Mill levy override will boost career and tech programs across DPS

After Denver voters passed a mill levy override to provide Denver Public Schools with nearly $44 million more annually, DPS officials said a portion of that money will go toward expanding career and technical education in high-demand fields.

The district formed a Mill Levy Override Committee to decide how funds would be dispersed if the measure passed. The committee decided that CTE programs would get an annual increase of roughly $4 million.

Minutes after the mill levy override passed, DPS board President Xóchitl Gaytán told The Denver Gazette she believes one major reason Denver residents passed the measure was DPS’s promise to increase CTE funding.

“Parents have made it clear that they want CTE programming and more CTE availability for their children,” Gaytán said. “We have CTE programs that are growing across the district, and a lot of wonderful things are happening for students.”

CTE is an educational program, mainly in middle and high schools, that teaches students practical, hands-on, and career-specific skills. Students gain real-world experience in career fields they are interested in through labs, workshops, internships, and field trips.

Currently, DPS has two “industry clusters” in its CTE program. The first, caring for communities, includes healthcare and human services, education and training, and public services and safety. Those include programs like criminal justice, teaching, EMT training, nursing prep, and pharmacy technician paths.

The second cluster, building and moving, features engineering and advanced manufacturing, information technology and cybersecurity, skilled trades, and automotive services. Programs include auto tech training, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, software programming, robotics and mechanical engineering.

DPS will focus on funding its career and technical education centers throughout the district. DPS is currently in the process of opening additional CTE centers following the passing of its 2024 bond. Right now, the district has just one CTE center for all students, which is CEC Early College.

The next center is slated to open for the 2027-28 school year, said Jaime Fiorenza, CTE director for DPS.

“Those centers will have these unique and new innovative programs that will really benefit our students,” Fiorenza said. “We have also decided to go with more unique and innovative programming, something that is more unique and nuanced and aligned to the Colorado talent pipeline, so we are creating programs for jobs that are in need.”

Funding from the mill levy override will also go toward finding educators equipped to teach CTE courses for niche pathways, said Rob Gould, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the union that represents DPS educators.

“As those career and tech ed programs come online, we are going to need more educators to staff those,” Gould said. “That could have come from two places, either from the mill levy override or cutting other positions or moving the money from other things. This will help make sure our high schools and their budgets remain more intact when staffing those CTE centers with individuals who know specialized skills.”

Students enrolled in CTE programs across the country achieve a 93 percent high school graduation rate, compared to the national average of roughly 80 percent, according to the Association for Career and Technical Education.

Research also shows that students who take high school CTE courses are more likely to be employed after graduation than classmates who did not participate, according to the American Institutes for Research. A survey by the Center for American Progress also found that 77 percent of employers hired a candidate because of their CTE background.

Leaders of DPS’ CTE programs know those statistics, which is why funding from the mill levy override will go immediately to career and tech programs.

Mill levy override funding is not a one-time increase but rather an annual raise in funding. That will allow DPS to keep building out its CTE programs in the years to come.

“The mill levy is going to help us in preparing and getting the high-quality instructors that are going to be able to not only deliver industry-level skills to our students, but they are also going to offer industry certifications because these teachers will also be adjuncts at different colleges to offer college credit. Students will walk out the door with not only high school credit but college credit as well,” Fiorenza said.

Fiorenza added that the mill levy is especially important because finding fine-tuned educators for certain CTE pathways can be more challenging than filling a vacancy for a core subject.

“It is much harder to find that person who is wanting to make the leap from industry to teaching,” Fiorenza said. “It really is a unique individual who wants to do that. Sometimes they are at a point in their career where they are ready to pass on their knowledge. So we have to work with industry partners to put those postings out and spread the word in unique ways.”