High-performing Denver schools would get rewards and more autonomy while low-performing ones would receive interventions and could ultimately close under a district incentive plan discussed Monday.
The system, which could be in place in Denver Public Schools by September, is being patterned after policies and practices in other large districts around the country, including New York City; Oakland, Calif.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Broward County, Fla.
“The incentive system speaks to how to motivate folks,” said Brad Jupp, the Denver district’s senior policy adviser. “We will use this in a way to direct supports and interventions for schools that are struggling.”
The system, which has not yet received school board approval, would be aligned with the district’s performance framework that ranks schools on how students grow academically.
The incentive system would divide schools into four levels based on their performance.
On the top tier, schools successfully pushing achievement will get increasing rewards, such as pay bonuses and more self-direction.
Schools on the lowest tier showing the steepest achievement drops would have to develop an improvement plan, must face increased monitoring and could see longer school days or an extended calendar.
They also would get more money to pay for interventions.
Following two years of significant academic decline at a school, the district could replace the staff, change the academic program or close the facility.
Superintendent Michael Bennet said the system would provide the district with a defined process of how to improve schools on decline and how to celebrate those doing well.
The district has not had a specific plan for how to uniformly identify and fix low-performing schools, he said.
Bennet recalled a discussion in the board room after he had started in 2005 about what should be done about a chronically low-performing school.
“That’s the world we don’t want to be in,” he said. “We want a world where there isn’t a system in which we are caught by surprise anymore.”
However, Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, said she was taken by surprise by the incentive proposal — particularly one part that suggests teachers in high-performing schools could receive pay increases.
Jupp said that was being negotiated with the DCTA.
But Ursetta said it was the first time she had heard about teacher pay being linked to the district’s new performance framework.
“That’s news to us,” Ursetta said. “We are happy to discuss compensation, and it would be more productive at the bargaining table instead of in a public forum.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
