Principal Jeannie Peppel addresses families assembled for back-to-school night.

First off, here’s a stunning statistic.  Over 85 percent of the Class of 2010 were accepted to, and are currently attending, the college of their choice.  In fact, a graduate of 2010 was accepted to Harvard, which is a fabulous thing.

Consider that the DPS graduation rate is 52.66%, when you factor in everyone that finally graduates.  The Kennedy Commanders’ graduation rate is 80.44%, up nearly 10 points from the previous year.  Definitely, things are on a pretty steep upward swing.

Of particular interest to me is the International Baccalaureate Middle Years and Diploma Programme at Kennedy, which is a continuation of the feeder program built by community and district that starts at Sabin Elementary, follows through to Henry Middle School and finally wraps up at Kennedy High.  I was ably guided through the back-to-school by the junior daughter of a fellow Lincoln alum, Amber Hunt-Cass.

The Captain and 1st Sargeant of ROTC

The JROTC class is an opportunity for students to learn more about themselves as individuals.  They will be making self-assessments throughout the year, learning where their strengths might be, what kind of learners they are and other important information that will help students “cut to the chase” when it comes to taking on new challenges.  Adults sometimes go through a period of self-discovery before finally figuring out what makes them tick.  The JROTC students will have an opportunity to delve into this self-discovery before they leave school.

Commanders looking sharp at last May's Annual Review.

All JROTC students will be marching in the Veterans Day Parade in Denver on November 6.  I can’t wait to watch…maybe they’ll let me participate!

We then went to Ms. Trish Wigginton’s Biology class.  She strives to pull out from her students the personality traits of all IB learners, including being knowledgeable, reflective and balanced thinkers (read about the IB learner profiles here).  Ms. Wigginton wants students to substantiate how they know what they know.  They tackle various controversial, science-based topics in which they have to defend a given point of view.  Last year’s class dealt with animal testing and euthanasia, the dialog of which brought strong reactions, tears and even support of such events.  This year’s students will be dealing with global warming, stem-cell research, and the “street light effect,” or what happens when funders push scientists to study things that have already been studied…what then?  What does that mean for science?

Ms. Wigginton wants her students to avoid making judgments and to be open-minded learners.  Can you see why I love IB?

By the way, the Biology class will be doing experiments at nearby Bear Creek, and Ms. Wigginton has no rubber boots or hip waders.  If you have any to give, let me know.

IB Spanish teacher Germán Echevarría

Our next stop was Mr. Germán Echevarría’s Spanish 2 class.  His ultimate objective for this group of students is that they be able to handle a 10-12 minute discussion on a given topic, as well as be able to answer questions on the topic.  This is a pretty difficult thing.  If you can remember your own Spanish class, there was a lot of rote learning of verb tenses and vocabulary words, as well as those comical canned dialogues…but when you actually met someone in the street that spoke Spanish, you froze.  It’s exactly that kind of experience that Mr. Echevarría wants his students to avoid.  He wants them to learn the language on a deep level, with the ability to cobble together sentences on the fly, just like we do as native English speakers.  Good stuff.

Later came Ms. Vicki Vernig’s IB English I class.  This year, the students’ reading list includes The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, Cyrano de Bergerac, and poems by Emily Dickenson and Walt Whitman.  Because the students will have normal oral exams in December, she has assigned this wide array of genres and formats so that the students find something that appeals to them.  They will do a better job in passing those exams if something piques their interest, as opposed to simply relating something that was assigned to them.  There is something in this reading list for everyone.

I really do love IB.  I think it’s this level of program strength parents want, but in some places, IB is this island unto itself.  I am so proud of community in southwest Denver, that insisted that this program at Sabin and Henry is for the whole school, not just a selected few.

Schools in Southwest Denver are bursting at the seams!

Back in approximately February 2010, I asked the Superintendent’s staff to look into the news that Denver Lutheran High School, at roughly South Federal Boulevard and West Arizona Avenue, is up for sale.  My understanding is that they have built a new facility elsewhere and are in the process of phasing out the current school population while they transition to the new school facility.

I am very happy to announce that DPS has entered into negotiations for this property.  This is very much a win-win for lots of different reasons, including:

• It’s a great new home for the West Denver Prep II school at Kunsmiller.  The school can comfortably hold around 600 students, and WDP II maxes out at around 300 students.
• WDP II’s move will create more room for the Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy, which will be launching its 9th grade class next year.  The ultimate plan for KCAA is for a K-12 school with its promising arts curriculum.
• The acquisition of the building creates space for a new, small high school.  It’s no secret that the district has been talking to the West Denver Prep people about having a high school, and the fear has been that it will go into either West, North or Kennedy.  Having a WDP High allows our comprehensive schools to grow and develop without fear of closure.
• It also creates the possibility of a 6-12 program for WDP, making it easy for the WDP I students near Federal and Jewell to attend a high school in the high-stakes environment they’re used to.

There are some details to be worked out, like whether WDP II can collocate in the Lutheran building while they phase out their population, etc.  I’ll be talking to the WDP folks about the possibility of submitting an RFP for their small high school for next year’s consideration.

