 2019, when candidates and outside groups spent $2.28 million. However, this year’s running total has surpassed spending in the last election in 2021, which totaled $1.67 million.

Three seats on the seven-member Denver school board are up for grabs Tuesday. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board; members backed by the Denver teachers union will still hold the majority of seats. But it could change the board’s interpersonal dynamics, which have been tense, and perhaps the political dynamics as well.

As in past elections, the bulk of the spending is by independent expenditure committees, which cannot coordinate with the candidates. In Denver Public Schools election politics, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association is typically on one side, and groups that support charter schools and education reform are on the other side.

So far, the pro-charter side is outspending the union 4½ to 1.

This year’s big spender is a pro-charter committee called Better Leaders, Stronger Schools, which has spent $1.3 million on digital advertising, mailers, text messaging, and even TV ads, which are unheard of in Denver school board elections.

The committee is supporting three candidates: John Youngquist for an at-large seat, Marlene De La Rosa in District 5, and Kimberlee Sia in District 1.

Better Leaders, Stronger Schools is largely funded by Denver Families Action, the political arm of a group called Denver Families for Public Schools. Denver Families was founded in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks, and its board is made up of charter leaders.

Better Leaders, Stronger Schools has also gotten donations from wealthy Colorado businesspeople, including $250,000 from Kent Thiry, the former CEO of dialysis provider DaVita. Envision CEO James Rechtin gave $15,000, while SonderMind CEO Mark Frank and Benson Mineral Group Co. each gave $20,000. Oakwood Homes CEO Pat Hamill, Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries, and private-equity firm Rallyday Partners each gave $10,000.

The teachers union is supporting three candidates: Kwame Spearman for the at-large seat, Charmaine Lindsay in District 5, and Scott Baldermann in District 1. Lindsay and Baldermann are incumbents running to keep their seats.

The union is spending money two ways: by giving directly to the candidates and through its own independent expenditure committee. So far, the Denver and Colorado teachers unions have given $47,500 each directly to Spearman and Baldermann, and $35,405 to Lindsay.

The union’s committee, called Students Deserve Better, has spent just over $150,000 on mailers and digital ads in the Denver school board races this year.

For the second time, Baldermann is largely self-funding his campaign, pumping $91,000 into his reelection bid so far. In 2019, he spent more than three times as much.

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

Campaign finance complaint filed against Resign DPS Board’s anti-incumbent ads

2023-11-03T22:38:25+00:00

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Google ads encouraging Denver voters to oust the incumbents on the school board in the Nov. 7 election are the subject of a campaign finance complaint against the group Resign DPS Board, a document filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office shows.

The complaint alleges that Resign DPS Board, a parent group formed in the wake of a March shooting inside East High School, failed to disclose spending $2,000 on Google ads that say “vote out incumbent candidates up for re-election.” The ads popped up at the top of a Google search for Scott Baldermann, a board member running for re-election in southeast Denver’s District 1, according to a screenshot attached to the complaint.

Baldermann faces challenger Kimberlee Sia for the District 1 seat.

The ads included a link to the Resign DPS Board website, which also encourages voters to oust the incumbents. Charmaine Lindsay is the other incumbent; she is running against Marlene De La Rosa and Adam Slutzker to keep her seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5.

This close to an election, state law requires candidates or groups to file reports within 48 hours disclosing “electioneering communications” that cost more than $1,000. The complaint alleges that Resign DPS Board failed to do so. The complaint was filed Wednesday by a person named Kevin Williams. Williams did not return a phone call or email seeking comment.

Heather Lamm, a founder of Resign DPS Board, said via text message that the group disagrees that the ads are electioneering communications, but has pulled them down anyway.

“We believe we are promoting voter education,” she wrote.

Resign DPS Board is not registered as a political committee with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. Lamm said the group didn’t think it was necessary since its message is mostly focused on advocating for the current school board to resign.

The complaint alleges that the group’s website contains numerous examples of “express advocacy” in the Nov. 7 school board election without disclosing who paid for the advocacy or saying it was not authorized by any candidate, as is required.

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

Denver school board election 2023: Who’s running and what’s at stake in the District 1 race

2023-11-02T19:20:41+00:00

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Voters in southeast Denver face the choice of re-electing a school board member who has championed the teachers union’s causes, or replacing him with an educator who led a local charter school network for six years.

Scott Baldermann, 47, is the incumbent in the District 1 race, having been elected to the school board in 2019. His win was part of a historic “flip” of the board to candidates backed by the Denver teachers union. Baldermann is the father of two Denver Public Schools students and owns a small software company that makes a heart rate tracking app for group fitness classes.

Kimberlee Sia, 47, is challenging Baldermann for his seat. She also has two children in DPS and was most recently the head of the Colorado “I Have a Dream” Foundation, which runs after-school and summer programming in DPS. She has worked as a teacher and principal, and was the CEO of the KIPP Colorado Public Schools charter network from 2013 to 2019.

District 1 includes many of the city’s whitest and wealthiest neighborhoods. Only 25% of students in DPS are white, but district data shows that 48% of students in District 1 last year were white.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. All of the current board members were backed by the teachers union, but they’ve split on whether police belong in schools and how much autonomy principals should have. They’ve also struggled at times to get along. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board, but new members will change the interpersonal dynamic and potentially the political one as well.

The school board hires and evaluates the superintendent, sets policy, and votes on controversial issues, such as whether to open new schools or close existing ones. The board voted this year to close three schools with low enrollment, a decision it will likely face again as the number of children living in Denver continues to decrease.

Where the candidates stand on school closures, police

Baldermann steers clear of interpersonal conflict and does not speak much in public board meetings. When he does, it’s often to read a statement he’s prepared about how he will vote. But he’s one of the board’s most active members when it comes to writing policy proposals.

“The good work is boring,” Baldermann said in an interview.

Sia and Baldermann vehemently disagree on a policy Baldermann co-authored to limit the autonomy of district-run innovation schools. Under state law, innovation schools can waive certain district policies, state laws, and parts of the teachers union contract.

The original version of the policy would have required innovation schools in DPS to follow the entire union contract and the state law that grants teachers Colorado’s version of tenure, among other changes. The board eventually passed a scaled-back version of the policy last year — and then backtracked even more. But innovation schools in DPS now have to abide by the state’s teacher tenure law and pay teachers according to the union contract salary schedule.

Baldermann said it’s among the things he’s most proud of. “I’m not against innovative practices,” he said, “but not at the expense of teachers’ statutory and collective bargaining rights.”

Sia, meanwhile, has said she disagrees so much that it’s one reason she decided to run against Baldermann. “Autonomy in innovation schools is critical,” she wrote in Chalkbeat’s candidate questionnaire.

Teachers at innovation schools must vote to approve their school’s waivers. While Baldermann described the board’s new policy as protecting teachers’ rights, Sia has said that limiting the waivers “actually diminishes the innovations that teachers themselves had voted on.”

If elected, Sia wrote in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire that she would “protect the autonomies of innovation schools” by ensuring board policies don’t contradict the schools’ waivers.

Baldermann also wrote a pair of proposals currently under consideration that would deal with declining enrollment in DPS by capping enrollment at some schools, adjusting attendance boundaries, and setting timelines and other rules for school closures. The proposals say DPS should inform communities about “the positive implications of proceeding and the negative implications of not proceeding” with merging under-enrolled schools.

Sia has acknowledged that school closures are likely inevitable. But she said she opposes capping school enrollment and frequently adjusting attendance boundaries for fear of frustrating families. She agrees that the board should follow a set process and timeline for closures, though she said the community should be more involved in the decisions.

Baldermann authored the policy to permanently return police officers known as school resource officers, or SROs, to DPS schools after a March shooting inside East High School. He’d voted in 2020 to remove SROs over concerns about the over-policing of Black students, but he said the increase in gun violence in and around schools this year changed his mind.

“This is about deterrence,” he said at a June meeting before the board voted 4-3 to bring back SROs. “If it stops one kid from bringing a loaded gun into a school, I think it’s worth it.”

Sia largely agrees with Baldermann on SROs. She has said she supports the board’s decision to bring SROs back this year. But she has also said she would have voted to remove them in 2020 due to over-policing concerns if there had been a plan in place for operating without them. That’s where the board and the district dropped the ball, she said.

SROs “should not have been removed in the first place without a clear plan in place to be able to support schools,” Sia said at a recent debate co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado.

