Commitment to Black Excellence

In alignment with the DPS focus on equity and the DPS Board of Education “Know Justice, Know Peace” and “Black Excellence Resolution,” Denver Online is deeply committed to the success of all of our students and is committed to analyzing and identifying areas for improvement each year.  Our vision for our BEP this school year is to ensure our action steps are focused enough to know we can (a) gather appropriate data, (b) make data gathering more automated, and (c) continuously set goals at times we can impact outcomes. In order to be successful at engaging our Black families, the Denver Online team must engage in experiences designed to support culturally responsive instruction, destruction of implicit bias and implement strategies to better engage our Black families and students in the continued improvement of the school. 

As part of our commitment, we engage our Instructional Leadership and School Leadership Teams in ensuring that we are supporting Black excellence at our school. Below are our areas of focus for the 2023-24 school year:

• Data Monitoring – One challenge in implementing our BEP last year was data gathering. This year we are including strategies for gathering demographic information at events and including grading groups for our black students in order to more efficiently gather data to analyze. Additionally, we are setting goals in order to allow for year over year improvement data independent of other school demographics.
• Academics – Currently, we are seeing a gap of 11% at the high school level and 12.9% at the middle school level between our Black students and the general school population in the area of English Language Arts. Our goal this year is to decrease those gaps by 5% during the 2023-24 school year.
• Rigorous Course Enrollment – Our team has identified a gap in the number of our Black students engaging in concurrent enrollment (college courses). Our goal is to increase the enrollment of our Black students into college courses by 20% during the 2023-24 school year.
• Gifted/Talented Programming – Our team will ensure that we are engaging our Black gifted and talented students in the programming we are offering, as well as identifying and supporting our Black students.
• School Events and Functions – As part of our commitment to providing students with a vibrant school experience, we will be working to engage and support our Black families in accessing our school functions. We hope to increase the attendance of Black families at school events by 20%.

Denver Online believes that all students should have the opportunity to achieve at a high level and demonstrate their excellence. We believe that, by having strong monitoring systems, academic intervention and building a culture where we are carefully problem-solving for our students at the school and individual levels, we will ensure their educational excellence. Should you have any questions related to Denver Online’s Black Excellence Plan, please contact Principal Ian Jones at ian_jones@dpsk12.org.