Author Archives: Bob Ward/Aspen Journalism

As pressure mounts for students to get the best grades and attend the best colleges, Aspen High staff members see students and parents taking more questionable actions to improve their odds. An “academic integrity” committee is exploring ways to change the culture.

The deal grew out of an awkward situation in which the general public stepped uninvited into a district staffing decision. But three months later, with both administrators having committed to stick around, stakeholders on all sides seem pleased.

The state-mandated PARCC assessments will test the same skills as TCAP and CSAP have for years — language arts and math — but they will be harder and will be administered electronically.

The idea of changing the school’s name came up in the context of the school’s ongoing $13.1 million renovation, which will result in a new main classroom building and gymnasium on the mesa-top campus in Woody Creek.

When it comes to drug and alcohol use, Aspen students go from relative innocence in eighth grade to higher-than-normal use in high school. This trend may be partially rooted in mistaken perceptions that “everyone is doing it.”

It took years for the Aspen Community School to convince state officials that, despite having the word “Aspen” in its name, the charter school was not rolling in money to rebuild its aging campus.

In the Aspen district, the 2014 graduation rate for all students was 99.3 percent, while the minority graduation rate was 100 percent. In the Roaring Fork district, the 2014 graduation rate for all students was 83.1 percent, and the rate for minority students was 74.5 percent.

A strange mix of politics and policy is playing out in the Roaring Fork School District, as the district’s governing board negotiates new employment contracts with its top administrators.

To many school officials, the coalition grades oversimplify the complex social, economic and ethnic equations at each individual school.