Another View: AV#238 - $130 million for the new Montbello High – Will we have a school design worthy of the price?

An imaginary conversation with an anonymous member of the district team

From AV #224 Feb. 4, 2021

DPS should not be in charge of designing

a new comprehensive high school for Montbello

… I wish to point out three reasons why Denver should not assume this responsibility. Why, to be more importunate, I will argue that it has not proved itself capable of leading such work. I will show why, for the sake of the Montbello community and future MHS students, another entity needs to guide this critical effort.

AV #225- “Recreate Montbello” – Nostalgia? Amnesia? A few reminders (Feb. 9)

AV #226 – Doublespeak from DPS – Unification is Closure (Feb. 17)

District Official (DO): We did not appreciate your newsletters arguing that our district is incapable of designing the new high school at Montbello. I especially took offense at the suggestion that we should look to an outside entity to manage this process.

Another View (AV): I wrote: “DPS has not created a high-quality secondary school serving a majority of low-income students in this century. (The last high school opened by the district—and a proven success? Perhaps the Denver School of the Arts in 1991.)” Isn’t that true?

DO: Your evidence?

AV: One piece of evidence is your district’s School Performance Framework. The most recent one - 2019.

DO: How’s that?

AV: Look at the top schools. Distinguished - 11. Meet Expectations: 63. That is 74 out of 205 schools. What do you notice of the top 50 schools? Is there one comprehensive high school?

DO: No.

AV: What else?

DO: Many charters. 11 DSST schools: 5 high and 6 middle. KIPP: 1 high, 1 middle. STRIVE: 1 middle school.[i]

AV: Percentage points earned at all 14 on the SPF: 61.8% to 95.4%. Designed by the district?

DO: Well, no. But we did approve of their opening.

AV: Sure, but do we see any district-created secondary schools at all in the top 50?

DO: McAuliffe International School. Grades 6-8. #3 in top 50. Denver School of the Arts, too. #14.

AV: As I wrote, it has been three decades since DSA opened. A magnet school. Hardly open to all. Only 10% low-income students. As for McAuliffe, true, but consider the percentage of low-income students.

For 2018-19 (same year as SPF)[ii]	Free	Reduced	Free or Reduced Lunch
#3 - McAuliffe International	15	3	18%
#14 - Denver School of the Arts	7	3	10%

DO: Why such attention to the FRL figures?

AV: Again, it is crucial to my point: not one “high-quality secondary school serving a majority of low-income students.” Given the fall 2000 figures for the three schools to be “reunified” in Montbello High, it might see an FRL rate of 88%.[iii] Similar to Abraham Lincoln, the most chronically low-performing comprehensive high school in the city. On the state’s accountability clock since 2014.[iv] Attempting its own “redesign”: the latest plan is to be a College and Career Academy. The new Montbello is also likely to match the high percentage of English Learners at Abraham Lincoln, 56%, in 2020.[v]

	FRL Rate Fall 2020[vi]	Denver’s School Performance Framework - 2019[vii]
	FRL Rate Fall 2020[vi]	% Points	Rating
North	69%	40.5	Accredited on Watch
Abraham Lincoln	87%	40	Accredited on Watch
Dr. MLK Jr. Early College	78%	36.7	Accredited on Priority Watch
DCIS at Montbello	80%	36.2	Accredited on Priority Watch
Collegiate Prep Academy	88%	35.7	Accredited on Priority Watch
Manual	76%	29.5	Accredited on Probation
John Kennedy	73%	27.5	Accredited on Probation

If this is how you judge your own high schools whose demographics are remotely like the new Montbello, not one gives you, or any of us, the model of an effective school design. So where do you look?

DO: We look to the community. Which will make this different. By the way, I found your comment about the community’s role in developing our new high school pretty harsh. In fact, tone deaf.

AV: What was that?

DO: You suggested that the district was too eager to listen to the community in designing the school. Shouldn’t parents there have a voice? It sounded like you were wanted to discount the ability of families there to provide meaningful input.

AV: Did I? Not my intention. Input, of course. But I asked.

What does a “community-driven design process” mean? Can you a name a great school designed this way? (Trying to please everyone? No clear mission?)

DO: But why so dismissive of the community? Isn’t this exactly what led to much of the mistrust and anger over the closure of Montbello ten years ago? Shutting out the voice of the people most affected, parents and students? Many there are still furious about all that. This time we’re making an effort.

