• Professional Learning Communities. Introduced to the district in 2004, Professional Learning Communities is a model of school improvement that provides teachers and administrators with the time to get together at least once a week to analyze how well teaching strategies and curriculum are working, how well individual students are learning what they need to learn, and to generate ideas on how to improve each student’s performance. Several schools adopted the model as a pilot, and in Fall 2006, the district decided to adopt Professional Learning Communities in all schools. We spent the fall developing a school calendar that would provide teachers with 60 to 90 minutes of time each week to use Professional Learning Communities to improve student learning. We spent the remainder of the year identifying professional development programs and training administrators to prepare for this year's activities.

• Kid's Kamp After-School Enrichment Program. During our community discussions about Professional Learning Communities, we learned that our families wanted more enrichment activities offered during our elementary after-school child-care program. New Administrator for Special Programs Libby Culver took on the project of re-inventing our after-school program. She spent most of Spring 2007 generating community partnerships to offer our children more educationally enriching activities, hiring new site coordinators, and developing higher standards of safety. Her work last year has resulted in a significant increase in enrollment with more than three dozen community partners providing after-school activities for students.

• Administrative Retirements, Transitions, and Restructuring. Whenever employees leave the district, whether from resignation or retirement, their departure gives the district an opportunity to assess whether it needs to fill the position or create something different. With the retirement and resignation of many long-time principals and administrators during the past two years, we have taken the opportunity to restructure our administrative team to provide more comprehensive and systematic support to our schools. On of the most significant changes we made was the appointment of former Sunnyside Principal Victor Figueroa as our first-ever, full-time special education director to ensure that we systematically identify our special education and gifted students, provide them with the support services they need to meet clearly defined learning goals, and monitor their progress consistently. In addition to the special education appointment, we conducted five national searches for principals and administrators, and we made administrative transfers for Florida Mesa and Fort Lewis Mesa elementary schools. Our new administrators bring a wealth of talent and experience to our schools this year. You can read about the appointments on the "Overview" page.

• Supporting Our Families. If parents are their children's first teachers, then we need to ensure that our schools welcome families as partners in their children's educations. Last year, a leadership team of administrators, family literacy specialists, and Parent Partners attended a National Center for Family Literacy to learn how to support families more successfully so that families will be more successful supporting their children. They planned for new Partners-in-Education Centers that opened this fall in all our elementary and middle schools. The former Parent Partners have expanded their role as school-volunteer and special-events coordinators to become family education mentors. They're tackling the following goals:

- Creating welcoming school environments.

- Communicating information that families want to know in media they prefer.

- Developing trusting, open relationships with families.

- Providing families with information and strategies to support their children's learning experiences in the classroom.

- Providing educational opportunities for families to help their studetns learn their lessons.

- Developing leadership and mentoring skills among families so that they can support each other.

• School Based Health Centers. We know that healthy students learn better than students who don't feel well. But many families, especially in Durango, have difficulty providing their students with the health care they need. Last year, we received a grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to conduct a needs assessment among students and families to determine if they would access health services at a school-based health clinic. We surveyed more than 200 parents and guardians and 900 students. Nearly 70 percent of parents and 90 percent of students said they would seek services from the health clinic. We then obtained a $15,000 planning grant to develop partnerships with community health-service providers and opened the clinic in October 2007. You can learn more about the clinic by clicking on the video icon on the Goals 2007-08 page of this report.