When we moved to Edgewater, we wanted to enroll our daughters in our neighborhood elementary school. But when we looked at the Great Schools website and found that they rated Lumberg Elementary as a 2 out of 10, we honestly thought twice about whether to send our daughters to Lumberg. We all want the best education for our children.

We took a leap of faith, met the Lumberg principal and decided to enroll at Lumberg Elementary. We’ve haven’t regretted this decision though and have been impressed by the teachers and staff.

As we endeavor to see all children in our area succeed from cradle to career, we do need to confront the brutal facts regarding the schools in our area.

Jim Collins writes about great companies in his book Good to Great, “It didn’t matter how bleak the situation or how stultifying their mediocrity, they all maintained unwavering faith that they would not just survive, but prevail as a great company. And yet, at the same time, they became relentlessly disciplined at confronting the most brutal facts of their current reality.”

Here are two of the brutal facts about our area schools.

According to Colorado School Grades, our middle school and high school are struggling.

Wheat Ridge Middle School receives a “D” grade.

Jefferson High School receives a “F” grade.

This is one snapshot of a school’s performance and we can all argue over the merits of judging a school based on its test scores, especially when a vast majority of these students are growing up in poverty.

But the fact remains that our students are struggling academically. Area parents choose to send their students to other schools in the area that fare better in the rankings.

Without playing the blame game, we need to dig deep, ask good questions and focus on how to overcome the roadblocks of poverty to help all kids succeed from cradle to career.

It is essential that we begin by confronting the brutal facts.

Just explaining away the facts based on poverty rates doesn’t solve the problem. Pushing families to choice out of the neighborhood school to a better school in the suburbs doesn’t fix the problem.

We need to work together to solve these complicated, systematic roadblocks to success in our area.

What are are the root causes for why students aren’t succeeding in school?

What type of supports do we need to help students succeed?

I for one will not believe that poverty should block a student from succeeding in school and life.