Who has endorsed them

Baldermann is endorsed by the teachers union, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. The union also endorsed him during his first campaign in 2019, and President Rob Gould said in an interview that doing it again was an easy decision.

“The candidates that we’re supporting are the incumbents that are the ones getting the work done,” Gould said. “When we think about Scott, that’s been his focus.”

Sia is endorsed by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and by Denver Families Action, the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools, formed in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks.

Denver Families CEO Clarence Burton said his organization is backing candidates “with decades of experience working in our schools or in our communities.” He said that’s “what’s needed to repair the relationship between the community and school board going forward.”

Endorsements often come with money. An independent expenditure committee associated with Denver Families Action has been spending big in the last month on digital advertising and a flurry of mailers, including some attack ads. The committee also spent $250,000 on TV ads, which is unheard of in Denver school board races. Baldermann largely self-funded his 2019 campaign, and he had contributed $77,000 to his own campaign as of Oct. 31 this year.

In DPS politics — and especially in school board elections — the Denver teachers union is often on one side, and groups supportive of charter schools are on the other.

Charters are funded with public dollars but run by independent nonprofit boards, not by DPS. Supporters say charter schools’ autonomy allows them to be innovative. Critics say charters “privatize” public education and siphon students from traditional schools.

Of all the candidates running for school board this year, Baldermann and Sia have the starkest opposing views on charter schools and school choice, which allows students to apply to attend any school they want.

Baldermann has long been critical of charters and choice. His criticisms include that charter school teachers do not need to be licensed, that their independent boards can vote to close the schools — and have — with little advance notice to families, and that school choice creates competition that often results in schools spending money on marketing that he says should be used for the classroom.

“In my first term, nine charter schools closed,” Baldermann said at a recent debate. “It is too risky for us to continue down the path where we have alternate governance models that function more as businesses that close [schools] as if they are a business.”

Sia was head of the local chapter of the national KIPP school network, overseeing six schools in Denver, and was on the board of the Colorado League of Charter Schools from 2018 through June, including a yearlong stint as board chair. She is still a board member of a homegrown Denver charter school network called University Prep.

One of Sia’s children attends a charter school and the other attends a district-run school. She volunteers on parent committees at both schools. She has also noted that she was president of a teachers union in a small school district in California.

“I believe we should strengthen all our schools,” Sia said at a debate.

She emphasized “holding all of our schools to the same levels of accountability” and ensuring “that we are working with the teachers, families, students at those schools to figure out, ‘How can we collaborate and learn from each other?’”

For more about the candidates, read our profiles here:

Scott Baldermann

Kimberlee Sia

And read — in their own words — how they answered six questions about DPS here.

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

Denver school board election 2023: Who’s running and what’s at stake in the District 5 race

2023-11-01T19:09:00+00:00

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All three candidates vying to represent northwest Denver’s District 5 on the school board are or were Denver Public Schools parents. But their life experiences, careers, and community ties set them apart, as do their stances on topics such as police in schools and school autonomy.

Charmaine Lindsay, 57, is the incumbent in the race, having been appointed to the seat in June 2022 to fill a vacancy. Her son and stepchildren graduated from DPS, and her grandchildren are current DPS students, including two grandsons who live with her. Lindsay is a family law attorney who works out of her home and represents many clients for free.

Marlene De La Rosa, 59, is one of two challengers for the seat — and the one with the most endorsements and funding. De La Rosa’s children are DPS graduates and she was a very involved volunteer, both at the school and district level, when they were growing up. She’s also a prominent Latina community advocate, and recently retired from a career as an immigration court specialist with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Adam Slutzker, 39, is the father of three kids who are in fourth grade, first grade, and preschool at Columbian Elementary, a district-run school in the Sunnyside neighborhood. Slutzker worked as an elementary school teacher in neighboring Jeffco Public Schools before his oldest child was born. He now works part-time as a real estate agent, contractor, and carpenter.

The winner would represent northwest Denver, a historically Latino part of the city that has seen significant gentrification and demographic change.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The current board members were backed by the teachers union, but they’ve split on whether police belong in schools and how much autonomy principals should have. They’ve also struggled at times to get along. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board, but new members will change the interpersonal dynamic and potentially the political one as well.

Where the candidates stand on academics, school closures

DPS student test scores fell during the pandemic, but are now rebounding. However, yawning gaps remain between the test scores of white students and those of Black and Latino students.

All three candidates agree that DPS needs to better serve the Black and Latino students who make up the majority in the district. But they have different takes on how to approach it.

Both Lindsay and Slutzker have said DPS relies too much on standardized test scores to tell whether students are at grade level and should consider other measures. Slutzker has suggested asking parents and school staff how students are doing, while Lindsay has said students’ grades in class should be considered.

“If a college student’s achievement is measured by a passing grade in a class, then why shouldn’t the same be true for primary students?” she wrote in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire.

De La Rosa, meanwhile, has said the board should set high academic goals — as high as 90% of students in kindergarten through third grade scoring at grade level on tests — and then direct the superintendent to reach them. Last spring, 58% of DPS students in kindergarten through third grade were reading at grade level, according to tests given per the state’s READ Act.

“We really, really need to focus on early literacy for all of our students,” De La Rosa said at a debate.

Declining enrollment is a big issue in northwest Denver. Higher housing prices have pushed many families out of the city, and there is far more capacity in the region’s schools than there are children to fill the seats.

Lindsay voted in favor this year of closing three small schools, including Fairview Elementary in District 5. She wrote in a Chalkbeat questionnaire that “low enrollment should not be the major criteria in closing any schools,” but she has also defended her Fairview vote by saying there would not have been enough students to open a kindergarten classroom there this fall.

De La Rosa has criticized Lindsay’s vote on Fairview. At a recent debate, she said DPS did not spend enough time in that community talking to families, many of whom live in subsidized housing, about the enrollment projections and preparing them for the transition.

“That affected one of our most disadvantaged populations in our city, and I think that they suffered very tremendously in that decision,” De La Rosa said.

De La Rosa acknowledges some schools may need to close, but she said at a debate that DPS needs “to look at making sure we are working with the communities that would be affected with a sufficient amount of time — at least one school year.” The board voted in March to close Fairview in June and send the students to nearby Cheltenham Elementary this fall.

The school Slutzker’s children attend, Columbian Elementary, was also on the school closure list before Superintendent Alex Marrero pared down the list from 10 schools to three following pushback from the board and community members. The near-closure is what motivated Slutzker to run for school board, he said.

Slutzker said he too felt the recent process was unfair, but he realizes some closures may be necessary.

“I believe we need to look at each situation under a microscope to determine the best path forward,” he wrote in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire. “Closing a school strictly based on low enrollment should not be on the table, but there will be times when schools may have to close due to financial realities.”

Denver schools are funded per student.

Where the candidates stand on school safety

As a board member, Lindsay participated in a closed-door meeting where the board decided to bring back school resource officers, or SROs, the day after a March shooting at East High School. A judge later ruled the meeting violated the open meetings act and ordered the recording of the meeting released after Chalkbeat and other media organizations sued.

Lindsay said at a recent candidate debate that she “led the charge in bringing back” the SROs. Another board member, Scott Baldermann, drafted a memo after the shooting to temporarily bring back SROs, but it is true that Lindsay advocated for their return.

The recording of the meeting, released by the board months later, shows Lindsay didn’t get bogged down in wonky procedural debates or interpersonal spats like other board members did. Typical of her approach on the board, she didn’t speak much. But when she did, it was to argue for the return of SROs.

“How many instances [are there] where some kid is being bullied or threatened by another kid or somebody has a gun and they go tell an SRO officer because they trust this person?” she said during the closed-door meeting.

However, Lindsay has also been criticized for how talked about the need for police in schools, including when she said SROs were needed to stop “minority kids who are likely to carry guns.”

Lindsay voted a few months later to make SROs permanent, but she has noted that officers are stationed at only 13 of the district’s 200 schools, the city is paying for them, and DPS is monitoring to make sure students aren’t getting ticketed or arrested for low-level offenses like marijuana possession.

De La Rosa said she agrees with the decision to bring back SROs. But she has emphasized the need for monitoring to ensure officers aren’t over-policing students of color, as happened in the past, and the need for DPS to provide robust mental health support to students.

De La Rosa has also criticized Lindsay for taking part in that closed-door meeting, writing in a Chalkbeat questionnaire that the board’s “decision to hold a critical safety meeting behind the veil of Executive Session” was “simply wrong” and led to “less trust in our schools.”

