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August 21, 2014
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DouglasCountyNewsPress.net D O U G L A S C O U N T Y, C O L O R A D O
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LEFT: Steve and Lisa Stucky sell their free-trade goods at a craft fair in Montana. ABOVE: Lisa Stucky, right, facing camera, on a trip to Tanzania in 2012. BELOW: The Mavuno Market buys and sells goods from developing nations. Courtesy photos
Reform impact debated Pace of change, new demands cited as factors in teacher turnover By Jane Reuter
jreuter @coloradocommunitymedia.com
Putting their hearts into helping Castle Rock couple’s shop sells fair-trade goods online to support artisans, youths in Africa By Mike DiFerdinando
FOR MORE INFORMATION The next Passion for Orphans retreat will take place Oct. 3-5. The location is still to be determined. For more information on Mavuno Market and Passion for Orphans, visit mavunomarket.org.
mdiferdinado @coloradocommunitymedia.com POSTAL ADDRESS
NEWS-PRESS
(ISSN 1067-425X) (USPS 567-060) OFFICE: 9137 S. Ridgeline Blvd., Suite 210 Highlands Ranch, CO 80129 PHONE: 303-566-4100 A legal newspaper of general circulation in Englewood, Colorado, and the towns of Castle Rock, Parker and Larkspur, the NewsPress is published weekly on Thursday by Colorado Community Media and additional mailing offices. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT ENGLEWOOD, COLORADO and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address change to: 9137 S. Ridgeline Blvd., Suite 210 Highlands Ranch, CO 80129 DEADLINES: Display: Fri. 11 a.m. Legal: Fri. 11 a.m. | Classified: Mon. 5 p.m. G ET SOCIAL WITH US
In 2010, while living in Seattle, Lisa and Steve Stucky read an article in a magazine about international adoptions that would change their lives. At an orphanage in Zambia, widows were making handbags to support themselves and their children. The story inspired a project of passion that evolved into an online shop, a dream to build a school and an adoption-outreach program. “We started with the idea that if we can do a little bit to help, then that’s what we’ll do,” Steve said. First, the Castle Rock couple created an online shop that partners with organizations in Haiti, Rwanda, Tanzania and India to support impoverished people by buying their handmade goods and selling them. But their vision grew when Lisa traveled to Tanzania with her sister in 2012. “I said, `Let’s go to Africa and check out these partnerships we’re buying from and make sure that they’re legit,’ ” Lisa said. “So we went to Tanzania for a week and Rwanda for a week and, oh, my gosh, I totally fell in love with it. Africa is such a heartbeat for me.” And Mavuno Village, an organization in Tanzania that works with orphans, captured her heart — so much so that she and Steve renamed their online shop Mavuno Market. The shop has since partnered with Mavuno Village, which creates homes for the growing number of children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic on the African continent. Its mission is to build a Christian, family-style village, supported in part by farming, which teaches the values of family and equips children with skills for their future. “They bring in 10 kids and put them in a house with a mom and dad,” Steve said. “They want to give the kids that family connection and not the traditional dormitory-style arrangement.” Twenty percent of the shop’s sales go to the Tanzanian orphanage.
Building something sustainable
P L EA SE R ECYC L E T H I S C OPY
That partnership has led to an effort to build a school to educate village children. Mavuno Village must raise $100,000 to build four buildings with nine classrooms, a cafeteria and a library. Eventually, the Stuckys would like to build a trade center for adults.
Money is expected to come from a combination of the online shop, donations and grants, Lisa said. No timetable has been set for how soon the school will be built, but the village owns the land and all that remains is to finance the construction. “We want to refocus our energy on the school so that in Tanzania, specifically, they can do agriculture and they can learn to be hairdressers and learn computer skills,” Lisa said. Steve will visit the village in November and check on the school’s progress. It will be his first trip to Africa. “What we’ve seen is that crafts or jewelry or bowls or wood carving are a great way for a lot of people to come out of their impoverished situation,” Steve said. But “what we would like to see is more entrepreneurism in a skill or a trade that carries more demand locally, so that we can see viable businesses by Africans being started and then them employing others.”
Helping at home The Stuckys’ international work has led to a local focus as well. They founded Passion for Orphans to support and educate parents looking to adopt internationally in the Denver area. A local arm of Mavuno Market, Passion for Orphans hosts retreats and informational meetings about international and local adoptions. “I started meeting all of these moms who had adopted internationally,” Lisa said. “Most of them had really hard stories— `I brought these kids back and now I’m struggling with how do I raise them?’ ” Two meetings are held each year, in the spring and the fall. “We wanted to get moms together so that they can be truly honest with their struggles and talk about their hardships,” Lisa said. Despite all they’ve accomplished, the Stuckys have one more dream still to fulfill. One day, when their young children are older and Steve can take off enough time from work, the family would like to live and work in the village they are helping to build. “That’s an experience that I would love to be able to give our children,” Lisa said. “This is our mission, as a family, and it would be great if our children were able to live it firsthand.”
Education reform may be accelerating the pace of teacher turnover not just in Douglas County but throughout Colorado, some experts say. And while some say changes can be made to soften the impact and slow turnover, others maintain it is part of the process involved in reshaping American education. Colorado and most other states adopted the Common Core initiative — a national effort to improve education standards that specify the skills and knowledge students must learn at each level. The state integrated the Common Core with its Colorado Academic Standards, and began implementing the changes with the 2013-14 academic year. The Douglas County School District designed and introduced its own version of the standards, called the Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum, in 2012. Teacher turnover is up for both entities, though the rate at which they are leaving rose more sharply in DCSD than at the state level. Colorado teacher turnover for 2013-14 was 16.65 percent, and in DCSD it was 17.28 percent. From 2012 to 2013, the pace at which teachers left their posts statewide rose 13 percent. In DCSD, it increased by 30 percent. Those numbers, compiled by the Colorado Department of Education, do not include employees who left after Dec. 1, 2013, in-district transfers or in-district promotions. The changes and added job duties the new standards entail, combined with the impact of a now-fading recession that contributed to pay freezes for many teachers, are feeding those increases, one state education official believes. Under the reforms, teachers are faced with changing curriculum, new planning methods, increased testing and self-evaluations. “It’s already a complex job,” said Bruce Caughey, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives. “If you lay in a combination of no raises and significantly changing demands, I think it’s taking a toll. “I do think educators are typically optimistic people who want to do the work and have a heart for it. But their burden is increasing, there’s no question.” Education reform is happening rapidly in Douglas County, which describes itself as a leader in the “transformation of K-12 education.” The first Colorado school district to authorize a charter school, and the first K-12 district to introduce a marketbased pay system and district-managed voucher program, it also introduced its teacher evaluation system a year ahead of most other Colorado school districts. Since the original, reform-dedicated school board was first elected in 2009 and Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen was hired in 2010, teacher turnover has crept steadily up. It rose from just over 10 percent in 200910 to 17.3 percent in 2013-14, an increase in the rate at which teachers are leaving of 70 percent. During those same years, the state’s teacher turnover also increased, but at a much slower rate, rising 27.2 percent. Reform continues on Page 7