Parent Voice: Ana Orozco Testimony
My name is Ana Orozco, I am a member of the TEN Parent Leader Council and a parent in Denver Public Schools. My daughter, Kayla, went to Polaris and is now in her first year of Middle School at Morey.
Kayla has been able to have access to schools that are preparing her for a great and ambitious life. However, there have been many times along the way that I wished that I had more of an understanding about what I should be looking for in my school and what rights I have as a parent to ask for improvements when I see them necessary.
I have been working with TEN for over a year now, and known Ariel since 2010. Gaining more resources about how to best support my student and all students, learning more about advocacy and understanding student progress has been essential to my success so far as a parent in DPS.
I am here this evening to present to the Board our Great Schools Framework, a framework that TEN has been creating with community for a year and is the result of hundreds of conversations with families and experts on school quality. We created this rubric to help parents know what to look for in their schools. We believe that when parents have common expectations of our schools, we can be better partners in success.
We look forward to a year of parent power, where parents know what to look for in our schools and are ready to ask for additional support when we feel it is necessary. As the district engages in the Reimagining SPF conversations, my request of this district is very simple:
Love our children enough to hold them to high expectations. Our children are so bright, they have limitless potential. That means challenging ourselves to meet them there.
Thank you for loving my daughter enough to insist that she receive a high quality education, thank you for your belief in all kids. Thank you for not lowering the bar because it was easier, but having the courage to hold our kids to higher expectations than the state. It is completely unacceptable to think that the State of Colorado labels schools green when only 3 out of 10 kids are reading on grade level. I am proud that DPS has always held our students to higher expectations than that. We have to believe that 10 out of 10 kids can achieve and then create the systems in which that can happen.
Thank you.