AURORA — Former State Board of Education member Karen Middleton needs only to think back to a speech given in late 2005 to understand how much progress Aurora Public Schools has made under no-excuses Superintendent John Barry.
His predecessor, Bob Adams, talked for 45 minutes about how this district she represented was changing — more students of color, more whose primary language wasn’t English. He lamented the lack of parental involvement and talked of other challenges he said contributed to low student achievement.
“The whole tone of his presentation just seemed like one big, fat excuse,” said Middleton, now a state representative from Aurora. “I think they simply didn’t know how to handle such rapid change.”
Within weeks after his hiring in June 2006, Barry, a retired Air Force general, had launched a 90-day listening tour, touting his VISTA 2010 plan. At the plan’s center: the goal of getting students ready to enter college without remediation.
He quickly instituted a closed-campus policy for high schools and went hard after truants, personally knocking on the doors of children who were supposed to be in school.
Slowly, test scores began improving. And soon, a district in which parental involvement had been spotty began to draw parents wanting to help out.
Three years later, Barry is back on the road. This time, he is on a six-month listening tour during which he plans to speak to more than 90 groups and solicit community input for his VISTA 2015 plan.
One of the main goals of the new VISTA plan is to get every child to grade level in reading, writing and math within five years, or within three years of entering first grade.
“You can’t accelerate some kids and leave others behind,” Barry said. “You can’t go down on student achievement so others can catch up.”
English is not the primary language for about 36 percent of the 32,000 students in APS. So Barry is shooting to have all of the district’s teachers be certified as Linguistically Diverse Educators — a designation that requires nine semester hours of graduate-level training — by the end of 2015.
All new hires are required to have the certification now or have to agree to get the training, which will be paid for by the district. Existing APS teachers will get the free training as well.
Of the 2,000 teachers in APS, 600 are either certified or enrolled in training.
“Hopefully, in five years, we’ll get everybody done,” Barry said.
One big thing Barry said he has accomplished is to improve teacher morale, which was low when he came on board. Teachers said they felt as if they weren’t part of the process, but Barry points to “climate surveys” that now show more teachers are pleased with their jobs than in the past.
Brenna Isaacs, president of the teachers union, said things have gotten better. But she said there is more room for improvement. Teachers still feel as if they are being told what to do in some areas, she said.
“It’s important to find ways to recognize that teachers are professionals and should have the ability to make decisions based on the needs of their students,” Isaacs said. “Teachers still feel tied to a certain directive or prescriptive they need to follow.”
Even so, Barry said he would grade the work of his administration so far as a “B-plus.” With lofty goals of improved teacher training and getting students up to and beyond grade level in core areas, he said he hopes the VISTA 2015 plan could earn him an “A.”
“This is an extremely collaborate effort to get to the next level of our strategic plan,” Barry said.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
APS at a glance
32,000
students in Aurora Public Schools
36%
do not speak English as their primary language
2%
gains for the district on CSAP tests since 2002; state gains overall were 1.1 percent
8.3%
increase in proficient scores in math over the past five years
