The 35 mentors are from the school’s industry partners — Agilent Technologies in Boulder and Frederick, Tolmar in Windsor and AveXis in Longmont — and agreed to help the students through the P-TECH program.
The workforce readiness program combines high school with two years of community college. Frederick, where the focus is on focus is on biomedical sciences, is the district’s second P-TECH location.
St. Vrain was chosen by the state in 2015 to be one of first two school districts to offer P-TECH. The district’s first P-TECH program, at Longmont’s Skyline High School, is a partnership with Front Range Community College and IBM.
August 24, 2019, 3:42pm | St Vrain Valley School District
St. Vrain Valley Schools is accelerating into the new academic year with tremendous momentum as we continue to advance high-quality learning for all of our students. With so much to celebrate from the past year, the 2019-2020 school year promises to be an even greater moment in St. Vrain’s history.
As our students today are entering a complex, highly competitive workforce, unlike anything previous generations have experienced, it is essential that we provide them with the knowledge, skill, ingenuity, confidence, and capacity to advance and compete on a global scale. Toward this end, St. Vrain Valley Schools has transformed and advanced our education system to one which is characterized by extremely rigorous academics, including among the highest graduation requirements in the state, region, and nation, as well as a strategic, by design systemic approach to ensuring our students are engaged in complex problem solving, creative thinking, innovation, teamwork, and other critically important, essential skills. As our world is changing and accelerating at exponential rates due to unprecedented technological developments, it is imperative that we as an education system, continue to advance accordingly.
We have so much to celebrate across our schools – none of which would be possible without the unwavering support of our community, including our parents, teachers and staff, business owners, elected officials and everyone who champions public education. It is through our strong partnerships that we are transforming public education for our children and our community’s future.
Our forward thinking approach of providing a strong academic foundation, bolstered significantly with robust innovation, will provide our students the quality of education that ensures a strong competitive advantage, one which will open doors to numerous, incredible opportunities across our globe.
Across St. Vrain Valley Schools, we are taking public education by #StVrainStorm – our shared passion and commitment to advancing academic excellence and student success. Follow our #StVrainStorm hashtag on Twitter to see the outstanding achievements of our students, teachers, staff, and school. Additionally, this fall I will be hosting our annual open forums in each of our areas to share the many successes we have experienced and also to discuss our bold vision for continuing to advance public education in our community, state and nation. I hope to see everyone at one of these events so that we can personally thank you for everything that you do to support our students and schools. Together we are building a stronger future for our children and for Colorado.
Sincerely, Don Haddad, Ed.D. Superintendent, St. Vrain Valley Schools @SVVSDSupt
St. Vrain Valley Schools is accelerating into the new academic year with tremendous momentum as we continue to advance high-quality learning for all of our students. With so much to celebrate from the past year, the 2019-2020 school year promises to be an even greater moment in St. Vrain’s history.
As our students today are entering a complex, highly competitive workforce, unlike anything previous generations have experienced, it is essential that we provide them with the knowledge, skill, ingenuity, confidence, and capacity to advance and compete on a global scale. Toward this end, St. Vrain Valley Schools has transformed and advanced our education system to one which is characterized by extremely rigorous academics, including among the highest graduation requirements in the state, region, and nation, as well as a strategic, by design systemic approach to ensuring our students are engaged in complex problem solving, creative thinking, innovation, teamwork, and other critically important, essential skills. As our world is changing and accelerating at exponential rates due to unprecedented technological developments, it is imperative that we as an education system, continue to advance accordingly.
We have so much to celebrate across our schools – none of which would be possible without the unwavering support of our community, including our parents, teachers and staff, business owners, elected officials and everyone who champions public education. It is through our strong partnerships that we are transforming public education for our children and our community’s future.
Our forward thinking approach of providing a strong academic foundation, bolstered significantly with robust innovation, will provide our students the quality of education that ensures a strong competitive advantage, one which will open doors to numerous, incredible opportunities across our globe.
