The Denver Public Schools Board of Education got an earful Monday.
For more than two hours, parents, teachers and students — current and former — pleaded with the board to keep the innovation zone designation for Beacon Network Schools.
Denver Public Schools (DPS) Superintendent Alex Marrero is expected to recommend revoking its innovation status when the board meets Thursday.
Innovation schools are able provided greater flexibility to address student needs.
With the vote earlier this month to close three low-enrollment schools, Marrero attempted to alleviate concerns that revoking the zone’s status would substantively change the culture and learning environment at Kepner Beacon and Grant Beacon middle schools.
“There has been a tremendous amount of pain and turmoil in the southwest and Westwood, I’ve learned,” Marrero said Monday. “So, we’re not adding on to that pain. If anything, we’re supporting in a very intentional way.”
Marrero added, “It’s not a closure.”
In January, the board voted also to close STRIVE Prep-Kepner — which shares the campus with Kepner Beacon — at the end of this academic year. STRIVE Prep-Kepner was on a turnaround plan with the state because of its poor academic performance.
Community members weren’t buying that the district could do better.
“Hell, no we’re not coming back,” said Pastor Vernon Jones Jr., executive partner of FaithBridge. “You have not proved that you can serve us well.”
Jones, who is a DPS parent and champion of innovation schools, made an unsuccessful bid for the board of education in 2021.
The superintendent’s recommendation marks a reversal from when the district asked then Grant Beacon Principal Alex Magaña to replicate the program at Kepner Middle School. The Kepner Beacon program was launched in August 2016, according to the Colorado Department of Education, which has recognized the innovation practices at Beacon.
Magaña now serves as both executive principal of both schools and executive director of the Beacon Network, an issue board members raised Monday because as a principal he is a DPS employee.
‘DPS experimenting on our schools‘
Marrero justified his recommendation during a meeting Monday, citing concerns over the zone’s budget and poorer academic outcomes.
Board Vice President Auon'tai M. Anderson pushed back, raising several issues including the data Marrero presented and whether academic performance would become the new standard for judging a school’s viability. The question is particularly poignant as the board continues to consider closures in the wake of declining enrollment.
“Is this a standard that we are now holding for all schools,” Anderson asked.
Anderson added, “I feel like we’re going down a very dangerous path.”
Magaña told The Denver Gazette Tuesday that the academic outcomes at Beacon schools were based on median growth percentiles — not comparative schools as Marrero presented to the board. When calculating percentiles, the state uses three years of data, which Beacon does not yet have because of, in part, the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The narrative that we’re a failing organization and that Marrero can do better, that’s not right,” Magaña said.
Anderson also questioned whether the district provided “notices of concern” and opportunity for the Beacon Network Schools Innovation Zone to comply.
Marrero declined to say.
Beacon Zone Board Member Ryan Archibald, during the public comment portion of the meeting, said that the board received no such warnings.
“Please reach out to the board and we’ll work through the issue that you have,” Archibald said.
Officials told The Denver Gazette in an email Tuesday that notice was provided in May 2021.
During public comment, at least one speaker mentioned that Kepner Middle School had struggled to meet DPS academic standards before becoming an innovation school.
Produced annually by the district, the link with archival data was broken Tuesday.
Historically, schools in southwest Denver have faced protracted educational challenges with a concentration of low-performing schools and high rates of and non-English speakers.
“I’m really sick and tired of DPS experimenting on our schools in southwest Denver,” said Board President Xóchitl Gaytán, who represents southwest Denver.
Gaytán added, “If we move under a district run school, I need to understand what that looks like.”
Passed by the state legislature in 2008, the Innovation Schools Act creates a way for schools and districts to implement innovative practices by providing flexibility to meet student needs. Innovation schools — for example — may obtain waivers from state and local policies as well as collective bargaining agreements in the furtherance of this goal.
DPS has 50 innovation schools, which includes those run and managed by the district and those with an alternative governance, like the Beacon schools. In the weeks to come, DPS officials will be reviewing the plans for nearly all the innovation schools in the district.
Marrero’s Beacon recommendation comes as the board is set to adopt a policy to exclude standardized test scores from the district’s dashboard, which will provide performance information on each school.
