Dear Family and Friends of ACS,

Our School Accountability Report’s (SAR’s) are in and I am happy to report that our Elementary (K-5) is rated HIGH- with improvement and our Middle School (6-8) has been rated HIGH- stable. These reports are from the Colorado Department of Education, as they rate all Colorado schools yearly with the following: Unsatisfactory, Low, Average, High and Excellent. We are very proud of our rating and of all the hard work that staff, students, and parents have put into Academy Charter School. As a staff, we also understand that we still have improvements to make in order to reach our goal which is to move up in points toward attaining an EXCELLENT on the SAR. This report, along with my Annual Report to the Community, will be mailed home tomorrow (Friday the 6th). I will also have a more detailed report about our School Accountability Report and scores at our Governing Board meeting on Monday, January 9. Please make note of this meeting if you would like more details of our school rating above.

Enrollment Sheets for re-enrolling your student in ACS for next year will be coming home in your student’s Friday folder this Friday. Please look for this form and return it to our office by Wednesday, January 18. We will be checking our sibling priority list and pulling lottery soon for any student positions that may open. Please also look for the Open Enrollment blurb in this Newsletter, so you do not miss this information about Douglas County’s procedure to open enroll a student.

I have planned a Parent Workshop Night for Wednesday, January 25, from 5:30- 7:00 in our school cafeteria. Dean Peters and some of our ACS staff members will be there to help the parents as they move to different stations in order to learn more information to help support their students or to ask questions. The following stations will be available this night:

1. Emergent Literacy
2. Early Literacy
3. Intermediate Literacy
4. K-2 Math
5. 3-5 Math
6. 6-8 Math
7. Intermediate Science
8. Spanish

If you would like to participate in this workshop, please call our office to RSVP by Monday, January 23rd. Also, feel free to come to the cafeteria during the above hours at your convenience with the understanding that we will be shutting the workshop down at 7:00.

Our office has had quite a few calls recently about school delays and school closures. Please refer to your Parent/Student Handbook, page 29, as it provides you with information where you should look to see if our school will be delayed or cancelled. We do follow the Douglas County School’s decision of a delayed start or school cancellations due to inclement weather. With Douglas County being such a big district now, and if necessary, the District will sometimes communicate by referring to different sections of Douglas County. On 9News, we will follow either ‘All Douglas County’ or ‘Castle Rock Schools’ and on the Douglas County website (http://www1.dcsdk12.org) we are referenced as the West Area.

On Friday, February 17th, our school will be closed for an in-service day. On in-service days, even though our ACS staff are going through different trainings, our office has always been open; however, on this particular day, please make note that our entire staff will be in-servicing and even our office will be closed this day. Please do not try to come to the school to retrieve missing student items or to discuss an issue with our office or staff, as we will all be learning about positive and effective communication this day and cannot be interrupted. Thanks for your understanding!

A Look Ahead:

• Friday, January 13- Dress Down Day
• Friday, January 13- MS Movie Night!
• Monday, January 16- Martin Luther King Day- School Closed
• Tuesday, January 17- Girls Basketball Game- Away- 4:00 & 5:00
• Tuesday, January 17- Boys Basketball Game- Home- 4:00 & 5:00
• Thursday, January 19- Girls Basketball Game- Away- 4:00 & 5:00
• Thursday, January 19- Boys A Basketball Game- Away- 4:00 & 5:00
• Friday, January 20- 7th Grade Play, 6:00, Gym
• Monday, January 23- Second Rotation for Third Quarter
• Tuesday, January 24- Girls Basketball Game- Home- 4:00 & 5:00
• Tuesday, January 24- Boys Basketball Game- Away- 4:00 & 5:00
• Wednesday, January 25- Parent Workshop, Cafeteria, 5:30- 7:00
• Thursday, January 26- Girls A Basketball Game- Away- 4:00
• Thursday, January 26- Girls B Basketball Game- Away- 4:00
• Thursday, January 26- Boys B Basketball Game- Away- 5:00
• Friday, January 27- PTO Breakfast for ACS Staff
• Friday, January 27- Elementary Virtue Assembly, 8:50, Cafeteria
• Friday, January 27- MS Virtue Assembly, 2:50, Cafeteria
• Friday, January 27- MS and Specials Newsletter goes home
• Friday, January 27- 8th Grade Play, 6:00, Gym
• Tuesday, January 31- Girls Basketball Game- Away- 4:00 & 5:00
• Tuesday, January 31- Boys Basketball Game- Home- 4:00 & 5:00
• Wednesday, February 1- Girls B Basketball Game- Away- 4:00
• Wednesday, February 1- Boys B Basketball Game- Away 5:00

Kindra Whitmyre-Nelson
Dean of Academy Charter School
email: nelsonk@academycharter.org
web: http://www.academycharter.org/deannelson

Dear ACS Families and Friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing break! I know my family and I just enjoyed being together and best of all, getting to sleep in late.

