In order to ensure that every student has access to a high-quality school that prepares them for a lifetime of opportunity, we must build commonly agreed upon, community-driven expectations for our schools.
This rubric was built through a series of consultations with community leaders, parents from pre-K, elementary, middle, high school across all regions in Denver. In summer 2018, we had over 100 1:1 conversations with Denver families, where we asked a series of normed questions to identify common values around quality. We then took those responses and aligned them with the nationally recognized Denver Public Schools School Quality Rubric, the rubric that DPS uses during their Call for New Quality Schools. We identified areas of alignment between what we heard in the community and the research-based practices in the School Quality Framework and, with the help of incredible parent leaders and thought partners, we created a parent version of the School Quality Framework. The TEN Parent Leader Council, a council of parent leaders from across the city, gave the final round of feedback on April 21, 2019. We then presented the rubric to the Denver Public Schools Office of Portfolio Management to ensure that we included all the quality measures that they look for when accessing quality programming as experts. Below is the TEN Great Schools Framework, A framework built to empower parents to know what common expectations that we all must have for our schools. We see parents as the leaders of improving our schools and we know that setting community-wide expectations are essential to that empowerment.
We believe that all children are brilliant and that we must build systems to adequately nurture that brilliance. Below is our community designed framework meant to set a baseline for our expectations of our schools.
My Teacher and School Community
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- My child’s teacher updates me on my child’s progress regularly by writing monthly on my student’s progress relative to standards/grade-level expectations.
- The staff at my child’s school is diverse.
- I know that the staff at my child’s school is evaluated and coached regularly.
- The staff at my school makes an effort to engage the community.
- The school has a public plan to keep quality teachers.
- I am informed of the type of ongoing training and support my teachers and school staff receive.
- Teachers at my school have the opportunity to expand learning into a culturally relevant curriculum.
- There are systems/structures at my school to create innovative approaches to achieve higher rates of proficiency and growth,
- There are simple and effective communication methods between the school and parents so I always know what is happening at my school.
- I know that great teachers are staying at my school year after year.
- I know the academic goals of my student, my student’s grade level and entire school; and parents are updated on progress towards goals throughout the year.
My School's Instruction & Program
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- My school is assessing and providing necessary interventions to ensure my student is on grade level and making progress.
- My school is making the necessary student growth for students to advance to the next grade, on grade level.
- My school has quality programming to support students who speak English as a second language, students in special education and students identified as gifted and talented.
- My school communicates what my child is learning and their progress regularly outside of parent-teacher conferences.
- My school has a way to track student progress throughout the year in reading, writing, math, and science so that I can assure that my students are meeting grade-level expectations.
- My school invites parents to participate in classroom activities.
- My student is receiving the support that they need to be successful in the classroom including any required services.
- My school’s curriculum reflects the diversity of the community and incorporates multiple perspectives of multiple cultures.
- My school offers a variety of unique program opportunities for students to participate in.
- My school supports all learners through rigorous classwork and multiple systems of support to ensure all students achieve.
My School Leadership
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- The principal at my child’s school reports annually on strengths and challenges in supporting all students to meet expectations with a detailed reporting on how students like mine are doing.
- My school has a diverse leadership team.
- My school has a way of collecting feedback from families.
- My school makes intentional effort to inform families of what data/feedback was collected and how it will be used moving forward.
- My school has the freedom to make decisions about how to serve their community.
- I am informed of the type of ongoing training and support my school leaders receive.
- There is regular communication from school leadership regarding the progress, challenges and academic success of my school.
- I know how my school leader is evaluated.
- Parents are involved in the hiring process of the school.
My School Culture
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- My school has values that students can tell you about.
- My school creates a safe environment for all students including the number of students in a single class.
- The staff at my school has ongoing training on how to be supportive of all students from all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
- My school manages student behavior that prioritizes learning and youth development.
- My school has high expectations and high support for all students.
- My school has a pathway for parents to be leaders in the school community.
- School staff prioritizes building relationships with families.
- Parents play a role in the hiring process for teachers, leaders, and staff.
- Social-emotional learning is proactive and is based on youth development principles.
- Teachers are supported by classroom management through a variety of youth development tools/training.
- School culture supports and enforces high personal and academic expectations but is not punitive.
- Parents are viewed as partners with the opportunity for ownership and leadership in school decisions.
- The culture of the students, families, staff, and community is visible and celebrated.
- School culture emphasizes and develops self-advocacy.
- Schools recognize the context of the community and take steps to provide supports for staff to ensure implicit/explicit biases are addressed