Classroom Reporter

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2010-09-07T12:34:00.002-06:00

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From the archives: Force, Sabin most improved on district scorecards

2010-02-16T15:22:00.008-07:00

From the archives:
Force, Sabin most improved on district scorecards

Story and photos by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Oct. 8, 2009, Denver Herald-Dispatch)

Just like most major sports teams, schools that are in a “rebuilding” process first show a decrease in results before a jump to prominence.

After refocusing their curriculum, staff and identity, Force and Sabin elementary schools had a large jump last year on Denver Public Schools' performance measurements. Force and Sabin were among five schools in the city to increase the most points on the district's School Performance Framework, which the district also refers to as its scorecard.

Each public school in the district is measured on its academic performance, academic growth, college and career readiness, student engagement and parent involvement. Academic performance and growth are based partly on the state assessment – CSAP – in addition to the district's own benchmarks.

Force Elementary
Photo caption: Jamie Ruiz, Alex Avila, Juan Manuel and the rest of their fifth grade classmates at Force Elementary School raise their hands to share their answers during writing class. Force Elementary, near West Florida Avenue and South Sheridan Boulevard, had one of the highest point increases on the district's scorecards.
Substitute teachers know that if a teacher has good classroom management, students will behave well even when that teacher is gone. Similarly, a successful plan should succeed even if a leader leaves.

That's what happened at Force Elementary. The school had an interim principal in the 2009-10 school year, yet teachers continued to forge ahead with the school's improvement plan. And it worked. Force improved by 20 points on the district's scorecard. The school was the highest performing school in its cluster – a group of schools that have similar demographics. Force has 92 percent free and reduced lunch.

Growth, status and school demand met district expectations, with 79 percent of points earned on growth and 55 percent of points earned for status. Overall, the school jumped up to 91 out of 133 possible points, or 68 percent.

Photo caption: Fifth graders Andrea Amador-Murillo and Dominic Bell review their drafts during a writing workshop at Force Elementary School.
“It's the fruit of a number of years of real strong data analysis,” said the school's first-year principal Lisa Mahannah, who was a central coordinator before she was hired in the spring. “When you have strong instruction, you see the results.”

Force has implemented pilot programs, including Response to Intervention and Literacy Squared. In Response to Intervention, teachers track student performance, and when a student doesn't meet certain objectives, different people at the school respond by finding out why the student is struggling and then helping create solutions.

The school earned a $5,000 scholarship from Casio for calculators, and a new computer lab was donated by Pepsi, Mahannah said.

Two parent liaisons have increased parent involvement and a connection to the school.

“One of the big pushes we see is the students accepting responsibility for their learning. We're working on bringing the community into that piece as well,” Mahannah said.

Force, which is at 1550 S. Wolff St., near West Florida Avenue and South Sheridan Boulevard, has also formed closer partnerships with the schools where its students feed into, Kepner Middle School, West Denver Prep and Abraham Lincoln High School.

Five years ago at Lincoln and when West Denver Prep started four years ago, students were immersed in a college-prep culture. Kepner, Force and other nearby schools followed, putting college as an idea early in students' lives.

“We're trying to make Force Elementary not only the best in southwest Denver but also the beacon across the district in community partnerships,” Mahannah said.

Sabin World School
Sabin jumped up 26 points on its scorecard, the second-highest jump among the district's 139 schools. Sabin jumped up to 64 out of 137 possible points, or 47 percent of possible points.

Like Force, Sabin became more closely aligned last year with its feeder schools, Henry middle school and John F. Kennedy High School. Sabin was officially designated as an International Baccalaureate World School. In the International Baccalaureate program, which both JFK and Henry have in their curriculum, a school becomes aligned with world-wide standards for not only student learning but also character.

Getting IB status took the school three years to train and hire teachers and other staff and then get teach the kids, said principal Wendy Pierce. The school started work to become IB in 2006 with planning, and the school was authorized as an official IB school in February.

Sabin is at 3050 S. Vrain St., near West Dartmouth Avenue and South Sheridan Boulevard.

“We've literally changed the past three years how we've done business here,” Pierce said. “We knew we were going to have a dip, but when the increase comes, it's going to be big. Now we're starting to really zoom. The teachers are hungry for it to be higher.”

Gung Hay Fat Choy! at Force

2010-02-16T15:07:00.007-07:00

Gung Hay Fat Choy!
Force kindergarteners ring in new year

Story and photos by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Feb. 11, 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)

Photo caption: Kindergarten student Estevan Renteri and the dragon (Melissa Valverde-McKibben) lead a parade of kindergarten students through the gym at Force Elementary School, Feb. 5. About 40 kindergarten students celebrated the Asian New Year with a parade through the school to ward off spirits.
Photo caption: Claudia Hauschild leads second grade students through classrooms. Wearing colored masks, the class joined the kindergarten classes' Asian New Year's parade through Force Elementary School.
School can be a scary place, with homework, tests and other uncertainties looming. Following Chinese tradition, at Force Elementary School on Feb. 5, about 40 kindergarteners tried to stem the tide of fearfulness. Wearing straw hats and silk vests, the kindergarteners paraded through the school to ward off evil spirits.

Banging cymbals, shaking tambourines, waving hand bells and striking other bells and wooden objects together, the 4- and 5-year-olds marched through classrooms chanting “Gung Hai Fat Choy” – best wishes and congratulations for a prosperous new year.

Feb. 14 marks the start of the Year of the Tiger, and the children at Force Elementary got an early start.

Kindergarten teacher Melissa Valverde-McKibben, dressed as a black dragon with a green tail and popped-out wooden eyes, lunged through classrooms leading the procession through reading classes, math classes, art classes and physical education. Claudia Hauschild's second grade class joined the parade, the students covering their faces with paper masks on a stick that they had colored in class.

Their dance through the school on a Friday afternoon was the culmination of a three-week introduction to Asian culture. During the last part of January, students had listened to Chinese songs, colored masks and made their own dragons. Leading up to the parade, students in the school had cleaned the classrooms, a symbolic house cleaning to sweep out the old and welcome in the new year.

Following the parade, the kindergarteners ate fried rice – using wooden chop sticks instead of plastic forks. After gobbling up the chicken and egg pieces, some students snatched one or two pieces of rice between the two chop sticks before teachers allowed them to finish the brown grains by using forks.

“I like eating with the chop sticks” better than the forks, said kindergarten student Ruth Maciel. “They look like straws, but they're not.”

Maciel said her celebration wasn't finished at school.

“I'm going to do this again at my house,” she said. “I'm going to get all of my brothers to come to the house and play drums.”

See Related: Force Elementary School scorecard, from the archives

Brooke McKinney shakes a tambourine. Paraders chanted “Gung Hai Fat Choy” and made noise with myriad instruments to welcome in the new year.
Natalie Escobedo, Edwin Martinez-Torres, and Joshua Garcia in the middle of a classroom.
Daisy Bahena-Sanchez, Mailyn Lemus and Melissa Canul-Sanchez in the middle of the parade line.
Kevin Bonilla-Valenzula sticks his tongue out in hopes of eating a thin piece of chicken he had picked up with chop sticks. Following the parade, students practiced eating with Asian tools instead of forks, although they were later allowed to use plastic utensils.

U.S. Dept. of Ed. assistant secretary visits Goldrick

2010-02-16T14:58:00.008-07:00

U.S. Dept. of Ed. assistant secretary visits Goldrick
Southwest school national exemplar for bilingual education

Story and photos by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Feb. 11, 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)

What is the sound of a second grade learning to read?

Would you guess a room quiet except for the regular pfft of a turning page, an occasional moan or grunt or sigh induced by moving into a more comfortable sitting or lying position, the constant hum and inconsistent pangs from a heater or air conditioner, or the mumble from moving lips across a passage?

If you would guess that, you might be wrong. At Goldrick Elementary School, the sounds of second graders learning to read is much different and much louder.

But it isn't chaotic. At Goldrick Elementary School – which had high growth and high status on the district's School Performance Framework – second graders learning to read sounded like this in one classroom, Feb. 3:
• gasps from students at the front of the room, raising their hands, eager to answer a teacher's question about vocabulary
• scritch-scratch of students on the opposite side of the room writing suggested strategies to pay attention to as they're reading, such as focusing on keeping flow consistent, pausing at punctuation and adding emphasis where needed
• the shuffling of papers, folders and notebooks being stacked and unstacked around desks in the middle of the room. While holding books in front of them, students check and recheck a standing notebook with the reading strategies and a folder with vocabulary words. Meanwhile, under all of these papers, another sheet lists books that a student has read, which is moved in front of another notebook for students to write their reactions to what they just read.
• And, at all the different stations, many children are talking to each other, explaining how their strategies are effective, examples of vocabulary and good books to share. These conversations are in both English and Spanish.

