School:  MONTCLAIR ELEMENTARY (aka: MONTCLAIR SCHOOL OF ACADEMICS AND ENRICHMENT)

Website: http://montclair.dpsk12.org

Type: Public-DPS

Tours: Generally take place late fall. Tour dates for November and December 2009 are available on their website.

Main Phone: (303) 333-5497

Principal: Shannon Hagerman

Location: 1151 Newport Street, Denver, CO 80020 / Montclair Neighborhood

Hours:  8:55 am-3:45 pm

Grades: ECE-5th Grade–3 Full Day Kindergarten classrooms

Average Class Size: It varies….K-2 classrooms try to maintain 25 or less students in each classroom with full-time paraprofessionals and grades 3-5 usually have less than 30 students per classroom.

Before/After Care: Programs are tuition-based and grant funded. After school extensions such as Brownies, Rocky Mountain Children’s Choir, Destination Imagination, and Girls on the Run are offered as well.

Playground: There is one large playground with designated areas for children in the upper grades and lower grades. The lower grade’s equipment needs a significant upgrade. The upper grade’s area just had a few pieces of new playground equipment installed. There is a blacktop for basketball and another for tether ball. There is also a large grass area with two baseball fields and play area for organized activities. I was told that future plans are being carried out to update equipment and create a learning landscape. The plans are to take place in 2010 after other prioritized construction of the school is complete.

Special & Core Programs: Montclair uses Renzulli’s Schoolwide Enrichment Model. Some of the programs include Brown Bag Lunches where children eat lunch and learn about a topic of interest from a guest speaker, Enrichment Clusters where children from varying grade levels come together and choose a topic of interest and learn about it in depth over an 8 week period, monthly assemblies and monthly field trips including one unique field trip per grade level that ties into the curriculum (e.g. Kindergarten Bunked with the Beasts this year at the Denver Zoo), High Strides Classrooms which is an accelerated program offered for students at or above grade level in literacy and Progressive Classrooms which are an intervention-based program designed to develop a strong foundation of literacy skills to students. There is also a schoolwide event called International Night which is a celebration of the diverse community that attends Montclair and includes performances and food from around the world.

Impressions: I visited this school on several occasions. It’s a great little neighborhood school adjacent to a park where parents and children meet after school occasionally. The school was clean and the hallways were adorned with great artwork. The children seemed very engaged when I visited the classrooms. I met the Principal, several parents and a few staff members, all of whom were very enthusiastic about the school and the transformation it has been through. Shannon Hagerman, the principal, tells me there is a high level of teacher quality at the school. Twenty-two out of twenty-four staff members voted in favor of becoming Colorado State’s first “Innovation School” at the elementary level. This tells me the staff is confident in their ability to teach and put forth a great effort to increase student academic achievement, along with strengthening their own professional development through annual coursework.

I was so impressed in learning about their programs which really focus on the individual learner and how best to support or enrich the child. Also, children in some grade levels switch classrooms for certain subjects. Each grade level is divided up between classrooms for their “specials.” In this way, the students are ensured a differentiated learning experience. Shannon Hagerman greeted children in the hallways and seemed to know every child by name. I felt a very strong sense of community here at Montclair.

After talking to several parents, I learned that they have a “growing” PTA with two major fundraisers. The PTA  also strongly supports the enrichment programs at the school. I got the impression there are different levels of parental involvement from the highly involved to the less frequently involved. Also, some of the parents I spoke to choiced in to Montclair due to the variety of enrichment programs that are offered to students, smaller class sizes in K-2 classrooms, and a more diverse student body compared to their neighborhood schools.

Montclair has received a lot of local media attention over the past few years due to their school-wide revitalization plan. It’s a Beacon School and recently was designated a School of Innovation. This means Montclair was granted autonomy from district and state rules which allows them to control their own budget, curriculum, hiring, school calendar, etc. Because of these things, Montclair’s popularity has increased over the past few years with more children choicing in (over 25%), along with a growing number of children on wait lists. Their innovative school reform efforts are being recognized and in April, The U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Montclair to learn more about their programs.

We welcome your comments and impressions on your experience with Montclair Elementary.