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
Special education parents feel they are asked to be involved to a greater extent
Kudos are due to our special education service providers. The results of last year's annual Colorado Department of Education survey given to measure parent satisfaction of services provided showed quite an uptick in parent perception. First of all, results indicated many more parents participated in the survey than in the previous year (and where we rank in the state in relation to other administrative units), and that the belief of our parents that our special educators facilitate meaningful involvement in their child's education process has risen significantly. In 2016-17 only 50% of our parents indicated our schools encourage special education parent involvement. Our 2017-18 survey indicated this had dropped to 46%. However, our 2018-19 results indicated this had increased to 86.1%. What a great way to exhibit our core belief that we emphasize what's good for kids over the needs and comfort of adults! Having parents involved is good for kids, and we know doing so requires quite a bit of extra effort from our staff. Thank you!
Paul Kosek from GE Johnson explains construction
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CCHS vocational students pose in front new construction
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A mental health community fair was held last Friday
Last week Cañon City High School vocational survey students had the opportunity to tours the Cañon City Middle School construction site so they could see how computer-assisted drafting, building trades, welding, machining, and automotive/mechanical skills are put to use when a new school is constructed. Special thanks go out to our construction partners at GE Johnson and our high school vocational teachers for providing this experience to our students.
Last Friday Social-Emotional Learning Coordinator Jamie Murray took time on her day off to attend a local Mental Health Community Fair. Jamie reported the turnout was great and she had many opportunities to connect with local providers who are teaming up with us in support of our first core belief, we meet the social-emotional needs of all students, putting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before Bloom’s Taxonomy.
At last Monday's board of education meeting, our K-5 music teachers exemplified our second core belief about personal positive risk-taking by presenting how they use the electronic resource Quavers in their instruction. We were highly impressed with their knowledge, and their enthusiasm, and we are extremely excited to know they are putting Quavers to good use.
Last Friday Social-Emotional Learning Coordinator Jamie Murray took time on her day off to attend a local Mental Health Community Fair. Jamie reported the turnout was great and she had many opportunities to connect with local providers who are teaming up with us in support of our first core belief, we meet the social-emotional needs of all students, putting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before Bloom’s Taxonomy.
At last Monday's board of education meeting, our K-5 music teachers exemplified our second core belief about personal positive risk-taking by presenting how they use the electronic resource Quavers in their instruction. We were highly impressed with their knowledge, and their enthusiasm, and we are extremely excited to know they are putting Quavers to good use.
Our Future Focus
Adam Hartman facilitates and Instructional Leader Professional Learning Community
At our Superintendent Advisory Council meeting, we invited Cañon City High School Principal Bill Summers to share how he schedules classes and distributes class loads to staff. This was great information, increasing our understanding of the challenges Cañon City High School faces on this front. We also discussed impending funding decreases related to School Health Professional and Counselor Corps grant-funded staff and how we plan to seek additional resources to keep these services in place. We spent some time defining what needs we have for the financial tracking of grants and grant management support. We began initiating a music instrument lease-purchase, discussed issues we are facing with current performing arts microphones losing accessibility to their federally assigned bandwidth, and appropriate teacher access to safety tab information about students in Infinite Campus.
Assistant Superintendent of Schools Adam Hartman facilitated a monthly Instructional Leader Professional Learning Community sessions and our teacher evaluators shared how they provide instructional feedback to teachers in their own unique ways. We also began work on how we'll evaluate the development of key skills and traits in students, as per our Student Empowered Learning Framework goals.
On Wednesday afternoon we held our first reconstituted District Accountability Committee meeting. My goal surrounding this work is to create an umbrella, or hub, committee to establish and operate a district-level collaborative leadership system to guide our constant vision refinement and academic improvement processes. This first meeting consisted of each school principal, Assitant Superintendent of Schools Adam Hartman, Director of Special Services Tim Renn, and myself. During the meeting, we established work norms and agreed to invite additional key communicators to the group. We also officially named ourselves the Cañon City Compass Committee. As our work proceeds, I'll share with you what it is we are focused on.
Assistant Superintendent of Schools Adam Hartman facilitated a monthly Instructional Leader Professional Learning Community sessions and our teacher evaluators shared how they provide instructional feedback to teachers in their own unique ways. We also began work on how we'll evaluate the development of key skills and traits in students, as per our Student Empowered Learning Framework goals.
On Wednesday afternoon we held our first reconstituted District Accountability Committee meeting. My goal surrounding this work is to create an umbrella, or hub, committee to establish and operate a district-level collaborative leadership system to guide our constant vision refinement and academic improvement processes. This first meeting consisted of each school principal, Assitant Superintendent of Schools Adam Hartman, Director of Special Services Tim Renn, and myself. During the meeting, we established work norms and agreed to invite additional key communicators to the group. We also officially named ourselves the Cañon City Compass Committee. As our work proceeds, I'll share with you what it is we are focused on.