Across St. Vrain Valley Schools, we are taking public education by St. VrainStorm – our shared passion and commitment to advancing academic excellence and student success. Follow our #StVrainStorm hashtag on Twitter to see the outstanding achievements of our students, teachers, staff, and school. Additionally, this fall I will be hosting our annual open forums in each of our areas to share the many successes we have experienced and also to discuss our bold vision for continuing to advance public education in our community, state and nation. I hope to see everyone at one of these events so that we can personally thank you for everything that you do to support our students and schools. Together we are building a stronger future for our children and for Colorado.
Sincerely, Don Haddad, Ed.D. Superintendent, St. Vrain Valley Schools @SVVSDSupt
As a large custom coach turned a corner and rolled into the St. Vrain Valley Schools Transportation Center in July, cheers and applause could be heard as members of the St. Vrain Valley Schools team got their first in-person look at our community’s new Future-Ready Innovation Lab. The ST. VRAINNOVATION Future-Ready Innovation Lab is a cutting-edge technology and innovation center in a mobile environment, emphasizing virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, design-thinking, aeronautics, as well as STEM and early learning experiences that will excel students’ learning and extend public education beyond the classroom.
What if instead of researching the ocean floor, students could travel there? Or instead of studying the chambers of the heart, students could manipulate one virtually and explore every fiber and vessel? Technology has the power to transform and St. Vrain Valley Schools is transforming public education by giving all 33,000 students in our district access to the world and beyond. St. Vrain Valley Schools is 411 square miles and serves 13 communities. While there are incredible things going on in our schools and at the centrally located Innovation Center, the Future-Ready Innovation Lab will extend access and equity to not only our students, but also our community in experiencing hands-on learning through technology and innovation. The Innovation Lab has been 100 percent funded by corporate and nonprofit sponsors, including Stapp Toyota, Crestone Peak Resources, UCHealth, IBM, United Power, and more. It highlights strong partnerships across our community from industry partners who champion our public schools and advance opportunities for our students.
Current and future planned programming includes:
Design-thinking challenge for students to engage with industry experts to design the hospital room of the future.
Pilot classroom for teachers to develop lessons utilizing virtual reality to explore arctic ecosystems.
Collaboration space for high school students to teach elementary students computer programming skills through robotics.
Community center for seniors to experience a 21st-century classroom and use virtual reality to travel through time and space.
Mobile classroom to showcase innovations of the energy industry and partnerships across a school feeder.
The lab will be a highly-visible, accessible resource for sharing the powerful learning experiences taking place in our classrooms. It will also demonstrate how quality public schools impact economic growth and the success of our communities. Whether it is at the state Capitol, the Boulder County Fair, or the Tri-Town Senior Center, the lab will open the doors to greater connections between our students, our teachers, our community, and our high-quality public schools. The St. Vrainnovation Future-Ready Innovation Lab is an investment in strengthening our system and fostering new opportunities for growth and advancing public education in Colorado – something that our sponsoring partners agree is foundational to our continued economic growth and workforce development.
The ST. VRAINNOVATION Future-Ready Innovation Lab is 100% funded by these and many other industry and nonprofit partners. Thank you to our community for supporting the advancement of public education and outstanding opportunities for our students.
Buckeye Mountain, Sphero, Seagate, SparkFun, and Misty Robotics
August 15, 2019, 9:27am | St Vrain Valley School District
As a large custom coach turned a corner and rolled into the St. Vrain Valley Schools Transportation Center in July, cheers and applause could be heard as members of the St. Vrain Valley Schools team got their first in-person look at our community’s new Future-Ready Innovation Lab.
The ST. VRAINNOVATION Future-Ready Innovation Lab is a cutting-edge technology and innovation center in a mobile environment, emphasizing virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, design-thinking, aeronautics, as well as STEM and early learning experiences that will excel students’ learning and extend public education beyond the classroom.
What if instead of researching the ocean floor, students could travel there? Or instead of studying the chambers of the heart, students could manipulate one virtually and explore every fiber and vessel? Technology has the power to transform and St. Vrain Valley Schools is transforming public education by giving all 33,000 students in our district access to the world and beyond.