Slutzker is the only candidate who disagrees with the SRO decision. But he said that as long as the city is paying for the officers, and DPS is monitoring to make sure SROs are not getting involved in routine student discipline, he’s willing to give them a chance.

“I don’t personally believe that SROs make our schools a safer place,” Slutzker said at a recent debate. “The unfortunate reality is if somebody wants to harm our children in our schools in America, they are going to be able to harm our children in our schools.”

Who has endorsed them

In DPS politics — and especially in school board elections — the Denver teachers union is often on one side, and groups supportive of charter schools are on the other.

Lindsay is endorsed by the teachers union, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

De La Rosa is endorsed by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and by Denver Families Action, the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools, formed in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks.

Slutzker has not received any major endorsements.

For many years, the Denver school board encouraged new charters to open in DPS, hopeful it would boost academic achievement. Union-backed board members took power in 2019 and stopped that trajectory by rejecting new charters and even closing one for low performance. Meanwhile, declining enrollment has led many charters to close voluntarily.

De La Rosa has said she’d like the board to go in a different direction. She said she believes in giving schools autonomy — which for charter schools and district-run innovation schools means, to varying degrees, freedom from certain state laws, district rules, and teachers union contract provisions — “to help students catch up academically” after the pandemic.

She’s also vigorously defended school choice, which is enshrined in state law and allows students to apply to attend any school they want. “It is important that we do have a portfolio of schools,” De La Rosa said at a recent debate. “Not every school meets every family’s needs. Myself, I did exercise choice in choosing different high schools where my students attended.”

Slutzker has been most critical of school choice and charter schools. He has said that choice, especially as used by wealthier white families, exacerbates racial segregation in schools, and charter schools contribute to declining enrollment in traditional district-run schools.

Lindsay has also offered some criticism of charter schools, but it has been more muted. She said in Chalkbeat’s questionnaire that the board “has an obligation to support our neighborhood schools and make sure they have the resources to meet the needs of students.” Neighborhood schools is how the union and others refer to traditional district-run schools.

At a debate, Lindsay also advocated for lowering the class sizes in district-run schools “to try to make the neighborhood schools more attractive and more competitive.”

For more about the candidates, read our profiles here:

Marlene De La Rosa

Charmaine Lindsay

Adam Slutzker

Watch the candidates debate here.

And read — in their own words — how they answered six questions about DPS here.

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

Denver school board election 2023: Who’s running and what’s at stake in the at-large race

2023-10-27T22:46:18+00:00

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One candidate is a longtime educator who supporters say knows Denver Public Schools inside and out and will be ready to make changes on day one. The other is a business leader who grew up in a family of educators and who backers say will bring fresh ideas to the district.

That’s the choice voters face for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

John Youngquist, 57, was a teacher, principal, and school district administrator for 35 years, with much of that time in Denver. He taught or led at four different DPS elementary and high schools, including two stints as the principal of East High School.

Youngquist’s two daughters are students at East, and he is a graduate of Denver’s Thomas Jefferson High School. He now works with a youth-focused organization called GRASP, which stands for Gang Rescue and Support Project.

Kwame Spearman, 39, is co-owner of the storied yet financially troubled Tattered Cover bookstores. His mother is a longtime DPS educator, and Spearman graduated from East High.

Spearman worked in the private sector, including at Bain & Company, before moving back to Denver in 2020 to run the Tattered Cover. He ran for Denver mayor earlier this year but dropped out before Election Day. He stepped down as CEO of Tattered Cover before running for school board.

Two other candidates are also on the ballot for the at-large seat, which represents the entire city.

Brittni Johnson hasn’t campaigned much due to illness and did not respond to multiple requests for interviews. Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race in September but will still appear on the ballot. Votes for Ballenger won’t count.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7. The winner in the at-large race will replace board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who is not running for re-election.

The current board members were backed by the teachers union, but they’ve split on whether police belong in schools and how much autonomy principals should have. They’ve also struggled at times to get along. The election won’t change the balance of power on the board, but new members will change the interpersonal dynamic and potentially the political one as well.

Where the candidates stand on the issues

The at-large candidates have emphasized different issues on the campaign trail. Spearman has talked about building affordable housing for educators on DPS-owned land. Youngquist has said he wants to triple the number of student health clinics inside schools.

Spearman also said he’d like to ask Denver voters to raise taxes to pay for student transportation. Youngquist said DPS should create a public, online dashboard with data on student attendance, safety, and academics.

Youngquist and Spearman both want more mental health support for students and good pay for teachers. They both value school choice.

And they both want police officers known as school resources officers, or SROs, in DPS schools right now — but Spearman has pledged to remove SROs by the end of his first term.

“Most of the time an SRO is in a school, they’re not doing what we think of as police activity,” Spearman said in an interview. “They’re literally just sitting.”

He said he understands why SROs are in schools right now, following a fatal shooting outside East High and a shooting inside the school this year — “people are on edge, and we have to respect and understand that” — but he said it is objectively “a clear waste of resources.”

The key to removing SROs is to provide separate alternative schools, with smaller classes and more mental health support, for students with behavior issues, Spearman said.

“The students most likely to make us think we need SROs shouldn’t be in those environments,” he said of big high schools like East. Spearman said he’d like to replace SROs with community officers, though he hasn’t defined what that would look like.

Youngquist agrees that some students would be better served in alternative schools, and he said he’s seen those options dwindle in DPS over time.

“For me, as a principal, what I need are options when I have a student who has demonstrated violent behaviors,” Youngquist said in an interview. “The district has taken away all the options and not provided consult. The district has essentially said, ‘Good luck.’”

As principal of East High in 2020, he opposed the previous board’s decision to get rid of SROs — and he supported the board’s recent decision to bring them back after the March shooting inside East. After the shooting, DPS hired Youngquist as a consultant to interview high school principals and teachers about safety; all said they wanted SROs to return.

“Over time, we need to ensure we develop an understanding of how [SROs] best fit in our schools and where it is that we’re gaining value from them,” Youngquist said at a recent debate.

Who has endorsed them

Spearman is endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the teachers union. Progressive former Denver mayoral candidate Lisa Calderón also endorsed him.

Youngquist is endorsed by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and by Denver Families Action, the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools, formed in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks.

For many years, pro-reform Denver school board members encouraged new charters to open in DPS, hopeful they would boost academic achievement. Union-backed board members took power in 2019 and stopped that trajectory by rejecting new charters and even closing one for low performance. Declining enrollment has led many charters to close voluntarily and made it extremely challenging to open new schools.

Spearman has criticized Youngquist for accepting the endorsement of Denver Families Action, which he said at a recent debate is “funded by two people, Reed Hastings and John Arnold” who “are committed to the privatization of our schools.”

Hastings is the co-founder of Netflix and Arnold is a former Enron executive. Both are on the board of The City Fund, a national organization in favor of charter schools and school autonomy. Denver Families for Public Schools gets money — $1.75 million in the last fiscal year — from The City Fund, according to federal tax records.

“The biggest thing that separates me from John is that the educational community has decided to support me,” Spearman said in an interview.

Youngquist has pointed out that he spent his career working primarily with traditional schools, not charter schools. Neither candidate has called for closing charter schools, and both have said they support allowing families to choose the school that best fits their child’s needs.

“We can’t get into the traditional fights between reform and neighborhood schools,” Youngquist said at a recent debate. “We’ve been there before. It hasn’t served our children well…It’s time to come together, sit at the table, [and] design the DPS that our students need.”

Both candidates sat for endorsement interviews with Denver Families Action and the union. Youngquist also took a Denver Families candidate training called Lead 101. He said he did the training to learn what a campaign was like before he decided to run.

Endorsements often come with money. Pro-reform organizations have deeper pockets than the teachers union and their spending is often more opaque.

An independent expenditure committee associated with Denver Families Action has been spending big in the last month on digital advertising and a flurry of mailers, including an attack ad that Spearman decried as racist. The committee also spent $250,000 on TV ads — a first in Denver school board races.

What supporters say

In endorsing Spearman, the Denver teachers union noted that he’s a DPS graduate who comes from a long line of educators. In an interview, union President Rob Gould said Spearman’s advocacy for teacher housing stood out among the candidates, as did his outreach to teachers.

“He met with a variety of individuals to find out: What do educators need? What’s the current status?” Gould said. “What we found is that he was working hard to understand.”

