Some St. Vrain Valley School District students have kicked off the summer strengthening their reading and math skills.
This summer’s Project Launch is the third year of the extended school year program meant to help students improve grade level skills. On Thursday morning at Mountain View Elementary School, Haydn Crouse was teaching a classroom of 14 soon-to-be third grade students as part of Project Launch.
Nearly 400 students are launching into learning at Alpine Elementary, Eagle Crest Elementary, and Thunder Valley K-8 this summer. Project Launch gives elementary and middle school students the opportunity to master their reading and math skills during the summer, all while having fun with their classmates!
“We have close to 200 students in kindergarten through fourth grade participating in Project Launch this year,” shared Amber Marsolek, Principal, Alpine Elementary School. “Students and families regularly take part in the program because they know the value of it.” With smaller class sizes, teachers are able to focus more on individual student needs, as well as collaborating with staff to make the program more fun and engaging for all students.
This year’s theme at Alpine is “Out of This World!” Students participate in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) design challenges, art projects, and inquiries related to outer space, all connected through literacy. “Project Launch keeps students actively learning over the summer. It pushes them to gain new skills in reading and mathematics, and review skills learned during the school year,” explains Marsolek.
Eagle Crest Elementary School is home to 185 students participating in Project Launch from Longmont Estates, Blue Mountain, and Central Elementary Schools. “We are gifting students time for extended learning opportunities – with the focus on literacy and math,” shared Amanda Holden, Principal, Eagle Crest. Eagle Crest’s theme this year is “Space and Exploration.” Teachers have creatively weaved this into their instruction across all content areas. “Project Launch’s focus is to prepare students for next year by continuing to create positive connections to school and learning, as well as helping to ward off the summer slide,” stated Holden.
Project Launch Middle School is a four-week, 16-day summer focus program for incoming sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. With 70 students enrolled at Thunder Valley, “Project Launch offers students an additional academic push to start the next school year stronger,” shared Sandra Vazquez, Assistant Principal, Thunder Valley K-8.
Highly-qualified teachers instruct Language Arts and Mathematics in smaller groups, focusing on student needs and differentiating accordingly. In addition, the school counselor provides social-emotional learning to support their ability to recognize feelings. “They learn coping strategies to help them adapt and communicate their needs effectively” explains Vazquez. “They explore mindfulness and relate it to being a responsible part of a community in how we interact and communicate with others and ourselves.”
Students have an Arts-integration elective class that reinforces mathematics, literacy, and science concepts, while creating craft projects which incorporate visual art, movement, and poetry. “I’m getting used to having different classes and helping me get a head start for sixth grade,” shared Alejandra Madera, student at Thunder Valley. “I have been learning to write and read for longer periods of time. My favorite part is learning about math because I like it and it’s fun.”
In addition to ELA, math lessons, SEL lessons, and art lessons, students are working on a “Raptor Tank,” a version of the popular show “Shark Tank.” The purpose of this project is to encourage students to create a product that they believe will enhance people’s day-to-day life. “Each week, during the last thirty minutes of the school day, they work on one step at a time until they have a completed product,” explains Vazquez. The process gives students the opportunity to use their creativity, practice reading and writing skills, collaborate with others, and fine-tune their communication and language skills.
“Project Launch has been fun,” shared Aiden Turner, seventh grader at Thunder Valley. “It’s fun to be able to be a part of something and stay ahead in the summer.”
Fourteen first-graders recently sat on a rug in their classroom at Longmont’s Northridge Elementary School while teacher Michelle Flippin led them through pronouncing a series of nonsense words.
“You are putting together everything you’ve been learning,” she said before they read out loud words that included “tipdexes,” “blosses” and “drinches.” “These are super weird words but, if you know all the sounds, can you read them? Of course you can.”
A group of 9- to 12-year-olds got a taste of biology field work this week, donning waders and grabbing nets before walking into a shallow area of Lefthand Creek to scoop up larvae, worms and other invertebrates.
