DPS At A Crossroads
The Search For The Next Superintendent Gets Heated
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On July 17, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg announced his resignation after having served for 10 years. Since then the school board has launched what it has termed the Super Search for the man or woman who will take over the job of directing nearly 12,000 employees, a billion dollar budget, 207 schools and more than 92,000 students.
Boasberg’s resignation finds the district at a crossroads: Should DPS continue the reforms implemented by Boasberg and before him, Michael Bennet (who is now one of Colorado’s two U.S. senators)?
Or should the district move in another direction? Should the elected board that oversees the district insist the new superintendent work to transform DPS to respond to the growing and vocal demands from many – especially communities of color who have witnessed their schools closed, co-located, dislocated, and often-times taken over by the charter industry?
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Goals versus reality: By the numbers
The school district’s Denver Plan 2020 includes these goals in its current strategic blueprint:
• By 2020, 80 percent of DPS students will attend a high-performing school, measured by region using the district’s school performance framework (SPF).
• By 2020, 80 percent of DPS third-graders will be at or above grade level in reading and writing.
In 2014 when the Denver Plan 2020 was adopted, 58 percent of the district’s schools were rated high performing or excellent. By 2017 that number increased by only 2 percent. At this rate, an 80 percent goal seems unachievable.
In addition, the rating system itself (the SPF) has come under fire. In December 2017, leaders from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), along with the Urban League of Metro Denver, Padres & Jóvenes Unidos and other organizations, co-signed a letter calling on DPS to re-evaluate and correct this framework.
Mary Sam, a retired DPS teacher, education activist and resident of the Far Northeast area of Denver, has been saying for years that the SPF, which relies heavily on growth, rates schools in her neighborhood as “green” or “blue,” when proficiency in those schools is alarmingly low.
For example, in the 2017 state tests for 8th grade English, STRIVE PREP Montbello had 22 percent of its students meet or exceed expectations. STRIVE PREP Green Valley Ranch had 24 percent. By comparison, McAuliffe here in Park Hill had 82 percent meet or exceed expectations. Yet all three schools were rated “green” on the SPF scale, which rates schools on a spectrum of colors from blue (best), green, to yellow, to orange and red (worst).
Similarly, the elementary school DCIS Ford, also in the Far Northeast, scored 33 percent for its 3rd grade English test. By comparison, Park Hill Elementary scored 71 percent. Yet both schools were rated “green.” Sam, the retired teacher, has for many years publicly questioned the SPF rating, which she says masks low achievement scores in specific Denver neighborhoods.
District-wide, in 2018 only 38 percent of third graders were meeting or exceeding expectation on the English state test – a far cry from the 80 percent goal of the Denver 2020 Plan.
Even more glaring are the disaggregated results: While 65 percent of white 3rd graders in DPS schools met or exceeded expectations in English, only 23 percent of black students and 23 percent of Hispanic students met or exceeded those same expectations. Given that black and Hispanic students represent 70 percent of DPS’ population, and whites represent 23 percent, the data suggests the district is leaving many of its minority students far behind their white counterparts.
These continuing discrepancies have helped fuel a groundswell of grassroots activism, with advocates calling for an end to education reforms that have mostly targeted schools with high minority populations. (For more on this, check out the May issue of the Greater Park Hill News, online at greaterparkhill.org/2018/05/a-moment-becomes-a-movement/.)
In May, many activists were calling for Boasberg’s resignation. With that in hand, they are now appealing to the school board to hire a new superintendent who will serve as an “education transformer” and who will move away from the 10-plus years of the reforms of the past two leaders. Our Voices Our Schools, an education advocacy group, submitted a manifesto to the board with specific demands regarding the Super Search and are asking that community be allowed a more active role in the hiring process.
Tensions apparent from the start
For its part, after Boasberg resigned the school board launched a community engagement process. Citing a desire to gather input from different stakeholders, the district scheduled a series of meetings in schools across the district.
The first meeting was held on Sept. 4 at Abraham Lincoln High School in southwest Denver. Attended by more than 150 people, the tensions between community members and the DPS administration were immediately apparent.
Organizers tried to follow what has become a well-established pattern for DPS meetings: introductions, a power point presentation, and then dividing attendees into small groups where facilitators would write down their thoughts. For many this was all too familiar. Several people expressed their fear that this process was designed to silence their voices, and not actually provide meaningful opportunities for input.
Board member Angela Cobián attempted to convince the crowd that such small discussion groups mirrored house meetings organized by César Chávez to organize farm workers advocating for labor rights. This rang hollow, given DPS’ past top-down approach to community engagement.
Amid increased uproar, board member Carrie Olson who represents Park Hill, pleaded, “We’ve created angry people in DPS by not listening before. I’m asking you to give it a try. We’re listening. We’re hearing you. It’s a new board. Give us one more chance.”
