Big things are happening in Pueblo’s School District 60, the largest school district in southern Colorado. For starters, the district has five new schools under construction, and each will be ready for occupancy next fall. But, for now, the most important focus is on the start of school for more than 15,000 students in just days.
Pueblo’s first day of school is scheduled for Tuesday, August 17th, said Superintendent Charlotte Macaluso. Though that means the doors open to the city’s 22 elementary, five middle schools and four high schools in just days, there has been a flurry of activity in the schools for weeks now as teachers and staff prepare buildings for a ‘new beginning.’
By that, it means for the first time in nearly two and a half years, the specter of COVID, the virus that took its toll on Colorado, the nation and the world, is not the primary focus. Though, as we have learned, it is never far out of the picture. “Right now,” said Macaluso, “we don’t require masks…until we get data from our community, we will just kind of navigate our way through.”
Macaluso, who has been in the city school’s top job since 2016, is also a Pueblo native and product of its schools. The native eastsider not only attended Spann Elementary, Risley Middle School and East High School, she also served as a teacher at Spann and teacher and principal at Risley before moving into administration.
Macaluso is proud of the trajectory the city’s school have had during her tenure, especially its decreasing dropout rate. That is not suggest that she has taken her eyes off it nor those students who may be considering dropping out. In fact, in a recent telephone interview, Macaluso said she periodically meets with a young person who is weighing their choices.
“I talk about how many doors are closed if they don’t have a high school diploma,” she said. She is candid in her chats and also mindful that college may not be what is best for those students she meets with. “Not all students,” she said, “need to go to college.” Instead, she’ll offer guidance about considering the military or, perhaps, a technical school. Her point is that learning is a lifelong undertaking. Like the students under her, learning is also something she makes the time for when she’s not overseeing the district and its nearly 2,400 staff.
Just like a student going from elementary school to middle school or middle to high school, Macaluso tries to sharpen her own skills and become better at her own job. She travels to educational gatherings throughout the summer for personal development. “I went to the NALEO (National Association of Latino and Appointed Officials),” she said. She said the gathering was “energizing.” The organization has also been a launching pad for some of the country’s highest ranking public officials.
Macaluso said as a superintendent it’s important to make sure you’re always “learning best practices alongside others.” She also spends a lot of time reading books by experts in education. The book that had the biggest impact on Macaluso’s summer reading list was “Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain,” by nationally recognized writer and former classroom teacher, Zaretta Hammond.
A review of Hammond’s book says it “blends practical brain science with the need for awareness of individual and collective culture.” It is a book that may be particularly important in a school district like Pueblo’s where the majority of the student population is Latino. Hammond writes that “culture programs the brain.”
Like every school district, from the nation’s largest to the tiniest and most remote, Macaluso said, educators have had to adapt to a pandemic that few if any had ever imagined would occur in their lifetime. But, she said, the virus has “shined a light on the continuing achievement and opportunity gap among our scholars.” As teachers, a job she knows well, Macaluso said, “We need to be careful as educators that we don’t exacerbate teaching gaps…making sure we’re engaging critical thinkers.”
For now, Pueblo District 60 is in the backstretch in completing the five new schools that open next Fall. Two of the new schools, Centennial and East, will replace high schools of the same name. Each of the old schools will be demolished before school opens next year. East, coincidentally, is Macaluso’s alma mater.
There might be a moment or two of melancholy seeing her old high school transformed into piles of brick and mortar, she said, but “I will always have and treasure the memories of the old East High.” But as she looks forward, Macaluso said she is more encouraged and uplifted by a city and a district looking and planning for the future.
