JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — Jeffco Public Schools, Colorado's second largest school districts with approximately 69,000 students enrolled, officially headed back to the classroom on Tuesday.
Denver7’s Nicole Brady sat down with Jeffco Public Schools superintendent Tracy Dorland to talk about issues facing schools, students and parents. Their discussion included school closures, bus driver shortages, teacher pay and future opportunities for students.
Watch the full interview in the video player below:
Nicole Brady: What is the overriding theme for you right now heading back to school?
Tracy Dorland: We're very excited for what will be a more normal school year post-pandemic as this moves into endemic phase. And our theme this year is the launch of a new strategic plan. We've taken stock of where the district is at, what student needs are there and staff needs are there post-pandemic. And we are ready to thrive. And so our theme is "Jeffco thrives," and it comes with the launch of a new strategic plan that's really primarily focused on our learners, our future and making sure that students have extraordinary student experiences and a real culture of instructional excellence.
NB: Can we break that down a little bit further? Are there specific goals when it comes to literacy, math, high school graduation or any other specifics like that?
TD: Yes, all of the above. We are really excited to be rolling out literacy curriculum in all elementary schools this year. And we have a goal around making sure that all third graders are proficient in reading by the end of third grade, which is a key milestone for students on their way to graduation. We also know as many districts across the nation have been finding that the impacts of the pandemic in terms of learning loss have been greater in the middle school level, especially around the content area of math. And so we have we are also rolling out a new math curriculum. And we will be doing high dosage tutoring K-12 with our [federal] funds to support learning loss. In particular, we are focused on zeroing in on middle school math, but we will have other opportunities at elementary and high school for high dosage tutoring as well for students who really need to make up for some lost learning during the pandemic.
NB: Is data informing a lot of your decision making this year?
TD: Absolutely, and one of the trends that we're seeing in our data is that our elementary students appear to be rebounding to post-pandemic levels of achievement at a faster rate than our secondary students who are in our middle schools and high schools. And this is not just a trend that we're seeing here in Jeffco. We're noticing it in our district data, as well as our state level data, that we've been able to preview. But it's a national trend that other districts are seeing as well. So that has driven much of our decision to invest in curriculum and high dosage tutoring in the areas where we are investing.
NB: The school closure issue is one that’s gotten a lot of attention. I'm sure you understand parents may be emotional when it comes down to their particular school. What do you say to parents who are concerned about their neighborhood schools closing?
TD: I'm a Jeffco mom, and I know how difficult this issue is. We have a lot of pride and community that are part of our schools, and so this is a really difficult issue. At the same time, we have situations in many of our schools in Jeffco where the student experience is not extraordinary because of extremely low levels of enrollment. The real goal is making sure that we're providing a thriving school experience for our students and our families. And we want to do this in a way where we are present with our community, where we have processes and procedures put in place to support them through it. So on Aug. 25, the staff will be making a recommendation to the Board of Education, and then we will engage our communities between August and November. And in November, our board will be making the final decision.
NB: Thank you for that timeline. Has the district explored any options to make it more convenient for families to get to different schools if their school closes?
TD: We will definitely be still transporting families to their boundary neighborhood school, as we always have. And, as you know, we have a staffing shortage like all districts around drivers. And we are exploring actively ways to attract and retain bus drivers. We have made progress this week with some of the routes and making sure that everything is covered.
NB: Chalkbeat had an article about school districts facing the biggest issues with bus drivers and special ed teachers. Would you say those are two areas where it has been hard to hire?
TD: Absolutely, and on the special education front, we know in Jeffco that we have declining enrollment. We talked about that earlier with school consolidations. As we do that work... we know that we will inevitably need to also reduce staff. If you have fewer students, you have fewer teachers. One of the things that we are working on is giving our teachers, who might be displaced by one of our school closures, the opportunity to have the district pay for an endorsement in an area where we're having a hard time staffing, special education, secondary mathematics and secondary science. And so if they're willing to have an endorsement, go get an endorsement, have the district pay for that, then we can get them into one of the positions where we do have an opening, even if the current position that they're in might no longer be available because of a school consolidation or budget reduction.
NB: On the drivers, is there anything else you can really do or are we just at such a crunch because of other companies that need to hire drivers as well?
TD: We're constantly working on recruiting fares and attracting folks to what really is a very flexible and part-time position in our district and, frankly, a position where there's a lot of opportunity to have very positive influence in the life of a child. They're the first person that a student sees as they walk on the bus in the morning and the last person they see when they drop them off at home or at their stop. And so it's an it's an awesome opportunity for somebody to really have an impact on our community, and it's part-time and flexible. We are working on looking at attendance incentives. We are also looking at differentiated pay for routes that might be more difficult to staff. So we're we're thinking about that. We don't have any plans right now, but it's something we're looking at.
NB: It looks like there is an agreement on a teacher raises, $50,000 for a starting teacher?
TD: We are very excited about coming to agreement with our teachers association and transitioning to a new salary schedule for our teachers. We are also thrilled to be able to have a large compensation increase, not only for teachers but also educational support professionals and our administrators. We have been behind in the market with compensation on the Front Range in Jeffco for many years. And the increases that we've been able to provide for all of our employee groups over the last two years are creating a much more competitive marketplace for us, not only so that we can attract the best and brightest, but also so that we can retain and honor and respect the best and brightest who are already part of Jeffco. The new teacher salary schedule starts at $50,000 a year and goes to a little bit over $100,000 at the top of the range. And for our educational support professionals, in the last two years, we have gone from a starting salary of $15 an hour to $17 an hour, and in the 2024 school year, that will go to at least $18 an hour.
NB: How are you as a district able to pay teachers this much? And is that changing your own budget and the way you have to work the numbers?
TD: It is changing our budget. Out board adopted a deficit budget in June, and there will be a supplemental budget approval that we bring to them in September to afford the increases that we've recently agreed to. And the school consolidations piece is something that's going to help us level set our budget and address that deficit. And we may have additional reductions that we have to look at in the coming years. That being said, when a district has declining enrollment, they also have declining revenue because that's just how we are funded from the state and from other revenue sources. And so we're going to be looking at how to address that deficit from multiple angles.
NB: Birth rates are a big factor behind declining enrollment. But how much has the enrollment here in Jeffco declined?
TD: The high point of our enrollment was in 2001, and we have slowly been declining since then. We've seen pretty dramatic declines over the last two years. During the pandemic, we've seen a 5,000 student decline. We have room for 96,000 students, give or take, in our schools, and we serve about 70,000. So we have about a 30,000 student gap in capacity.
NB: What other discussions are you having about the changing makeup of our student population and our workforce, and how are you preparing kids for the workforce?
TD: We are in this first phase of regional opportunities. We are taking a look at our elementary schools, and in phase two, we are going to be having a more regional conversation around the K-12 experience by articulation area. One of the things we're very interested in talking to our students and our families about is what type of program are you choosing? We have 44% of our families in Jeffco actually choice out of their boundary school. And so we would like to better understand why people are choosing schools and what program is attractive to them. And especially as we think about the world that our students are going into, which is volatile and uncertain and ever changing, we need to think about high school models that really prepare our students not just for four-year colleges, but military, two-year associates programs and the workforce. We have been connecting quite a bit with our Economic Development Council and our industry partners here in Jeffco to better understand what they need from our graduates as they come out of high school with a diploma. And many of them want to go directly into the workforce. And many of our employers in Jeffco want to hire them.