Gilpin Facility Placement Application Program Summary: 1. Please complete the below table providing key information about your school. Name of School Downtown Denver Expeditionary Middle School Grade Configuration (Year-1-New 2019 6-7 schools only) Grade Configuration (Full Build) 6-8 or open to future K-8 configuration or shared space Model/ Focus (e.g. Dual Language, Expeditionary Learning STEM, etc.) EL Education Whole Child Learning Current Address 1860 Lincoln Primary Contact (name, email, mobile Letia Frandina, phone) [email protected] 3035850470 2. Provide an overview of your school model, including your mission and key instructional elements. The Downtown Denver Expeditionary School (DDES) is currently an EL Education K-5 DPS public charter school looking to offer a continuum for 6-8. We are a public-funded community charter school with no intentions to expand in to a network. DDES seeks to richly implement the core principles, practices, and curriculum of EL Education to offer a diverse, caring and collaborative learning environment while utilizing the city as our campus. Our vision of student achievement has three dimensions: mastery of academic skills and content, high-quality work, and character. A component of our mission is to fully utilize the resources that surround us to create meaningful, deeper learning opportunities for students embedded in the local community. DDES students have danced at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, presented transportation reports to travelers at Union Station, formally opposed a proposed bill that would relocate or exterminate prairie dogs during a meeting of representatives at the Colorado State Capitol and learned from our refugee community in Emily Griffith Technical College. EL Education’s approach to curriculum makes subjects come alive for students by connecting learning to real-world issues and needs. The EL model provides academically rigorous learning expeditions, case studies, projects, fieldwork, and service learning projects to children of all backgrounds and ability levels. It inspires students to think and work as professionals do, contributing high-quality work that would be appreciated beyond the classroom. Students explore subjects through working on in-depth meaningful projects inside and outside the classroom. These projects are carefully planned “learning expeditions” encompassing the Colorado State Academic Standards and the Common Core Standards for each grade level. 3. Provide your projected enrollment for the next five years in the table below. Grade 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 6 0 60 60 75 75 7 60 60 75 1 8 60 60 9 n/a 10 n/a 11 n/a 12 n/a TOTAL 0 60 120 195 210 4. Provide your targeted demographics in 2018-19 based either on projections or current enrollment. % FRL %ELL % SPED % Students of Color 40 10 10 50 Criteria 1 – Academic Growth and Student Achievement DDEMS would be a new school and therefore, does not have a track record of performance, however our elementary program does. We believe our leaders are equipped to continue and strengthen this record. We adhere to a commitment to educating through academic achievement, high quality work, and character education. We share our proven track record of national normed measures of achievement at DDES and our next steps to further increase that achievement. We hope that you will also explore our EL Education Portfolio, this body of work coupled with three years of independent reviews and walkthroughs by the national network, enabled us to just receive credentialed status, the youngest school to achieve this -exceeding their national benchmarks in mastery of knowledge, character, and high quality work. See our entire portfolio here: http://ddeschools.org/elportfolio-2/introduction/ A). DDES Students demonstrate math and literacy growth and status that exceeds national norms as evidence by MAP, DRA and DIBELS, and PARCC. MAP DATA 2014,2015 (We eliminated MAP last year and have moved to ANet, see next steps) Our MAP data tells us that no matter what a student’s beginning proficiency level is, we are able to effectively meet their needs so they demonstrate adequate growth for the year. The NWEA Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment is a nationally normed assessment of students in math and reading. Students take the assessment in the fall and their scores are compared to students at the same grade level across the country who scored similarly. Then, using this comparison, a target is set for “typical” growth based on many years of normed student scores. Dr. John Cronin, Senior Director of Research at NWEA, has stated that only some excellent schools support 60-70% of students to meet or exceed their growth target. At DDES, our percentage of students meeting their growth targets in both literacy and math has fallen in this range since our opening year. 2 MAP Growth The DRA and DIBELS Chart