Dennison Elementary School

The teachers and staff have high expectations and pushed my child to be the best he could be. I am so grateful that i will be having my oldest start this fall and my youngest start next year!! I love this school!

They use systemic practices from one grade level to the next, and deliver comprehensive instruction. I feel as though my daughter's education has not skipped a beat and she has been taught to do high quality work. She loves her school!!!

The school has very high expectations which I love!!! They bring the best out of your child and I am very blessed to be a part of the tightly niche Dennison community.

Apparently the "citizen" who disparaged Dennison and its lottery process failed to thoroughly research the school. It is clearly stated on the school website in all capital letters that "IT IS MANDATORY THAT YOU ATTEND AN INFORMATIONAL MEETING AND OBSERVE IN CLASSROOMS IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED FOR ENROLLMENT." Please do not bash the school and its process because you cannot read directions. This mandatory process has been in place and publicized since I completed a choice enrollment form for my child 8 years ago! I attended the meetings, filled out the appropriate forms, unfortunately we were not high enough on the list the first year.

I completed the same process the next year, including attending the MANDATORY meetings AGAIN, and we thankfully were choiced in using the same process that every other school uses for choice enrollment. Again, it is unfair to rate the school based upon your failure to follow directions.

I have several children that have or currently attend Dennison and I could not be more pleased with the education they have received. The school is very family centric and parent involvement is tantamount to the education they receive from the teachers and administrators at the school. It is a lot of work and a huge commitment for both the kids and parents in the school, however, it is worth the end result. One of my children has moved on to 7th grade and the preparation he received from Dennison has made the transition to middle school almost seamless.

Good luck getting in if you aren't able to make their parent information meetings that are, apparently, MANDATORY for being included in their exclusive version of the choice enrollment lottery. Nowhere on their school page on the Jeffco website do they tell you that attendance at one of these limited parent information nights is mandatory to be allowed the privilege of being considered for choice enrollment in their apparently elitist school.

It shouldn't matter how many families wish to be included in the choice enrollment lottery for ANY school in Jefferson County. All county schools receiving county funds should be required to abide by the same choice enrollment rules and deadlines, allowing ALL tax-paying Jefferson County citizens equal opportunity for consideration in what is supposedly be a fair, lottery-based choice enrollment system.

Dennison's choice to impose additional, unpublicized rules and restrictions to this lottery application process stacks the deck in favor some families over others based on their personal availability and proximity to the school, and provides an unfair and undeserved advantage for some residents over others with no due cause. The Jefferson County school board should not allow schools receiving public funds to subvert the fair lottery system in this way, and needs to take action to correct this situation immediately.

This may be an excellent school, but the administration needs to step down from their elitist position, and provide a truly fair, equal opportunity for all Jefferson county citizens to enroll their children in this or any other Jefferson County public school.

Great school. Preparing kids for more than just answers. Kids learn to work hard for results. Plenty of other activities also are a part of the school and the kids aren't just academic machines.

I drives me nuts to see non-Dennison "citizens" giving a school a one star when they clearly know nothing about this school or its philosophy. If there are a lot of teacher's kids here it's because they know Dennison's standard of excellence and choose to lottery in. As for the rest of us, not everyone knows about this school and/or, not everyone is willing to drive to this location for this educational opportunity. There are excellent school elsewhere in the district that are just as hard to get into, because if you don't live in that neighborhood you still have to try to lottery/choice in. Having said all that, this is a rigorous school no question. There is homework in EVERY grade. These kids work hard for their grades; there are no handouts. Kids get dinged forgetting to write down their class number or the assignment number or the dollar sign in front of the answer to a math problem. So what? If I want to see my child excel in STEM then better to learn now...there isn't room for error in those fields of study. It's not about how to take a test but rather how to be an effective student and how to study. Slow down, read the directions, and double check your work. These kids need not to "test in" to show how smart they are. Like my kid, most of these kids are the average Joe, but Dennison empowers them to be all that they can be. The bar is set high and these kids rise to the challenge. ALL schools should operate in the mindset of this school. It's not a magic pill, it's a lot of hard work, plain and simple.

Dennison is effectively a private school within the Jeffco public school system. Very few minorities or children of poorer parents attend - far less than the Jeffco averages and even more so considering the area the school is located in. Maybe that is because minority and economically disadvantaged parents simply don't want a good education for their children. Or maybe it is because Jeffco sends its buses to the richest and whitest portions of the county to bring the privileged children to Dennison.

If you can win the not-so-transparent lottery great. I've heard that an amazingly high number of Jeffco teacher's children attend Dennison. I guess they are just lucky.

There are no classical/back-to-basic charter school alternatives in the middle of Jefferson County (shame on Jefferson County R1 schools!) so try to transfer your kids into one of the better performing neighborhood schools as Jeffco allows out-of neighborhood transfers on a space available basis. Of course, you will have to provide the transportation to keep your kids out of Jeffco's many educational gulags.

Of course the lottery process has zero transparency...it's a lottery! I get it, it's a nail biter we've been there. Openings change from year to year depending on how many incoming siblings are registered. One year it can be 20 opens another year it can be 40, maybe more, I don't work in the office. The year my child came in we were in the low 20s and I didn't hear anything for months. However, I do know the staff cannot tell you the number they are working on because they have outstanding calls to families with lower numbers. The staff need a decline or acceptance of the open offer before the staff can move onto the next. It is my understanding that this process isn't complete until the middle of summer. Let us not blame the staff but rather those who have a low lottery number and don't get back to the school in a timely fashion. It is egregious and outright unreasonable for the previous parent to give this school a one star when clearly this person know nothing of the standards, academics, teachers, etc. of this truly incredibly awesome life changing incomparable elementary school.

Good luck getting in though. Admissions are by lottery only. I'd rather take a test and earn my way into a good school then just leave it up to random chance. The lottery process has zero transparency. They don't tell you how many openings they have each year, how many siblings got in or how the number you are assigned fits in with any of these other numbers. At the very least they should post a website saying the next opening will go to number XX. Then you would know how far your number was from the current number. No that would be way to hard for weary administrators. I mean updating a number every week or so is hard work. Why would they want to lift a finger to let concerned parents know if they are even close to getting in to this incredibly awesome life changing incomparable elementary school.

Dennison Elementary school is ranked as 3rd in the state out of all the elementary schools with the 1st and 2nd schools being GT or advanced placement schools for which you need to test-in to attend. Dennison also holds the distinguished honor of wining the "Blue Ribbon Award two times! It is the only Colorado elementary school to have won this award twice.