Why DSST: Cole?
Close, caring relationships are at the heart of our approach and our school culture intentionally fosters strong relationships. We prepare students for college, with an emphasis on developing students through liberal arts learning (reading, writing, mathematics, and science). Students succeed through classroom environments that are structured for success with clear academic and behavioral expectations, and flourish in our many extracurricular activities and athletic programs.
The Cole team is proud to bring the DSST promise—to prepare ALL students for success in college and the 21st century—to our families.
Connect with our team to find a home at DSST: Cole!
Layla Herrera
Community Engagement & Recruitment Manager
DSST: Cole Middle School
6th Grade
- Math
- English and Reading
- Social Studies
- Science
- Creative Engineering
- Music
- PE
- Health
7th Grade
- Math
- English and Reading
- Social Studies
- Science
- Art
- Music
- PE
- Health
8th Grade
- Math
- English Reading
- Social Studies
- Science
- Art
- Music
- PE
- Health
DSST provides a program that fosters participation and enjoyment of interscholastic team competition, as well as non-competitive fitness activities. The athletic program emphasizes high level skill and strategies, teamwork, good sportsmanship, school spirit, character building and fun. The goal is to provide each student with a sense of affiliation, motivation, and accomplishment by balancing a challenging experience with support and encouragement. The athletic program is an integral part of DSST's curriculum and emphasizes living the school's Core Values.
- Basketball
- Co-Ed Flag Football
- Soccer
- Volleyball
- Cheer
DSST: Cole Middle School offers a wide variety of opportunities for students to engage with and explore their passions.
- Environmental Club
- Band
- Crafts
- Student Council
- Fitness
- Poetry
- Yearbook
- Photography
- Culinary Arts
- Magic
- Sculpture
- Woodworking
- Digital Art
- Political Philosophy
- Black Student Alliance
- Debate
- Pride
- Mindfulness
- Board Games
- Literary Magazine
- Women's Studies
- Book Club
- Drumline
- Hip Hop Ensemble
- Pop Rock Ensemble
- R&B Ensemble
In order to fulfill DSST’s mission to eliminate educational inequity and serve all students, we must serve students with disabilities with excellence, to ensure they are welcomed, known and challenged through rigorous academic instruction to achieve their most ambitious post-secondary path. This requires embracing DSST’s view of the human condition and executing on a common set of guiding principles, foundational practices, and key levers that will translate into transformational outcomes for our students with disabilities.
Student Outcomes
We aim to ensure that all students with disabilities are known, welcomed, and challenged to succeed within our schools and to achieve their most ambitious post-secondary path. In pursuit of equity and inclusion for all students, we measure our success through the following metrics:
- Student and family sense of belonging
- Re-enrollment
- Academic growth
- HS graduation rate
- Success in college or post-secondary programming
Guiding Beliefs
The following guiding beliefs are central to our goals for our students and our approach to ensuring the individual needs of all students are met at DSST. These principles guide our thinking and our decisions at the student, school and network level.
- All Means All - We believe all students, regardless of background, needs, or disability status, can thrive at DSST. In pursuit of our mission, we strive to serve all students’ diverse learning needs so that they may achieve rigorous outcomes while in our schools and succeed on their ideal post-secondary path.
- Culture of Inclusion - We believe students learn best when they are included in their community and classrooms to the fullest extent possible. Meeting this ambitious goal requires the full engagement and collaboration of all community members. A truly inclusive environment requires that parents have input and staff members share ownership of all students.
- Responsibility for Success - We believe that, ultimately, the success of all students is our responsibility. While we hold our students to high expectations and intentionally teach self-advocacy skills, we believe it is our job to provide the supports and instruction necessary to ensure students meet those expectations. We celebrate students’ successes and provide additional learning opportunities when students face obstacles.
- Learning Organization - Serving the diverse needs of all students requires curiosity, openness to new ideas and a drive to be on the forefront of best practices. We must be open to examining what is and is not working for students, trying new things, and adjusting course when necessary.
We provide services to student in Special Education in a variety of ways, including but not limited to:
- Push-in Special Education teachers serve within the general education classroom
- Pull-out services: Special Education teachers pull small groups from the general education classroom to provide Specially Designed Instruction
- Co-teaching- Some of our classes are co-taught with a gen-ed teacher and a special education teacher.
- Special Services, Students who have an identified need on their IEP may gain access to a variety of service providers including, Speech Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Vision and Motor therapists, and Mental health service providers, School Psychologists and/or Social Workers.
- Intervention courses: Full courses to provide remedial support in reading or math
- In-class accommodations and modifications as determined by the IEP
- Testing accommodations and modifications as determined by the IEP
DSST: Cole High School
9th Grade
- Humanities
- Physics
- Composition
- Algebra 1 or Algebra 1 Honors
- Music
- Spanish
10th Grade
- World Lit
- Chemistry
- Physical Education
- Math 2
- Algebra 2 Honors
- Spanish 2
11th Grade
- American Lit
- US History
- AP US History
- Biology
- AP Biology
- AP Spanish Language/Culture
- Internship
- Environmental Science
12th Grade
- AP Physics
- AP Computer Science
- Senior English
- Calculus or AP Calculus
- Civics
- Senior Project
Other
In addition to the courses above we also offer:
- Art Electives
- Performing Arts Electives
- Sports Electives
- SAT Prep Course
DSST provides a program that fosters participation and enjoyment of interscholastic team competition, as well as non-competitive fitness activities. The athletic program emphasizes high level skill and strategies, teamwork, good sportsmanship, school spirit, character building and fun. The goal is to provide each student with a sense of affiliation, motivation, and accomplishment by balancing a challenging experience with support and encouragement. The athletic program is an integral part of DSST's curriculum and emphasizes living the school's Core Values.
DSST: Cole offers a co-ed Ultimate Frisbee team and has a partnership with Manual High School to offer the following athletic teams:
- Football
- Volleyball
- Boys/Girls Soccer
- Boys/Girls Basketball
- Baseball
- Track and Field
- Cheer
- Chess
- Student Council
- GSA (Gay Straight Alliance)
- K-Pop
- Skateboarding
- Magic
- Art
- BSA (Black Student Alliance)
- Music
- Anime
- Dragon Wars
Professional Internships
In the 11th grade year, all DSST students participate in a 10-week long internship. The intention of the internship program is to give students an opportunity to explore different career paths and apply the learning they’ve done in classes to a real-world job. Each school has an Internship Coordinator, who is responsible for finding organizations and matching them with student interns based on the student’s interest. Students have been placed at organizations like the Denver Zoo, Atlas Physical Therapy, Mike Johnston for Colorado, and Teach for America, among others.
Internships take place during the school day, in place for an elective for one trimester of the year.
Senior Project
In the 12th grade year, all students will complete a Senior Project, intended to synthesize learning from their experiences throughout their time with DSST to culminate into a final, long-term project.
In order to fulfill DSST’s mission to eliminate educational inequity and serve all students, we must serve students with disabilities with excellence, to ensure they are welcomed, known and challenged through rigorous academic instruction to achieve their most ambitious post-secondary path. This requires embracing DSST’s view of the human condition and executing on a common set of guiding principles, foundational practices, and key levers that will translate into transformational outcomes for our students with disabilities.
STUDENT OUTCOMES
We aim to ensure that all students with disabilities are known, welcomed, and challenged to succeed within our schools and to achieve their most ambitious post-secondary path. In pursuit of equity and inclusion for all students, we measure our success through the following metrics:
- Student and family sense of belonging
- Re-enrollment
- Academic growth
- HS graduation rate
- Success in college or post-secondary programming
GUIDING BELIEFS
The following guiding beliefs are central to our goals for our students and our approach to ensuring the individual needs of all students are met at DSST. These principles guide our thinking and our decisions at the student, school and network level.
- All Means All - We believe all students, regardless of background, needs, or disability status, can thrive at DSST. In pursuit of our mission, we strive to serve all students’ diverse learning needs so that they may achieve rigorous outcomes while in our schools and succeed on their ideal post-secondary path.
- Culture of Inclusion - We believe students learn best when they are included in their community and classrooms to the fullest extent possible. Meeting this ambitious goal requires the full engagement and collaboration of all community members. A truly inclusive environment requires that parents have input and staff members share ownership of all students.
- Responsibility for Success - We believe that, ultimately, the success of all students is our responsibility. While we hold our students to high expectations and intentionally teach self-advocacy skills, we believe it is our job to provide the supports and instruction necessary to ensure students meet those expectations. We celebrate students’ successes and provide additional learning opportunities when students face obstacles.
- Learning Organization - Serving the diverse needs of all students requires curiosity, openness to new ideas and a drive to be on the forefront of best practices. We must be open to examining what is and is not working for students, trying new things, and adjusting course when necessary.
We provide services to student in Special Education in a variety of ways, including but not limited to:
- Push-in Special Education teachers serve within the general education classroom
- Pull-out services: Special Education teachers pull small groups from the general education classroom to provide Specially Designed Instruction
- Co-teaching- Some of our classes are co-taught with a gen-ed teacher and a special education teacher.
- Special Services, Students who have an identified need on their IEP may gain access to a variety of service providers including, Speech Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Vision and Motor therapists, and Mental health service providers, School Psychologists and/or Social Workers.
- Intervention courses: Full courses to provide remedial support in reading or math
- In-class accommodations and modifications as determined by the IEP
- Testing accommodations and modifications as determined by the IEP