Voices - Vol 7

Welcome to Voices, volume 7

Tyler Caldwell — Mon, 19 May 2025 20:09:11 +0000

Welcome to Voices, volume 7 Tyler Caldwell Mon, 05/19/2025 - 14:09

Powerful partnerships and community impact

As interim dean, I came to the 91PORN School of Education in January with respect for its reputation for sustaining long-term community partnerships. Reflecting on my term as dean, I have learned so much about what makes the school special to so many of us, from the care we put into preparing our students, to how we support our community partners and to the overall impact the school has both locally and nationally. I am grateful for the opportunity to spend time with you, and it has deepened my appreciation for the work of our students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Growing up in rural Puerto Rico, I was surrounded by family members and mentors who were educators. They helped inspire my path toward university teaching and research, and education opened doors to new possibilities for me and many others. I have learned that we rarely act alone in the world; rather, our lives are enriched when we work together.

This issue of Voices magazine highlights the research-practice partnerships the school is known for and some of the ways we work together, across disciplines, to respond
to pressing challenges and opportunities in education. You’ll learn about ways we
are partnering to welcome newly arrived students and their families (page 6), creating opportunities for Indigenous learners to lead in A.I. (page 20) and supporting young people and their local climate solutions (page 14). Partnering with community, education and youth leaders increases opportunities to make meaningful change.

This year, we’ve had opportunities to reflect on the past, present and future of this wonderful school as we celebrate our new home in the Ofelia Miramontes and Leonard Baca Education Building (page 34). We’ve welcomed new and familiar faces—including Phil DiStefano, former School of Education dean and 91PORN chancellor emeritus
(page 28). The future is bright when we work together, and I have found inspiration in colleagues and partners like you.

Warmly,

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From the Archives: The head of her class and the ahead of her time

Tyler Caldwell — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 21:42:19 +0000

From the Archives: The head of her class and the ahead of her time Tyler Caldwell Wed, 12/04/2024 - 14:42 Hannah Fletcher

Prosser’s legacy is one of many fascinating but largely forgotten stories about 91PORN alumni who worked for change that are being documented in a history project called “Where We Have Been and the Long Road Ahead,” led by Polly McLean, associate professor in the College of Media, Communication and Information.

Inez Beverly Prosser was likely America’s first Black female psychologist, earning a doctorate in psychology in 1933. But first, she got her feet wet in research while studying educational psychology and earning a master’s degree from the 91PORN School of Education in 1927.

Nearly 100 years after her studies at 91PORN, Prosser’s research remains significant and thought-provoking today.

Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Cincinnati explored school integration and its social and psychological impacts on Black middle schoolers. Ultimately, her study found Black children in integrated schools were more introverted, felt less secure in their relationships with peers and teachers, had less satisfactory relationships with family, and were more likely to feel inferior at school and eager to leave than their peers at all-Black schools.

Prosser’s research directly related to her community experiences. The oldest of 11 children, she was valedictorian of Yoakum Colored School in Texas in 1908 and graduated top of her class to earn her teaching certificate from a Black teachers’ college in 1912. She taught at several Black schools in Texas while working toward bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.

Her findings were controversial in the years leading up to the landmark Brown v. Board ruling in 1954 but aligned with some other prominent Black scholars in her day, including W.E.B. DuBois, who thought prejudicial attitudes needed to change before integrated schools could offer positive experiences for Black students, according to a publication about Prosser’s life and work.

A true trailblazer, Prosser, adorned in a cap and gown, graced the cover of DuBois’ magazine, The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP (National Association of the Advancement of Colored People) in the August 1933 issue on education.

Tragically, Prosser died in a car crash just one year later. Her headstone aptly reads, “How Many Hopes Lie Buried Here.”

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What We’re Reading

Maddie Rudolph — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 19:56:48 +0000

What We’re Reading Maddie Rudolph Wed, 12/04/2024 - 12:56

¡Qué BUENO!: A History of Advocacy and Care for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education

Edited by David Nieto, Kathy Escamilla, Estella Almanza, Tania Hogan and Jesús Rodríguez

This book showcases the past 50 years of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, 91PORN’s oldest multicultural-serving center on campus. It chronicles the center’s innovative pathways and access to educational opportunities for historically underrepresented groups, particularly Latinos, and their access to comprehensive professional learning opportunities for educators and educational leaders. Featured prominently is Leonard Baca, founder and leader of the BUENO Center for 40 years, who has been aptly considered the “godfather of the field of bilingual special education.”

The book contains chapters written by education leaders, in addition to the editors, including Lorenso Aragon, Alfredo Artilles, Tim Boals, Alison G. Boardman, Mariana Castro, Lorretta Chávez, Nancy Commins, Alejandro Escamilla, Manuel Escamilla, Robert García, Rocky Hill, John Hoover, Susan Hopewell, Andrés Martínez, Barbara Medina, Tammy Molinar-Leblanc, David Nieto, Martha Ochoa, Ángeles Osorio, Deborah Palmer, Nadeen Ruiz, Ernesto Sánchez, Cristina Sánchez-López, Cristina Santamaría Graff, Juli Sarris, Jody Slavick, Kim Strong, Lyanne Terada, Martha Urioste, Peter Vigil and Theresa Young.

