D 49 adds new admin positions

Falcon School District 49 has in the past few months added a few new administrative positions, including a coordinator of cultural capacity, a director of concurrent enrollment and a technology support assistant.Peter Hilts, chief education officer, said the new positions are necessary ìto be the best district to learn, work and lead.îBeing sensitive to all cultures within the district ensures a ìwelcoming and supportive environmentî for students, Hilts said.ìNo single person has been charged with that previously so this leader (coordinator of cultural capacity) will have an important support function to help teachers, leaders, zone leaders and all to help all of us support students,î he added.Hilts said every employee should feel that D 49 is a great place to work. The coordinator of cultural capacity will also work with the staff.The need for a director of concurrent enrollment stemmed from district growth. The districtís career and technical education placement program has tripled in terms of students, teachers and budget, Hilts said. ìThe director of career and technical education was doing some of the concurrent enrollment that is related to CTE but nobody was really working with the academic and college prep side of concurrent enrollment,î he said.Hilts said they will offer an advanced education option for gifted students, and the director of concurrent enrollment will ìgenerate millions of dollars of valueî by negotiating agreements with local colleges and universities to allow D 49 students to ìearn free college tuition and credit while still in high school.î ìThere is legislation in Colorado that allows schools to prepay for tuition for students to earn college credit,î Hilts said.ìBy taking certain classes, they get both college credit and high school credit, and we will fund the tuition. If the student is not successful in the class, they reimburse the district.îIn the past couple of years, the district has rolled out new technology; which creates a need for a technology support assistant, Hilts said. ìDistricts are famous for buying a lot of equipment but not providing technical support for them,î he said. ìRight now, we have just one person to handle tech support and this (new position) is just the first additional staff person to handle those thousands of devices that weíve added.îThe districtís organizational chart shows the new positions but also indicates positions that have been consolidated, Hilts said. According to the chart, the district has 27 administrators. The Colorado Department of Educationís website lists 23 principals in the district as well. The CDE list of administrators and principals includes other local districts.

• Lewis-Palmer District 38: nine administrators, 10 principals
• Colorado Springs District 11: 55 administrators, 74 principals
• Academy District 20: 37 administrators, 38 principals

If a district is not required to report an administrator position per state statute, the position could be excluded from the list.Nanette Anderson, public information officer for D 20, said, ìIíve been here for 17 years and it (the organization chart) has been exactly like this. The addition of a chief of security and transportation was six years ago but that was the most recent addition of an entire position. This is the set up and it works for us.îHilts said that while it might appear that the district is aggressively hiring and creating positions, there are still fewer administrators now than six years ago, even though the student count is higher.Matt Meister, D 49 director of communications, said that since a district-wide reorganization in 2010, the number of students per administrator position has risen from 185 to 219. Meister said that during the 2010-2011 school year, the districtís central office administrators and assistants numbered 53; and, currently that number is 34.