below was recently prepared by DPS for the 2017 charter annual report. DDES has showed strong growth in literacy in all grade levels exceeding the benchmarks for 2016-2017. B). DDES students of color demonstrate strong growth and achievement in English Language Arts as evidence by MAP, DRA, DIBELS, and PARCC (PARCC data in statement C). To meet our mission, we seek to serve an integrated population. We strive to consistently employ culturally responsive techniques to meet the needs of all students. We also measure the performance of our student subgroups to ensure that all of our populations are growing and achieving at high rates. Achievement Data: DIBELS/DRA2 We have disaggregated our DRA2 and DIBELS data to measure the achievement for students of color at DDES. This assessment benchmarks students’ reading proficiency levels based on their ability to read accurately and fluently and demonstrate grade level comprehension. The “Literacy Benchmark” chart below shows the proficiency of students of color (percent proficient) as measured by our literacy benchmark assessments (DRA2 and DIBELS). This assessment measures students’ ability to read fluently, accurately, and comprehend grade level text. We’ve compared this sub-group’s average score to the Denver Public Schools proficiency benchmark for all 3 students. Students of Color at DDES exceeded district comparisons in most grades during the 14-15 and 15-16 school year. We are quite proud that in every grade level, students consistently exceeded the benchmark during the 2016-2017 school year. DIBEL and DRA Literacy Benchmarks for Students of Color 14-17 Growth Data: MAP We also took a closer look at this sub-group’s growth as measured by the MAP assessment. The charts below compare students of color to white students against the benchmark using the MAP projected growth targets. The data portrays the percent of students in each sub-group who met their projected growth target. NWEA’s growth target provides a comparison point for typical growth between DDES students and students who took the MAP assessment across the country. During the 2014-2015 school year, the percent of students of color who met their growth target exceeded white students and the benchmark in 1st and 2nd grade. During the 2015-2016 school year, the percent of students of color who met their growth target exceeded white students and the benchmark in all grade levels. This also shows that the cohort of students who were in 3rd grade in 2014-2015 demonstrated considerable growth by the end of their 4th grade year in 2015- 2016. C). In 2017, DDES outperformed the district and the state in PARCC ELA status, ELA growth and Math status. DDES students exceeded both district and state averages for proficiency on the 15-16 and 16-17 PARCC assessment. The PARCC test is a national assessment that is administered by Colorado schools as a component of their CMAS (Colorado Measures of Academic Success) assessment. This 4 assessment uses multiple choice, short response, and essay questions to determine if students are meeting the state standards. Only students in 3rd through 5th grade take this assessment, so we only have three years of status data and we will not have growth data for all three grades until 2017-2018 test. The chart below shows the percent DDES students on the English Language Arts assessment as compared to the state and district for the past two years. 2016-2017 2015-2016, 2014-2015 Next Steps: ANET Data and Data Teams, Math and Equitable Achievement It has been said, “What get’s measured gets done.” At DDES, we value the story that is told through traditional data sources such as the PARCC, DRA2, and MAP tests. In order to address student needs, we have created a data team process in order to regularly monitor student data, create instructional plans that meet students’ needs, and reflect on our instruction and assessment strategies. Late in the 2016-2017 school year, we began to utilize a formative assessment system from Achievement Network (ANet). Formative assessments are assessments that are used to drive instructional planning, rather than to benchmark students or see how they perform at the end of the year. We have been able to use our ANet results right away to create equitable differentiated instructional plans and closely monitor student progress. During our data team meeting, teachers analyzed the English Language Arts standards relevant to each of the ANet questions that were connected to their current unit of study. Based on the standards, they created a success criteria list for a text-based writing piece. Using this criteria, teachers determined the percent of students who met ALL of the criteria on the first assessment and created a scaffolding plan to support their students’ specific needs. Finally, teachers 5 administered a post-assessment and convened another data team to see which students demonstrated growth to determine next steps.