Pagosa Peak Open School
We’re pleased to announce that our board of directors has voted on an official name for our new school: Pagosa Peak Open School! After visiting 17 innovative schools around Colorado and New Mexico over the past year we finally felt confident in solidifying a mission and vision, and giving our school a name that reflects our core values.
You can read more about the schools that have been our main inspirations over at our blog, including our top three favorites: Jefferson County Open School, Santa Fe School for the Arts and Sciences, and Crestone Charter School.
Academic Model Development
The PCSI board of directors spent the majority of 2015 researching innovative education, touring schools, and working closely with the Colorado League of Charter Schools to ensure that the school we open for our community has the greatest chance of succeeding; academically, logistically, and holistically.
This past December we were awarded grant funds from the League to pay for hiring an education consultant to help write our academic plan. The academic plan is the largest and most important component of the charter application, since its framework will act as a guide for the rest of the school to run off of for years to come. It includes the technicalities of the curriculum and academic philosophy, and a hefty description of our school’s Culture and Climate.
We will be finishing up our charter application in May to be sent off for editing and review before submitting the final draft to our local school district in August.
Intents to Enroll
When we submit our charter application we need to request a realistic number of student slots for our local school district to approve. When 2017 rolls around, if we end up signing up more kids in our school than we have allocated slots for then we will have to place all students into a lottery and enrollment will be random. Therefore, we have began collecting Intent to Enroll forms from interested parents. Intents to Enroll are not binding contracts, they simply state that you are seriously considering sending your child to our school. Providing an accurate number of prospective students to our school not only demonstrates our community’s need for an alternative school, but lessens the chance that we’ll need to pull student names from a hat.
If you would like to sign an Intent to Enroll form, please email our vice president with the number of children you’d like to sign forms for, at: kierstanpcsi@gmail.com
We are planning to open grades K-4 for the first year (Fall 2017), and adding a grade each year until 8th grade. We are also exploring the possibility of providing Pre-K, but are not accepting Intents to Enroll for these additional grades at this time.
Family Rock ‘n’ Roll
On November 14th PCSI hosted “Rock the Cradle” — a rock and roll concert for families at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts. Ticket and lemonade sales helped us generate over $600, and we took home a thick stack of Letters of Intent to Enroll. The show featured local musicians who performed both original songs and popular covers that got the kids movin’ and shakin’. Click here to see photos from the show here.
New Board Members
In 2015 we said goodbye to a few board members and welcomed four new ones onto our team: Laura Hamilton, Karla Parker Choat, Jen Sarkis, and Nadia Werby!
We can’t wait to share our completed academic plan and exciting new community events in the coming months— stay tuned!