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Fourth graders streamed one at a time through the playground door at Denver’s Valdez Elementary, a snaking jumble of energy and untied shoelaces.

Most bounded up the stairs to their classrooms. Only a few stopped to give a quick side hug to the staff member who was squinting in the sun and holding the door. Two of the huggers were Jesus and Leiker, who arrived in Denver from Venezuela a few months ago.

The boys, ages 9 and 10, are among the more than 38,000 migrants who have come to Denver in the past year after fleeing political and economic crises in their home countries.

Some of the new arrivals are families with children like Jesus and Leiker. Denver Public Schools has enrolled more than 3,200 of these young people since the start of the school year.

A majority arrived after the October cutoff date that determines how much per-student funding DPS gets from the state, creating a financial shortfall for the state’s largest district and causing schools to scramble for resources.

But not all schools. The new students are concentrated in a couple dozen of DPS’ more than 200 schools, which the district has been calling hotspots. The main reason is because the schools offer specialized instruction in both English and Spanish.

Valdez, also known as Escuela Valdez, has a longstanding dual language program. It’s also right up the street from a city-run shelter inside a Quality Inn, which Principal Jessica Buckley said everyone simply calls “The Quality.” Valdez, which had about 400 students last year, has welcomed more than 100 new students in the past few months.

Valdez Elementary — or Escuela Valdez — is a dual language school in northwest Denver.

Every classroom in the northwest Denver elementary school is at capacity with 35 children — except the fourth grade, which before last week had 29 per class.

In the face of this new reality, Valdez has had to make adjustments. Some of the shifts have been beautiful. Others have been hard. “The bright spots are the growth of our kids and our community,” Buckley said. “The challenge is resources.”

Jesus and Leiker met at The Quality, where both of their families were staying, and became fast friends. They say they are like brothers: “Somos como hermanos.”

This is what one school day looked like recently for Jesus and Leiker, whose last names Chalkbeat is withholding to protect their identities as they navigate life in a new country.

Valdez is ‘an excellent place to land’

The boys were the first two to enter the classroom, walking shoulder-to-shoulder and chattering.

“OK! Sit in a place where you think you can focus well,” teacher Isabelle King said in Spanish.

Jesus and Leiker scurried to opposite corners of a classroom rug imprinted with a map of the United States. Jesus sat cross-legged above the state of Michigan, and Leiker scrambled to a spot near California. They said “buenos días” to the classmates next to them. Following the teacher’s prompt, they also named their favorite sport.

“Fútbol,” Jesus said with a smile.

The fourth grade class had been watching video clips about children with disabilities. That day’s clip featured a girl who was Deaf and used a sign language interpreter at school.

When the teacher paused the video to ask for one way the students were the same as the girl and one way they were different, Leiker raised his hand. In Spanish, he said that he was different because he could talk to his friends directly, without an interpreter.

Jesus, in the blue polo shirt, listens as teacher Isabelle King gives instructions during morning meeting in her fourth grade classroom.

That’s possible at Valdez because all of the students speak Spanish. As a dual language school, Valdez doesn’t admit native English speakers after kindergarten. In the younger grades, as much as 90% of the classroom instruction is in Spanish to immerse students in the language.

Whereas other schools in Denver and around the country have had to use technology, sometimes as rudimentary as Google Translate, to communicate with new students and families from Venezuela, no interpreters are needed at Valdez.

“We are an excellent place for these kids to land,” Buckley said. Because everyone speaks Spanish, she said, the new students are “able to interact and learn and be themselves.”

Students learn the language of play

In the gym, P.E. teacher Jessica Dominguez told the students to split into teams.

“Me and Leiker!” Jesus shouted in Spanish.

For the next 40 minutes, their team rotated between basketball, four square, and a rock climbing wall. The boys dominated at basketball, sprinting around the half court and shouting “rápido, rápido!” — fast, fast! — as their teammates were shooting.

The girls dominated at four square. Jesus struggled. After he lost for serving the ball when he wasn’t supposed to, a girl paused the game to explain the rules to him in Spanish.

“He didn’t know,” she told her classmates.

Leiker, in the top left square, and Jesus, standing behind him in line, play four square with their classmates during P.E.

Staff at Valdez agree that the new students have enriched the school linguistically. Whereas in the past students — and even adults — would often default to English when speaking with each other, now it’s most practical to speak in Spanish. That way, everyone understands.

The phenomenon was on display at recess, too. Soccer has long been the most popular activity at recess, Buckley said. But now, Spanish is what is spoken on the field.

“Leiker! Leiker! Atrás! Atrás!”” a teammate called out, urging him to pass the ball behind.

The second most popular game is a new one called gaga ball. In contrast to the Spanish spoken on the soccer field, all of the students playing gaga ball spoke in English.

At the shrill tweet-tweet of a whistle, Jesus, Leiker, and the other soccer players ran to the cafeteria for lunch. Leiker’s cheeks were flushed pink as he waited for his macaroni and cheese. Jesus brought his lunch from home, but he still stood in line with his friend.

Together, they found seats at a round table with two other fourth-grade boys.

“You guys played soccer today?” Assistant Principal Cesar Sanchez asked in Spanish.

“Sí!” they answered in unison.

“We lost,” Leiker added.

“Does it matter if you win or lose?” Sanchez asked. “What matters?”

“Have fun!” they said in unison.

Soccer is the most popular game at recess at Valdez Elementary. On this warm winter day, Jesus, kicking the ball, Leiker, and the other students used rock-paper-scissors to pick teams.

Teachers make academic adjustments

It’s always been the case at Valdez, like at all schools, that some students are ahead academically and some are behind, and teachers must adapt their lessons. But with the newly arrived students, teachers have had to differentiate to new extremes. Valdez has welcomed some fourth graders who don’t know how to write their names, Buckley said.

Jesus and Leiker can read and write in Spanish. They said they went to school in Venezuela before coming to the United States. Still, their teachers — especially literacy teacher Giovanni Leon, who the students call Don Gio — have had to make adjustments, working to strengthen the new arrivals’ reading and writing skills in their native language while also starting from scratch in English, teaching them the alphabet and the sounds the letters make.

On this day after P.E., Jesus and Leiker’s class started their literacy block on the carpet, where Leon explained the day’s assignment: to read an 1873 speech by women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony and answer questions about the text.

Leiker, far left, and Jesus, third from the left, work on writing complete sentences.

But the text and the questions were in English, part of Valdez’s 50/50 split between English and Spanish in the upper grades. For years, the language rotation was very black-and-white. With the new students, it’s become more gray.

As most students paired up to begin reading the Susan B. Anthony speech, Leon called Jesus, Leiker, and three others to a C-shaped table in the back of the room. They would be reading and answering questions about another text, a fairy tale, in Spanish.

First, however, Leon had them practice writing complete sentences with a subject and a predicate, a capital letter at the beginning, and a period at the end. He gave them a subject in Spanish — el perro, the dog — and asked them to finish the sentence.

Many newly arrived students at Valdez are practicing literacy skills in their native Spanish while also learning English.

“The dog is playing in the yard,” Leiker wrote in Spanish in his notebook.

“The dog is barking,” Jesus wrote.

A while later, when Leon pointed out that Leiker was missing a period, the boy swirled the tip of his pencil several times, making a period so big his teacher couldn’t miss it.

Jesus has a lightbulb moment

While many things are different at Valdez these days, some things are the same. One of those is that students, including the new arrivals, continue to have what teachers call lightbulb moments — the moment of joy and discovery when an academic concept clicks.

On this day, something clicked for Jesus in math.

Math is not Jesus’ favorite subject. Both boys said they like recess and lunch best, followed by snack. Leiker said he thinks music class, where they learn to play instruments, is the hardest. Shaking his head, Jesus said that for him, it’s math.

Leiker, left, and Jesus, right, giggle as they work side by side on math problems on their computers.

During part of the math block, the boys were sitting with King at her C-shaped table. To help explain 5 x 30 to Leiker, King took out a bucket of yellow cubes stuck together in groups of 10. Leiker portioned the cube stacks into five piles of three and counted them up.

Jesus sat next to him, working on addition. But the yellow cubes caught his eye.

When Leiker got the right answer — 150 — Jesus let out an, “Ohhhhhhhh!”

Jesus put his own work aside and helped Leiker with his next problem: 30 x 40. Using a bigger set of yellow cubes, the boys counted in Spanish. They spoke in unison, just like they had when they were talking about soccer at lunch. “100, 200, 300, 400…

“1,200!”

“That’s it,” King said.

The boys beamed.

Valdez will need more desks

Just past 3 p.m., Jesus, Leiker, and their fourth-grade classmates streamed out of Valdez through the same playground door they’d entered seven hours earlier, in the same jumbly line.

Buckley stood on the blacktop, surveying the scene.

Valdez has more students now than at any time in recent history. The school is so full that when newly arrived families show up in the office looking to register their children, as three had that day, the secretary often has to redirect them to nearby elementary schools.

Jesus, left, and Leiker, right, walk to their classroom at Valdez Elementary, which has welcomed more than 100 newly arrived students this year, many of them from Venezuela.

Valdez has hired more paraprofessionals and an intervention teacher to help the new students catch up. It has also bought more books and scrounged for hand-me-down furniture. The assistant principal, Sanchez, has at times driven around the city in his own truck, collecting spare desks from elementary schools that don’t have as many students.

A few hours before class was dismissed for the day, Buckley learned the school would need two more desks. The district was in touch to share that two newly arrived students — in fourth grade, the only grade at Valdez with any more room — would be enrolling the following week.

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

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.

Denver district officials launched a dyslexia screening. Just don’t say dyslexia.

2024-02-09T23:11:05+00:00

The school board of Colorado’s largest district called for all kindergarten through third grade students to be screened for dyslexia. Leaders in the Denver district said that’s happening this year. But some parents, teachers, and others are finding it hard to tell.

“I haven’t heard anything specific about a special assessment, screener, or anything regarding dyslexia,” said Lisa Williams, a second grade teacher who teaches in northwest Denver.

District leaders haven’t announced to families that dyslexia screening is taking place and aren’t tracking the number of students who show signs of having the learning disability. Instead, teachers are testing students for a variety of reading difficulties as they have in years past. It’s not what advocates who’ve long pushed for districtwide dyslexia screening envisioned and some feel like they’ve been kept in the dark about what is actually happening.

The school board mandate that Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero launch dyslexia screening is the latest development in a yearslong shift in the district’s approach to reading instruction and remediation. The changes have been driven, in part, by new state laws requiring curriculum and teacher training aligned to the science of reading, a large body of research on how children learn to read.

The mixed messages on dyslexia screening may stem from the fact that the 88,000-student district is using a version of the screening process it has used for years — one that was never focused on dyslexia specifically. In addition, many educators have long been told they don’t have the expertise or credentials to flag students for dyslexia.

While legislative efforts to mandate dyslexia screening statewide have failed repeatedly, several districts, including Boulder Valley, have rolled out their own dyslexia screening programs in recent years. Denver piloted a dyslexia screening at five elementary schools two years ago.

Jennifer Begley, the district’s director of humanities, said the current process screens for a variety of reading problems.

“The teachers you talked to would not refer to our guidance as a dyslexia screener,” she said by email. “Rather, it is our district guidance for screening, identification, and intervention in reading.”

About 15% to 20% of the population has dyslexia, a learning disability that makes it hard to identify speech sounds, decode words, and spell them. With the right instruction, students with dyslexia can do as well as their peers in school.

Denver administrators say this year’s screening process flags students who are reading below grade level, pinpoints their weak skills, and provides specially tailored reading instruction to help them improve. The process doesn’t focus on communicating explicitly to families about whether their children have signs of dyslexia.

But some parents wonder why, if the district claims to screen for dyslexia, it’s shying awaying from the term.

Denver parent Kirsten Hansen, whose two children have dyslexia, said families are notified about other kinds of screenings — for scoliosis or gifted programming, for example — and dyslexia should be no different.

“If you’re not going to tell people about it, why not?” she said. “Information is power.”

The school board will evaluate Marrero this year in part on whether all K-3 students have been screened for dyslexia. The universal screening is among dozens of performance goals that will determine how much of a bonus, potentially tens of thousands of dollars, he’ll receive next fall.

Denver superintendent Alex Marrero's goal for dyslexia screening for the 2023-24 school year.

How Denver tests students for reading problems

Colorado’s landmark reading law — the READ Act — has long required schools to test kindergarten through third grade students three times a year on reading. Denver district leaders say that’s the first step of their dyslexia screening process.

Most Denver schools use an assessment available in English and Spanish called IStation, though DIBELS is another common one. Students who score below grade level on those tests are given one or more diagnostic tests to drill down on the specific areas where they struggle — perhaps phonemic awareness, phonics, or spelling.

Next, students are put into small groups to receive instruction targeting their weaknesses. If, after about six weeks of specialized help — or multiple rounds of such instruction — they don’t make progress, they may be referred to the special education team at their school for an evaluation.

The special education team may not use the word dyslexia with parents initially, but after the evaluation may share that the child has indicators of dyslexia, Begley said during a phone interview.

This year, just over half of the 25,500 K-3 students who took the initial reading assessment scored below grade level and were given diagnostic tests. Of those students, 488 students were evaluated for special education and 106 were classified as having a “specific learning disability,” an umbrella term in special education that includes dyslexia.

But despite that multi-step process, district officials said they couldn’t tell Chalkbeat how many of the 106 students have dyslexia because the eligibility criteria for that umbrella category doesn’t call out that disability. Even if all those students have dyslexia, it would represent less than half a percent of the district’s K-3 population.

Many students with dyslexia, which can range from mild to severe, don’t have a special education plan. Some have what’s called a 504 plan, which includes accommodations such as extra time to complete assignments or access to audiobooks. Some have no plan at all.

“I worry that the DPS dyslexia screener is more of a ‘low literacy screener’ and will not give many kids the one thing they need most — the actual reason for their struggles, which is dyslexia,” said Tayo McGuirk, president of DenCoKID, an advocacy group.

Struggling to read can make students feel frustrated or doubt their own intelligence. McGuirk said that when kids know dyslexia is the reason for their struggles, it can improve their mental health and their overall trajectory.

The knowledge can help parents, too. After her oldest son was found to have dyslexia, she said she became more patient and had more empathy for the way he learned.

Some Colorado districts are more transparent than Denver about flagging students for signs of dyslexia.

The Boulder Valley district has screened all kindergarteners for dyslexia since 2023, using the Mississippi Dyslexia Screener for most students. Students whose primary language is Spanish are screened using a combination of subtests pulled from different assessments. Parents receive a letter detailing the child’s overall risk level for dyslexia, as well as information about the subtests.

‘To call it dyslexia is hard’

Denver teachers and administrators say the biggest change this year in how K-3 students are screened for reading problems is that there’s more clarity about each step of the process, and about what teachers should do to help students who are behind.

“Before we’d say, ‘Oh this kid is really struggling’ and we didn’t necessarily have the right next steps to take,” said Molly Veliz, a reading intervention teacher at Marie L. Greenwood Early-8.

She said the district created a “decision tree” that tells teachers exactly how to proceed in assessing and teaching struggling readers.”It’s a super clear system,” she said.

Shelley Flanagan, a reading intervention teacher at Goldrick Elementary School, said of the district’s dyslexia screening mandate: “I’m thrilled that it’s one of the things the superintendent will be called on to follow through on.”

Flanagan, who took a college-level class on dyslexia when she became interested in the science of reading, said teachers have historically been discouraged from using the term dyslexia even when the signs point to that disability. Doctors or psychologists were seen as the ones who could legitimately identify it.

“To call it dyslexia is hard for us as teachers,” she said. “I think it’s rare to find people who will call it that.”

But Flanagan thinks many parents would feel better “knowing these are a team of experts and they’ll let me know if they see some signs of dyslexia.”

Some teachers told Chalkbeat the dyslexia label can be shocking to parents, or that it’s not as important to name dyslexia as it is to ensure children get help on the skills where they’re weak.

Robert Frantum-Allen, the district’s former director of special education and the architect of Denver’s dyslexia screening pilot, said it’s outside a general education teacher’s job scope to tell parents a child could have dyslexia.

He said students can struggle to read words for all kinds of reasons: dyslexia, ADHD, vision problems, hearing impairment, or because they were not taught properly.

“A screening tells us there is a problem, but the problem isn’t always dyslexia. It just says we need to do a diagnostic assessment,” he said.

Experts says teachers need specific dyslexia training

In the spring of 2022, Denver piloted a dyslexia screening program at five elementary schools. It used several of the same components in use now, including the initial reading test and some of the diagnostic tests.

But it also used other tools, including a teacher survey called the Shaywitz Dyslexia Screener and a parent survey asking about the child’s reading ability and any family history of reading problems. Unlike the district-wide screening program today, pilot schools also sent parents explicit information about their child’s risk for dyslexia.

The Shaywitz Dyslexia Screener and the parent survey are not part of the district’s current dyslexia screening process. Frantum-Allen said the pilot found that the Shaywitz Dyslexia Screener was reliable when filled out by highly knowledgeable teachers, but not novice teachers. Asked why family surveys aren’t part of this year’s dyslexia screening process, district officials didn’t provide an answer Friday.

Frantum-Allen said one of the biggest takeaways from the pilot was the need for teacher training specifically on dyslexia. He said the state-mandated science of reading training that all K-3 teachers have to take doesn’t dive deeply into the topic. LETRS — another well-regarded reading training that some Denver teachers are taking now — also doesn’t delve deeply into dyslexia, he said.

As special education director, he oversaw some training on dyslexia, but “not to the level I think should be there.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@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.

Fewer students are enrolled in Colorado schools again this year

2024-01-17T17:00:00+00:00

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The number of students in Colorado schools continues to drop and is now lower than it was after the large decrease in enrollment at the start of the pandemic.

In October 2023, 881,464 students were enrolled in public schools, down 1,800, or 0.2%, from October 2022, according to official enrollment counts released by the Colorado Department of Education Wednesday.

Before the pandemic, enrollment numbers in Colorado had been increasing every year since the 1980s. But in fall of 2020, after months of mostly remote learning, enrollment sank by about 30,000 students from the previous year. In fall of 2021, enrollment went up slightly, but has been falling again since.

State Demographer Elizabeth Garner told the State Board of Education last week that the decline in enrollment is due partly to decreasing birth rates, but also to a slowdown in migration and mobility.

“We are forecasting that total school-age population to decline basically through 2028-2029, then start to increase, but not get back to levels that we saw in 2019 until about 2035,” Garner said.