Our Focus on Safety
With school now in full swing, we'd like to offer some quick reminders about how to safely navigate school traffic zones.
- Be on the lookout for school zone signals and ALWAYS obey the speed limits.
- When entering a school zone, be sure to slow down and obey all traffic laws.
- Always stop for school buses that are loading or unloading children.
- Watch for school crossing guards and obey their signals.
- Be aware of and watch for children near schools, bus stops, sidewalks, in the streets, in school parking lots, etc.
- Never pass other vehicles while driving in a school zone.
- Never change lanes while driving in a school zone.
- Never make a u-turn while driving in a school zone.
- Never text while driving in a school zone.
- Avoid using a cell phone, unless it is completely hands-free, while driving in a school zone.
- Unless licensed to do so, never use handicap or emergency vehicle lanes or spaces to drop off or pick up a child at school.
Override Progress
With Chromebooks now in the hands of all grade 6-12 students, we've noticed quite an uptick in Gaggle notifications. Gaggle is a service we subscribe to that constantly monitors our student Google platform products, including Google.docs, slideshow presentations, Gmail, and pretty much anything a child can download and store in their district managed Google.drive. Gaggle alerts us to content that may indicate a student is not doing well on the social-emotional front, is bullying another student or is being bullied, is indicating a desire to act out in a violent fashion, or is accessing content not appropriate for their consumption. When an administrator investigates a Gaggle notification, nine times out of ten, he or she finds the student may have used language or terms in the course of a regular classroom assignment that raised red flags in the Gaggle system. However, once in a while we find the Gaggle notification indicates a student is truly in need, and when this happens we mobilize the resources needed to support that child.
Bond Progress
The Board poses in front of Washington's elevator shaft
Last Monday the Board of Education took a tour of the Washington Elementary construction site and received an update on the project's progress. All news was good on that front, with the expectation, the crane currently serving CCMS will be moved to Washington by mid-October to begin erecting steel on that site.
We also held a meeting this week to consider some ad-alternate projects we have on tap for Washington, and we also took time to review architect recommendations for surface finishes and color schemes for both the Washington and CCMS projects.
On Wednesday evening Director of Operations Jeff Peterson and I attended a Cañon City Planning and Zoning Commission meeting to secure approval current CCMS property be divided into two parcels, one serving the administration facility and the other serving the middle school, and that the middle school property is granted permission to house a school. This sounds a bit silly, but since the original school structure was erected on the campus prior to local zoning regulations being put into place, this work is necessary to clean up the records. The Planning and Zoning Commission seemed appreciative of our effort and passed a recommendation to the full city council on to approve our request.
We also held a meeting this week to consider some ad-alternate projects we have on tap for Washington, and we also took time to review architect recommendations for surface finishes and color schemes for both the Washington and CCMS projects.
On Wednesday evening Director of Operations Jeff Peterson and I attended a Cañon City Planning and Zoning Commission meeting to secure approval current CCMS property be divided into two parcels, one serving the administration facility and the other serving the middle school, and that the middle school property is granted permission to house a school. This sounds a bit silly, but since the original school structure was erected on the campus prior to local zoning regulations being put into place, this work is necessary to clean up the records. The Planning and Zoning Commission seemed appreciative of our effort and passed a recommendation to the full city council on to approve our request.
Last Week
Our architectural team discusses floor and wall finishes and color schemes.
On Monday we had several Civic Canopy process follow up meetings. I also had a meeting with a representative from the American Heart Association, held a Youth Connections school level grant team formation meeting, and held a regular work session and board meeting. On Tuesday we held a Superintendent Advisory Council meeting, an Instructional Leader Professional Learning Community session, and a Fremont Facilities Corporation board meeting. On Wednesday we had a meeting about selecting building surface finishes for Washington and CCMS, as well as our first Compass Committee meeting. On Thursday I attended the quarterly Pueblo Community College-Fremont Campus Advisory Board meeting and completed a lot of general correspondence, while on Friday I took a personal day to visit my son in the San Luis Valley.
This Week
This week I'll publish another issue of Echoes, conduct several expulsion hearings, hopefully attend the Cañon City Middle School top-off beam signing by students, attend a Home-Bi-Ed Board meeting, attend the annual Cañon City High School show choir ice cream social, appear on KRLN's Morning Line, hold a Superintendent Advisory Council meeting, attend a Colorado Safe School Resource Center board meeting in Denver, hold a central office staff meeting, work on federal programs revisions, attend a transformation support fair with Assistant Superintendent of Schools Adam Hartman and McKinley Elementary Principal Scott Morton, stop by Wednesday's TechSTART Night Out, attend the Fremont Economic Development Corporation's B 2 B event, and participate in a Rural Funders Network meeting.
Thanks for listening once again,
George S. Welsh
Thanks for listening once again,
George S. Welsh
