Save the Spanish Program at Pueblo Central High School

Hitting the Books: Deadline for San Isabel scholarships, D60 student artists recognized San Isabel Electric scholarship applications are due Feb. 15, a CSU Pueblo associate dean is selected for a national program and more education news.

Attention Central School Parents and Students:

For Parents and 8th graders attending the Recruitment meeting for Central on January 31 — ask the Principal - (1) how many live teachers are teaching Spanish full time ? Spanish should have the same number of courses being offered for enrollment as French and Italian offers! Ask for equity for Spanish and “hire Spanish Teachers” to accommodate the numbers of students wanting to learn Spanish with a live teacher! EQUITY for Spanish!

2023 -Still fighting for Programmatic Equity!

Equity for Spanish to be taught with a full time - live Spanish teacher! Just like Italian and French are being taught!
Only teaching 4 classes of Spanish when there is high demand for students who want to take Spanish but are placed in APEX class or forced to take Italian or Spanish is NOT acceptable!

New Board of Education members — (Thiebaut,Pannunzio, Cisneros) you have the power and local control to require the administration at Central and superintendent to reinstate the Spanish program and hire a Spanish teacher full time for Central!

Please help our students to learn Spanish with a live teacher; just like French and Italian are being taught. Do the right thing here!!!

Central Update

Recently, we were informed that four classes (fours hours a day) of Spanish are being taught now at Central with a live teacher. This Facebook effort for “ Save the Spanish program” to bring back Spanish has been successful! Thanks to all who wrote letters, appeared at board meetings and called or contacted board members.

Although, four classes of Spanish with a live teacher is a start, there is a long list of students who want to learn Spanish with a live teacher. Hopefully, more than one teacher will be hired so more students will be taught with a live teacher and not on APEX.

We just heard that Central is in “improvement” status (and no longer on the clock). D60 states they eliminated the Spanish teacher/program so funds could be used to hire a teacher for one hour to teach students in English and math to help with improving graduation rates.

However, the external management group did not recommend eliminating the Spanish program to improve graduation rates.

The superintendent, principal determined (without input from stakeholders) that elimination of Spanish program and live teacher was best way to get Central “off the clock.”
The funds to pay for a Spanish teacher were to be used elsewhere to improve Central; however, those funds were just recently used to hire hourly staff for tutoring purposes.

Because of the decision to remove live Spanish teacher, students were forced to take Spanish on APEX are passed (without a grade either pass or fail) so this helps Central’s graduation rates.

However, high “graduation rates” does not relate to actual learning. Data from the district shows that minority students are far behind in scores on testing compared to others in comparison to statewide data.

Please know that Central students must be treated equitably for “learning” to take place and be proud of their culture, traditions and language!

Thank you for following the “Save the Spanish Program” at Central Facebook — stay tuned…

Gloria

It is interesting that Clementi explains what local school boards are responsible for “including curriculum”however, D60 allows Central High School to be the only school without a live Spanish teacher teaching our students (Italian and French have live teachers at Central)! Where is the program equity for our students at Central?? “Shameful”

Please call your new board members (Thiebaut, Cisneros, Maes) to “Reinstate Spanish program” at Central! It is not micromanaging — it is giving our students the best way to learn Spanish — (just like Italian and French)!

What does a school board do?

Barb Clementi is a president of the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB) and a current member of the Pueblo D60 board. As president of CASB, she leads a board representing 175 school districts across Colorado.

"The school board is foundational in terms of how a district succeeds for its kids and its community," she said.

With Colorado being a "local control" state, local school boards and school districts may make decisions related to calendars, curriculum, graduation requirements, personnel and policy, according to the Colorado Department of Education.

Other important tasks for school board members include adopting budgets, working "hand-in-hand" with the district superintendent and cooperating with other board members, Clementi said.

"When the board itself can't talk things through enough to reach a consensus and when the board doesn't support the superintendent, it's the community and the kids that are detrimentally affected," she said.



New board will choose Pueblo D60's next superintendent

Pueblo D60 Superintendent Charlotte Macaluso's retirement will become effective on July 1, 2024. This means that the four board members elected in November, along with DeNiro, will likely be tasked with finding the district's next superintendent.

Processes for choosing a superintendent may vary, but often start with conversations between board members and the public about traits the next superintendent should have, Clementi said. Board members may then create a job description and requirements to send to an outside company.

After the outside company puts out a search for applicants, board members may screen and conduct interviews of qualified candidates. After interviews, which may be conducted publicly, board members will choose the next superintendent.

"It's a big process and it doesn't happen overnight," Clementi said

Thank you for celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with PHEF. We were proud to share this year's Hispanic Heroes Stamp Collection. There are so many amazing Hispanic leaders on a local, state, national, and international stage we can look to as pioneers, activists, and disruptors. Salud! Look for a whole new group of Hispanic Heroes again in 2024!

Regarding d60 superintendent retiring:

Hopefully, now, programmatic educational equity at Central High School can be provided for our Students to learn Spanish with a live teacher.

Sadly, under your watch; the Spanish program cut at a school that serves over 70 percent Latino students and is the ONLY high school in D60 without a full time live Spanish teacher for FOUR years; and Central continues to only offer four classes of Spanish with a live Spanish teacher; other students wanting to take Spanish are forced to take another foreign language and/or students are forced to take Spanish on APEX an inferior computer class that is monitored by a culinary arts teacher — all of this done so that Central can give passing grades to those students (it doesn’t matter that the students didn’t learn Spanish) just that they pass to improve GRADUATION rates and get off of turn around status— sadly all this happened under a Latina Superintendent!

Educational Equity did not happen for our students at Central High School! 😫😫😫

The School Board Vote is critical!
Real educational Equity will only happen when our students at Central are able to take Spanish with two or more live Spanish teachers as the other high schools have — invest in Central students — why treat them differently when it comes to teaching their cultural language of Spanish!

The Board of Education has the authority to reinstate the full Spanish Program at Central High School — Educational Equity for All students not just a chosen few! Do the right thing here — Reinstate A Full Spanish Program at Central High School — Invest in our Latino students wanting to learn their language with a live Spanish teacher!

Central High School Graduate - Major General Linda Urrutia-Varhall was the Guest Speaker at the Latino Veterans Profiles in Courage Awards Ceremony on Saturday Oct. 14, 2014!