Kim James 
Two months into the task, new Denver schools Superintendent Susana Cordova has reduced more than 220 positions within the district’s central office to pay for better instructor salaries. Yet, at the same time, she is growing about 60 new positions and reclassifying 15 others to align to her imagination and prescient for the district, which zeroes in on higher serving the district’s black and Latino students.
The cuts will affect a few offerings available to schools. The modifications amount to an internet discount of approximately one hundred fifty relevant office jobs and a financial savings of $17 million. Some of the cash may be funneled into the higher teachers’ salaries promised by a new agreement reached this month between the district and teachers union after a 3-day strike. The settlement injects a complete $23.1 million extra into teacher pay subsequent yr, with some of the money coming from an expected boom in kingdom training investment.
Denver Public Schools is Colorado’s largest school district with approximately ninety-three 000 students and an annual budget of over $1 billion. It also has more extra distance administrators than the statewide common. In the 2016-17 faculty yr, Denver had one administrator for every 7. Five instructional personnel participants, a category that includes instructors, librarians, nurses, and others. The statewide common became one administrator for every eleven — 3 instructional body of workers participants.
Employees whose jobs may be affected began receiving notification in advance this week. The district has no longer yet publicly released a detailed accounting of all 220 jobs affected. Officials did say that 20 of the posts are presently vacant. Chalkbeat has requested more records, and we’ll replace the tale if we receive it. But Cordova did provide some details about the restructuring in an interview. One massive alternate, she explained, includes the supervisory shape for principals.
Now, Denver’s 147 district-run schools are grouped into 12 networks overseen by using supervisors referred to as academic superintendents. Each network is supported through a crew of critical workplace personnel who propose to school principals things that include efficaciously teaching literacy, math, social research, technology, and other topics. Schools are grouped based partly on whether they serve elementary, center, or excessive school college students. Going forward, there may be simply six networks, Cordova stated. The networks might be nearby and could include all faculties, K-12, located in that place.
They could be overseen using regional superintendents and supported through far fewer imperative workplace employees. And the guide that valuable office personnel provides may be focused on six areas Cordova believes are critical: standard literacy, basic math, secondary literacy, secondary math, culturally responsive education, and educational management. Finally, that remaining one will offer a guide to the instructor coaches who educate part-time and educate their friends element-time, an approach in which Denver Public Schools has invested heavily and believed is running.