AV: I see that. And if you want to tell me the district today is more determined to really listen, I get that too. But your district’s own words appear to say something else. Two examples: (Bold mine)

Oct. 20, 2020: “The vision, mission, and overall school design will be co-created with the community and new high school principal and feeder middle school principal once they are hired.” Re imagine Reimagine Montbello: Oct. 21 Meeting - Questions and Answers.”[viii]

March 5, 2021: “The design process will be initiated and led by community members in collaboration with our district partners. The school leader, district staff, and community members are committed to implementing a high-quality school that embraces the experiences, heritage of the community, and uses a comprehensive approach to learning.”[ix]

Letter to Far Northeast Community, from DR. SHERI CHARLES and

DR. ANTOINETTE HUDSON, Regional Instructional Superintendents

DO: And you have a problem with that?

From The Death of Expertise, by Tom Nichols

“As the writer Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in 2010, large organizations do not make decisions by polling everyone in them, no matter how democratic it might seem.”

AV: I do. Can you name any great school that was designed this way? Public or private? Moms and Dads do not have this expertise. They haven’t spent years studying high schools—digging into what has proven most critical for a good mission, how to create a strong culture, how to define a teacher’s job, what should be taught—or how it should be taught. All of that demands the best we know about a strong school design.

DO: What do you propose for that? Are we back to turning this over to the “experts,” whoever they are?

AV: “Turn over”? No, but look outside, beyond DPS. A former member of the school board asked me about this too. Who does this sort of work? Who has this figured out? I don’t know either. But search far and wide. I mentioned two groups that have learned a great deal about good efforts in high schools set in low-income communities: Mass Insight and the University of Virginia’s School Turnaround Specialist Programs, both involved with several Colorado high schools.[x]

DO: You might not know that we’ve hired the principals to lead the new high school and middle school. Don’t they bring that expertise to these design teams? Good people. Really committed to this community.

AV: I’m sure they are. But hardly the leaders who will come in with new insights and fresh ideas of what a good high school might look like. Not likely to inspire any of this “reimagining” you all keep referring to.

from Neisa Lynch Community Presentation

“The work we have done at Collegiate Prep Academy has led to high levels of success for students in the Montbello community and I would like to expand upon this work on a larger scale so that all kids in Montbello experience that same success.”[xi] (Emphasis mine)

from Julio Contreras Video Presentation

“We need a middle school in Montbello that will provide the thorough preparation for them to go into high school and be successful and thrive and be able to graduate and go into the college of their choice and graduate from college.”[xii]

DO: Why do you say that?

AV: Well, who did your district choose as principals for Montbello High and Montbello Middle?

DO: The heads of DCIS at Montbello and of Collegiate Preparatory Academy.

AV: Leading these schools since 2018, yes? This is change? An inside job, true? Both schools struggled before they arrived. Most graduates are not “college ready.”[xiii] At present, both schools are rated on Priority Watch (see p. 2). Any evidence of real progress since 2019?[xiv] I can cheer what these leaders have to say, but I cannot see what have they done to improve academic achievement. (See their current UIPs.[xv]) “High levels of success”? I do not see it.

School Performance Framework	2014	2016	2017	2018	2019
Collegiate Prep Academy (opened 2011)	PRI IMP	PER	IMP	TRNRD	PRI IMP
DCIS at Montbello (opened 2011)	IMP	IMP	TRNRD	PRI IMP	PRI IMP

PER – Performance IMP – Improvement PRI IMP - Priority Improvement TRNRD – Turnaround

DO: Tough to assess, with COVID and all. And before you bring it up, I’ve seen their 2021 PSAT/SAT scores.[xvi] Yes, troubling. Still, it’s not fair to judge their schools’ academic progress on those dubious measures.

AV: I agree.[xvii] But we can’t ignore them either. The district is closing these schools. I doubt that would have happened if the results had been better this past decade. But who created these two schools eleven years ago? The district. How does it make any sense that we turn to - who? - the district, once again, to get it right?

