Board News
February 3, 2006
Superintendent Michael Bennet Presents Second Draft Of The Denver Plan To Board Of Education
Superintendent Michael Bennet yesterday presented the Denver Board of Education with a second draft of The Denver Plan, the district's roadmap for reform.
The original plan was submitted as a draft on Nov. 17, 2005, and has been scrutinized at community forums, other parent and community meetings and also was reviewed carefully by The Denver Plan Committee, a 40-member panel of teachers, principals, central administrators and other staff members that met twice each week for two months. The new draft also incorporated feedback from many emails and letters.
"This is the end of the beginning," said Superintendent Bennet in his presentation during the Board's regular study session. "I hope you'll share the view that we are off to a good start."
Many of the changes in the second draft involve how various components of the 82-page plan are emphasized and described throughout the document. The second draft of the plan, for instance, explicitly talks about closing the achievement gap between minority students and white students, said Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino, even though that was the implicit purpose of the plan from the outset. It also calls for conducting differentiated diversity trainings to prepare faculty members to deal with issues of race, gender and class.
Other major changes highlighted by Superintendent Bennet and Chief Academic Officer Jaime Aquino:
- Double blocks of mathematics and reading instruction for high school students below grade level will be provided for students below grade level in ninth grade only - not in ninth and tenth as originally proposed. There are no changes for this concept for middle school grades.
- The campus closure proposal, designed to boost classroom attendance and minimize truancy, is on hold for now. "A consensus has not emerged on this issue," said Superintendent Bennet. "We're asking for some more time to work with our principals on this."
- Each of the eight Instructional Support Teams will include a staff member to serve as a parent advocate to assist with parent concerns and help principals spend more time as instructional leaders.
The Denver Plan is organized around three main goals:
Our children will learn from a highly-skilled faculty in every school that is empowered by robust professional development and timely assessment data. Highly trained principals and assistant principals will serve as instructional leaders of the faculty in DPS schools. Collaboration among the Denver community and all DPS stakeholders will support our children in a safe, orderly and enriching environment in every school and classroom.
The Board of Education's next step will be to vote on a resolution formally approving the overarching philosophy of the plan; the district is "moving forward on the nuts and bolts management work," said Superintendent Bennet.
Upcoming work in the next six months includes: reorganizing/staffing to support The Denver Plan initiatives; selecting an assessment tool; refining curricular programming for 2006-2007; preparing for the 2006 principals' summer leadership institute; revising the promotion and retention policy; revising the graduation requirements; revising the grading policy; conducting choice-related market research; revising elementary and middle school student report cards; developing a student/parent compact; and revising the discipline policy.
The updated version of The Denver Plan is online at thedenverplan.dpsk12.org.
For more information, contact the DPS Communications Office at 720-423-3414.