Superintendent Alex Marrero met nearly 74% of his targets through the 2024-25 educational yr, a measure that the Denver Public Colleges board stated displays a change in coverage governance and monitoring “somewhat than a departure from progress or accountability,” based on his evaluation.
Marrero met a minimum of 85% of his targets through the earlier educational yr, based on his 2024 analysis.
The board unanimously permitted the superintendent’s analysis at a public assembly Thursday after a number of discussions that had been held behind closed doorways in govt periods. Board members didn’t communicate at size in regards to the analysis past praising Marrero.
“Your ardour actually is Denver Public Colleges,” board President Carrie Olson.
The seven-member college board prolonged Marrero’s contract by means of 2028 earlier this yr.
On the time, administrators stated they did so as a result of they needed DPS to have constant management as Okay-12 establishments face threats to federal funding, however neighborhood and political teams criticized the contract extension as a result of members hadn’t but carried out this yr’s analysis of Marrero’s management and since management of the college board may change after subsequent week’s election.
In extending Marrero’s contract, administrators additionally stripped Marrero’s skill to earn a bonus and made it tougher for future boards to fireside the superintendent with out trigger by requiring a supermajority, or 5 votes.
Marrero, who was employed in 2021, has led DPS by means of college closures due to declining enrollment, and because the district probably turned the primary within the nation to sue the Trump administration in an effort to stop immigration raids from occurring in faculties. DPS dropped the lawsuit after the federal authorities stated it hadn’t modified federal coverage round immigration enforcement on college property.
“(I’m) actually appreciative of all that you simply did to carry your groups collectively and work actually shut with us as a board to make sure that, at a time a extremely robust resolution needed to be made, that we had been on board,” board member Kimberlee Sia advised Marrero about his dealing with of faculty closures.
DPS additionally met expectations in sufficient educational efficiency areas — equivalent to take a look at scores and commencement charges — through the 2024-25 educational yr that the district obtained a “inexperienced,” or Accredited score from the Colorado Department of Education for the primary time in six years. Inexperienced is without doubt one of the high scores a district can obtain on the state’s academic framework.
DPS lately celebrated college students’ efficiency on final yr’s Colorado Measures of Academic Success, which noticed college students carry out the identical or higher in nearly each grade when in comparison with the 2023-24 educational yr.
The college board lauded Marrero for college students’ progress on the standardized exams, however famous that pupils’ efficiency in literacy failed to fulfill the district’s targets. “Persistent achievement gaps by race and particular inhabitants standing require continued focus, notably in early literacy and differentiated helps,” members wrote within the 22-page report.
Group teams and faculty board candidates have criticized Marrero, and the district extra broadly, for not doing sufficient to handle educational gaps that persist amongst college students of shade and their white friends. For instance, solely 14.4% of fourth-graders who took the Spanish language arts examination confirmed proficiency within the topic, based on the most recent knowledge from the schooling division.
“This previous yr was troublesome due to all the things that was introduced as much as us,” Marrero stated when requested by Sia about educational outcomes. “We’ve a chance upon us (to enhance educational outcomes).”
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