CPR News - District 91��Ƭistration

‘I tell my children they are safe. And I feel like a liar.’ Evergreen school shooting lays bare parents’ worst fears

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 14:11:45 +0000

One day after a shooting at Evergreen High School that left three injured and a shooter dead, parents across the Metro region are grappling with a collective trauma over school shootings, leaving them to confront their darkest fears about the safety of their own children.

In interviews and exchanges with dozens of parents of school children, there is a pervasive sense of fear, grief and anger. Parents describe a constant, low-level anxiety that permeates their lives every day and they describe how an ordinary task like sending their child to school feels like a significant risk as they worry it may be the last time they see their child.

Many describe feeling numb—partly because they feel powerless to change a society rife with gun violence—but also as a survival mechanism to get through the day. Many are saddened that their children cannot live a normal childhood like they did, while others experienced gun violence at school as teachers or even as a student during the Columbine shooting.

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Why does Colorado have the shortest school year of any state?

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 13:34:13 +0000

Many states require 180 days of instruction, that’s kids in a classroom, learning.

Former educator and CPR listener Christine Kindl asked about data she saw from the Pew Research Center showing that Colorado has the shortest school year of any U.S. state, just 160 days.

It seems like Colorado children were receiving about a month less classroom time than their peers elsewhere in the country.

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More Colorado high school students are graduating, and fewer are dropping out

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 16:44:01 +0000

Colorado’s high school graduation rate inched up in 2024 to the state’s highest level in more than a decade. Student dropout rates are also declining but large differences between student groups persist, according to new data from the Colorado Department of Education.

The state’s four-year graduation rate improved 1.1 points to 84.2 percent for class of 2024, while the drop-out rate decreased by 0.2 points to 1.9 percent. A total of 58,318 Colorado students earned their high school diploma in 2024—about 1,500 more than the prior year. Across Colorado, two-thirds of districts improved or stayed the same in their four-year graduation rate.

“While we are seeing promising progress, we are continuing to see our students of color and our students with the highest needs graduating below our statewide rates,” said Education Commissioner Susana Córdova.

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How racism in a Colorado middle school left one student with PTSD

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 15:24:22 +0000

Lorenzo Calloway, 13, is soft-spoken and polite especially with strangers.

His mom was in the military, so it’s “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am.”

But there’s also a wariness in him. Haltingly Lorenzo tells the story about the first incident in a series of racist incidents targeting him over the course of two years at Windsor Middle School, less than a half an hour northwest of Greeley in Weld County.

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Denver Public Schools’ controversial reform strategy led to significant learning gains for students

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 17:02:55 +0000

A new study shows that the comprehensive and controversial education reform strategies carried out in Denver Public Schools over a decade dramatically improved student learning in math and English. It calls the reforms “among the most effective in U.S. history.”

“It definitely shows that improvement is possible and it is possible in large school systems with high levels of student need,” said CU Denver’s Center for Education Policy Analysis’ director Parker Baxter, who hopes the center’s study can provide evidence to the ongoing debate of whether the reforms helped or harmed students.

“These effects are among the largest ever observed in educational research using state of the art extremely rigorous methodology that observes individual student achievement over time.”

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Can Colorado teachers feel more prepared for school emergencies?

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 12:21:26 +0000

Between reading, writing, and arithmetic, there are also disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and acts of violence at schools. While school districts have security and drills for these events, educators often have unanswered questions and are left feeling anxious and overwhelmed.

Two Anschutz researchers wanted to change that, starting with gathering school staff’s ideas and addressing their questions about safety.

“They want to be part of decision-making,” said Natalie Schwatke, an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. “They want to contribute.”

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One day at Minnequa Elementary School: What an improving school looks like in Colorado

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 12:29:42 +0000

For six years straight, Pueblo’s Minnequa Elementary received one of the two lowest ratings on the state’s school report card. Today it’s a green school – the top rating for schools.

It won one of Gov. Jared Polis’ “Bright Spot” awards for math achievement and he named Minnequa in his 2024 State of the State address.

CPR education reporter Jenny Brundin spent the day at the school — one that was for years threatened with closure if test scores didn’t improve. She learned how much planning and hard work it takes to lift a school up.

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Colorado students want more solutions-oriented climate education before it’s too late

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 15:41:58 +0000

Seventeen-year-old Reema Patadia wants to be a biomedical engineer, but she’s always had a passion for the environment. One day at school, she heard her Design and Innovation teacher talking with a man about an idea that seemed like it could bridge those two interests.

“And I went up to them and said ‘Hey, what are you guys talking about? It sounded really interesting,’”

The man, Martin Ogle, was saying that, typically, students who want an “environmental career” are steered toward just a limited range of fields — environmental scientist, forester, or park ranger. But that’s just a small slice of the economy.

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