He said Spearman’s approach “is very juxtaposed” with other candidates, whom he declined to name, who act like “they already know the answers.”

Former Denver school board President Nate Easley endorsed Spearman early in the race, before Youngquist jumped in. Easley was also endorsed by the teachers union in his race, but ended up voting with the pro-reform members on the board. Easley said he found Spearman to be a mature, independent thinker who was raised by a strong DPS educator.

Easley said he also likes that Spearman has been a CEO, which to him means Spearman will be innovative. Spearman bought Tattered Cover as part of an investment group when the company was already on rocky financial footing and worked to revive it.

But just this month, after he had stepped down as CEO, the company filed for bankruptcy and is trying to restructure. As CEO, Spearman also faced accusations of workplace bullying and ageism. In an interview, he said, “When you’re an actual leader, you know leadership is hard.”

Easley said his endorsement of Spearman is not a rebuke of Youngquist.

“I think both of them are grown ups,” Easley said. “I like the idea of a DPS graduate whose mom taught in the district and could be in his ear.”

In endorsing Youngquist, Denver Families Action cited his experience as a DPS educator and parent. CEO Clarence Burton said the organization was looking for “the most credible candidates who can speak to a background in education … not just the values they’d bring to the board but can say, ‘We’ve been showing up and doing that work, not just for years but for decades.’”

Educators, parents, and DPS graduates helped interview the candidates for the Denver Families Action endorsement, Burton said, but the final decision was made by the organization’s staff and board chair.

Happy Haynes, another former school board president, also endorsed Youngquist. Haynes typically voted with the pro-reform members in her time on the board.

“As an educator, they don’t come better,” she said of Youngquist.

Spearman has criticized Youngquist for the yawning gaps in test scores between white students, who score high, and Black and Latino students, who score lower. Haynes said she admires Youngquist’s efforts to close those gaps. She cited an effort at East to enroll all freshmen into honors courses and provide extra academic support to those who needed it.

In 2022, the last year Youngquist was at East, the number of white 11th graders who met expectations in literacy on the SAT was 47 percentage points higher than the number of Black 11th graders who met expectations. That gap was a little worse than the gap at Northfield High, the city’s second-largest high school behind East, and a little better than the gap at third-largest South High.

For more about the candidates, read our profiles here:

Kwame Spearman

John Youngquist

Watch Spearman and Youngquist debate here.

And read — in their own words — how they answered six questions about DPS here.

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

Spending in Denver school board election tops $1.3 million, including on a mailer decried as racist

2023-10-27T22:28:48+00:00

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With a little more than a week until Election Day, spending in the Denver school board race has surpassed $1.36 million, fueled largely by one group that has spent big, including on an attack ad that the targeted candidate decried as a racist dog whistle.

That group — Better Leaders, Stronger Schools — is an independent expenditure committee funded largely by Denver Families Action, which is the political arm of an organization called Denver Families for Public Schools. The organization was founded in 2021 with the backing of local charter school networks and its board is populated by charter leaders.

In Denver Public Schools politics, pro-charter organizations like Denver Families Action are on one side and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association union is on the other. So far, the charter group is outspending the teachers union by about 4 to 1.

Pro-charter organizations are fighting to gain back a seat at the decision-making table. After years of a pro-charter majority on the Denver school board, the balance of power flipped in 2019. Today, all seven current members of the Denver school board were backed by the teachers union. With just three of the seven seats up for grabs Nov. 7, the election won’t change the majority. But it could change the board’s discussions.

Though Denver school board races have been million-dollar elections for several cycles, this year’s spending is notable. Pro-charter Better Leaders, Stronger Schools spent $250,000 on television ads featuring Denver Mayor Mike Johnston endorsing three candidates who were also endorsed by Denver Families Action: John Youngquist, Marlene De La Rosa, and Kimberlee Sia. It’s the first TV ad in memory for Denver school board candidates.

The pro-charter committee has also sent several negative mailers, including one featuring a sad white child on one side and candidate Kwame Spearman, who is Black, on the other.

In an interview, Spearman called the juxtaposition “dog whistling.”

Clarence Burton, CEO of Denver Families Action, did not respond to a request for comment.

One side of a mailer attacking candidate Kwame Spearman.

Independent expenditure committees do the dirty work in political campaigns. They are not allowed to coordinate with the candidates, and they don’t have to disclose their donors, which is why they’re often referred to as “dark money” or “outside spending.”

The pro-charter spending seems more concentrated and strategic this year in that it’s being funneled through one committee rather than several as in years past. Better Leaders, Stronger Schools had spent a whopping $1 million total as of Oct. 25, according to campaign finance reports on file with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

The big spending started later than usual, likely because the Denver Classroom Teachers Association waited until early October to finalize its endorsements. The teachers union is backing candidates Spearman, Charmaine Lindsay, and Scott Baldermann. The union has its own independent expenditure committee called Students Deserve Better.

The negative mailer accuses Spearman, who’s running for an at-large seat on the board, of being a bully. Spearman is a DPS graduate and the son of an educator, and he co-owns the Tattered Cover bookstores. The mailer notes that Tattered Cover employees accused him of bullying while he was CEO. He has since stepped down from that role.

“To evoke and call me a bully, and on the other side [of the mailer] to have a white child, it’s very clear what they were trying to do,” Spearman said.

The mailer also brings up comments Spearman made about homelessness, crime, and immigration during his brief run for Denver mayor earlier this year. And it says he wrote “several sexist newspaper articles” when he was a college student. Spearman is 39 years old.

“It’s very obvious Denver Families has some kind of polling that indicates I’m doing very well,” Spearman said, “and instead of focusing on issues and what they want to do for the district, they’ve dug up stuff from my college days to put together this stew to show that I’m a bully.

“It’s a turning point in this race.”

Spearman called on Johnston, who endorsed Spearman’s opponent, to denounce the mailer.

“Mayor Johnston did not send the mailer,” spokesperson Jordan Fuja said in an email. “He endorsed candidates with strong educational experience who could bring change to the board.”

Better Leaders, Stronger Schools has also sent negative mailers about Baldermann and Lindsay, the two incumbents in the race. Both Baldermann and Lindsay are white. The mailers targeting them mostly focus on their political records.

This is not the first time a Denver school board candidate has raised concerns about negative mailers being racist. In 2019, two Latina candidates decried a mailer sent out by the teachers union’s independent expenditure committee they said erased their identities by leaving off their Latino surnames. The union-funded committee apologized for the mailer.

In 2017, a union-funded committee sent a mailer featuring photos of former President Donald Trump and his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos alongside a photo of Angela Cobián, a Latina candidate who won her election. “I know what racism feels like, so this isn’t new,” Cobián told Chalkbeat at the time. “But I am deeply pained.”

Chalkbeat Colorado Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer contributed to this report.

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

Denver school board gives Superintendent Alex Marrero an $8,000 bonus with his second evaluation

2023-10-25T02:00:15+00:00

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero met just over 80% of his goals last school year, a record that earned him an $8,235 bonus, equal to 2.5% of his annual salary.

That’s according to Marrero’s second performance evaluation as superintendent of Denver Public Schools. The school board unanimously approved the evaluation Tuesday after several lengthy closed-door meetings but little public discussion.

The 2.5% bonus is far less than the 12.5%, or $41,175, bonus Marrero could have earned if he’d met all his goals. In a gently worded evaluation, school board members noted Marrero fell short on several goals based on student test scores, educator retention, and other areas, and asked him to improve his communication and do more to recruit Black educators.

In his previous evaluation last October, the board accepted Marrero’s self-evaluation and made fewer comments. Earlier this year, the school board approved a 10% raise and a new contract for Marrero based on that evaluation.

Marrero’s current salary is $329,400 a year. The $8,235 is a one-time bonus, not a raise.

Marrero has been superintendent of DPS since July 2021. In that time, the district has faced several challenges, including pandemic-related disruptions and learning loss, a rise in gun violence in and around schools, and infighting among school board members.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who called the first evaluation a “rubber stamp exercise,” said Tuesday that this year’s evaluation process was more robust. In addition to Marrero’s 11-page self-evaluation — which is full of links to YouTube videos and social media posts highlighting district achievements and good news about DPS — the board released a 12-page summary of the goals Marrero met, as well as the ones he only partially met.