She said the trend is statewide.

“Forty-three of the 64 counties had an absolute decline in the under-18 population over the last decade,” Garner said. “It doesn’t matter where you were — Eastern Plains, San Luis Valley, West Slope, Denver metro.”

In a statement, Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova noted concern about the drop in enrollment among the youngest students.

“We know that pre-kindergarten and kindergarten are where students build critical foundations for life-long academic success including language development, early literacy, and social skills,” she said.

Still, she said, “we are encouraged by the state’s commitment to early learning through the Colorado Universal Preschool Program.”

The universal preschool program provides free preschool to all Colorado 4-year-olds and some 3-year-olds. This year, about 50,000 students are enrolled in various types of public and private preschools across the state. Public school districts’ pre-K programs have 32,060 students, slightly fewer than a year earlier.

First grade and kindergarten saw some of the largest decreases in enrollment this year. First grade enrollment declined by 3.91%, or 2,478 students, compared with the first grader group of 2022. Kindergarten had 1,068 fewer students, a 1.79% drop. Eighth grade and ninth grade also had large enrollment declines.

Only five grade levels saw an increase in students compared with last year. The largest increase was among second graders, up by 5%, or more than 3,000 students.

Other segments that grew included those who are home-schooled, and those who are enrolled in online programs.

Enrollment in charter schools decreased by 1.8% to 135,223.

The number of students identified as experiencing homelessness statewide went up by 1,570 compared with last year.

Last school year only one district in Colorado, Adams 12, had more than 1,000 students identified as needing services related to homelessness. This year, there were four such districts — Aurora, Adams 12, Jeffco, and Poudre.

By percentage, the tiny district of Sheridan continues to have the highest proportion of its students experiencing homelessness in the metro area, but the number has dropped over the years. This school year, 149 Sheridan students, or 14.1%, are experiencing homelessness, down from 205, or 18.2%, last year.

Broken down by race, white students had the largest decreases in enrollment, while Hispanic or Latino students had the largest increases. Schools counted 312,687 Hispanic or Latino students in October 2023, up from 308,739 the year before.

By percentage, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students had the largest enrollment jump: 9.18% more than last year. These students make up a tiny proportion of all Colorado students.

Among the state’s largest districts, just a handful recorded more students than last year. They include Aurora Public Schools, which had a slight increase, and Denver Public Schools, which gained 371 students. Denver has attributed the increase to an influx of migrant students, many from Venezuela.

Among the metro-area districts, School District 27J in Brighton had the largest growth in enrollment. It gained more students than Denver, Aurora, or any of the large districts. Meanwhile, Sheridan, Westminster, and Adams 14 had the largest decreases in the metro area.

The state’s data reflect official student counts in October, and those are the counts typically used to determine funding levels.

But the state’s release acknowledged that several districts have seen a large number of students who are new to the country arriving throughout the school year.

“CDE is committed to working with districts and school teams to ensure they are supported in serving these multilingual learners,” the department’s statement notes.

Look up enrollment changes at your district in the table below:

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

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.

Maestros en Denver tratan de ayudar a estudiantes migrantes con la vivienda

2023-10-03T19:55:41+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 dos veces al mes.

Conforme aumenta la cantidad de migrantes que llegan a diario a Denver, las escuelas están empezando a ver una cantidad significativa de estudiantes nuevos. Y a los educadores les preocupa cómo ayudar a las familias migrantes que alcanzan el límite del apoyo oficial.

En la Escuela de Lenguaje Dual Bryant Webster en Denver, algunos maestros dicen tener salones con 38 estudiantes—una cantidad mucho mayor que el año pasado. Un maestro que evalúa a estudiantes cuya lengua materna no es el inglés ha tenido que evaluar a 60 estudiantes este año, un aumento en comparación con un puñado en años típicos. Y están tratando de ayudar a estudiantes que han vivido experiencias traumáticas, aprendiendo a guiarse en un nuevo país y en un nuevo sistema escolar.

“Trabajas todo el día y solo quieres asegurarte de hacer todo lo posible con los recursos que tienes así que estableces relaciones con los niños, y tienes la conexión con ellos”, dijo Alex Nelson, un maestro de cuarto grado en Byrant Webster. “Luego te enteras de su historia”.

Los estudiantes que llegaron alrededor del comienzo del año escolar y estaban empezando a adaptarse están enfrentando un nuevo obstáculo y una nueva experiencia traumática. Las familias reciben solo 30 días de estadía en un hotel o albergue que la ciudad paga—para las familias que lleguen a partir del 4 de octubre el plazo será de 37 días. Pero luego tienen que encontrar otro lugar para vivir. En una ciudad con alquileres desorbitados donde muchos residentes antiguos también enfrentan dificultades para encontrar vivienda, los recién llegados a veces terminan sin un lugar donde vivir.

La primera vez que una familia migrante con niños en Bryant Webster alcanzó el límite de su cupón de vivienda, los maestros y una pasante de la escuela invirtieron horas llamando a albergues y a cualquier otro lugar imaginable para tratar de encontrar un lugar donde la familia pudiera quedarse. Se encontraron con listas de espera y muchas opciones que no llevaron a nada.

“No sabíamos lo que pasaba después de que el cupón [para la vivienda] se acababa hasta que una de las nuevas familias dijo: ‘Nuestra estadía se acabó y no sabemos a dónde ir esta noche’”, Nelson dijo. “Nunca habíamos estado preparados así que no sabíamos cómo manejarlo”.

La familia terminó yéndose a pasar la noche en un automóvil, aunque Nelson dijo que los representantes del distrito lograron conectar con ellos más tarde esa noche. Sin embargo, Nelson dijo que fue muy difícil para toda la escuela terminar el día así.

Como en la escuelas de la ciudad de Nueva York y otros distritos escolares alrededor del país, los representantes de las escuelas de Denver son de los primeros en recibir solicitudes de ayuda de las familias migrantes. En Denver, algunos maestros apenas empiezan a conectar sus esfuerzos con agencias sin fines de lucro, a través del sindicato de maestros, y con otras organizaciones, pero la coordinación sigue siendo esporádica.

Y hasta cuando trabajan juntos, hay obstáculos intimidantes. Después de la duración limitada de los cupones de vivienda que la ciudad les ofrece a los migrantes, los varios servicios sociales disponibles tienen diferentes reglas que pueden crear confusión sobre lo que pone en peligro o no el estatus legal de los migrantes. Y la posible coincidencia entre la ayuda para migrantes y el apoyo para las personas sin hogar en la ciudad es algo que los funcionarios de Denver están tratando de evitar.

Después de ayudar a la primera familia de Bryant Webster, los maestros se enteraron de que había más familias en la misma situación. Algunas organizaciones están ayudando, pero cada vez que una nueva familia se presenta, a los maestros les preocupa si podrán encontrar ayuda. Por lo menos tres más enfrentan la pérdida de su vivienda este fin de semana.

“Realmente puedes sentir el estrés de los niños. Altera todo”, dijo Cecilia Quintanilla, una maestra de educación temprana en la escuela.

Migrantes recién llegados esperan para que los procesen en el centro de admisiones para migrantes en Denver el 28 de septiembre de 2023.

Las escuelas se unen al esfuerzo de Denver de ayudar a los migrantes para que encuentren la estabilidad

En este momento, es difícil saber qué tan generalizado es el aumento de migrantes en las escuelas.

Los representantes del distrito escolar en Denver no respondieron a solicitudes de sus comentarios. Los maestros en Bryant Webster creen que han llegado alrededor de 60 estudiantes migrantes nuevos después del primer día de clases y siguen llegando. Otros distritos escolares en el estado están reportando grandes aumentos de recién llegados, el término que las escuelas usan para hablar sobre estudiantes que están llegando a Estados Unidos provenientes de otros países en los últimos meses.

El Departamento de Educación de Colorado no da seguimiento a esas cifras, y sus representantes dijeron que las escuelas no les han pedido apoyo para lidiar con esos aumentos.

Los representantes de la ciudad de Denver dijeron que hasta la semana pasada la ciudad estaba dando albergue a 456 niños menores de 16 años. La ciudad ha observado hasta 250 migrantes nuevos que llegan por día, pero las cantidades de niños esta semana no están disponibles.

En otra escuela de Denver, Escuela Valdez, la maestra Jessica Dominguez calcula que han recibido alrededor de 20 estudiantes recién llegados este año. Esta semana, se enteraron de una familia que había estado durmiendo afuera después de perder su albergue. Los educadores se quedaron despiertos hasta tarde tratando de encontrarles un lugar donde quedarse y lo lograron. Pero eso no siempre es así.

“Los niños son parte de esto ahora”, dijo. “Eso pone una cara diferente a lo que quizás pensemos es la falta de hogar”.

Dominguez no es la única persona que se siente así. El alcalde de Denver Mike Johnston, un exmaestro, dijo en una conferencia de prensa el jueves que ha visto a niños durmiendo bajo mantas con familias afuera del edificio Wellington Webb de la ciudad mientras esperan a que lleguen los empleados para pedirles ayuda.

“Ningún niño debería estar en ese contexto”, Johnston dijo.

Más temprano ese mismo día, en una centro de admisiones para migrantes en el nordeste de Denver, una cantidad constante de hombres, mujeres y niños llegaron para que los procesaran. El horario oficial es de 8 de la mañana a 5 de la tarde, pero el personal con frecuencia empieza antes y se queda hasta que todos tienen un lugar donde ir.

Algunos de los recién llegados tienen familia en el área de Denver y piden venir aquí o hasta se abren camino por sí solos. Otros se suben en autobuses que vienen de El Paso sin importar su destino y luego necesitan hacer un plan.

Ya hicieron un viaje riesgoso y superaron muchos obstáculos para escapar de situaciones peligrosas en sus países de origen.

Jon Ewing, un vocero con el departamento de Servicios Humanos de Denver, dijo que los recién llegados son inteligentes, habilidosos y bien organizados.

Los empleados de la ciudad obtienen datos básicos sobre los recién llegados, proporcionan información de contacto para servicios sociales relevantes, y los orientan a un albergue. Las personas solas podrían recibir 21 días de albergue gratis, y las familias podían recibir 30 días. Ahora las familias recibirán 37 días de albergue gratis, pero con más personas llegando cada día, las personas solas solo recibirán 14 días. La ciudad no está monitoreando lo que sucede después de eso.

“Treinta días no es mucho tiempo para organizar tu vida, y lo entendemos”, Ewing dijo en una entrevista antes del cambio. “Pero tenemos que mover a la gente. Hay un límite en lo que podemos hacer”.

Ewing dijo que el personal de la ciudad está trabajando para coordinar lo mejor posible las agencias sin fines de lucro, los servicios de la ciudad y el distrito escolar—hay chats de grupos grandes sonando todo el día.

Ewing dijo que la ciudad trata de asegurar que las personas entiendan lo costoso que Denver es para poder tomar decisiones informadas. Pero quizás tengan buenas razones para quedarse aquí.

Ewing dijo que los grupos de migrantes y de personas sin hogar son muy diferentes y enfrentan diferentes desafíos. A los recién llegados nunca los mandan a refugios para personas sin hogar, y muchos de los servicios se proporcionan por diferentes medio para responder a las diversas necesidades de cada grupo.

También hay diferentes fuentes financieras con diferentes reglas, en lo relacionado con proporcionar servicios a ciudadanos y residentes de EE. UU. sin hogar, en comparación con migrantes solicitando asilo u otro estatus migratorio protegido.

Y luego existen las inquietudes legales. Cathy Alderman, directora de comunicaciones y presidenta de políticas públicas en la Coalición para Personas sin Hogar en Colorado, dijo que a organizaciones como la suya también les preocupa que, sin querer, se proporcionen recursos que puedan afectar la habilidad de las personas de obtener un estatus legal. Esta es una preocupación común que escuchan entre los migrantes, y una sobre la cual Alderman y su equipo no tienen suficiente experiencia para manejar.

Sin embargo, Alderman dijo que algunas de las familias migrantes quizás puedan obtener ayuda con la vivienda a través de la coalición, pero cumplir los requisitos toma tiempo.

“El problema es que en este momento tenemos a [muchas personas] en el sistema esperando obtener vivienda”, Alderman dijo. “Ese sistema conecta [a personas] con vivienda basado en vulnerabilidades. Es un proceso. Indudablemente no se mueve rápido”.

Dijo que otro problema para las familias es encontrar vivienda asequible con varias habitaciones. Los cupones para la vivienda a largo plazo, como los de la Sección 8, con frecuencia no cubren una gran parte de los alquileres que la gente quizás encuentre en Denver.

“En Denver específicamente tenemos un cantidad muy, muy, muy mínima de vivienda realmente asequible”, dijo. “Tenemos muchas unidades a precio de mercado y de lujo que están vacías”.

Con todos los desafíos que los estudiantes migrantes y sus familias están enfrentando, los maestros dicen que agradecen que tantas personas estén trabajando para proporcionar ayuda. Pero también desearían estar mejor preparados para ayudar a los estudiantes y las familias que acuden a ellos con preocupaciones tan grandes.

“No tenemos lo que necesitamos para darles la bienvenida a estas familias a la mejor vida que estaban buscando”, Nelson dijo. “Realmente es difícil ver las consecuencias de eso”.

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Erica Meltzer, la corresponsal jefa, cubre temas de leyes y políticas educativas y supervisa la cobertura sobre educación de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Erica por correo electrónico a emeltzer@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.

Criterios para cierre de escuelas presentados a la junta escolar de Denver

2022-06-07T15:00:00+00:00

Aunque el cierre debería ser la última opción, el distrito escolar de Denver debe considerar cerrar o consolidar las escuelas con menos cantidad de estudiantes, según las recomendaciones del comité presentadas el jueves ante la junta escolar.

Las escuelas primarias e intermedias con “matrícula críticamente baja” (menos de 215 estudiantes matriculados para el próximo año) y las escuelas con menos de 275 estudiantes que esperan perder entre un 8% y 10% del estudiantado en los próximos años deben ser consideradas para consolidación, dicen las recomendaciones. Estos números no se aplican a las escuelas secundarias.

No todas las escuelas identificadas para consideración terminarán realmente cerradas. El distrito debe trabajar de cerca con la comunidad y aplicar una serie de “protectores de equidad”, considerando qué tan lejos tendrían que viajar los estudiantes a la escuela y cuáles escuelas tienen programas especializados, sobre todo para estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés y para estudiantes discapacitados, dicen las recomendaciones.

Los miembros del comité dijeron que no se fijaron intencionalmente en qué escuelas estarían afectadas en el límite de matrícula, y por eso no podían decirles a los miembros de la junta exactamente cuántas escuelas serían.

“No se están considerando escuelas específicas”, dijo el Superintendente Alex Marrero. “No hay una lista.”

Las primeras escuelas se identificarían el próximo año escolar, basándose en los datos de ese año, y excepto en circunstancias sumamente extremas, ninguna escuela va a cerrar antes de que termine el año escolar 2023-24.

Los datos de matrícula del estado muestran que este año en Denver hay 27 escuelas primarias e intermedias con menos de 275 estudiantes. De esas, 19 atienden a poblaciones estudiantiles que son más de un 90% estudiantes de minorías raciales o más de un 90% estudiantes de hogares con pocos ingresos, o ambos. Solamente tres de las escuelas tienen un estudiantado mayormente de raza blanca.

La junta escolar no necesita aprobar la política, dijo un portavoz del distrito, pero sí tendrá que aprobar cualquier cierre escolar futuro. En la reunión del jueves, los miembros hicieron preguntas insistentemente, sugiriendo que no están del todo de acuerdo en seguir las recomendaciones del comité.

El vicepresidente Tay Anderson dijo que él no quiere cerrar escuelas en las que los estudiantes de minorías raciales estén progresando académicamente. El comité no recomendó fijarse en el aspecto académico ni en si las escuelas han podido mantener sus programas académicos a pesar de los límites de presupuesto.

Carrie Olson, miembro de la junta y ex educadora bilingüe, dijo que le preocupa cerrar escuelas que ofrecen el tipo de programas bilingües requerido bajo un decreto federal que rige a los distritos. Aunque exista un programa similar a un par de millas de distancia, dijo ella, algunas familias podrían sacar a sus hijos de los programas bilingües en vez de agregar otro viaje en auto o caminata a sus ya complicadas vidas.

Michelle Quattlebaum, miembro de la junta, preguntó si la matrícula del distrito se está estabilizando y señaló que Denver abrió muchas escuelas nuevas durante un periodo en el que — según resulta — la matrícula de las escuelas primarias ya había alcanzado la cifra máxima.

Marrero dijo que iba a buscar retroalimentación de la comunidad en cuanto a los criterios y a programar más discusiones de la junta antes de finalizar cualquier plan.

Denver no es la única ciudad que está teniendo dificultad para responder a bajas en la matrícula, y las decisiones pueden a menudo ser desgarradoras. El Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Aurora pasó por un proceso de cinco años de planificación basado en complicados criterios regionales para identificar qué escuelas se cerrarían, pero aún así los miembros de la junta dudaron cuando los padres lucharon por salvar sus escuelas. Primero votaron por mantener dos escuelas primarias abiertas pero cambiaron de parecer dos meses más tarde.

El Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Jeffco cerró dos escuelas en dos años sin mucho aviso antes de empezar un proceso de planificación esta primavera.

Como las escuelas de Denver son financiadas según la cantidad de estudiantes matriculados, las escuelas pequeñas batallan para poder ofrecer experiencias educativas completas. Es posible que los estudiantes no puedan tomar cursos electivos o que hasta no reciban servicios vitales, y los maestros casi no dan abasto cubriendo múltiples grados. Pero muchas familias aprecian sentirse parte de una comunidad en la que todos los adultos conocen a sus hijos.

Denver usó $6.7 millones en fondos de alivio federales este año para respaldar los presupuestos de las escuelas pequeñas y espera gastar otros $9.8 millones el próximo año.

Denver primero identificó 19 escuelas para posible cierre el año pasado basándose en las reducciones de matrícula proyectadas. Como Marrero recién empezaba su rol y la comunidad estaba revuelta, el distrito hizo pausa en ese proceso y comenzó el otro proceso, difícil al principio, que resultó en estas nuevas recomendaciones. Cinco escuelas en la lista del año pasado ahora tienen una matrícula que supera el límite creado por el comité nuevo, y por lo tanto ya no se considerarían.

