Author: Melanie Asmar

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.Denver Public Schools is taking a new approach to finding substitute teachers for some of its highest-needs schools. The district is contracting with an outside company called TeachStart that places teachers-in-training at schools to help cover classes.TeachStart bills itself as an earn-while-you-learn opportunity for people who want to become teachers. TeachStart fellows, as they’re called, are paired with a school where they’re paid as an in-house substitute for a year while studying for their teacher…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.The Denver teachers union is alleging that Denver Public Schools is violating a new provision of the teachers contract that requires schools to publicly report class sizes.The contract, which went into effect in September, requires each principal to report class size data to their school’s collaborative school committee, or CSC. The CSC is a group of parents, teachers, and community members who advise the principal on budget priorities and other decisions. State law requires every…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.Monarch Montessori has a plot of land picked out for the middle school it hopes to build: a field of tall native grasses, located just past the yurt where it holds music classes and a short walk from its outdoor solar oven and chicken pen.But Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero is recommending that the school board reject Monarch’s application to add sixth, seventh, and eighth grades when it votes this week. Marrero said the…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.To help feed students and their families during the federal government shutdown, the foundation for Denver Public Schools has restarted a fundraising effort it began during the pandemic. Back in 2020, the Food Security Fund paid for grab-and-go meal bags prepared by district staff and handed out to families at locations across the city while schools were shuttered because of the COVID-19 outbreak.Now, the Denver Public Schools Foundation is using the fund to buy grocery…

Read in English.Los votantes elegirán a cuatro integrantes del consejo escolar de Denver el 4 de noviembre. Once candidatos se han postulado para cuatro puestos. Las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés) forman el distrito escolar más grande en el estado, y las elecciones se realizarán en un momento clave. DPS está enfrentando disminuciones en la cantidad de estudiantes inscritos, amenazas del gobierno de Trump y presión para aumentar los logros de sus estudiantes. El control político del consejo de siete integrantes está en juego. Integrantes del consejo respaldados por el sindicato de maestros de Denver…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero said Friday that the Trump administration is pushing “an anti-trans agenda through the weaponization of Title IX,” a federal law the administration says DPS violated when it converted a girls’ restroom to an all-gender one.“They have claimed Title IX prohibits the conversion of a girls’ restroom to an all-gender restroom,” Marrero said in a statement. “They now claim Title IX prohibits the use of any multi-stall, all-gender restroom. This…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.At Aurora’s Laredo Elementary, the tidy library is shaped like a trapezoid because it used to be the auditorium. And the cafeteria, which smelled of chicken nuggets on the first Friday of the school year, has basketball hoops hanging from the ceiling because it was once the multipurpose room. Some classrooms don’t have windows. The brightly decorated hallways are narrow. And the fifth graders learn in trailers outside, which means the 10- and 11-year-olds must…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.With the news Friday that the Trump administration plans to release all of the federal education funds that it has withheld from states since July 1, Lake County School District Superintendent Kate Bartlett said it feels like she’s emerging from a time machine.All of the scrambling and contingency planning she did for the past several weeks is over.“It’s almost like we’ve been transported back in time to June 29,” Bartlett said. That was the day…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill Wednesday that initially set out to ban seclusion in schools, which is the practice of shutting a student in a room alone.Lawmakers said seclusion is a complicated topic and that even after extensive amendments, the bill didn’t strike the right balance between educators who said seclusion is a necessary practice and parents who told vivid stories of its misuse. The sole sponsor of House Bill 1178, Democratic state Rep. Regina…

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.A federal judge on Friday rejected Denver Public Schools’ attempt to reinstate a federal policy that treated schools as “sensitive locations” where immigration enforcement should only take place if there is immediate danger to the public.U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico said there is little practical difference between the prior policy, the last iteration of which was issued in 2021 under former President Biden, and a pair of memos issued by the Trump administration…