Echoes from Cañon
Examples of Excellence
JROTC Cadets make Christmas cards for residents of the Veterans Center.
There were more examples of excellence leading into the semester break than I can possibly write about in one issue, and so I’ll hold back a few for next week’s installment of Echoes. In the mean-time, here are some wonderful examples of the great work happening in our district.
Prior to the holidays Cañon City High School JROTC cadets gathered to make Christmas cards for folks staying in our Veteran’s Home. The effort resulted in the production of more than 200 cards, and was much appreciated by many of our local heroes. I want to thank Commander Vertrees and Commander Koch for guiding this.
Also before winter break, 7 of our Cañon City High School-Pueblo Community College Automotive students earned ASE certification. These students passed all 10 required tests, while another 3 made significant progress toward earning this certification. It is rare for students to pass all their ASE tests by the end of the fall semester. Additionally, all 20 automotive students enrolled in the Subaru-U program completed their level 1 certification by the end of the semester. To do this, each completed 20 training modules. Overall, they earned 400 certificates and completed a combined 188 hours of training. Better than all of the above, I also learned our automotive students fixed a community member’s car for free after learning a relative of the owner had been killed in action in Iraq. It seems to me Mr. Dunston is not only developing fine mechanics capable of earning a living, but fine citizens as well.
On December 20th Harrison 3rd grade students participated in an Ellis Island simulation, experiencing the tribulations immigrants went through when they arrived in America during the 19th Century. Children lugged their belongings, waited patiently in long lines, experienced entry medical exams (to ensure they were not bringing infectious disease into the country), completed immigration paperwork, and had their passports and luggage inspected. It is easy to tell students what immigrants went through to enter our country. However, learning is brought to life when a child gets to experience firsthand what others endured. Great job!
Prior to the holidays Cañon City High School JROTC cadets gathered to make Christmas cards for folks staying in our Veteran’s Home. The effort resulted in the production of more than 200 cards, and was much appreciated by many of our local heroes. I want to thank Commander Vertrees and Commander Koch for guiding this.
Also before winter break, 7 of our Cañon City High School-Pueblo Community College Automotive students earned ASE certification. These students passed all 10 required tests, while another 3 made significant progress toward earning this certification. It is rare for students to pass all their ASE tests by the end of the fall semester. Additionally, all 20 automotive students enrolled in the Subaru-U program completed their level 1 certification by the end of the semester. To do this, each completed 20 training modules. Overall, they earned 400 certificates and completed a combined 188 hours of training. Better than all of the above, I also learned our automotive students fixed a community member’s car for free after learning a relative of the owner had been killed in action in Iraq. It seems to me Mr. Dunston is not only developing fine mechanics capable of earning a living, but fine citizens as well.
On December 20th Harrison 3rd grade students participated in an Ellis Island simulation, experiencing the tribulations immigrants went through when they arrived in America during the 19th Century. Children lugged their belongings, waited patiently in long lines, experienced entry medical exams (to ensure they were not bringing infectious disease into the country), completed immigration paperwork, and had their passports and luggage inspected. It is easy to tell students what immigrants went through to enter our country. However, learning is brought to life when a child gets to experience firsthand what others endured. Great job!
A Harrison 3rd grader experiences an entry interview during her Ellis Island experience.
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Another Harrison 3rd grader gets inspected for infectious disease.
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The Focus of Our Work
CCHS automotive students receive their ASE certification.
With the arrival of January, the time is right to remind folks what guides the decisions we make related to snowy days and cold weather. On cold weather days, the well-being of students must be addressed so we hold recess indoors when the temperature (with wind-chill) dips below 20 degrees. Making sure your child is dressed appropriate for such weather is a must. We also monitor the weather for snow and ice and make decisions to cancel or delay the start of school based on road conditions throughout the entire district. On both fronts, we always try to error on the side of safety for children and adults.
Before winter break we interviewed 3 finalist firms to serve in the role of Owner’s Representative to support our effort implementing the projects related to ballot question 3B. The committee unanimously selected the folks from RLH Engineering to guide this work. An Owner’s Representative firm does exactly what its name describes, represent an owner’s interests (in this case our school district) during a construction project. The folks we selected at RLH have already been hard at work during the last three weeks doing exactly what we hoped, making a construction process recommendation, preparing a Request for Qualifications related to that so we can hire an architect and builder team, and supporting our efforts to refine our two-new school BEST grant application.
