Is DPS Administration Top Heavy?

DENVER, CO – By Melanie Asmar, Chalkbeat Colorado. Compared with the statewide average, the Denver school district is top-heavy with administration.

In the 2016-17 school year, Denver had one administrator for every 7.5 instructional staff members, a category that includes teachers, librarians, nurses, and others. The statewide average was one administrator for every 11.3 instructional staff members.

Those figures are based on a Chalkbeat analysis of the most recent data available from the Colorado Department of Education.

While Denver Public Schools has always had more administrators than the statewide average, the data show the 93,000-student district has gotten more top-heavy over time.

One implication of having more administrators is financial. The more money a district spends on administrators, who tend to earn higher salaries, the less money it has to pay teachers.

Denver Public Schools is currently negotiating teacher pay with the Denver teachers union. The stakes are high: The union has threatened to strike if an agreement isn’t reached by Jan. 18.
The union, called the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, is pushing the district to invest a lot more money into teacher salaries. New Superintendent Susana Cordova, a former teacher, is open to increasing the district’s investment — and to funding it by cutting administrators. She has publicly said the district’s central office, where many administrators work, is too big.

“We have too many priorities, too many people working on those priorities, and not enough impact coming out of that,” Cordova told union negotiators at an all-day bargaining session Tuesday. “I am 100 percent committed to right-sizing what the central office looks like.”

READ MORE at The Colorado Independent

Former interim Denver superintendent Ron Cabrera, right, walks down a hallway with Stedman Elementary Principal Greta Martinez in September 2018. (Photo by Melanie Asmar, Chalkbeat Colorado)