Denver schools have a new agenda for change – The Denver Plan. After the plan publicly, Denver schools then requested comments from principals, teachers, parents and the community as a whole. Thirteen public meetings were held throughout the city. All were filled with people who wanted to discuss the future of schools in Denver. Denver schools received hundreds of e-mails and letters.

Denver School Superintendent Michael Bennet, describes the process as a very powerful experience and was pleased to see that many parents are working to support the schools in Denver in the direction of reform. “The parents recognize that there is enough room for improvement across the district,” said Bennett.

The goal of the plan is in the Denver graduates who can read and succeed at expected levels. It is this problem of review by focusing on improving the quality of education provided in all classes of schools in Denver.

Comments by educators, parents and the community is provided to some changes introduced to the major provisions of the plan. Once these changes have been evaluated and, The Denver Plan Committee then reviewed the plan. The Committee, a group of 40 teachers, principals and employees, has a purpose – to analyze and criticize every word of the plan, what they did during two sessions per week over a period of two months. At the end of their mission, sent the committee evaluated the aircraft ready for boarding schools in Denver, which was then during a session of four hours.

Bennett believes that the resulting plan for a permanent, joint roadmap for reform in the schools of Denver, yet flexible enough to serve as a “living document” is. It was so that they can be adapted and refined on the basis of the implementation plan structured classroom.

Some key points of the plan for the Denver schools are:

? Explicitly describes the strategies for meeting space for students of color in the area,
? Calls for diversity training for teachers;
? Provides “double block” intervention for ninth-graders who are not learning on grade level;
? Creates eight instructional support teams (IST) with facilitators in each school and
? Places a defender with each parent support team.

Two important issues that concerned teachers, parents and / or community that the double-block was (Classes twice) intervention and the closure of several high school campus. Campus closures are still being resolved with the ongoing discussions and analysis.

In the original plan proposed by the schools of Denver, the intervention should apply both to students of the ninth and tenth to be applied to not learn to read and / or mathematics at the level of quality. The intervention consisted of a doubling of the starting material, until the student was properly in their grade level. Common consensus is that these students double-block core subjects of mathematics and reading too many hours to choose from, whether the measure was losing on two levels have. This means that these students spend Denver schools alongside the music and art, every bit strongly opposed. The final plan will work only with ninth-graders learning is not the note.

There are eight new teacher support teams of four staff developers, teachers with specialties in mathematics, science, social studies, special education and English Language Acquisition (one teacher for each specialty) special mission. Each STI is responsible for 15 schools where leaders supported. The purpose of the ISTS is

? Working with school leaders and teachers to support quality education;
? combine planning curriculum, training content and assessment of data on improvements to the program;
? Help directors, principals, planning meetings to assess teacher and classroom level student achievement;
? Be visible in the schools and classrooms.

Next Denver schools is the development and completion deadlines for each stage of planning and development indicators of progress.

The plan focuses the efforts of all Denver schools the student by teachers and principals with the best possible professional development. In addition, Denver schools will support their efforts to effectively implement the time for educators to help students to learn without distraction from other non-educational issues.


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