Un grupo de escuelas chárter de Denver tampoco cumplen el límite de matrícula. Las leyes estatales no permiten que el distrito unilateralmente cierre escuelas chárter con poca matrícula. El comité recomendó usar la viabilidad financiera para identificar las escuelas que deben considerarse para cierre, y luego incorporar esos criterios en el proceso de contrato y renovación. Algunas escuelas chárter han cerrado voluntariamente debido a poca matrícula.

Las recomendaciones usan la palabra “consolidación” en todo el documento en vez de decir “cierre”, que es mucho más fuerte. “No recomendamos cerrar, sino que siempre se considere consolidar las escuelas” escribió el comité.

Chalkbeat le preguntó al Distrito de Escuelas Públicas de Denver cuál es la diferencia entre consolidación y cierre. La diferencia, dijo el portavoz Scott Pribble, es mantener la mayor continuidad posible en programas, normas y valores.

“Si una escuela es identificada en este proceso, pero tiene un excelente programa de arte o una celebración anual valiosa, es posible que se puedan preservar esos aspectos de la escuela durante el proceso de consolidación”, escribió en un email.

Las normas de implantación dicen que todos los estudiantes de una escuela cerrada deben poder asistir a la misma escuela nueva a menos que opten por ir a otra. A todo el personal de la escuela cerrada se le debe garantizar puestos en esa misma escuela nueva. Los programas especializados, como los de dos idiomas, Montessori, o un enfoque en ciencia y tecnología, deben pasar de la escuela cerrada a su escuela de reemplazo designada.

Las recomendaciones también exhortan a las primarias e intermedias a considerar unirse para formar escuelas de Kinder a 8vo grado, o que las intermedias pequeñas se unan a una secundaria para crear una escuela de 6to a 12mo grado.

Este año, el distrito tuvo 90,200 estudiantes desde preescolar hasta el 12mo grado, en comparación con 93,800 en 2019. Sin embargo, la matrícula en las escuelas primarias del distrito tuvo su nivel máximo en 2014, y la de las escuelas intermedias en el 2018.

En Denver, más de un 85% de los niños de edad escolar asisten a las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. Más o menos un 6.6% asiste a escuelas privadas y otro 8% van a escuelas de otro distrito cercano.

Aunque algunas familias buscaron otras opciones debido a la frustración con el aprendizaje remoto durante la pandemia, los funcionarios de Denver dicen que la razón principal de la reducción en la cantidad de familias ha sido una baja en las tasas de nacimiento y el aumento en precios de vivienda. La población de menores de 18 años se redujo drásticamente en la última década en las comunidades gentrificadas del suroeste de Denver, el norte, y Elyria-Swansea, pero aumentó en el sureste de Denver.

Erica Meltzer, Jefa de Redacción, cubre temas de educación y política y además supervisa la cobertura sobre educación de Chalkbeat Colorado. Para comunicarte con Erica, escríbele a emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Las escuelas más pequeñas de Denver

Estas escuelas primarias e intermedias de Denver no cumplen el límite de matrícula recomendado y podrían considerarse para cierre. No todas las escuelas consideradas se cerrarían, y los criterios todavía no se han finalizado.

Escuelas con menos de 215 estudiantes este año:

Denver Discovery School

International Academy of Denver at Harrington

Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy

Fairview Elementary School

Schmitt Elementary School

Columbian Elementary School

Kaiser Elementary School

Hallett Academy

Whittier ECE-8 School

McKinley-Thatcher Elementary School

Palmer Elementary School

Colfax Elementary School

Escuelas que tienen entre 216 y 274 estudiantes este año:

Columbine Elementary School

Beach Court Elementary School

Cheltenham Elementary School

Eagleton Elementary School

Center for Talent Development at Greenlee

Valverde Elementary School

Ashley Elementary School

Oakland Elementary School

Cowell Elementary School

Lincoln Elementary School

Cole Arts & Science Academy

Godsman Elementary School

McAuliffe Manual Middle School

College View Elementary School

Newlon Elementary School

Fuente: Departamento de Educación de Colorado

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.

Almuerzo escolar gratuito: Entérate de qué distritos escolares de Colorado tienen planes para ofrecerlo

2023-03-02T22:03:34+00:00

La mayoría de los distritos escolares de Colorado, entre ellos los 10 más grandes del estado, planifican ofrecerles comidas gratuitas a todos los estudiantes el próximo año a través de un nuevo programa estatal aprobado por los votantes el pasado noviembre.

Tres distritos grandes que estaban indecisos a principios de diciembre — Denver, Douglas County y Academy 20 — le informaron a Chalkbeat que participarán en el programa, llamado Healthy School Meals For All.

El programa nuevo, financiado con un impuesto para las personas con ingresos altos, hará que Colorado sea uno de los pocos estados que les ofrecerán comidas escolares gratuitas a todos los estudiantes, una medida que, según sus defensores, alimentará a más niños hambrientos y eliminará el estigma actual asociado con recibir comidas escolares gratuitas. California y Maine pusieron en marcha programas universales de comida permanentes este año escolar, y algunos otros estados, como Nevada, Vermont y Massachusetts, están ofreciendo este tipo de programa al menos hasta el final del año escolar actual.

La creciente demanda de comidas gratuitas en las escuelas empezó después de dos años escolares en los que el gobierno federal eliminó temporalmente los requisitos de ingresos para recibir comidas a precio reducido, lo cual permitió que las escuelas de todo el país ofrecieran desayunos y almuerzos gratuitos a todos los estudiantes durante gran parte de la pandemia. Los requisitos volvieron a entrar en vigor el pasado verano.

Aunque el programa de comidas universales de Colorado es voluntario para los distritos escolares, la mayoría ha informado que optará por participar. Una encuesta realizada por Chalkbeat en dos docenas de distritos, en su mayoría grandes y medianos, reveló que 21 tienen planes de participar, y uno de ellos (Colorado Springs 11) tiene planes de ofrecer comidas escolares gratuitas el próximo año a través de un mecanismo de financiamiento diferente. Dos distritos, Mesa County Valley 51, basado en Grand Junction, y el Distrito 49, en Peyton, todavía no han decidido.

Otra encuesta reciente de los 178 distritos escolares del estado hecha por la Colorado School Nutrition Association reveló que unos 130 de los 140 distritos que contestaron la encuesta tienen planes de ofrecer comidas gratuitas el año que viene.

“De todos ellos, unos 10 han dicho que no están seguros”, dijo Erika Edwards, presidente de política pública y legislativa de la asociación. “Creo que nos estamos acercando bastante a que la gran mayoría diga que sí”.

En noviembre, los electores de Colorado aprobaron fácilmente la Propuesta FF, una nueva medida tributaria que recaudará más de $100 millones al año para pagar por comidas escolares gratuitas reduciendo las deducciones de impuestos disponibles para los hogares que ganan $300,000 dólares o más.

Para participar en el programa universal de comidas gratuitas, los distritos escolares de Colorado tendrán que maximizar la cantidad de dólares federales para comidas que reciben solicitando un programa llamado Community Eligibility Provision. Este programa nacional ayuda a cubrir el costo de las comidas gratuitas universales en las escuelas que tienen una gran proporción de estudiantes cuyas familias reciben ciertos beneficios del gobierno, como por ejemplo asistencia alimentaria o Asistencia Temporal a Familias Necesitadas (TANF). Las familias de esas escuelas no tienen que llenar solicitudes para obtener comidas gratuitas o a precio reducido.

Pero incluso las escuelas de Colorado que no califiquen para el programa Community Eligibility Provision podrán ofrecerles comidas gratuitas a todos los estudiantes aprovechando los fondos de la Propuesta FF. Las familias en esas escuelas seguirán teniendo que llenar solicitudes para recibir comidas con subsidio.

Edwards dijo que los distritos escolares que no han decidido si van a ofrecer comidas gratis el próximo año tienden a estar en una de dos categorías. Los distritos rurales más pequeños tienen preguntas sobre la logística del programa Community Eligibility, mientras que los distritos metropolitanos más grandes tienen preguntas sobre cómo Colorado planifica darles fondos adicionales a las escuelas con grandes poblaciones de estudiantes de hogares de pocos ingresos, dijo.

Conocido como financiamiento de riesgo (at-risk funding), el dinero se ha distribuido según el número de estudiantes que llenan formularios para recibir comidas con subsidio federal. Colorado está avanzando hacia otras medidas, pero hasta que se complete el cambio, a los distritos les preocupa perder dinero si menos familias llenan los formularios cuando el almuerzo sea gratuito para todos los estudiantes.

Edwards dijo que la asociación de nutrición apoya el programa nuevo y planifica ofrecer capacitación y otras opciones para ayudar a los distritos que quieran participar.

“Creo que es la culminación de todo lo que un profesional de alimentación escolar desea que ocurra”, dijo.

Ann Schimke es reportera senior de Chalkbeat y cubre temas relacionados con la niñez y la alfabetización tempranas. Para comunicarte con Ann, envíale un mensaje a aschimke@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.

El próximo año habrá comidas gratis en la mayoría de los distritos escolares de Colorado. ¿El tuyo será uno de ellos?

2022-12-19T18:09:11+00:00

Muchos distritos escolares de Colorado, entre ellos Jeffco, Cherry Creek, Aurora y Adams 14, tienen planes de ofrecer comidas gratis a todos los estudiantes a partir del otoño de 2023 con un programa estatal nuevo. Este programa será financiado con un impuesto aprobado por los electores y que afectará solamente a las personas con un alto nivel de ingresos.

Chalkbeat hizo una encuesta entre dos docenas de distritos, y 16 de ellos planean tener un plan universal de comidas gratis para todos los estudiantes el próximo año. Algunos distritos todavía no han decidido, y estos incluyen dos de los más grandes de Colorado — Denver y Douglas County.

Brehan Riley, director de nutrición escolar del Departamento de Educación de Colorado, dijo lo siguiente acerca de los funcionarios de los distritos escolares: “Parece que a muchos les interesa, pero todavía no están seguros. Quieren entender el programa un poco más.”

El programa, llamado Healthy School Meals for All, tiene como propósito asegurar que los estudiantes obtengan la nutrición necesaria para aprender y eliminar el estigma que a veces se asocia con el método actual que se usa para determinar quién recibirá comidas gratuitas (según los ingresos).

La iniciativa fue aprobada justo después de dos años en los que el gobierno federal eliminó los requisitos de elegibilidad basada en ingresos, y ahora permite que las escuelas les ofrezcan desayunos y almuerzos gratuitos a todos los estudiantes. Los requisitos volverían a aplicarse este otoño, pero los legisladores y defensores encontraron una manera de volver a tener comidas gratuitas el próximo año pidiéndoles a los electores de Colorado que aprobaran una asignación de fondos nueva con la Propuesta FF.

Los electores dijeron que sí.

La medida generará más de $100 millones al año reduciendo las deducciones de impuestos disponibles para las familias con ingresos de $300,000 o más.

A muchos funcionarios de distrito les entusiasma la idea de alimentar más estudiantes, tal como lo hicieron durante los dos primeros años de la pandemia. Cuando las comidas eran gratis gracias a la eliminación de los requisitos de elegibilidad, los administradores de Boulder Valley vieron un 40% de aumento en la cantidad de estudiantes que comían en la cafetería escolar, el Distrito 27J vio un aumento de 20-30%, y Aurora tuvo un aumento de 7-10%.

Beth Wallace, directora ejecutiva de servicios de comidas y nutrición, dijo que durante la pandemia 30% más estudiantes estaban comiendo en la escuela.

“Estamos atendiendo a esas familias que simplemente necesitan esa ayudita adicional”, dijo ella. “Quizás no califican para comidas gratis o a precio reducido, pero son familias trabajadoras que están teniendo dificultad para afrontar todos sus gastos.”

Algunos padres le han dicho que solamente permiten que sus hijos coman en la escuela dos veces a la semana, cuando el menú incluye sus platos favoritos, porque ellos simplemente no pueden pagar el costo de comer todos los días.

“Estoy sumamente contenta de poder ayudar a esas familias”, nos dijo.

Wallace también dijo que, aunque en el sistema actual no hay manera de que los estudiantes sepan quién está comiendo gratis, es fácil notarlo. Cuando su hijo era más pequeño, ella lo alentaba a comer desayuno en la escuela, pero él se negaba diciendo, ‘mamá, no voy a comer desayuno en la escuela. Eso es para los niños que comen gratis.”

Algunos defensores dicen que ese estigma afecta también a los padres.

En comunidades pequeñas, conoces a la gente que trabaja en la escuela y quizás no quieras decir, ‘necesitamos esta ayuda’ ”, dijo Ashley Wheeland, directora de política pública de la organización sin fines de lucro Hunger Free Colorado.

Para participar en el programa universal de comidas gratis, los distritos escolares de Colorado tendrán que maximizar la cantidad de dólares federales que obtienen solicitando un programa llamado Community Eligibility Provision. Este programa nacional ayuda a cubrir el costo de los programas universales de comidas gratis en las escuelas donde una gran proporción de estudiantes proviene de familias que reciben ciertos beneficios del gobierno, por ejemplo, cupones de alimentos o asistencia financiera con un programa TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Las familias en esas escuelas no tendrán que llenar solicitudes para obtener comidas gratis o a precio reducido.

Actualmente, 107 escuelas de Colorado en 26 distritos ofrecen programas universales de comidas gratis a través del programa Community Eligibility Provision. En distritos como Harrison y Pueblo 60, que participan a nivel de distrito, muy poco cambiará para el próximo año. Esos distritos continuarán ofreciéndoles comidas gratis a todos sus estudiantes.

No obstante, hasta las escuelas de Colorado que no califican para el programa Community Eligibility Provision podrán ofrecerles comidas gratis a todos los estudiantes el próximo año porque podrán acceder a los fondos provenientes de la Propuesta FF. Las familias todavía tendrán que llenar solicitudes para obtener comidas gratis o a precio reducido.

Algunos funcionarios de distritos dicen que les preocupa que las familias se confundan si tienen que llenar una solicitud de comida para un hijo, pero no para otro que asiste a una escuela elegible para el programa Community Eligibility Provision.

“Me imagino a un padre pensando ‘no lo entiendo’”, dijo Riley.

La idea, dijo ella, es que ambas escuelas están maximizando los fondos federales que reciben para las comidas. El detalle es que lo están haciendo de dos maneras distintas.

Algunos líderes de los servicios de comidas escolares dicen que les preocupa la falta de personal, las interrupciones en la cadena de suministro, y la necesidad de equipo nuevo para acomodar el aumento en la demanda.

Wallace, que está en Jeffco, dijo que siempre es preocupante tener suficiente espacio para almacenar alimentos y capacidad para cocinar, pero que confía que el distrito podrá hacer que todo funcione porque lo hizo durante la pandemia, cuando había más estudiantes comiendo más comidas en la escuela.

Ella dijo que, al aumentar el volumen de comidas, los distritos pueden obtener mejores precios en los alimentos. Esto puede resultar en que, aunque aumenten los precios un poco, se pueda tener mejores frutas, como por ejemplo fresas, por más semanas en el año.

Riley dijo que, con el programa universal de comidas, los distritos también podrán eliminar el inconveniente administrativo de tratar de tratar de cobrar las cuentas sin pagar — cargos incurridos cuando los estudiantes comen en la escuela pero no son elegibles para comidas gratis y no tienen dinero para pagar en ese momento. Desde que volvieron a aplicarse los requisitos de elegibilidad por ingresos, ella dice que ha escuchado de los administradores de comedores escolares que la deuda está aumentando otra vez.

Ann Schimke es reportera senior en Chalkbeat y cubre temas de niñez temprana y alfabetización temprana. Para comunicarte con Ann, envíale un mensaje a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

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.

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.

RTD will let Denver-area youth ride free all year — to school, to work, anywhere

2023-07-31T22:36:12+00:00

Denver-area youth will be able to ride for free to school, the mall, work, and just about everywhere they go beginning Sept. 1 under a new Regional Transportation District pilot program.

The free fares for youth 19 and younger riding buses and the light rail system will start following the conclusion of the RTD’s summer free fares for everyone campaign, designed to encourage the use of public transportation and curb pollution during July and August.

Until recently, youth customers ages 6-19 were eligible for a 70% discount fare and children five and younger could ride free with a fare-paying adult. Now, “youth customers ages 19 or younger won’t pay for RTD services during the pilot program implementation,” according to the RTD website.

The new pilot stems from a broader study on the structure of fare pricing and equity. Prices are going down for most riders and the fare structure is simplified to four price options.

In Denver, most high school students are ineligible for yellow bus service, limiting transportation options for them to get to school. Denver Public Schools pays for passes to ride public RTD buses to and from school, but students must live more than 2.5 miles from their school.

Facing driver shortages and rising costs, the Denver schools have cut bus service for some middle and elementary schools for the next school year and are offering limited service to the Denver School of the Arts. The district must still provide yellow bus service for high school students with disabilities, recent refugees who attend the district’s “newcomer centers,” and English-learning high schoolers in the district’s bilingual programs.

For free rides, drivers may ask kids to show a school- or government-issued ID, according to Bill Sirois, RTD senior manager of transit oriented communities.

RTD plans to collect ride data two ways: transportation operators will key in information on their keypads, and surveys will be sent out throughout the school year. RTD wants to know if riders are taking advantage of the opportunity and if their opinions have changed on using more public transportation.

“We’re excited and we’re hoping for big success. We’ve reached out to a lot of the school districts and got some good feedback in terms of contacts to work with to collect data and hopefully see some good results,” Sirois said.

RTD has projected that it will cost the system $3.5 to $4 million in the next year to offer free youth fares. The youth fare program ends Aug. 31, 2024. To continue the program, RTD officials want other organizations to help fund a part of the project.

DPS did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Last fall, RTD initiated the CollegePass program which provided unlimited free rides to all students whose universities opted into the program. Colleges paid for it in different ways. Some included a fee into a student’s tuition; other schools footed the bill.

The college program was renewed for another year with the addition of semester passes for higher education institutions that didn’t participate in the CollegePass program. The SemesterPass will be an opt-in program for individual students who use public transportation rather than the institutions paying for the entire student body. The pass costs $75 per student each month.

Sara Martin is an intern with Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Sara at smartin@chalkbeat.org.

Transporte público gratis para los niños: RTD no les cobrará a los jóvenes menores de 19 años

2023-08-03T14:52:00+00:00

Read in English

Los niños y adolescentes en el área de Denver podrán usar el transporte público de forma gratuita para ir a la escuela, al centro comercial, al trabajo y a casi todo lugar a partir del 1º de septiembre gracias a un programa piloto del Distrito Regional de Transporte (RTD, por sus siglas en inglés).