This year’s process “provided you with areas of growth and opportunities for us as a district to continue to move the needle forward,” Anderson said to Marrero before Tuesday’s vote.

Under its governance structure, the board passes policies that set overarching goals for the district. The superintendent then interprets those goals in terms of more specific metrics or targets, and monitors progress toward reaching them.

For example, the board set a goal that DPS graduates will be “ready to meet the world academically and socially.” One way Marrero interpreted that goal is to increase the number of 12th graders on track to graduate, a target he met for the 2022-23 school year.

The board’s 12-page summary is mostly full of kudos. It notes that Marrero successfully negotiated contracts with six employee unions that resulted in higher wages, expanded financial literacy courses to more high schools, and made strides toward making DPS more green and sustainable — an effort recognized in a visit from U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

The criticism, which the document calls “growth areas,” is sparse and muted. The board noted that goals around community engagement and the recruitment of Black educators were not met.

“The Board believes addressing the issue of retaining Black educators is not only a moral imperative but also vital for the success and well-being of our students,” the summary says.

The board also softly chided Marrero for his communication, writing that “it is critical that public communications are not only reflective of the Board’s collective position but are also vetted to ensure consistency in the narrative we present to our stakeholders.” Marrero has sometimes criticized the board to the media, including after they rejected his school closure recommendations.

Board members also asked Marrero to include them in “celebratory events and school visits.”

“We will always appear united and collaborative if Board members are present alongside Dr. Marrero at such occasions,” the document says.

In contrast to the softer language of the evaluation, a series of monitoring reports, which are posted online, include more hard data on the targets Marrero met or missed.

Among the missed targets:

The district fell short of many of its academic goals, as measured by the percentage of students scoring at grade-level on state standardized tests.
The district fell short of its goals to reduce out-of-school suspensions for all students — and for Black and Latino students, and students with disabilities, specifically.
Just 3% of Black families completed an annual survey about their sense of belonging in the district and other topics, well short of a goal of 17%.
59% of schools administered a survey to most students meant to assess their social and emotional health. That fell short of the goal of having 85% of schools administer it.
The district fell short of its student attendance goals at every grade level.

Examples of met targets:

75% of Latino students reported on an annual survey that they felt like they belonged at their school, up from 69% in 2021-22 and above the target of 71%.
Every district-run school had a curriculum meant to improve students’ social and emotional health, exceeding the goal of 75% of schools.
DPS safety officers reduced their response time to the most serious incidents at schools from 7 minutes in 2021-22 to 5 minutes in 2022-23, which was the target.
Marrero began meeting with state legislators twice a year to talk about “the many challenges of school districts in Colorado.”
The district increased the number of graduates earning a “seal of biliteracy” certifying that they can read and write in at least two languages.

“During Dr. Marrero’s time as the Superintendent of DPS, he has prioritized academic achievement, cultivated collaborative relationships within our school district, and championed an inclusive and positive educational environment for our students, families, and educators,” the board said in a statement read by members before Tuesday’s vote.

Board members also thanked him individually.

“I’ve appreciated seeing you grow as a superintendent,” board member Scott Esserman said. “You have successfully implemented a vision based on a series of steps that you said you were going to take when you were hired, and you followed through.”

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

Watch: Denver school board candidates Scott Baldermann, Kimberlee Sia debate teacher rights and more

2023-10-18T20:43:31+00:00

Denver school board candidates Scott Baldermann and Kimberlee Sia shared the stage at a recent debate, where they disagreed about school autonomy and teacher rights, the leasing of an empty school building to the Archdiocese of Denver, and whether the school board is dysfunctional.

Baldermann is a current school board member and Denver Public Schools parent who is running for re-election to represent southeast Denver’s District 1. Sia is also a DPS parent and the former CEO of the KIPP Colorado charter school network.

The debate, which took place last week at Regis University, was co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado, CBS Colorado, Regis, and Educate Denver.

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. It will also shape the district’s approach to school safety, declining enrollment, and other challenges.

Below, read some of what Baldermann and Sia had to say at the debate and watch the full 30-minute video. The candidates’ responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Kimberlee, is there a vote that Scott took as a sitting board member that you disagreed with? And Scott, is there a position of Kimberlee’s that you disagree with?

Sia: There are actually two that I would comment on. The first is … the proposal of the policy that limited the flexibilities that our innovation schools had. [Editor’s note: Innovation schools are semi-autonomous district-run schools that can waive certain district rules and parts of the teachers union contract. The board voted to limit those waivers.]

Many of our innovation schools have sat with community and with teachers and with families and students and been really thoughtful about the [innovation] plans that they have created. Teachers have to vote on those plans and to put those waivers into place. In discussing how [the board’s vote] is to help protect teachers’ rights, I think that that actually diminishes the innovations that teachers themselves had voted on.

The second vote that I did not agree with that Scott made was to lease the Rosedale property of the school district to the Archdiocese [of Denver] during a time when the district had declining enrollment.

And you’ve now created a school that can recruit students from the district. And additionally, they are now suing the state because they’re not receiving funds from UPK. [Editor’s note: UPK is is the state’s universal preschool program. The Archdiocese is suing for the right to exclude LGBTQ families from its preschools].

Baldermann: Kimberlee and I have done many debates over the last few weeks, and I’ve been surprised that we agree on a lot of things when it comes to values and on equity.

Where you’ll see us go in different directions is when it comes to teacher rights, when it comes to governance models. The vote that she’s referring to is Executive Limitation 12.10. That is something that I drafted. It prevents our innovation schools from waiving statutory collective bargaining rights of our teachers. It was supported by a large majority of our teachers. I support innovation schools. I don’t support certain waivers, especially when it’s around teacher rights.

If I can use my rebuttal on Rosedale? When we were looking at all the available options for Rosedale, there was a discussion around, ‘Will Rosedale be pulling kids that would have otherwise gone to a DPS high school?’

And our facilities team and the portfolio office felt that that was not going to happen because the students that would have attended the Archdiocese already most likely would have either gone to Regis [Jesuit High School] or to Mullen [High School, both of which are private religious schools]. And so there was no risk of really losing any students because … they never would have attended a DPS school.

Sia: At that time, that might have been the information that you all had received. And I would also say that the number of families I have spoken to, particularly coming into this school year, who have now made those choices to go to a religious school or private school because they are so dissatisfied with what’s happening in DPS, actually makes me wonder if the numbers are much higher than were projected at that time.

Denver gained national attention for its “family of schools,” which includes traditional district-run schools, semi-autonomous innovation schools. and independent public charter schools. This current board has been less inclined to champion charters, and has limited innovation. What is your opinion on strengthening traditional schools versus reimagining them as innovation or charter schools?

Baldermann: I want to be very clear that I want our innovation schools and our charter schools to be successful. I mean, why wouldn’t we?

Where I get concerned is around the charter and innovation zone — very different from innovation schools — … model because it is shifting accountability to boards that are ultimately not elected by the people and ultimately not accountable to all of us.

In my first term, nine charter schools closed. One of them, I got a 24-hour notice, which is very surprising. Each one of those schools served high populations of vulnerable students. I think it is too risky for us to continue down the path where we have alternate governance models that function more as businesses that close [schools] as if they are a business. It’s just too risky.

Sia: I believe that we should strengthen all of our schools. I think we have such a unique opportunity in Denver for our families to attend different types of schools. My own children have attended traditional DPS schools, have attended charter schools, have attended a BOCES with Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning.

What we should do is provide supports to all of our schools that ensure that they are the best that they can be, that we are holding all of our schools to the same levels of accountability, and that we are working with the teachers, families, students at those schools to figure out, ‘How can we collaborate and learn from each other?’

I, as a parent, have kids at two different types of schools. I know those schools could learn from each other if they were … collaborating with each other.

The school board has been criticized as dysfunctional, and polls have shown low confidence in its ability to govern. What changes would you propose to how the board does business?

Sia: The first change that I would propose is that the board has a singular focus, and they understand that that focus is our kids. And that when we are coming together as a board, the decisions that are being made are being made in the best interest of students. And we’re not letting individual interests govern the decisions that we’re making.

The second item that I would really like to see for us as a board is to think about our role in rebuilding trust with our community. Folks are so frustrated with seeing the board in the newspaper, seeing the infighting that has been happening on the board. And I think if we want our teachers and our families and our students to believe that we are doing what is right and best for them, we as a board have to take the responsibility for that.