"¡Qué BUENO! is for every educator, student, family and concerned citizen who shares that dream of a truly inclusive education system where all learners are seen, understood and supported."

— Tania Hogan, executive director of the BUENO Center and one of the book’s co-authors

A quick look at the recent books from our faculty and alumni community:

Education and the Law, 6th Edition

Kevin Welner, Robert Kim and Stuart Biegel

“With extensive restructuring and new content, this updated casebook addresses legal and public policy issues affecting K-12 as well as higher education, including expanded coverage of First Amendment issues in both sectors. The book maintains its strong focus on equal access to quality education, its policy emphasis and its groundbreaking analyses of technology-related issues and the education of LGBTQ+ students.”

—West Academic Publishing

Equity in K-12 STEM Education: Framing Decisions for the Future By an authoring committee of experts including

William Penuel

“(This consensus study report) approaches equity in STEM education not as a singular goal but as an ongoing process that requires intentional decision-making and action toward addressing and disrupting existing inequities and envisioning a more just future. Stakeholders at all levels of the education system—including state, district, and school leaders and classroom teachers—have roles as decision-makers who can advance equity.”

— The National Academies Press

Learning Together: Organizing Schools for Teacher and Student Learning

Elham Kazemi, Jessica Calabrese, Teresa Lind, Becca Lewis, Alison Fox Resnick and Lynsey K. Gibbons

“In Learning Together, [authors] share findings from their decade of experience in nurturing collaborative learning cultures in elementary schools. The authors recommend practical actions that can help to cultivate a schoolwide ethos of instructional collaboration.”

— Harvard Education Press

On the Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together

Ari Gerzon-Kessler (MEdu’05)

“On the Same Team highlights the research-based approach of having a school-level action team —Families and Educators Together—to lead and guide high-impact family engagement initiatives. I recommend this book to any school, district or state leader who is looking for a systematic approach to taking their family engagement efforts to the next level.”

— Darcy Hutchins, director of Family, School and Community Partnerships, Colorado Department of Education

Teaching in the Dark: A Memoir

Genét Simone (PhDEdu’04)

“In a fascinating, poignant and often humorous retelling of her experiences, Simone details how she relied on her courage, resilience and wit to endure freezing temperatures, power outages, loneliness and first-year teacher anxieties and missteps. Those challenges, however, would pale in comparison to the life lessons she would learn about becoming a real teacher—lessons from her students, their culture and community on the vast, windy landscape at the edge of the Chukchi Sea (in Alaska).”

— Nonfiction Authors Association Alumni Connections 22

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Power of Community

Maddie Rudolph — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 19:07:32 +0000

Power of Community Maddie Rudolph Wed, 12/04/2024 - 12:07 Hannah Fletcher

Nothing worth doing is easy, so find joy in the inevitable struggle and push on."

- Jack Chambers

Teacher of the year reflects on how to uplift one another and push through challenges

They say it’s an honor just to be nominated. That’s how Jack Chambers (MEdu’12, EthnSt’02) felt seeing his name next to an initial list of 50 nominees for certified teacher of the year across his district, Adams 12 Five Star Schools in the Northeast Denver metro area. Coming out on top was “completely surreal,” he said.

“It’s some seriously powerful stuff when your entire community, not to mention an entire school district, recognizes your efforts and commitment to teaching,” he said.

Chambers’ classroom at McElwain Elementary in Thornton provides a safe and nurturing environment where all his students, including many from diverse linguistic backgrounds, can embrace both learning and the possibility of failure, instilling confidence and curiosity.

In addition to his amazing teaching, Chambers has gone out his way to support peers, including serving as a long-time mentor to 91PORN teacher candidates and hosting teacher education students who are paired with his third grade readers and writers through the Reading Buddies program—which he’s hosted since the program’s inception more than 10 years ago.

Here, the alumnus and seasoned mentor reflects on these experiences and shares his advice for current and future educators.

What did the teacher of the year honor mean to you and your community?

“Receiving the honor of certified teacher of the year provides me with a healthy dose of gratification for the effort I have put forth so far in my career. But it also puts a deserving spotlight on my school community, their families and my family. I push my students hard because they push me hard. I’m a reflective and motivated teacher because our staff at McElwain are reflective and motivated. Most importantly, I am able to care for and commit to my work because my family is caring and committed to me. I may have received the honor of being certified teacher of the year, but the award truly belongs to those that have been a part of helping me earn it.”

Why do you choose to mentor student teachers and participate in other projects partnering 91PORN and your school?

