Cañon City thrives through adventurous spirit, dynamic people, innovative schools, and historic charm.
Echoes from Cañon
Our Mission
The Cañon City School District is future-focused, providing innovative educational opportunities to successfully prepare all students to meet any challenge they may face.
The Cañon City School District is future-focused, providing innovative educational opportunities to successfully prepare all students to meet any challenge they may face.
Our Core Beliefs
1. We meet the social-emotional needs of all students, putting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before Bloom’s Taxonomy.
2. We believe learning growth matters most, requires risk-taking, and the work we do in our schools has the greatest impact on this.
3. We’re future-focused, believing the development of certain traits and skills will best prepare our students for ever-changing careers.
4. We emphasize what is good for kids over the needs and comfort of adults.
1. We meet the social-emotional needs of all students, putting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before Bloom’s Taxonomy.
2. We believe learning growth matters most, requires risk-taking, and the work we do in our schools has the greatest impact on this.
3. We’re future-focused, believing the development of certain traits and skills will best prepare our students for ever-changing careers.
4. We emphasize what is good for kids over the needs and comfort of adults.
Our Core Beliefs in Action
An MVCKS student enjoys her opportunity to hit her teacher with a pie!
Mountain View Core Knowledge School completed its annual fundraiser and as a treat, some high earning students were allowed to hit their principal and some teachers in the face pies. These students also got taken out to lunch in a limousine. We thank the community for their outstanding support of the annual event.
What do year-round Cañon City School District employees do on no-school Fridays? Days without kids and staff allow us to spend time on projects that can’t be addressed on regular school days. Cañon City High School Principal Bill Summers reports that last Friday, CCHS custodial staff cleaned out an office in the library and removed old shelving units that to provide more storage/workspace in the library Maker Space. This is an example of what is happening all over the district.
With winter weather upon us, here is a reminder about how we make school cancellation and delay decisions:
What do year-round Cañon City School District employees do on no-school Fridays? Days without kids and staff allow us to spend time on projects that can’t be addressed on regular school days. Cañon City High School Principal Bill Summers reports that last Friday, CCHS custodial staff cleaned out an office in the library and removed old shelving units that to provide more storage/workspace in the library Maker Space. This is an example of what is happening all over the district.
With winter weather upon us, here is a reminder about how we make school cancellation and delay decisions:
With a little extra help, CCHS custodians expanded the library maker-space.
Should we find ourselves needing to cancel or delay the start of school because of snow or extreme cold, our goal will be to do our best to make a decision by 4 AM in order to keep our nutrition services staff off the roads. When we have a cancellation or a delayed start, we spread the word in a variety of ways.
-First, we send an all-staff email announcing our decisions and then submit this information to the Flash Alert system, which will post our status on our web-page and share it with local TV and radio stations.
-Next, we employ our automatic dialing system to call or text staff and parents when an official announcement is made. As a parent, please remember you won't be reached by our auto-dialer if we don't have your current phone number
-Finally, we post our status to our district social media pages.
As a final reminder, whether we cancel school or delay our start, we expect each of our families to focus on their personal safety. If we have made a bad decision by not calling off school when we should have, we encourage you to use your personal judgment. If the roads in your neighborhood are not navigable, please just stay home. If you make a personal decision to keep your children home, we'll take this into account when we mark children absent.
-First, we send an all-staff email announcing our decisions and then submit this information to the Flash Alert system, which will post our status on our web-page and share it with local TV and radio stations.
-Next, we employ our automatic dialing system to call or text staff and parents when an official announcement is made. As a parent, please remember you won't be reached by our auto-dialer if we don't have your current phone number
-Finally, we post our status to our district social media pages.
As a final reminder, whether we cancel school or delay our start, we expect each of our families to focus on their personal safety. If we have made a bad decision by not calling off school when we should have, we encourage you to use your personal judgment. If the roads in your neighborhood are not navigable, please just stay home. If you make a personal decision to keep your children home, we'll take this into account when we mark children absent.
Our Future Focus
A Systems Go rocket launch.
Cañon City High School Science Teacher Dave Laughlin reported progress being made toward our Sysetms Go program. Systems Go is a rocketry design and manufacturing program soon to begin at Cañon City High School. It was the basis of the STEM Succeeds Prize Cañon City High School recently won. Mr. Laughlin reports Systems Go wants to use Cañon City High School as a base camp to expand to Colorado schools, and to establish a southern Colorado Systems Go launch center for regional schools. He says Cañon City High School will be featured on the Systems Go website in a marketing effort to expand the program to rural schools nationwide. He also reports Systems Go has reframed their program and requirements to better meet the conditions of Cañon City High School's calendar and daily schedule, and that they are scheduling a site visit to Cañon City High School with the goal being to produce a video feature. Finally, Systems Go again has extended an invitation to Cañon City High School to participate in a launch this spring or summer. This will take place in Texas or New Mexico. Exciting stuff!
