News from Sheridan
School District No. 2
Contact: Mark Stevens
[email protected]
303-495-8699 (mobile)
News Release
Jan. 30, 2020
Board of Education
Work Session—Recap
The Sheridan Board of Education discussed a wide range of
topics during its work session Tuesday, Jan. 28.
Sheridan High School
Learning Walk.
Board members commented on a recent Learning Walk at
Sheridan High School. Board member Daniel Stange said he observed that students
were “staying focused” in class. He added that he enjoyed the conversation with
school leaders following the classroom visits. Board member Karla Najera and
others said they appreciated the student hosts who led the tour.
“We saw five classes and everything was going well in all of
them,” said board president Bernadette Saleh. She added that an informative
guest speaker in the AVID classroom was providing information on college
scholarships and financial aid. The students were “intently listening,” noted
Saleh.
Saleh said Sheridan High School principal German Echevarria
“has done a good job of starting to build an academic culture” and added that
students in classes appeared to be engaged in learning.
School-Based
Budgeting
Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Duncan presented more
detail on the district's ongoing shift to school-based budgeting. Meetings with
schools begin this week. “Budgeting decisions will be driven by data,” said
Duncan, with a focus on what’s working—and what’s not—in terms of student
achievement.
If a program or initiative is “not driving academic
achievement, we need to rethink about what could be done,” she said.
Each school will be presented with a set of evaluation
questions to help gauge what programs are effective. General fund expenses and
all grant money will be studied through the same critical lens. “This process
will become more robust as the years move forward,” she said.
Mill Levy
Equalization
Board members and Superintendent Pat Sandos discussed a
proposal that would create a uniform mill levy for all school districts across
the state. The proposal is not yet in formal bill form. However, it has been
floated as one means of reducing the budget stabilization factor. Under the
idea, some school districts would be required to ask local taxpayers to raise
taxes and, if such a measure were to fail, the districts would receive less
funding.
Superintendent Sandos and board members had concerns with
the idea. Superintendent Sandos said school district reaction has varied widely
because some districts would be less impacted than others. He also said
Sheridan voters have been very supportive of recent school district requests
for additional resources—but he doubted those same voters would be as eager to
raise taxes for the sole purpose of fixing statewide school financing formulas.
Student-Centered
Accountability Project
Director of Assessment Maegan Daigler provided an update on
the district’s increasing engagement with the Student-Centered Accountability
Project (S-CAP). The project is a collaborative of 15 rural districts designed
to create a more comprehensive evaluation system beyond what’s available
through the current District Performance Frameworks. The effort is backed by
the Colorado Department of Education. Districts involved in S-CAP seek to use
multiple measures to evaluate the success of students and to evaluate the
capacity of the system.
Participating districts have identified three major elements
to the S-CAP accountability system: Meaningful Learning, Professional Culture,
and Resource Prioritization. The S-CAP districts “wanted to get a better
understanding of the work and everything that schools do,” said Daigler. “State
measures are a narrow view.”
Those involved in S-CAP conduct visits to other districts in
the network and receive fellow S-CAP visitors as well. This professional
development aspect of S-CAP will be invaluable, said Superintendent Sandos, and
provide feedback that is “more actionable” than what’s available through the
state’s performance frameworks today. Sheridan is currently in an introductory
year and will further its engagement in the 2020-2021 school year.
Instructional
Technology
Last summer, the district hired its first education technology
coordinator, Alicia Butcher, with the idea of ensuring that students are
prepared as well as possible for the increasingly technological world. This
week, Butcher provided an update, including her assessment of school and
teacher needs. Butcher said she is developing and beginning to execute a plan
that will begin in early grade levels and move up through high schools with
age-appropriate access to the online world, developing the relevant computer
and digital technology skills at the same time. “What do we want in the hands
of kids?” asked Butcher. “What is our true value?”
The plan also will include support for teachers, she added.
“I don’t want to dump a tool in a teacher’s hands and say ‘go.’”
Tim Luth, Director of Technology, also provided an update on
improvements to the district’s network systems that support instructional
technology.
Superintendent Sandos announced that Maegan Daigler will now
also oversee the district’s instructional technology work.
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