Las tarifas gratis para niños y adolescentes de 19 años de edad o menos que viajen en autobuses y el sistema de trenes ligeros empezarán después de que se termine la campaña de tarifas gratis para todos de RTD, diseñada para animar a que la gente use el transporte público y controlar la contaminación durante los meses de julio y agosto.

Hasta hace poco, los clientes jóvenes de 6 a 19 años de edad podían obtener un tarifa con descuento del 70 por ciento, y los niños de cinco años de edad o menos podían usar RTD gratis con un adulto que pagara su propia tarifa. Ahora, “los clientes jóvenes de 19 años o menos no pagarán por los servicios de RTD durante la implementación del programa piloto”, según dice el sitio web de RTD.

El nuevo programa piloto surge de un estudio más amplio sobre la estructura de los precios tarifarios y la equidad. Los precios bajarán para la mayoría de los usuarios, y la estructura tarifaria se simplificará a cuatro opciones de precios.

En Denver, la mayoría de los estudiantes de high school no cumplen requisitos para usar el servicio de autobuses amarillos, lo cual limita sus opciones de transporte para ir a la escuela. Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés) pagan por pases para el uso de los autobuses de RTD a y de la escuela, pero los estudiantes deben vivir a más de 2.5 millas de distancia de su escuela.

Enfrentando una falta de conductores y un aumento de costos, las escuelas de Denver han reducido el servicio de autobuses en algunas escuelas medias y primarias el próximo año escolar y están ofreciendo un servicio limitado a Denver School of the Arts. El distrito debe seguir proporcionando servicio de autobuses amarillos para los estudiantes de high school con discapacidades, refugiados recientes que asisten a “centros para recién llegados” en el distrito y estudiantes de high school que están aprendiendo inglés en programas bilingües del distrito.

Para que usen gratis el transporte público, los conductores quizás les pidan a los jóvenes que muestren una identificación escolar o del gobierno, según dijo Bill Sirois, gerente principal de comunidades orientadas al transporte público de RTD.

RTD planea recolectar datos de los usuarios de dos formas: los operadores del transporte ingresarán información en sus teclados, y se enviarán encuestas durante el año escolar. RTD quiere saber si los usuarios están aprovechando la oportunidad y si sus opiniones sobre usar más el transporte público han cambiado.

“Estamos emocionados y esperando que sea un gran éxito. Nos hemos comunicado con muchos de los distritos escolares y recibido buena información sobre contactos con quienes trabajar para recolectar datos con la esperanza de observar buenos resultados”, Sirois dijo.

RTD calcula que le costará al sistema entre $3.5 a $4 millones ofrecerles tarifas gratis a los jóvenes el año que viene. El programa de tarifas gratis para jóvenes terminará el 31 de agosto de 2024. Para continuar el programa, los representantes de RTD quieren que otras organizaciones ayuden a financiar parte del proyecto.

DPS no respondió a solicitudes de sus comentarios sobre esta historia.

El otoño pasado, RTD inició el programa CollegePass que proporcionó traslados ilimitados para todos los estudiantes cuyas universidades eligieran participar en el programa. Las universidades pagaron por el programa de varias maneras. Algunas incluyeron un cargo en la colegiatura de un estudiante; otras cubrieron los costos.

El programa universitario se renovó por un año más con la adición de pases semestrales para las instituciones de educación superior que no participaron en el programa CollegePass. El SemesterPass será un programa para estudiantes individuales que usen transporte público, en lugar de que las instituciones paguen por todos sus estudiantes. El pase cuesta $75 por estudiante al mes.

Sara Martin es una pasante con Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Sara enviándole un mensaje electrónico a smartin@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 partnership aims to expand mental health services, address youth violence

2023-07-06T23:09:55+00:00

To address youth violence, eight Denver schools would get an additional staffer focused on student behavior next school year, under a proposed city council ordinance.

The proposed pilot program also would add a mobile team going from school to school, addressing mental health needs, supporting behavioral health and providing referrals.

Denver has seen high rates of youth violence over the last five years.

A plan published in 2020 noted measures that the community could take to reduce violence. But with the onset of the COVID pandemic, no action resulted.

Meanwhile, campus closures eroded many of the routines that helped teenagers stay on track. Educators report that students still are missing more school and are less engaged even when they are in class.

Earlier this year, the city produced a new plan. Among other things, it recommended improving access to mental health support in the community, including in schools.

If the city council passes the ordinance this month, the program would launch next month. The health specialist positions also are intended to serve as a career pathway for people in marginalized communities to enter the behavioral health workforce.

The bill proposes to fund the school positions and mobile services with about $860,000 in federal COVID relief funds. The idea is to shift from responding to violence and instead preventing it, said June Marcel, a Denver Public Schools strategy officer.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we could prevent the tragedies from happening in the first place?” she said.

In designing and offering the program, the city will collaborate with Denver Public Schools and community organizations.

School officials said they chose three campuses with two programs each, one a comprehensive high school and the other focusing on careers or serving older students. They are North High School and the North Engagement Center, Abraham Lincoln High School and Respect Academy, and George Washington High School and DELTA High School. They also chose two middle schools, West and Lake.

The new behavioral staffers, dubbed “community navigators,” are intended to help encourage attendance, assess students’ needs, and connect families with city and community resources. The pandemic compounded many problems like chronic absenteeism, disengagement, academic struggle and financial insecurity.

Navigators may work both on campus and in the community. Officials hope to fill those jobs with people interested in behavioral health who may have a shared cultural experience with students and are bilingual.

Schools already have counselors, and some have attendance specialists, but none have health staff specifically tasked with preventing youth violence, Marcel said.

The pilot project is intended to meet some of the needs identified in the Behavioral Health Needs Assessment that the city conducted last year and this year’s youth violence prevention plan.

Last year’s survey found that many people who need behavioral health services have a hard time finding help, with cost, transportation, and lack of convenient appointments all playing a role. Teenagers reported having an especially hard time getting in-person therapy — one of the problems the new partnership aims to address.

“One of the factors (of an increase in youth violence) is mental health and feelings of wellness related to the students, youth and family. If we can get a better handle on what’s underneath the behavior, what’s driving the behavior, if we can connect with the students in a way that feels right to them, we’re more likely to get a more accurate understanding of what’s going on to help,” said Nachshon Zohari, program manager for community engagement at the city’s department of public health and environment.

The mobile units would provide more mental and behavioral health services and resources at community events and when and where there might be a need. The fleet includes smaller versions of the city’s “Wellness Winnie” housed in a large RV. The so-called Mini Winnies will rotate on a schedule among schools.

With the pilot program, school officials said they will be able to identify the resources and needs of schools if the program is funded beyond the first year.

The pilot program will run from Aug. 1 to July 31, 2024.

Sara Martin is an intern with Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Sara at smartin@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.

Voter guide: 2023 Denver school board candidates answer 6 questions about their priorities

2023-10-11T18:59:07+00:00

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Voters will choose three Denver school board members on Nov. 7.

Eight candidates are running for the three seats. Two of the three races — in southeast Denver’s District 1 and northwest Denver’s District 5 — feature incumbents.

The third seat is at-large, meaning the board member represents the entire city. That race does not feature an incumbent since board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson dropped out of the running.

The election has the potential to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for infighting between some members. It could also change the board’s approach to solving the problems of declining enrollment in Denver Public Schools and school safety, which has become a topic of debate after a shooting at East High School.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has endorsed the two incumbents: Scott Baldermann in District 1 and Charmaine Lindsay in District 5. The teachers union also endorsed Kwame Spearman for the at-large seat.

Denver Families Action, a group that supports education reform and charter schools, has endorsed a different set of candidates: Kimberlee Sia in District 1, Marlene De La Rosa in District 5, and John Youngquist in the at-large race. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston also endorsed these candidates.

To help voters make their decisions, Chalkbeat sent all of the candidates the same set of questions. Their answers are below. Responses may have been edited for formatting or trimmed for length, but otherwise each candidate’s answers are as submitted.

Note: Former at-large candidate Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race but will still appear on the ballot. We did not include him in our voter guide because votes for Ballenger won’t count.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Youth-led workshops push school board candidates to address student needs

2023-10-11T02:46:40+00:00

Students may be the people with the most at stake in any school board election, but most of them can’t vote.

For youth leaders with YAASPA — Young Aspiring Americans for Social and Political Activism — that’s all the more reason to ask candidates’ hard questions and push for real answers.

“Potential candidates for the school board hold a lot of power. They’re involved in making very pivotal changes that affect both staff and youth,” said Jason Hoang, a youth leader with YAASPA and a graduate of Aurora’s Hinkley High School who now attends the University of Southern California.

YAASPA youth have been organizing and leading candidate workshops since 2017, starting in Aurora. This year, they’re holding workshops in Aurora on Wednesday, in Denver on Oct. 20, and in the Cherry Creek School District on Oct. 25. Community members can attend virtually.

When Hoang first got involved in organizing an Aurora candidate workshop in 2021, he didn’t know much about the school board, but he did know that changing anything significant would probably have to go through them.

“Most concerns are coming from the voices of youth,” he said, “but if they don’t even know who their school board is, how can they convey their concerns to the school board?”

In the months leading up to the workshops, youth leaders research the candidates and how their school board could influence the issues they care about, such as better academic resources for their schools, diverse curriculum, retaining educators of color, and student mental health.

By design, these events are not debates or forums. The format encourages interaction between students and potential school board members rather than arguments between the candidates. Some questions are fun and spontaneous, designed to help the candidates relax and be themselves. Others are specific to the candidates, their proposals, and their approach to the job.

Sakari Mackey, a senior at Cherokee Trail High School, said students want to get a feel for why the person wants to be a school board member. What drives them to do the work and what is their purpose?

Mackey said she wants to see how candidates will connect with families and students and prioritize student needs.

“I feel like oftentimes, we’re only focusing on the schools and what the principal needs as opposed to what the students’ needs are and how the school can provide for the students,” she said.

Candidates are often eager to participate, said Ameya Kamani, a graduate of the Cherry Creek district who now attends Cornell University, but they are sometimes thrown off when students enforce the format and time limits. When the candidates can’t give their rehearsed speeches, they are less polished, he said, but they’re also more authentic.

The questions young people have for school board members are sometimes different than those adults ask. Students care about getting a good education, Hoang said, but talking about test scores feels dehumanizing, especially for students who attend schools that have been labeled as bad.

“The lack of resources is usually dismissed,” he said. “But I think that it’s somewhat traumatizing, just being so driven in school, but not being given the resources to fully succeed.”

School safety, the presence of school resource officers, mental health support, and curriculum are all important issues for students, YAASPA youth leaders said. So is supporting teachers so they can do their best work. They also want elected officials who will treat students like real constituents with valid concerns that deserve attention.

“We have always had a goal as an organization to not just be civically engaged but have a mechanism to build relationships with people who desire to govern,” said YAASPA co-founder and CEO Janiece Mackey. “We have to stop romanticizing youth voice and civic engagement and be in partnership with them and honor their labor.”

Hoang said the experience of organizing the workshops have made him and his peers more informed, sophisticated voters in national elections. Kamani said it helped him talk to his immigrant parents about what a school board does and why they should vote.

Sakari Mackey, Janiece Mackey’s daughter, is excited to vote in her first election this fall.

“These quote-unquote small elections, they do matter because those small policies will directly affect you and your students and your kids,” she said.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Sakari Mackey attends Cherokee Trail High School. A previous version named the wrong school.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Denver board may modify expulsion policy to support more students staying in their home schools

2023-10-06T02:29:01+00:00

The Denver school board is considering modifying its policy on expulsion, which has been a topic of debate ever since a formerly expelled student shot two deans inside East High School in March. The proposal would require Denver Public Schools to offer students an alternative to expulsion that would allow the students to remain in their home schools.

There are caveats. The proposal, officially known as Executive Limitation 10.12, would only allow alternatives to expulsion “in accordance with law and whenever possible,” according to a draft of the policy discussed by the school board Thursday.

Since the shooting at East, DPS officials have held firm to their approach of using expulsion as a last resort — a stance that has mobilized some parents to push for stricter discipline. The district’s position is that even a student facing serious criminal charges can remain in their home school as long as a judge has decided the student can be out in the community.

State law says a student who brings a gun to school should be expelled for a year. But the law gives superintendents the discretion to “modify this requirement for a student on a case-by-case basis.” DPS’ policy takes advantage of that discretion. The district’s discipline matrix says bringing a gun to school results in a mandatory expulsion hearing, but not a mandatory expulsion.

DPS has expelled students for bringing weapons to school; in the 2021-22 school year, state data shows it expelled 10 students for that reason. But the district recently denied an expulsion request for a middle school student accused of attempted murder, allowing the student to stay in his home school. The alleged crime happened off campus.

Board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson wrote the expulsion policy proposal. Both he and Superintendent Alex Marrero said it would not change district practice, but rather codify it.

“In my opinion, we already do this, and it’s just putting it into board policy,” Anderson said at Thursday’s school board meeting.

The board ultimately voted 6 to 1 to move the proposal forward for further consideration. Board member Scott Baldermann was the sole no vote.

Earlier in the meeting, Baldermann offered an amendment that would have guaranteed students at risk of expulsion a seat at “an appropriate pathways school that aligns with the supports necessary” for the student. DPS has 22 pathways schools, which are middle and high schools that offer students who are off track to graduate a different pathway to do so.

Only one pathways school, PREP Academy, was specifically designed to serve students who have been expelled from other DPS schools. Other pathways schools can accept expelled students, but most enroll at PREP Academy, a district spokesperson said.

The board did not vote up or down on Baldermann’s amendment. It did not vote to adopt Anderson’s proposal either. A final vote likely won’t happen until November.

Three school board seats are up for election on Nov. 7, and Anderson is not seeking a second term. The board is scheduled to meet Nov. 16, meaning the current board could vote on the policy after Denver voters elect new board members but before those members take office.

Several board members said they still have questions about the proposal.

“I don’t know what ‘alternative to expulsion’ means,” board member Charmaine Lindsay said.

Anderson said in an interview that rhetoric from parent groups formed in the wake of the East shooting pushed him to propose the policy. He named two groups in particular: Parents-Safety Advocacy Group, known as P-SAG, and Resign DPS Board.

“We’ve seen individual groups that have tried to weaponize our discipline system against students who have learning differences or have challenging days that need extra love and care from our system,” Anderson said. “We have parent groups that have formed — and they don’t want these kids to attend our traditional schools. That’s not who Denver Public Schools is.”

Parents involved in founding those two groups said they oppose Anderson’s proposal.

“It’s going in the wrong direction,” said Steve Katsaros, a P-SAG founder. “These are kids that are crying out for help from really troubled environments, and they don’t need to be pushed into comprehensive school environments where they’re expected to all of a sudden learn.”

Heather Lamm, a founder of Resign DPS Board, which is focused on ousting the two board incumbents running for re-election in November, expressed similar sentiments.

“What’s amazing to me is that this board has decided, instead of a focus on educating kids, it is going to spend its time and resources on protecting a select few from the consequences of criminal activity,” Lamm said. “I think that’s outrageous.

“These kids deserve an education,” she said. “To say that the best way to do that for these kids or anybody else is to keep them in their home school, I would very, very much challenge that.”

In the 2021-22 school year, DPS expelled just 21 students. The neighboring suburban Cherry Creek School District, which is smaller than DPS, expelled nearly seven times as many.

Anderson said that while he trusts the current board and administration to treat expulsion as a last resort, he wants to ensure that approach is enshrined in policy before he leaves the board.

“I don’t want us to be like Cherry Creek schools,” Anderson said at the meeting.

This story has been updated to clarify the state law on expulsions.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver teachers union finalizes school board election endorsements: Lindsay, Baldermann, Spearman

2023-10-04T21:45:38+00:00

With five weeks to go before Election Day, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association made its final endorsement Wednesday in the Denver school board race by backing incumbent Charmaine Lindsay for the District 5 seat representing northwest Denver.

Lindsay, a family law attorney with grandchildren in Denver Public Schools, was appointed by the board last year to fill a vacancy in District 5. After initially saying she wouldn’t run for election to keep the seat, Lindsay said she changed her mind because she feels there’s more work to do.

Endorsements are key to winning school board races in Denver because they come with financial support for the candidates. While a recent national study found that teachers union endorsements are most influential in school board races, endorsements from organizations that back education reform and charter schools tend to come with more money.

Denver Families Action, the political arm of a relatively new organization formed with the backing of several local charter school networks, has endorsed longtime DPS volunteer and advocate Marlene De La Rosa for the District 5 seat. De La Rosa is a recently retired U.S. immigration court specialist whose two children graduated from DPS.

In endorsing De La Rosa, Denver Families Action noted she is a leader in the Latino community who “is committed to closing the achievement gap and ensuring that every student, regardless of their background, has access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.”

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. All seven members of the current board have received union support. With just three seats open, the election won’t change that overall balance of power.

In endorsing Lindsay, the teachers union called her a “deep and thoughtful thinker” who “understands that we must work together to ensure that all students, regardless of their race, background or zip code have equitable access to the support they need to thrive.”

“Charmaine Lindsay has consistently demonstrated her commitment to listening to educators and the DPS community to make informed decisions that enhance school safety in Denver Public Schools,” union President Rob Gould said in a press release.

Lindsay was one of four board members who voted in June to return police officers to DPS schools on a permanent basis following a shooting inside East High School in March.

The teachers union endorsements have come later than usual this year. Gould told Chalkbeat earlier this week that the union wanted to take its time because some of the candidates it endorsed in previous years did not live up to their campaign promises.

In addition to endorsing Lindsay for the District 5 seat, the teachers union has endorsed incumbent Scott Baldermann for the District 1 seat representing southeast Denver and Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, for an at-large seat.

Denver Families Action endorsed former KIPP Colorado charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia for the District 1 seat and former East High principal John Youngquist for the at-large seat.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Migrant students boosting Denver Public Schools’ enrollment after years of declines

2023-10-03T21:17:52+00:00

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Newly arrived migrant students are boosting Denver Public Schools’ enrollment this fall, especially at the elementary school level.

The spike follows a years-long decline in enrollment in DPS, which is still Colorado’s largest school district with about 89,000 students last year. The enrollment decreases have been so steep that Superintendent Alex Marrero recommended closing 10 schools at the end of last school year, though the school board agreed to close only three.

