#1 - Deliver High-Quality Education (HQE) to All Students
A high-quality education exposes students to a broad curriculum and activities focused on the development of 21st-century skills.
Increasingly, success beyond high school on either a college or career path will require proficiency in:
Key subjects such as language arts, mathematics, science, and civics
Interdisciplinary topics such as health, financial literacy, economics, business, and entrepreneurship
Creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration
Digital literacy
Social and cross-cultural competence
Flexibility and adaptability
Initiative and self-direction
Within this context, it is imperative that DPS students demonstrate proficiency or above in language arts and math; if not, they must demonstrate more than one year’s growth each school year. Schools must have plans in place to accelerate learning among students who are behind due to COVID or other circumstances in order to close achievement gaps for students of color, those experiencing poverty, English Language Learners (ELL), and those with special needs. All students should be assessed for English language fluency and any social or emotional challenges that may hinder their academic progress. As needed, students should be set up with language acquisition support or mental health services.
Board members pledge to:
Increase the percentage of students who receive a HQE annually, as described above, with particular emphasis on proficiency and student growth.
Close gaps for students of color, those experiencing poverty, ELL, and those with special needs.
Evaluate the Superintendent based on ability to increase the percentage of students who receive a HQE; use proficiency, student growth, and achievement gap data in the evaluation.
Require schools with less than 60% of students who are proficient to be evaluated annually and supported with a tailored, tiered intervention plan.
Examine the School-Based Budgeting formula to ensure that weights support adequate differentiation of instruction and services required to close achievement gaps.
Support the ELL population with diverse, highly qualified teachers and targeted programming.
Support whole-child development for ALL students by working to incorporate social-emotional programming and a curriculum designed to develop 21st-century skills (including life and career skills) into everyday learning.
Student Outcomes
90% of students will be proficient or above in language arts and mathematics.
90% of students who are not yet proficient in language arts or mathematics will exceed one year of growth year over year in these subjects.
Achievement gaps for students of color, those experiencing poverty, ELL, and those with special needs will decrease by 10% year over year .
All students will be screened annually for social or emotional support services.
All students will be exposed to age-appropriate life skills curriculum.
The percentage of students participating in work-based learning while at DPS will increase 10% year over year.
90% of students will successfully matriculate to college, CTE, military, or career pathways.
