Initiatives

The district’s mission is clear... to provide all students the opportunity to achieve the knowledge and skills necessary to become contributing citizens in our society. Watch here as DPS continues to challenge itself, reform and grow.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why have we implemented the SPF?

For the past several years Denver Public Schools has relied on SAR and AYP ratings as the primary measures of a school’s progress or lack of progress. However, feedback from teachers, principals and parents has emphasized that these measures ... read more

How does the SPF helps schools and the district drive improved student achievement?

There are many factors to consider when trying to improve overall student achievement. Having timely, actionable data is a critical foundation for principals and school communities to quickly identify individual challenges and opportunities so they ... read more

Are other school districts in the state and around the country implementing similar initiatives to SPF?

Yes, some of the nation’s most progressive school districts are implementing similar initiatives or are considering undergoing this transformation. We have the benefit of learning best practices from some that are further ahead of DPS including ... read more

How will the schools be rated and when will they be rated?

Each September, when we have the most current data from the previous school-year, SPF scorecards will be issued with one of the four overall school ratings (Distinguished, Meets Expectations, Accredited on Watch, and Accredited on Probation). ... read more

Are all DPS schools receiving an SPF scorecard? What about alternative schools and charter schools?

All DPS schools that have enough supporting data, including alternative and charter schools, will receive a scorecard that summarizes the data for the school. By design, the SPF is based on two years of data. However, for schools that are currently ... read more

What are the incentives and interventions associated with the SPF ratings?

The District intends to use the SPF to incentivize schools to improve their performance and to provide support to struggling schools. The district has developed a program of incentives and interventions for schools that will largely be driven by the ... read more

Is SPF ultimately going to lead to more school closures?

The SPF is not intended to be punitive. Instead, its goal is to provide more robust measures of a variety of indicators that allow principals and teachers to make more informed decisions to benefit each and every DPS student. The SPF by itself would ... read more

How is SPF tied in with the principal pay for performance program and ProComp, the teacher compensation system?

Compensation systems for teachers (ProComp) and principals are impacted by the SPF. Specifically, Top Performing and SPF Growth incentives are tied to SPF results. ... read more

How can SPF results be used by schools to improve the work they’re doing?

As part of the Growth indicator, we’re comparing performance at similar schools to one another. The ability to compare ratings and share best practices across schools in the same cluster is one of the key benefits of the SPF as compared to the ... read more

Will SPF results be broken down by classes and teachers?

No. The SPF was designed to evaluate overall school performance, not individual student or teacher performance. However, as part of an overall Performance Management initiative called DPS Digital Door, DPS has developed a data system whereby ... read more

Does the SPF compare my school to other schools?

In certain case, yes. Growth percentile and percentage of CSAP proficient or above are the two SPF measures that compare performance of similar schools to one another. These similar schools are determined through a cluster analysis that considers ... read more

Is it statistically harder for those schools that are higher performing to experience the same kind of growth as a lower performing school?

In the SPF, the growth of higher performing students is compared to that of their peers – students with statistically similar test histories. Thus, continued growth among this student population is possible and is measured relative to their ... read more

Could a school have zero points available for any measure?

Yes, data in the School Performance Framework are only included if there is a minimum of 16 students in a particular area of subgroup. For example, for the Catch-Up Growth measure, this could happen if a school had fewer than 16 students in the ... read more

Are CSAP Lectura and Escritura included as part of the SPF?

Yes. They are included in the Status indicator, but not the Growth indicator as most students don’t take the test in Spanish for two consecutive years. ... read more

Why is Benchmark data not included in the SPF but Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) data is?

Benchmark assessments provide formative information for teachers to tailor their instruction based on the individual needs of their students. Although DRA is also formative, it is the only measure that assesses K-2 students since CSAP administration ... read more

How is the SPF going to change?

The SPF will always be a work in progress, in that measures may need to be added, refined or updated based on input from stakeholders. For the 2009 SPF we added measures related to students with special needs (CSAP-A Growth, Center Program offerings) ... read more