Yellow school buses again filled streets, backpacks slung off of shoulders and seats in Denver’s classrooms filled up this morning for the first day of school.
Denver Public Schools is expecting its highest enrollment in 30 years — with more than 75,000 students.
The district also introduces new schools to its mix — including an arts magnet school in southwest Denver, a teacher-led school and several new charter schools.
The district is also creating shared campuses, where charter schools and typical schools are blended together in one school building — a plan that is intended to offer more choices and use up empty space.
“This is a day of tremendous optimism and hope,” DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said at a ceremony at Stedman Elementary School in northeast Denver.
Boasberg joined Gov. Bill Ritter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper at the school that displayed some of the highest academic growth among Denver’s schools on the Colorado Student Assessment Program — 15 percentage points greater than the state.
Denver, the state’s second largest school district, also had greater growth on the CSAP than the state average for the fourth year in a row, Boasberg said.
“We absolutely have our feet on the gas pedal,” he said.
Ritter and Hickenlooper posed for photographs with students, who hugged and gave high fives to the politicians.
“Work hard. Be nice,” Hickenlooper told the children.
Ritter said without the state’s new way of looking at academic achievement — measuring student growth over the years — no one would be able to see kind of growth occurring in Stedman.
“Suddenly , you realize (the students) are growing like crazy,” he said.
Ritter, who a day earlier had announced his austere budget proposal that would result in deep cuts, took a bear hug from Lilianne Rice, 5, who was heading to her first-grade class.
“Thanks,” he said. “Even the governor needs a hug.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