While this boost in enrollment will mean more per-pupil state funding for DPS this year, and likely more funding targeted to help English language learners next year, district staff and school board members acknowledged the enrollment increase could be temporary.

“We don’t know how many of these students are going to stay for how long,” board member Scott Esserman said at a meeting of the board’s finance committee Monday.

More than 1,470 new students from another country enrolled in DPS between July and September this year, according to a presentation by district staff at Monday’s meeting. That’s 76% more students from other countries than last year.

Elementary schools are receiving the most students, with 747 new elementary-age students coming from other countries to DPS this summer and fall.

About a third of all the new students are from three countries: Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia. That aligns with the increase in new migrants arriving by bus in Denver this fall, many from Venezuela. Over the past week, an average of nearly 300 migrants have arrived in the city each day, according to a press release from city officials Monday.

City officials are working to temporarily house newly arrived families, and DPS teachers have been scrambling to help when families’ assistance runs out. On Monday, Denver Human Services extended the time that migrant families can stay in city-provided shelter to 37 days, a week longer than before. That change takes effect Wednesday.

Some DPS schools, especially those with dedicated programming and classrooms for Spanish-speaking students, are receiving more newly arrived students than others.

The schools that have received the most are Lena Archuleta Elementary, Ashley Elementary, Bryant Webster Dual Language School, McMeen Elementary, Place Bridge Academy, Denver Green School Southeast, Hamilton Middle School, George Washington High, Thomas Jefferson High, and Abraham Lincoln High, according to the presentation.

Russell Ramsey, the district’s executive director of enrollment and campus planning, told the committee Monday that the boost in students has swelled some class sizes.

“As classes get close to the red alert of 35 or 36 (students), this is when we’re taking schools within the (enrollment) zone or schools nearby and trying to really assess where we have a place and space to make sure our classes are not getting too big,” Ramsey said.

Even though school budgets are based on enrollment projections made by DPS the previous spring, schools that are unexpectedly enrolling more students this fall are getting extra per-pupil funding through a budgeting process DPS calls its fall adjustment, district officials said. The official student count day for state funding was earlier this week.

School board member Scott Baldermann noted that migrant students may need extra support in school to deal with the trauma they’ve experienced or to learn a second language. District staff said state and federal funding targeted at helping English language learners is a year delayed, meaning that this year’s funding is based on last year’s student counts.

“I’m incredibly proud of the district for supporting the students new to the country,” Baldermann said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Public Schools releases previously withheld Auon’tai Anderson settlement agreement

2023-10-03T00:40:31+00:00

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Denver Public Schools signed a settlement agreement with school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson that said the district would pay Anderson $3,500 — and Anderson agreed not to sue DPS for “damages, costs, or expenses” related to a 2021 investigation.

That’s according to a copy of the settlement agreement released by DPS Monday. The agreement was drafted in October 2022 but not signed until March. Separate district records show the district paid Anderson $3,500 in March out of the school board budget.

DPS Chief Financial Officer Chuck Carpenter signed the agreement on behalf of the district. The school board did not vote on the agreement, and some board members said they were not aware of the payment until recently. The agreement includes a clause meant to keep it secret.

“The Parties will not release a copy of this Agreement in response to any request under the Colorado Open Records Act, unless required to do so by a court order,” it says.

Colorado courts have repeatedly ruled that settlement agreements by political entities are subject to public records law. After DPS refused to make the agreement public, attorney Steve Zansberg advocated for its release on behalf of both Chalkbeat and the Denver Post.

DPS General Counsel Aaron Thompson maintained that the settlement agreement was confidential but released it after Anderson consented to do so.

The 2021 investigation referenced in the agreement was related to allegations of sexual misconduct by Anderson. Investigators did not substantiate the most serious claims, though they did find that Anderson flirted with a 16-year-old student online and made two intimidating social media posts during the investigation. The school board censured Anderson for that conduct in September 2021.

Later that fall, Anderson filed a defamation lawsuit against several people who brought forward accusations. While some of those claims were dismissed, claims against two defendants continue to make their way through the court system.

Anderson said Monday that he “did not file any lawsuit against Denver Public Schools to force the conversation of a settlement agreement.”

Chalkbeat reported the $3,500 payment last week. DPS had denied an open records request for the settlement agreement but released an invoice showing a $3,500 payment in April 2021 from Anderson to the law firm Decker & Jones, which represented him during the investigation.

Anderson said last week that he was “reimbursed for the out of pocket expenses I paid for representation during the ILG investigation.” ILG stands for Investigations Law Group, which was the firm that conducted the investigation.

The settlement agreement also says Anderson “agrees not to seek reimbursement or other payment through any process of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education” or under a state law that allows school board members to be compensated. Anderson said last week that he still owes more than $40,000 to his former attorney.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver teachers union backs Spearman for school board seat, while reform group endorses Youngquist

2023-10-02T23:24:04+00:00

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The Denver teachers union on Monday endorsed Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and co-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores, for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Another organization — Denver Families Action, which was formed with the backing of several local charter school networks — has endorsed candidate John Youngquist, the former principal of Denver’s East High School, for the at-large seat representing the entire city.

A third candidate, Brittni Johnson, was not endorsed by either group.

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. The union’s latest endorsement helps define a race that has been in flux due in part to candidates dropping out, not making the ballot, or jumping into the race later than usual.

The current board, made up of six union-backed members and one who was appointed to fill a vacancy, has been criticized as dysfunctional for infighting among some members. The incumbent in the at-large seat, board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, is not seeking re-election, leaving the race for that seat wide open.

“We were taking our time to really make some careful considerations,” union President Rob Gould said about this year’s endorsements, which are coming later than in past years.

“We’ve made some endorsements in the past where we’ve seen that candidates that we’ve endorsed have followed through with their promises and some that haven’t,” he said. “And we’ve taken the time to make sure we were right.”

In endorsing Spearman, DCTA cited Spearman’s experience as a DPS student and graduate. The union also noted that Spearman comes from a long line of educators. In a press release, Gould said Spearman “deeply understands that when educators have the vital support that they need, students are able to reach their full potential.”

In endorsing Youngquist, Denver Families Action cited Youngquist’s 30-year career as a teacher and administrator, and his experience as current DPS parent. The organization also noted Youngquist’s commitment to equity, school safety, “and guaranteeing that every student, irrespective of their background or geographical location, receives a high-quality education.”

Endorsements have been key to winning school board races in Denver because they come with money, both in the form of direct donations to the candidates and spending by outside groups. Volunteers also knock doors and make calls and texts on behalf of endorsed candidates.

Typically, the teachers union endorses one set of candidates, and organizations that favor education reform and charter schools endorse a different set of candidates. Reform organizations tend to have deeper pockets than the teachers union, though a recent national study found that teachers union endorsements are the most influential.

This year, just one pro-reform organization is endorsing. In addition to backing Youngquist for the at-large seat, Denver Families Action endorsed former KIPP Colorado charter network CEO Kimberlee Sia in District 1 seat and longtime DPS advocate Marlene De La Rosa in District 5.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, meanwhile, endorsed Scott Baldermann, an incumbent who represents southeast Denver’s District 1, for a second term.

The union has yet to endorse a candidate for a seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5. That race features three candidates: De La Rosa, parent and former teacher Adam Slutzker, and current District 5 representative Charmaine Lindsay, an attorney with grandchildren in DPS who was appointed to the seat last year after the former member resigned.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver teachers scramble to help as migrant students face loss of housing

2023-09-29T20:50:43+00:00

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Editor’s note: On Monday, Denver Human Services extended the time that families can stay in city-provided shelter to 37 days, a week longer than previously. The change applies to people who arrive on or after Oct. 4. However, due to the large number of people arriving daily, individuals without children will get to stay in city-provided shelter for just 14 days, a week less than before.

As the number of migrants arriving daily in Denver rises, schools are starting to see a significant number of new students. And educators are worried about how to help them as migrant families encounter the limits of official support.

At Denver’s Bryant Webster Dual Language School, some teachers report classes of 38 students — a lot higher than last year. A teacher who screens students for whom English is not their home language has had to screen 60 students this year — up from a handful in typical years. And they’re trying to help students as they’re dealing with trauma, learning how to navigate a new country and a new school system.

“You work the whole day and you just want to make sure you do the best with the resources you have and so you build relationships with kids, and you have the connection to them,” said Alex Nelson, a fourth grade teacher at Bryant Webster. “Then you find out their story.”

Students who arrived near the start of the school year and were starting to settle in are facing a new challenge and a new trauma. Families get just 30 days in either a hotel or shelter paid for by the city. But then they have to find another place to live. In a city with soaring rents where many longtime residents also struggle to find housing, new arrivals sometimes find themselves with nowhere to go.

The first time a migrant family with children at Bryant Webster ran out of time on its housing voucher, teachers and a school intern spent hours calling shelters and everyone they could think of to try to find a place for the family to stay. They encountered waitlists and a lot of dead ends.

“We didn’t know what happened after the voucher expired until one of the new families said ‘our stay is up, and we don’t know where to go tonight,’” Nelson said. “We’ve never been prepared so we didn’t know how to handle it.”

The family ended up leaving to spend the night in a car, though Nelson said district officials were able to connect with them later that evening. Still, Nelson said it was really hard on the entire school to end the day that way.

Like in New York City schools and other districts nationwide, Denver school officials are on the frontline receiving requests from migrant families for help. In Denver, some teachers are just starting to connect their efforts with nonprofits, through the teachers union, and with other organizations, but coordination is still sporadic.

And even when working together, there are daunting obstacles. After the limited duration of city vouchers for migrants, the different social services available have different rules that can create confusion about what might jeopardize migrants’ legal standing. And the potential overlap between help for migrants and support for the city’s homeless population is something Denver officials are trying to avoid.

After helping the first Bryant Webster family, teachers heard from more families in the same situation. Some organizations are helping, but each time a new family comes forward, teachers worry if they’ll be able to find them assistance. At least three more are slated to lose their shelter this weekend.

“You can just feel the kids are stressed. It disrupts everything,” said Cecilia Quintanilla, an early childhood teacher at the school.

Denver has seen up to 250 migrants arriving per day this week, but it’s unclear how many are children.

Schools join Denver effort to help migrants find stability

Right now, it’s hard to track how widespread the surge of migrants in schools really is.

District officials in Denver did not respond to requests for comment. Teachers at Bryant Webster believe they’ve had around 60 newcomers arrive after the first day of school and counting. Other school districts in the state are also reporting surges of newcomers, the term schools use to refer to students arriving from outside the U.S., in the last few months.

The Colorado Department of Education doesn’t track those numbers and officials said they have not been asked to provide support to schools dealing with these surges.

Denver officials said that as of last week the city was currently sheltering 456 children under age 16. The city has seen up to 250 new individuals arriving per day this week, but numbers for children aren’t available for this week.

At another Denver school, Escuela Valdez, teacher Jessica Dominguez estimates they’ve received about 20 newcomer students this year. This week, they learned about a family that had already been sleeping outdoors after losing their shelter. Educators stayed up late into the night trying to find them a place to stay and ultimately were successful. But that may not always be the case.

“Kids are being involved now,” she said. “That puts a different face to what we might think is homelessness.”

Dominguez isn’t the only person who feels that way. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a former educator, said at a press conference Thursday that he has seen kids sleeping under blankets with families outside the city’s Wellington Webb building as they wait for staff to show up so they can ask for help.

“No kid should be in that context,” Johnston said.

Early that same day, at a migrant reception center in northeast Denver, a steady stream of men, women, and children arrived for processing. The official hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but staff often start earlier and stay until everyone has somewhere to go.

Some arrivals have family in the Denver area and ask to come here or even make their own way. Others get on buses in El Paso regardless of destination and then need to make a plan.

They’ve already made a hazardous journey and overcome many obstacles to leave behind dangerous situations in their home countries.

Jon Ewing, a spokesman for Denver Human Services, said the arrivals are smart, resourceful, and well-organized.

City workers collect basic information about the new arrivals, provide contact information for relevant social services and direct them to shelter. Individuals are eligible for 21 days of free shelter and families are eligible for 30 days. The city isn’t tracking what happens after that.

“Thirty days is not a long time to sort out your life, and we get that,” Ewing said. “But we have to move people through. There is a limit to what we are able to do.”

Ewing said city staff are working to coordinate as best they can between nonprofits, city services, and the school district — there are large group chats buzzing all day.

Ewing said the city tries to make sure people understand how expensive Denver is so they can make informed decisions. But they may have good reasons for wanting to stay here.

Ewing said the migrant and homeless populations are very different and face different challenges. New arrivals are never directed to homeless shelters, and many services are provided through different channels in order to be responsive to each group’s needs.

There are also different funding sources with different rules, when it comes to providing services for U.S. citizens and residents experiencing homelessness, versus migrants seeking asylum or another protected status.

Then there are legal concerns. Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said that organizations like hers are also concerned about inadvertently providing resources that would then make people ineligible for earning legal status — a common worry they hear from migrants, and one that Alderman and her team don’t have enough expertise to help navigate.

Still, she said that some of the migrant families might qualify for housing assistance from the coalition, but qualifying takes time.

“The problem is we have so many in the system right now waiting for housing,” Alderman said. “That system makes housing matches based on vulnerabilities. It’s a process. It certainly doesn’t move fast.”

She said that another problem for families is finding affordable housing with multiple bedrooms. Longer term vouchers, such as Section 8 vouchers, often don’t cover a large portion of the rents people might encounter in Denver.

“In Denver specifically we have a very, very, very minimal stock of really affordable housing,” she said. “We have a lot of market rate and luxury units that are sitting empty.”

With all the challenges migrant students and their families are confronting, teachers say they appreciate that so many are working to help. But they also wish they were more prepared to help students and families who come to them with such big worries.

“We don’t have what we need to welcome these families to the better life that they were searching for,” said Nelson, the teacher at Bryant Webster. “It’s just really hard to see the consequences of that.”

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

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Candidate Paul Ballenger drops out of the Denver school board at-large race

2023-09-29T19:36:06+00:00

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Candidate Paul Ballenger announced Friday that he’s dropping out of the race for an at-large seat on the Denver school board.

Ballenger, a 46-year-old Denver Public Schools parent who works as a security consultant, said in an interview that the decision to exit the race was strategic.

“To really see it through — and especially for an at-large race, and it’s a big city — to have that reach, I just felt like we didn’t have what it takes to see it through effectively,” he said.

Ballenger’s exit leaves three candidates vying for an at-large seat representing the entire city: John Youngquist, a former principal of Denver’s East High School and a DPS parent; Kwame Spearman, a DPS graduate and part-owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores; and Brittni Johnson, a DPS parent and doctoral student.

Two other school board seats, representing southeast Denver’s District 1 and northwest Denver’s District 5, are also up for grabs on Nov. 7.

Ballenger lagged behind Youngquist and Spearman in fundraising as of Sept. 18, the date of the last campaign finance reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State. Ballenger had raised about $13,850, compared to more than $57,000 by Youngquist and more than $59,000 by Spearman. Johnson had raised less than $1,000.

Ballenger said he is endorsing Youngquist for the at-large seat. Youngquist has gotten several endorsements, including from pro-education reform organization Denver Families Action, which is the political arm of an organization that was started with the backing of local charter school networks. Reform organizations have historically spent big to try to get their candidates elected.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association also spends big in school board elections. But the union has not yet endorsed a candidate for the at-large seat.

In the last Denver school board election two years ago, the teachers union released its endorsements piecemeal in June, July, and early September. But as of late September this year, the union has only endorsed one candidate: incumbent Scott Baldermann in District 1.

Ballenger is the second candidate to drop out of this year’s at-large race. Ulcca Joshi Hansen exited the race last month after she did not get the endorsement from Denver Families Action.

Ballenger said he entered the school board race because he was concerned about DPS’ response to a shooting inside East High in March.

“I’m proud we made sure safety was a top priority this election,” Ballenger said in an interview Friday. “Hopefully good things come from that.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board paid Auon’tai Anderson $3,500 settlement

2023-09-28T23:15:42+00:00

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The Denver school board paid board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson a $3,500 settlement in March, according to school district records.

Anderson said the payment represents reimbursement for legal expenses he incurred during a 2021 sexual misconduct investigation, in which the most serious allegations were not substantiated. Yet the board president said the board never voted on the payment.

The district declined to release details of the settlement, despite Colorado court rulings that say settlement agreements by political entities are subject to public records law.

The $3,500 payment to Anderson appears as a line item on a spreadsheet of board expenses posted publicly earlier this month. The spreadsheet contains little information to explain the payment. It says only, “Settlement Payment per agreement 10/10/22.”

On Wednesday, Denver Public Schools denied an open records request by Chalkbeat for the settlement agreement. “Details of the payment are confidential per the terms of the agreement,” a district spokesperson said in an email to Chalkbeat.

However, on Thursday, the district did release an invoice that shows a $3,500 payment in April 2021 from Anderson to the law firm Decker & Jones, which represented Anderson during the investigation.

Asked about the settlement and invoice Thursday, Anderson said in a statement that according to state law, “Board Members are eligible to receive reimbursement for Board related expenses. I was reimbursed for the out of pocket expenses I paid for representation during the ILG investigation.” ILG, or Investigations Law Group, was the firm that conducted the investigation.

Board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán said in an interview Thursday that the board never voted on the settlement agreement or the $3,500 payment to Anderson.

Gaytán said she didn’t know about either until three weeks ago, six months after records show Anderson was paid. Gaytán said she noticed the $3,500 payment on a spreadsheet of board expenses that board members discussed at a meeting on Sept. 7.

Colorado courts have repeatedly found that settlement agreements involving local and state governments are public documents, said Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. The state attorney general’s office has said the same.

“Why is this secret and why would they be keeping it secret?” Roberts said. “There’s so many questions about why the district would pay a school board member a settlement.”

Anderson is the board’s most high-profile member. He has experienced some turmoil since he was elected in 2019, including the unsubstantiated allegations in 2021.

The investigation, which was commissioned by the board, did find that Anderson had flirtatious contact with a 16-year-old student on social media, and that he made two intimidating social media posts during the investigation. The board censured Anderson for that conduct.

The $3,500 payment to Anderson was part of $101,994 in expenses attributed to the board as a whole between August 2022 and last June, records show. That total also includes $48,431 the board spent on facilitators and conflict consultants. The board has been beset by infighting and power struggles between some members for more than a year and a half.