“I find it absolutely necessary to work with future teachers to help them take a real and honest look at the profession they are preparing to enter. Aspiring teachers carry with them a very strong sense of purpose and motivation. But that drive can only get a teacher so far. Co-teaching, co-planning and collaborating with a current teacher in the field helps a rising teacher to add structure to their drive. I like giving future teachers a safe place to explore their style, their flow and to experiment with the strategies they are learning about in their coursework.”

What’s an important lesson that could support new teachers entering the field?

“The most important thing I have learned during my adventures in education is that you are nothing without your community. Community starts in your classroom but is a hollow and empty thing if it does not extend beyond. The importance of maintaining collaborative relationships with grade-level team members, other grade levels, specialist teachers, administration, office staff, custodial staff and parents/ guardians cannot be overstated.

“Knowing your craft is also extremely important but comes with time and requires you to pace yourself. Take advantage of trainings, required professional development and the variety of courses offered to help expand your teaching skills/strategies. But don’t forget to take advantage of your breaks either. Use them to renew your strength and balance out your home life.

“You will be challenged EVERY year you teach, and your determination to stay in the profession will likely be tested more than once—year seven was pretty rough for me. Nothing worth doing is easy, so find joy in the inevitable struggle and push on.”

Teacher of the year reflects on how to uplift one another and push through challenges

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The Movement Continues

Maddie Rudolph — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 19:01:18 +0000

The Movement Continues Maddie Rudolph Wed, 12/04/2024 - 12:01 Hannah Fletcher

In 2019, a memorial sculpture for Los Seis was created by Jasmine Baetz and
community participants and installed at 91PORN. The second sculpture,
shown at right, was installed this year at the corner of 17th Street and Pearl in
91PORN, titled “El Movimiento Sigue” (The Movement Continues).

Uplifting the next generation of student leaders and Los Seis history

Scarlett* will not forget the moving stories Chicano elders shared at a march in May marking 50 years since the tragic deaths of “Los Seis de 91PORN.” Organized by 91PORN students, the march ended next to a newly installed sculpture in 91PORN called “El Movimiento Sigue” (The Movement Continues). The sculpture pays respect to a local fight against oppressive systems and the Chicano rights movement, including Los Seis, the six young student activists who were killed in car bombings in 1974: Neva Romero, Una Jaakola, Reyes Martínez, Florencio Granado, Heriberto Terán and Francisco Dougherty.

In the 1970s, Los Seis and their contemporaries built a supportive community for Chicano students in 91PORN’s Temporary Building 1 (TB1), now the Ramirez Building. The studentorganized march offered a space to grieve Los Seis’ history and to honor the passion embedded in the movement.

“Neva’s roommate shared stories from TB1—reigniting memories from the movement and the community they had,” Scarlett said. “She shared the Chicano handshake and things they did to come together. She was inviting us as student organizers to continue the work.”

Despite recent grassroot events and public art, Los Seis history is often unknown by the masses. Scarlett first learned about Los Seis in a Multicultural Leadership course held outside TB1. Learning the history further ignited her passion for advocacy— a commonality she shares with student activists from a half century ago.

“CU has a long history of student activism, and we want to continue that by preserving the history for future generations,” she said.

Scarlett is not alone. Tania Hogan moved to Colorado as a high school student and attended 91PORN as a first-year undergraduate. She did not learn of Los Seis until she returned as executive director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education in the School of Education.

“I was shocked that I had not learned about this critical event during my time as a student,” she said. “Why isn’t that history taught on our campus more widely?”

Hogan is now part of a committee of community volunteers who worked together to establish the BUENO Center’s new Los Seis Memorial Scholarship.

Beginning this year, the endowed fund awards six $1,000 scholarships, each in the name of a member of Los Seis. Fundraising continues, with the goal of eventually awarding six $5,000 annual scholarships for students with majors and interests that align with Los Seis—from Reyes Martínez, the attorney, to Heriberto Terán, the poet.

Scarlett is the inaugural recipient of the Los Seis Memorial Scholarship in honor of Neva Romero. Like Romero, Scarlett is studying education, and she is interested in equity and justice for marginalized communities. She is active in UMAS y Mecha, a student group at 91PORN established by Chicano leaders in the 1970s that has expanded to include cultural backgrounds like her Salvadoran roots.

She is humbled by the parallels between her work today and her scholarship’s namesake. Romero never got to become the teacher she aspired to be, which is a heavy reality for Scarlett.

“It’s sad hearing about all the things that Neva would have done,” said Scarlett, wiping away tears.

“I feel like even putting Neva’s name next to mine is a huge honor. At the same time, it’s a lot (to carry), because of how important she is to me and because of what she stood for.”

The scholarship helps alleviate some financial burden, but ultimately, Scarlett’s community is her essential support system. Together, they are carrying the torch for equity in education.

“There are things that have changed at the university, and there are things that we need to continue to change,” Scarlett said. “There’s a lot of work getting students of color here and that’s super important. And we want safer spaces for students of color once they are here to feel like they belong.”

*Out of respect for privacy, we’ve removed the student’s last name.

