The Colorado Board of Education voted unanimously Monday to deny Westminster Public Schools appeal to raise its quality rating.
The board voted after minimal discussion mostly criticizing the district for blaming poor performance on minority and disadvantaged students.
“The ‘why’ students are not performing at grade level is an excuse, but what it should do is give us a road map to remedy that failure,” said board member Steve Durham. “Itap our job to identify poor performance and further find remedies regardless of the reasons.”
Pam Swanson, Westminster’s superintendent, and school board members said the state board members’ comments were ridiculous.
“We have very high expectations,” Swanson said. “Every teacher listening to that comment was disgusted because we know that we have high expectations. We know all of our kids can get there it just takes them longer.”
The district has argued that the annual performance evaluation was not legal because it discriminated against the districtap large number of English learners, mobile students and those who qualify for free or reduced price lunch.
.
Chalkbeat Colorado is a nonprofit news organization covering education issues. For more, visit .
