During the 2023-24 school year, the Poudre School District administration formed a Facilities Planning Committee to address financial implications of student-based funding. The action group, primarily consisting of district employees, made preliminary recommendations in October, 2023, and after lengthy public hearings, the School District Directors formally identified several neighborhood schools for closure, with the intention of transporting students to consolidation sites, as necessary under the plan. However, for various reasons the initiative was paused on May 20, 2024, with lingering questions emerging. These issues remain unresolved. Thus, after the expenditure of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of staff and volunteer time, the question that remains is “Why wasn’t the School Closure and Consolidation Plan adopted?”

Read More

Poudre School District authorized a “Debt Free Mill Levy* proposal for the November general election. Thanks to the work of interested citizens, District teachers, and Board members, the proposition passed in the November 5, 2024, general election, approving taxes for up to $49,000,000 annually and increasing with the rate of inflation. Therefore, more general fund revenue will be available to maintain and improve the quality of schooling – including teacher compensation, building maintenance, small school equity, and various supplies and materials. Within these parameters, however, a great many questions must be asked and answered before a sound decision can be made.

Read More

As all parents and teachers know, our children grow and change in many ways throughout their lives. There are huge aspects of their growth and development that happen by the time they are young adults, both in schools and outside of them. Different kids grow in different ways at different times of their lives. They need a welcoming and supportive place in which to do this, regardless of who they are or how they identify themselves, in the process. It is a complex experiment in the balance between nature and nurture. Kids’ families, the schools they attend, and the homes in which they spend the vast majority of their waking hours are important pieces in the puzzle of helping kids achieve success and satisfaction in their lives.

Read More

This seems like an “All hands on deck!” moment in Poudre School District, to me, at present. Federal funding has been cut, a school closure and consolidation plan is up in the air, and recent legal matters have eaten into precious district resources. As an educator, a citizen, and a taxpayer, I am very concerned. The only way we will ever work our way out of this predicament will be to work together on it, from where the rubber meets the road to the “higher” institutional levels of policy and decision makers, as well as from top to bottom.

Read More

As a former teacher educator who still works in the field occasionally, I often wonder what it is about teaching that only about 50% of teachers love it enough to stay in the profession for their entire careers, and/or seek different kinds of related professional opportunities in public school districts. Teaching as a profession has too often resulted in burnout, even if there are many legitimate explanations of why this might be so.

Read More

Sometimes—and I am guessing less often than we realize—charter schools have been used to good purpose to create learning environments that kids would not otherwise have access to. When certain ones originally sprang up and to their credit, they filled gaps in the public system and some still do. But the use of the word “choice” as a marketing tool when no one knows what is being spent of taxpayers’ money to support them, is unconscionable in a system that never seems to be adequately funded to meet its objective of serving “every child, every day,” in the first place. It is hard to know whether the disappearance of that slogan from District stationery, website landing pages, and other places it belongs in publicity about the District signals surrender with regard to achieving an admittedly lofty aspiration, or possibly worse.

Read More

Relationships between school boards and superintendents require an effective balance, but that balance can be tilted toward board member micromanagement or toward superintendent’s authoritarian control. Thus, to formally balance roles and operations, John Carver constructed a model that clearly defined the collective board’s responsibility as envisioning “ends” or “outcomes,” designating superintendent as being responsible for determining the “means” for achievement the corporate “ends.” It is commonly termed “Policy Governance.” The current governance and administrative structure for Poudre School District provides for some very specific limitations and requirements related to articulating the chain of command in the district. Policy governance effectively restricts the Board of Education’s official and supervisorial role over district staff to that of “supervisor of the superintendent.” The superintendent is the Board’s one employee, in this sense, and Board members aren’t allowed to interfere with the execution of any staff member’s duties by “jumping” the chain of command, in any way.
Read More