Photo caption: Students at Goldrick Elementary School welcome to the lobby, on Feb. 3, Dr. Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education. The assistant secretary visited the school while in Denver for a bilingual education conference. Students from left: Parween Arbeen, Alejandro Lopez, Nadia Williams, Roubatou Alassani and Miguel Barrios.
Another thing that students, teachers and other observers heard Feb. 3 was praise from the U.S. Department of Education. While visiting Denver for a bilingual conference, Assistant Secretary Dr. Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana talked with Denver Public Schools central administrators, Goldrick's leaders and students so that the assistant secretary could observe and learn about schools that are successful with mostly poor and non-English children.

“The biggest challenge is how we clone this school across the nation,” Melendez said. “How do you find principals, teachers and parents committed to high standards? Using assessments the way they need to be used? Ensuring that every student is taught, that they learn?”

Denver Public School Superintendent Tom Boasberg recommended Goldrick for the assistant secretary to observe due to the school's success with non-English speakers. Two-thirds of the 600 students at Goldrick are designated English Language Learners, and more than 90 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch – a federal measure of poverty. Last year, the percentage of students who scored proficient or above on the state test for reading was 73 percent while writing was 60 percent. The percentage of kids scoring so well had nearly doubled, with an increase of 32 percentage points in reading and 25 in writing. This was for students taking the test in Spanish.

“We are looking for promising practices across the country, and that's why we are at Goldrick and visiting this district. DPS is doing an excellent job with its English language learners. And Goldrick is a model of that success,” Melendez said. “I have visited similar demographics, and by all accounts this school could have been low-performing, but in contrast it is very successful. Its great teachers and leaders ensure their students are fully engaged and are learning.”

Despite high improvement among Spanish-speaking students, Goldrick Principal Maria Uribe said that her regular English-speaking students have improved at a much lower rate. English scores jumped up only six percentage points.

“My English language learners are doing fantastic work, but I need to work on my English speakers,” Uribe said during an hour-long presentation of how Goldrick is organized.

Photo caption: Dr. Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana (fourth from left), assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, observes a group of second-grade students at a vocabulary station with their teacher at Goldrick Elementary School. The assistant secretary visited the school because of its success with Spanish learners. Students on the ground, from left, Abigail Dominguez, Amy Luna, Cristian Iturbe and Pilar Salazar.
Students impressed Melendez from the moment she stepped into the school. With boys dressed in pressed pants and buttoned-down shirts with ties hanging straight under their necks, and girls in full-length dresses of bright colors, 10 students handed Melendez a rose and said hello to her in a native language. Standing in front of a poster that students school had made welcoming Dr. Melendez – the accent correctly above the second “e” in her last name, unlike another school Melendez noted she once visited – Parween Arbeen, 10 with glittering, small mirrors on her dress and head covering, said hello in Farsi, the language of her family's native Afghanistan. Roubatou Alassani said hello in Ana, the language of Togo. Miguel Barrios 6, just barely three feet tall and dressed in a dark gray shirt and a black vest, was last to shuffle to meet Melendez, handing her a clock and saying, “Buenos Dias.”

Students' eagerness to learn gave Melendez an even bigger smile as she toured the school. In second grade literacy classes, students rotated among various stations. Grouped in small, homogeneously skilled sections, students can move at their own paces, can get more individualized attention when they need it, and can work and practice independently while other students are learning something that is either too far ahead of them or something they already know.

“I saw effective teachers in the classroom working with students, really focusing around their craft and making their craft better,” Melendez said. “I saw a principal who was the catalyst for change who was committed to students that are successful. I saw a school that by many counts could have been a low-performing school. This school is successful, and they don't allow themselves to have any excuses.”

In fifth grade math and science classes, students were given freedom to come up with solutions in small groups rather than having the teacher give specific directions. In science lab, fifth graders were given a battery, a copper wire, a nail and paper clips and had to figure out how to make an electromagnet and write their results. In math class, groups had to figure out why racers at the Olympics – such as in running or skating – start at different points of the track when they're in different lanes. In the math classes, on a paper that spread across four desks, some groups drew a circle and labeled it with numbers to represent a circular track, while other groups started writing equations.

“In asking the students what they were doing, they all could tell me exactly what they were doing, what they were going to learn, what they were learning and how they were going to show what they were learning,” Melendez said. “The teachers were fully engaged with the students. I saw every student engaged.”

Melendez's goal is now to get other schools to be just as engaged to be successful.

Related post: Goldrick music

Cowboy Up! Buckaroos

2010-02-16T14:47:00.005-07:00

Gust Elementary School's Western Program

Story by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Feb. 4, 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)

Jasmin Mai gallops out on a paper horse during the Grand Entry for the Gust Elementary School Western Program, Jan. 28. Dressed in cowboy hats, bandanas and other Western garb, children in Early Childhood Education classes danced and sang to Western songs. The performance is the culmination of their month-long lessons about frontier and cowboy life while the National Western Stock Show is in town.
Yahir Escobar and Anthony Escarcega dance a line dance “Step Right Up.”Victor Manuel waves a streamer to represent trick roping.Charlotte Salazar claps her hands, shakes her head and shuffles her feet as part of the “Chicken Dance.”Jatzari Adame and Anna Aguilar high step to the center of circle during “Yippee Yippee Yee.” Monserrat Esparza waves a good-bye, or a “Happy Trails.”
See related: Gust Elementary School's holiday performance, December 2009

Lincoln, feeders win grant for college-readiness program

2010-02-09T17:03:00.008-07:00

Story by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Feb. 4, 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)
(From the Archives about Charles M. Schenck (CMS) Community School)

In Denver, schools have open enrollment, so parents and children can choose which schools they want to go to, including outside their neighborhood. This means that neighbors, friends and former classmates might go to different schools, especially when they transition from elementary to middle school or middle school to high school. This also means that some schools can't predict exactly what their students will need as they move ahead through the school stages because each school is different.

Abraham Lincoln High School Principal Antonio Esquibel wants to change that. He wants students and families to plan on attending Lincoln and then going off to college – and start planning to attend Lincoln and then college when they start elementary school.

Antonio Esquibel, principal, Abraham Lincoln High School
Vertical integration – when different grade levels work together – is pushed on a general level and practiced inside individual school levels. But it's rare among different levels of schools and even rarer among multiple levels.

Esquibel wants to make it happen.

And he's got money to do it and make it a formal process.

The “Lincoln Collaborative” – comprising Lincoln High School, Kepner Middle School, CMS Community School (formerly Schenck) and Godsman Elementary – was approved by Denver Public Schools to get a $375,000 grant for the next two years to work on this project.

If the schools show that the grant is working, the district will release another $550,000 of the grant, a total of about $925,000 for five years.

“This grant will allow us to focus our efforts in a lot of different areas,” Esquibel said. “It's all about getting our kids ready for college in a more systemic way. The district allows for some of this to happen. This grant gives us flexibility for us to do it the way we want to do it.”

Money will pay for extra training for teachers, for teachers and other administrators to meet, and for communication and marketing to families.

There are about 3,600 students, from pre-school through high school, enrolled at the four schools this school year, according to the executive summary.

“If I'm a parent and I have a 4-year-old and I go to CMS, I can ask, 'What can you tell me about my 4-year-old by the time he gets out of Denver Public Schools?' We can show that now in a more calculated way,” said Kepner Principal Frank Gonzales. “We feel we came up with some answers. We can tell parents, 'If you leave your child with us and they continue from fifth grade, they will have all of these skills ready by middle school. When they leave middle school, they will be prepared for high school.'”

By 2014, when the full grant would run out, Lincoln's goal is to increase the percent of students graduating from high school from 68 to 80 percent and to reduce the percent of students who need remediation when they get to college from 78 to 30 percent.

Pat Hurrieta, principal, Godsman Elementary School

The focus for these schools is due to the district's recent general failing in preparing Hispanic students for post-high school educational success. Across the district only 39 percent of eligible Hispanic students went to college from 2002-07 – compared with 71 percent of white students – and half of the Hispanic students dropped out of college within six years, according to the executive summary.

“We're all sending the same message: If you come to our schools, we're going to prepare you for college,” Esquibel said. “If parents enroll their kids in these schools, we're going to make it a priority to prepare them for college.”

Each school would have a group that would meet every other week composed of the principal, an assistant principal, 8-12 teachers, 2-3 other staff members, parents and students. A cohort of representatives from all schools plan to meet about monthly.

“As elementary schools, we pretty much stick to our elementary school. This will provide for an additional push for communication with other levels,” said Pat Hurrieta, Godsman principal.

For the extra money to kick in, all of the schools need to show improvement in learning, attendance, enrollment, behavior and safety, graduation and college remediation.

Kristin Nelson-Steinhoff, principal, CMS Community School

“What we're really going to be doing now is elevating our conversation and include our school staff,” said Kristin Nelson-Steinhoff, CMS principal. “I'm hoping we're going to be able to branch out and connect not only our teachers but also our communities. We all are working with the same community, the same set of students. If we were all on different pages and doing different things, we wouldn't serve the community as well as we could. When those transitions aren't smooth, kids are more at risk of not succeeding and dropping out from school.”

