Educated, affluent Jefferson County, Colorado is a suburb located West of Denver. Jeffco Schools is the nation’s 37th largest school district, serving 80,000 students with an annual budget of $1.4 billion. New Superintendent Tracy Dorland commissioned an independent investigation into Jeffco’s poor and declining student achievement results. It’s finding are…

At every school board election, teachers unions and their allies tell voters that, “we need teachers on the school board.” Just as predictably, the candidates unions endorse are often former teachers, parents or spouses of teachers, or members of advocacy groups that are teachers union allies. But is this claim…

Nuestra nueva superintendente Tracy Dorland ha anunciado la ambiciosa meta de convertir una vez más las escuelas de Jeffco en uno de los distritos de mayor rendimiento en la nación. Pero fracasará sin una Junta de Educación profesional y competente que apoye sus esfuerzos. Yo apoyo fuertemente la elección de…

Since the 1950s, organizations around the world have used a systematic performance improvement process that is frequently attributed to W. Edwards Deming and Toyota Motor Company. Its four steps are summarized as “Plan”, “Do”, “Study”, and “Act”. In the study step, the root causes of shortfalls between intended and actual…

New Superintendent Tracy Dorland has announced an ambitious goal of once again making Jeffco Schools one of the highest performing districts in the nation. But she will fail without a competent, professional Board of Education to support her efforts. I strongly endorse the election of Jeff Wilhite, Theresa Shelton, and…

On September 1, 2021, the Colorado Department of Education released district level results for the 2021 CMAS. In Jeffco, they paint a picture of substantial learning losses. Business as usual will not recover these losses. …

Memorial Day (May 31st) marks the start Tracy Dorland’s seventh week as the CEO (Superintendent) of Jefferson County Public Schools, the United States’ 37th largest school district, with an annual budget of over a billion dollars to serve about 84,000 children. Jefferson County is an educated, affluent suburb located west…

Since we moved to Colorado eleven years ago from Alberta (which has one of the world’s highest performing K12 education systems), I’ve heard the same answer over and over again when I questioned why our local district performed so poorly: “We need more money.” To be sure, this was always…

With little or no public awareness, a proposal has been making it way through Jeffco schools to have the district use somewhere between $17 and $35 million in county taxpayers’ money (more with interest) to build an Olympic Natatorium in West Arvada to replace the current Meyers Pool. This proposal…