What an incredible start to the 2018-2019 School Year! We have wrapped up our first month of school and are starting to hit our stride with academic programming. We recently received news from the Colorado Department of Education that our summative measures placed us in the top two performing districts in Colorado and one of two districts that has maintained a District of Distinction rating every year the current system has been in place. While these are always exciting points, we continue to look at the individual student and how we have an “all means all” growth mindset.
In the elementary grades you will see a push to implement AVID classroom and schoolwide strategies. These strategies are built on explicit skills all students can benefit from in their school experiences as we ready them for post-secondary endeavors. Each of our principals has also worked these expectations into their classroom observations and are having professional conversations about how these might fit in their classroom regardless of content. The essential elements being implemented are with the following acronym WICOR which means Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading. As a parent you will see system changes with homework folders and questioning techniques you can utilize at home.
The research is clear that when our students have a firm understanding of these elements they are more confident in their learning. Additionally we continue to support a smaller group of students in the AVID elective at the middle and high school grades to help focus their college choices and allow them additional structure beyond the traditional senior seminar and counseling experiences.
We are also heading into a busy election cycle at the state and local level. Telluride School District is asking voters to maximize mil levy override capacity with 4A (local level). Amendment 73 (state level) asks Colorado voters to weigh in on a change to the overall funding for schools. If 73 passes we would not assess the 4A dollars locally- a complicated, but hopefully, fair option for our local taxpayers. Our Board of Education has worked hard to craft ballot language to respect the fact everyone on special districts is confined by TABOR and Gallagher and in our case- general school finance factors. Please know we want voters to have correct information and understand the complexity of the issues. Our leadership and board stand ready to have these conversations and explain in detail the issues on the table. We are willing to come to neighborhoods, HOA meetings, or small group gatherings to share information. Please feel free to reach out or contact me mgass@telluride.k12.co.us .
Respectfully,
Mike Gass, Superintendent