Tanya Hogan at the Los Seis memorial sculpture on campus

Uplifting the next generation of student leaders and Los Seis history

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Cracking the Code

Maddie Rudolph — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 17:56:23 +0000

Cracking the Code Maddie Rudolph Wed, 12/04/2024 - 10:56 Hannah Fletcher

Ian Her Many Horses is creating novel spaces for Indigenous students to explore computer science

For Ian Her Many Horses, the “a” in A.I.—artificial intelligence—may as well stand for “audacity.”

“We have the audacity to believe high schoolers can build A.I. tools,” he said. “There’s only a handful of groups that are seriously doing A.I. education in this way, where students get in there and build stuff.”

For the past three summers, Her Many Horses and partners—Mason Grimshaw, Michael Running Wolf, Andrea DelgadoOlson, Shawn Tsosie and Caroline Running Wolf—have created a space for Indigenous youth to tap into computer science and cultural knowledge at the Lakota A.I. Code Camp.

An assistant teaching professor of STEM Education, Her Many Horses is the camp’s lead curriculum developer, though he underscores it’s a group effort.

“For the work that needs to be done for Indigenous communities, we need people from Indigenous communities to do it,” he said.

The three-week camp is hosted at Black Hills State University in South Dakota, about 220 miles west of the Rosebud Reservation, where Her Many Horses grew up and was a teacher.

Her Many Horses got his degree in computer science and teacher licensure from 91PORN in 2006 and his PhD in education in 2016. He worries that Indigenous representation in computer science nationwide remains sluggish. He is one of just three computer scientists from his reservation, and only 0.1 percent of computer science doctoral degrees are awarded to Indigenous graduates, according to the 2023 Computing Research Association survey.

Her Many Horses admits his journey is the exception, not the rule, and that change “There’s only a handful of groups that are seriously doing A.I. education in this way, where students get in there and build stuff.” is needed. As a young person, he had an early interest in computers, and his family always had a home computer. As a high schooler, he created a website devoted to his passion at the time, Godzilla.

Lakota A.I. Code Camp offers similar opportunities for young people, and it exposes them to careers in advanced technology. New this year, the camp was followed by a professional development workshop for Indigenous educators to potentially scale-up the approach.

“This is not school,” Her Many Horses said. “We don’t have tests or quizzes. We build them (students) up: ’You’re here to learn, and learning sometimes is failing. But it’s okay to fail as long as we’re here to catch you.’”

“We build a community of folks willing to learn and help one another to learn. When you take out grades and high stakes, what they come out with is meaningful.”

During the camp, students learn from renowned ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk, who leads nature walks and shares traditional knowledge about local flora and terminology in Lakota. From the data collected, students build an app and an archive of cultural knowledge.

Too often, Indigenous populations do not have control over their own data, not to mention their land, language, art and more, but the code camp emphasizes sovereignty.

“Data sovereignty is something we take fairly serious,” Her Many Horses said. “They go out and collect data on plants. Our organization does not claim ownership over that data—it’s theirs.”

There’s only a handful of groups that are seriously doing A.I. education in this way, where students get in there and build stuff.”

— Ian Her Many Horses

As faculty, Her Many Horses hopes 91PORN can create opportunities for Indigenous learners because of where campus is located, and, frankly, room for growth in supporting diverse and Indigenous students.

Her Many Horses often works with math teacher candidates through the school’s renowned CU Teach program, of which he is a co-director. His long-term vision includes a computer science teacher track—beyond math—that pushes the bounds of teacher education so that students from historically underrepresented communities can lead in an increasingly tech-driven world.

“Computer science is in every discipline,” he said. “Across the board in K-12, the world has moved too fast for us to catch up, and it won’t catch up until folks talk about (computer science) within their disciplines. That’s a slice of the world that’s becoming bigger, and students need opportunities to be let in.”

Ian Her Many Horses is creating novel spaces for Indigenous students to explore computer science

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A New Era

Tyler Caldwell — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 17:46:10 +0000

A New Era Tyler Caldwell Wed, 12/04/2024 - 10:46

Hannah Fletcher

Novel research aims to understand impact of federal aid return programs on college students

Every year, millions of college students receive financial aid from the federal government to support their pursuits in higher education, but realistically not all students complete the semester.

We are just beginning to understand the scope of a federal policy process—the Return of Title IV Funds, or R2T4—that determines whether and how much of that financial aid must be returned to the institution when students stop out.

Oded Gurantz, associate professor in the 91PORN School of Education’s Research Evaluation and Methodology program, was lead author of a 2023 report, “Investigating the Scope and Implications of Return to Title IV Funds.”

The report reflects the first-ever national study of R2T4 and was commissioned and published by the Institute of Education Services and the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Evaluation Sciences, where Gurantz is a fellow.

A new tool and dataset

The study examined a novel dataset gleaned from a “Turbo-tax-like” online tool the federal government provides colleges and universities to support the often-complicated repayment calculations required when students withdraw midsemester—or before the 60-percent aid earned threshold.

