The Kindergarten students at Peiffer Elementary sent me a fun assignment and a new friend. Flat Stanley arrived in a letter from the students and they asked that I take him along with me and take some photos of what we did and who we met. On May 8th, we did just that.
Our morning started early that day and we buckled up at around 7:00AM.
We met first with the Golden Rotary, which meets at Rolling Hills Country Club. The Rotary is a community group made up of civic and business leaders that works to do good things for the whole community. This morning, we talked some about Jeffco Public Schools and also heard from school board member Ali Lasell!
Next, we went to the Jeffco Public Schools Education Center, which is the headquarters for all the schools. Here, we met with our friends from the Jefferson County Education Association, which is a group that represents our teachers, along with members of the district’s leadership. We talked through some things we were working on together and following this meeting I met with our Chief Human Resources Officer Amy Weber (the one holding Flat Stanley below) to discuss her upcoming retirement and her plans. We will miss Amy when she retires, but she has plans for lots of fun!
Next, I ran up to the top floor at the Education Center to meet with our Student Voice group. This is a group of high school students from all across Jeffco who meet regularly to ask questions and give us advice on how we can be a better school district. Today, we were talking about the rights of students and we were joined by Lizzy Hinkley. Lizzy works for a group called the American Civil Liberties Union which supports people and their rights under the U.S. Constitution. Things such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to be treated fairly under the law. Lizzy and I are holding Stanley in the photo below!
After meeting with the students, we were off to Conifer to visit West Jefferson Middle School and their student Coni-Con event, where students showed off their projects and some graphic novels they had written. The students really got into the act, dressing up to match their projects or graphic novels. Here are some of the folks Stanley and I met!
After Coni-Con, we drove back down from Conifer to my office at the Education Center again. We had a meeting with a team working on a new enrollment system for Jeffco Public Schools and our friend Mary Seawell from the Gates Family Foundation, who is thinking about providing some grant money to Jeffco Public Schools to help us build the new enrollment system. We believe this new system will help families across Jeffco have an easier time enrolling to go to school.
Next, I chatted with David Bell, who is our Director of Employment Services. David works on hiring great teachers and staff to work for Jeffco Public Schools!
After visiting with David, I had about an hour in the office to catch up on phone calls and emails. Flat Stanley was a big help for me in getting back to people who had questions or who needed help!
That closed out the regular day, but Stanley and I still had some evening events to get to. We went to the last District Accountability meeting of the year next. This a group of parents and community members that evaluate how things are going in Jeffco Public Schools and provide us feedback and advice on what we should do next. We talked some about this year and our plans for next school year. We also spent some time thanking and showing our appreciation for all the people in Jeffco who serve on this group as they spend many evenings and several hours doing this work. Here is a photo of Stanley with Jim Early who is Chair of the committee and Mark Stutz who is Vice Chair.
We had one more event to get to and that was Rooney Ranch Elementary’s Literacy Night. The theme was Under the Big Top and circuses. The kids at the school played lots of reading games and there was a huge turnout of kids and families! My daughter Norah is a Kindergarten student at Rooney Ranch and she brought along her brother Chase, who plans to go to Kindergarten there next year. Here are Norah, Chase, and Flat Stanley showing off some of the things they got at Literacy Night!
We had a super fun day and evening and were ready to head home. However, when I came outside I found out I had a FLAT TIRE on my vehicle! Stanley helped me out in changing the tire. We got a little dirty, but were able to get home safely!
Thanks for sending Flat Stanley to me – we had a blast together!
Sincerely,
Dr. Glass & Flat Stanley
