[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 209 (Thursday, December 10, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7419-S7420]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                       TRIBUTE TO SUSANA CORDOVA

 Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise to commend a great educator, 
Susana Cordova, for her service to Denver, our schools, and our 
children. As Susana steps down as superintendent of Denver Public 
Schools, it is the right time to say thank you and, more, to say how 
much we love and respect her for her dedication. She has done so much 
more than give 30 years to the Denver Public Schools.
  At every moment of her DPS career, Susana has been an educator's 
educator--committed to each student, able to see their unique gifts and 
envision their individual success, and willing to meet them where they 
are so she could walk alongside them as they learned.
  She began as a teacher, first at Denver's Horace Mann Middle School 
and West High School. There, she taught language arts to students who 
mostly spoke Spanish at home. She became an assistant principal at 
Bryant-Webster Elementary School and then a principal at Remington 
Elementary School, two more schools that served Spanish-speaking 
families. In her 4 years at Remington, the school saw gains of 33 
percent in reading.
  In 2002, she joined district leadership and again worked tirelessly 
to improve outcomes for students. Susana knew that the way to do this 
was to challenge students academically--to read the poem and write a 
clear argument about it, to think like a mathematician and show your 
work, to take courses that earned college credit or offered real 
workplace experience. Her approach placed high expectations on teachers 
and principals, not just students. But because she had done the work 
herself, she was compassionate and always joined with her colleagues 
learning how to meet those expectations.
  In nearly all of these years, DPS improved graduation, literacy, and 
math rates faster than the State of Colorado. Just as important, 
achievement gaps narrowed. Throughout Susana's tenure as an 
instructional leader, DPS focused on improving the academic outcomes of 
students of color and students from families who qualify for free 
lunch. She would be the first to say that Denver, like other big-city 
school systems, has plenty of work left to do. There are still Denver 
children who might have even greater opportunity when they graduated if 
they were challenged to read ``Bless Me, Ultima,'' if they had a few 
more chances to learn how to balance a chemical equation, or if they 
graduated with a little college credit to help them along the way to 
earning a college degree.
  Susana's commitment to DPS is more than professional. As a student, 
she attended kindergarten at Denver's Barnum Elementary School. She 
went on to Kepner Middle School and graduated from Abraham Lincoln High

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School. She became the first in her family to go to college. Her roots 
in DPS span three generations. Her mother, Rita Cordova, attended 
Denver's Franklin and Greenlee elementary schools, Baker Junior High 
School, and West High School, before beginning a career as an office 
professional at Denver's Lake Junior High and then her alma mater, 
West. Both of Susana and Eric's children, Alex and Carmen, are DPS 
graduates.
  Public education is one generation's commitment of equity, freedom, 
and prosperity to the generation that follows. Susana's story teaches 
us what happens when we follow through. Mothers and fathers pass the 
benefits forward to their daughters and sons. At a community meeting 
held before she was selected by the Denver Board of Education to become 
superintendent, she described the promise of public education like 
this:

       It gave me access and opportunity to a world that didn't 
     exist in my neighborhood. My mother grew up in Denver and 
     went to the Denver public schools, as well. She didn't have 
     access to the kinds of classes I had access to. It leveled 
     the playing field for minority kids like me.

  Public education is not a promise that keeps itself. Susana's career 
in DPS teaches us how much work is needed to make sure we don't drop 
the ball. We keep the promise one student and one classroom at a time. 
It takes teachers, principals and district leaders, families, and 
community members, each willing, like Susana, to do their part with the 
patience and diligence they would wish for their own child.

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