A team of Morey Middle School teachers and principal Kristin Waters is planning to go to Havana, Cuba next summer to present a paper at the Eleventh International Literacy and Education Research Network Conference on Learning. The event will be held at the Cojímar Pedagogical Convention Centre from June 27 to 30, 2004.

The team includes literacy coach Chrisanne LaHue, eighth-grade teacher Valeri Kershaw and sixth-grade teachers Nicole Saab and Trish Harder. Principal Waters will present information on Denver's district-wide implementation of the literacy program and Morey's challenges and successes with that implementation.

”After decades of teaching reading and writing in hundreds of different ways, with the debate ongoing about which of these ways is most effective, the Denver Public Schools decided to take the debate out of their English teachers’ practice,” says the paper presented for consideration from Morey.

Denver Public Schools “initiated a sweeping district-wide literacy education reform,” the paper continues. “This is the story of one middle school’s experience within that ambitious and unprecedented undertaking.”

The paper acknowledges some of the frustrations of implementing the sweeping reforms and the emotional toll it took on teachers. But a year-end evaluation showed strong response from students’ written evaluations of the new program. “We read, over and over, how much more meaningful and valuable they felt it was, compared to English as they had known it previously. We re-read, with astonishment…how the course taught them in a real way that mattered.”

Morey Middle School is located at 840 E. 14th Ave. The school’s telephone number is 303-832-1139.