Students are more frustrated and bored when they go through a basic lesson that's exactly what they already know or learn something completely different from a structure they were comfortable and successful with before. The principals are hopeful that won't happen.

“We can figure out how we can align our curriculum better. We can know the instruction and strategies that we use,” Equibel said. “We can set expectations: what do we expect kids to do and master at the end of fifth grade and at the end of eighth grade? When students hit those grade-level milestones, they'll be prepared for the next level.”

Gonzales and Esquibel had been talking about college preparation since Esquibel took over as head of the high school about four years ago. But elementary schools weren't directly connected until Esquibel, Gonzales and a University of Denver professor met with principals of eight other schools in the fall of 2008. That initial group worked for six months determining needs, and the “Lincoln Collaborative” spawned from it.

“The biggest benefit to the community is that our kids will hear the same language from pre-school all the way through high school,” Hurrieta said. “I don’t think that’s always been a huge push in the elementary level. We always just wanted to make sure they get through middle school successfully or get to high school.

“Now we're talking about college. Our parents don’t really hear it. If they hear it for 12 years, it will be a reality.”

From the archives: CMS Comunity School

2010-02-09T16:40:00.008-07:00

Story and photos by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan. 15, 2009, Denver Herald-Dispatch. Story related to one published in the Feb. 4, 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)

CMS Community School brings everyone together

Photo caption: English teacher Ann Larson helps second grader Alejandra Montes, a native Spanish speaker, during literacy. CMS Community School's dual-language program encourages bilingual learners.

On its 50th anniversary, Charles M. Schenck Elementary School changed its name, and it's more than just to ensure that people don't mispronounce it.

CMS Community School's new moniker reflects the growing collaboration and cooperation among and between parents, families, children, teachers and staff.

CMS applied for and got distinction from Denver Public Schools as a Beacon Learning School, earning distinctions and grants to fund various programs that promote its unique situation, including after-school activities, parent classes and seminars, and teacher training.

Teaching children means teaching parents
Although a teacher can only control what goes on in his or her classroom, support in the hours a child is at home only helps a teacher further education goals. All parents want their children to succeed, but often times, either resources may be limited or parents may not know what to do, especially parents that don't know English. In the southwest community, many parents also grew up in a different country and culture, so their expectations of school are different.

“People are eager to help their family and their kids, and it's our job to put it out there,” said CMS Community Liaison Morgain Sanchez.

At CMS, the staff and faculty have reached out to the community on a schoolwide level—not just at parent-teacher conferences, or phone calls or letters home.

All of the parent programs are headed by Sanchez, hired in 2007-08 as the liaison.

In CMS's three-tiered approach, the school provides education for parents, with English classes at different times of the day, and seminars on children's expectations and ways that parents can help with homework. In the second tier, the building is also a place for parents to learn with other families, including seminars on legal issues, exercise, health, CPR and a 12-week class focused on women issues and mental health. Between 15 and 60 parents come to each presentation.

“I like it because it's an open door for the parents,” said Armida Solis, a parent who is learning English and volunteers twice a week. “

After reaching out to help the community, the school then gives parents a chance to give back to CMS. Some parents help in a classroom multiple times per week, and most parents do something at the school at least once per week. Parents run the weekly nacho sale, a fund raiser each Friday after school, currently gaining money for a SMART board in the music classroom. About once a month, parents spend a day organizing classrooms, paper or other materials so that teachers can spend more time on planning or other activities. Annually, the parent leadership organized the carnival.

“You have to get people in the door first,” said Principal Kristin Nelson-Steinhoff. “You have to get them comfortable. You have to create that sense of community. You have to do all of those things before you can talk about schools and kids and academics.”

Photo caption: Maricrus Coria and Brenda Lopez figure out and trace geometric shapes in their first grade literacy squared classroom (Spanish speakers that learn mostly in Spanish through second grade).

Respecting language, respecting culture, respecting each other
When students first learn English in school, they get three years of sheltered learning before they're expected to be fluent enough in English to be in full English classes. Oftentimes, students become proficient readers and writers in their first language only through the third grade, while their English remains low.

“They may speak Spanish when they come out of schools, but their literacy is at a third-grade level in Spanish,” Sanchez said.

CMS is trying to build bilingual readers and writers, not only their skills but also their confidence.

“I don't want my kids to lose their culture,” said Solis, who has three children at CMS.

In CMS's dual-language program, students learn for half of the day in English and half of the day in Spanish. Students are split between two classrooms. One group is strong in Spanish, while the other is strong in English. In the morning, they learn reading, writing and math in their at-home language, and in the afternoon they switch for reading, writing and math in the other language.

For two periods of the day, half of the English-speaking students work with half of the Spanish-speaking students on either Spanish or English (the language for the shared class switches each week).

Spanish-speaking students not only learn from the teacher, but also learn and teach each other.
Sanchez's son Agustin is a native English speaker in second grade of the dual-language program.

“It's the only program where Spanish is honored,” Sanchez said. “Their Spanish is very valuable. My son is fascinated by learning Spanish, and he thinks that the Spanish speakers are geniuses, the kids that are already bilingual are unbelievable.”

Further, students learn a second language at the same rate they're learning a first language. The average English reading level for English-speaking first graders in 2008 in the dual language program at CMS was about the same for first graders at CMS in the normal English class.

In Ann Larson's second-grade afternoon literacy class, about half of the class had a hand raised, eager to share a sentence or story. Larson was teaching English for the native Spanish speakers. Saul, who had been looking at the ground, confused, anxiously raised his hand to share his breakfast. “I eat, uh, eggs (pause) for breakfast,” he got out. Ms. Larson congratulated him for sharing, and a big smile spread across his face.

“Especially the native Spanish speakers, they're talking more,” said first grade dual-language teacher Gina Torres.

Two out of four classes in kindergarten, first and second grade are dual-language classes. One other is a literacy squared class (mostly taught in Spanish for grades K-2), and the fourth classroom is taught in English. The dual-language program started only three years ago at CMS, and it is rolling through each grade until the whole school has it.

“Our vision is, our hope is to create high-level bilinguals, kids that can read and write and speak and understand both English and Spanish at high levels,” Nelson-Steinhoff said. “Those will be our future professionals.”

After the normal school hours, CMS provides dance, gym, sports as well as academic tutoring, all free.

Teachers learning and working together
CMS has also ensured that the teachers are more involved with each other and the students.

Because teachers in the dual-language program switch students in the middle of each day, they talk in the middle to make sure that they're at the same place in the curriculum and that they're not repeating anything.

In December 2007, the Colorado Department of Education audited the school, finding all strengths and weaknesses in the school. All staff members, including the custodians, helped form the action plan on the school's top goals.

Half of the teachers (20 out of 40) started last winter earning a Master's degree in bilingual education together. Instead of traveling to Boulder or to downtown Denver, each Tuesday a professor from the University of Colorado visits the school.

After declining in student population, the school has increased enrollment the last three years. Parents who move out of the neighborhood keep their children at CMS. Teachers have a high retention rate, Nelson-Steinhoff said. And parents are always roaming the school, helping teachers and children excited and happy to be in a positive, caring community.

LPS budget cuts include 100 teacher positions

2010-02-09T16:31:00.006-07:00

Board: Sad, hard but necessary

Story by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Feb. 4, 2010, Villager)

LITTLETON — Sunken heads, sighs, moist eyes, apologies to nobody in particular.
These were the sobering sentiments on the dais at the Jan. 28 Littleton Public Schools Board of Education meeting.

The LPS Board directed central administration to arrange for about 100 teacher positions –58 classroom teachers – to be cut from the district for next year. This represents about 10 percent of the district workforce.

“For so long we've done more with less, and now we're at a point where we're going to do less with less,” said Board member Renee Howell. “There's only so long you can maintain that. It's just distasteful that we're at this level. This wasn't the top of the list of things to do. This is grovelling down at the bottom.

The district needs to cut $7.5 million from this year's budget for the 2010-11 school year. Although the Board approves the budget in May and June, principals start working on individual school budgets in February.

The district had to cut $6 million combined the previous two years in response to declining enrollment and to the recession. In the last two years, the district made up some of the shortfalls by closing two elementary schools, slowing salary increases, eliminating 20 central administration and district-wide staff positions and increasing by 50 percent athletic fees. About 30 teacher positions were cut, or 3 percent of the district's workforce.

This year, central administrators plan to take salary cuts of 8 to 25 percent, and all employees will take 3 furlough days. But teachers, whose salaries make up 81 percent of the general fund budget, couldn't be exempt any more. Supplemental teachers were targeted – AVID and 14 positions for reading specialist and instructional coach. Extra money for International Baccalaureate at an elementary and middle school will be taken away.

But classroom teachers will take up the bulk of the cuts – 58 teacher positions.

Core classes at the high school might be between 30-35 students, while third, fourth and fifth grade classes could have 25-30 students. The district plans to keep as much kindergarten, first and second grade teachers to keep those grade levels low in classroom size, said Superintendent Scott Murphy.

