Greetings Raptor Families,
A very warm welcome to the incoming Class of 2022 and all of our new students. Welcome back to our classes of 2021, 2020, and 2019!!! We hope that you have had a wonderful summer and we are looking forward to having everyone back as of tomorrow. Today we welcomed our Class of 2022 and new students with our new student orientation day. Students have had the opportunity to meet their teachers, check their lockers, run through their schedule, and sign on to commit to graduate.
Getting here to this day has been a monumental effort on the part of our school construction team, facilities, operations, and technology teams. Our construction project is now entering the final stages of punch-list items. This extremely ambitious project, begun in November, has added a net total of 5 new classrooms. Many areas of the academic wings have been updated and renovated. We extended the E wing, renovated 4 new state-of-the-art science wet labs, added 4 more new science labs, renovated an additional 6 classrooms, added science storage, addressed HVAC issues, flooring needs, trainer’s room, plumbing needs, and a number of other smaller projects. All told, 18 teachers have moved classrooms. I am so excited to share this transformation with our community. While our remaining students will get the “fixer-upper” experience tomorrow, I invite you to our Back To School Night on August 29, 2018 to see your investment at work. The new classrooms will aid in providing space for our growing population and address the deficiencies in our science labs. Our kids will benefit from these great new learning spaces for years to come!
As a reminder, student iPads will be delivered next week through English Classes. In order to make this process as smooth as possible, please insure that students have a current Apple ID and know their password. We will be delaying any online assignments until all students have their iPads.
If your child is sick or needs to be excused for the school day please call our attendance line at 720-494-3721 to report any absences. On occasion a child needs to be dismissed in the middle of the day. If leaving mid-day, send them with a parental note, they will leave the classroom at the time specified, deliver the note to the attendance clerk, sign out, and await parental pickup or excuse themselves. This system alleviates interruption to the classroom environment.
As we talked with the Class of 2022 we shared that indicators of success begin with attendance. Regularly and routine attendance is the number one indicator of student success!
We have some other items that may be new this year to our returning families. Parent Conferences in the Fall will have three nights. We will share more information about the online conference sign-up system, as we near the dates. Advisory curriculum is being developed. We look forward to sharing this with our community this year and obtaining feedback, prior to the implementation.
The success at Silver Creek begins with every single child and colleague. We have been recently awarded with the College Success Award and recognized by our congressman for this honor. Our results from the PSAT and SAT have been compiled. Long story short, we have continued to improve our PSAT and SAT average scores, with many students showing significant growth between the practice exams and Spring exam. In many cases, Silver Creek is either the leader or among the top performing schools in St. Vrain. Additionally, we had 536 earn a 3 or better on Advanced Placement exams, widely earning them college credit. We also continue to close the achievement gap with at-risk populations. We are very proud of these results and are continuing these goal oriented efforts this school year.
Let’s make 2018-2019 our best school year yet. We look forward to building upon our successes and having a Raptorrific school year!
Sincerely,
Erick Finnestead
Principal, Silver Creek High School