For the first time in six years, Denver Public Schools students’ test scores and graduation rates have earned Colorado’s largest school district one of the top marks on the state’s academic framework.
DPS has received a “green,” or Accredited, rating from the Colorado Department of Education, meaning the district met expectations in most academic performance areas during the 2024-25 school year, according to preliminary data released by the state agency Wednesday.
The district previously held a yellow rating, meaning the state viewed DPS as lower-performing when it came to standardized test results, academic growth, graduation rates and other measures. The last time DPS held a green rating — the second highest on the framework — was in 2019.
“I knew this day — just like COVID recovery — was going to come,” Superintendent Alex Marrero said. “…We’re in a better space.”
DPS’s improved ranking comes months after Marrero announced a new districtwide policy that could see schools close for poor performance.
Under the policy — called the School Transformation Process — DPS will close a school once it has spent four years on the state’s Accountability Clock. District officials will also try to improve academic outcomes by replacing staff or changing how a school operates — and conversations around such changes could begin in the coming months, Marrero said in an interview Wednesday.
“We potentially have some schools that may go on to this next year,” he said of the School Transformation Process.
The goal of the districtwide policy, Marrero has previously said, is to turn schools around before the state intervenes.
DPS said the district now has 23 schools on the state’s Accountability Clock — meaning their ratings are low enough that they are ticking toward state intervention — which is down from 25 last academic year. Eleven of the schools that were on the clock last year fully exited this year, according to the district.
The state’s ratings are color-coded. Red is the lowest score and means that a school or district is among the lowest performing in the state.
Districts with the highest rating — Accredited with Distinction — are blue, while the highest rating for individual schools is green. Both ratings mean that students are meeting or exceeding expectations in most academic areas.
One DPS school — Columbine Elementary — saw its individual rating jump from orange to green, meaning the school is no longer on the Accountability Clock.
“This is the result of the groundwork that has been laid over the past several years on the focus of the science of reading,” Columbine Principal Corey Jenks said. “…A lot of it is the culture we have… High expectations for ourselves as well as high expectations for our students.”
Other DPS schools saw their ratings drop enough to place them on the clock this year, including both Maxwell Elementary and Munroe Elementary. Both schools were among the six to receive red ratings this year, according to state data.
Abraham Lincoln High — which is in its eighth year on the clock for having some of the lowest PSAT and CMAS scores in the state — also improved academically, going from red to yellow, which is the second-highest rating possible.
Statewide, DPS is one of 84 school districts and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, to hold a green rating. Other metro-area districts with such ratings include the Cherry Creek School District, the Douglas County School District and Jeffco Public Schools.
Only 17 districts or BOCES hold the highest rating — blue — and only one of those K-12 systems, the Boulder Valley School District, is in the metro region.
“The steady progress in the school and district frameworks is a testament to the dedication and hard work of our students, staff and communities over the past few years,” Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova said in a statement.
Fourteen districts, including the Centennial School District, are on the Accountability Clock, meaning they received the two lowest ratings possible. That’s up from 11 schools during the 2024-25 academic year, according to state data.
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