Downtown Denver Expeditionary School

1860 Lincoln Street

School District

Denver County 1
Grade

K-5
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:17
Type

charter

School Map for Denver County 1 School District

GreatSchools Rating

The school rating calculation is based on four ratings: the Student Progress Rating or Academic Progress Rating, College Readiness Rating, Equity Rating, and Test Score Rating each designed to show different facets of school success. Learn more about GreatSchools Ratings

Reviews

Submitted by parent on July 14, 2024

My previous review was deleted. We had a bad experience at the school, I'll leave it at that. There has been a big exodus of students out of this school and high staff turnover.
Submitted by parent on April 19, 2023

This school is a dream! My son is excelling and has made so many friends. The staff and leadership are incredibly inclusive, transparent, responsive, and caring. The school itself is diverse, modeling what it means to be committed to equity, inclusion, and integration. Teachers genuinely care about my child's social-emotional and physical well-being. Our son can articulate what they are working on during the day and we have regular celebrations and check-ins. We love the EL model, the regular 'fieldwork' outside of the building, and of course, the Adventure component (camping with their class). We love DDES!
Submitted by parent on January 27, 2022

Our son has been going to DDES since 1st grade and is now in 3rd grade. We can’t say enough wonderful things about DDES!!!! The teachers really love to teach and sincerely care for the well-being of each kid! We also love the crew mentality! No one is a passenger, they are all part of a crew! If you’re looking for schools in the Denver area please consider sending your child here!
Submitted by parent on December 10, 2021

My son has attended DDES for two years now and I have been so impressed with the quality of teachers, emphasis on social emotional learning, project based learning and community-centered approach. It is a nurturing and supportive environment with strong academics, as well. It is truly a gem in the middle of downtown!
Submitted by parent on December 10, 2021

We transferred my son to DDES during the shutdown. He went from hating school to being excited to go, even if it was just online. This year in person has been phenomenal for him. The staff is caring and smart and all around wonderful.
Submitted by parent on December 10, 2021

I can’t say enough positive things about this school. My kids have both attended since kindergarten and I have seen so much positive emotional and academic growth. The school does an amazing job on nurturing the whole student. The teachers have been so supportive, engaged, empathetic, and inspiring.
Submitted by parent on December 09, 2021

We could not be more thrilled with our experience at DDES. The level of care, support, and love that is poured into the kids is more than we could ask for. The emphasis on growth-oriented skills and mindsets, the positive environment, teaching the kids to support each other, the adventures and fieldwork, the encouragement to tackle and work through challenges... all of it has resulted in our 1st grader loving school and the friends she’s making, and feeling proud of herself for working hard and learning new things. We are so happy and grateful we landed at DDES!
Submitted by parent on June 14, 2018

DDES is amazing in theory, but troubled in execution. We were excited to put our children in a place where they were immersed in a busy downtown environment, one that might inspire them through the city's diversity, focus, and grit. We found those qualities lacking at the school. We initially embraced the school but over the years that is no longer the case. We've met incredible families at the school. But it's apparent to us that the motivation for a number of parents to enroll children has more to do with giving them the chance to brag about turning their noses up at established traditional schools in favor of a counterculture alternative. Sadly the line between pride and gloating ruins the appeal.Teachers are very pleasant and work hard to create an engaging atmosphere, but nearly all of them are very young with little to no experience. You see many of them struggling and failing to resolve issues in a productive way that you wouldn't see with seasoned staff. There were multiple instances where teachers trying to do the right thing for their students were quickly cowed and dismissed by parents with very strong personalities. Our family felt too many schools are far too impersonal, rigid and more dedicated to achieving high test scores through rote learning that just doesn't work with kids. That's why we chose DDES. But over time we realized DDES was taking it too far in the other direction with "everyone gets a medal just for showing up" mindset. We felt our children were losing out at learning fundamentals that they will need in higher education because teaching time was spent showing kids how to do things differently just for the sake of doing it differently.What frustrated our family was that DDES and the collective parents never seemed to really take a hard look at themselves and ask "How can we do better?" Instead it always seemed to return to either "Well at least we not like those traditional schools." or finger pointing amongst each other. We do sincerely hope that DDES does thrive and one day become a model for expeditionary excellence in Denver metro. Right now it appears to be a long road to get there.