Cherokee Trail

• PSP NEWS
• SAC MEETING MINUTES
• EPICER @ CTE THIS WEEK
• COUNSELOR'S CORNER
• CALENDAR
• FROM THE PRINCIPAL
• NEW FLYERS 

Upcoming events: 

4/21 Games Night 5-7pm

4/26 PSP Meeting 5:30pm

5/2-5/6 Teacher Appreciation week

5/6 Morning with Moms 8am

5/13 All School Dance 5-7pm

Mental Health Resources

* Is your child or someone you know struggling with anxiety?  The district has partnered with Dr. Scott Cypers to release a series of videos for parents with a ton of information and how to help someone.  All the videos can be found here. * I Matter – Parents and youth (ages 12 and older) can take a brief mental health screening and schedule 3 free counseling appointments.

   STEM Center for Strength – mental health and well-being resources Free parenting groups January – March at Shiloh House

Safe 2 Tell Colorado

Do you know how to report a concern that threatens you, your friends, your family or your community? Safe 2 Tell Colorado is an anonymous reporting tool for parents and students.  There are 3 ways to make an anonymous report – via website, app, or phone call.  

Parent Articles

   Recognizing PTSD in Teens

   Parents Ultimate Guide to TikTok

   12 Apps that every parent of a teen should know about

   Common Sense on Cyberbullying

Family Resources

Weekly snack/food bags provided by Parker Task Force – If your family is interested in having a bag of snacks/food sent home in their student’s backpack weekly, please fill out this brief form.

   Families with housing instability

   Universal Free Meal Benefits

Sierra Middle School has been working hard to provide college resources for families. They are excited to announce that Sierra Middle School is hosting the College Funding Coach on Tuesday, March 1st from 6:00-7:15pm for a web workshop. This event is for any family wanting to learn how to pay for college (Preschool - High School). 

The College Funding Coach was founded in 2002 to help families better understand the complex strategies for paying for college and making higher education more affordable. Since that time, The College Funding Coach team has been on a mission to help families make the college dream a reality...and still retire one day. The College Funding Coach’s founder, Brock Jolly, realized that most families want to help pay for their children’s education; but they often lack the liquidity and/or the cash flow to be able to do so. Their interactive workshop, Little-Known Secrets of Paying for College, teaches parents the rules of the game when it comes to financial aid, as well as the critical strategies to help them win that game—whether by qualifying for need-based aid or by maximizing cash flow and liquidity.

This is a free educational web event.  Please register by clicking HERE.

The Principal Chronicles continue....

As I write this on Wednesday morning, the current temperature outside is negative one degree. Nothing good ever happens in negative-one-degree weather. Nothing. Plus it looks like we are going to be in the deep freeze for the entire week. Guess it's time to buckle down and stay inside. 

On the school front, today we are getting visited by a different school district to see how well we are doing with our new literacy program, Benchmark. It has been a little while since we hosted another school or district so I'm pretty excited to get back in the groove. On a different note, last night at our School Accountability Committee meeting, I was talking about all of the different staff members we have who are leads in our District. At CTE, we have the GT lead for the feeder, the ELL lead for the feeder, we have two teachers that are on the District Math and Literacy committees, our school counselor was just selected as a lead for the District on a new initiative, our PE teacher is the feeder lead and advises our District, and we are the only school piloting the Benchmark Program for the District. I am sure there are a few more that I am just not remembering this early in the morning. When you sit back and think about it, not only do we have an amazing staff, we have an amazing staff that has an impact within our school as well as within our feeder and District, and that my friends is pretty darn cool. 

On the personal side, I still haven't found a house yet so I had to move in with a friend until I can find a house. I can't say I enjoyed packing up my apartment and shoving it in a storage facility. Nor do I enjoy living out of multiple bags, but hopefully it is only temporary and it is a heck of a lot better than living in a van down by the river. I would really like to say that I can't stand moving but since I have now moved twice in a year with another move soon, it sure looks like I love moving. I'll keep my fingers crossed for a housing market crash or a massive outflux of people who live in moderately priced homes. Not keeping my hopes up on either. 

That is it for this week's edition. Stay tuned next week when the Principal Chronicles continues....

NEW FLYERS

NONDISCRIMINATION NOTICE: The Douglas County School District does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, religion, national origin, ancestry, creed, age, marital status, genetic information, or physical characteristics, disability or need for special education services in admissions, access to, treatment of, or employment in educational programs or activities. The School District’s Compliance Officer is Ted Knight, Assistant Superintendent, 620 Wilcox Street, Castle Rock, Colorado, [email protected], 303-387-0067. Complaint procedures have been established for students, parents, employees, and members of the public.