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Assumption / Approach

• Smaller, individualized/personalized, accommodating and relational school settings tend to have more success supporting high-risk youth. These settings, according to educational research, are characterized by:
  

  • High expectations in classroom, online, and workforce settings
  • Strong adult and peer mentorship to provide support and coaching
  • Access to a variety of technologies and engaging classroom and community experiences
  • Self-pace, individualized, differentiated settings with access for all learners
  • Credit Retrieval options
  • Career pathways paved by relevant coursework and sheltered apprenticeship/internship exploration and experiences
  • Small class size
  • Highly qualified teachers and community-based mentors who are trained to work with and represent the demographics of the learners they serve
  • Strong work-study, internship and service-learning components in programming
  • Flexible class scheduling including evening, weekend, year-round classes and on-line instructional opportunities
  • Interdisciplinary and project-based curriculum creating authentic learning experiences
  • Curriculum designed to support high achievement for learners in mixed-ability groupings with special emphasis on supporting students identified with special needs;
  • Strong literacy skill support and targeted intervention
  • Wrap-around services that address needs associated with food, housing, clothing, transportation, employment, health and medical concerns, child care, legal issues, etc.
  • Year round programming, extended school day inclusive of intercession and summer programs



• Praxis School incorporates citywide, neighborhood locations along with a main campus in central Denver to support a diverse population of students. Praxis School offers smaller satellite campus and outreach centers that are more effective in recruiting and stabilizing highly-mobile, at-risk youth than larger more disenfranchising conventional schools. There are clear advantages when educational programs meet the youth where they are – geographically, academically, socially and personally. Smaller community-based sites contribute toward the creation of safe, responsive and culturally competent settings for youth that contribute to neighborhood, community and youth development.




• In Colorado, public education funds are appropriated for all youth through the age of 21. If a student leaves a public school setting and is "picked up" by another system (e.g., DWD programs and workforce centers, juvenile justice, social or human services), then the cost to serve this youth is also picked up by this safety net, intervention, emergency or court-related system. One of the most effective and economically efficient ways to support the educational needs of a youth under the age of 21 is to enroll them and keep them in a public school program. Praxis School offers flexible, rigorous, relevant, and responsive programming to keep youth, who previously have felt disenfranchised through their experience of schooling, in the public school system.




• The targeted population of youth will be well-served through a strategic and sustainable partnership forged among Denver Public Schools, community service providers, higher education institutions and Denver's Division of Workforce Development. This comprehensive approach will have the ability to leverage Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funding, portions of the Per Pupil Funding (PPF) allocation at local schools, funding from the local philanthropic community, as well as resources available through community service providers in our neighborhoods.




• Data indicates the need for developing alternative educational programming, which can address the challenges impacting outcomes for students.
  

  • Two thirds of the eighth graders who were in Denver Public Schools in 1999 didn't graduate with the class of 2004 (Denver's Graduation Gap, 2005)
  • 37% of the eighth grade class of 1999 dropped out of school. (Denver's Graduation Gap, 2005)
  • Only 43% of those students in the 1999 class who entered the ninth grade later graduated. (Denver's Graduation Gap, 2005)
  • Only 27% of the Hispanic eight graders in the 1999 class graduated