Baldermann: I would actually not describe the board as dysfunctional. What we are seeing — and I’m just as frustrated with this as everybody else — is interpersonal dynamics that are overshadowing a lot of the good work that the board has done.

We’ve implemented a whole new policy governance framework. And we’ve made great progress on making sure that our values are reflected in our … policies.

If I was truly a dysfunctional board member, I wouldn’t be the only board member that has currently elected public officials that have endorsed me. I’ve been [endorsed] by Councilman Paul Kashmann, Rep. Emily Sirota, Rep. Steven Woodrow, Rep. Meg Froelich — all elected officials that currently overlap with District 1. I think that says a lot. They would not put their name behind me if I was unprofessional and I’ve not been keeping my head down and focusing on what is important, and that is our policy work to improve student outcomes.

Watch the entire debate below or see it here.

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

Denver is creating a Black Student Success team to spread effective strategies to its schools

2023-10-17T23:02:48+00:00

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To boost the academic success of Black students, Denver Public Schools is creating a new team of administrators to find the strategies and teaching practices that are working best for Black students and spread them throughout the district.

Tuesday’s announcement of the new initiative, called the Black Student Success team, comes 4½ years after the Denver school board passed a Black Excellence Resolution. The resolution required each DPS school to develop a plan to boost Black student success, but some schools have struggled to put those plans into place.

“This is building upon the Black Excellence Resolution,” Joe Amundsen, the executive director of universal school support for DPS, said in an interview. “The Black Student Success team is going to take that planning and really highlight what’s working across those schools to elevate practices districtwide that are leading to results.”

The team will be led by Michael Atkins, who is currently principal of Stedman Elementary School in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood. Atkins was a DPS student during the era of busing to integrate Denver’s schools. He said he remembers how he was treated differently as a Black student, including the time a teacher muttered, “Here come the bus kids.”

“When I truly began to understand that I was treated differently than the neighborhood kids, I grew to hate school,” Atkins said in an interview.

“And my whole push, whether it’s leading Stedman Elementary or whether its leading this team of Black Student Success, is to ensure that the babies that look like me that enter into our school system, that I’m doing my part to change the system in a way that is going to illuminate their identities and dreams,” he said.

About 14% of Denver’s 89,000 students are Black, and data shows the district is not serving them as well as it’s serving white students. For example, 73% of white students in grades three through eight met or exceeded expectations on state literacy tests this past spring, compared with 27% of Black students, according to state data. That’s a 46-percentage-point gap.

The graduation rate for Black students in the DPS class of 2022 was 73%, compared with 86% for white students, a 13-point gap, state data shows.

“We know that our Black students can and do achieve at high levels, especially when they have the opportunities and support needed to excel,” DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero said in a press release. “After taking a deep dive into the most recent state test scores, we determined that we need to improve our systems of instruction and support in order to accelerate the trajectory of success for our Black students.”

Amundsen said DPS has been working with a team of researchers at the University of Denver, who have already completed the first phase of their research: identifying district-level practices to accelerate the academic trajectory for Black students, such as ensuring that students have access to rigorous courses and are being taught by experienced teachers.

For the next phase, DU researchers will go into DPS classrooms where Black students are making progress faster than their peers around the state, as measured by standardized test scores, to figure out what specific actions those teachers are taking, Amundsen said.

Meanwhile, Atkins said he and his team will be working with a small cohort of six to 10 DPS schools with a “focus on bringing academics alive for our Black students in those schools.”

Atkins will leave Stedman Elementary to assume his new role in January. The district said it is planning later this year to create a similar student success team for Latino and Hispanic students, who make up about 52% of DPS students.

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

Mayor Mike Johnston endorses Youngquist, De La Rosa, Sia for open Denver school board seats

2023-10-17T17:47:18+00:00

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Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who called the current school board “a public embarrassment” earlier this year, endorsed three candidates Tuesday for open board seats in the Nov. 7 election.

These are the first school board endorsements that Johnston, a former educator, has made as mayor. His picks signal that he wants to see change on the board.

For an at-large seat representing the entire city, Johnston endorsed John Youngquist, the former principal of Denver’s East High School and the parent of two East High students. The at-large seat is currently held by board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who is not running for re-election.

“When I first became a school principal, John was one of my role models for what a great school leader can do, and I know he is the right leader at the right time to put DPS back on track,” Johnston said of Youngquist in a statement.

For a seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5, Johnston endorsed Marlene De La Rosa, a longtime Denver Public Schools volunteer whose two children are DPS graduates.

“Marlene De La Rosa has dedicated her life to lifting up and giving voice to Denverites on the Northside and across the city through public service,” Johnston said.

For a seat representing southeast Denver’s District 1, Johnston endorsed Kimberlee Sia, a DPS parent and former CEO of the KIPP Colorado charter school network.

“I have known her for decades and admire how she has proven again and again that every child in every community can achieve academic excellence,” Johnston said of Sia.

Johnston did not endorse the two incumbents in the race: Charmaine Lindsay, who represents District 5, and Scott Baldermann, who represents District 1.

Lindsay and Baldermann have been endorsed by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. In the at-large race, the teachers union endorsed candidate Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, which recently filed for bankruptcy.

All seven members of the current school board were backed by the teachers union. With just three seats up for grabs, November’s election won’t shift the balance of power on the board. But the election could change the board’s political and interpersonal divisions and shape its policies on controversial topics including declining enrollment and school safety.

In addition to gaining the support of the mayor, Youngquist, De La Rosa, and Sia have been endorsed by Denver Families Action. The group is the political arm of Denver Families for Public Schools, an organization formed with the backing of several local charter school networks.

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

Watch: Charmaine Lindsay, Marlene De La Rosa, Adam Slutzker face off in Denver school board debate

2023-10-17T16:55:54+00:00

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Asked to name a decision by Denver school board member Charmaine Lindsay that they disagreed with, the two candidates challenging Lindsay for her seat pointed to different votes.

Marlene De La Rosa said she opposed Lindsay’s vote to close Fairview Elementary due to low enrollment. And Adam Slutzker said he disagreed with her vote to return police officers known as school resource officers, or SROs, to some Denver schools.

Lindsay defended her vote on SROs, arguing that the officers deter crime and build trusting relationships with students who may be experiencing violence themselves. She said her Fairview closure vote was based on data that showed the small school wouldn’t have enough students to fill a kindergarten classroom this fall.

Those were among the key exchanges at a recent debate between the three candidates at Regis University co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado, CBS Colorado, Regis, and Educate Denver.

Lindsay, a family law attorney with grandchildren in Denver Public Schools, was appointed by the board last year to fill the seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5 and is now running in the Nov. 7 election to keep it. Challenger De La Rosa is a longtime DPS volunteer and advocate. Slutzker is a former teacher and father of three DPS students.

Below, read some of what Lindsay, De La Rosa, and Slutzker had to say at the debate, and watch the full 30-minute video. The candidates’ responses have been edited for length and clarity.

For Marlene and Adam, is there any decision that Charmaine has made as a sitting board member that you disagree with? And for Charmaine, is there a position of Marlene’s or Adam’s that you’ve heard throughout the campaign that you disagree with?

Slutzker: I would say reinstituting SROs. I don’t personally believe that SROs make our schools a safer place. I am willing to be convinced otherwise via data, but I have not seen any data to the contrary. I think the unfortunate reality is if somebody wants to harm our children in our schools in America, they are going to be able to harm our children in our schools.

Lindsay: I disagree with that, obviously, about the SROs. There’s a lot of benefits to SROs, including being somebody that is a confident and trusted person in the school for children that are … experiencing violence themselves. There’s also evidence that there’s a deterrent.

Even then, it’s looking at each individual school. We have 200 schools, approximately, in DPS. We have [SROs] in 13 because those schools decided that they wanted them and all we did was say, ‘We’re not going to be the people that decide. We’re going to leave it up to you.’

De La Rosa: I disagree with the vote to close Fairview Elementary. The process was not really engaging with the community. I think that the district did not spend sufficient enough time working with that community and preparing them, looking at the data, the projected enrollment, working with the Denver Housing Authority. That affected one of our most disadvantaged populations in our city, and I think that they suffered very tremendously in that decision.

Lindsay: Can I use my rebuttal for that? I think that one of the things that went into that decision was the numbers — the numbers that actually were, not the numbers that are going to be. And I’m really optimistic that those numbers are going to increase and we’re going to be able to reopen Fairview. But at the time being, we did not have enough kids to open a kindergarten class in that school. We really need to re-envision that school when people are actually living in the neighborhood and not based on [the] future.

