School report cards released

DENVER – Governor Bill Owens said the sixth unveiling of school accountability reports is the best yet with more students attending highly-rated schools and fewer attending poorly-rated ones.

“I believe that these accountability reports ensure that our schools are performing at the level they should be,” said Governor Owens during the official unveiling at the Department of Education building. “They, in fact, are meant to be an incentive.”

At one Denver school, it was.

“They were struggling and we didn’t have in place what we have now,” said Karti Lyons, principal at Teller Elementary.

Teller just received its report card carrying a “high” rating. After years of struggling and on the verge of being rated “low,” Lyons said teachers, parents, and administrators worked hard to improve the learning at her school.

“It’s everybody coming together and looking at what the needs are and making sure that we are focused on that,” Lyons said. “It’s sweet. It is extremely satisfying.”

Teller is a school familiar with common urban problems. It has a significant population of English language learners and a population where more than half of the kids come from low-income families. Both are common denominators in poorly-performing schools.

“In spite of the level of free and reduced lunch we have, we have been successful in elevating student achievement,” Lyons said.

“Those are the kids that you have to target even more and those are the kids that you set the bar even higher,” said Nancy Maniatis, 5th grade teacher.

She says that teachers have worked hard to close the achievement gap between white students and minority students and that they’re team-oriented approach is working.

“I challenge the 5th graders. I tell them that Ms. Lyons is challenging me and I like to win,” said Maniatis.

With their “high” rating, Teller parents feel like they finally won.

“We made it,” said Michele Foust, a parent. “It’s kind of the difference between an A and a B. We’ve always known that we’re an A school, but finally someone has given us the grade.”

The state lists more than 99,000 students attending schools with an “excellent” rating this year as compared to 97,752 last year. The report cards also list incidents of crimes reported at a school. Last spring, a law was passed to make that reporting more accurate, listing more specific crimes, but that change will not take affect until the 2007 school accountability reports.