Interview Series-No. 8

Parent-This parent transitioned her child from a high achieving DPS school to her neighborhood school, a DPS Innovation School.

Q. Describe your transitional experience or scenario. 

 A. Our transitional experience has been seamless. We filled out the paperwork and showed up on the first day to our neighborhood school. The staff and parents have been so helpful, informative and welcoming.

Q. What circumstances led to this decision?

A. The academic piece (at our former school) was outstanding, however, the social and emotional pieces were missing.  She was happy at the old school but we felt a change would hopefully benefit our child. Our child had lots of friends but the behavior demonstrated at school by others was not acceptable in our view.

The new school is our neighborhood school and we are excited about supporting our local school.  We are able to walk to school and that is a huge benefit for us as well.

Q. What type of school did your child previously attend and what type of school do they attend now?

A. We were at a high performing DPS elementary school.  We are now at an innovative DPS school that is much more diverse.

Q. How do the educational experiences differ?

A. Because we are so new to the school, it is hard to gauge at this point but from what I have seen so far, the homework load is very different.  At the old school, our daughter had a lot of  homework but at the new school she doesn’t have much at all.  It seems as though much of the work is done in the classroom with an emphasis toward interactive learning. There seems to be more hands on learning and less learning from a textbook.

Q. What advice can you give that will help others when going through a similar experience?

A. Do your homework and learn as much about each school as you can. Trust your instincts. We were very nervous about leaving the school we had been involved with for 9 years. It turns out this has been a wonderful change for our daughter.

Bruce Randolph, one of Denver’s innovation schools, received high praise in President Obama’s State of the Union this evening. It’s no surprise that education was a top priority. Let’s celebrate this school, the progress made, and the direction it is going. Hopefully, more schools in our state and across the country will see that children can and will learn when strong and dedicated leadership is at the helm and education reform is welcomed and embraced.  To learn more about President Obama’s “shout out” to this Denver school, read Jeremy Meyer’s article from the Denver Post below.

Former Bruce Randolph School Principal Kristin Waters was as surprised as anyone when she heard the president was going to single her out Tuesday in his State of the Union Speech.

“It feels awesome,” she said from her home in Denver. “It is just validating the great work among everyone at Bruce Randolph who are helping the kids be successful.”

In tonight’s address, President Barack Obama credited grassroots education reform that was sparked by teachers and an ambitious principal.

“Three years ago, it was rated one of the worst schools in Colorado,” he said. “But last May, 97 percent of the seniors received their diploma.

“Most will be the first in their family to go to college. And after the first year of the school’s transformation, the principal who made it possible wiped away tears when a student said ‘Thank you, Miss Waters, for showing that we are smart and we can make it.’” That’s what good schools can do and we want good schools all across the country.

Cameras caught Colorado’s House delegation and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Denver, giving a standing ovation.

Waters resigned as principal in 2009 and is now an instructional superintendent with the district in charge of high schools.

But she left a legacy, taking one of Denver’s lowest performing schools that was on the verge of being closed by the state and leading its transformation.

The high-poverty school was the first to petition for and be granted innovation status — an agreement by union teachers to waive certain district and union rules.

The idea was to give teachers more time, money and other resources to work with struggling students. The school has been climbing in achievement over the years.

In its transformation, Bruce Randolph changed from being a straight middle school into a 6-12 school with its first class graduating last spring into the open arms of a tearful Waters.

Luminaries such as Education Secretary Arne Duncan and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg have visited the school located in northeast Denver.

And Sen. Bennet, who as superintendent assigned Waters to Bruce Randolph, has long been a cheerleader for the work she did. He was, no doubt, a reason the school and Waters received the recognition.

Waters said she will be taping the speech. And minutes before the speech began airing, she was trying to reach her husband to tell him the news.

“It is an inspiring story and shows that with the focus in the right places, kids can be successful,” she said.

Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 orjpmeyer@denverpost.com

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

Website: http://montclair.dpsk12.org

Type: Public-DPS

Tours: Generally take place late fall (check website).

Main Phone: (303) 333-5497

Principal: Donna Neill (new principal 2011-2012)

Assistant Principal: Emily Zabroski

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. *Update: Kaleidoscope Corner now runs the after school program.

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.  *Update: Learning Landscape completed 2010!

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.