As Denver seeks to improve its teaching staff, the school district likely will need to apply for waivers or seek changes to state laws, board members were told Monday.
Denver Public Schools is one of 10 districts nationally competing for a share of a five-year, $500 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focused on improving teacher effectiveness.
Officials on Monday described part of Denver’s bid for the Gates grant, including plans to change how teachers are hired, evaluated, trained and retained.
But some of the changes may take waivers from state law, said Superintendent Tom Boasberg.
Statutes say teachers in Colorado are tenured after three years, which moves them from being probationary to nonprobationary and makes them more difficult to remove.
In Denver, nonprobationary status is granted almost automatically, DPS officials say. Ninety-two percent of probationary teachers are retained every year in the district.
Denver wants to extend that three-year time period, adding flexibility, and establish a higher standard to becoming tenured.
“We are going to give people time to develop themselves and a better support structure to achieve that standard,” said Ana Tilton, chief academic officer. “We need to exit those individuals who aren’t able to meet that standard without that long-term support.”
State law also says teachers must be rated either “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory,” and in DPS 99 percent of teachers get “satisfactory” ratings.
Denver wants fuller evaluations with a differentiated rating system and student academic growth as the key element.
Evaluations would come from multiple sources, including the principal, peers and possibly even parents and students. And there would be intensive, regular and targeted feedback, and increased support for novice teachers.
The district wants to aggressively recruit from specific pools of talent and expand its teacher-residency program.
Boasberg made the presentation after reviewing the district’s scores on the 2009 Colorado Student Assessment Program — which showed better growth than the state but scores still 20 points below the state average in all subjects.
The possible changes could raise some eyebrows but must be done to help Denver improve, Boasberg said, calling for the community to begin having discussions about public education with the same vigor as the current debate over health care.
“If anyone wants to stand up and say the status quo is great and we don’t need to change it, I’d be open to having that discussion,” Boasberg said. “We need to have the courage as a community to have that discussion.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
