Newsroom

Five Focus Areas

Tom Boasberg unveiled five focus areas during his acceptance remarks on January 22, 2009.

1.   Retaining, attracting, rewarding and empowering the most effective people to serve as teachers and principals.Research has proven that nothing has a greater impact on student achievement than an effective teacher. The district's focus must be on how to retain, recruit, reward and empower the most effective teachers and school leaders. Boasberg intends to build on the district's current principal and instructional leadership initiatives to aggressively recruit high performers to become teachers and principals in Denver, and to strengthen the supports for teachers in their first three years with the district. Through the Janus Education Alliance, the district is committed to improving induction, mentoring and professional development for teachers. The new ProComp agreement with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) made significant strides in improving compensation and rewarding teachers who serve in high-poverty schools, take hard to staff jobs like teaching in special education classrooms, and drive academic growth in their students.

2.   Advancing the district's instructional reforms. DPS has built a strong, research-based academic foundation over the last several years. This foundation includes a common set of tools for teachers and common set of expectations for students. The district has also worked with teachers to develop pacing and planning guides to inform their work, benchmark assessments and a focus on student data to track student progress and richer professional development opportunities. Boasberg plans to continue expand enrollment in early childhood education and kindergarten, increase individualized instruction for all students, improve educational opportunities and choice for students through the creation of high-performing new schools and increase alternative education options.

3.   Empower schools to meet high expectations while holding them accountable for improving results with their students. DPS is a school district with more than 150 schools serving more than 75,000 students, with almost half of DPS students attending a school other than their assigned neighborhood school, and more than 40 schools are charters, magnets or exclusively schools of choice. In an age of competition for students and for talented teachers and school leaders, DPS must break from the monopoly model of the past century and push forward with decentralization reforms to give schools greater autonomy, coupled with accountability.

4.   Deepening the engagement of families and communities in the success of students.In order to make Denver the best urban school district in the nation, every family member and every Denver resident needs to be engaged in the success of students. Boasberg plans to develop greater public awareness and ownership for the urgency of improving student outcomes for all of Denver's students, deepen parent engagement in schools, collaborate with community partners to better connect with kids and parents about how to accelerate academic progress, and establish more effective relationships with the wide range of student and human service partners outside of DPS.

5.   Securing the financial future and increasing financial transparency of the district and its schools.As the nation confronts the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, DPS also faces very serious financial challenges from state budget cuts. The district will do everything possible to minimize the burden of these cuts and their effect on the classrooms. In addition, the district will continue to implement student-based budgeting to give schools greater authority and flexibility over how they can spend their budgets. Boasberg will work to increase further the financial transparency of the district to improve understanding of how dollars are spent. In addition, Boasberg stressed that nothing is of greater importance to the financial future of the district than successfully completing a merger of the district's pension system with Colorado's PERA, the state retirement system.