Superintendent hopes to expand learning programs

GRAND JUNCTION — Assistant District 51 Superintendent Steve Schultz expects the expansion of programs currently working with students in the district to increase student success as early as this year.

Programs that have been identifying and seeing to individual needs early, providing positive reinforcement for good behavior, getting teachers together to discuss what works and what doesn’t, and tracking student progress have produced success in the district for years, Schultz said.

But with CSAP test scores down the past few years, Schultz said at a school board meeting Tuesday it’s time to offer district-wide some additional programs that are now only offered in some schools, and ground in the lesson that students should be taught how to apply skills they learn in school, not just ape formulas then forget them. The district is also looking at increasing accessibility to “intervention hubs” — learning programs offered on the side to help students below proficiency catch up to their peers.

“We can’t stop the system long enough to bring everyone up to speed,” Schultz said.

Schultz said he’d like to see as many students as possible work hard and learn lots.

“The bottom line is high rigor, high relevance — that’s the goal for our students.”

If a learning tool isn’t working, throw it out, Schultz said, not tomorrow, but today.

Seeing to the learning needs of nearly 22,000 District 51 students doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer, Superintendent Tim Mills said.

“If there were one simple plan, every district in the country would be using it,” Mills said.

Ballot language for the district’s $184.9 million school bond issue was also approved at Tuesday’s meeting. The repayment of the bonds through a property tax increase of an estimated 6.91 mills will take up to $385 million, according to the ballot language, or $25 million annually.

The bonds would replace Orchard Mesa Middle School, offer money to buy land and make repairs, put additions on schools in Palisade, Fruita, Grand Junction and Orchard Mesa, build elementary schools in Fruita and North Grand Junction and high schools in Northwest Grand Junction and Orchard Mesa.

A second ballot question asks voters to approve a $6 million annual property tax increase to pay for operating and staffing the new schools.

Reach Emily Anderson at eanderson@gjfreepress.com.