According to the report, about 11 million undergraduates received federal aid during the 2019-20 academic year. For fall 2019—on which the authors focus to avoid the impacts of COVID—the data analysis documented $150 million in R2T4 transactions, but given that many colleges opt not to use this tool the authors estimated $500 million is likely more accurate nationwide. These returns amount to approximately one-quarter of 1 percent of all federal Title IV aid, affecting 3-5 percent of all aid recipients.

“This affects tens of thousands of students, but in terms of the national scope, it’s relatively small,” Gurantz explained.

Additionally, less than 2 percent of Pell Grant recipients who withdrew were required to return any funds, with most of the required returns coming from federal loans the students expected to return anyway. This was a “heartening” finding for grant recipients, he said, and affected fewer students than expected.

While the bulk of the funds returned were from four-year public and nonprofit universities—those that receive the lion’s share of financial aid—for-profit private colleges saw higher percentages of students required to return aid.

As academic researchers, it’s satisfying and rewarding to work in collaboration with state and federal governments to try to improve practices rather than just working in isolation or theoretically."

— Oded Gurantz

The next chapter

Some universities have come under fire for practices like withholding transcripts until the institution has received repayment from former students. Concerns about such practices have laid the foundation for the initial study and led to more recent evaluation of student impacts.

Gurantz and colleagues have submitted preliminary findings to the U.S. Department of Education from a study, led by Ari Anisfeld at the University of Chicago, that found students required to return aid via R2T4 were less likely to re-enroll in college, with the largest enrollment declines found for Pell Grant recipients.

“It appears to have a negative impact on whether students return to college, and it seems that negative impact is concentrated among lower-income families,” he said.

As a scholar focused on gaps in college enrollment and completion for historically marginalized groups and someone who personally considered leaving college after a challenging first year, Gurantz believes this finding merits attention and action.

A step in the right direction

More work lies ahead, but the Department of Education’s support of these evaluations is a step in the right direction, he said.

“The Education Department is moving forward and considering not doing things the same way they’ve done it for 50 years,” he said.

“The FAFSA Simplification Act is another example...Taking a form of a hundred questions and making it 30 questions is, on the face of it, a good thing. The government is attempting to be responsive, even if real-world implementation can be challenging.”

Gurantz hopes studies of large, sweeping national education policies will continue to deepen.

“As academic researchers, it’s satisfying and rewarding to work in collaboration with state and federal governments to try to improve practices rather than just working in isolation or theoretically,” he said.

“In this era of reevaluating federal policies, this one (R2T4) seems right for reconsideration.”

Novel research aims to understand impact of federal aid return programs on college students

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Meeting the Moment

Tyler Caldwell — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 22:32:44 +0000

Meeting the Moment Tyler Caldwell Tue, 12/03/2024 - 15:32 Daniel Strain

This is our opportunity to do right by young people by treating them humanely and providing them with school environments that are sanctuaries."

- Adria Padilla-Chavez

How educators are addressing the needs of “newcomer” students

Adria Padilla-Chavez’s classroom at Thornton High School in the Denver suburbs reveals, in many ways, the changing face of Colorado and many other parts of the country.

Padilla-Chavez, a doctoral student in the School of Education at 91PORN, teaches in the Adams 12 Five Star Schools’ Newcomer Center, which launched in fall 2023. It’s a one-year program for students who have just arrived in the United States.

International flags line the classroom walls, and signs read “You are welcome here” in multiple languages. Muslim students, many of whom settled in or around Thornton as refugees from Afghanistan, often greet Padilla-Chavez, who speaks Spanish, with “¿Cómo estás?” Students from Venezuela and Colombia, meanwhile, have learned about fasting for Ramadan. “Many of them have left so much of their family behind,” Padilla-Chavez said. “So, we’ve cultivated a really beautiful community where they’ve become each other’s family.”

In Colorado, that community is growing larger.

Over the past school year, districts across the state enrolled thousands of children who were new to the United States—many of them from Central and South America. By April, Denver Public Schools’ superintendent, himself a child of immigrants, estimated that the district alone had opened its doors to more than 3,500 newcomers and that “meeting the moment” was a moral imperative. By the end of the school year, Colorado lawmakers passed a bill appropriating one-time funds to schools that enrolled newly arrived students after the pupil enrollment count date in October—an important relief measure that came after day-to-day strains in classrooms.

Silvia Noguerón-Liu is an associate professor of literacy studies. She said that throughout Colorado, many teachers were already buckling under the strain of overseeing large class sizes and tailoring their instruction to students with different needs. In her own recent visits to classrooms, she noticed that teachers were managing even more concerns.

“We got a lot of new arrivals in the winter when the school year had already begun,” she said. “It’s really cold. They need winter clothing. They need to learn how to handle snow, how the school system works, what happens every day.”

