AURORA - Rangeview High School math teacher Steven Joiner was telling freshmen Tuesday why it's not too soon to think about college - and the grades they'll need to get in.

"You want to make sure you start off well," Joiner told a dozen students just hours after they began their first day as high schoolers.

The pep talk was music to Aurora school Superintendent John Barry, who arrived as Joiner was winding up. Barry delivers that same message everywhere he goes. And on the first day of classes, he was all over the district.

He rode the bus with students in the morning; addressed students, teachers and community leaders at Hinkley High School; ate lunch with kids at Aurora Frontier K-8 school, and finished up with classroom visits at Rangeview.

"We have a vision. Everyone goes to college," Barry said, completing Joiner's talk to the freshmen.

Getting into college has been a distant dream for many Aurora students. The district has some of the lowest test scores in the Denver Metro area.

The Aurora Board of Education tapped Barry last year to turn the district around.

He spent the academic year that ended in May working with teachers, principals and community members on strategies to reach failing kids. With the beginning of school, those strategies went into effect districtwide.

In fact, starting school Tuesday - two weeks before most other districts - is one of the strategies.

The early start allows Barry to tack on a 23-day mini-semester at the end of the school year for kids who are failing. It will serve 4,000 students.

Part of Barry's role is to visit three or four schools a week, talking to teachers and students. That's how he will tell whether the plan is working.

Besides reminding students that college is not beyond their grasp, he offers fatherly advice.

"Look me straight in the eye, and say who you are," Barry told Jacob Hidrowah, 12, a seventh-grader at Aurora Frontier. That's a good strategy on job interviews, Barry said.

He ate a school lunch at the third-grade table, where Daniel Trevithick, 7, was eager to share his own food - an Oscar Mayer pizza kit. It includes biscuit-sized crusts, plus packets of tomato sauce and cheese.

"Mr. Barry, You have to do this with your finger," Daniel explained, alternately spreading the tomato sauce on the crust and licking the finger.

"Do you like extra cheese?" he asked.

Barry took the pizza and thanked Daniel. But he didn't eat it.

morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303 954-5209