Individual board members were paid or reimbursed another $87,923, records show, for a total of $189,917 spent by the board in that time period.

Individual board member expenses were mostly a combination of stipends paid to some eligible board members and reimbursements for some board members to attend conferences.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

New Denver Public Schools progress report highlights goals met and missed but glosses over gaps

2023-09-27T21:43:30+00:00

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Denver Public Schools students as a whole met goals the district set for math achievement but fell short in reading, according to a new report that measures academic and other progress against Superintendent Alex Marrero’s year-old strategic plan.

But the 20-page Annual District Report doesn’t break down test scores by student race and ethnicity, obscuring wide and persistent gaps between white students and students of color — gaps Marrero acknowledged in a presentation to school board members last week.

In an interview, Marrero said he was “incredibly encouraged” by the overall results. In the cases where DPS missed its goals, it was often only by a percentage point or two. The report also highlights that the district surpassed its graduation goal, posting a four-year graduation rate of 76.5% for the class of 2022, which was the highest ever in DPS.

“We’re trending in the right direction,” said Marrero, who was hired as superintendent in 2021. “When you’re shifting a major organization, you’re given grace for an implementation dip. Everything is new. If this is our implementation dip, good Lord, where we’re going to be.”

Some advocates have criticized the new report as spin. The higher test scores and graduation rates of white students from middle- and high-income families in DPS mask how the district is struggling to serve Black and Latinx students and students from low-income families, who make up the majority in the 89,000-student district, critics say.

“When you just release the totals, it gives a very different impression,” said Rosemary Rodriguez, co-chair of the advocacy group EDUCATE Denver and a former DPS school board member. “But when you break it down into subgroups, it’s not such a rosy picture.

“I think it’s important to be as honest as possible with as many people as possible so that we all can appreciate what’s going on with achievement in the district.”

A more detailed presentation Marrero gave to the school board last week shows that the district mostly missed its academic targets for Black and Latinx students in both reading and math.

The lack of progress perpetuates yawning gaps between the test scores of students of color and white students in DPS, which have been the largest in the state.

For example, state data shows 73% of DPS white students in grades three through eight met or exceeded expectations on state literacy tests this past spring, compared to 27% of Black students and 24% of Latinx students.

Similarly, the graduation rates for Black and Latinx students were 73% and 74%, respectively, for the class of 2022, compared to 86% for white students, according to state data.

Marrero’s strategic plan, which he released last year, listed several goals he hoped DPS would accomplish by the year 2026. The plan did not include incremental annual benchmarks. But the just-released report does, at least for last school year and this school year. The goals in the report are different from the goals the school board will use to evaluate Marrero’s performance.

Here’s a snapshot of how DPS is measuring up, based on the data in the new report and the presentation Marrero gave to the school board.

Goal: 62% of all kindergarten through third grade students would score at grade level or above on reading tests in spring 2023. By spring 2026, the goal is 70%.

Result: Not met. 58% scored at grade level or above in spring 2023.

Goal: 40% of all third through fifth grade students would meet or exceed expectations on state literacy tests in spring 2023. By spring 2026, the goal is 48%.

Result: Not met. 39% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

Goal: 28% of all sixth through eighth grade students would meet or exceed expectations on state math tests in spring 2023. By spring 2026, the goal is 36%.

Result: Met. 28% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

Goal: 26% of Latinx students in third through fifth grade would meet or exceed expectations on state literacy tests in spring 2023. Neither the report nor the presentation includes a goal for 2026.

Result: Not met. 23% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

Goal: 15% of Latinx students in sixth through eighth grade would meet or exceed expectations on state math tests in spring 2023. Neither the report nor the presentation includes a goal for 2026.

Result: Not met. 13% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

Goal: 26% of Black students in third through fifth grade would meet or exceed expectations on state literacy tests in spring 2023. Neither the report nor the presentation includes a goal for 2026.

Result: Not met. 24% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

Goal: 16% of Black students in sixth through eighth grade would meet or exceed expectations on state math tests in spring 2023. Neither the report nor the presentation includes a goal for 2026.

Result: Met. 16% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

Goal: 21% of English language learners in third through fifth grade would meet or exceed expectations on state literacy tests taken in both English and Spanish in spring 2023. Neither the report nor the presentation includes a goal for 2026.

Result: Not met. 17% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

Goal: 22% of redesignated English language learners, meaning they no longer need ELL services, in grades six through eight would meet or exceed expectations on state math tests in spring 2023. Neither the report nor the presentation includes a goal for 2026.

Result: Met. 22% met or exceeded expectations in spring 2023.

The report and presentation also summarized results from new surveys the district conducted of students, families, and employees. For instance, 89% of families said they feel safe and welcomed in DPS, according to the presentation, and 52% of employees said they feel valued.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver Public Schools pledged to pay tutoring vendors based on their results. Did it work?

2023-09-27T16:00:00+00:00

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Two outside companies that Denver Public Schools hired to tutor students in an effort to make up for lost learning fell short of some targets that could have earned the companies extra pay.

Though one company fared better than the other, many students didn’t hit the academic benchmarks spelled out in the district’s contracts. Some students struggled with participation, and staffing was a challenge for the company that tutored students in person.

“It was definitely a learning experience,” said Angelin Thompson, the director of expanded academic learning for DPS. “It’s great if you can do it with fidelity and if you have qualified tutors. There are just a lot of components that go into it that make it effective or ineffective.”

But because the contracts with the companies linked part of their payments to the achievement of certain targets, DPS isn’t paying for outcomes that weren’t achieved.

The concept of outcomes-based contracting is catching on at a time when school districts across the country have more cash to spend and bigger gaps to close.

Pandemic-era disruptions caused many students to miss key lessons, which prompted the federal government to invest billions of dollars of COVID-19 relief funding in America’s schools.

Tutoring quickly emerged as a leading research-based strategy to catch students up — especially high-impact or high-dosage tutoring, which DPS defined as 36 hours per student.

Colorado lawmakers set aside nearly $5 million in state funding in 2021 for grants to school districts to set up high-impact tutoring programs, and the State Board of Education pumped even more federal COVID relief aid, known as ESSER, into the program.

Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest district, applied for the grants and won. The tutoring began in fall 2021 and ramped up last school year when DPS signed contracts with two companies: Cignition and University Instructors. But the program was still pilot-size, serving only about 1,500 students total, or about 2% of all students in DPS.

Younger students made less progress

University Instructors struggled the most to meet the benchmarks in its contract.

In the 2022-23 school year, the Virginia-based company provided in-person literacy tutoring to DPS students in kindergarten through third grade. Its contract was for a maximum of $1.2 million: $900 per student in base pay with the possibility of $1,500 per student in payments based on hitting target outcomes.

The outcomes were based on the mechanics of reading: Did students’ fluency improve, as measured by a test called iStation? How about their vocabulary or phonemic awareness?

The answer for many students was no — or at least not enough to meet the benchmarks in the contract. For example, about half of the 641 students tutored by University Instructors met the benchmark in fluency, but only 17% met the benchmark in vocabulary, Thompson said.

University Instructors will likely be paid about $826,000, or about 68% of the maximum in its contract, according to calculations by Thompson’s staff.

The company did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.

Staffing challenges contributed to the results, Thompson said. University Instructors struggled at times to hire qualified local tutors and provide substitutes when tutors were out, she said.

Another hiccup was more technical. Not all DPS schools use the iStation test that University Instructors’ target outcomes were based on. Thompson’s staff tried to approximate whether students who took other tests met the benchmarks, but she said that wasn’t always possible.

Online tutoring was more successful

Cignition fared better. District records show DPS paid the California-based company $1.25 million to provide online math tutoring to students in third through eighth grade in 2022-23. Cignition’s contract with DPS was for up to $1.3 million, and the company served 924 students.

Cignition had four outcomes it was trying to achieve: two based on students’ confidence about math, as measured by surveys before and after tutoring, and two based on students’ academic growth, as measured by test scores before and after tutoring. The company was paid a base rate of $720 per student and could earn $940 per student on top of that if it met all targets.

In an interview, Cignition provided a detailed breakdown of its results. The majority of students reported higher confidence, with as many as 89% meeting one of the survey-based benchmarks. Fewer students — 72% — met the academic benchmarks, the company said.

Michael Cohen, founder and CEO of Cignition, said he’s proud of the outcomes.

“We care about quality,” he said. “We’re there to help their students that are struggling the most. Some of those students are really, really struggling, and we do everything we can for every student to bring them up as far as they can possibly get in that school year. There’s going to be a range. Not every last one will get to the highest possible grade.”

Unlike University Instructors, Cignition did not struggle with staffing, according to both the company and DPS. Its model calls for one tutor, who can live anywhere in the country, to work online with a group of four students, giving that group undivided attention.

But Cignition did report issues with student attendance and schools occasionally canceling virtual tutoring sessions. While DPS was aiming to provide students with at least 36 hours of tutoring, Cignition said 50 hours is the gold standard. Only about 10% of DPS students logged 50 hours, the company said. About half of the students logged 25 hours.

Outcomes-based contracts catching on

At a time when other school districts across the country have had trouble with external tutoring companies, the state grant allowed DPS to try high-impact tutoring relatively risk-free — an opportunity that Thompson said will inform the district’s tutoring strategy going forward.

“Because of the grant, we were able to try these things and learn what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “Now as we plan for what tutoring will look like with Denver Public Schools’ money, we can think about all the things we learned and do it differently.”

One aspect DPS will likely keep, Thompson said, is outcomes-based contracting. While the concept has been around for years in industries such as health care and construction, it’s new in K-12 education, with about 13 school districts actively participating, said Brittany Miller, the director of outcomes-based contracting for the Georgia-based Southern Education Foundation.

Before Miller worked for the foundation, she worked for DPS and helped set up the outcomes-based tutoring contracts. The benefit, she said, is that school districts have a tangible way to judge whether the results are worth the millions of dollars they spend on external vendors.

“There is a lack of infrastructure in K-12 education, particularly in the procurement process, to say, ‘After we spent these funds, what happened for kids?’” Miller said. “This shores up a lot of that.”

Miller said outcomes-based contracting benefits vendors, too, because it sets clear expectations rather than the fuzzy goals that companies sometimes complain about. It also gives the companies the opportunity to earn more money for good performance.

Toni Rader, vice president of learning quality and operations for Cignition, said the company has been doing outcomes-based contracts with districts since 2021.

“We love to do outcomes-based contracts,” Rader said. “It’s helpful for all parties involved, because it makes it clear what we’re shooting for.”

As for DPS, its state grant goes through this school year. But Thompson said the dollar amount is much lower this year, and there are new restrictions. DPS will have just $400,000 to spend, and only on middle school math tutoring, for which the district will request proposals soon.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

8 candidates are vying for 3 open seats on the Denver school board

2023-09-26T16:31:09+00:00

Eight candidates are running for three open seats on the Denver school board at a time when gun violence around schools and infighting on the board has raised its profile in a critical way.

Some of the eight candidates said they decided to run after a March shooting inside East High School highlighted safety concerns in Denver Public Schools. Others were spurred by a rocky process to close schools with low enrollment, and still others are former DPS employees or longtime volunteers who said the timing was right for them this year.

At stake is how the board will deal with high-profile issues such as declining enrollment and the impacts of returning police officers to some high schools. The election also has the potential to change the dynamic among board members. Recent polls of parents and voters found widespread distrust and unfavorable views of the board.

Though several candidates said they want to see a change in how board members treat each other, the Nov. 7 election won’t shift the balance of power on the board. No matter the outcome, union-backed members will still hold a majority of seats on the board.

Six of the seven seats are currently held by members who were endorsed by the Denver teachers union as candidates. The seventh seat is occupied by a member who was appointed by the board to fill a vacancy last year.

The appointed member, Charmaine Lindsay, is running to keep her seat representing northwest Denver’s District 5. Lindsay, an attorney with grandchildren in DPS, has two challengers: longtime DPS volunteer Marlene De La Rosa and parent and former teacher Adam Slutzker.

Scott Baldermann, who was elected in 2019 to represent southeast Denver’s District 1, is the other incumbent in the race. Baldermann, a DPS parent who runs a small software company, has one challenger: parent and former charter school network CEO Kimberlee Sia.

The third seat up for grabs has no incumbent since board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who represents the entire city at large, dropped out of the race.

The at-large race has three candidates: parent and doctoral student Brittni Johnson, DPS graduate and bookstore owner Kwame Spearman, and parent and former East High principal John Youngquist. A fourth candidate, Paul Ballenger, dropped out of the race in late September.

Endorsements and fundraising so far

Endorsements from either the teachers union or education reform organizations have been key to winning in Denver. Both have deep pockets and spend big to support their chosen candidates.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has endorsed Spearman for the at-large seat. The union also endorsed Baldermann for reelection to the District 1 seat, and it endorsed Lindsay to keep her seat in District 5.

Meanwhile, pro-education reform organization Denver Families Action has endorsed Youngquist for the at-large seat, Sia for the District 1 seat, and De La Rosa for the District 5 seat.

Denver Families Action is the political arm of the nonprofit Denver Families for Public Schools. Denver Families launched in 2021 with the backing of local charter school networks and gets funding from The City Fund, a pro-reform national organization.

The teachers union often gives money directly to its slate of candidates and also funds an independent expenditure committee, which is a committee that can spend unlimited amounts of money but can’t coordinate with candidates. In the last election in 2021, the Denver and Colorado teachers unions spent more than $400,000 to back four candidates who won: Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán, Scott Esserman, Michelle Quattlebaum, and Carrie Olson.

Reform organizations funnel most of their money into independent expenditure committees. In 2021, reform-backed committees spent a little more than $1 million on mailers, digital ads, phone calls, text messages, and door knocking in support of three candidates who lost.

Spending by independent expenditure committees, which is sometimes referred to as outside spending or dark money, hasn’t yet ramped up this year. But many of the candidates themselves have been raising money, almost all of it from individual donors.

At-large candidate Spearman was the top fundraiser with about $59,000 as of Sept. 18, the date of the last campaign finance report filed with the Colorado Secretary of State. Youngquist, who’s also running at-large, and Sia, who’s running in District 1, were close behind with $57,000 each.

Current District 1 board member Baldermann had contributed $21,000 to his re-election campaign. He won in 2019 with the help of more than $330,000 of his own money, far more than any Denver candidate has contributed to their own campaign before or since.

Some candidates this year have raised very little money or none at all. Slutzker, who’s vying for the District 5 seat, hadn’t raised anything as of Sept. 18.

Where candidates stand on the issues

School board elections are nonpartisan, so candidates aren’t divided into Democrats and Republicans. Instead, Denver candidates’ views on education reform strategies, such as the expansion of independent charter schools within DPS, have historically divided them.

The teachers union generally opposes reform. Ever since the board flipped to union control in 2019, members have undone many reform policies. For example, board members reopened two comprehensive high schools, West and Montbello, that previous reform-backed boards closed for low test scores, which was a common reform strategy.

The board also approved a new labor union for principals, got rid of a controversial school ratings system, limited autonomy for district-run innovation schools, and rejected several new charter schools that applied to open in DPS.

Declining enrollment has also muted the reform debate, because even pro-reform candidates are hesitant to open new charter schools. Fourteen DPS charters have closed in the past four years, only one due to a board vote. The others closed on their own, largely because of declining enrollment.

The differences between pro-reform and anti-reform candidates are now subtler. Pro-reform candidates are more likely to defend school choice, which allows students to request to attend any school in the district. They are also more likely to say they support all DPS schools, regardless of type, as long as the schools are serving students well.

Anti-reform candidates are more likely to criticize the school choice system as broken and in need of improvement. They often say the district should prioritize supporting neighborhood schools, meaning traditional district-run schools, before approving new charters.

The school board race where the differences are starkest this year is in District 1. Sia is the former CEO of the KIPP Colorado charter school network and a strong supporter of school choice. Baldermann is the board’s harshest critic of school choice and charters.

Another high-profile topic on which some board members disagree is the reinstatement of school resource officers. While most candidates support SROs, Slutzker and Johnson said at a recent forum hosted by the DPS Black Family Advisory Council that they would have voted no.

On many other topics, the candidates agree. Most candidates have acknowledged that declining enrollment may require some schools to be closed, but that DPS should do a better job including families, teachers, and community members in that decision making.

Many candidates also agree that DPS should prioritize hiring and retaining educators of color and closing test score gaps between Black and Hispanic students and white students.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Paul Ballenger dropped out of the race for the at-large seat in late September. It has also been updated with endorsements.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Parent of 3, former teacher Adam Slutzker running for northwest seat on Denver school board

2023-09-20T22:49:07+00:00

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A former elementary school teacher whose three children attend Denver Public Schools is running for a seat on the Denver school board.

Adam Slutzker, who taught in a neighboring district, is running to represent northwest Denver. His children attend Columbian Elementary School, which was one of 10 schools Superintendent Alex Marrero initially recommended closing last school year for low enrollment. Though Columbian was spared, Slutzker said that experience pushed him to run for the board.

“I don’t really believe that they did their job in effectively communicating with the potentially impacted communities in a way that gave people the opportunity to process and engage in a thoughtful manner,” Slutzker said of the district’s school closure process.

However, he said declining enrollment in DPS means more closures could be coming.

“We are going to have to find a way — whether it’s closures or consolidations or different ways of appropriating our funding” to deal with declining enrollment, he said. “Hard decisions are going to have to be made. We need to be conscious of how we’re making those decisions.”

Slutzker, 39, is one of three candidates running to represent District 5 on the board. He’ll face two opponents: incumbent Charmaine Lindsay and challenger Marlene De La Rosa.

Three of the seven Denver school board seats are up for grabs Nov. 7, and a total of nine candidates are in the running. Two of the seats, including District 5, represent specific regions of the city and the third seat represents the entire city at large.

The election has the potential to change the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized for power struggles and infighting among some members. Also at stake is how DPS will deal with pressing issues including declining enrollment and school safety.

After a shooting inside East High School in March, the school board reinstated police officers in some DPS high schools. A previous board had voted in 2020 to remove school resource officers, or SROs, over concerns that SROs were over-policing students of color.

Slutzker said he’d rather the district spend money on social services and mental health support than on stationing police in buildings.

But since SROs are currently being funded by the city and not by DPS, Slutzker said he would be open to keeping them as long as they’re properly trained, and as long as the SROs are “there to protect and serve our students and not necessarily in a disciplinary fashion.”

