Leaders of five Aurora schools are finalizing plans in what could be the final try at improving the performance of their struggling schools and helping students who are learning English as a second language.

Principals have released few details on how they will target those students, but experts say it must be a priority.

“You always need to bring to the table a language lens,” said Nancy Commins, a clinical professor at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado Denver. “I don’t know what their ideas are, but most reform efforts are not going to be successful if you don’t bring a language lens.”

That focus is there, principals say, but there are some limits as to what they can change.

“We’re planning on keeping the 40-minute English language development block. We don’t know what we can change,” said Tammy Stewart, principal of Paris Elementary, where 70 percent of students are English language learners.

A main theme of the school’s changes would create an international focus at the school that Stewart said she hopes will come with support for English language learners.

“We’re hoping that in doing an international focus that will be embedded,” she said.

The five plans need school support first from a majority of employees and the community. If they get it, the principals will go to the Aurora Public Schools board next month seeking approval for innovation status, which would give each principal autonomy to implement the changes without worrying about many district, union or state rules.

But when it comes to the education of English language learners, the district is bound by an agreement with the Office of Civil Rights under the U.S. Department of Education.

The agreement was signed in 2008 after the Office of Civil Rights found that Aurora Public Schools was failing to educate students who were not yet proficient in English.

The agreement outlines a number of things the district is required to do — including identifying students who need language support, communicating with parents in native languages and staffing trained teachers to work with students who don’t speak English. It does not dictate a curriculum, a teacher training method or specific materials to be used in classrooms.

The agreement stays in effect until the office is convinced the district is fully compliant.

District officials are working to make changes to improve how students learn English without falling behind in core, tested subjects.

A draft of recommendations for changes that would apply to all of the district’s schools should be ready this spring, and if approved would be implemented next school year.

The recommendations, while not yet public, are being based off a recent $90,000 audit that suggested the district needs to evaluate the effectiveness of the current curriculum for English language development and that schools should be supported to experiment with alternative ways of teaching students.

One of the remaining issues, seen in annual staff surveys and in school specific audits, shows teachers don’t feel they have all the support they need to teach such diverse classrooms.

Innovation plans are trying to address that issue.

At Crawford Elementary, principal Jenny Passchier is seeking to break free from some rules to extend the school day. With the extra time, Passchier wants teachers to have more planning time, including some group planning to focus on English language learners.

The extra time also would give all students an extra class period dedicated to an intervention or enrichment block depending on their needs.

“It’s about using data to really understand how do we scaffold our lessons to make them accessible to all students,” Passchier said.

Commins says time is an issue for teachers across most districts.

“What you need in a school is collaborative planning time, but external accountability measures can distract teachers,” Commins said.

At Paris, Stewart said an ability to change how they hire teachers also matters.

Using turnaround grant money, Stewart said they will be looking at how to hire teachers with more training in educating English language learners.

“I’ve seen this model work,” Stewart said. “But we’re trying to use a model when teachers don’t have to have endorsements. They take three classes, and they don’t have to start taking them until their second year.”

Three of the four schools have less than a quarter of their teachers evaluated as “accomplished or exemplary” — the highest rating a teacher can receive. Information was not available for Crawford. At Boston K-8 School, 35 percent of the schools teachers are rated as partially proficient, and only 47.8 percent of teachers stay three years or more.

Diana Castro, a mother of two including a preschooler in the district, said she hopes the schools pay more attention to helping kids learn English than when she was a student in the district in the early 2000s.

“If they are going to work more with these students, everybody is going to be a winner,” Castro said. “The first thing we need to get them to do is get them to learn the language. And for that, we need to be getting our families engaged.”

Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372, yrobles@denverpost.com or @yeseniarobles

The five schools and percent of students who are english language learners

Paris Elementary, 69.4 percent

Crawford Elementary, 74.6 percent

Boston K-8 School, 66.7 percent

Aurora Central High School, 70.4 percent

Aurora West College Preparatory Academy, 82.1 percent