Last week I spent some time in Washington D.C. with Colorado Department of Education personnel and some other school district representative participating in a project called Coherence Lab. The goal is to help CDE break down departmental communication barriers so districts can be better served. As I have learned more about the process, I believe the vision we will be working toward is creating coherence around school climate, with an intentional focus on student equity, sense of belonging, and access to opportunity. I'll remain engaged in this work for the next two years.
Last week I spent some time in Washington D.C. with Colorado Department of Education personnel and some other school district representative participating in a project called Coherence Lab. The goal is to help CDE break down departmental communication barriers so districts can be better served. As I have learned more about the process, I believe the vision we will be working toward is creating coherence around school climate, with an intentional focus on student equity, sense of belonging, and access to opportunity. I'll remain engaged in this work for the next two years.
Colorado's Coherence Lab Fellows illustrate CDE's current level of coherence.
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Coherence Lab Fellows discuss the root problem they would like to address.
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Override Progress
Director of Technology Shaun Kohl has shared progress being made to increase security in our schools by upgrading our surveillance systems, both through use of our bond and override funds, as well as thanks to a $500,000 grant the district secured to accomplish this work. He reports we're installing around 200 cameras. However, because many of these have 3 to 4 lenses each, there will essentially be about 500 total camera views covering our school buildings. This work is both exciting as well as a gigantic undertaking, and I thank Mr. Kohl and his department, along with our operations employees, for the great work they are doing.
Last Week
Some of the CCHS cast of Heroes Just Happen
Last week I attended a slew of meetings on Monday, including an expulsion hearing and several touching base meetings with key community partners. I travelled to Washington D.C. on Tuesday to participate in Colorado Department of Education Coherence Lab work. Irmained there through mid-day Friday, keeping up on district correspondence electronically, and attending several committee meetings virtually. I returned to Cañon on Friday evening on time to see the Cañon City High School fall play performance.
This Week
Please consider attending this event at Harrison School
On Monday I'll publish another issue of Echoes and meet with Jay Jacoby of Jumpstart Digital Arts about Cañon-Thrives. Please note our Board of Education meeting was cancelled due to the inability of our auditors to travel to Cañon because of weather. We'll reconsider these agenda items on Monday, November 11th. On Tuesday I have a Superintendent Advisory Council meeting, a Superintendent's Uniform Mill Levy Work Group meeting that will be held virtually due to weather, I meet with Recreation Director Kyle Horne, and I'll also attend a special CCEOE meeting. On Wednesday we have a CDE site visit to our GATE department, and that evening I'll attend a Green Thumb Initiative gathering, the TechSTART social hour (if I still have energy). I have to do Coherence Lab follow-up work on Thursday, and I'm taking Friday off to attend to some family matters.
Other Voices
My office got occupied while I was out of Colorado
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Mr. Renn pleads for a raise from my new office occupant
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Board Vice-President Lloyd Harwood does his best impression of me
As reported above, I was out of the district for several days last week and quite entertained to follow reports that Board-Superintendent Secretary Colleen Carroll had moved into my office during my absence.
I can't tell you all how hard I laughed as each day I received a different picture showing just how my space was being utilized.
I share this only because I wish for you to understand how challenging, of course, yet how fun it is to work in the Cañon City School District! We all work for kids. However, we also work for each other. And boy oh boy do we have fun together.
Colleen constantly remind us to count our blessings and what better blessing can a person have than to feel loved, and to be a big part of a great organization doing amazing things for kids.
Now if I could only find all the things that darn Colleen moved off my desk!
Thank you so much for listening once again,
George S. Welsh
I can't tell you all how hard I laughed as each day I received a different picture showing just how my space was being utilized.
I share this only because I wish for you to understand how challenging, of course, yet how fun it is to work in the Cañon City School District! We all work for kids. However, we also work for each other. And boy oh boy do we have fun together.
Colleen constantly remind us to count our blessings and what better blessing can a person have than to feel loved, and to be a big part of a great organization doing amazing things for kids.
Now if I could only find all the things that darn Colleen moved off my desk!
Thank you so much for listening once again,
George S. Welsh
