Dear Members of the DPS Community,
Our 2024-25 District Annual Strategic Roadmap Report marks the celebration of the remarkable accomplishments of our students and the collective efforts of our educators, staff, families and community partners. These achievements reflect our shared commitment to the mission of ensuring that Every Learner Thrives.
This report marks the third installment of progress toward the goals outlined in DPS Thrives: A Strategic Roadmap. It reflects our ongoing dedication to using data and evidence to guide our work, continuously improve our practices and drive meaningful outcomes — particularly for our historically underserved and marginalized students. We remain focused on adapting and evolving as needed to advance equity and excellence across our district.
Throughout the 2024-25 school year, we worked diligently to bring more alignment and coherence across the organization. In the third year of implementation, we continued aligning our Strategic Roadmap goals with the Board of Education’s Ends Policies, which provide the ambitious, long-term vision for student and system success. Guided by my reasonable interpretations of the Board’s Ends Policies and the annual targets established for the 2024-25 school year, we made incredible progress toward these outcomes. Students demonstrated growth in every student outcome measure from READ Act (K-3 literacy) to CMAS (3-8 English Language Arts and Math), COSAT (Reading and Writing and Math) from 2023-24 to 2024-25, demonstrating that our district priorities translated into clear, actionable work, resulting in the accelerated trajectory for our students, which has remained our north star.
To maintain transparency and consistency, this year’s report continues the standard practice of including disaggregated data for all student groups and comparing current performance to pre-pandemic levels — benchmarks we remain committed to matching and exceeding. We have also included the 2025-26 targets aligned to our Strategic Roadmap, as the 2025-26 school year marks the final year of implementation of our current Strategic Roadmap.
In order to accomplish these ambitious goals, we are laser-focused on our Strategic Roadmap goals and the key initiatives that reliably improve the Student, Adult and System Experiences, with a particular focus on the drivers outlined in our Instructional Framework, which emphasize that every learner engages with: high-quality instructional materials (HQIM), individualized instruction informed by ongoing assessments and benefits from educators who are immersed in continuous professional learning to elevate their practice.
This annual report captures our collective vision for our students, team members and community. Thank you for your continued support and collaboration as we get better at getting better, accelerate the trajectory of our most marginalized communities and ensure Every Learner Thrives.
In collaboration,
Dr. Alex Marrero
Denver Public Schools Superintendent
The report is currently being translated into Spanish and will be available on the DPS Thrives webpage the week of Sept. 29. If you would like the report translated into your language, complete this form.