Aurora – Imagine a school where a student can enter kindergarten and eventually graduate from college without changing sites.
Such a “preschool-through-post-secondary” campus could be in the future for Aurora Public Schools, according to a plan released Tuesday.
Many of the ideas had their genesis in a 90-day listening tour earlier this year by new superintendent John Barry.
“Clearly, what I heard from the people involved is there’s a sense of urgency” to improve schools and the district, Barry said.
Barry, a former software company executive and retired two-star Air Force general, met with students, parents, teachers, staff, administrators, and business and community leaders starting in July.
The district and Barry used the meetings to help shape a vision known as Vista 2010. Details are still being worked out about how to implement specific items, but the goal is to accomplish all objectives by 2010. How much they would cost has yet to be determined.
Among the 14-page report’s wide array of goals, objectives and actions:
Review and revise the current teacher evaluation process by June 2010.
Provide full-day kindergarten for every child and add more preschools by 2010.
Adopt a model by 2008 to better identify and support underachieving students.
Develop strategies to extend the school day using before- and after-school programs.
Last year, more than 75 percent of Aurora schools ranked low in statewide testing. Aurora has more than 32,000 students, and they come from more than 100 countries and speak more than 90 languages.
The district’s mission is to graduate every student and prepare all to attend college if they so desire.
“It’s a reach, but it’s not impossible,” Barry said.
Over the next 20 years, the district, already among the largest in the state, will need to build 22 new schools to accommodate more than 100,000 projected new residents, according to the report.
Without going into specific dollar amounts to carry out Vista 2010, Barry said the district’s budget is in the black and will stay there.
Voters have been supportive of recent bond initiatives, Barry said, noting a $225 million bond passed in 2002.
“The school district is not in a deficit,” Barry said. “I won’t approach the realm of going into a deficit.”
The plan speaks often of PACE, a plan to use “People, Achievement, Community, and Environment” to meet goals.
PACE was written on a chalkboard in a 4th-grade class at Clyde Miller Elementary School where students were told about the program.
“It takes in all four components,” principal Diana Gadison said of PACE. “It takes in the components I’ve been working on myself. It makes my job easier.”
Fourth-grade teacher Laurel Larchick said she’s impressed with the scope and ambition of the plan.
“It gives us an opportunity to really teach,” Larchick said. “It really gets us to know our students.
“I’m not just teaching a student, I’m teaching a child.”
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