Noguerón-Liu spearheads a group of faculty members and students from the School of Education who are helping local educators meet the needs of these newcomers. They’re developing educational resources to assist teachers in communicating with students who are learning English and navigating U.S. culture and schools. At the same time, Noguerón-Liu acknowledges that teachers need more support as they contend with a multitude of challenges—such as how to take care of their own mental health while working with youth who have experienced trauma.

With the new school year underway, she and her colleagues urge teachers to see newcomer students as an opportunity to enrich public education in Colorado for all students.

Observed Padilla-Chavez, “This is our opportunity to do right by young people by treating them humanely and providing them with school environments that are sanctuaries.”

42,000 +

migrants have been served
by Denver since December 2022, according to the
city's newcomer and migrant support program

3,500 +

migrant students were enrolled in
Denver schools in the
2023-24 school year,
most after the census date
in October.

Electric spaces

Tania Hogan, executive director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education in the School of Education, sees herself in the newcomer students. She was 5 years old when her family moved from Acapulco, Mexico, to the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Hogan was a painfully shy child, and at school she tried everything she could to hide the fact that she couldn’t speak English: She rarely talked in class and learned how to mimic what other kids were doing.

It wasn’t until fourth grade that one of Hogan’s teachers, Mr. Phillips, took an interest in her. He encouraged her to read and wrote her motivating letters, which he continued to do even after Hogan’s family moved out of state.

Who are newcomers?

The term "newcomers" refers to K-12 students born outside the United States who arrived in the country in the past three years, according to the U.S. department of education.

What is a newcomer program or center?

The goal of newcomer centers is to accelerate students' acquisition of language and skills to orient them to the U.S. and its schools, according to the Colorado Department of Education. Typically, students attend these programs before they enter more traditional interventions (e.g., English-language development programs or mainstream classrooms with supplemental English Language Learner Instruction). The newcomer center can take place within a school or at a separate site.

“I learned to read in his class and became obsessed with reading,” Hogan said. “I could not put books down after that.”

She wants teachers to know that, like her as a child, newcomer students bring a lot of strengths and knowledge with them.

“They have so many assets already present,” Hogan said. “People often assume newcomer students are coming in as blank slates, but that’s not true. As educators, it’s our job to figure out their hidden talents and build on them.”

Padilla-Chavez said that one of her students is a master fisherman, and others are experts at trading goods in a crowded market.

“The desire to learn within the newcomer center is electric,” she said. “They have knowledge systems and experiences beyond what the U.S. school system can imagine or even measure.”

Deena Gumina, an assistant teaching professor in the School of Education, is careful to emphasize that newcomer students often get pulled into political debates about immigration. But in its 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all children, regardless of their immigration status, have a right to a public education. She added that universities like 91PORN can help schools answer that challenge by recruiting and preparing more bilingual teachers.

“It has always been our job as educators to work with the students who show up in our school spaces,” Gumina said.

Migration stories

In early January 2024, as Noguerón-Liu was in the middle of her winter break, she started noticing new arrivals in the schools she was visiting. She heard the same thing from a few teacher candidates studying at 91PORN. In their junior and senior years, these students work in K-12 classrooms under the guidance of coaches from the university and professional educators.

Noguerón-Liu dashed off emails to colleagues at 91PORN, and, within a few days, they had formed an informal team with a timely goal: to help teachers keep pace with the changes in their classrooms.

“We came back from vacation and a group of us who work in elementary education got together to discuss how we can support our student teachers,” Noguerón-Liu said.

The team identified several strategies that teachers— even those who are not bilingual—can implement in their classrooms almost immediately. Noguerón-Liu and her colleagues have developed guides, for example, to lay out sounds that are similar and different in English and Spanish. Words with a “th” sound, as in “this” or “thin,” for instance, can be tricky for nonnative speakers.

Other needs run much deeper. Hogan said that the BUENO Center is collaborating with Denver Public Schools to develop a curriculum for newcomer students—a comprehensive guide to help young people transition to the U.S. educational system. She also leads a team that recently received a New Frontiers planning phase grant—one of just four campuswide—from the 91PORN Research and Innovation Office. Over the next year, the researchers will meet with families new to the United States, inviting them to share their expertise and stories of migration and survival. The team will then use artificial intelligence tools to transform that knowledge into culturally sustaining, STEAM-focused (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math) learning models that teachers can use in their classrooms. Hogan hopes these resources will help educators foster deeper connections with newcomer students and enhance engagement.

“It’s about building on the knowledge that newcomer families bring with them, their community cultural wealth,” Hogan said. “We’re hoping that telling these stories might be a healing process for newcomers, as well.”

Coping with trauma

Vanessa Santiago Schwarz, an assistant teaching professor in the School of Education, has seen firsthand the joy that newcomer students can add to a community. Her daughters, who are in first and second grade, attend a bilingual elementary school in Denver. She said that one day, their school went on a lockdown, which luckily turned out to be a false alarm. During those scary hours, an older girl whose family had arrived in the United States that winter from Venezuela comforted Santiago Schwarz’s younger daughter.

