R20 Update
MSES Develops More Excellence for the Whole Child
I’ve written much here about D14’s new systemic focus, Relationships, Rigor, and Opportunity (R2O). It’s the program that helps keep us focused on the whole child and on continuing to grow better and better as a school. As we head toward the end of another calendar year, I wanted to update you on developments in each of these areas.
Relationships
MSES has always centered itself around Relationships—relationships among students, between students and staff, between the school and its community, and between our students and others in the nation and world. Recent examples of our strong relationships include:
• A 99.5% parent-teacher conference attendance rate in October—an example of your incredible partnership in support of our students.
• Our annual holiday food drive and coordination of community support for those
among us facing hard times (see articles below).
• The Mathathon we have just completed to help ill children at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
• The supplies our students donated to support MSES dad Dr. Ken Finn in his medical trip down the Amazon River.
Rigor
We are in the final stages of preparing our Essential Learnings (ELs) for Writing in each grade level. ELs are the district’s identified ‘power standards’ and the assessments we use to track children’s progress toward mastery of them. We have already been teaching most of the material in the Writing ELs in this first semester. After Christmas, we will roll out the first EL assessments to track our young writers’ progress. By the school year’s end, we will be busy developing ELs in Reading!
Opportunity
Our Fourth-Grade Holiday Musical, The Big Chill, will be Dec. 16 (see article below). Not only is music a part of the core curriculum in a whole-child school, its assessments are always public! This year, for an added “opportunity,” look for a guest appearance by an MSES teacher choir in the production! In addition, another session or our D14-stipend-supported afterschool programs has started. Joining the TAP classes we’re already offering and the ongoing karate classes, YES Club, and Cool Science at the Manitou Library, teachers are now offering, free of charge: Homework Club, Math Club, Chess Club, a Battle of the Books team, Readers Theater sessions, and Computer-based classes. Please ask at the office about these
free Opportunities for your children to grown and learn.
Finally, I want to wish you the happiest of holidays this year for you and your family!
—Russ Vogel, Principal
Letter From The Principal
Letter from the Principal, November 2007
Registration Begins For A New Era In Kidergarten at MSES
Letter from Principal, September 2008
Letter from Principal, February 2008
Letter from Principal, December 2007
Letter from Principal, November 2007
Letter from the Principal, October 2007
Letter from the Principal, September 2007
Manitou Springs School
110 Pawnee Avenue, Manitou Springs
Colorado 80829
Phone: 719 685 2195