Dear Team DPS,
When I agreed to take on the role of Superintendent of this great district, I engaged in a protracted Listening and Learning tour, speaking to every set of constituents to get a sense of the past and present challenges of Denver Public Schools. My educational, leadership and personal experiences positioned me well to take on many of these challenges and to identify and pose possible solutions. The Board of Education did not hire me to maintain the status quo. Board members entrusted me to take the necessary and sometimes difficult steps to make decisive changes that will improve and sustain greater educational outcomes of all of our scholars. I thank them for their trust in me to do this important work.
Upon my start, one of the first things I did was review the data related to how things have been done in the past. My focus since my analysis has been on making changes that will improve on the efforts that have already taken place and, when needed, shift how we educate our children. One of those much-needed shifts is outlined in the Board of Education’s Ends Policy 1.1, which calls for DPS to be a district free of oppressive systems and structures rooted in racism.
In alignment with Policy Governance, the Board of Education approved my Reasonable Interpretation of Ends Policy 1.1 and subsequently received a Monitoring Report in May 2022. The link can be found here. In it, I clearly committed to accomplishing a list of 7 significant actions to address the requests made by the Board in Ends Policy 1.1. The first item on that list is the following:
