Grab your backpacks and your books because school is getting back in session. But students shouldn't expect the same old basics. At schools throughout the metro area, teachers and administrators are launching new initiatives designed to improve the educational experience.

Some are radical: Aurora, for example, is trying a whole new curriculum. Others are tasty: Boulder schools plan to feature Colorado-grown fruits and vegetables. Still others are international: How about videoconferencing with students in other lands? Or tackling Chinese?

Here's a sampling of what metro-area students can expect this fall:

Top-to-bottom change

Aurora schools will see a major overhaul of curriculum and teaching methods in an effort to boost some of the lowest test scores in the region.

To attack illiteracy, the district is adopting a new reading curriculum along with "pacing guides" that break the material into individual lesson plans with specific learning goals. The districtwide pacing guides mean consistent instruction for children who transfer schools, administrators say.

Superintendent John Barry pledges that students will be brought to grade level in five years under the program, and that all kids will be ready for college when they graduate.

"This is a grand strategy," he said of the reform that starts this semester.

Eat your (locally grown) vegetables

Boulder elementary school students will be seeing vegetables - lots of them - grown by Colorado farmers. A different vegetable will be featured each month in school cafeterias, starting with melons in September and moving on to winter squash in October.

"A lot of kids have not been exposed to a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables," said food services director Linda Stoll. "So we're trying to encourage students to consume new and different (ones)."

Lessons about vegetables could creep into the curriculum, Stoll said.

One school, Creekside Elementary in south Boulder, already works with local farmers to plant a vegetable garden, she said.

The schools will use California vegetables during the cold months. But schools will resume the program in the spring with Colorado asparagus.

"It will be kind of fun thinking up new recipes that will be accepted by kids," Stoll said.

Around the world in Littleton

Students at Littleton High School will hold video conferences with students in other countries from a specially equipped lecture hall opening this semester.

Principal Kathy Dinmore anticipates that Littleton students and their counterparts in other nations will work on projects, then come together to discuss them. The projects will be on topics of international interest, such as global warming.

"It's breaking down walls," Dinmore said. "We think so often of schools as brick and mortar, and this tears that brick and mortar down."

She's identified schools in Britain and South Africa that have compatible equipment. The next step is to make contact with them. She expects the first international conference call before the end of the fall semester.

You have the right to remain silent . . .

Don't visit Hulstrom Options K-8 School in Thornton if you have any outstanding warrants.

Under a new security plan, visitors will have to show a driver's license, which will be run through a device linked to the Thornton Police Department. It will flag people with warrants or who are registered sex offenders.

"Parents' No. 1 concern is making sure their kids are safe," said Hulstrom Principal Kym Le- Blanc Monacelli.

Visitors who are cleared during the screening will be issued a security badge that includes the driver's license photo.

High expectations

Students will study Mandarin Chinese beginning in fifth grade at Mapleton's Global Leadership Academy.

Mandarin was chosen because of its connection to international commerce.

"The way we are going with outsourcing in business, Chinese and the Chinese government is who we deal with a lot," said Art Drotar, the school's director. "China is becoming a major player."

The school, which serves kids from kindergarten through high school, emphasizes the world and its cultures.

The Mapleton district's high poverty rate shouldn't preclude that kind of education, Drotar said.

"People think because they're in a lower socio-economic neighborhood or family that they have a lower intellectual ability. That's the furthest from the truth," he said.

Global Leadership is one of several schools carved out of the old Skyview High School with help from a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Everybody is special

Handicapped students will make up 20 percent of the enrollment at the new Vanguard Classical School. That's twice the number at most public schools.

They will study the same rigorous academic curriculum as the other students, said Principal Dennis Corash.

"We run into so many schools that just don't have high expectations for (these) kids. We do," Corash said.

Each class will have two teachers - a conventionally trained teacher and either a special-education teacher or a teacher experienced in working with students with disabilities, Corash said.

The charter school is the dream of the group CP of Colorado, but students will include those with conditions other than cerebral palsy. The school serves kids from kindergarten to sixth grade, but will add seventh and eighth grades over the next two years.

Supporters say Vanguard has advantages for all the kids.

"Life is full of all kinds of people. We expect to reflect the world around us," Corash said. The school will be ethnically diverse as well, he said.

Kids tutoring kids

The teacher learns more than the student in a Cherry Creek School District program in which older students tutor younger ones in reading.

The program calls for fourth- graders to tutor second-graders, and fifth-graders to tutor third- graders.

In a twist, the tutors aren't be the top-performing students, but youngsters who need a boost in reading themselves. They benefit by going over the basics with the younger students.

"We have found the tutors have almost doubled the gains of the tutees - we call the younger students 'tutees,' " explained Bonnie Snyder, a teacher at Antelope Ridge Elementary School who coordinates the tutor program throughout the district.

The program was tried in 20 schools last year. It's in 39 schools this year.

People's Republic of Douglas County

The walls will be in muted colors. Lights will be soft, with dimmers to make them softer. Classrooms will have lots of plants. Music in the hallways will play at 60 beats per minute.

"Because that's the way your heart beats when it's at rest," explained Karen Griffin, principal of Douglas County's new Lone Tree Elementary, a magnet school.

Lone Tree's environment and program are based on brain research, Griffin said.

Lone Tree features clear procedures for how to behave in the hall and cafeteria, and daily agendas so kids know what to expect.

"If you know what to do, you're not threatened and you can learn," Griffin said.

Griffin said one parent asked, "You're not trying to make my child a Boulder fruit are you?"

When does your child start school?

DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS

• Ninth-graders: Aug. 20

• Everyone else: Aug. 21

• Exceptions: Selected schools, such as West Denver Prep and KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy, start earlier.

AURORA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

• Grades 1-12: Started Aug. 7

• Kindergarten: Tuesday

ADAMS FIVE-STAR (NORTHGLENN-THORNTON)

• All grades: Aug. 27

CHERRY CREEK SCHOOL DISTRICT

• All grades: Aug. 20, but several elementary schools are on tracked calendars, so some are in session now.

DOUGLAS COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

• All grades: Started Aug. 2, except for schools that are in session year-round.

JEFFERSON COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

• All grades: Aug. 22

BOULDER

• Sixth- and ninth-graders: Thursday

• All other middle and high school grades: Friday

• Elementary schools: Aug. 20

BRIGHTON

• All grades: Thursday

COMMERCE CITY

• All grades: Aug. 21

ENGLEWOOD

• Most students: Aug. 20

LITTLETON

• All grades: Aug. 21

MAPLETON

• All except high school: Aug. 20. Parents are encouraged to check high schools for start date.

SHERIDAN

• Sixth- and ninth-graders: Today

• Everyone else: Tuesday

WESTMINSTER

• All grades: Aug. 20, except for one year-round school that resumed July 16.

morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303 954-5209

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