Adams 14 School District Shortcomings Leads To Questions Over Its Future
By Joel Hillan
DENVER (CBS4) - Adams County High School Senior Class President Kevin Clark is part of a school district that has been struggling to help their students succeed.
"They're failing their classes, and there aren't any resources of support there for them," Clark said.
"Most of the districts that you go into, the norm is 80 percent of the students are on track, 20 percent are not. Adams 14 District is the opposite," said Javier Abergo who took over as superintendent two years ago.
In October, parents, teachers and students gathered outside the the Colorado Board of Education in downtown Denver demanding change.
They have been working with an organization called Beyond Textbooks to help lift student achievement.
"They've been doing some work with them. It's making some progress, but I think the feeling from the community and the state review panel was that the organization was enough on its own to be able to make the changes that we really need to see for students there," said Alyssa Pearson, the Deputy Commissioner for the Colorado Board of Education.
Pearson is a numbers person and says the numbers don't look good.
Only one in five 5th Graders in Adams 14 are performing at grade level in reading, only one in 10 in math.
"The goal of this process is to figure out how to get better outcomes for students," she said.
To do that, a state review board has recommended an external management operator have full management authority over the school district. The question remains, what this will look like going forward?
"People want more for their kids. It's figuring out what's the best way to get there and how to do that for the students in Adams 14," she said.
The Colorado Board of Education will make a final decision on what the future of Adams 14 School District will look like Thursday.
Joel Hillan anchors CBS4 This Morning on weekends as well as reports stories for CBS4 News at 5 and 6 p.m. Follow Joel on Twitter @joelhillan.