Students at Columbine Elementary in Boulder will get an extra day of winter break this week as faculty and administrators take time to discuss ways to improve test scores at the school.
Classes for students in the Boulder Valley School District resume Wednesday. But that day, Columbine teachers and district officials will mull over a state audit of the troubled school and come up with an improvement plan, said district spokesman Briggs Gamblin.
The meeting comes after Boulder Valley Superintendent Chris King announced major changes at the school, including getting a new principal and asking Columbine teachers to reapply for their jobs.
King has since said asking teachers to reapply was “premature.” Hundreds of people packed the school to protest King’s Dec. 16 announcement.
“It was a very rough meeting,” Gamblin said. “A lot of people felt the teachers were being disrespected.”
King didn’t advocate a full-scale firing of teachers at Columbine because they would have been guaranteed jobs at other schools, Gamblin said.
Boulder Valley is still faced with turning around a 360-student school that did not make “adequately yearly progress” on the annual Colorado Student Assessment Program test for a third year in a row. The designation means the district must take “corrective action.”
Parents and district officials admit Columbine faces challenges. More than 50 percent of students in the Columbine neighborhood open-enroll at a different school.
More than 80 percent of students who attend Columbine qualify for free or reduced price lunches, and most speak Spanish as their first language, according to the district.
Parent Mark Larter, whose daughter attends first grade at the school, is happy with its programs and teachers.
“We were really pleased at the reception we got and the attention paid to our daughter,” Larter said. “The school keeps her challenged, and we can’t be happier.”
Columbine students will make up their extra vacation day April 23, when other students will be out of class.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