The school board has been criticized as dysfunctional, and polls have shown low confidence in its ability to govern. What changes would you propose to how the board does business?

Lindsay: The board’s reputation and the board’s image has suffered because of a lack of collegiality and a lack of professionalism. Since I’ve been on the board in the last 15 months, I have worked really hard to improve on that. I have not been part of the drama or the theatrics of the board. I’ve been working behind the scenes to do what’s in the best interests of the kids of DPS and the teachers of DPS. As a board, there are several of us that are coming from that position, and we’re getting highlighted a lot by other people that are out there creating a chaotic atmosphere that isn’t necessarily what we’re actually accomplishing on the board.

De La Rosa: First and foremost, we need to remember why we’re there and that’s student outcomes. But I do want to point out one thing: When you sit in a space where things you know are not going the way they should, and you don’t speak up and acknowledge that, you are also part of that dysfunction. And so I definitely want to focus on working with my fellow board members on how we can understand each other’s goals and priorities, and how we can work best towards that bottom line, which is the student outcomes.

Slutzker: I don’t think it’s so much with how the board does business. It’s just trying to assume best intent. Ideally, everybody that shows up in a board meeting, whether that’s board members or the public coming to speak, is there because they genuinely care about student outcomes and family outcomes, and want to do the right thing by our student population.

I consider myself a practical problem solver. I consider myself a great listener who’s always willing to listen and learn. And I think most of the board wants to see that happen as well. I think everybody on the board will tell you they would happily be out of the news cycle. What we do is vitally important, but it should not be full of sound bites.

Denver gained national attention for its “family of schools,” which includes traditional district-run schools, semi-autonomous innovation schools, and independent public charter schools. The current board has been less inclined to champion charters, and has limited innovation. What is your opinion on strengthening traditional schools versus reimagining them as innovation or charter schools?

De La Rosa: We need to focus on strengthening each and every one of our schools. I believe in that portfolio of schools — that we have different models for different parents, different students. They each have their own learning needs and focusing on that and how we can strengthen all of those. And having transparency and accountability too, so that parents can accurately make a choice in where they want to send their kids to school.

My own son went to three different high schools. We had to work through that as a family. And as for him, I had to evaluate what his needs were and choosing the right school environment for him, whether it was a charter or a traditional or an innovation [school].

Lindsay: One of the things we need to do is when a school has a really popular program, and that’s why a lot of people want to go across town or choice into that school, we need to take that program and try to put it in a local place so that people don’t have to travel across town.

With declining enrollment, it’s been very difficult for any charter schools to get off the ground because there just isn’t the numbers of students that are out there to really fill the schools.

The secret to fixing the problem on this is to have smaller class sizes, which also supports teachers, and to try to make the neighborhood schools more attractive.

Slutzker: Our school choice system is broken. It is absolutely used more by affluent families across the district who opt their kids into a school of choice.

I am a former educator. I spent time in a lot of these different learning environments: expeditionary learning schools, IB schools, arts integration schools. We absolutely should be offering a variety of learning environments, but we need to do it in a thoughtful way.

We’ve opened almost 80 new charters, I believe, in the last decade, while we’ve been facing declining enrollment. There’s a reason that we’re having to talk about school consolidations. [Fact check: Between 2001-02 and 2021-22, Denver opened 72 new charter schools.]

And we need to evaluate the current charter schools we have operating [to] make sure they’re living up to the expectations and the agreements that they’re putting forth as far as providing viable learning outcomes for their students,

De La Rosa: I want to use my rebuttal. According to the choice data in DPS, 45% of the students and families that use choice are from families of color.

Slutzker: I do not want to get rid of school choice. I want to be very clear about that. What I would like to do is reimagine our school of choice so that we give first round of open enrollment to students of lower income and students with documented social, emotional, or educational needs, so that they can have the first option to get to the school of choice before affluent families are making those decisions.

Watch the entire debate below or see it here.

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

Watch: Kwame Spearman, John Youngquist spar in lively debate for Denver school board at-large seat

2023-10-16T20:32:25+00:00

Kwame Spearman and John Youngquist, who both are running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board, said police officers should not have been removed from Denver schools in 2020. Both also supported the decision to bring the officers back this year.

But Spearman said he’d like to see the police officers — which are known as school resource officers, or SROs — out of schools again in the next four years.

That was one key difference from a lively candidate debate last week at Regis University co-sponsored by Chalkbeat Colorado, CBS Colorado, Regis, and Educate Denver.

Spearman, a Denver Public Schools graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, which recently filed for bankruptcy, and Youngquist, a DPS parent and former principal of East High School, are two of the three candidates in the race. The winner will replace board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and represent the entire city.

The third candidate in the race, Brittni Johnson, did not attend the debate due to illness.

Below, read some of what Spearman and Youngquist had to say at the debate, and watch the full 45-minute video. The candidates’ responses have been edited for length.

Do you agree with the board’s decision to reinstate police officers known as SROs in certain schools? Would you ever vote to remove them again, and under what circumstances?

Spearman: We should not have removed SROs in 2020 without any plan. It was a colossal mistake. I am supportive of having SROs in our schools right now.

But I’m the only candidate in the race that by the end of my first term, I actually want SROs out of our schools. And the way that we get there is we need to change our discipline matrix right now. We need to have alternative schools.

Right now we’re in a situation in which we have students who need education but maybe not in the schools that we categorize as our traditional schools. By the end of my first term, we’re going to have community officers in our schools to help us move forward.

Youngquist: I’ve been a principal in schools that have had SROs and those that have not had SROs. And I believe there are ways to make schools safe either way.

I agree fully with the decision that the board made to bring the SROs back. I was one of 17 principals three years ago that wrote a letter to the board of education asking them not to take SROs out of schools because they did not have a plan.

Right now, SROs will continue to be a part of that plan. Over time, we need to ensure we develop an understanding of how they best fit in our schools and where it is that we’re gaining value from them with a full complement of mental health and safety services.

As measured by standardized tests, DPS is serving white students better than it’s serving Black and Latinx students. What can the board do to better serve Black and Latinx students?

Youngquist: To better serve Black and Latinx students in the Denver Public Schools, we need to acknowledge that they don’t feel welcome in our schools and in our classrooms as much as we need for them to be. We need to acknowledge that we don’t prioritize the most experienced teachers to be in our classrooms with Black or Latino students.

We need to acknowledge that we are not yet good enough with our instructional practices to accelerate the learning of our Black and Latinx students.

And what we have to do is what the district did not do with their most recent annual report. When you look at that report, our district used aggregate data to take a look at how we’re doing across the district. And it looks like we’re doing fine … because we failed to disaggregate the data, which will allow us to begin to understand really how bad we are and some of the places and how much work we need to do to be great for our Latinx and our Black learners.

Spearman: If you’re a white student in Denver Public Schools, we are the second highest performing school district in the entire state. The gap between our white, Black, and Latino students is 43% [meaning 43 percentage points between the percent of white students and the percent of Black and Latino students scoring at grade level on standardized tests].

We’ve got to understand what’s working for our white students, because actually, we should applaud that. And what I think is working is it’s access to choice. It’s different educational environments. Parents, lo and behold, when they get to decide what is the right environment for their kid, their kid learns more, performance goes up.

We need to give our Black and Latino students the same access. The way that we do that is we’ve got to have great [schools] in every [neighborhood].

The school board has been criticized as dysfunctional, and polls have shown low confidence in its ability to govern. What changes would you propose to how the board does business?

Spearman: I think those polls are, by and large, talking about one member of the school board.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet with our school board members, and here’s what I can tell you: They care about our students, they care about our teachers, they’re trying to get us to the right place. But we do need new leadership, and I plan to be there.

The one thing that we’ve got to do is we’ve got to have a compelling vision. I think as far as safety, we’ve got to talk about what we aspire to get to. We are in a crisis of confidence right now. And of course, if people don’t feel comfortable or safe sending their kids to school, we’re going to lose board support. But once again, I believe that the night is darkest before the dawn, and that we are going to rally the community back together.

Youngquist: I am interested in seeing a board of education that is not invested so deeply into two things. One is individual interests that are ruling the day. And then a kind of groupthink that leads to inaction, that we cannot get our ideas together and develop ideas so that we’re able to secure an understanding of what our next actions are going to be.

