Chris Gdowski, superintendent of Adams 12 Five Star Schools north of Denver, has been named the 2026 Colorado Superintendent of the Year by two state groups for education leaders.
Gdowski has led the district of 35,000 students across 56 schools for 16 years, raising graduation rates in a diverse district, boosting career and technical offerings, and being an outspoken advocate for a more equitable school funding system.
“Chris embodies through and through what it means to be a servant leader,” said Keith Owen, selection committee member and Superintendent of the Fountain-Fort Carson School District. “Not only is he passionate about serving students in his own district, but he is also a strong advocate for Colorado public education at the state level. Chris is generous in sharing his own expertise and knowledge with other superintendents.”
Sustained academic improvement
The Adams 12 district has a lot of economic diversity and a significant number of multilingual learners. Under Gdowski’s leadership, the district’s four-year graduation rate for Hispanic students rose from 50.8 percent in 2010 to 76.8 percent in 2023, narrowing the gap with white students while raising overall graduation rates.
“I can still recall getting this job in October of 2009, and that my very first principal meeting, just sharing the data up on the screen about where our Hispanic graduate rate was, and I think people were unaware — and they were horrified that it was almost a coin flip about whether a Hispanic student in our system would graduate in four years,” he said in an interview.
Gdowski said that early awareness spurred a conviction to do better, and investments and support for multilingual learners. He points to a program at Horizon High School, which provides mentorship, personalized teacher contact, and programming targeted at students who struggle in large comprehensive high schools.
Two alternative programs — Vantage Point High School and Pathways Future Center School — have high numbers of Hispanic students. When Gdowski started, Vantage Point’s graduation rate was just 12 percent. It’s now 65 percent.
Under Gdowski’s leadership, the district has made significant investments in facilities and programs through 2016 and 2018 voter-approved measures. These have expanded career and technical education, such as firefighting, EMT and culinary arts, and dramatically increased student industry certifications each year.
He said those programs are essential to keeping students engaged in school.
“The correlation between our students who take a CTE course and complete it, and high school graduation is very high — it’s about a 97 percent correlation,” he said.
Leadership rooted in community
Gdowski’s connection to Adams 12 runs deep. He attended Leroy Elementary, Northglenn Junior High, and Thornton High School, graduating in 1985.
“When I watched that video and then I watched the current principal … talking about my connection to school, I started to cry. It was just very touching to me to see that.”
He said returning to his old classrooms reminded him why he’s stayed in Adams 12 despite offers from other districts.
“It’s a special place where you can really change opportunities for students and trajectories of lives in really powerful ways. It certainly did that for me. It did for my neighbors and friends growing up … that’s really the joy of the work now.”
Championing fair funding
Gdowski has been an outspoken advocate for boosting state dollars for schools and fixing Colorado’s school funding inequities.
“I’ve believed for a very long time … that we have a badly broken system of school finance,” he said.
He challenged the idea that Colorado has achieved “full funding” for public education since the elimination of the budget stabilization factor last year, money withheld annually from schools by state lawmakers. Adequacy studies submitted to the legislature show Colorado schools need another $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion to be adequately funded.
Gdowski said he plans to use the Superintendent of the Year platform to continue pressing for reform.
“My style is not to be a grenade thrower or a flamethrower,” he said. “I feel really strongly that a lot of the narrative around what we’re doing around public funding … just are not aligned with the real story out there.”
He has also advocated for a fix to the growing inequities created by local taxes, where some districts get 40 to 50 percent extra funding and others get none. Districts with higher property values raise much more, resulting in wide disparities in programming and staffing.
“It just results in a lot of disparities in terms of (a) school district’s ability to fill vacancies for key staffing positions, and the scope of programming that you can offer to students,” he said.
He expects more superintendents and school boards will become more vocal as enrollments start to decline more significantly across the state.
A collaborative leadership style
Despite his strong advocacy, Gdowski said he works hard to maintain constructive relationships with policymakers.
Gdowski’s advice for other superintendents? Letting others take on tasks and leadership in their areas.
“This work requires partnership,” he said. “The work is less stressful if you approach it through a partnership with your board of education … your teachers’ association … with parents and community members.”
Gdowski credits his team and the district’s collective effort for the recognition.
“I’m just so grateful that I’ve been able to pay it back to some degree in this role as superintendent for the outstanding education I had throughout my day as a student here,” he said.