Slutzker said he worked as an elementary school teacher from 2009 until 2014, mostly in neighboring Jeffco Public Schools. He said he left teaching when his oldest child was born and has spent the past nine years working part-time as a real estate agent, contractor, and carpenter while his wife works full-time as a nurse practitioner.

For the past two years, Slutzker said, he’s chaired Columbian Elementary’s collaborative school committee, a group of parents and teachers who advise school leaders.

“I left the classroom because it was a better financial decision for me to stay at home with our children,” Slutzker said. “I’ve always wanted to go back … I couldn’t think of a better way to be politically engaged than running for school board and making an impact on the education system.”

Slutzker said he believes it’s important for district decision-makers to listen to teachers.

“I consider myself an educator advocate, first and foremost,” he said. “Before I wear my parent hat, I put on my teacher hat.”

On issues such as how to boost teacher recruitment and retention, Slutzker said DPS needs to base its policies on educator feedback.

“They’re the experts and we need to be listening to them,” he said.

Successful Denver school board candidates are often backed either by the teachers union or by organizations supportive of education reform and independent charter schools. Asked his opinion on charter schools, Slutzker said that while he supports DPS having a variety of school types, he believes charter schools need more oversight.

He also said the expansion of charter schools in DPS has contributed to the district’s declining enrollment crisis because “we’ve opened too many schools.” In the few parts of the city where new housing is being built and school enrollment is increasing, Slutzker said he’d potentially be open to approving new charter schools, but not districtwide.

“I’m not anti-charter school, but I want to make sure every neighborhood has a thriving neighborhood school their child can attend before we go granting new charters,” he said. The term neighborhood school often refers to traditional, district-run schools.

Slutzker said his dual experience as both a former educator and a current parent make him stand out among candidates for the District 5 school board seat.

“My background in education and living it day to day, dealing with headaches of child care, the pickups and dropoffs, the healthy school start times, and how to get off of work and pick kids up at 2:40, is something I carry that other candidates are not directly experiencing,” Slutzker said.

Healthy start times is a district policy that pushes elementary school start times earlier and middle and high school start times later to ensure teenagers get more sleep.

“I think I can really empathize with other families in the district for the challenges we’re all facing in being parents in 2023,” Slutzker said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

At Denver’s Hallett Academy, principal says intentional hiring — and love — helped boost rating

2023-09-14T22:09:29+00:00

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To recruit students to Hallett Academy, Principal Dominique Jefferson said she tells the truth.

“Here at Hallett, we will love your child into learning,” Jefferson said, sitting in her quiet office on a recent Friday morning. “That is the commitment I make to you. And I keep my word.”

Jefferson’s commitment was clear as she moved through the hallways in a tutu, greeting students by name and opening her arms wide. At a weekly assembly in the gym, she offered a squeezy hug to each of the 289 children who wanted one before she led the entire school in a lesson about self-care, one of Hallett’s school-wide expectations.

The Friday before, she’d handed out green cupcakes — a celebration of the fact that for the first time in nearly a decade, Hallett earned the state’s highest school rating, signified by the color green, based on student progress on state tests taken this past spring.

“Life is hard for the children who look like me,” Jefferson said. “I am just committed to making sure that when they come to school every day that they experience freedom. And they are reminded of the power that they have.”

Jefferson is Black, as are 71% of Hallett students in kindergarten through fifth grade. That high proportion makes Hallett unique in Denver Public Schools, where just 14% of students are Black.

Every single student must choose to attend Hallett. That’s because the school is one of just a few Denver district-run schools without an enrollment boundary that directs neighborhood children there, a circumstance that several families said is both a blessing and a curse.

It’s a blessing because that intentionality is part of Hallett’s magic, they said. But it’s a curse because as lower birth rates and high housing costs drive down enrollment in DPS districtwide, small elementary schools like Hallett are at risk for closure.

Hallett has been closed before. In 2008, Hallett was one of eight DPS schools closed for low enrollment. The building, which is located in the historically Black neighborhood of Park Hill, reopened as the new home for a public magnet school, Knight Fundamental Academy.

Omar D. Blair, the first Black DPS school board president, helped start Knight in the early 1980s. It focused on “structured, stay-in-your-seat learning,” and posted high test scores, according to newspaper reports from the time. At Hallett, the school was renamed Hallett Fundamental Academy. As a magnet school, Hallett no longer had a boundary.

Hallett Academy Principal Dominique Jefferson, in the black tutu, raises her hand as a signal for students to quiet down during a schoolwide assembly.

Bringing healing and restoration

When Jefferson became principal of Hallett seven years ago, one of the first things she did was rebrand the school and remove “fundamental” from its name. A few years before, Hallett had been publicly accused of cheating on standardized tests. The former principal was put on leave while the state investigated Hallett’s high scores, which had earned the school a green rating.

The investigation turned up no wrongdoing; Hallett students and staff hadn’t cheated. But it wounded the community, Jefferson said. When she arrived, the school was rated red.

“I made it my responsibility to bring healing and restoration,” Jefferson said. “I remember them being slandered and never receiving a ‘sorry.’”

To accomplish her goal, Jefferson didn’t focus on curriculum or schedule changes, or stricter rules for teachers or students, as many schools do in their attempts to boost academic performance. Her strategy was much simpler.

“In short,” she said, “I hired well.”

When interviewing job candidates, Jefferson said she doesn’t require a certain background or set of skills. She listens. She waits to hear candidates say they believe all children can learn and achieve. That when children are at school, 100% of the responsibility for their success rests with their teachers, regardless of what’s going on at home. And that the candidates feel called to work at Hallett, just as Jefferson did, even if they can’t pinpoint why.

“I wait to hear potential team members say things like, ‘This may sound strange, but I just think I’m supposed to be here,’” Jefferson said.

That’s how kindergarten teacher Joy Wills felt when she visited Hallett at the end of last school year. Wills was a teacher in a neighboring district who knew Jefferson from years ago but had no intention of leaving her job. The visit — to a school with predominantly Black students in a historically Black neighborhood — changed her mind, Wills said.

“It was great to have that sense of home community that I haven’t had since I’ve been here in Denver,” said Wills, who is from Chicago.

Hallett’s staff is diverse, and Jefferson said that she’s proud that the adult population at Hallett mirrors the student population. “If you are a white boy student, there are teachers who are white and male that you will see at least once a week,” Jefferson said. “If you are a multiracial girl, you will see, ‘Here are three multiracial folks. They look just like you.’”

At the assembly Friday, the entire school played a game called “Just Like Me.”

“If you have your hair in braids, you would stand up,” Jefferson explained to the students and staff. “And you would say, ‘Just like me!’ On the count of three: One, two, three.”

“Just like me!” the students and staff said over and over again in response to questions about whether they were left-handed, an only child, or if summer was their favorite season.

Hallett Academy students hug Principal Dominique Jefferson in the hallway.

‘Children are loved here’

The cultural mirror is one of many aspects of Hallett that parents said they appreciate.

“They just do a lot to make every kid feel seen throughout the day,” said parent Amy Martinez, who described her family as multiracial: She is white, her husband is Mexican, and their first grade daughter Jaliyah is Black. “They instill that pride in the students.”

Parent Emily Nelson said that when she and her husband were looking for a school for their children, who are biracial, she was struck by how the staff at Hallett interacted with the students.

“That was probably the biggest thing, just to walk through the hallways and hear peace,” Nelson said. “Before looking at test scores or any of that, I looked at how the children were acting. The self-esteem was something I was looking for, of just fostering strong humans.”

Parents credit Jefferson with creating that atmosphere. Faith and advocacy are a big part of how she’s gotten there. When DPS tried to change Hallett’s start time this fall from 9 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. as part of a districtwide policy to have elementary schools start earlier and middle and high schools start later, Jefferson and the parents successfully pushed back.

Families come to Hallett from all over the metro area, driving up to 45 minutes from Lafayette to the north and Castle Rock to the south, Jefferson said. Starting school an hour and a half earlier would have made that journey untenable for many families.

When DPS predicted Hallett’s enrollment would dip to just 171 students in kindergarten through fifth grade this year, necessitating that Jefferson cut $697,000 — the equivalent of six and a half teachers — from the school’s budget, she decided to do something district staff told her was impossible: request DPS supplement her budget by the full $697,000.

But Superintendent Alex Marrero said yes, and then Hallett proved the predictions wrong: When school started, 225 students in kindergarten through fifth grade showed up. The school also has 64 preschool students, though preschool is funded separately.

As Jefferson sees it, the last barrier is Hallett’s lack of a boundary. Having a boundary could boost the school’s enrollment and ensure Hallett stays off any future school closure lists.

She’s holding out hope that DPS will restore the boundary, just as she had faith that Hallett would restore its green rating. After years of red ratings, the state’s lowest, and no rating last year because not enough Hallett students took the state standardized tests, Jefferson began telling everyone that Hallett would rocket to the top of the ratings chart this year.

Before third, fourth, and fifth graders took the state tests known as CMAS this past spring, Jefferson wrote each of them a personalized postcard.

“You are an extraordinary human, blooming in boldness, speaking your truth,” she wrote to Nelson’s daughter Gianna, who was in fourth grade last year. “CMAS starts soon. Show up and do your very best because you can and you are more than capable.”

The postcard is still hanging on the Nelsons’ fridge. While Nelson said test scores were never most important to her, the green rating is a public testament to the environment at Hallett.

Jefferson feels similarly.

“What I want folks to know is that children are loved here, that they are seen, that they are thriving, and we are a mystical, magical community in that whether or not we’ve been given what we need, we always have what we need,” she said.

“That’s what I want folks to know. And now they’re starting to know.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board wants public feedback on proposed school closure, declining enrollment policies

2023-09-11T23:13:08+00:00

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Rather than closing schools with enrollment below a set number of students, the Denver school board is considering a new approach. A pair of policy proposals would cap enrollment at some schools, adjust attendance boundaries, and set other rules and a timeline for school closures.

The goal is to be more transparent and equitable in deciding which schools to close in the face of declining enrollment in Denver Public Schools. But the policies wouldn’t stop the closures. A district analysis found that achieving the enrollment levels envisioned in one of the proposals would require the district to have 15 fewer elementary schools than it has now.

Earlier this year, the board balked at closing more than three.

The Denver school board is inviting feedback on the two proposals during the public comment portion of its meeting Sept. 18, but it has not yet set a date to vote.

Some board members said they’re eager to get a policy in writing after a flawed school closure process this past spring. Others want to take it slow.

“We need to be very, very cautious moving forward here and not move too quickly, and take into consideration what the potential unintended consequences are,” board member Scott Esserman said at a school board work session last week.

One of the proposed policies, known officially as Executive Limitation 18, says school closure decisions should not be based on a school’s low test scores or low enrollment.

Instead, it says the superintendent should “propose schools for consolidation and unification that equitably distributes the burden of declining enrollment across all of Denver.”

A proposed timeline would have the superintendent announce any schools recommended for closure in September. The board would invite public feedback from families at those schools in November and then vote in January, a much longer timeline than happened this year. Students impacted by school closures would have priority enrollment into all other district-run and charter schools in DPS, the proposed Executive Limitation 18 says.

In the past, nearly all of the public feedback has been against closing schools. But the proposed policy makes clear that closures are coming.

“Due to the declining enrollment expected for at least five more years, the Board of Education believes it is necessary to consolidate and unify schools to maintain the financial viability of the district,” the proposed Executive Limitation 18 says.

The other proposed policy, known as Executive Limitation 19, would require the superintendent to maintain “financially stable enrollment” at each elementary school. The proposal defines that as enrollment of “300 students (two classes of 25 students per grade), 450 students (three classes of 25 students per grade), or 600 students (four classes of 25 students per grade).”

Enrollment at any elementary school should not exceed 600 students, the proposed policy says. Board members have said that capping enrollment at popular elementary schools could bolster enrollment at smaller schools that are losing students. Executive Limitation 19 also proposes the superintendent analyze and adjust school boundaries every four years or less.

Four DPS elementary schools had more than 600 students last school year, according to state data. Thirty-six elementary or K-8 schools had fewer than 300 students, the data shows.

In order for each DPS elementary school to have at least 300 students by the year 2027, DPS would need “15 fewer elementary schools across the system,” according to a memo from DPS officials in charge of finance and enrollment to Superintendent Alex Marrero.

Having 15 fewer elementary schools could save DPS $14 million, the memo says, which could be “reinvested in other programming, compensation for educators, and other expenses to improve the student experience within DPS.”

But to achieve that, the proposed Executive Limitation 18 says DPS should “not use enrollment minimums (e.g., 215 students) as bright line criteria for consolidation.

“Schools of any enrollment size are eligible for consolidation,” it says.

The two proposed policies were first floated in April, a month after the board voted to close three DPS schools with very low enrollment. The process was full of fits and starts, with the board rejecting the superintendent’s initial school closure recommendations and then reversing itself four months later with only a day’s notice to the public.

Proposed Executive Limitation 18 acknowledges that most under-enrolled DPS schools serve a disproportionate number of students of color, students from low-income families, students learning English as a second language, and students with disabilities.

It says DPS should hold regional meetings “to help inform and co-create future recommendations for addressing declining enrollment.” The meetings should convey information about demographic trends in the region, as well as “the positive implications of proceeding and the negative implications of not proceeding” with school closures, it says.

DPS schools are funded per pupil, and schools with low enrollment often have to cut art or music programs or combine different grades into a single classroom.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Bill Kurtz will step down as CEO of Denver’s DSST charter school network after 20 years

2023-09-08T21:56:05+00:00

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Bill Kurtz, the CEO of Denver’s largest charter school network, announced Friday that he will leave DSST after 20 years with the organization.

Kurtz said he plans to step down at the end of this school year.

“It is the right time,” he wrote in a letter addressed to DSST families and friends. “DSST is ready for a new leader to take DSST to greater heights. A new CEO will bring different insights, skills and experiences to lead the organization into our next decade.”

Kurtz was the founding principal of DSST’s first charter school, a diverse high school in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood called the Denver School of Science and Technology that was focused on getting all of its graduates into four-year colleges.

Bill Kurtz

Over the past two decades, DSST has expanded to 14 schools in Denver and two in neighboring Aurora. The network serves a total of 7,200 students in grades 6-12, 80% of whom are Hispanic or Black and 73% of whom come from low-income families, according to DSST.

DSST’s high student test scores, a growing number of school-aged children attending Denver Public Schools, and a school board eager to replicate high-performing charters made DSST’s expansion possible. But while DSST still posts high test scores, enrollment in DPS is now declining and the new school board routinely says no to charters.

In 2020, DSST fought with the school board to open its seventh high school in Denver at the same time the network decided to close one of its middle schools due to declining enrollment.

The changing landscape has made things harder for charter schools in Denver. The second- and third-largest charter networks, STRIVE Prep and Rocky Mountain Prep respectively, recently merged under the Rocky Mountain Prep name. The founding CEOs of both networks are gone; STRIVE’s Chris Gibbons left in 2022 and Rocky Mountain Prep’s James Cryan left in 2021.

Kurtz said neither politics nor enrollment projections factored into his decision to step down from DSST.

“The adult politics around all this is necessary because we live in a democracy,” Kurtz said in an interview. “But ultimately, especially post-COVID, we need to have a laser focus on, ‘How are we serving students and families?’”

The students and their accomplishments are what Kurtz said he’s most proud of. The oldest DSST alumni are now in their 30s, and Kurtz said he routinely hears from graduates who are working as doctors, college professors, and engineers. One alumna of DSST’s first school is now a Spanish teacher at the DSST: College View campus. Kurtz said she took two buses two hours each way to high school because DSST promised her a path to college.

“We created DSST together on the premise that we have amazing young people in our communities in Denver and Aurora that did not have access to the opportunities they deserved and we promised,” Kurtz said. “We believed that once our young people had those opportunities, they would do amazing things.”

Kurtz said that while DSST’s mission has remained the same, the way it achieves that mission has changed. The network has worked to make its teacher training, curriculum, and school culture more inclusive, he said. One example, Kurtz said, is that DSST did not have any programs for students with significant disabilities when it started. It now has several.

“We’ve walked a very deep and meaningful journey around equity and inclusion,” Kurtz said.

Kurtz said he does not have another job lined up for when he steps down. Instead, he said, “I’m pretty focused on having my best year as a leader ever and ensuring DSST has our best year ever.” Kurtz said he announced his departure early to help with a smooth transition.

Gloria Zamora, the chair of DSST’s board of directors, said the board will communicate the next steps in the search for a new CEO in the coming weeks.

“We commend Bill for the high-functioning school system he is leaving to his successor,” Zamora said in a statement. “This solid foundation will enable DSST to continue growing to meet the needs of our students and families in the coming years.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Denver school board to limit public comment to a total of 2 hours

2023-09-08T15:01:22+00:00

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Monthly public comment before the Denver school board will be limited to a total of two hours going forward, a restriction that board President Xóchitl “Sochi” Gaytán described Thursday as a “temporary solution” to the problem of too-long meetings.

“There’s been times where we’ve stayed until midnight or 1 in the morning to hear every single constituent and parent that was coming in to share any comments or concerns,” Gaytán said during a board work session Thursday night.

“To respect each other’s time as board members, to respect the time of staff, especially, that has to stay late and put in overtime to support the board in allowing for this public comment to take place, it’s important we consider all of that in setting time limits,” she said.

The Denver school board holds one regular public comment session per month at which students, parents, teachers, and community members can sign up in advance to address the board. The next session is scheduled for Sept. 18. The board sometimes also holds special public comment sessions on particular topics.

Speakers get three minutes each to address board members, who do not respond. If speakers go over their allotted time, the board rings a loud alarm to signal their time is up.

But until now, there was no limit on the total time for public comment, though the board has previously floated the idea. Public comment almost always stretches more than an hour, and sometimes much longer if the board is voting on a controversial issue.

A long list of speakers gave five hours of testimony in March 2022 before the board voted on a policy related to innovation schools. In November, students, parents, and teachers spent six hours pleading with the board not to close their schools because of declining enrollment.

In announcing the two-hour limit Thursday, Gaytán cited a district policy, known as policy BE, which says the board “shall set a time limit on the length of the public participation time overall, a time limit for each topic and a time limit for individual speakers.”

Two board members, Scott Esserman and Carrie Olson, volunteered to draft a new policy that would set permanent limits while the temporary two-hour limit is in place.

Member Charmaine Lindsay said she’d like to allow speakers to participate virtually like they did during the height of the pandemic. Olson floated the idea of allotting three hours instead of two because she said public comment is one of the only ways to address the board.

