Englewood educators are celebrating a major turnaround and looking ahead to what they expect to be a bright future for local students.
The Colorado Department of Education released its for the 2015-16 school year in December. The frameworks, individually tailored to each district, measure how students are stacking up when it comes to state expectations for achievement, growth and workforce and postsecondary readiness.
received an accredited rating, the second highest mark on the . It means students in third through ninth grades across the district are meeting state standards in those key performance areas. District officials highlighted that in 2016, 11.1 percent more Englewood third-graders met standards on state reading and writing assessments than did so in 2015. Proficiency on those assessments is considered a key indicator of a student’s future academic success, officials say.
Being accredited is an important milestone. It wasn’t long ago that Englewood Schools fell far below state benchmarks. In 2010, the district received the lowest rating on the state scale — “accredited with turnaround plan” — and ranked as the 11th lowest performing district in the state.
“Most importantly, it demonstrates that some of the changes that our schools have implemented are working; that we’re on the right track,” deputy superintendent Patricia Hanrahan said of the rating. “It looks like the next bar is accredited with distinction.”
Hanrahan and Joanna Polzin, the districtap director of assessment and analytics, pointed to measures such as bringing professional learning coaches, who work with teachers on professional practices, to each of the districtap 10 K-12 schools as contributors to growth. Thanks to and the districtap two middle schools being housed on a single, state-of-the-art “Englewood Campus” that , all teachers in an individual subject area, such as English, can work together to map out approaches to instruction from seventh grade through 12th.
STEM education and developing skills that feed directly into career pathways has also been a focus for the district in recent years. With some help from state grants, the district has STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — labs available to all of its high school and middle school students, as well as on the campus of . Labs are slated to be installed at the district’s remaining three elementary schools this summer thanks to support from the . According to district STEM coordinator Bill Gilmore, each year kids work with more advanced design software in their STEM classes until they are using programs that meet industry standards in high school.
Beyond state benchmarks, Englewood is seeing improvement in more traditional measures of academic success. The districtap graduation rate went up 6.5 percent last year, officials say. At Englewood High, daily freshman and sophomore attendance rates are at 95 percent this year, after being in the low 80s last year. Englewood campus principal Ryan West attributes that in part to students having access to unique programs and facilities like a TV studio and industrial kitchen and being engaged in their education.
“I think we have some pretty different stuff then they might have at other schools,” Englewood High junior Devin Venneman said while working on a project in the school’s fabrication lab last week. “Where else are you going to find a full-sized kitchen, band saw and laser engraver?”
Superintendent Wendy Rubin credits the local community for contributing to district success. Voters approved a $50 million bond issue in 2011 that paid for construction of the Englewood Campus and renovations to a former middle school that is now . The district in November to ask for a $97.5 million bond and $1.5 million mill levy increase to fund complete replacement of its four outdated elementary schools and its early childhood education building and again won approval.
“I think itap a tremendous vote of confidence from the community in the school district and the work that is being done,” Rubin said of November’s results.”I can’t emphasize enough how important it is and how excited we are for the kids, teachers and the community.”
Tena Prange is president of the districtap and mother to two students in district schools and one recent graduate. She said she was pleasantly surprised by news of the district’s accredited ranking, but was also well aware of all the hard work that went into making it happen in recent years. She said the district made great strides in empowering students and teachers by seeking their input on critical decisions such as the designs for new facilities and curriculums.
“It doesn’t just take one year,” she said.
Updated Jan. 26, 2017, at 10:48 a.m. Because of an error by a reporter, the number of Englewood elementary schools that have STEM labs and how they were funded was originally incorrect. Cherrelyn Elementary currently has a STEM lab paid for by state grants. The remaining three district elementary schools will add STEM labs in the summer from a Gill Foundation grant.