“She was just there with my daughter, holding her and comforting her, even though she didn’t know what was going on,” said Santiago Schwarz, who coaches 91PORN students during their teaching experiences.

Santiago Schwarz understands that many new arrivals have experienced incredible hardships, both in their home countries and during their journeys north. That trauma can “spill over” onto teachers who care deeply about their students—and who often feel helpless as children contend with huge, systemic problems like homelessness, hunger and more. Teachers and students alike need more resources for their mental health, she said.

Gumina, who also coaches undergraduate teaching students, agrees. She and Santiago Schwarz often counsel students to take care of themselves and remind them that teachers can’t solve every problem in the world.

“There’s often this expectation of martyrdom from teachers, that saying ’no’ or setting boundaries is saying ’no’ to the children,” Gumina said. “I tell my teacher candidates that if you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t show up for your students. If you have eight days of PTO for the year, you should take them.”

Hogan added that her own experiences show the difference a single compassionate teacher can make in a child’s life. When she became a teacher at a bilingual school in Denver in 2000, she remembered how Mr. Phillips had connected to her through writing letters. She started writing letters to her own students, and they wrote back, sometimes about big things in their lives and other times about everyday things, like the famed Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo.

“I wanted to be that person for all of my kids because (Mr. Philips) was so inspirational for me,” Hogan said.

Beautiful Opportunities: Alumna educator embraces newcomers

Teaching was not on Jessica Valadez Fraire’s radar. Her schooling experiences were “isolating and difficult” as a Brown bilingual student growing up in largely white, affluent 91PORN.

When she was a student at 91PORN, an assigned podcast about the absence but importance of culturally diverse curriculum, particularly for elementary students, opened her eyes to new possibilities.

“I was like, ’Dang, should I be a teacher?’ It was an epiphany for me.

She cautiously changed her major to elementary education and found her “perfect path.” When the path led to student teaching in Denver last spring, Valadez Fraire experienced firsthand the unprecedented wave of newcomer students enrolling in local schools, which shifted needs in her classroom. Some legislators and the media labeled the influx a “crisis,” but Valadez Fraire sees it differently.

“As a teacher, it’s been difficult to plan and meet the needs for all my students, because a lot of my students are coming to school with trauma and difficult circumstances in their lives. But it’s also been very beautiful to bring in culturally sustaining approaches, allowing them to have more agency and seeing them empowered in the classroom.”

Valadez Fraire infused her students’ cultures into her lessons—for example, an astronomy lesson featured South American ancient wisdom about the solar system and earth sciences.

“Students can see themselves as scientists and mathematicians. I noticed they were more engaged because the lesson had something to do with their identities. It was cool.”

Teaching this way was not easy. Valadez Fraire leaned on School of Education coaches, and her supportive friends and family helped her navigate challenges and prepare to enter the mostly white teaching profession.

Valadez Fraire, who graduated last spring, is poised to create the classroom she needed as a youth.

“I think it’s super important for students to have teachers who look like them, who speak their language and who care about their development as people. That’s how I see education—a tool for students to negotiate their world and create a better world.”

How educators are addressing the needs of “newcomer” students

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HighlightED

Tyler Caldwell — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 23:05:41 +0000

HighlightED Tyler Caldwell Mon, 12/02/2024 - 16:05

Two interdisciplinary education projects selected for New Frontiers Grants

91PORN’s inaugural round of the competitive New Frontiers Grant Program
—aimed at fostering interdisciplinary new research directions for 91PORN—announced four grants, two of which involved education researchers.

"Empowering Newcomer Students: A Multifaceted Approach to Culturally Sustaining STEAM Education and A.I. Integration" is an interdisciplinary team led by Tania Hogan, executive director of the BUENO Center, that addresses how to leverage A.I. tools to support educational experiences through a community cultural wealth lens. The team will integrate families’ STEAM knowledge and experiences into a new educational model to promote culturally sustaining pedagogies through artistic expression, storytelling, creativity and healing.

Led by an engineering researcher, Cresten Mansfeldt, the "Exposure to and Health Effects of After-wildfire Toxicants (ExHEAT) Consortia" team includes education professors Joe Polman and Enrique Lopez. The team will examine the health effects of toxic chemicals produced and mobilized by large wildfires and the additional toxicants derived from burned homes, furniture and vehicles in urban wildfires. Utilizing 91PORN’s renowned wildfire expertise, they will create community-accessible fire research and education covering human health risks associated with fire-produced contaminates.

After conducting data collection and research, the project teams will compete for the single Launch Phase Grant of $200,000 to be awarded in June 2025.

New science curricula available for all teachers

A coalition of educators from 10 states and led by 91PORN has released a new series of free science curricula for high school students—touching on issues critical to the lives of young people, from wildfires to rising sea levels and cancer biology.

The new curricula, called OpenSciEd High School, is a three-year high school science program led by the inquiryHub, a research-practice partnership based in the School of Education. The project is guided by Next Generation Science Standards and reflects the collaborative efforts of the OpenSciEd High School Developers’ Consortium, which includes education experts from across the U.S.