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT (9^TH/10^TH GRADES)
Subject	Student Group	Collegiate Prep Academy		DCIS at Montbello
		2018	2019	2018	2019
CO PSAT – Reading/Writing	All students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	English Learners	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Free/Reduced Lunch Eligible	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Minority Students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Students with Disabilities	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
CO PSAT – Math	All students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	English Learners	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Free/Reduced Lunch Eligible	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Minority Students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Students with Disabilities	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
POSTSECONDARY AND WORKFORCE READINESS (11^th GRADE)
Subject	Student Group	Rating
CO SAT – Reading/Writing	All students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	English Learners	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Free/Reduced Lunch Eligible	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Minority Students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Students with Disabilities**	-	-	-	-
CO SAT – Math	All students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Approaching	Does Not Meet
	English Learners	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet
	Free/Reduced Lunch Eligible	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Approaching	Does Not Meet
	Minority Students	Does Not Meet	Does Not Meet	Approaching	Does Not Meet
	Students with Disabilities**	-	-	-	-

*From the School Performance Framework Reports for 2018 and 2019 for Collegiate Prep Academy and DCIS at Montbello. https://www.cde.state.co.us/schoolview/performancethe. **(Where there are no ratings, the number of students <16.).

NOTE: Noel Community Arts School will also be “reunited” in the new MHS. NCAS high school academic results 2018 & 2019—all DNM.

DO: OK, OK, we’ve made mistakes. But we have learned a lot since 2011. This time, I bet we will succeed.

AV: But this time, it’s a $130 million bet. That figure alone should cause you to pause. Which is why I wish you could acknowledge that the district has not shown the capacity to design a good high school in a setting such as Montbello in decades. And why I’d still place my bet on some other entity leading this work.

Is it too late to ask?

Endnotes

[i] Notice anything distinct about these 14 charter schools? In design, not one made the essential error that seems to have gone unchallenged in all the talk about the “need” for a “comprehensive high school.” Not one started their school design efforts with SIZE as the one given, and worked backwards from there. For them (all under 600 students) a smaller size has proved critical to their success. I believe that demanding that the “recreated,” “resurrected,” or “reimagined” school be – ONCE AGAIN! –"a comprehensive high school” will prove the most fundamental error in the new school’s design. I guess it is too late to challenge that. Many of us are still waiting for the district to make a sound case that bigger is better.

#	From top 50 schools on Denver’s School Performance Framework, 2019
	14 charter middle and charter high schools	# of students enrolled 2018-19	update enrolled 2020-21
1	DSST: at Noel Campus (6-8)	155 (grade 6)	469 (6-8)
9	DSST: Byers Middle (6-8)	497	486
12	DSST: Conservatory Green High	305 (grades 9-10)	574 (9-12)
19	DSST: Byers High	399 (grades 9-11)	569 (9-12)
24	DSST: Green Valley Ranch Middle (6-8)	482	485
27	DSST: Montview High	582	578
31	DSST: Montview Middle (6-8)	477	471
37	DSST: Green Valley Ranch High	550	580
41	DSST: Conservatory Green Middle (6-8)	470	470
44	DSST: College View High	513	558
49	DSST: College View Middle (6-8)	446	475

16	KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy (6-8)	422	425
26	KIPP Northeast Denver Leadership Academy (9-12)	458	574

33	STRIVE Prep - Federal (6-8)	325	358

	Average size of these 8 middle schools in 2020-21		455 students
	Average size of these 6 high schools in 2020-21		572 students

[ii] http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/rvprioryearpmdata

[iii] I do not believe that demographics are destiny. But surely there is a warning in seeing that Denver might create a second high school as chronically low-performing as Abraham Lincoln has been. No one wants that, true?

Pupil Membership – 2020-21

	# on Free and Reduced Lunch	Total Student Body	Percent FRL
Abraham Lincoln	841	964	87%

Collegiate Preparatory Academy	272	340	80%
DCIS at Montbello	870	935	93%
Noel Community Arts School	333	396	84%
TOTAL for the three schools	1,474	1,671	88%

http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/pupilcurrent

[iv] Abraham Lincoln High School- Final 2019 School Performance Framework– Year 5 of Priority Improvement or Turnaround Comprehensive Support and Improvement - Lowest 5 Percent. https://cedar2.cde.state.co.us/documents/SPF2019/0880-0010-1-Year-Official.pdf

[v] Pupil Membership – 2020-21

	English Learners	Total Student Body	Percent EL
Abraham Lincoln	546	964	56.6%

Collegiate Preparatory Academy	152	340	44.7%
DCIS at Montbello	633	935	67.7%
Noel Community Arts School	152	396	38.4%
TOTAL for the three schools	937	1671	56%

http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/pupilcurrent

[vi] http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/pupilcurrent

[vii] https://spf.dpsk12.org/en/high-schools/

[viii] Reimagine Montbello, Fall 2020, https://www.dpsk12.org/reimagine-montbello-campus/reimagine-montbello-history/

[ix] https://www.dpsk12.org/reimagine-montbello-announcing-the-new-high-school-principal/

[x] In AV #228 – Learning together – low-performing high schools in the metro area, I also mentioned Sheridan High’s work with AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination) and Westminster High’s external partners, Advanced Ed and Marzano Academies. Not as a recommendation for any of these partnerships, but to point out the variety of sources one could look to—and might want to bring to the table to find the best options.

