Back before Christmastime, I told you about the promising work going on in the once-troubled Cole Arts and Science Academy in Denver, thanks to its newfound liberating status as an Innovation School.

Well … freedom and autonomy lend themselves not only to innovation but also toward groundbreaking partnerships not nearly as likely to take place in the traditional public K-12 school system. Determined to place their mostly poor students on a track of college success, Cole parents and leaders recently have reached out to the Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST) charter school as a potential partner.

The idea? To bring DSST’s successful high school / middle school program onto Cole’s PK-8 campus and make it a school that reaches across all grades with the opportunity to focus the direction of underprivileged students all the way up to postsecondary success.

Click the play button below (or follow this link) to listen to Cole principal Julie Murgel explain how the idea unfolded and what the partnership might mean on this new iVoices podcast:

If the Denver school board approves, and this partnership gets off the ground starting in the fall of 2011, watch for the ground to shake in the world of public education. Together, Cole and DSST might be helping to show the way forward with less emphasis on rules and bureaucracy, and ultimately transforming kids’ lives.