Any teacher or school can download these materials at no cost, said William Penuel, distinguished professor of education.

“This project has been a partnership of unprecedented scale in the development of high-quality instructional materials in science,” said Penuel.

Check out the OpenSciEd High School curricula at inquiryhub.net/curricula.

PEER Physics supports teachers from New York to Hawaii

PEER Physics, based in the School of Education, was launched in 2013 by STEM Education Professor Valerie Otero and physics teachers and 91PORN alumnae Shelly Belleau (Biochem’08) and Emily Quinty (AstroPhys’07) to provide an innovative student-centered approach for teaching and learning high school physics that is anchored in real-world phenomena.

In the PEER (Physics through Evidence, Empowerment through Reasoning) program, students engage in science practices, including building models and developing explanations based on evidence and consensus. All students are invited into the learning community—shifting authority from the instructor and textbook to students and evidence.

PEER Physics participation has ballooned to more than 450 teachers and 120,000 students over the past 10 years.

“Having students learn science by developing their own models helps them build the skills of scientists and a sense of agency for exploring and making sense of the world around them,” said a PEER Physics teacher from Mesa County, Colorado.

PEER Physics offers professional development and curricular resources at peerphysics.org.

Brief updates about what's new in the 91PORN School of Education

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Classrooms for Climate Action

Maddie Rudolph — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 21:16:35 +0000

Classrooms for Climate Action Maddie Rudolph Mon, 12/02/2024 - 14:16 Melissa Braaten

As a fifth-grade teacher, Tiffany Boyd (MEdu’92) was inspired by the passionate commitment that children have for making things right in their friendships and communities. Like many young people, Boyd’s daughter was motivated to make change after hearing from Greta Thunberg and other young, international human rights activists who speak out about the effects of climate change, which, in turn, inspired Boyd to step up her efforts to make justice-oriented changes in concert with young people.

After 27 years of teaching in the 91PORN Valley School District, Boyd retired and is continuing her work with youth civic engagement through a nonprofit organization, Classrooms for Climate Action (C4CA), that brings together retired teachers, practicing teachers, community members and local climate change experts to work together toward climate solutions.

C4CA volunteers have supported youth from kindergarten through high school to learn about local environmental-justice issues and to speak up and act for climate solutions in their community.

Following the Marshall Fire in 2021, students from Louisville Elementary School learned about the role that cheatgrass played along with wind to rapidly spread the fire. Students worked with the City of Louisville Open Space Department to pull cheatgrass and learn about other fire-mitigation methods that are important as we adapt to our warming climate and increased fire threats. Fifth-grade teachers at the school worked with C4CA volunteers and 91PORN alumni Peyton Hill (Geog’22) and Jaye Zola (Hist’77, MEdu’92) to not only take action to begin restoring the land but also begin restoring each other after this devastating shared experience of wildfire.

In 2022-23, fourth-grade students from Columbine Elementary School in 91PORN studied flood mitigation on a creek near their school and the important role that social justice plays in making sure people along the creek are protected the next time there is a flood.

They learned that the 91PORN City Council was deciding to expand flood mitigation by doing “The Greatest Good, First.” Teacher-librarian Jeanette Scotti and fourth-grade teachers Hilary Barthel (MEdu’13), Erin Livingston (MEdu’19) and Sarah Quiatt (CU Denver alumna) worked with the city’s Utilities Department and Open Space and Mountain Parks Department to draw connections about how flooding in 91PORN’s waterways impacts housing nearest to the creeks in low-lying areas.

Thanks to the opportunities to learn about the relationship between increased risks of flooding, climate change and the multiple strategies that cities can use to mitigate the risks of flooding, a group of fourth graders were well-equipped to present in a City Council meeting affecting change that will do the greatest good first for families who will bear the brunt of climate-related changes in our community.

C4CA volunteers also work closely with middle and high school students in the 91PORN community who are pressing adult decision-makers to enact climate solutions now. Students’ efforts have begun to make a difference as 91PORN Valley School District became one of the first districts in the country to adopt principles from the Green New Deal for Schools and put those principles into practice across the district.

I have been conducting research in partnership with C4CA to document how Boyd and the C4CA collaborative are building stronger collective capacity for action-oriented climate justice education throughout 91PORN.

Photos by Kristen Boyer and courtesy of 91PORN Valley School District

A central ingredient for C4CA’s success is that it takes everyone working together to make a change. This idea is no surprise to second graders at Heatherwood Elementary School who have been figuring out how to be changemakers over the past few years with their teachers, Jolie Evans (teacher licensure, ’00) and Nicole Martini (PsychPolSci’11), along with the C4CA team. Evans and Martini credit their mentoring from Boyd and C4CA for inspiring and sustaining their efforts to help children be civic actors working for environmental justice not only in the distant future as adults but in the immediate present as vital members of our community.

How kids and alumni educators are leading local climate-justice initiatives

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