Friday Churn: Earth Day

What’s churning:

Those youngsters in recycled paper hats in Northwest Denver are helping to “green the neighborhood” as they walk to school this morning. Students from Edison Elementary and Brown International Academy are celebrating Earth Day by helping to tidy up their neighborhood on their way to school.

Students, parents and teachers are slated to meet at 8 a.m. at a parking lot between the two schools, where Denver’s chief operating officer, David Suppes, will award students with the best recycled hats and then lead students on their walk to school.

Earth Day is more than 40 years old, beginning on April 22, 1970. But the youngest students have taken to its environmental message with acclaim. Edison Elementary, for example, was one of the first Denver schools to participate in the city’s composting program – since they began, the school has reduced its amount of garbage from six bags to one half bag or less each day.

Learn more about DPS’ environmental efforts, including solar panels and energy reduction, here. A week from tomorrow, on April 30, a district school, the Denver Center for International Studies, will host an environmental summit for high school and college students called From Trash to Treasure. And on Friday, May 13, the district’s CEC Middle College will hold an information session about green careers.

Meanwhile, Thursday’s rapid news pace – the naming of finalists for State Board of Education commissioner, a plan to reduce K-12 funding cuts to $160 million – are expected to slow today. State lawmakers are off. But it won’t be slow for long. Monday, the House Education Committee takes up Senate Bill 11-126, also known as the ASSET bill, the measure that would make undocumented students eligible for a form of resident tuition.

The bill passed the Senate on the party-line vote, with Democrats in the majority. Its chances in the Republican-majority House are considered iffy. But sponsor Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, said Thursday he’s fine with the assignment to House Ed. “I think we have a chance.”

What’s on tap:

The State Council for Educator Effectiveness meeting scheduled for today was cancelled.

Good reads from elsewhere:

Turnaround struggle: The efforts to transform a Chicago high school in a poverty-stricken neighborhood illustrate just how tough the job is. New York Times.