Ritter breaks ground for Cherry Creek STEM

Bond-approved science, technology, engineering and math school scheduled to open in 2011

Story and photo by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan 28., 2010, Villager)

Colorado's future, according to the governor, is in space. But before we can go up into the sky, the governor looked down.

On Jan. 25, Gov. Bill Ritter and school representatives broke ground on Cherry Creek Schools' science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) school that is planned to be built between Overland High School and Prairie Middle School, near South Peoria Street and East Iliff Avenue.

“The thing that makes our country different is that we are the innovators and we are the creators. It has to begin with an emphasis much earlier than college campuses or college laboratories,” said Ritter, also noting that Colorado has the most aerospace engineers. “This school demonstrates an ability to think about those kids as our future scientists, as our future innovators, our future creators and the people that will help America remain competitive globally and will help us enjoy the quality of life we've gotten used to.”

The 58,000-square foot school for students in grades 6-12 is scheduled to open in 2011. The school will also be a resource for elementary students from different schools to use.

Enrolled students can join specific tracks, including health, energy and computer sciences, and art and technical communications, said school leader Richard Charles.

“We have a crisis in this country when nearly 70 percent of the civilian scientific and technical workforce at the department of defense is eligible for retirement in seven years,” Charles said. “For our state, our challenge is clear. We must provide authentic experiences to students that will motivate them to pursue STEM careers. With this school, students will have opportunities to dream, invent and create solutions to solve today's cutting edge sciences.”

Charles, who has 15 years of professional experience in systems management and atmospheric sciences before he entered the education system, is working with colleges so that engineers and scientists will come to the school and work with students, to be real-world models on real projects.

“Through these efforts, students will have an opportunity to conduct research in STEM fields, to fly NASA simulated missions or be certified as a space technician,” Charles said.

The two-story school will have a lecture hall; 15 “studio” classrooms and an elementary classroom; labs for robotics, aviation and digital production; and two labs each for physics, chemistry and biology. Funding to build the school was part of the $200-million bond that voters passed in 2008.

After the groundbreaking, Ritter talked with Overland seniors Alex Sevit and Kara Minke, telling the pair about how he had witnessed a Mars lander hit the surface of the red planet because his nephew had worked on the project. Sevit and Minke broke ground next to Ritter at the ceremony. They were also interns at Lockheed Martin last summer. Sevit and Minke plan on studying mechanical engineering in college, Sevit hopes at the University of Denver and Minke at the Colorado School of Mines.

“I see aerospace engineering as a frontier. It's a relatively new science,” Sevit said. “When we worked at Lockheed, it provided the technical background, and we were able to see the concepts that we learned about in class applied to industry. I would have liked to have gone through the STEM school. But we were on the fast track for math and science and have gotten good science preparation. The STEM center is going to provide some of the applications of the science that we learned (at Lockheed).”

Photo caption: Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Mary Chesley and Overland High School Principal Jana Frieler break ground for construction of Creek's science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) school, which is scheduled to open in 2011.

Fundreds teach art as social justice, environmental awareness

Story by Joshua Cole; photos courtesy Peakview Elementary
(originally published in Jan. 21, 2010, Villager)


For many elementary school children, “art is just a picture on the refrigerator,” said Peakview Elementary School art teacher Darci Liley.

But at Peakview, students are learning the power of art in its historical significance and its appeal to create social awareness.

Since November, Peakview students, staff and parents have been creating “Fundreds.” An armored truck touring the nation is scheduled to pick up stacks of the cash, Jan. 29.

“Fundreds” are replacement bills – instead of Ben Franklin's picture on the front or the Capitol on the back, students are encouraged to draw their own faces and homes. When 3 million “Fundreds” are collected, artist Mel Chin, who created the program, plans to pull the armored truck to Congress and ask for $300 million to fix the lead-infested soil in New Orleans.

At the Jan. 29 Peakview assembly and “Fundreds” pickup, third-grade students plan on demonstrating to the rest of the school a process that cleans soil of lead, and the fifth-grade choir plans on singing a song about making a difference, Liley said.

“It's a very rich experience for these guys because it's teaching them about community, about social awareness, about the environment, and they get to be creative while they're doing it,” said Liley, who teamed with the school's other specials teachers on the project starting in November. “It teaches science, currency and history. It has a lot of layers.”

Peakview is at 19451 E. Progress Circle, in Centennial, near East Smoky Hill Road and South Tower Road. Overland High School is also a planned pickup location. The “Fundred” project is at fundred.org.

Cherry Creek Schools Hosts Community Forum

Story by Joshua Cole
(originally published in Jan. 21, 2010, Villager)

With parents, politicians, school districts and many media outlets focused on potentially dangerous cuts to education budgets, leaders of the Cherry Creek School District said they would take a night off to listen to parents' priorities, visions and concerns about education in the next decade.

Cherry Creek Schools had its second community forum Jan. 13 at Smoky Hill High School. The first was in December at Overland High School. A third forum is scheduled for Cherry Creek High School on Jan. 26.

“Deliberately, we are not talking about the budget,” said Cherry Creek Schools Superintendent Mary Chesley to about 200 community members and district staff, Jan. 13. “We are talking about values.”

The forums are part of creating the District Performance Plan, which is required by the state as a way to set goals and priorities that align with the district's mission and values. A planning committee plans to review comments and create the five-year plan, which is scheduled to be reviewed and voted on at the May district Board of Education meeting.

The district's designed values and the mission – “To inspire every student to think, to learn, to achieve, to care” – are what the district has used in creating policies, but they're general. The performance plan is intended to provide more substance and specifics for the mission and values.

Education is in an era of high-stakes testing and accountability on state and national requirements. Curriculum is aligned realigned what seems annually. Technology shifts constantly. Children are identified with various behavioral differences. In Cherry Creek Schools, new neighborhoods are booming on the east side of the district and neighborhoods are aging on the west side. With all of the changes and all of the attention, school leaders, teachers and parents need to know what they're doing and what they want.

The forums were a chance for parents to talk about some of the things they want for their children in school.

“Our youngest boy is in fifth grade, so we still have seven more years in the district. We want to make sure we're getting the best for our sons,” said Dennis Jenkins, who attended the forum with his wife.

Jenkins said that he and other parents in his group were most concerned with students being labeled and limited by learning disorders or special education needs.

“The biggest thing we talked about was making sure our kids aren't stamped and would move through the system in a box,” Jenkins said.

A difficulty of neighborhood schools is that their size make them difficult to appeal to different types of students. So certain types of students, parents said, are treated differently. Students with special needs are set apart in various ways, while gifted students are pulled out at different times. Plus, the district's only magnet school for gifted students, the Challenge School, is at a northwest corner of the district, more than 30 minutes away for most students.

“Ideally, they should be doing that (things done at the Challenge School) in the neighborhood school, closer to home,” said Jenny McConnell, who has two middle school children at the Challenge School. “They don't walk home with other children if they go to the Challenge School. Driving to and from school, they're losing an hour every day. The neighborhood schools don't do what the Challenge School does for gifted students, aside from pull-outs, when the kids are expected to know what to do when they're not there.”

Parents, community members and district staff in one group set as their priority safe and secure schools, with warm and friendly staff – a comfortable environment to learn, to talk, to share and to be creative.

“Safety is a huge factor,” said Eddie Quinn, who has two girls, an eighth grader and a high school sophomore. “My experience with my kids, the elementary school was nice and comforting, but it became a little more threatening as kids grow up. Kids are more rambunctious as they get older. It concerns me. One of my girls is very confident, but the other is more shy.”

Parents and other community members can comment by e-mailing forums.feedback@cherrycreekschools.org