St. Vrain Valley Schools is 411 square miles and serves 13 communities. While there are incredible things going on in our schools and at the centrally located Innovation Center, the Future-Ready Innovation Lab will extend access and equity to not only our students, but also our community in experiencing hands-on learning through technology and innovation. The Innovation Lab has been 100 percent funded by corporate and nonprofit sponsors, including Stapp Toyota, Crestone Peak Resources, UCHealth, IBM, United Power, and more. It highlights strong partnerships across our community from industry partners who champion our public schools and advance opportunities for our students.
Current and future planned programming includes:
Design-thinking challenge for students to engage with industry experts to design the hospital room of the future.
Pilot classroom for teachers to develop lessons utilizing virtual reality to explore arctic ecosystems.
Collaboration space for high school students to teach elementary students computer programming skills through robotics.
Community center for seniors to experience a 21st-century classroom and use virtual reality to travel through time and space.
Mobile classroom to showcase innovations of the energy industry and partnerships across a school feeder.
The lab will be a highly-visible, accessible resource for sharing the powerful learning experiences taking place in our classrooms. It will also demonstrate how quality public schools impact economic growth and the success of our communities. Whether it is at the state Capitol, the Boulder County Fair, or the Tri-Town Senior Center, the lab will open the doors to greater connections between our students, our teachers, our community, and our high-quality public schools. The St. Vrainnovation Future-Ready Innovation Lab is an investment in strengthening our system and fostering new opportunities for growth and advancing public education in Colorado – something that our sponsoring partners agree is foundational to our continued economic growth and workforce development.
The ST. VRAINNOVATION Future-Ready Innovation Lab is 100% funded by these and many other industry and nonprofit partners. Thank you to our community for supporting the advancement of public education and outstanding opportunities for our students.
Buckeye Mountain, Sphero, Seagate, SparkFun, and Misty Robotics
Skyline High sophomore, Rakhi Kataria, and Niwot High sophomores, Hannah Piersol and Caitlyn Fong showcase their PYNQ invention that uses smart sensors to measure humidity in the soil.
From band camps to robotics classes, students across St. Vrain Valley Schools were deeply engaged in learning new skills over the summer that would advance their personal growth and interests.
One opportunity at the Innovation Center was a PYNQ bootcamp for secondary students to get hands-on with engineering and invention using the PYNQ board technology developed by Xilinx and Python computer programming. Through a partnership with Xilinx, students engaged over five days with Xilinx experts to learn Python coding, engineering with the PYNQ boards, and design an invention to make the world more sustainable.
“Our project is a humidity sensor that schools can be utilized to test the humidity of the soil and control how much water is released by the sprinkler to prevent over watering,” shared Rakhi Kataria, a sophomore at Skyline High School. “Our goal is to help schools be more sustainable and save money,”
For students like Caitlyn Fong, a sophomore at Niwot High School, some of the best experiences come from seeing the many different ways that the PYNQ technology can be used for engineering and design. “ We had different shifts at the Innovation Center where we learned about different things we could do with the PYNQ board,” shared Fong. “For me one of the most interesting things was the session on computer vision because you can take a look at all of these different objects and you can get the computer to find out what it is – the programming that drives that is really interesting.”
At the end of the bootcamp, students showcased their inventions and competed to be recognized as the best project, including the award for best use of PYNQ which went to Team “Kids with Hats” who designed a janitor assistant robot that used sensors to identify trash and pick it up.
Students were able to keep their Xilinx-donated PYNQ boards so they could continue their learning at home and share the technology with fellow students.
“The goal of the event is to teach the kids and the teachers how to use our technology, so that they can then teach other students how to use it,” said Brad Fross, a distinguished engineer in Central Engineering (CE). “We want Xilinx PYNQ to be ingrained in their curriculum and in their general technology toolbox.”