[xi] https://www.dpsk12.org/reimagine-montbello-announcing-the-new-high-school-principal/

[xii] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v_fivX_x3-vsBY-O6fCEmdzkWMU6cV0B/view

[xiii] College Readiness – % of Graduates Requiring Development Education* - Most recent data on high school graduates going on to attend a Colorado college or university.

	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Collegiate Preparatory	60%	45.8%	53.8%	64.1%	60%
DCIS at Montbello	68.6%	72.7%	84.2%	58.3%	55.2%
STATE	35.0%	35.9%	34.8%	25.9%	26.7%

*https://highered.colorado.gov/pathways-to-prosperity-postsecondary-access-and-success-for-colorados-high-school-graduates

[xiv] One sign of progress at Collegiate Prep Academy is in attendance: 2018-19, 85.2%; 2019-20, 88.1%; 2020-21, 90.1%.

http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/truancystatistics

[xv] How the schools describe their own performance:

A.) excerpts from Collegiate Preparatory Academy Unified Improvement Plan (UIP) 2020-21:

Summary of PSAT/SAT: (Emphasis mine)

“Our 9 grade Math growth was higher than other grades, but overall, our growth was much lower than anticipated in both EBRW and the Math. Even though 9th grade proficiency levels increased to the highest levels CPA has had, the growth decreased dramatically. 10th grade proficiency decreased in both EBRW and Math. In 10th and 11th grade, proficiency decreased slightly… Special education students have lower MGPs… Additionally, our ELL students didn't move on growth, nor on status…”

In explaining its Priority Performance Challenges, CPA’s UIP states on four occasions:

“Root Cause: Data Driven Instruction Given classroom observations and data disaggregation across multiple data points, it is apparent we lack rigorous, aligned instruction for disaggregated groups, especially ELL and Sped, with frequent progress monitoring.

“Root Cause: Equity Systems and Supports - We have not yet mastered consistent and rigorous implementation of differentiated strategies, including WiDA, to best serve all students including ELL students and SpEd students, specifically around sheltered instructional practices for our ELLs.

“Root Cause: Instruction and Teacher Supports - We have yet to provide consistent instructional strategies and PD for teachers around effective strategies. We have also not aligned this to the coaching cycles to promote teacher growth.”

“… School Works did a Quality Review. The SQR identified the following themes:

· The school does not have adequate staff to meet student academic and socio-emotional needs, with a focus on SPED and ELL Students.

· While the school has teams in place working on culture, there is not yet a shared school-wide responsibility for changing student behavioral and learning culture.

· The school does not yet provide consistent, standards-aligned best first instruction.” (Emphasis mine)

https://co-uip-cde.secure.force.com/UIPPublicFacingdev_Print?id=a0d2I00000Df28FQAR

B.) DCIS UIP 2020-21: https://co-uip-cde.secure.force.com/UIPPublicFacingdev_Print?id=a0d2I00000Df28cQAB

[xvi] From 2021 PSAT and SAT results at CDE ‘s website - http://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/sat-psat-data

PSAT – 9^th grade	Literacy - 2021	Math - 2021	TOTAL	BELOW STATE AVERAGE
STATE Average	462	441	903	-
District Average-DPS	441	428	869	-34 pts
Collegiate Prep	375	373	748	-155 pts
DCIS at Montbello	366	368	734	-169 pts

*Literacy – Short term for the Evidence-Based Reading & Writing Assessment

NOTE – In 2021, both Collegiate Prep (80.3% participation rate) and DCIS at Montbello (91% participation rate) were able to have the far majority of their juniors take the SAT tests.

SAT – 11^th grade	Literacy – 2021	Math – 2021	TOTAL	BELOW STATE AVERAGE
STATE Average	513	498	1011	-
District Average-DPS	500	481	981	-30
Collegiate Prep	431	420	851	-160 pts
DCIS at Montbello	425	419	844	-167 pts

[xvii] AV# 222 – “The PSAT and SAT do not work well for perhaps 25% of our high schools” (Jan. 2021).

Another View

Monday, October 18, 2021

AV#238 - $130 million for the new Montbello High – Will we have a school design worthy of the price?

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