A School Makeover in Mapleton

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The 48-year-old superintendent grew up in a modest bungalow in the heart of Mapleton's old Italian-American neighborhood, before going off to Colorado's historic teacher college, the University of Northern Colorado. Most of her 25-year career has been spent teaching in conventional settings.

READY FOR CHANGE.

When Ciancio was growing up, Mapleton was still dominated by the Italian immigrants who built flourishing nurseries and truck farms in the once-bucolic outskirts of Denver. But by the time she was hired as superintendent in 2001, the metropolitan Denver area had exploded up and down the Front Range, and Mapleton had become a heavily developed, almost inner-city district. Today, about 70% of its residents are Hispanic, and over half are low-income.

So when Ciancio was hired to lead Mapleton in 2001, the school board was not interested in incremental change. "There was a lot of frustration," says Carole Adducci, who headed the board when Ciancio was hired. So Ciancio led a group of administrators and parents who embarked on a lengthy study of school reform. They even flew around the country, visiting the most promising new small high schools, including The Met in Providence, and San Diego's High Tech High. Ultimately, they chose four of these models to bring to Mapleton, creating a total of six new schools. (Two schools were based on the Big Picture model, and two others on the Expeditionary Learning model.)

It's already clear that these new schools are producing some very positive changes. Attendance averaged over 90% at the new schools this year, vs. just 76% at the old Skyview High. Parental participation has soared. Three-fourths of parents showed up for student presentations at Skyview Academy, a new school based on the Coalition of Essential Schools model, this year, up from just a fifth who used to come in for parent-teacher conferences.

MAGNET FOR TEACHERS.

The most encouraging development may be that all this reform has acted as a magnet in attracting energetic, well-qualified leaders and teachers to Mapleton. Ciancio was able to hire Michael Johnston, 31, a bright Yale Law School grad, to lead MESA, for instance. Johnston, who's devoting his career to school reform, previously taught in Mississippi, before leading another small school.

Similarly, Marc Dysart, who teaches algebra at Welby New Technology, has an engineering degree, and was teaching at a posh private school before coming to Mapleton. "I was looking for a small public high school," he says, that was committed to producing better results. And many more teachers are giving Mapleton a look. At a recent job fair, a long line formed in front of Mapleton's table. "At first, we thought they were in the wrong line because we'd never seen that many people interested in working in Mapleton," says Michael Kirby, one of Ciancio's key lieutenants."But they were in the right line."

Many parents are also thrilled with the options their kids now have. Take Lori and Dan Farson, whose oldest son, Tyler, chose Big Picture, where he just finished up his sophomore year. "He's beyond psyched," says Lori, "because he's learned to fly a helicopter in his internship, and now wants to become a military pilot." Meanwhile, Tyler's younger brother Brandon is a freshman at New Tech, where he enjoys using computers to work on projects. "They're making their own decisions, and because they're in different schools, there isn't as much sibling rivalry," says Lori.

BIRTHING PAINS.

The excitement isn't confined to Mapleton. "Our enrollment for next fall is coming in very strong," says Ciancio. "Over 100 more kids from outside our district have signed up,"; acting under Colorado's unusual open-choice rules, which allow parents to send their kids to another district, as long as there's room.

Still, Ciancio is the first to admit that Mapleton faces huge challenges. Gates' money has been used to help smooth the transition, by providing lots of training to teachers and staff on the new school models.