Denver Public Schools earns ‘green’ rating for first time since 2019

For the primary time in six years, Denver Public Schools college students’ check scores and commencement charges have earned Colorado’s largest faculty district one of many prime marks on the state’s academic framework.

DPS has acquired a “inexperienced,” or Accredited, ranking from the Colorado Department of Education, that means the district met expectations in most educational efficiency areas through the 2024-25 faculty yr, based on preliminary knowledge launched by the state company Wednesday.

The district beforehand held a yellow ranking, that means the state seen DPS as lower-performing when it got here to standardized check outcomes, educational development, commencement charges and different measures. The final time DPS held a inexperienced ranking — the second highest on the framework — was in 2019.

“I knew this present day — similar to COVID restoration — was going to come back,” Superintendent Alex Marrero stated. “…We’re in a greater area.”

DPS’s improved rating comes months after Marrero introduced a brand new districtwide coverage that might see faculties shut for poor efficiency.

Below the coverage — referred to as the Faculty Transformation Course of — DPS will shut a college as soon as it has spent 4 years on the state’s Accountability Clock. District officers will even attempt to enhance educational outcomes by changing workers or altering how a college operates — and conversations round such modifications may start within the coming months, Marrero stated in an interview Wednesday.

“We doubtlessly have some faculties which will go on to this subsequent yr,” he stated of the Faculty Transformation Course of.

The aim of the districtwide coverage, Marrero has beforehand stated, is to show faculties round earlier than the state intervenes.

DPS stated the district now has 23 faculties on the state’s Accountability Clock — that means their scores are low sufficient that they’re ticking towards state intervention — which is down from 25 final educational yr. Eleven of the faculties that had been on the clock final yr totally exited this yr, based on the district.

The state’s scores are color-coded. Pink is the bottom rating and implies that a college or district is among the many lowest performing within the state.

Districts with the very best ranking — Accredited with Distinction — are blue, whereas the very best ranking for particular person faculties is inexperienced. Each scores imply that college students are assembly or exceeding expectations in most educational areas.

One DPS faculty — Columbine Elementary — noticed its particular person ranking leap from orange to inexperienced, that means the college is not on the Accountability Clock.

“That is the results of the groundwork that has been laid over the previous a number of years on the main target of the science of studying,” Columbine Principal Corey Jenks stated. “…Loads of it’s the tradition we’ve… Excessive expectations for ourselves in addition to excessive expectations for our college students.”

Different DPS faculties noticed their scores drop sufficient to put them on the clock this yr, together with each Maxwell Elementary and Munroe Elementary. Each faculties had been among the many six to obtain purple scores this yr, based on state knowledge.