News from Sheridan School District
No. 2
Contact: Mark Stevens
[email protected]
303-495-8699 (mobile) • 720-328-5488
(office)
News Release
Jan. 23, 2019
Mid-Year Progress Report Reveals Wide
Variety of Initiatives Underway
School district leadership delivered
a Mid-Year Progress Report at the Sheridan Board of Education’s work session
last night (Jan. 22), revealing the many initiatives and wide variety of work
being pursued following the appointment of Superintendent Pat Sandos last
summer.
The district’s work is organized
around four strategies:
- Strengthen Rigor and Provide Choice
- Continue to Strengthen Safety and
Security
- Increase Cultural Competency in the
District
- Develop a Financial Plan to Contend
with Potential Loss of Revenue
Superintendent Sandos said the
district work is focused on upgrading the many “systems and structures” that
fall under those four strands of work.
Chief Academic Officer Shirley Miles
reviewed the activity under the first strategy—the steps being taken to bolster
the academic environment including hiring a new principal at Alice Terry
Elementary School (Diego Romero) to support restructuring efforts and increase
rigor and front-loading all classrooms from kindergarten through third grade
with new Instructional Support Assistants (ISAs).
The ISAs are being hired and placed
this week, said Blanche Kapushion, Director of Student Achievement. The
ISA job posting drew a strong pool of interested applicants. Sandos emphasized
that the ISAs are designed to function alongside classroom teachers “as close
to a co-teaching model as you can get … We know this works. It’s our best
chance to change the trajectory by getting them extra help right away.”
The ISA’s will focus on literacy and
numeracy and will be supported through ongoing professional development, said
Kapushion.
Additional work to improve
district-wide rigor included hiring a new principal at SOAR Academy (Todd Legge);
hiring an assessment director (Maegan Daigler) to build capacity at the
district and school level to support both formative and summative practices;
aligning district and school improvement plans to a single-focus system;
developing plans for teacher librarians at both Fort Logan Northgate School and
Sheridan High School, including a renewed emphasis in educational technology;
strengthening career pathways for high school students eyeing post-secondary
work in the trades; implementing Beyond Textbooks with fidelity; and
establishing a monthly reporting process with schools and the Board of
Education, including regular Learning Walks in schools, among many other steps.
Chief Academic Officer Miles also
discussed recent, upbeat discussions with Arapahoe Community College to
reinvigorate the concurrent enrollment partnership. More and more ACC
classes will be offered at the high school, she said, to make it easier for
Sheridan High School students to access college curriculum and, perhaps, graduate
from high school with an associate’s degree in hand.
A new teacher evaluation system,
adopted from Jeffco Schools, is also being implemented with the collaboration
of Sheridan teachers.
Miles also noted that existing
programs are being evaluated for their impact on student achievement, prompting
board member Karla Najera to ask how frequently the district investigates
whether a program is working—or not. Miles said she plans to be aggressive in
her analysis. “We have to be better about being accountable for the dollars,”
she said.
Chief Operations Officer Cyndi Wright
reviewed the steps under the Safety and Security strategy. The district
recently applied for and received a state SAFER grant for radios that will
improve communication and interoperability with law enforcement and first
responders. The district is establishing and maintain regular meetings with all
schools and such community stakeholders as the library, recreation center, city
of Sheridan, and police department.
In addition, said Wright, the
district is working to improve mental health response and training and is
establishing common protocols for threat assessments and suicide risk
assessments. Student discipline practices are also being revised and upgraded,
using intervention that is restorative in nature whenever appropriate.
The grounds at Alice Terry Elementary
School are being upgraded to improve pedestrian and student safety, a GOCO
(Great Outdoors Colorado) grant will bring playground upgrades at Alice Terry
and Fort Long Northgate, and the entire Informational Technology infrastructure
is being upgraded, too.
Christine Muldoon, Sheridan’s Director of Language, Culture
& Equity, reviewed the steps being pursued to increase cultural competency
among all staff in the district. The trainings include a recent keynote
address by Pedro Noguera at Arapahoe High School and upcoming trainings and
school visits with a colleague of Noguera’s, Yemi Stembridge. Spanish language
classes are being offered to all staff members and district is seeking to
increase the number of administrators and teachers of color to reflect the
student population being served.
Superintendent Sandos emphasized the
importance of this work so that all staff “continue to work to build their
understanding of the kids we serve.”
Chief Financial Officer Kristen
Colonell presented the overview of the district’s financial plan. She noted the
successful mill levy override in November, improvements in the employee hiring
and “off-boarding” procedures; pending plans to restructure compensation
packages for teachers; flattening of the organizational structure; budget
revisions to reflect the academic plan; and new Student-Based Budgeting
procedures.
Graduation Rates
Sheridan High School students have
shown steady increases over the past three years and continue to outperform the
statewide four-year graduation rate, according to data released recently by the
Colorado Department of Education for the 2017-2018 school year. The high
school’s graduation rate is 91 percent, the statewide rate is 81 percent.
The district-wide graduation rate (65
percent) doesn’t look as promising, explained Director of Assessment Maegan
Daigler, because the district-wide figure includes data from the district’s
alternative high school, SOAR Academy. SOAR Academy serves 21 percent of
all high-school age students in Sheridan, she added, but its individual school
graduation rate is in line with other alternative education campuses in Metro
Denver. Superintendent Sandos noted that the district is working to
improve SOAR’s graduation rate through a number of strategies.
School Board Appreciation Week
School board members were presented
with ‘Thank You’ posters created by individual schools—one poster for each
board member from each school—as part of School Board Appreciation Week. In
addition, the district’s food and nutrition services department sent along a
cake to say ‘Thank You.”
District leaders also took a few
minutes to thank board members Bernadette Saleh, Sally Daigle, Juanita Camacho,
Daniel Stange, and Karla Najera for their work. “You always put kids
first,” said Sheridan High School principal Eileen Doolan. Chief Financial
Officer Colonell recognized board members for their passion and thanked them
for their time and effort and Chief Operations Officer Wright said the board’s
dedication on behalf of students is “very inspiring.”
About Sheridan School District 2
Located southwest of Denver, Sheridan
School District 2 seeks high-level post-secondary options for all students
through continuous improvement of quality instruction. More: www.ssd2.org
##