“It's like an onion. Gradually we'll peel off the quality pieces of what LPS means to people, and we're going to get to a part where the tears start to flow,” Murphy said. “Or it's like choosing two doors: behind one is a lion and the other is a tiger.”

Every school will have at least a half-time reading specialist position, although most had a full-time reading specialist and some had more than a full-time reading specialist. Every elementary school will also have half of an instructional literacy coach position, according to district numbers.

“It works, but we have to take it apart anyway. It's really crummy,” Howell said.

This isn't the end of budget concerns, either.

The state legislature will adopt the state budget in late April or May, and cuts for LPS might increase, to $9 million. Plus, the district might get $500,000 less in revenue from local sales taxes.

“We're just shooting darts at this point” when the district figures out the final numbers, said Board President Bob Colwell.

Howell added: “This $7.5 million is the most positive we can get. It's only going to get worse.”
Further cuts are expected for the 2011-12 school year – $3 million or more forecast by the district – and federal stimulus funds and the state's Amendment 23 will run out as well.

“Everybody talking about the economy stabilizing, that's rhetoric right now,” Murphy said. “Even if the state stabilizes, we're all at a lower level. As schools, we lag by a year or two.”

Littleton's last mill levy increase is running out. Construction and maintenance are often included in mill levies, and the average age of LPS buildings are 50 years.

“Even if we had a normal budget, we would have needed to do a mill levy election. It's a cycle, and the cycle is ending,” Howell said.

During previous budget cuts, the Board maintained a policy of keeping cuts away from classrooms, but that wasn't possible anymore. Other values are still being maintained, including keeping funds separate. For instance, money from insurance reserves can't be used for the general fund, and federal stimulus dollars aren't funding continuing expenses, like teacher positions. The district's reserves were $13.1 million last June, but only $2.8 million isn't part of a particular program or fund, which can't cover a week of general operations, said Scott Myers, chief financial officer. Also in the reserves, the TABOR emergency fund, $3.6 million, can't pay for a financial collapse and has to be repaid in six months, Murphy said.

“We have more money tied up than other districts. We don't have extra cash lying around once you get rid of the designations,” Myers said.

The district's financial office received a Meritorious Budget Award for excellence from the Association of School Business Officials. The award was released in January.

“We do have a plan. We do have high expectations. This is a big dip in the road to getting there,” said Board member Mary Nichols. “We have systems in place. We're not trying to rearrange from one place. That's what we're talking about neighbors to the north and south doing that, and they're now in a world of hurt.”

The Board, staff and superintendent are still optimistic.

“People come to this district because of the potential for their children to do well, and they stay because of the depth of programs we offer” Murphy said. “We have top teachers. I'm an optimist – I hope not blindly so. I do believe we'll find a way.”

IB not getting bang for buck
Parents and students showed up in droves to the district's Jan. 14 meeting, attempting to persuade the Board to keep International Baccalaureate at Newton Middle School and Field Elementary School.

Parents had petitioned to get the recognized program in their school, and they begged to keep it.
On Jan. 28, Colwell told them they could keep it, but the district shouldn't keep putting extra money into it, and parents shouldn't find alternative ways to pay for staffing for next year because whatever they might do might not last.

The district also hasn't seen much difference in enrollment from the IB program at the schools to warrant special treatment.

“If other schools around them can do it with their normal funding, we should find a way to do it,” Colwell said.

Ritter breaks ground for Cherry Creek STEM

2010-01-26T15:06:00.005-07:00

Bond-approved science, technology, engineering and math school scheduled to open in 2011

Story and photo by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan 28., 2010, Villager)

Colorado's future, according to the governor, is in space. But before we can go up into the sky, the governor looked down.

On Jan. 25, Gov. Bill Ritter and school representatives broke ground on Cherry Creek Schools' science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) school that is planned to be built between Overland High School and Prairie Middle School, near South Peoria Street and East Iliff Avenue.

“The thing that makes our country different is that we are the innovators and we are the creators. It has to begin with an emphasis much earlier than college campuses or college laboratories,” said Ritter, also noting that Colorado has the most aerospace engineers. “This school demonstrates an ability to think about those kids as our future scientists, as our future innovators, our future creators and the people that will help America remain competitive globally and will help us enjoy the quality of life we've gotten used to.”

The 58,000-square foot school for students in grades 6-12 is scheduled to open in 2011. The school will also be a resource for elementary students from different schools to use.

Enrolled students can join specific tracks, including health, energy and computer sciences, and art and technical communications, said school leader Richard Charles.

“We have a crisis in this country when nearly 70 percent of the civilian scientific and technical workforce at the department of defense is eligible for retirement in seven years,” Charles said. “For our state, our challenge is clear. We must provide authentic experiences to students that will motivate them to pursue STEM careers. With this school, students will have opportunities to dream, invent and create solutions to solve today's cutting edge sciences.”

Charles, who has 15 years of professional experience in systems management and atmospheric sciences before he entered the education system, is working with colleges so that engineers and scientists will come to the school and work with students, to be real-world models on real projects.

“Through these efforts, students will have an opportunity to conduct research in STEM fields, to fly NASA simulated missions or be certified as a space technician,” Charles said.

The two-story school will have a lecture hall; 15 “studio” classrooms and an elementary classroom; labs for robotics, aviation and digital production; and two labs each for physics, chemistry and biology. Funding to build the school was part of the $200-million bond that voters passed in 2008.

After the groundbreaking, Ritter talked with Overland seniors Alex Sevit and Kara Minke, telling the pair about how he had witnessed a Mars lander hit the surface of the red planet because his nephew had worked on the project. Sevit and Minke broke ground next to Ritter at the ceremony. They were also interns at Lockheed Martin last summer. Sevit and Minke plan on studying mechanical engineering in college, Sevit hopes at the University of Denver and Minke at the Colorado School of Mines.

“I see aerospace engineering as a frontier. It's a relatively new science,” Sevit said. “When we worked at Lockheed, it provided the technical background, and we were able to see the concepts that we learned about in class applied to industry. I would have liked to have gone through the STEM school. But we were on the fast track for math and science and have gotten good science preparation. The STEM center is going to provide some of the applications of the science that we learned (at Lockheed).”

Photo caption: Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Mary Chesley and Overland High School Principal Jana Frieler break ground for construction of Creek's science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) school, which is scheduled to open in 2011.

DPS to cut services, try to keep teachers

2010-01-26T14:50:00.007-07:00

Boasberg: School budgets expected to be down 3 percent, central services down 7 percent

Story by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan 28., 2010, Denver Herald-Dispatch)

As other districts are cutting teachers and slashing budgets in response to the economy, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg assured the Board of Education that the district likely won't cut teachers, classrooms or preschool.

At study sessions and regular meetings in January, Boarsberg and other members of the central district staff presented proposals for school budgets for the 2010-11 school year. Although the district's Board plans to approve the budget in June, principals received their enrollment projections and probable budget totals in January and plan to get district approval in February.

“Our priorities are very simple. The first priority is to protect the classroom to the maximum extent possible. Number two is to give schools the flexibility to meet the needs of their students,” Boasberg said. “We feel that schools are in the best positions to meet the needs of their kids.”

Schools will see about the same number of dollars per student for 2010 than they had in 2009, but increasing costs of teachers mean that schools will have 3 percent less to buy things. Central administration budgets are expected to need a 7-9 percent cut, Boasberg said.

“We are not expecting any district-wide teacher layoffs at this point,” Boasberg said.

The district gets more money for more students and for more poor students. Districts get federal Title 1 funds for students and schools that are extremely poor. Most of the money had stayed in the central administration budget, but DPS recently increased the amount siphoned directly to schools, Boasberg said.

Schools directly control about 65 percent of the district's budget, and about 30 percent is in centrally run programs, including transportation and athletics and certain special education programs.

All principals review budgets with central administration, and schools that perform poorly on district measurements work closely with Chief Academic Officer Ana Tilton, Boasberg said.

While some support staffing is required based on a ratio of students – such as psychologists and nurses – schools are given autonomy to determine what to spend and where.

So if a school needs more teachers for English Language Learners, the school can put more of its resources into getting those teachers. Or if a school wants to reduce class size, the school can focus on regular classroom teachers more than specialists or interventionists. And if a school gets an unexpected rise in enrollment following projections or the Oct. 1 count date, a reserve fund can move money to schools, district representatives and principals explained Jan. 19.

By giving each school freedom in their budgets, accountability supposedly increases because a school can't blame the central administration for requiring things, and principals and teachers must deliberate and discuss their priorities, said Cowell Elementary Principal Thomas Elliot.

“It also makes everything clearer and cleaner in that it's all relevant to our school improvement plan, and we don't have to get to a point where we have to explain things where you have to explain things with the budget,” Elliott said.

Cowell, at Sheridan Boulevard and West 10th Avenue, has 56 percent of English Language Learners and a transient population, Elliott said, which is similar to many schools in southwest Denver. Cowell had the greatest improvement on DPS measurements in the 2008-09 school year.