August 15, 2019, 8:58am | St Vrain Valley School District
From band camps to robotics classes, students across St. Vrain Valley Schools were deeply engaged in learning new skills over the summer that would advance their personal growth and interests. One opportunity at the Innovation Center was a PYNQ bootcamp for secondary students to get hands-on with engineering and invention using the PYNQ board technology developed by Xilinx and Python computer programming. Through a partnership with Xilinx, students engaged over five days with Xilinx experts to learn Python coding, engineering with the PYNQ boards, and design an invention to make the world more sustainable.
“Our project is a humidity sensor that schools can be utilized to test the humidity of the soil and control how much water is released by the sprinkler to prevent over watering,” shared Rakhi Kataria, a sophomore at Skyline High School. “Our goal is to help schools be more sustainable and save money,”
For students like Caitlyn Fong, a sophomore at Niwot High School, some of the best experiences come from seeing the many different ways that the PYNQ technology can be used for engineering and design. “ We had different shifts at the Innovation Center where we learned about different things we could do with the PYNQ board,” shared Fong. “For me one of the most interesting things was the session on computer vision because you can take a look at all of these different objects and you can get the computer to find out what it is – the programming that drives that is really interesting.”
At the end of the bootcamp, students showcased their inventions and competed to be recognized as the best project, including the award for best use of PYNQ which went to Team “Kids with Hats” who designed a janitor assistant robot that used sensors to identify trash and pick it up.
Students were able to keep their Xilinx-donated PYNQ boards so they could continue their learning at home and share the technology with fellow students.
“The goal of the event is to teach the kids and the teachers how to use our technology, so that they can then teach other students how to use it,” said Brad Fross, a distinguished engineer in Central Engineering (CE). “We want Xilinx PYNQ to be ingrained in their curriculum and in their general technology toolbox.”
Skyline High sophomore, Rakhi Kataria, and Niwot High sophomores, Hannah Piersol and Caitlyn Fong showcase their PYNQ invention that uses smart sensors to measure humidity in the soil.
August 14, 2019, 6:48pm | St Vrain Valley School District
Leadership St. Vrain, a nationally and internationally recognized program of excellence in community engagement and public participation, is now accepting applications for its 2019-2020 cohort. Designed to give parents and community members the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of district operations and exchange ideas, the program is especially appropriate for those who want to obtain a foundation in district operations and governance and become more effective participants in school district affairs. Each cohort of Leadership St. Vrain has representation from all schools in St. Vrain, who learn, share, and interact with district and community leaders to strengthen public education in our community. 2019-2020 Meeting Schedule (All meetings run from 9:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and are held at a different school location each month.)
September 6: District Overview, Engagement Process October 4: District/State Budget & Funding November 8: District Governance & Legislation December 13: Classroom Leadership & Assessment Tools January 10: Digital Learning & Technology February 7: Student Services & Special Education March 15: School Culture, Engagement & Safety April 10: District Operations & Construction May 15: A 21st-Century Competitive Advantage
About 70 middle- and high-school students and 30 teachers are spending the week immersed in cybersecurity through camps and a professional development class at the St. Vrain Valley School District’s Innovation Center.
“We want to get teachers excited and students excited,” said Jennifer Peyrot, instructional cybersecurity and technology manager at the Innovation Center. “The students love this stuff. It’s such an engaging topic. It’s not just computer science. You have to be good at solving problems and persistence and teamwork.”
To offer the classes, St. Vrain Valley teamed up with the University of Colorado Boulder and the Northrop Grumman Corporation. The Northrop Grumman Foundation sponsors the CyberPatriot youth education program, which features an annual competition.
The summer program, which is in its second year, is part of a larger focus on teaching cybersecurity in St. Vrain.
Paige Burns, an incoming senior at Lafayette’s Peak to Peak Charter School, enrolled reluctantly in an advanced placement computer science class last school year.
Though she loved digital photography, she said, she didn’t think she would like the technical side. To her surprise, she found she liked learning Java and spending time coding.
“I got really into technology,” she said.
This week, she’s sharing her passion with middle-school girls by leading a weeklong camp on building an Arduino-based robot at the St. Vrain Valley School District’s Innovation Center.
