September 14, 2000
Denver Post
by Monte Whaley
Two Boulder
charter schools - Summit Middle School and Horizon K-8 Alternative School
- earned among the state's highest marks on the eighth-grade CSAP science
and math tests. (Pictured: Summit eighth-graders Starin McKeen, left, and
Erin Grady work on a science experiment.) But two-thirds of Colorado's
eighth-graders failed the statewide math assessment and fewer than half passed
the science test. Photo by Glenn Asakawa
BOULDER — Hildur Boylston uses words "synthesize" and "awesome" in the same sentence. The 13-year-old also thinks testing the protein content of spider webs is cool.
Hildur is a science junkie, and Boulder's Summit Middle School is feeding her habit.
"The teacher has to be totally excited and then the students will be excited," Hildur said Wednesday. "We have that here." That enthusiasm for math and science helped her school earn among the state's highest marks on the eighth-grade CSAP science and math tests. Summit and another Boulder charter school - Horizons K-8 Alternative School - ranked in the state's top three in both tests.
All of Horizons' eighth-graders passed the science test, and 97 percent passed the math test. At Summit, 97 percent passed the science test and 81 percent the math.
By contrast, nearly two-thirds of the state's eighth-graders failed to reach proficiency on the math test. And more than half failed to score proficient in science, according to test results released Wednesday.
Summit and Horizons teachers, parents and administrators said the CSAP scores showed that their work and methods are paying off. "Today was a good day," said Sharon Sikora, who teaches eighth and sixth grades at Summit.
The two schools share common traits. As charter schools, they operate within the Boulder Valley School District but are run by a governing board of parents.
Students are usually admitted through a lottery system. The enrollment at Horizons is about 305, while at Summit it's 250.
Class size varies between 15 and 20 students. And their demographics are right for top performance. Few to no students qualify for free lunch, the state's measure of poverty in a school.
About 8 percent of the students at Horizons are considered minorities, and 10 percent fall into a minority category at Summit.
In philosophy, the schools take different routes.
Students at Horizons are not given grades or report cards. Goals are set by a teacher and parent, said lead teacher Anne Kane.
"We just don't hand an assignment with a C and just move on," Kane said. "We work with them to show them what they can do." Horizons teachers teach all subjects. Classes are also mixed with sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders so all grade levels are exposed to a subject.
One field of science is stressed each year. This week, the entire school is on a field trip to Mesa Verde National Park to study the geology of the area, Kane said.
She admits the school's highly individualistic approach to learning is not for everyone. But the school does deflate the notion that only the back-to-basics approach nets good grades.
"A lot of people think you have to do the traditional things to get high test scores," Kane said. "We just put a lot of effort into creating a positive school climate."
Summit students are in classes that prepare them for advanced courses in high school. By eighth grade, they are taking a science course that teaches them how to research and display their results, Sikora said.
"The pace is often quite fast," said Sikora, who holds a doctorate in chemistry and was a Colorado Teacher of the Year finalist.
Parents at Summit said they had felt their kids weren't getting the academic rigor offered by most traditional public schools. But instead of enrolling their children at a private school, they chose Summit.
"Teachers here believe kids could be challenged," said Janet Christensen, the parent of an eighth-grader. "And kids here rise to the challenge."