DPS increased the amount of money that goes to directly to schools for poor students in 2009 from $408 to $608. But next year the amount for poor students will decrease by $60 per student to about $550. Plus, some of the newer Title 1 funds are part of the federal stimulus package, which will expire in 2012 or before

Many of the plans for the student-based budgeting, as this greater autonomy in budgeting for schools is called, came about partly due to advocacy of the Metro Organizations of People, which was formed about a decade ago and started working with the district about five years ago for more transparent, simple, school-controlled budgets. Members of the Metro Organizations for People presented their history and observations at the Jan. 19 Board study session.

“Because of your advocacy, we're in a much better place than we were two years ago, three years ago. This is an effort we need to continue,” Boasberg said.

Preschool to stay the same
More affluent families will make up the cost of preschool for other families, Boaseberg said.
The district plans to increase the cost of Early Childhood Education for higher-income families, which will make up some of the state's reduction in funding.

“We do care about our preschool programs. We decided we're not going to cut preschool programs,” Boasberg said. “We are not going to decrease preschool services for kids in poverty. The kids who have more means and have the ability to pay are going to pay the market rate. It will allow us to cover our costs.”

The district also plans to keep the same quality.

“In other districts, preschool or the second half-day of kindergarten aren't taught by teachers. Ours are taught by teachers,” Boasberg said.

Other issues

Reserves: The district plans to take $5 million from its reserves, although by doing so the district will still keep more than 4.2 percent of its budget for its reserves.
PERA, the teachers retirement fund: Contributions will have to increase over the next few years, but Boasberg said he has to wait to see how much of that increase will be paid for by the district or directly by teachers.
Textbooks and curriculum are still being aligned to the new state standards and to textbook budgets, which will take three to four months to complete, Tilton said.
Principal are being evaluated not only on school performance but also on district-led principal evaluation and staff input, which were being done in January, Boasberg said.

Fundreds teach art as social justice, environmental awareness

2010-01-22T16:31:00.004-07:00

Story by Joshua Cole; photos courtesy Peakview Elementary
(originally published in Jan. 21, 2010, Villager)

For many elementary school children, “art is just a picture on the refrigerator,” said Peakview Elementary School art teacher Darci Liley.

But at Peakview, students are learning the power of art in its historical significance and its appeal to create social awareness.

Since November, Peakview students, staff and parents have been creating “Fundreds.” An armored truck touring the nation is scheduled to pick up stacks of the cash, Jan. 29.

“Fundreds” are replacement bills – instead of Ben Franklin's picture on the front or the Capitol on the back, students are encouraged to draw their own faces and homes. When 3 million “Fundreds” are collected, artist Mel Chin, who created the program, plans to pull the armored truck to Congress and ask for $300 million to fix the lead-infested soil in New Orleans.

At the Jan. 29 Peakview assembly and “Fundreds” pickup, third-grade students plan on demonstrating to the rest of the school a process that cleans soil of lead, and the fifth-grade choir plans on singing a song about making a difference, Liley said.

“It's a very rich experience for these guys because it's teaching them about community, about social awareness, about the environment, and they get to be creative while they're doing it,” said Liley, who teamed with the school's other specials teachers on the project starting in November. “It teaches science, currency and history. It has a lot of layers.”

Peakview is at 19451 E. Progress Circle, in Centennial, near East Smoky Hill Road and South Tower Road. Overland High School is also a planned pickup location. The “Fundred” project is at fundred.org.

Cherry Creek Schools Hosts Community Forum

2010-01-22T16:27:00.006-07:00

Story by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan. 21, 2010, Villager)

With parents, politicians, school districts and many media outlets focused on potentially dangerous cuts to education budgets, leaders of the Cherry Creek School District said they would take a night off to listen to parents' priorities, visions and concerns about education in the next decade.

Cherry Creek Schools had its second community forum Jan. 13 at Smoky Hill High School. The first was in December at Overland High School. A third forum is scheduled for Cherry Creek High School on Jan. 26.

“Deliberately, we are not talking about the budget,” said Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Mary Chesley to about 200 community members and district staff, Jan. 13. “We are talking about values.”

The forums are part of creating the District Performance Plan, which is required by the state as a way to set goals and priorities that align with the district's mission and values. A planning committee plans to review comments and create the five-year plan, which is scheduled to be reviewed and voted on at the May district Board of Education meeting.

The district's designed values and the mission – “To inspire every student to think, to learn, to achieve, to care” – are what the district has used in creating policies, but they're general. The performance plan is intended to provide more substance and specifics for the mission and values.

Education is in an era of high-stakes testing and accountability on state and national requirements. Curriculum is aligned realigned what seems annually. Technology shifts constantly. Children are identified with various behavioral differences. In Cherry Creek Schools, new neighborhoods are booming on the east side of the district and neighborhoods are aging on the west side. With all of the changes and all of the attention, school leaders, teachers and parents need to know what they're doing and what they want.

The forums were a chance for parents to talk about some of the things they want for their children in school.

“Our youngest boy is in fifth grade, so we still have seven more years in the district. We want to make sure we're getting the best for our sons,” said Dennis Jenkins, who attended the forum with his wife.

Jenkins said that he and other parents in his group were most concerned with students being labeled and limited by learning disorders or special education needs.

“The biggest thing we talked about was making sure our kids aren't stamped and would move through the system in a box,” Jenkins said.

A difficulty of neighborhood schools is that their size make them difficult to appeal to different types of students. So certain types of students, parents said, are treated differently. Students with special needs are set apart in various ways, while gifted students are pulled out at different times. Plus, the district's only magnet school for gifted students, the Challenge School, is at a northwest corner of the district, more than 30 minutes away for most students.

“Ideally, they should be doing that (things done at the Challenge School) in the neighborhood school, closer to home,” said Jenny McConnell, who has two middle school children at the Challenge School. “They don't walk home with other children if they go to the Challenge School. Driving to and from school, they're losing an hour every day. The neighborhood schools don't do what the Challenge School does for gifted students, aside from pull-outs, when the kids are expected to know what to do when they're not there.”

Parents, community members and district staff in one group set as their priority safe and secure schools, with warm and friendly staff – a comfortable environment to learn, to talk, to share and to be creative.

“Safety is a huge factor,” said Eddie Quinn, who has two girls, an eighth grader and a high school sophomore. “My experience with my kids, the elementary school was nice and comforting, but it became a little more threatening as kids grow up. Kids are more rambunctious as they get older. It concerns me. One of my girls is very confident, but the other is more shy.”

Parents and other community members can comment by e-mailing forums.feedback@cherrycreekschools.org

Heritage High honored at MLK breakfast

2010-01-22T16:20:00.003-07:00

Story and photo by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan. 21, 2010, Villager)

For building a secondary school in a war-torn village of Africa, Heritage High School was honored with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award at the City of Littleton's 12th Annual MLK breakfast, Jan. 18.

Students at the school started raising money for community service projects in 2005. The first group of students raised $300 for the Make-a-Wish Foundation during a week or activities in April. The next year, students donated nearly $10,000 to send a girl with Leukemia to Disneyland. In 2007, students generated $14,000 for a variety of services in an African village – bikes and a concrete floor for a bakery, microloans for entrepreneurs, medical supplies for amputees, scholarships to school, food, clothes and sports equipment.

The last two years during Make a Difference (MAD) Week, students poured in nearly $45,000 to help build a secondary school in Kabala, Sierra Leone.

“Dr. King inspired all of us to try to go out and make a difference,” said Heritage Principal Ken Moritz. “This is a story of 1,600 Littleton teenagers, how they collectively over three years of committed work and effort built a school in a village where there was no school. Education is probably the most powerful tool we can give anyone in any society in any part of the world.”

Heritage Kabala was completed in August 2009 and opened in November. This April, Heritage students are raising money to build a similar school in India for the Dalit, members of the “untouchables” caste. For information or to donate, contact Tony Winger, twinger@lps.k12.co.us or 303-347-7600.

A history of Heritage in Sierra Leone and its MAD Week and a blog from Sierra Leone is also on Heritage's Web site.

Michelle Moss fought for southwest

2010-01-14T15:32:00.003-07:00

Story and photo by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan. 7, 2010, Denver Herald-Disptach)

In February of 2006, Michelle Moss was conflicted. As she drew names of students would would attend the new West Denver Preparatory Charter School, she was going through the saddest day of her life.

Moss was serving as the southwest representative for the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. Southwest parents and community members voted her into the position in 2001 to help steer policy that would help make schools better. And she thought that schools – her schools – were failing what she wanted them to do.

“I watched primarily poor, Hispanic parents praying. They wanted out of schools so badly,” Moss said.

Those tears of pain would become tears of joy and of pride. West Denver Prep is a model for schools across the district, its students – mainly Hispanic, mainly economically poor, mostly academically weak when they enter – have scored with the most growth on standardized skills tests of any school across the district and with the highest total scores as eighth graders.

“Now I look at these wonderful kids and what Chris (Gibbons, head of West Denver Prep) has done, and I'm so proud of what has been done,” Moss said.

