Falcon School District 49 is in the middle of a major shift in its structural design. Four distinct Innovation Zones have emerged, and with them new ways of educating the students in the district.The District 49 Innovation Initiative was spurred on by The Innovation Schools Act of 2008, which the Colorado Senate originated. Since 2009, 22 schools in Colorado have been approved as Innovation Schools by the Colorado State Board of Education. Denver Public Schools is the only district in Colorado approved as an Innovation District.Through The Innovation Schools Act, the Colorado Department of Education has waived many of the state regulations. Schools have been granted the same freedom given to charter schools, without separating from the district or forming individual boards.Always at the core of the Innovation Initiative is increasing student achievement, said Susan Thomas, Falcon High School principal. With that in mind and with direction from the CDE, innovation options can include but are not limited to the following:
- School staffing
- Curriculum, instruction and assessment
- Class scheduling
- Accountability measures
- Provision of services
- Use of financial and other resources
- Faculty recruitment
- School governance
- Preparation and counseling of students
The D 49 Board of Education unanimously approved the shift to an Innovation Initiative in January 2011.As the district moves away from the standard structure to one of an Innovation District, several changes have occurred. The district has been divided into Zones, with each Zone containing at least one elementary school, one middle school and one high school. The Zones have been named and are separated as follows:
- Falcon Zone ñ Woodmen Hills Elementary School, Meridian Ranch
- International Elementary School, Falcon Elementary School, Falcon Middle School and Falcon High School
- Power Zone ñ Ridgeview Elementary School, Stetson Elementary School, Odyssey Elementary School, Skyview Middle School and Vista Ridge High School
- Sand Creek Zone ñ Springs Ranch Elementary School, Remington Elementary School, Evans International Elementary School and Sand Creek High School
- iConnect Zone ñ Banning Lewis Ranch Academy, Pikes Peak School of Expeditionary Learning, Rocky Mountain Classical Academy, Imagine Classical Academy, Patriot Learning Center and Falcon Virtual Academy
Each Zone has an innovation leader, who coordinates resources; trains and motivates teachers; builds community; and utilizes the skills of staff members and community members to ensure the availability of a high quality education to every student.Innovation leaders are Bob Felice for the Power Zone; Sean Dorsey for the Sand Creek Zone; Mark Carara for the Falcon Zone; and Kim McClelland for the iConnect Zone.ìThe Zones each have a feeder pattern that work together,î said Tammy Harold, board president. ìSo we thought why not let the high school teachers talk to the elementary teachers and say these kids need more of this and can you incorporate that more at your level.îìThis structure helps with the vertical articulation of standards,î said Monty Lammers, Falcon Zone curriculum director. Students entering middle school in sixth grade have the skill set they need to be successful through those years, he said; likewise for students entering high school in the ninth grade. The structure helps prevent dips in student achievement often seen in those grades, Lammers said.As stated in the Innovation Schools Act, Innovation’s purpose is to encourage and provide intentionally diverse approaches to education. ìNot every school has the same needs,î said Dustin Horras, Evans International Elementary School principal. ìInnovation allows us to do a better job of accounting for the different needs that each school has.ìBefore, the district offices were making decisions and filtering them down to all the schools that each have different needs and populations. With Innovation, we’re making the decision right there.îìWe looked at our schools, and our staff in those schools were the closest to the students,î Harold said. ìThey knew what those students needed to have (for) higher achievement.î Harold served on the board that approved the Innovation Initiative.The Innovation Act was also created to give schools greater autonomy and managerial flexibility. ìWe need the autonomy to be so much more agile to meet the needs of the students now and with Innovation we have the ability to do that,î Felice said.To obtain approval from the Colorado State Board to become an Innovation school, each school must provide an Innovation Plan. Lammers said, ìEvery individual school comes up with its own individual school plan. The School Advisory Council and the licensed staff all get a vote.îBefore the plan is submitted to the BOE for review and approval, three separate votes have to be taken, Lammers said. The licensed staff of the particular school has to approve it by 50 percent plus one in favor of the plan. The schoolís administration and the SAC must vote as well.Once the plans have been approved by the BOE, the plans will run for three to five years, Harold said. ìThey (the schools) can tweak bits and pieces of the plan without having to come back to the whole community,î she said. ìIf they find a certain group of students struggling in science, they might want to increase the time they’re doing science and incorporate science into something they aren’t struggling with.îìWe can change things now faster than ever before. Historically, we would have to go through a chain of bureaucracy,î Felice said. ìWe think that allowing the educators the autonomy to make decisions and make them quickly is the best way to go.îìDifferent Zones might decide one curriculum works better with their students and their staff than what the district had decided as a whole,î Harold said. ìBy the time we go through the approval process the way we used to go through it, it would take a year and those kids had already moved on. The new students coming in might not need that help and we could never really get caught up.îFelice also said that through the Innovation process, the Zones will be learning things faster than other districts about what works and what doesn’t, which is why each Zone is trying new things and communicating with each other about their successes and failures. ìI think this district is going to leap about 10 years in front of the other districts in the next two years,î he said.One common misconception is that the reorganization of the central offices and the Innovation Initiative are the same thing, Felice said. ìThe decisions rolled out simultaneously,î he said. ìThe decentralization of the central offices and reorganization into zones could have been done without the Innovation Schools Act. The decentralization gave us the autonomy to explore the Innovation Schools Act, which gives us the opportunity to remove obstacles that impede student achievement.îSome concerns have been voiced by parents like Analiza Ascio, who said that all the changes are confusing. She said she felt like going back to the way things were ñ for consistency.Jenny Breeding, International Baccalaureate coordinator at Evans, said, ìI think the state standards will provide the consistency we’re looking for,î She said she felt that Innovation can definitely work if the leaders are strong and there is plenty of communication and collaboration.Most of the district schools have submitted their plans to the BOE. All are awaiting feedback and approval.
