Civil and Municipal Education October 2024

Danbury Public Schools – Danbury, Connecticut

October 31, 2024

Danbury Public Schools

Top of the Class

An Innovative School District Committed to Excellence, Career Readiness and Opportunity

As one of the fastest growing school districts in the state of Connecticut, Danbury Public Schools is gaining a reputation as a leader in academic innovation, career readiness and student success. Serving a diverse population of over 12,000 students, the district is focused on providing quality education that prepares students for the challenges of a rapidly changing world.

Superintendent Dr. Kara Casimiro

Superintendent Dr. Kara Casimiro highlights, “We have always prided ourselves on providing learning environments and opportunities for students that advance all of our learners to the greatest potential, while also working in partnership with our families and communities. It is a truly community driven experience, providing the highest level of opportunities we can for our students.”

From Crisis to Innovation

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Danbury Schools quickly adapted to the sudden shift to online learning. Dr. Casimiro recounts, “We were fortunate. We have a small but very mighty team here, and we were able to convert fairly quickly over to an online platform and digitize all of our curriculum.”

Teams delivered hundreds of devices door-to-door, ensuring students were connected. The swift response was a testament to the dedication and collaboration of Danbury’s leadership and staff, earning the district praise for its rapid transition. “We’re surrounded by high performing suburban districts, but people still talk about how quickly, for our size and for our demographic, we were able to get up and get folks connected and online. I attribute that to our building leadership team, our curriculum folks, and our central office being able to work together. That was a Herculean task.”

Amid the chaos of the pandemic, Danbury Schools didn’t just adapt—they innovated. Dr. Casimiro and Danbury High School Principal, Dan Donovan, fresh from researching instructional models in Nashville, used the lockdown period as an opportunity to shape the district’s future. ‘We knew things were going to be very different when we came out of this, and the world was going to be more digitally focused. But we also knew we needed a different model of instruction to engage students,” details Dr. Casimiro.

During the pandemic’s peak, the team crafted a five-year action plan to restructure Danbury High School into smaller learning academies based on student interests. “When we emerged out of this, we wanted something that was going to look different and serve kids differently,” she adds.

The Academies of Danbury

Danbury High School’s transformation into a “wall-to-wall” academy model is designed to provide students with tailored educational experiences that integrate both academic learning and career preparation. The initiative builds on the earlier Danbury Early College Opportunity (DECO) program, where students could earn an associate degree while still in high school.

The academies represent a more accessible approach, preparing students for a wide range of career pathways while still offering flexibility as they explore and learn about themselves. In the words of Dr. Casimiro, “It’s not about being a technical college or just simply college prep. It’s really creating this multi-dimensional student that is able to pivot and go in different directions upon graduation.”

Advisory boards play a key role in ensuring that the curriculum is relevant to modern workforce demands. By engaging industry leaders, the academies are able to offer a curriculum that is aligned with real-world opportunities. This helps students graduate with a range of skills and credentials.

“We are giving kids a lot of choice,” she maintains. “Right now, we have 22 pathways, and we’re still growing. All of the pathways were based on national career clusters, regional career clusters, and then Connecticut’s 12 career clusters. So, these are what we have in common across the nation, but also matched with local opportunity.”

One notable example is the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program. On completion, students graduate with both a CNA license and a high school diploma. This certification allows them to continue their education in medical programs or to enter the workforce directly.

“It creates a student that is able to pivot in different directions,” Dr. Casimiro underscores. “That program was so phenomenal, and it was highly competitive. So, to do this for all of our students, we created a wall to wall academy model, where every student gets an opportunity to participate.”

The focus on career exploration starts in ninth grade, where learners are enrolled in an exploration seminar, which introduces them to the various career options and the real-world demands of different professions. At the end of the year students rank their preferred pathways, and efforts are made to accommodate their top choices. Additionally, students can shift if they discover a different passion during the course of their studies.

“The goal is that by the time you graduate high school, you’ve had a little bit of a chance to try something on for size in a no risk environment,” relays Dr. Casimiro. Donovan adds, “One of the things we always tell our parents is, career exploration in college is expensive, career exploration in high school is not.”

Staff engagement has also played a crucial role in the success of the academies. “We spent the last two years building our Professional Learning Communities, by academy,” Donovan depicts. He shares that teachers participate in externships with local businesses to better understand the skills and knowledge students will need in the workforce.

“Now, teachers are working together to develop project based learning units, taking information that they have, together with the curriculum experts in the district, as well as what they learned on those externships,” he describes. “When students leave here- if they want to go to college, they can keep going. If they want to go out into the workforce, those credentials and their knowledge base will help them. And they have the work ethic and some of those soft skills, so that they’re ready to go.”

A Collaborative Approach

Danbury Public Schools’ success is reliant on its extensive network of partnerships with local businesses and organizations. Donovan reports that the school has developed relationships with about 80 partners who actively contribute to the education and career preparedness of its students. These partnerships, however, go beyond traditional sponsorships or donations.

“We ask for time, talents, and treasures,” elaborates Donovan. The district asks for time, in terms of allowing students and staff to visit and see firsthand what the job looks like in action. As for talents, he asserts, “They’re experts in the field. Nothing speaks better than bringing an architect or an engineer in to actually talk about what the workday is like.” Treasures include discarded items that could be used in the classroom.

“When they’re upgrading we ask for stuff because we can use it as teaching tools. Our first one that we had was Pitney Bowes. They make stamp machines and things like that, and they would throw them out just because they were redoing them. We would take it down to the engineering people, who would basically dismantle it, and talk about all the components that are in there,” he portrays.

Growth and Future Plans

The district is proud of its partnership with the City of Danbury, exemplified by the recent approval for the satellite campus school. This new facility will house three additional high school academies and accommodate 1,400 students. “In partnership with the city we’ve made a lot of investment on the infrastructure side. We spent a lot of time and investment in the design of those learning spaces that are cutting edge and support industry certification,” boasts Dr. Casimiro.

In addition to securing grants and private funding for infrastructure, she points out the establishment of professional learning community time for high school teachers is a rare but critical component to success. “That time is also an investment, so you have to carve it out of your instructional day to allow these teachers to meet and collaborate, to build excitement and bring opportunity to the pathways that they’ll be teaching in,” she stresses. “It’s been a very across the board collaborative process with our unions, with our city folks, and then with private organizations that are excited to fund this very different type of idea. When we get going here, we will be the first wall to wall Academy in the Northeast.”

Looking ahead, the focus will continue to be on growth and development of the academies. Dr. Casimiro discloses, “Our current class is in their sophomore year, so we’re rapidly developing curriculum with industry partners to make sure that when the students come up to the next grade level, we have the curriculum that’s going to prepare them for success.”

Beyond this, attention will be on growing industry partnerships and spreading the word about the program. She concludes, “This is a community investment. It does help to build the workforce. It helps the local economy, but also the state of Connecticut in general.”

“We know that we’re providing students with upward mobility, not just for themselves, but for their families.”