Moss helped bring West Denver Prep to southwest Denver families, one of the many schools and school reforms she fought for and argued for in her eight years on the Board. After two terms, the limit, Moss stepped down from the Board Nov. 30.

“I really believe DPS is a better place than when I got here 8 years ago,” Moss said. “It does my heart good to know the kids are better.”

Moss represented an area that many residents often claim is forgotten in other city agencies. At school board meetings and with district administrators, she made everyone pay attention to her area.

In one of her final acts, she convinced district staff to place a proposed charter school in southwest Denver. Multiple Pathways and Choice Academy was originally slated to go in northeast Denver, but when new charter schools applied for approval and none asked to be in her neighborhood, she changed that. Southwest Denver was the sector of the city with the highest dropout rate. The dropout rate was determined by the number of students who drop out of the district, including those who don't re-register.

“I made an impassioned plea to reevaluate where they would put the first center,” Moss said. “It made no sense to put it in northeast Denver instead of in the southwest. They were convinced.”

Moss's proudest achievement came near the end of her term – on something she worked to get done as soon as she started. The Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy opened in August 2009.
The school's grand opening – with singing, dancing, music and district dignitaries – to celebrate the completion of the playground was almost called off due to weather, but Moss joined the school's students, staff, a district coordinator and another Board member to chime in the opening of the district's first arts-based school. Although the Denver School of the Arts trains young painters, poets and designers, Kunsmiller doesn't require high-skilled artists; instead, the school increases art appreciation and uses art to enhance general subjects.

“I fought through three superintendents,” Moss said. “I knew that if we built it, they would come. It was a passion, it was a dream, and it's come true.”

Another battle nearly took Moss away from helping southwest students: her own bout with a rare form of muscle cancer. After seven months of chemotherapy, the cancer is all removed. With only a year left on the Board, many thought she would have left early. But she didn't. In fact, rather than drain her energy, the opposite was true: her work on the Board helped her to survive and gave her more reason to keep going.

“It was the Board work that got me through cancer,” Moss said. “I focused on the kids of Denver rather than the cancer.

Her return was an inspiration to others in the district.

“The last time I cried was when you came back,” said superintendent Tom Boasberg. “It was amazing to see you back. You're someone of such passion and brilliance, it's scary sometimes.”

More things change, the more they stay the same
Moss was elected to the Board after teaching language arts and debate for 13 years at Bear Creek High School, in Jefferson County Schools. When she came to the DPS Board, she “was the most liberal Democrat,” she said. “I didn't like charter schools. I didn't like vouchers. I supported the teachers union on everything.”

She saw the success of KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy, a middle school charter school that preceded West Denver Prep that has served a similar population and has regularly outpaced the district average in performance.

And Moss's beliefs on issues changed.

She took a tour early in her tenure, and she talked with students, staff and the leadership of the school.

“She's been incredibly supportive in who we are as a school as an organization and for the families of southwest Denver,” said Rich Barrett, KIPP founder.

She regularly stayed in touch with KIPP, talking with Barrett, when he was the school leader, at least once a year, and she visited at different times, including during a few Colorado state testing periods, Barrett said.

“We'll miss her, but she's still in the community, and we'll be in touch,” Barrett said. “She always cared about her kids. They were all of her kids in southwest Denver, and they weren't just the charters. It was something I loved about her. She just wanted the best education for everybody in the community.”

Moss's support for programs and policy changed, but her reasons didn't.

“The adults, in the long run, do not matter,” Moss said. “We have to serve the children. We can't serve ourselves.”

She finally can take some time to serve herself – well, her 14-year-old son as she said, Nov. 30, she was looking forward to being a full-time hockey mom.

Arapahoe technology students top at national conference

2010-01-14T15:03:00.004-07:00

Kailyn Witonsky

(originally printed in the Jan. 7, 2010, issue of the Villager)
(story by Joshua Cole, photos courtesy of Colorado Technology Student Association)

Last summer, about 4,000 scientists converged in Denver to talk about environmental policy, breakthroughs in microbiology and efficiency and speed in creating racing boats and cars.

And, while smacking gum between their teeth, they also talked about pimples, movie explosions and the latest Jonas Brothers tour.

The scientists were middle school and high school students at the Technology Student Association (TSA) national conference and competition. Students competed in nearly 100 categories. Two Arapahoe High School students won first place in individual competition: Kailyn Witonsky was first place in “Career Comparison” and fifth in “Future Technology Teacher,” and Emily Haskins was first place in “Essays on Technology.” Witonsky is a sophomore this year and Haskins a junior.

Unlike robotics or computer clubs that stress building, creating and programming, TSAs stress community involvement and service, fund raising, research and writing. But they also have builds, competition and programming.

“It's more broad,” said David McMullen, Arapahoe High School's TSA sponsor. “Robotics club would just be a specific event. The TSA clubs have a lot more choice for their events. It's more than just computers. We use computers just as a tool. When we talk about technology, we talk about it as a tool like a hammer.”

Arapahoe was second-place for its animatronic chef. But its top place-winners were in essays and speeches. Haskins said that she's “more of a writing person” than a scientist.

“I think it just pushes you a lot to reach your potential,” Haskins said. “You have to meet all of these different requirements for the projects. I like meeting people at the conferences, and they're interesting people. It's appealing to a lot of different people because there are so many different topics. Fashion design, video, music production. It pertains to tons of different people, but it's not just building robots. It's not super-geeky, per se.”

Yet both students still said the club and learning about technology is important.

“Technology is advancing at such a speed, we as students don't need to learn content so much as the skills to find that content,” Witonsky said. “Anyone can Google certain facts, but we need to know how to utilize it. Because technology is vital, I need to stay up to date with it and use it to my advantages.”

Why would anyone voluntarily sign up and do a research project?

Competition, for one, some say. For most, though, they find something that they wouldn't have found out about in a regular science class and want to learn more.

“I really enjoy science. I know I wanted to do something in medical technology. I thought that was interesting,” Witonsky said. “I think that TSA has really made opportunities for me that I might not have taken advantage of that I wouldn't have done, like setting up an interview with a microbiolgist,” which was one of the requirements for her research.

Through the research, competition preparation and club discussions, students in the club learn what's out there in the technological and business world.

“Technology involves them in every aspect of their life,” McMullen said. “I like the hands-on and the applications that it does. It prepares them to be a little bit more well-rounded. It enables them to survive and be successful.”

Some topics that students learn include computer-aided design and drafting for architecture, video game design, and soldering on a circuit board.

Their work extends beyond the club and the classroom. Haskins was one of the main organizers for Arapahoe's Green Week in spring 2009.

Being in TSA, “it enhances my understanding of what's going on with our environment,” Haskins said. “I try to promote awareness to everyone I can.”

When students who participate in the club go to college, they're already ahead in looking for a job or understanding a career. Witonsky had a mock job interview in one competition, and she taught a classroom lesson during the other final.

“I think that science and technology, we need supplements because it's not being taught in the regular classroom,” Witonsky said. “I don't think I would be as aware of what the medical field would offer. I would be interested in it, but I don't think it would be aware of what it would entitle. I do think I would enjoy it.”

Emily Haskins

Local winners from the Technology Student Association (TSA) 2009 National Conference, in Denver
Middle school

Newton Middle School, 7th in “Technology Transfer” (they shared this award with competition partner middle schools from Florida and Alabama).
Euclid Middle School’s Dominic Martinez, 7th in the “Digital Photography Challenge.”
Goddard Middle School, 4th in the “Leadership Challenge” and 5th in the “Technology Transfer Challenge” (an honor they shared with their competition partner Elizabeth Middle School).

High School

Cherokee Train High School, 10th in “Radio Controlled Transportation.”
Grandview High School’s Brenda Burns, 3rd in “CAD Engineering with Animation”.
Arapahoe High School: Kailyn Witonsky, 1st in “Career Comparison,” 5th in “Future Technology Teacher;” Emily Haskins, 1st in “Essays on Technology;” Laine Greaves-Smith, 8th in “Technology Bowl-Written”. Teams: 2nd in “Technology Bowl,” 9th in “Debating Technological Issues,” and 9th in “Formula 1 Racing Car Technology Challenge.”
Heritage High School, 3rd in the “Animatronics,” 5th in “Electronic Game Design,” 5th in “Electronic Research and Experimentation,” 9th in “Formula 1 Racing Car Technology Challenge,” 10th in “Technology Dare” (concerning the application and control of mechanical fluid and electrical power), and 10th in “Agriculture and Biotechnology Design.”
Littleton High School: Micah Corah, 4th in “Transportation Modeling;” Chip Bollendonk, 5th in “Essays on Technology” and 6th in “Career Comparisons”. Teams: 6th in “Technology Problem Solving.”

Gust students perform holiday songs

2010-01-14T14:25:00.007-07:00

(Originally printed in the Dec. 24, 2009, Denver Herald-Dispatch)
(photos by Joshua Cole)

Grisell Rios, 4, sits with Santa Claus in the hallway of Gust Elementary School, Dec. 18. The school's eight classrooms of early childhood education had two singing performances and a chance to meet Santa Claus on the last day of school before winter break.

