Denver Public Schools and St. Vrain Valley School District were among 49 finalists out of 1,698 entries from organizations around the nation in a $650 million federal grant competition to support innovation in the classroom.
DPS will receive $25.2 million over five years to support English-language learners in middle school. St. Vrain will get $3.6 million over five years for a similar program for students at Skyline High School and its feeder schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s announcement Thursday.
To secure the grant, recipients have until Sept. 8 to land 20 percent matching funds from private sources.
“We will be aggressively working with and collaborating with foundations and individuals to raise this necessary money,” Denver Superintendent Tom Boasberg said. “It’s not often you can get a five-to-one match on your investment.”
Congress funded the Investing in Innovation grant program, or I3, through last year’s economic stimulus program.
Nonprofit organizations, educational agencies and school districts were eligible for the grants that would go to the most innovative proposals for improving student achievement, closing the achievement gap and increasing college enrollment or completion rates.
The $650 million is being awarded in three categories. In the top two categories, Denver was the only school district to win an award.
“We are absolutely thrilled,” Boasberg said. “The award really demonstrates DPS’s national leadership in innovation in education.”
Top-tier awards of up to $50 million each went to four applicants with proven successful programs, including Teach for America, Success for All and the KIPP charter school foundation.
In the second tier, 15 organizations seeking funding for programs that have had some evidence of success — including DPS — landed awards of up to $30 million.
St. Vrain received the highest overall score on its application in the third-tier category, in which awards of up to $5 million were made to 30 groups with promising programs in development.
The grant represents the third large award for DPS in the past year — including a $10 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve educator effectiveness and an $8 million federal grant for its teacher-residency program.
Denver’s literacy program is in partnership with the University of Colorado and Padres & Jovenes Unidos.
The money will help provide teacher training and specialists in language development for students in areas including English, math and social studies.
Denver’s program is in place at Bryant-Webster Dual Language School and Centennial K-8. Next year, it will expand to Martin Luther King Jr. Early College and Merrill Middle School.
The funding will help pay for training for teachers and administrators and the hiring of parent liaisons, said Susana Cordova, newly appointed chief academic officer.
“This allows us to do a much broader project, adding parent engagement,” Cordova said. “Now it really becomes a whole-school program; parental involvement, teacher professional development and leadership training for principals.”
St. Vrain’s program will benefit approximately 3,800 students, with focused intervention and a longer school year for students in elementary school through high school.
The program will concentrate on literacy in six elementary schools, math in two middle schools and science and technology at Skyline High School.
“This grant will pay for seven weeks of additional schooling for those students,” said Regina Renaldi, director of priority programs at St. Vrain.
“It will be four hours a day in the summer,” she said. “This will work for our students. We have done the research and they need more time.”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com
