APS asks to begin work on Central High School sooner, not later

AURORA | Aurora Public Schools officials say a tight state deadline for restructuring long-struggling Aurora Central High School could lead to “chaos” next year and they are asking the state to start the process sooner.

Superintendent Rico Munn told the Colorado Board of Education last week during a meeting in Denver that the state’s time frame, which essentially calls for Central to dramatically restructure between spring 2016 and summer 2016, is unworkable.

Munn, who said he and other officials fully recognize Central needs to undergo massive change if it’s going to improve, asked the state to instead accept a restructure plan in June 2015 and give the school a full year to put it in place.

“That is not adequate time for us to do what we need to do,” Munn said of the state’s current timeline.

Members of the state board and Colorado Education Commissioner Robert Hammond seemed amenable to the plan and told Munn they’d consider accepting a plan at their June meeting.

The restructure options for Central include turning it into a charter school, letting an outside agency manage it instead of APS, installing an “innovation” model that would give staff more flexibility to make changes, or even closing the school — though district officials stress closure is not an option they support, and one they deem unlikely.

Munn backs the innovation path, something he said will allow staff there some autonomy for the school and give them the flexibility to improve student performance as they see fit. Plus, Munn has said, the model requires cooperation between staff, district leaders, state officials and others.

Last year, 60 percent of Central’s seniors graduated. That’s up from just 49 percent in 2010, but it still trails the state average of 77 percent.

Test scores are a mixed bag, with reading and writing scores up since 2010, but math and science down. And across the board, Central students are far behind the rest of the state. In writing, for example, just 21 percent of Central students were proficient or advanced last year compared to 51 percent statewide. In math, just 11 percent scored proficient or advanced compared to 36 percent statewide.

Under state law, schools like Central, which are placed on a five-year “Priority Improvement Plan,” have to launch dramatic changes after year five if they haven’t turned things around by the end of the fourth year. As of now, 30 other schools around the state are facing the same deadline.

Despite the struggles, APS officials say, the school has seen some improvement.

Chief Academic Officer John Youngquist noted that reading, writing and math have all showed some growth since summer 2013. Still, Youngquist said, considering how far Central has to go to become a top-performing school, that’s not enough progress.

“That may be healthy at a higher-performing school, but it’s not where we need to be,” he said.

The school needs to see substantial growth, Youngquist said, not the slow and steady growth it has seen.

“That incremental growth is no longer what we are looking for,” he said.

Lisa Escarcega, chief accountability and research officer for APS, said one of the issues facing Central and the surrounding schools in northwest Aurora is a heavy refugee population, which at Central makes up 10 percent of the student body. In many cases, Escarcega said, those students have never been in school their entire life before they arrive at Central and staff there have to try to get them to grade level.