This fall, about 1,500 first-year University of Denver students will take turns descending winding mountain roads toward a cluster of rustic cabins, an open field containing a ropes course and barely any cellphone service. It’s something of a “digital desert,” said Jeremy Haefner, chancellor of the University of Denver, but it offers an amenity hard […]
Education
Posted inBusiness, Economy, Education, News, Technology
Colorado has had a shortage of cybersecurity professionals for years. Here’s how that’s going.
The pressure was on. Someone, somewhere, was attacking computer systems so customers couldn’t reach certain websites. In a windowless room in Denver, Zack Privette had worked all morning with his security team to figure out what the cyber strangers were up to. “What’s happened is that we have an attacker who has been going through […]
Posted inColoradans, Education, News
Rural Colorado schools, unable to recruit out-of-town teachers, are trying to get locals into classrooms
The question of how to draw more teachers into a profession defined by high stress and low pay has become increasingly difficult for administrators like Dave Slothower to answer over the past two years. “This is important work,” said Slothower, superintendent of Calhan School District east of Colorado Springs. “I don’t think anybody would disagree […]
Posted inColoradans, Education, News
Colorado teacher prep programs saw an “exodus” when COVID hit — another test for school districts facing shortages
While teaching English to Greeley elementary school students who were just starting to learn the language, Ricardo Lopez would often hear his father’s struggles in their voices. “You don’t want to see them struggle like you see someone so close to you struggle trying to communicate,” said Lopez, whose dad immigrated to the United States […]
Posted inEducation, News
Driving a decade of progress, Hispanic students in Colorado made huge gains in high school graduation
When Rosa Beltran was going through high school in the late ’90s in a small town in southern Colorado, she never expected to graduate. “My parents were very concerned about just working and trying to put food on the table. I don’t think I ever had that support from the school either,” Beltran said about […]
Posted inColoradans, Economy, Education, Equity, Health, Housing, News
Key gaps between Black, Latino and white Coloradans have narrowed, but equity is “a dream unrealized”
Maria Bocanegra Tejeda awakens as the rising sun lights her room. Her room. In the house her family owns. That fact is still capable of surprising her, so far removed it is from her cousins’ crowded trailer in the crowded mobile home park where she spent nearly half of her 22 years. The night before, […]
Posted inEducation, Equity, News, Politics and Government
Lamar High School is dropped from list of Colorado schools with banned mascots at 11th hour
A state board on Tuesday removed Lamar High School from a Colorado list of schools with banned mascots, meaning it narrowly avoided potential fines up to $25,000 per month that could have started this month. The Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs board voted 8-2 at a special meeting to take Lamar off the list, contingent […]
Posted inEducation, News
Colorado’s teacher evaluation system is set to change. Here’s how.
Teacher evaluation is getting an update in Colorado, more than a decade after the state last overhauled its system. Starting with the 2023-24 school year, students’ standardized test scores will play a smaller role in teachers’ ratings, rubrics will be more specialized to reflect different jobs, and teachers with consistently high scores will face less […]
Posted inEducation, News, Politics and Government
New Colorado teachers eligible for loan forgiveness, student teaching stipends
Colorado student teachers will have access to up to $22,000 in stipends, and teachers who started their careers during the pandemic and have stuck with it can qualify for up to $5,000 in loan forgiveness, under a bill signed into law this week. Removing Barriers to Educator Preparation dedicates $52 million from federal relief money to […]
Posted inEducation, News
44% of Colorado voters think schools are on the wrong track, poll reveals
Two years into the pandemic and amid intense political polarization, more Colorado voters think schools are on the wrong track, according to a new survey from polling firm Magellan Strategies. In reviewing survey respondents’ conflicting reasons for pessimism, Magellan Strategies founder David Flaherty said intense rhetoric from conservatives seems to be driving those negative views among […]