Special APS board meeting could decide Hinkley teachers' fate

Photo by Heather L. Smith / The Aurora Sentinel

AURORA | A group of Hinkley High School teachers whose jobs are at risk could find out tonight whether they will keep their posts at the school next year.

The Aurora Public Schools District Board of Education will hold a special meeting tonight to vote on nonrenewal for more than 10 teachers from across the district. The agenda item is a holdover from last week’s board meeting, when the APS board voted 5-2 to reject the entire consent agenda and temporarily save the teachers.

Overland Scout free to publish on schedule for the rest of the school year, principal says

AURORA | Overland High School Principal Leon Lundie assured student journalists this week that they would be free to publish their newspaper without prior review for the rest of the school year.

In a meeting Monday with writers and editors from the Overland Scout, Lundie said the students would be free to run as many editions of the student paper as they could within their preapproved budget, and that the paper’s editorial content would not be reviewed or changed by school administrators. The meeting followed an earlier flap between the principal and the Scout staff, a conflict that stemmed from a specific story about the death of a student athlete.

APS to unveil community feedback during Feb. 28 Town Hall meeting

The Aurora Public Schools District is expected to unveil feedback next week from parents, staff and community members regarding millions of dollars worth of proposed cuts for the 2011-12 year.

A town hall meeting scheduled for Feb. 28 will include results from district-wide surveys distributed in the past weeks to K-12 teachers and staff, as well as parents and other community members. The surveys seek input on an wide-ranging set of proposed cuts for the coming school year, potential slashes designed to fill a total budget gap of about $25 million for the 2011-12 school year. The total budget for the coming year is about $500 million.

New graduation rate formula leaves out gains at Aurora schoools

Local gains in high school graduation rates aren’t easy to find in new data released by the Colorado Department of Education earlier this week.

Officials from the Aurora Public Schools and Cherry Creek School districts say graduation rates rose in the 2009-10 school year compared to 2008-09; both districts reported a rise of more than 3 percent. At APS, for example, overall graduation rates rose by 3.3 percent to more than 58 percent, a boost that reverses the downward trend from the past decade.

But district officials from both APS and Cherry Creek say the increases aren’t reflected in new statistics from the CDE, data that uses a new formula to define graduation rates according to “on-time” completion, or students who graduate from high school in four years. 

William Smith High School Open House rescheduled for Feb. 16

An open house event at William Smith High School designed to show how much progress the pilot school has made in the past two years has been rescheduled for Feb. 16.

The event, which was canceled last week due to snow, will take place at 6 p.m. next Wednesday at the William Smith campus at 400 Airport Blvd. The event will be open to parents, students and community members from the Aurora Public Schools District.

CU School of Medicine prof wins national honor

Photo by Gabriel Christus / The Aurora Sentinel

J. John Cohen has spent years simplifying science for the masses.
The University of Colorado School of Medicine immunology professor was one of the driving forces behind the "Mini Med" class series, an annual lecture group that teaches the basics of medicine to anyone who is interested. In addition, Cohen has encouraged discussion and intellectual exchanges at the university, pioneering projects like the Cafe Scientifique and the Cafe Pedagogique.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science will recognize Cohen's efforts with its 2010 Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology, a prize Carl Sagan received in 1995.

APS, Cherry Creek classes canceled for Wednesday, 2/2

Schools in the Cherry Creek School and Aurora Public Schools districts will be closed on Wednesday due to adverse weather conditions.
For a second day in a row, Cherry Creek and APS district officials said weather conditions would be too dangerous for students to travel to school. Citing record low temperatures, district officials said the cold was too dangerous for students traveling long distances to school.