Lots of media were searching for such stock photos this week (Lewis Geyer/Longmont Times-Call).
A she-said, they-said over a lunch lady’s provocative claims, a flurry of reports and legal developments on everything from innovation schools to school finance and college remediation rates, a bold undertaking by a Portland newspaper and more highlight this week’s Take Note …
It’s not often that a Colorado education story will garner major national media attention. Our last 15 minutes involved . This week’s tale of a terminated lunch lady in the Cherry Creek School District had all the right ingredients. CBS4 in Denver of kitchen manager Della Curry’s claim that she had been fired from Dakota Valley Elementary School for giving hot lunches to students who didn’t have the money to pay for them and didn’t meet federal income guidelines to get them for free. The district’s reaction was not to say much initially. But after Curry’s claims made a splash on CNN, in USA Today and elsewhere, the district elaborated and then some, Cherry Creek said “numerous documented incidents” caused it to act and said it would explain if Curry granted her permission, which she said on Facebook she would not do. The Aurora Sentinel reported
The state’s latest legal dispute over school finance had its day before the Colorado Supreme Court this week, Oral arguments were heard in a lawsuit arguing money is being cut from the established minimum base that districts should get per student in direct violation of the state constitution’s Amendment 23, which voters approved in 2000.
The number of Colorado high school graduates who take remedial classes before being allowed into college-level courses has decreased for the third year in a row,. The Colorado Department of Higher Education found that 34.2 percent of high school graduates from the class of 2013 were placed into remediation for at least one subject — down from 37 percent the previous year.
Denver Public Schools failed to meet the requirements of a state law when it granted innovation status to 11 schools in northeast Denver, The law says innovation plans must gain majority support of staff and from a School Accountability Committee — and these were new schools. The appellate court punted it back to district court. Union leaders hailed the decision, and DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg called it an important clarification that won’t immediately impact the schools in question.
found that nearly 40 percent of Colorado’s school districts fell short of at least one measure of financial well-being, a slightly rosier picture than what last year’s report portrayed. Seventy of Colorado’s 178 public school districts missed at least one of the auditor’s financial health benchmarks over a three-year period that ended in 2014, compared with 76 in the previous three-year cycle.
Our YourHub staff have a couple of local district developments to report — the Englewood Schools Board of Education has , and the Jeffco school board recently approved a motion allocating $15 million to fund construction of a to ease pressure of packed classrooms resulting from a massive housing buildout in the area.
On the higher-ed front, the Colorado School of Mines
The Oregonian took on s based on their 2013 reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and their four-year graduation rates. Colorado ranked No. 20 overall, with strong math and reading results (12th and 10th, respectively) but not so much on graduation rate (39 percent) or spending (42nd).
Colorado Public Radio’s Jenny Brundin has another thoughtful story about how education research is playing out on the front lines, this time looking at .