Along with using cards to identify what they found, the 15 students tested the water using several sensors with help from Boulder’s LightDeck Diagnostics. They also collected water to use the next day to look for microorganisms with a microscope. Their field trip to Lefthand Creek was part of a four-day bioscience camp at St. Vrain Valley’s Innovation Center.
Serving millions of meals a year, St. Vrain Valley School District’s nutrition services program is proud to fuel student learning.
Director of Nutrition and Warehouse Services Shelly Allen explained to the school board on Wednesday that the program lives by three principles. Providing fuel for student achievement and learning with change are two.
Hispanic students are seeing major gains in Colorado, and that’s even more true for the St. Vrain Valley School District.
Hispanic students make up roughly a third of K-12 students statewide, similar to the demographics in St. Vrain.
On May 24, 2022, Lyons Elementary School’s yearlong Trout in the Classroom program culminated in students releasing eight rainbow trout into the St. Vrain River. Lyons Elementary fifth grade students have been working hard all year to hatch and raise the rainbow trout eggs in preparation for the trout’s introduction to the St. Vrain River ecosystem.
The chilly, overcast weather did not dampen the excitement the students felt as they were able to see the payoff of their efforts throughout the year. Eight groups of five students raised and released the trout, with each student tasked with an important assignment. These assignments included naming the fish (one was named “Reggie” and another “Squidward”), daily monitoring of the temperature and water quality of the tanks, running parallel tests of the St. Vrain River throughout the year to compare data and verify river health, and releasing the fish into the St. Vrain River.
This is the fourth year of the trout release program at the school. “We were looking for a project where we could engage in meaningful science in our local community,” said Andrew Moore, Lyons Elementary Principal. “We were approached by Trout Unlimited to introduce trout into our curriculum.”
The curriculum helps prepare the fifth graders for environmental science courses at Lyons Middle Senior High School. “The program works in tandem with ongoing water monitoring of the St. Vrain River,” said Moore. “It is an opportunity to practice data literacy in an applied context, preparing students for sixth grade environmental science when students will participate in a more comprehensive study of the St. Vrain River watershed.”
The students are aware of the positive impact their work is having on the local ecosystem. “We helped add to a key watershed species,” said fifth grade Lyons Elementary student Brooke Bell. “The ecosystem would fall apart without the rainbow trout.”
Photos taken by the District Communications Team during today’s graduation ceremony are available for families to download for personal use. When viewing the album, click on the photo you wish to download. In the lower right corner of the photo, click the down arrow button and select the image size you wish to download.
Despite many challenges over the past several years, St. Vrain Valley Schools continues to advance excellence and student achievement to unprecedented levels. Below are just a few of the hundreds of celebrations that demonstrate the highest levels of success due to the support of our students, families, teachers and staff, business leaders, elected officials, and other members of our community.
In conjunction with IBM, FalconTECH was selected as one of five teams nationwide to participate in the ENDURANCE CubeSat mission. The goal of this mission is to make space more accessible to everyone on the planet, and to streamline the process in providing school-aged children access to the wonders of space, with the goal to inspire the next generation of future leaders.
Six Skyline High School students have committed to the project for the next two years and will be working together to gain a more clear understanding of the coding that is required. “The first step in being chosen for this project was simply interest,” stated FalconTECH teacher, Tracie Zakavec. “Because it is a two year commitment, I needed students who had a strong interest in this project. The next step was to complete the Python with Data Science Digital Credential that is housed on Skill Build for Students.” Many of the students participating are in ninth grade, with a couple of tenth graders as leaders. During this project, students will also be using Python to code with the satellite and have been encouraged to complete the other two Python Credentials.
“The Endurance project is an event that allows students to apply their coding and programming passions into something real,” stated Zakavec. “Our FalconTECH students have already spent a lot of time in class learning about coding languages, but it will be a real reward to see it being applied to a real life event.”
Because FalconTECH students have already been working towards their Associates Degree in Information Systems, Ms. Zakavec hopes that the ENDURANCE Mission will continue to prepare them by “opening their eyes a little differently, in areas that they can apply their programming skills to.” As students continue this mission these next two years, they will share what they are learning about satellite communications, with the hope that they encourage other students to research areas that they love.