Qalil Freeman, Audrey Gammon and Madeline Dowdle sing and clap during the performance. Chidlren sang and danced to “We wish you a Merry Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reeindeer,” “Jingle Bells” and “Feliz Navidad.”

In the post-concert reception back in class, Genesis Loya-Tadeo and Karen Hernandez say good-bye for the winter break to their teacher (center), Rachel Bernard.

David Grajada-Gonzalez and Luis Fibueroa-Chacon raise their hands to wish their parents a Merry Christmas in the song “Feliz Navidad.”

Isabella Trillo, Andreas Casales and Jeanette Blea are decked out in red tops with fancy hats. Children dressed up for the concert with either a santa cap, an elf hat or antlers.

Madison Tafoya projects her voice through the auditorium.

Brysen Jaramillo.

And the Band Played On: Goldrick Elementary music concert

2010-01-14T13:52:00.009-07:00

(originally printed Dec. 24, 2009, in the Denver Herald-Dispatch)
(story and photos by Joshua Cole)

The halls of Goldrick Elementary School were silenced this school year, but not for long.

When Goldrick Elementary School's (1050 South Zuni Street, on West Mississippi Avenue) size diminished so much that the number of students could no longer justify getting a half-day band teacher to come and instruct students in grades 3, 4 and 5, the school's music coordinator Kathy Miller was worried that instrumental music wouldn't return to the school. But in late September, it did.

Miller started teaching music lessons after school for anybody at the school who wanted to take a lesson. Students weren't required to join, but they had to commit to coming once a week after school for an hour and to practicing at home, at an aunt's house, at school or somewhere else every day.

Even though the music teacher had left, the music – and the instruments to make it – didn't. There were still guitars at the school, on South Zuni Street and West Mississippi Avenue. Each Wednesday afternoon, 25 students stayed after school for lessons, and they checked out the guitars every other day to practice at home. Ten students signed up for piano lessons, coming in for formal lessons on Thursday afternoons. Tuesdays were for the choir.

Principal Maria Uribe and Assistant Principal Martha Torres de Dominguez were so impressed, they signed up for piano lessons, too, playing next to the kids.

“It's so important to keep the music and arts in our program because of our children that don't do well academically will do well in the arts area,” Miller said. “It helps their self-esteem. It helps them in their mental and physical development and in their coordination.”

On Dec. 15, the students' initial lessons culminated in a musical performance at the school, with performances by the guitarists, singers and pianists.

“It makes a lot of beautiful sounds; it gets people's attention by all of the beautiful notes,” said fifth-grader piano player Melissa Garcia.

Miller plans to have another concert in May and a third-grade play about the life cycle, called “Nuts,” in late February or March.

Picture captions:
1. (top) Some of the Goldrick guitarists, from left, Cassie Ortiz, Ashley Jaquez, Christina Phelps, Aliya Ellid and Lesley Terrazas. Goldrick Elementary's instrumental music program was taken away this year, but students still volunteered for after-school lessons and performed at a school concert Dec. 15.
2. Goldrick Assistant Principal Martha Torres de Dominguez and student Joshua Truong play the piano during the school's winter music concert. Torres de Dominguez and Goldrick's principal, Maria Uribe, took piano lessons with students.
3. Ariana Corral and Joshua Truong lug bags for their choir song, “Joy to the world, my shopping's done.”
4. Kathy Miller, who has taught at Goldrick for 10 years, ran after-school lessons three days a week, one day each for guitarists, singers and pianists.

Southwest Early College Art and Culture Show

2009-12-11T14:43:00.015-07:00

(Originally published in the Dec. 10 Denver Herald-Dispatch)
(story and photos by by Joshua Cole)

It's difficult to get teenagers excited too often, especially at school, but at the Southwest Early College Art and Culture Night, hundreds of teenagers and their families hooted and hollered, clapped and cat-called, laughed and screamed for nearly two hours at the school's little auditorium, Dec. 4.

And they yelled and applauded for a variety of performers: poets, beat makers, ballroom dancers, hip-hop/break dancers and a rock band.

“It was phenomenal. It was energizing. It was unforgettable,” said sophomore Omar Reza, who read poetry, and danced ballroom, hip hop and break. “I expected fewer people because it's a small school. It was very supportive, and it was a great crowd. They had a lot of energy, and they never got bored.”

Having the little auditorium filled to capacity at Colorado Heights University, where Southwest Early College is based, energized and inspired performers, most of whom had either never performed in front of a crowd or never in front of a crowd so large.

With her estranged mom in the audience, junior Christina Langfield read her untitled poem about running away from home, living in the streets, not getting allowed back with her family, yet still dreaming and hoping for a happy reunion.

“Before I read it, I was really nervous,” Langfield said. “There was a lot of energy. My friends helped me, and I read it.”

The act of performing was also a catharsis and made her feel better.

“It got out a lot of emotion,” Langfield said. “This was about letting my mom know how I felt. Knowing she was listening, it made me feel relieved.”

Like Langfield, many poets spoke about their personal perspectives and struggles, including Jesus Reza, who dressed up in a poncho and a sombrero. Reza made jokes about being a Mexican, but then he ended more serious, about how he gets frustrated being looked down upon and stereotyped.

Emmanuel Delgado spoke from a political perspective.

“Everybody was calling my name, and I felt appreciated. That's what helped me speak,” Delgado said.

Southwest Early College is a charter high school – a public school of choice – with a student population of about 300 students. The school doesn't have sports teams (although students can join the teams of nearby high schools), so getting students to rally together has hardly happened since the school started in 2004 and needs to be something different and unique – which the Art and Culture Night provided. Also, unlike many larger schools, where different groups would have performances on different nights – such as dance programs one night and music another – one advantage for the small-sized Southwest Early College was to put everything together.

(Go to Southwest Early College's Web site)

More role models

College Literacy teacher Lisa Levad organized the event following an informal study she performed last spring. Although freshman enrollment had stayed consistent at the high school, many of the upper-class students had been leaving before graduating with a high school diploma – and an Associate's Degree, one of the draws and promises in an early college program. An Associate's Degree usually takes two or more years after high school.

One of the main problems Levad found: there weren't many good male role models for students, nor were there connections to the school.

“It was research for myself,” Levad said. “I wanted to help the school.”

In late September, Levad took a ballroom dance class for herself, and after talking with the instructor she got him to volunteer twice a week at the school for her students. About 40 students practiced regularly and then performed Dec. 4.

“What really impressed me was that there were more boys than girls when it started,” Levad said.

Soon, the Art and Culture Night came together as a way for the ballroom dance students to show off their newly learned skills. And all of the other clubs could show everybody else what they do as well.

Before the performances, artists displayed their canvasses, and a student-created documentary played. The robotics club ran a contest to raise money.

“They're all in their little enclaves. I wanted to bring them all together,” Levad said.

Levad is optimistic for the rest of not only the semester but also the lives of her teenagers. All of the volunteer instructors were male: band supervisor Stephan Hume, of Band Dynamics; hip-hop/break dance leader Ray-Ray Maestas, with Get With It; ballroom dance teacher Micah Spiers, or Fred Astaire Dance Studio; beat maker Maki Lucero, with Latenite Productions; and Micah Sturr, a teacher at the school, helped make the documentary.

“My male students could see there are other people to look up to,” Levad said. All of the students at the school “were so proud of each other. I loved that the kids recognized one another and celebrated each other. It fills my heart.”

Picture identifications (photos by Joshua Cole)

1. Jesus Reza dresses up to perform his poem about being a Mexican. He joked – “It's better to be 'wet' than to be red in the neck” – but also was serious – taking off his sombrero and describing the pain of being a chubby Latino, he said, “Just because I'm Mexican doesn't mean I'm stupid.”

2. Ray-Ray Maestas does a hand stand during the break dance performance, part of a thrilling acrobatic conclusion to the night.

3. Analisa Martinez and Omar Reza dance the tango during Southwest Early College's Art and Culture Night, Dec. 4. The little auditorium at Colorado Heights University was packed with screaming teenagers and their families to watch the night of ballroom dancing, break dancing, hip hop, rock music and poetry, all performed by the high school's students.

4. Students congratulate on stage Southwest Early College teacher Lisa Levad, who organized the Art and Culture Night as a way to increase pride and identify at the 300-student school.

Southwest Early College approved and art show

2009-12-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Early College, a charter high school on South Federal Boulevard near West Darmouth Avenue, was approved to get a 3-year renewal of its charter license at the DPS Board pf Education meeting Nov. 30.

On Dec. 4, the school will be host to its first annual Art and Culture night, from 5:30-9 p.m., with art and performances (dance, music, poetry). See next week's blog and next week's Denver Herald-Dispatch (publication Dec. 10) for pictures and a story.

Info on the school (also in the Dec. 3 DHD):

Link to Southwest Early College

Southwest Early College, which started in 2004 and has about 330 students in grades 9-12, focuses on giving students a chance to take college courses and earn an associate's degree while enrolled in high school.