I’ll keep you posted on developments as they occur.  This is really a good thing.

Students at Abe Lincoln, from the school website

Last week, Superintendent Tom Boasberg reported to the Board about the new graduation rate, and according to the press release, it’s at 52%.  But that’s not what the Colorado Department of Education says.  They list DPS’ graduation rate at around 48% (click here to read the data).

I asked the Superintendent how he could account for that discrepancy.  He states that this number doesn’t include students that are in concurrent enrollment programs, for example.  For those of you that aren’t aware, these programs allow a high school student the possibility of graduating from high school with both a diploma and an associates’ degree.  In some cases, students are actually in high school for an extra year to be able to achieve this.  At any rate, I’m not sure I buy the Superintendent’s explanation, so I’ve asked for the breakdown, because it doesn’t jibe in my mind…probably not in yours, either.

Click here to download the Colorado Department of Education’s spreadsheet that breaks down the data.  The confusing piece of data there is the “completion rate,” which seems to reflect students that might fall under the concurrent enrollment scenario.  What’s worse is that the CDE leaves it up to districts to define what “completion” actually is.

Sometimes the data doesn’t show us the whole picture, though.  A great example is what’s happening at Abraham Lincoln High School.  According to the data, they show a 3% decrease in graduates, but principal Antonio Esquibel has tipped me off to why this seems to be:

During 2008-09 school year our Final Graduate Base was 345 and we graduated a total of 224, to give a percent of 64.9%.  Currently we have 38 students (class of 2009) who are participating in our APEX A (5th year program) Concurrent Enrollment Program.  In order for these students to be accepted into APEX A, they had to show that they completed all HS graduation requirements (which they did).  These students received a letter of completion and did participate in our 2009 graduation ceremony, but did not receive a HS diploma.  These students are currently enrolled full time at either Community College of Denver or Emily Griffith Opportunity School as college students for one year.  In order for us to pay for this 5th year of concurrent enrollment, they are not included in the current 2008-2009 graduation rate.

If these students were not participating in this great option that we have here at Lincoln, then they would have been included in the graduation rate for 2009 and our total graduate number would have been 262 and the graduation rate would have been 75.9% (an increase of 8%).  Since the 2005-06 school year we have increased our graduation rate by over 20%.

Each year we will continue to have students who will apply for 5th year concurrent enrollment opportunities and this will always have an effect on our graduation rate.  Also note that if more high schools pursue 5th year concurrent enrollment options (such as ASCENT), then graduation rates will decrease as a district.

I requested to the Strategy Department that a note be made for Lincoln HS regarding the slight decrease in graduation rate, but they said it would not happen (emphasis mine).

Why wouldn’t the District’s Strategy Department want to show the reality of the situation?  I think Mr. Esquibel’s grasp on the situation, as well as his leadership in offering these options, deserves commendation.  Certainly his hard work deserves a note as he requested.

I have asked the District to include a separate note whenever we talk about graduation rates so that the public has a clearer understanding of the data.

MSLA has kindergarten, first and second grades right now and expects to add new grades every year.  The interesting part about this program is the fact that there is no principal; rather, it’s led by two lead teachers.  I was visiting the building this past summer and got to see the enthusiasm of the teaching staff.  When I arrived, they were opening little microscopes, and you would think they were 5 year olds on Christmas morning.  It was charming.

Click here to visit their Facebook page.

Below is a video from the series on the space sharing at Rishel Middle School.  It’s fraught with some issues, but everyone is making the best of the situation.

Incidentally, it was suggested at a recent Board meeting that a Multiple Pathways center (an alternative education program) be also located at the Rishel campus.  Keeping in mind that on that block in the Athmar Park neighborhood there are already five different schools (Rishel, MSLA, Kipp High School, Kipp Middle School, Valverde Elementary), I am opposed to that location as a solution.  I am working with Senator Chris Romer and Representative Mark Ferrandino to find an alternate location and not place undue stress on the Athmar Park area.  If you have an idea for an alternate site, please contact me to send me your suggestions.

Anyway, here’s the video:

ALHS Mariachi Ensemble

with the Lincoln Mariachi, December 11, 2009

A big congratulations goes to the music ensembles at Abraham Lincoln High School.  I attended their winter concert last night, and I’m happy to see such a vibrant music program.  The performing ensembles were the Beginning Choir, Orchestra, Concert Choir and Concert Band, led by Melissa Grundy.  The Mariachi ensemble also performed, and is led by Tim Leenerts.  Both Melissa and Tim and I studied music together, and I can certify first-hand that they are talented musicians (Melissa on the clarinet, Tim on the trumpet) and are conscientious and thoughtful music educators as well.

Mr. Leenerts invited me to sing a couple of numbers with his Mariachi ensemble, too.  It was very cool to sing on my alma mater’s stage, and I was even gifted with a very cool Lincoln Lancer sweatshirt, too!

I’m really proud of those ensembles, and I’m so grateful for principal Antonio Esquibel, whose commitment to educating the whole child is so apparent.  It’s easy to cut arts and music when budgets are tight, but it’s wonderful that Mr. Esquibel makes these a priority.  Thanks, Antonio!