We are also making progress related to promises made in ballot question 3A. On December 21st the Cañon City High School Technology Deployment Committee selected a device to put in the hands of high school teachers as soon as the end of January (a Dell Chromebook with touch screen). The committee has also committed to hire a staff development partner, and to adopting Schoology as its learning management platform. With these pieces in place we are gearing up for a series of high school early release days that will take place this spring. On January 24 and 31, February 7, 21 and 28, March 7 and 29, April 10, 18 and 25, and May 2 and 16 we will be releasing high school students at 1 PM so high school staff can engage in mobile device deployment, pathways/captsone, curriculum, and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support training.
Before winter break we interviewed 3 finalist firms to serve in the role of Owner’s Representative to support our effort implementing the projects related to ballot question 3B. The committee unanimously selected the folks from RLH Engineering to guide this work. An Owner’s Representative firm does exactly what its name describes, represent an owner’s interests (in this case our school district) during a construction project. The folks we selected at RLH have already been hard at work during the last three weeks doing exactly what we hoped, making a construction process recommendation, preparing a Request for Qualifications related to that so we can hire an architect and builder team, and supporting our efforts to refine our two-new school BEST grant application.
We are also making progress related to promises made in ballot question 3A. On December 21st the Cañon City High School Technology Deployment Committee selected a device to put in the hands of high school teachers as soon as the end of January (a Dell Chromebook with touch screen). The committee has also committed to hire a staff development partner, and to adopting Schoology as its learning management platform. With these pieces in place we are gearing up for a series of high school early release days that will take place this spring. On January 24 and 31, February 7, 21 and 28, March 7 and 29, April 10, 18 and 25, and May 2 and 16 we will be releasing high school students at 1 PM so high school staff can engage in mobile device deployment, pathways/captsone, curriculum, and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support training.
The Last Several Weeks
Cañon Exploratory students entertained the community before Christmas!
My week of December 18th was filled with a series of meetings related to budgeting, building projects, developing a working relationship with new Fremont County DHS director Stacy Kwitek, CCHS and McKinley tech deployment, and student behavior matters. I also participated in a Fremont Facilities Corporation quarterly board meeting, interviewed three Owner’s Representative firm finalists, learned about a Colorado Education Initiative grant opportunity that might support the work we are doing at Cañon City High School, and enjoyed our annual central office Christmas party.
Like you, I spent the holidays with family and friends. However, I also took time to appear on KRLN Radio’s Morning Line, meet with several architects and builders interested in working with us, work with administrative team members on a statewide survey about required state reporting, travelled to and from Denver to meet with our CDE BEST Grant representative, meet with several concerned parents related to discipline issues, work on a Colorado Education Initiative grant application, and begin work on refining our BEST grant applications for new Cañon City Middle and Washington Elementary schools.
Like you, I spent the holidays with family and friends. However, I also took time to appear on KRLN Radio’s Morning Line, meet with several architects and builders interested in working with us, work with administrative team members on a statewide survey about required state reporting, travelled to and from Denver to meet with our CDE BEST Grant representative, meet with several concerned parents related to discipline issues, work on a Colorado Education Initiative grant application, and begin work on refining our BEST grant applications for new Cañon City Middle and Washington Elementary schools.
This Week
Thanks to our participation in Subaru-U, CCHS automotive students have the opportunity to work on several contemporary cars.
There's no school on Monday. However, we’ll be conducting district-wide staff development activities with instructors throughout that day. I have 6 hours allotted this week to work on BEST grant writing. I’ll also communicate about mid-year building evaluation processes. We have a school board work session and meeting on Monday. Throughout the week I’ll also attend a Harrison Building Leadership Team meeting, meet with a CCMS student group, and hold a SAC meeting. I’ll also be on a phone conference with Colorado Education Initiative (CEI) leaders, submit a final CEI grant for high school staff development, attend a CCEA officers touching base session, and attend the CCHS Tech Deployment and Cañon 2020 meetings. One other item on my to-do list is to work with Director of Instruction Adam Hartman on Federal Programs budget mid-year adjustments.
Thanks for listening once again. Happy New Year, and have a wonderful week!
George S. Welsh
Thanks for listening once again. Happy New Year, and have a wonderful week!
George S. Welsh