So I would propose, most certainly, that we have significant change on this board. I don’t believe it’s just one person. I believe it is a context and a culture that’s been developed over time. And we need to make certain that we engage the leadership immediately that allows us to take the kind of turn and change over the course of the next several months where we have direction and we’re taking steps toward a focus on safety and student learning.

Watch the entire debate below or see it here.

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

Here’s what the SRO agreement between Denver Public Schools and the police department says

2023-10-13T19:23:02+00:00

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Nearly six months after police were stationed on some Denver high school campuses, the school district and the city police department signed an agreement that outlines what the officers should and should not do, according to a copy of the agreement.

For instance, the agreement says the officers should “differentiate between disciplinary issues and crime problems and respond appropriately,” and should not store guns inside schools.

The agreement — which is sometimes referred to as a memorandum of understanding, or MOU — was quietly signed last month. The lack of an agreement has been a sore spot for some parent groups and a political talking point for school board candidates.

The agreement is “a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to create a safe and supportive educational environment for all students and staff,” Denver Public Schools said in a statement.

“It is important to note that this arrangement underscores the importance of minimizing law enforcement involvement in routine school disciplinary matters and places a strong emphasis on considering alternative approaches before requesting (police) intervention.”

Police officers known as school resource officers, or SROs, temporarily returned to 13 DPS high schools in April after a March shooting inside East High School. The school board had removed SROs in 2020 over concerns about the overpolicing of Black students.

In June, a majority of board members voted to keep SROs in schools going forward. The Denver Police Department is footing the bill for 14 officers this school year. Before SROs were removed in 2020, the police department and school district split the cost.

Here’s a closer look inside the agreement. It says that:

DPS and the police department should work together to select the schools that will have an SRO. “To the extent possible, SROs should reflect the students at the school and come from the school’s community,” the agreement says.
DPS can “promptly remove” an SRO who does not follow district policies and can further request removal “for any reasonable cause DPS provides in writing” to the police department “after other attempts to correct the problem have been explored.”
Note: At least one SRO has already been removed this school year. But it was the Denver Police Department’s decision, not the decision of DPS, according to spokespeople for both agencies. The police department replaced an SRO at East High “due to a concern about involvement in a school discipline matter, which is outside the scope of work for our SROs,” department spokesperson Jay Casillas wrote in an email.
The police department will ensure that SROs are certified by the National Association of School Resource Officers, or NASRO. The topics covered in that training may include adolescent development, cultural competence, restorative justice, accommodations for students with disabilities, and the creation of safe spaces for LGBTQ students.
DPS educators will “make every effort possible to handle routine discipline … without involving the SRO in an enforcement capacity.”
DPS educators will notify SROs if a student needs accommodations because of a disability, and will notify parents as soon as possible if a student is ticketed or arrested.
DPS will monitor tickets and arrests and “take corrective action and notify the (school) Board if the district is aware of a disproportionate number of citations and arrests across marginalized identities at the district and school levels.”
DPS will cooperate with police investigations “without hindering or interfering with the Police Department’s or the assigned SRO’s official duties. This cooperation does not obligate the District to make students or staff available for interviews or interrogation.”
DPS will provide the police department with limited access to Infinite Campus, a software program that stores student information. The access “will be limited to accomplish purposes related to school safety.” Police officers will not be able to use Infinite Campus for law enforcement purposes, “including but not limited to investigation of crimes unrelated to campus safety.” DPS will audit the police department’s use.
The agreement is effective for one year, with an expiration date of July 31.

Read the full agreement below:

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

Tensions over collaboration mark effort to revive Denver city-school committee

2023-10-13T01:09:57+00:00

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Two Denver City Council members are trying to revive a committee of city and school district leaders to improve their collaboration — but Denver Public Schools officials and school board members say the effort has been anything but collaborative.

Tensions between the city and school district were apparent at a Thursday press conference, where City Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval spoke about a proposed ordinance to restart a City-School Coordinating Committee that would meet six times per year.

“This is nothing more than a reinstatement of a committee that should have never been allowed to lapse,” Sandoval said.

But DPS officials and school board members said in interviews that Sandoval rejected their input on the ordinance and didn’t tell them about the press conference. Board members also expressed concerns about Sandoval’s timeline, which has city council members scheduled to discuss the ordinance starting next week and take a final vote next month.

“I’m pretty disgusted about their overreach,” school board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said. “We are co-equals in this. It is not okay to be treating us in this disrespectful manner.”

The proposed ordinance comes as city leaders have criticized the school board for infighting, with Mayor Mike Johnston calling the board “a public embarrassment” during his mayoral campaign earlier this year. At the same time, there’s been some high-profile coordination between the city and DPS recently: In the wake of a March shooting inside East High School, the city agreed to pay for 14 police officers known as school resource officers — or SROs — to be stationed at some DPS high schools.

The proposed ordinance says the joint committee would have several duties, including to review facilities “that serve the recreational, educational, social, and cultural needs of the people of the city” to avoid duplicating services, to develop and fund joint programs, and to make policy recommendations on topics “including safety policies and procedures.”

Johnston, a former educator, spoke at the press conference in support of reviving the joint committee, acknowledging that both the city and DPS face challenges and “there is no way to deliver ongoing and sustained success without a deep collaboration.”

His remarks were tame compared to those of former mayors Federico Peña and Wellington Webb, who along with Sandoval are members of a group of civic leaders called Educate Denver that unveiled a new platform Thursday.

“Educate Denver is very disappointed with the Denver Public Schools leadership today,” said Peña, who served as mayor from 1983 to 1991. “We’re tired of all the debates and personal tirades on the school board. And very rarely do we hear about the students and their success.”

School board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson and board member Scott Esserman sat in the audience at the press conference as Peña encouraged Denver voters to cast ballots in next month’s school board election “if you’re not happy with where things are today in DPS.” At least two school board candidates were in the audience, as well.

After the press conference, Anderson, who is not running for re-election, criticized the harsh remarks aimed at DPS. “I kept hearing the word ‘collaboration,’ but we weren’t even invited to participate in this forum and we were slammed for the entirety,” he said.

Sandoval, who represents northwest Denver on the city council, said she used to meet regularly with former northwest Denver school board member Brad Laurvick, who resigned last year. But she said board member Charmaine Lindsay, who replaced Laurvick, has not returned her emails.

“I haven’t had that collaboration,” Sandoval said. “It’s the first time in my life I have not.”

Lindsay did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Denver school officials say trust ‘broken’ by process

Sandoval said she first spoke to DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero last year about reviving the City-School Coordinating Committee, but didn’t send a proposed ordinance until August.

Sandoval said DPS responded by sending her edits “that gutted the whole entire ordinance.”

Sandoval’s proposed ordinance envisioned a seven-member committee composed of the mayor, superintendent, the director of the city’s Office of Children’s Affairs, two city council members, and two school board members. But DPS officials noted that plan would give the city a majority of committee seats. The edits from DPS said that instead, the city should appoint two council members, the children’s affairs director, and the mayor to act as liaisons to the school district.

“It cut out the committee,” Sandoval said. “It cut out the collaboration.”

Deep Singh Badhesha, the government political liaison for DPS, said “what has put us off and broken our trust” is that instead of approaching the school district to co-create an ordinance, Sandoval “said, ‘Here’s my ordinance. You can agree with it or not.’”

Emails between Sandoval and DPS officials, provided to Chalkbeat by DPS, show Superintendent Alex Marrero pushed for “a more flexible and less formal approach to collaboration.”

Marrero suggested that instead of having school board members serve on the committee, he and his team could meet twice a year with city council members. His email noted that he already offered to meet bimonthly with Johnston and twice a month with the Office of Children’s Affairs.

Marrero explained that the school board “delegates all operational authority to the superintendent,” meaning that he’s responsible for the day-to-day operations of DPS.

In a separate email, Badhesha wrote that tapping two school board members to serve on the joint committee would violate the board’s policy governance model, which requires it to “speak with one voice, and does not allow Board members to join committees that may assign individual Board members to take action on behalf of the entire Board.”

City Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez is co-sponsoring the ordinance.

Sandoval said she’d like the committee to hold its first meeting in January or February. But even if the city council passes the ordinance and the City-School Coordinating Committee is reinstated, there’s nothing that requires DPS officials or board members to attend.

“I support this idea,” Gaytán said. “I’ve said this all along, from the beginning.”

But, she added, “it has to be more flexible.”

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

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