And the people did. Groups were formed. Discussions were had and notes were taken. In the group where I sat, students and parents repeatedly asked for more counselors and psychologists in schools and less policing.
Two items, at least in my mind, undermined the credibility of the discussion. First, facilitator David Portee, senior manager for the school district’s Family and Community Engagement department, said that the Denver 2020 plan had been “beneficial” for DPS and needed to move further. This was noted on the butcher paper as if it was part of the “community’s input.”
Second, Eric Duran, who was seated at the same table as me, introduced himself as “a graduate from North High School.” Duran didn’t mention that he is also married to Susana Cordova, the Deputy Superintendent of DPS who is largely believed to be in contention to replace Boasberg. Duran is also a public finance banker for D.A. Davidson and is described as “one of the leading investment bankers in the charter school movement” on the firm’s website. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the Colorado League of Charter Schools. It certainly would have been helpful for him to disclose those connections during the community discussion.
Frustrations over racial inequalities
After that first session, the board hired an outside firm, Dimension Strategies, to host a series of community meetings during September. Aside from a few technology glitches, the meetings have been well run by its founder, Katherine Archuleta, who said she would release a final report on the meetings to both the board and the public at the same time.
Table discussions and open mic sessions at these meetings have had a common theme: frustrations over racial inequalities within the education system. Many have asked that the next superintendent be a person of color, who can help turn the tides of institutional racism within DPS. (For more check out the 2016 Bailey Report, on the DPS website, which details how students, teachers and staff are negatively impacted by ingrained racist practices.)
At one meeting at Evie Dennis Campus, community activist Brandon Pryor asked that a superintendent be hired who will tackle the achievement gap issue head-on – including hiring more teachers of color, and providing students in the Far Northeast with the same opportunities that students in whiter neighborhoods receive.
Jeff Fard, a Park Hill resident, and founder of the Five Points News and of Brother Jeff’s Cultural Center in Five Points, noted a similar struggle while conducting a Facebook Live program with board member Jennifer Bacon, who also represents Park Hill, on Aug. 18. Referring to the closures of Gilpin Elementary in Five Points and Smiley Middle School in Park Hill, Fard said, “Our assets in our communities are also our buildings. Why the heck do we have to use our buildings and our resources to satisfy the needs of people who don’t even live in the community?”
Fard has produced several recent Facebook Live broadcasts on the superintendent search and the state of DPS, including criticism over a majority of pro-reform members that remain on the school board. “When you close schools down, you start to dismantle pieces of that community fabric.”
Fard has also expressed skepticism over the community engagement process, which he has termed “a dog and pony show.” He is far from alone.
“These community forums are in no way connected to the outcome of who actually chooses the next superintendent,” said Hasira Ashemu, founder of the advocacy group Our Voices Our Schools. “These meetings are a GAME to occupy the three youngest members of the board, while the elder reformers are in charge of picking candidates.”
Can DPS repair the damage?
The September community meeting in the Far Northeast drew the largest showing to date, with well over 200 people. “The next superintendent will need to repair the damage done to our communities,” said one retired school principal. “The community doesn’t trust DPS anymore.”
All these conversations have revealed a depth of pain. The communities most affected by DPS’s reform experiment are tapped out. Many feel oppressed by a system that is not showing results for their children.
Park Hill, which has been heavily involved in the civil rights movement since the 1960s, also sits in the middle of this pain that has seen both students and neighbors displaced. Capitalizing on the growth of Stapleton and its large school-age population, DPS completely changed the social makeup of what was once Smiley Middle School, at 26th and Holly.
In 2014 DPS closed Smiley, which had been deemed a failing school. The district has since installed an enrollment “zone” policy, and the school that is now housed there is McAuliffe – which draws hundreds of students from outside Park Hill. As Fard noted, busing is back — with a twist.
The academic results of this new school are astounding and the opportunities available to its students are plentiful. But it has come at a high price. Though there is no turning back the clock to repair damages, there may be a way for Park Hill citizens to lean in or stand up and recognize that what has benefitted some has taken place at the expense of others.
Will the board hire a superintendent that can repair these deep wounds? If not, many community activists have vowed to galvanize their efforts to switch the make-up of the school board in the November 2019 elections.
For information on the Super Search, including data from Dimension Strategies, see supersearch.dpsk12.org.
The Disappearing Mural
Samantha Childs, a student who attended Smiley in its last year, 2014, drew a large mural (at left) to thank the community she had found there and as an offering to the new students who would soon run through its halls. It was a poignant piece that peacefully closed the door on the long history of a neighborhood school but opened another door to welcome a new generation. The mural has since been painted over with a large McAuliffe “M.” With no ill intent, perhaps just to modernize or sanitize its hallways, still history has been erased. What was just a brushstroke for some is a knife in the heart for others.