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Thank You for Supporting Our City's Future
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Over the past four summers, we've completed more than 1,100 bond projects, reaching every neighborhood in our city."
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Dear Team DPS:
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Supt. Tom Boasberg |
As our families are getting ready for the start of the new school year on Monday, we're putting the finishing touches on what has been a
very
busy summer of construction and renovation in schools all across the city.
Thanks to the support of our community in 2012, we've spent the last four years improving our students' learning environments -- with much of the work being done over the summers to avoid disruptions during the school year -- renovating and improving our campuses, adding thousands of modern, 21st
-
century classrooms for our teachers and students, and expanding capacity to address overcrowding.
When our community overwhelmingly approved our 2012 bond referendum for capital-projects funding, you made an investment in these types of improvements. Thank you for that support of our kids and our city's future.
We've worked hard to maximize the value of your investment by being efficient with your dollars on our projects, big and small. Over the past four summers, we've completed more than 1100 bond projects, reaching every neighborhood in our city.
We've also made significant improvements to the process we use to select the firms that do the work on our schools, to ensure that the investment made by our diverse community benefits a diverse range of our community's businesses, including our minority- and women-owned firms. Since the Board of Education adopted our Equitable and Inclusive Contracting Policy in late 2014, a third of the bond funding has gone to those firms, which exceeds our Board of Education-established goal of 24% participation from minority- and women-owned firms.
On Tuesday, I was in th
e
Harvey Park
neighborhood in Southwest Denver to check out a bond project that really speaks to the value of this work. Summit Academy is a middle/high school that has had to spend its first
six years as a split campus of two separate, rented buildings. We simply didn't have the facilities or the dollars to give the school community a Denver Public Schools' campus of its own.
And because of the pressing facilities needs all over Denver, a new Summit campus was not in the original package of projects initially approved for funding by the community's bond oversight committee. But the bond funding has contingency dollars built in to cover inflation and the unforeseen costs that can come up over the course of 1,100-plus renovation and improvement projects. And as a result of the efficient cost controls of those 2012 bond projects, a large portion of those contingency funds were freed up, even though construction costs in Denver overall have risen significantly over the past four years.
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At West Leadership Academy, the 2012 bond allowed the school to transform an area once used for welding classes into a robotics arena and laboratory with four classrooms.
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So the bond oversight committee then had extra dollars available to meet a few more of the big school-improvement needs we still have across the city, and they supported using a portion of the contingency fund to give Summit a home of its own. By renovating and re-utilizing an old credit union facility, DPS was able to give Summit a new home for half the cost of a new build.
"To be honest with you, I just can't stop smiling." That's what Summit Principal Bobby Thomas told me when I visited the new DPS Summit Academy campus on Tuesday. (Here's a DPS Features video of the visit.) And on Monday, that
campus will be full of smiling students and teachers, thanks to the investment you made.
There's more work to be done. About half of our schools were built before 1969; 79 of our school buildings aren't fully air-conditioned; and there are technology needs at virtually every campus. Last night, the Board of Education approved a resolution that puts a new bond referendum on the ballot this November for additional school-improvement funding. (Learn more at bond.dpsk12.org)
Check out some of the new learning facilities we've built for our students and educators over the past four summers. See the smiling faces for yourself. And know that we appreciate tremendously the community support that made it happen.
Best,
Tom
Pictured above: ECE students explore and play at Highline Academy Northeast.
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DPS Transforms Credit Union into School | 2012 Bond Update
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For the past few years, Summit Academy -- an innovation middle and high school in Southwest Denver -- operated a lot like two different schools. Summit had been renting two separate spaces in the Loretto Heights Campus near the College View neighborhood as Denver Public Schools looked for a property that could accommodate the school's growing population, which recently topped 200 students.
When DPS found a proper building, Principal Bobby Thomas said he could not stop smiling. That said, it did take some convincing, due to the fact the identified building was actually an old credit union.
"I just didn't know how it was going to work!" Thomas laughed.
Because DPS takes stewardship of taxpayer dollars seriously, the school system looked outside the box for innovative solutions for a new school site. The design team used creative ways to change the existing infrastructure of the facility to avoid major, costly modifications to the building.
Watch the full story in the
DPS Features video.
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Resources for Team Members during Back to School
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With the start of the 2016-17 school year officially kicking off next week, we want to make sure members of Team DPS feel prepared and ready for all that's ahead. To help, we've compiled a list of some common tools and resources to support you as a team member, including links and information to benefits and wellness, recognition resources, professional development and much more.
See the complete toolkit. And
click here to see the resources kit for parents and families.
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Kudos to DPS School-Support Teams Honored for Customer Service
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DPS' Safety and Security Team
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Friday morning, about 240 team members from the central school-support team were honored for exemplary customer service to DPS and our schools during the annual Kudos for Customer Service breakfast.
Honorees were recognized for being called out by name as an outstanding and helpful member of Team DPS by leaders both in school and at central-support through a customer service survey. The breakfast honored those called out three or more times, while nearly 700 employees were given a shout-out for their outstanding work in the survey.
Superintendent Tom Boasberg recognized the top three team members with the most call outs: Theresa Becker in Family and Community Engagement; Roberta Walker in the Office of Choice and Enrollment; and Laurie Premer in the Office of Choice and Enrollment.
The Safety Department was honored for the fourth year in a row as the department with the highest scores on the survey, and Transportation was the most improved department.
"[Safety still tries] to do better every year," said Chief Operations Officer David Suppes. "This year they had over 200 face-to-face visits with school leaders to learn what's working, what's not working and how they can better help our students."
Congratulations to all the honorees who were recognized!
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Superintendent Surprises Teachers with Welcome Back Treat
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While most students start class this Monday, many of our teachers' first day of school began Aug. 15 when educators headed to the classroom to begin preparing for the year ahead.
To kick off the new year and welcome teachers, Superintendent Tom Boasberg and Deputy Superintendent Susana Cordova surprised educators at
International Academy of Denver at Harrington.
With popsicles in hand, Tom and Susana visited classrooms around the school to share a warm welcome and cool treat, giving teachers a quick break from hanging decorations and organizing their rooms.
This year, about 5,000 teachers will support our 91,000-plus students in DPS. Welcome back to each one our valued educators!
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