Faced with problems, the school's board of directors hired Scott Rubin as its new principal in 2008. The school's academic performance showed a better median growth percentile compared with similar schools in 2009, bumping the school from “accredited on watch” in 2008 to “meets expectations” for the 2009 district School Performance Framework.

Survivor: DPS School Board

2009-12-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

Michelle Moss, right, gets congratulated and hugged by Board President Theresa Pena as Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg waits behind them. Moss, who was term-limited, was praised at a congratulatory send-off, Nov. 30. She wasn't so happy earlier in the night, though, when her elected replacement unexpectedly took office seven hours earlier than she was scheduled to and denied Moss her final votes.
Photo by Joshua Cole

(Note: This complete article will be printed in the Dec. 3 Denver Herald-Dispatch. A feature on Michelle Moss's history on the board is scheduled to be printed in the Dec. 10 DHD.)

The Nov. 30 DPS Board meeting started out like an episode of Survivor rather than the celebratory send-off for leaving members.

Just as the meeting was starting, new Denver Public Schools Board Member Andrea Merida blindsided Michelle Moss, the member she was scheduled to replace later in the night.

As Michelle Moss stepped up to the dais for her final meeting as representative for southwest Denver on Denver Public Schools Board of Education, Merida told Moss to take a seat – somewhere else.

Holding the certification, Merida said, “I was sworn in this afternoon and you can't vote,” Moss recalled.

Merida, who won the fall election to replace the term-limited Moss, was sworn in at noon on Nov. 30, the Board announced. She had been scheduled to be sworn in after a special meeting. By getting sworn in early, Merida denied Moss her final votes, including a proposed new high school in southwest Denver and the fate of a middle school on northwest Denver.

New at-large representative Mary Seawell and northeast representative Nate Easley were sworn in at the originally scheduled time.

“That was probably one of my low points of service,” Moss said. “It's a classic example of putting yourself over the needs of the kids. I have served on this board for eight years and have never been accused of not putting our students first.”

In the end, after three hours of deliberation, Merida's votes didn't swing the rest of the Board. The main issue concerned co-locating a charter school and restructuring the leadership of the current program at Lake Middle School, next to Sloan's Lake about West 20th Avenue and Perry Street. The Board approved the motion 4-3, with Merida, Jeannie Kaplan and Arturo Jimenez voting against the change.

“I'm a (military) veteran, and I swore to uphold the Constitution. I had to make a stand,” Merida said.

Merida also joined Jimenez in voting against bringing an alternative high school to southwest Denver next school year – a school that had been proposed to first be put in northeast Denver. But Moss argued with the superintendent to place it in the southwest, and she won. Multiple Pathways and Choice Academy was passed by a 5-2 vote. The school would be an alternative school: a small-school, “family-friendly” environment geared toward students who may have acted like misfits in a regular school or who may be leaving jail. It doesn't have a plan for students with severe needs or students who need a self-contained environment.

Andrea Merida takes her place on the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. Merida was scheduled to be sworn in after a special meeting, Nov. 30, but she was sworn in the earlier, shocking the rest of the Board and Michelle Moss, the term-limited Board member she was replacing.
Photo by Joshua Cole

“I made an impassioned plea to reevaluate where they would put the first charter,” Moss said. “We have a huge number of dropouts in southwest Denver.”

Merida said her decisions on the Board weren't to deny change, but to delay in order to hear more voices from the community and get more detailed data. Members who voted in opposition to Merida didn't want to delay indefinitely.

“One of the cornerstones of my platform was community engagement,” said Merida, who won the fall's election by 116 votes, or about 1.1 percent. “Even though there are good-faith reasons, we missed the essential component of community engagement. We haven't taken those opinions and hard work and the sweat from the brows of the people that send their children to school every day.”

With Pathways, Jimenez said that the school didn't have “enough meat,” meaning that the proposal lacked some specifics.

Other members of the Board noted that the the Multiple Pathways proposal wasn't complete, but they disagreed that it should be denied an opportunity to open.

“For four years on the Board, I've been waiting for more meat on the bones,” said at-large member Jill Conrad. “It is something I have waited for for a long time. There are some remaining questions, but I am happy to vote in support of it.”

She added, “This one's for Michelle.”

Former supporter

When Merida told Moss she couldn't sit down, Theresa Pena, the Board's president who had sat adjacent to Moss, hissed into the microphone, “Arturo, you have to win by any means necessary.”

Moss teared up and spoke out against her replacement.

Then, leaning on her cane, Moss, who fought cancer this year, limped out of the Board room, her head sunk, her eyes scrunched in anger.

Moss had endorsed Merida in Merida's election bid. Moss recorded a robo call, gave her advice and encouraged others to endorse her.

“I wish her success because the children of southwest Denver deserve it,” Moss said.

Moss said she won't talk to Merida.

During a break in the Board meeting, Merida told reporters, “I regret the emotional impact on Michelle Moss; I do not regret that the voters' voices were heard. If I had the opportunity to talk to her again, I would continue to apologize.”

Following the meeting, as Moss was talking to the Denver Herald-Dispatch in an office next to the Board room, Merida, silent, snuck in past Moss and just as quickly went out, her face half-hidden behind a certificate. Other Board members, community members and school leaders filed into the room for a quick hug, congratulations and good-bye, and Moss welcomed them with a warm smile, eye contact and open arms. When Kaplan entered, Moss, her tone of voice cold, kept her eyes on the table she was sitting at and refused Kaplan's request to talk.

Change coming

Merida has said that she is not against charters or changes to schools, but she is a proponent for looking at alternative choices. Jimenez echoed that sentiment.

“There's nobody against turnaround strategies,” Jimenez said. “No one is anti-charter. The community process is something we have not perfected yet. It is always important to begin with the data but not end with the data.”

However, even if the way that Merida, Jimenez and, at times, Kaplan voted weren't meant as knocks on charters, they did represent a shift from the quick and substantial change that the superintendent and the Board had been moving toward to improve student achievement in the district.

“The proposal isn't just about where to locate a charter school; it is about getting serious about matching real, timely effective solutions,” Conrad said. “These kids need a 'game-changer' at this point of their life.”

Schools in Denver are in desperate need of change, the superintendent and other Board members said.

“It is shameful we are a school district in 2009 where students of color and Hispanic students are 35 points behind our Caucasian students,” superintendent Tom Boasberg said. “In past years, it seemed there was an unwillingness to take on challenges. We’re seeing progress in our system, but it’s not fast enough. We still have too many students who aren’t on track to graduate from high school ready for success in college and careers. We owe it to our kids – to all of our kids – to make the very difficult but necessary decisions to give them far better opportunities than they have today.”

The actions at the Nov. 30 meeting gave concern to many, including the superintendent.

“This game of political destruction is so sad because it can serve to destroy only one thing: the hopes and opportunities of Denver students,” Boasberg told reporters after the meeting.

About Me

2009-12-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

My name is Joshua Cole.

I'm a community newspaper reporter in the south-Denver-metro area, with Cherry Creek Schools (CCSD), Littleton Public Schools (LPS) and Denver Public Schools (the southwest area) in my two newspapers' coverage area.

I'm also a former teacher. I was a substitute teacher, and I taught middle school English before teaching took its toll on me. But I still love learning about education and talking with educators. Although I cover everything for the two newspapers -- sports, city council, other features -- my favorite thing that I get to write about is education-based.

One thing that my newspaper professors and teachers always tried to pound in our heads was to write at a level so that normal people can understand something. I take that approach with education. Most of my articles are about the students, the classrooms and the schools -- where the parents and kids are every day -- and not so much about the administrations or the boards of education. And thus, the Denver "Classroom Reporter."

On this blog, I'll post many of the articles I write or comment about things I see, hear or read.

My e-mail, and I'm on Twitter, @classroomreport.

I am hopeful that you may enjoy what you read and learn from it.

Our newspapers (they are NOT online):
The Denver Herald-Dispatch
The paper has been serving the southwest Denver community every Thursday since 1926 -- we're the only ones that give a damn about southwest Denver, our slogan used to say. The paper covers the city of Denver proper, from West Sixth Avenue to the southern border, and from West Santa Fe Drive to the western border. The traditional public high schools include John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln and Denver West, with charter schools KIPP Collegiate High School and Southwest Early College, and private schools J.K. Mullen and Denver Lutheran. We also are home to the Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy K-8 and the first KIPP middle school (Sunshine Peak Academy) and first two West Denver Prep middle school campuses.
For info, call 303-936-7778

The Villager
Since 1982, Gerri and Bob Sweeney have been informing the south suburban area of news and events. The paper started off just for the cities of Greenwood Village and Cherry Hills Village but has since expanded to cover Arapahoe County and the cities of Centennial and Littleton. We cover all of the Cherry Creek School District, which is one of the best and largest districts in the state, as well as Littleton Schools, which are also well-respected in the metro area.
For info, call 303-773-8313