For the first time ever, two Denver schools faced state action Thursday after years of low performance. But rather than close the schools or convert them to charters, the State Board of Education largely endorsed the Denver districtap own improvement plans.
The state board unanimously directed Abraham Lincoln and Manual high schools to follow “innovation plans” that give the schools more flexibility in hiring, budgeting and curriculum, and encouraged them to continue working with a school leadership program.
The action represents the first time the state board has intervened this way in Denver Public Schools, a district with a history of taking aggressive action to improve low-performing schools. Innovation is the least drastic and most frequent intervention taken by the state board.
“Very few schools can use that as the silver bullet,” board member Joyce Rankin, a Carbondale Republican, said to the Lincoln principal. “You’re telling me you can, but boy, I wish you all the success with that.”
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