Beginning this month, one city or metropolitan area will be profiled in each Compact Newsletter. This special spotlight will highlight ongoing district or charter reforms in a specific city. First up is Denver!
Through Denver’s district-charter collaboration project, entitled “Compact Blue”, district and charter partners are working to transform school practices and performance through Peer-to-Peer Learning Labs (PPLL) for data driven instruction and leadership. The PPLLs pair highly effective mentor schools (Blue and high Green schools on the common school performance framework) with less effective mentee schools (low Green and high Yellow schools) for intensive job-embedded learning focused on improving instructional practices and driving increased student achievement.
Denver’s Collaborative Council is the structure the city is now using to move the district-charter collaboration work. This council is an evolution from its initial Charter Compact steering committee. Each year, the charter community elects/appoints five charter leaders to serve along side four Denver Public Schools Senior Leaders to drive policy and practice initiatives pertinent to district-charter collaboration.
Thanks to the hard work of this council, in late June Denver’s Board of Education passed a policy that institutionalizes a more equitable allocation of mill levy dollars for Denver’s charter schools, which codifies allocations on an annual basis. It also codifies one-time payouts to allocate historically-accrued reserves not previously available to charters as well as dollars collected but not distributed this year. The passage of this policy enables charters to receive more funding for four targeted, specific purposes: enrichment programs, tutoring, technology, and full day kindergarten. These additional dollars allow charter schools to have the same equity of opportunity for funding as district schools.
