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Details of DPS reform plan meet guarded enthusiasm
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Details of DPS reform plan meet guarded enthusiasm

Jaime Aquino, Denver Public Schools chief academic officer, explains proposed reforms to the Denver Plan committee Saturday. The panel includes teachers, principals and others.
Jaime Aquino, Denver Public Schools chief academic officer, explains proposed reforms to the Denver Plan committee Saturday. The panel includes teachers, principals and others.
DENVER, CO - JUNE 23: Claire Martin. Staff Mug. (Photo by Callaghan O'Hare/The Denver Post)
By | The Denver Post
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Listening to the draft for a sweeping school-reform policy that Denver Public Schools assistant area superintendent Diana Lopez said “oozes with a sense of urgency,” the Denver Plan committee displayed pleased if guarded optimism.

“This generates an excitement I have never seen in this district before,” Lopez said after Superintendent Michael Bennet and DPS chief academic officer Jaime Aquino concluded a three-hour presentation Saturday at Denver School of the Arts.

The bulky draft, more than 100 pages long, outlines expansive changes.

Among proposed reforms:

  • Replace existing literacy and math coaches with humanities and math/science coaches assigned according to student needs and school enrollment.
  • Rigorous secondary-school academics, including a consistent districtwide grading policy beginning in middle school, graduation requirement reviews beginning in ninth grade, and a college preparation curriculum for all students.
  • Summer academies and 90-minute blocks of core curriculum coaching for struggling students.
  • Provide professional development for principals, assistant principals and teachers.
  • Establish connections with parents and neighborhood communities to improve security, school attendance and accountability.
  • Recast the approach to teaching English- language learners to focus on both instruction and compliance with state standards.

    Students in English-acquisition programs currently are 20 percent of DPS’s middle and high school students and up to 40 percent of its elementary school students, Aquino said.

    “Discipline isn’t the key here; clarity is,” Bennet said. “Where expectations are high, discipline problems are low.”

    “We’re in a very competitive marketplace for kids now, when middle school parents decide between religious schools, charter schools and public schools,” he continued.

    “The days of just opening our doors at the beginning of the school year are over.”

    The draft cites Denver School of the Arts as a role model. That school’s combination of academic choices with a strict core curriculum based on state and district standards consistently results in high CSAP scores and few problems with truancy and discipline.

    Maxwell Elementary School principal Robert Woodson, a 36-year DPS veteran, asked about the chances of executing the plan.

    “Our chances of implementing it, which is where the rubber meets the road, are really pretty high,” Bennett replied.

    The draft now goes to work groups and subcommittees, where the practical details will be worked out.

    Brown Elementary School nurse Joe Ortega expressed the optimism of those jaded after seeing one reform policy after another shelved under past superintendents.

    “You really are going forward,” he marveled. “You’re not just continuing to revise the revisions.”

    Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com

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