“We are not yet good at getting out into the community in a consistent way so that people have access to us,” said Olson, who added that she starts to fade after three hours of public comment. “It might feel like we’re cutting off more access by saying there’s only two hours.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Longtime DPS volunteer Marlene De La Rosa running for northwest Denver seat on school board

2023-09-07T22:16:24+00:00

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A longtime Denver Public Schools volunteer and advocate and the mother of two DPS graduates is running to represent northwest Denver on the school board.

Marlene De La Rosa began serving on school committees when her twins, who are now 29, were in preschool. Her advocacy continued throughout their school career, from Denison Montessori elementary school to North and East high schools. She also served on several district and citywide committees, advocating for Latino parents and students while working full time as an immigration court specialist with the U.S. Department of Justice.

De La Rosa, 58, said her recent retirement and a lifelong passion for education motivated her to run for school board. She will challenge incumbent Charmaine Lindsay and candidate Adam Slutzker for a seat representing District 5, which encompasses northwest Denver.

“I am a public servant and have been all my life,” De La Rosa told Chalkbeat. “Leadership is a lifelong journey, and that’s the way I envision continuing on this path to serve my community.”

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. Also at stake is how the board will deal with pressing issues such as declining enrollment and student safety.

De La Rosa said her top priorities include higher pay for teachers, diversifying the teacher workforce, and closing test score gaps between students of color and white students.

Declining enrollment and the possibility of school closures is a pressing topic in northwest Denver, where De La Rosa said her family has lived for four generations. The region has been hit hard by gentrification, which has pushed out families and driven down student counts.

De La Rosa said she understands how fewer students means less per-pupil funding, which often leads small schools to cut programs or staff. But she said DPS’ recent school closure decisions happened too quickly, and the community deserves more time to understand the issues and prepare for their children to switch schools.

Almost a decade ago, De La Rosa said she was hired by DPS to facilitate a community process that ended with the placement of Denver Montessori Junior/Senior High in a vacant elementary building. Some parents wanted the building to remain an elementary school, but De La Rosa said sharing Census data and demographic projections helped change their minds.

On school safety, De La Rosa said the district needs to monitor the effects of the board’s recent decision to return police officers to DPS campuses in the wake of a shooting inside East High. Her son had a positive experience with a school resource officer in high school, but De La Rosa said the board needs to ensure that’s the case districtwide by tracking the number of tickets SROs are issuing to students and for what offenses.

“They have a plan in place, and we should continue to monitor what’s going on with that plan,” De La Rosa said. “Is that meeting the needs of each specific school community? Are those school leaders happy with that plan? Do they think that’s sufficient?”

De La Rosa has been endorsed by Denver Families Action, the political arm of the organization Denver Families for Public Schools. Denver Families launched in 2021 with the backing of three local charter school networks and gets funding from The City Fund, a national organization that supports charter schools and school reform.

Successful Denver school board candidates are often backed by reform organizations or the Denver teachers union. Both spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mailers and canvassing, making it hard for candidates without endorsements to compete.

Asked her views on charter schools, De La Rosa said, “I don’t follow any specific ideology other than, ‘How do we offer the best we can for every kid?’”

De La Rosa said she supports school choice and used it for her own children, including enrolling her daughter at East High. But she also said that the choice system is not perfect.

“You have to evaluate as the parent: What’s the best for my particular child’s needs?” she said.

Both of De La Rosa’s children were competitive athletes, which influenced the high schools they chose, she said. De La Rosa served as a parent representative on the collaborative school committee at East High, advising school leaders on how to close academic gaps between students of color and white students, she said.

She also ran a student athlete leadership program at North High that aimed to boost students’ grades and self-esteem. One year, she said she got a grant to take five student athletes to a national social justice conference in Washington, D.C., where they shook hands with former President Barack Obama.

When Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet was superintendent of DPS from 2005 to 2009, De La Rosa served on a districtwide parent empowerment council that informed parents about everything from test scores at their children’s schools to how to plan healthy meals for their families.

De La Rosa currently serves as a mayoral appointee to the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the Denver Latino Commission. She is also a founder of LatinasGive!, a circle of women who give small grants to organizations that serve the Latino community.

“I give my money, I give my time, I give my knowledge, I give my love,” De La Rosa said. “Passion is mainly what I’ve given over all these years to support the community.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Fired McAuliffe principal Kurt Dennis sues Denver Public Schools, alleging retaliation

2023-09-05T21:36:01+00:00

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Kurt Dennis, who was fired in July from his job as principal of McAuliffe International School, sued Denver Public Schools, Superintendent Alex Marrero, and six of the seven Denver school board members in federal court Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed on Dennis’ behalf by civil rights attorney David Lane, alleges that DPS fired Dennis in retaliation for a televised interview he gave to 9News in March. In the interview, Dennis expressed concerns about a district practice that required McAuliffe staff to pat down a student charged with attempted murder to check for weapons.

Dennis gave the interview just days after a different student at Denver’s East High School, who was subject to the same type of weapons searches, shot and injured two school deans.

“Ultimately, Defendants are retaliating against Mr. Dennis, who exercised his right to free speech when he publicly criticized DPS and its unsafe policies in an effort to protect his students and staff from the horrifying specter of gun violence,” the lawsuit says.

A DPS spokesperson said Tuesday that the district could not comment on the allegations because “the lawsuit has not been served to DPS.”

“The allegations made in any complaint are not facts,” the district said in a statement. “We believe the preponderance of the evidence, some of which has already been released, will support our case and we look forward to responding fully in court.”

But district officials have commented before, and some of those comments are now cited in Dennis’ lawsuit.

Dennis’ initial safety concerns, his firing, rallies calling for him to be reinstated, and a subsequent district investigation into the improper use of a seclusion room at McAuliffe have been extensively covered by the local media for months.

In that time, DPS school board members made multiple public statements about Dennis, including at press conferences before and after the seclusion investigation was complete, and at meetings, such as when the board voted 6-1 last month to uphold his firing. Dennis is not suing Scott Baldermann, the one board member who voted no.

The lawsuit claims those statements were defamatory and “publicly advanced numerous pretextual reasons for the termination.” It claims board members tied Dennis to white supremacy and made statements “smearing him in public as a racist” by claiming that the seclusion room was used only for students of color, which Dennis disputes.

A district investigation found that Dennis placed students — or directed other staff to place students — in two seclusion rooms last year without proper supervision and then locked the door. But it did not find that Dennis disproportionately placed students of color in the rooms.

The lawsuit alleges DPS has not provided Dennis with an opportunity to clear his name, which has made it impossible for him to find a principal job in another school district.

In firing Dennis, DPS said he had improperly “divulged confidential student and legal records” in the 9News interview, put DPS at legal risk, caused the McAuliffe student who was being searched to be ostracized, and “repeatedly attempted to remove a young student of color” from the school, according to a document obtained by Chalkbeat.

The district also cited “a pattern of administrative actions” at McAuliffe that had a negative impact on students with disabilities and students of color, including the “overuse of out-of-school suspensions” for students of color, the document says.

The lawsuit doesn’t address the allegation about out-of-school suspensions. But it does claim that students of color achieved high academic results at McAuliffe, the district’s largest middle school. On average, McAuliffe students of color outperformed 88% of their peers statewide on state standardized tests in the 2021-22 school year, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also disputes that Dennis divulged confidential student records or caused the student who was being searched to be ostracized. The records Dennis provided to the press were redacted to remove personal information about the student, the lawsuit says.

Students who are subject to daily weapons searches “are already known by most everyone at the school, including fellow students, as ‘dangerous,’” the lawsuit says.

The student in this case was accused of shooting a liquor store clerk during a robbery attempt, the lawsuit says. The student wore a visible ankle bracelet as a condition of their bond and was escorted by a staff member at all times under a safety plan that deemed the student a threat, according to the lawsuit.

“Through no fault of Mr. Dennis, the identity of these students is, and always has been, widely known by other students and faculty throughout the school,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also claims that Dennis was within his legal rights to request that the student be transferred to an online education program or expelled. DPS denied both requests, the lawsuit says.

In the wake of the East shooting, district leaders have defended a policy that allows students facing criminal charges to attend their regular schools while on bond.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

New poll finds wide-open Denver school board race, little trust in current board

2023-09-05T17:03:00+00:00

Two months ahead of the Denver school board election, a new poll finds widespread distrust in the current board, even as most respondents said the district is providing students an adequate education.

The poll finds the majority of respondents rate school safety as a key concern, alongside recruiting and retaining teachers, while other major challenges facing the district such as declining enrollment don’t attract the same interest.

Colorado Polling Institute, a team made up of Republican polling firm Cygnal and Democratic firm Aspect Strategic, surveyed 414 likely voters in mid-August.

Like voters in off-year school board elections, the poll respondents’ demographics don’t match those of DPS parents. Most Denver students are Latino or Black and come from low-income households. The majority of poll respondents were white and come from middle- or high-income households, similar to the likely voter population. About 18% of poll respondents were DPS parents.

In November, voters will choose three members on the seven-member board. With Auon’tai Anderson withdrawing to pursue a state House seat, no incumbent is running in the at-large race. The poll found 87% of respondents undecided on the at-large race.

Support for all the candidates was within the margin of error, but former East High principal John Youngquist drew the most support, with a little less than 5% of respondents saying he was their preferred candidate. Ulcca Joshi Hansen — who dropped out shortly after the poll was taken — was a close second. The other candidates are Kwame Spearman, Paul Ballenger, and Brittni Johnson. Johnson had not yet filed at the time the poll was taken.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable view of the Denver school board, compared to just 21.6% with a favorable view. Two-thirds of parents reported an unfavorable view. Respondents of color and older respondents were also more likely to have an unfavorable view.

In contrast, parents were more likely to say DPS is providing a quality education, with 38% saying Denver schools are good or excellent, compared with less than a quarter of overall respondents. Another 35% said Denver schools provide a “fair” education, compared with 31% of overall respondents. This result corresponds with other polls that find parents generally have a favorable view of their children’s schools and see education more positively than non-parents.

Denver parent views of school safety diverged from their view of academics, though. Slightly more than half said they don’t feel kids are safe in school, compared to slightly more than half of non-parents who said kids are safe in school. More than 70% of parent respondents support the return of school resource officers to Denver schools, compared to 63% overall. Latino respondents also supported police in schools at higher than average rates.

The Denver school board voted to bring SROs back after a student shot and wounded two deans at East High School this spring. The incident followed several high-profile safety incidents — including the fatal shooting of a student just outside East — that led to heated debate about safety and discipline policies.

Nearly half of respondents said their top two priorities are recruiting and retaining good teachers, followed closely by school safety. About a third of respondents named student mental health or academic achievement as a top priority. Just 16% said improving outcomes for students of color was a priority, though 44% of African American respondents ranked it highly.

About 40% of Denver third-graders met grade-level expectations in reading and writing on this spring’s state standardized tests. The district has the widest test score gaps in the state based on race and ethnicity, and Spanish-speaking students are doing worse on state tests than before the pandemic.

Fewer than 8% of respondents named declining enrollment and school closures — a major challenge that occupied much of the school board’s time over the last year — as a top priority.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Improper supervision in McAuliffe seclusion rooms violated DPS policy, investigation finds

2023-08-31T22:49:56+00:00

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A Denver Public Schools investigation found that former McAuliffe International School Principal Kurt Dennis placed students — or directed staff to place students — in two seclusion rooms last school year without proper supervision “and then either locked or held the door shut.”

That’s according to a three-page letter summarizing the findings that is addressed to Dennis and was provided to Chalkbeat by Dennis’ attorney, David Lane. The letter says that the facts support a finding that Dennis violated DPS’ seclusion policy.

The rooms were in use from Nov. 18 through the end of the school year, the letter says. The investigation found that McAuliffe staff continued “using these rooms for seclusion despite being aware that at least one of the rooms, which was damaged during the course of the school year, was not safe or appropriate for this purpose,” the letter says.

However, the letter says there was “insufficient evidence” to support an allegation that Dennis disproportionately placed students of color in the seclusion rooms.

Dennis was fired as principal of McAuliffe in July in the aftermath of a televised interview he gave to 9News in March expressing concerns about gun violence and student safety. The Denver school board voted last week to uphold Dennis’ firing. The allegations about the seclusion room came to light after the firing but before the vote.

DPS policy requires that “one or more staff members” accompany a student inside a seclusion room. In an interview Thursday, Lane said Dennis did not violate district policy because the policy doesn’t specify what to do if a student is acting violently toward the staff member in the room by hitting, kicking, and spitting at them, which he said was happening at McAuliffe.

“There was no policy on what to do in those circumstances, so there was no policy violation,” Lane said.

Dennis and Lane have denied that students were alone in the room because staff monitored them through a window in the door. Lane also disputes DPS’s numbers and verbiage. The letter implies four students were put in seclusion, while Lane claims it was two. The letter also mentions two seclusion rooms, but Lane said there was only one “de-escalation room.”

Lane said he plans to sue DPS on Dennis’ behalf in federal court next week.

Colorado law allows schools to seclude a student alone inside a room with the door closed as long as the student is monitored through a window or by video camera. In the wake of the McAuliffe allegations, state Rep. Regina English, a Colorado Springs Democrat, said she wants to ban the use of seclusion rooms statewide. English made the announcement at a press conference in Denver earlier this month alongside three Denver school board members.

The issue is already on lawmakers’ radar. A 2020 Chalkbeat investigation uncovered weak state oversight of seclusion, and in 2022, lawmakers passed new limits and reporting requirements for both seclusion and restraint, which means forcibly restricting a student’s movement.

DPS policy has long gone a step further than state law. DPS calls its practice of requiring a staff member to be in the room “monitored seclusion” or “modified seclusion.” In the 2018-19 school year, the district reported 111 instances of modified seclusion, according to a review written by DPS staff and obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request.

Updated numbers for the 2022-23 school year were not immediately available Thursday.

Some of Colorado’s other large school districts reported even more incidents of seclusion in 2018-19, according to reviews written by those districts. Young students with disabilities were disproportionately subjected to seclusion, according to the reviews.

The state education department can investigate the misuse of seclusion. In 2020, for example, the department found that a rural school district violated state law when it secluded a kindergartner in a small booth in the nurse’s office normally used for hearing tests.

The kindergartner had wet his pants, refused to change his clothes, and kicked and hit two staff members, according to the findings. The department found that secluding him in the booth was a violation for several reasons, including that the seclusion was used as a “punitive form of discipline” and that the booth did not have adequate ventilation or was not big enough.

The Colorado Department of Education is now investigating the use of seclusion at McAuliffe, according to a department spokesperson. But the DPS investigation is complete.

DPS interviewed three students and 24 witnesses as part of its investigation, according to the letter summarizing the findings. Dennis declined to speak to investigators, who instead used public statements made by him or his attorney. Dennis told the Denver Post earlier this month that he had a lock put on the door of a seclusion room that was later removed.

Denver school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson said at a press conference Thursday that the full 33-page investigation report, which was provided to board members but has not been made public, contains “stories that have kept me up this past week.”

“To the students who may have suffered, my heart aches for the pain you have endured,” Anderson said. “Saying ‘I’m sorry’ hardly feels adequate.”

DPS denied an open records request by Chalkbeat for a copy of the 33-page report, arguing that it was a privileged document. Lane said neither he nor Dennis has seen the 33-page report.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Ulcca Joshi Hansen drops out of Denver school board race, citing outsize role of outside spending

2023-08-30T21:41:01+00:00

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Ulcca Joshi Hansen, one of five candidates running for an at-large seat on the Denver school board, announced this week that she’s dropping out of the race.

Hansen, who works in education philanthropy and has two children in Denver Public Schools, cited money and politics as the reason. For years, outside groups have spent far more in DPS school board races than the candidates themselves. Though it hasn’t always led to victory, it has made it harder for candidates not backed by outside groups to compete.

Hansen calls this type of spending “soft side spending.” It’s also referred to as outside spending or dark money, because the funders of the outside groups often remain secret. New limits passed by state lawmakers on the amount of money individual donors can give to school board candidates will make outside spending even more significant this election cycle.

“Last week, it became clear that I would not have that soft side support,” Hansen wrote in a letter announcing her decision. “After careful consideration and reflection, I’ve decided to withdraw from the current race.”

Three of the seven seats on the Denver school board are up for grabs Nov. 7. The election has the potential to shape the district’s approach to key issues such as school safety and to shift the dynamics of the board, which has been criticized as dysfunctional.

Last week, an organization called Denver Families Action endorsed former East High School Principal John Youngquist for an at-large seat representing the entire city, passing over Hansen and three other candidates in the race.

Denver Families Action is the political arm of Denver Families for Public Schools, which launched in 2021 with the backing of several local charter school networks. In Denver school board politics, support for independent charter schools and other education reform strategies is often a dividing line.

In the 2021 Denver school board election, outside groups that favor education reform spent more than $1 million to support a slate of candidates who wound up losing to candidates backed by the Denver and Colorado teachers unions, which spent less than half that amount.

The candidates themselves often raise and spend far less. In 2021, the top-spending Denver candidate was Scott Esserman, who spent $67,636 in his bid to win an at-large seat.

Hansen was among the top personal fundraisers so far in this year’s at-large race, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office on Aug. 1. As of that date, she’d raised more than $32,000. In her letter, she said she’d raised even more since then. Her total as of this week was $47,000 from more than 350 donors, she wrote.

But in her letter, Hansen said she expects soft side spending — which occurs through independent expenditure committees that are not allowed to coordinate directly with the candidates — will far outpace candidate spending. Endorsements are key to getting support from committees connected to both education reform and to the teachers unions.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association, which also contributes directly to candidates, has not yet endorsed anyone in the at-large race.

Hansen hinted in her letter that she’d run for school board again in 2025. Four of the seven seats will be up for grabs, including the seat representing the region where Hansen lives. That will likely be a less expensive race; candidates running to represent a specific region of the city often have to raise and spend less money than candidates running at large.

As for this year, Hansen said in an interview that she hopes whoever is elected refocuses the board’s attention on students. The current board, she said, “has gotten away from that.”

“I’m hopeful that we get new board members, including in the at-large seat, who are willing to step up and be vocal leaders and advocates for the board to focus on the things that are about students and the experiences students have that allow them to succeed,” she said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

A Colorado grant aimed to increase access to advanced coursework. It is unclear how much it helped.

2023-08-30T15:55:00+00:00