Swigert International School

Our first grade recently had goldfish in transparent containers on their desks. I knew the students enjoyed the experience, recorded many new observations, and learned how a fish lives.  Sometimes as adults, especially in public service, I gain a kinship with the first grade fish.

 

Over a two-month period, hundreds of families came by to look at the school.  Many questions were posed as a learning curve took place.  We received 445 early education applications and hundreds of K-3.  The school district collected all the data, applied their metrics, and provided us with a list of students.  The office staff then began cross-checking for errors and omissions.  We found a few and alerted the district of issues we felt needed to be addressed.  Did we catch all the errors?  Probably not.  But if an error occured, we will rectify the situation.  We will make it right!

We are looking at adding an ECE-4 afternoon classroom to ensure that all siblings and currently attending students have a place.  We increased our kindergarten classrooms to five total classrooms and have explored the possibility of increasing it to six.  We looked at adding an additional first grade if needed.  At this time, we are not moving forward on a sixth kindergarten or a fifth first grade.  But, if over the summer the community adds additional 5 and 6-year-olds, we may be adding classrooms.

 

We have hired five new staff members for our classrooms.  We have one talented first year teacher, and all the others have experience.  All of the new hires are very talented and we are excited about our growing staff.  We are also increasing our paraprofessional time in each classroom from two hours to three hours per day.  We have increased the Gifted and Talented position to a half-time teacher.

 

The School Accountability Committee (SAC) listened to your feedback provided through the surveys and helped shape the budget and staffing for next year.  We in the office are striving to enroll as many students as we can reasonably accommodate.  Again, if there was an error, we will make it right. After all, we are like those fish in the bowl.

Enrollment for the spring programs is now open and new programs have been added!  Go to www.myenrichment.com and click on Swigert International School.  Many programs allow late registration and prorated pricing, if there are still slots available.
 

ECE 4 Lunch Programs

Kindergarten, 1^st , 2^nd After School Programs

 

You have likely seen the SCRIP order forms that periodically come home in the Friday Folders.  This program has enormous fundraising potential for our school, as it doesn't require you to spend any more money than you already would.  All it requires is a little planning.  You simply buy gift cards through the Swigert PTA to restaurants and stores you already shopt at--Chipotle, Noodles & Company, Starbucks, Gap, Old Navy, Gymboree, Crate & Barrel, JCPenneys, Whole Foods, Amazon.com.  A certain percentage of your gift card goes back to our PTA.  Many of the stores offer over 10% of your purchase back to our school.  Currently, this program has raised about $1500 for Swigert, but the potential is greater. 

Please continue to order gift cards on the order forms that go home, or print out a form yourself and bring it to the front office with a check made out to Swigert PTA.  You may also order gift cards from a limited selection of stores online with Pay Pal at Scrip Now:  shopwithscrip.com.  Our online order program code is D6342D9E31286.

If you have any questions or would like to place an order, please email SMISscrip@yahoo.com or contact Molly Pearson at 970-331-6905 or Richard Fisher at 970-331-6823.

Bus safety reminder

Please remember to be aware of school buses in the neighborhood.  If you see a school bus with its red lights flashing and stop sign out, please remember to stop.  By law, all traffic in BOTH directions is required to stop to ensure that children can safely walk to and from their buses when loading and unloading.  Many Stapleton children ride buses to their schools, and increasingly drivers appear to be either unaware of this law or simply disregard it.  Everyone is in a rush to get their children to and from school on time, but please be mindful of the school buses and stop if the bus has its stop sign out. 

McAuliffe Update

The School Choice process for McAuliffe International School is complete with all 168 available slots being filled.  Every Stapleton and Park Hill family that listed McAuliffe as their first choice received a placement at the school.  A waitlist for the remaining families has been created.  
 

The yellow astrological sunshade dome on our playground was recently featured in Go Green Kids & Parents magazine.  Check out the story on pages 5 and 6.