I’d like to thank all the dedicated parents and students who came to our testing day this past Tuesday!
I know it was hard to get moving after the break, but I know our teachers are excited to look at the results of these tests so they can plan their instruction around their findings.
We will be having our last testing day for this school year on Friday, April 28th, so mark your calendars now!

Next Tuesday, January 10th , representatives from two of the local Douglas County High Schools , DCHS and Rock Canyon, will be here in the afternoon to provide registration information for our current 8th grade students. Students will be receiving course description booklets, the forms where they will place their course selections, as well as information for upcoming parent information nights. It is important that your 8th grade student knows which high school they will be attending, so they can receive the correct information from that school. Castle View High School (the new high school) will be here January 18 to meet with students to pass out registration materials. If you have any questions regarding which school your student should attend, please contact the District at 303-387-0100. Students may turn in their completed forms at our office and we will be sure the district receives them.

Once again, thank you for your continued support of ACS, our students, and our staff!

Kendra Peters
Assistant Dean of Academy Charter School
email: petersk@academycharter.org

Happy New Year! I hope each and every one of you have enjoyed a nice holiday break and are feeling ready to resume your volunteer activities here at the school.

If anyone has the time available, we could use help during lunch time and during carpool times. Please let me know if you would like to help in either one of these spots.

I am in the process of getting the 20 hour plus gifts out to families. We ordered special license plate holders through the League of Charter Schools--a great way to spread the word about our school--that we thought you would be proud to have on your vehicle. There is a sample on the volunteer bulletin board for you to see. Please feel free to stop by the office and pick up your gift if you have already completed at least 20 hours of volunteer time.

Thanks again for continuing to "Make a Difference" at ACS.

Anne Belfrage
Volunteer Coordinator
belfragea@academycharter.org

The next PTO General Meeting is Tuesday evening, January 17, at 6:00 in the ACS cafeteria. Hope you plan to attend.

No one has stepped up to be our next gaming manager. Without someone licensed for gaming, ACS cannot hold a raffle of any kind. This has been a great source of fundraising income previously. The position entails attending a 2-hour class in Denver in February (date to be determined, reimbursement for all costs), and then seeing to it that the ACS raffles are registered and comply with gaming laws. Raffles have traditionally been held only once or twice a year. If you would like to find out more, please contact Kate Fischer right away at 303-688-8461.

Thanks for your consideration

ACS STUDENT TRANSITIONS WELL INTO HIGH SCHOOL

Parents often wonder how well outgoing ACS middle school students fare versus other middle-schoolers when entering high school. The Governing Board decided to look into that with some of our ACS alumni. The article below is the first in a series of testimonials from former ACS students.

We spoke with Kirsten, 16, who graduated from ACS in 2003. She currently is in the 11th grade at Douglas County High School in Castle Rock and doing great. She remembers the first couple of weeks there being kind of a shock because of the sheer size of the building and the number of students at the school. It was quite a change from things at ACS, but she quickly got used to it.

As she settled into her new surroundings, Kirsten began to notice differences and similarities between the high school and ACS. She spent her freshman and sophomore years in the International Baccalaureate program at DCHS, a more rigorous and demanding learning program. She found the experience of being in the program similar to attending classes at Academy Charter, because it “was much more challenging. It felt like the charter school in a way.”

When asked how she compared academically to other incoming middle school students, Kirsten said she felt that she was more advanced in most subjects, notably Spanish. “Spanish II at the high school level is what we were learning in 8th grade at ACS. You could probably go into Spanish III pretty easily if you wanted to.” Most students without a Spanish background begin with an introductory Spanish class.

Kirsten believes the teachers at ACS were more hands-on with their students than those at DCHS. “They taught us differently, and the classes were so much smaller at ACS. The high school teachers just give you the information and tell you to go study.” One of her high school classes had 30 students in it, a big adjustment after the 20 student class size and personal attention at Academy Charter.

Because of her background at ACS, Kirsten felt very prepared for high school. “It seemed like the education at the other middle school wasn’t at such a high level as ACS. I was way ahead of a lot of other students. ACS made me educationally prepared and I feel like I learned more at the charter school.”

And Kirsten doesn’t think she missed out on anything by not attending Castle Rock Middle School. She was on the volleyball team, played in the band for a while, and made a lot of great friends at ACS. “I did everything I wanted to there. Going to ACS was a good thing.”

2005-2006 Spelling Bee

Preparations have already begun for this school year’s ACS spelling bee. All 4th-8th grade students have participated in a classroom preliminary spelling bee and those grade level finalists will now move on to the school wide competition. This year’s ACS spelling bee will be held on Thursday, January 26th, after school. The winner from the school wide competition will then advance on to the Douglas Spelling Bee on February 15th. Congratulations to all the finalists and good luck in competition.

Thanks for Holiday Gifts

The office staff--Barb, Liz and Anne--and the Instructional Assistants--Brenda, Kristy, Yvonne, Melissa, Teri, Michele, Dawn, Chris, Beth, Karen and Michelle--would like to thank each and every one of you that showered us with gifts over the holidays. We are very grateful to serve folks who appreciate what we do in such a personal way! Thanks again for your thoughtfulness.