It is that time of year when nature begins providing the subtlest of hints that things are changing; a time when a warm summer breeze suddenly drops a hint of chill and a fallen leaf shockingly lands with an autumnal glow. It’s also a time when young minds once again dream, set goals and abandon lazy, summer routines. It’s time, once again, for school.
In Denver, that means unlocking the doors to slightly more than 200 public schools that will play host to an estimated 88 thousand students. Denver Public Schools, of course, is the state’s largest school district.
For DPS staff, school’s already begun. It’s been preparing for the new school year for a while. Buildings are being readied; teachers and administrators are gearing up and both big and tiny details from classrooms to cafeterias are getting attention. But for students, the first day of school is August 22nd.
School year 2022-23 also marks the first time since March 2020 that school begins without the shadow of COVID shading the day. That, of course, doesn’t mean COVID’s passed. It only means that remote learning- –until and unless there’s a sudden spike of the virus—is over and classrooms will once again be full.
This school year, said DPS Deputy Superintendent Dr. Tony Smith, will also give an indication of the intellectual impact COVID had on students. “I think we understand better now than ever the impact the pandemic had had on us,” said the former classroom teacher turned administrator. “We’re understanding the learning loss.”
In March 2020, COVID, a then new and not nearly understood virus, forced the shutdown of schools in Denver and the nation ushering in a ‘learn-on-the-fly’, totally new learning method. DPS and schools nationally, suddenly went ‘remote,’ forcing districts to spend millions on Chromebooks and hotspots—devices for accessing internet- –allowing students to connect to classrooms from home.
Looking back, it was a great idea but not an entirely successful solution. Some students carried on, bad or no internet connections plagued countless others and, in some cases—teachers and administrators would come to learn—too many students just checked out, either because of lack of supervision, sometimes through necessity- –parents having to leave home to work or COVID claiming the lives of adult caregivers. The reasons are myriad. Practically speaking, ‘it is what it is.’ DPS and other school districts are now faced with the challenge of closing the learning loss gap.
Smith said early indications show Black and Latino students were the groups most adversely effected by the COVID shutdown, adding “these groups across the country have been identified with the (learning) gap.”
“We really have two main goals,” said Smith. The goals are simple but important. The first is to create “a welcoming and safe environment.” The second, he said, is getting the child near or back to where he or she should be. It will be a team effort involving both teachers and parents.
But DPS, as is the case with school districts across the nation, must find a way of dealing with teacher shortages. A DPS official did acknowledge that the district is looking at “at about 200 teacher openings,” but added shortages are “normal” for every start of school.
Some districts are offering incentives to place teachers in classrooms, a policy that DPS used selectively last spring in hiring substitutes when schools were trying to return to a post-COVID environment. Incentives, the official said, are so far not in the plans. But that is not the case in a number of other districts nationwide where signing bonuses of up to $2,500 are being offered or bumps of $50,000 in retirement plans are being dangled.
DPS also joins every major school district in the country in finding and hiring teachers of color. Black, Latino and other students of color make up 75 percent of DPS enrollment. But according to a report by Colorado Public Radio, the district’s teachers of color made up only 30 percent of all classroom teachers. The CPR report said of the district’s estimated 4,700 teachers, only 259 were Black, Latino or from a minority ethnic group.
When school begins on August 22nd, Smith said it will start without many of the COVID protocols from the previous two years. “In our situation,” he said, “we will support and welcome people masking” but will not mandate it. Instead, he said, DPS will simply recommend good hygiene and social distancing when appropriate. “We have looked at our systems,” he added. The policy will be “safety across the board…we will be proactive.”
Smith, who starred in college as an Adams State University football player, has switched teams and become one of DPS most enthusiastic cheerleaders. “We produce the gold standard of students, and we also have some of the best teachers in the country,” he said. But DPS, he said, is more than just students and teachers and no link is stronger or more important than staff—“the nurses, the people who gave out kids meals, janitors, data techs, paraprofessionals and the people who connected families with resources (during COVID). It was not just one group, but a collective effort for success. Everyone did exactly what they were supposed to do.”
