As the school year begins, Superintendent Alex Marrero remains in his job atop Denver Public Schools. Which begs the question of what it takes to get fired around here.

Marrero’s three years in Denver have been ones of marked underperformance. Whatever your assessment of what ails Colorado’s largest district, it is hard to make the case that Marrero is the answer.

Job one of any district leader is academic performance. Regarding this overarching objective, DPS continues to underdeliver. More than four years after the arrival of the COVID pandemic, academic achievement scores are still not back to even pre-pandemic levels. Those levels were a low bar of their own.

The achievement gap, meaning the disparity between children of upscale families and those of families in economic insecurity include many in minority communities, continues to grow under Marrero’s watch.

One longtime, close-in observer compared achievement numbers in DPS over recent years to those in Chicago, which has even a higher proportion of kids in poverty. A few weeks back, former Denver Mayor Federico Peña listed the Denver School District as the most troubled institution in the city and accused it of consigning “a whole generation of Black and Brown kids to difficult lives lacking necessary and competitive skills.”

Marrero seems ever determined to paper over those gaps among subgroups. A year ago, per the education publication Chalkbeat, he bragged that DPS students had met the district’s minimal goals for math, while still falling short in literacy. But he refused to release data comparing White students with students of color though that had been the practice for years prior.

Memo to the superintendent: Hiding the underlying data hardly makes the problem go away.

As of this writing, the Colorado Department of Education is releasing CMAS scores from assessing this past spring. Those numbers have not yet been aggregated or reported by the district. But does anyone want to wager that they will show DPS hitting it out of the park? Did not think so. Heck, we are not even looking for home runs. Could Marrero just occasionally hit a solid single?

Achievement is the unyielding imperative. Though it is not the only department in which Marrero falls far short.

Employee morale is in the tank and staff turnover has skyrocketed. One district official described “a revolving door” at the administration building as well as among school principals with roughly 20% having departed just this year.

That same official commented that “Marrero struggles to understand the importance of relationships.” Another informed watcher described him as “dictatorial” and “non-collaborative in the extreme.” Still another person accused him of creating a “culture of fear.

Just this week, Boardhawk, essential reading for those following DPS, reported a spike in teacher absenteeism over the past three years.

About 68,818 teacher absentee days were reported last year at 157 DPS school compared to 39,772 such absentee days at 162 schools four years ago. That is a stunning 73% increase.

For a couple of years, including during the period when Marrero enjoyed unanimous support from his board, he has failed to lead to fruition an effective process for closing schools. This is challenging work, for sure, and arouses community passions. But there is no way around it given declining student counts and tightening budgets.

While Marrero fumbled, just to the west in Jefferson County, the state’s second largest district managed to right-size by shuttering 21 schools. It can be done by a superintendent with will, smarts and skills of leadership and communication.

After the shooting over a year ago of two East High School administrators, Marrero promised a new discipline matrix. Recently released, the revamped policy, according to 9News, still allows for individuals accused of violent crimes, including attempted murder, to be in DPS classrooms. That, alone, brands it an exercise in complete futility.

To top it off, with the acquiescence of an ever-compliant board that hired him, Marrero put in place an annual evaluation that is meaningless. Annual reviews of his predecessor had been a 360-degree process with input solicited from every school principal. By contrast, participation in Marrero’s reviews is limited to those few administrators who report directly to him. It is the definition of an inside job.

Moreover, Marrero’s big-time salary, currently $329,400, is supplemented by bonuses “earned” for marginal performance improvements of as little as one percent by this or that yardstick.

As if to rub people’s noses in his arrogance and entitlement, this past year he spent just shy of $100,000 of district funds to renovate his corner office. His claim was that it needed soundproofing. Hey Alex, Amazon sells a well-reviewed white noise machine for under 22 bucks.

Marrero’s record clearly warrants a one-way ticket out of town. The curiosity is why that dismissal has not yet been issued.

All that said, a course correction is also in order for the Denver school board, especially those three new members elected a year ago to provide such a shift. I get that those newbies are still feeling their way and not wanting to recreate the outrage of the previous board, including the circus of Auon’tai Anderson, the hysterics of Xochitl Gaytan and the bullying of Scott Esserman.

But the quiet inside game goes only so far. At some point, new members Marlene De La Rosa, Kimberlee Sia and John Youngquist must speak up publicly and with clarity to hold Marrero’s team to account and rally those who elected them to affect change.