Our schools are offering many exciting events this spring. I
hope you soon have an opportunity to visit your child’s school or a
school in your neighborhood.
A few days ago, Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach presented our
district with a Spirit of the Springs Celebration Award. The
presentation was to acknowledge our district’s Accredited with
Distinction rating from the state board of education and the
Colorado Department of Education. We are the largest school
district in Colorado to earn this ranking.
Bach stated he is proud of District 20 because the distinction
represents hard work by students, parents, teachers and
administrators.
CHOICE ENROLLMENT
Our Choice Enrollment Window is open until 4 p.m., Feb. 24.
Choice Enrollment is the program our district offers to parents to
select a school other than their neighborhood school. Our central
registry staff has already received hundreds of applications. You
can review some of the most frequently asked questions about choice
enrollment or fill out an application on our website at
www.asd20.org.
EXPANSION OF SCHOOL IN THE WOODS PROGRAM
We recently announced the expansion of our popular School in the
Woods program. The program features outdoor environmental education
for fourth grade students. The program will expand from 52 to 78
students beginning next fall.
We are very pleased that we will be able to offer this unique
experience to more students. Twenty-six additional students will be
able to attend the program that emphasizes stewardship of the
environment and sustainability.
The program had allowed only 52 fourth-graders each year since
its inception in 1999. However, applications for the program have
always indicated a higher demand for this unique education
experience. Transportation is provided for fourth-graders who are
accepted into the program.
School in the Woods staff members and students have received
several awards for a variety of recycling and sustainability
projects.
School in the Woods is located on Vollmer Road in Black Forest.
Students have access to 640 acres as part of a living classroom.
The entire curriculum at School in the Woods is carefully designed
to increase students’ knowledge of natural science and appreciation
of the natural world.
20 RIDE
As you know, our district will implement a transportation fee
beginning in August 2012. We have named the program 20Ride and you
can see our current information and watch for updates on our
district website at www.asd20.org/20Ride. This will be the website
our families who use transportation should check for information
about how the program works, about billing, and about how our bus
students will be issued their radio frequency identification cards.
We will communicate all of those important aspects of the program
as soon as we have all of the processes in place. Watch for more
updates on 20Ride before the end of this school year.
BUDGET
We will again post the budget memos we send to our staff on our
district website. You will be able to access the information as
soon as we share it with our staff members. We will use our website
to communicate our budget development process and to inform our
community about any budget actions. We will keep our three
priorities in place throughout this process: 1) keep cuts away from
students; 2) don’t increase class size; and, 3) avoid layoffs if
possible.
Once again, anticipated increases in enrollment and revenue from
our 2008 mill levy override are key benefits to our budget
development.
Dr. Mark Hatchell is the superintendent of Academy District 20.
He writes a monthly column for The Tribune. You can follow him on
Twitter @markhatchell.