Struggling elementary must decide next steps

Teachers at Lyn Knoll Elementary should get more than 20 minutes per day for planning, school officials should consider switching to a district-selected curriculum for literacy, and the school should find a way to survey neighborhood families who send their children to school elsewhere.

Those are some of the recommendations for improvement presented to Aurora’s school board by a committee overseeing the work at Lyn Knoll.

But because the school has a status that allows it more autonomy, those recommendations cannot be turned into mandates, committee members told the school board this week. Instead, school officials must now weigh the suggestions and decide which to follow.

Bruce Wilcox, president of the Aurora teachers union and member of the joint steering committee, said not every recommendation will “come to fruition,” but the most important thing is whether the school improves.

Rico Munn, Aurora Public Schools superintendent, recommended Lyn Knoll for turnaround after the school fell to the state’s lowest quality rating last year. Enrollment also dropped. But the Aurora school board voted instead to wait another year to see if the school itself can make improvements.

The union-led joint steering committee that wrote the recommendations offered to monitor and guide the school during the 2018-19 school year as it tries to improve.

“The purpose of the joint steering committee is to be a place the schools can go to and ask for guidance,” Wilcox said. “This is where it’s doing well.”

Lyn Knoll is one of three district-run schools in Aurora that have pilot status, which was created about 10 years ago when the district worked with its teachers union to create a path for schools to earn autonomy.

Chalkbeat Colorado is a nonprofit news organization covering education issues. For more, visit chalkbeat.org/co.