Happy Holidays!

SLHS Community,

On behalf of the SLHS staff we wish each and every one of you a very blessed and relaxing Holiday vacation full of family, love, and blessings.  We have so much to be thankful for and I am extending warm thoughts and wishes to our school community during this exciting time of year.

As the first semester is now complete, we are looking forward to a new and re-energized semester in 2014!  We've experienced a tremendous semester with so many wonderful accolades and expect to continue that streak as we begin again in January.  Our partnership and work together continues to enable this school to reach new heights to include our work toward high performing academics in all arenas. 

Thank you and once again
Happy Holidays! 

Jeff Pierson

Day Without Hate NATIONAL RECOGNITION AWARD

It all started back in 2007 after the Virgina Tech shootings.  A small group of  students and one teacher were sitting in a classroom and decided to take a stance.  From that day to now, more than 100,000 students across the country have bonded and taken a stance against school violence.  A Day Without Hate began right here behind the wall of SLHS and this week, their work, dedication, fortitude and perseverance for the cause was recognized by the Peace Jam foundation.  SLHS and DWOH were awarded the prestigious National Call To Action award and with that had the opportunity to both hear from and visit with Betty Williams, a noted Nobel Peace prize recipient who has worked all across this world to help bring hope and peace to all nations.  She along with her daughter spoke with our student body for nearly an hour on Monday and provided a glimpse of not only her work, but challenged the DWOH program to continue their work not only right here, but to take this message across this great nation.  The award was given as a formal luncheon downtown at the Denver Center for the Performing arts on Tuesday where students both past and present were recognized on stage by hundreds of Peace Jam supports for their tremendous work. 

Thank you Peace Jam for both the recognition of our DWOH work and for the work you do everyday to help promote a better place for our children to live-

Congratulations to PEACE JAM/ Day Without Hate EVENT

Standley Lake HS is extremely proud to announce that our Day Without Hate Event received a NATIONAL award yesterday from the Peace Jam Foundation- 

- DWOH won the coveted Global Call To Action award that is a nationally recognized award.  Members of the national Peace Jam organization along with CBS Channel 4 news were on hand yesterday at the school to present the award- 

In 2007 Mr. Ben Reed and English teacher at SLHS along with a small group of students were discussing school violence and the Virginia Tech shootings.  At that very moment they had a vision..  A vision to do something.  From that vision and the fortitude of these young men and women begun the Day Without Hate.  Since 2007 the event has grown immensely.  Last years event had over 120,000 students participating not only in JEFFCO, but across the state, onto college campuses and even into other neighboring states.  The culture and awareness that DWOH promotes and enables has been nothing short of amazing.  This award is not only very appreciated, but well deserved. 

Below is the news clip from CBS Channel 4 and a picture of this years Peace Jam/DWOH students participants- 

 http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/10/17/standley-lake-high-wins-peacejam-award/

Homecoming Week

This week has been full of tradition, fun, and plenty of enthusiasm!  Please join us tonight at the NAAC stadium for the all important and exciting POWDER PUFF football game.  The juniors are poised to make tonight' s game very competitive, but the Seniors will have something to say about that.  6pm start time-  $1 entry- 

Congratulations to the boys soccer team as they continue their run toward a league title beating Dakota Ridge 3-0 on Tuesday night.  They will battle with Bear Creek on Thursday at 4pm at Lakewood Memorial Stadium-  You can see the soccer team and then head over to the NAAC for football-----

Thursday night the 6th ranked football team will play 5th ranked in a battle for the top spot in the league.  7pm start time at the NAAC-  We are hoping to have a record crowd for the game as it will be very exciting! 

Class 4A
RK	TEAM	W-L	PTS	PVS	LW
1	Montrose (21)	6-0	210	2	W
2	Falcon	5-0	153	3	W
3	Monarch	3-1	149	1	L
4	Loveland	4-0	134	4	W
5	Montbello	5-0	132	6	W
6	Standley Lake	5-0	102	7	W
7	Pueblo West	4-1	88	9	W
8	Pine Creek	3-2	48	10	W
9	Pueblo Centennial	5-0	35	-	W
10	Longmont	3-1	27	-	W

Academic Assembly

SLHS Community,

I am extremely proud to once again inform our student body and the community of the tremendous accomplishments from our students.  We are once again recognizing a large group of SLHS students for their accomplishments.  This will be the third year in a row that our recognition numbers have increased in size.  We are up another 36 students overall and recognized all of our students with a GPA of 3.5 (principal honors roll) as well for the first time.  As we continue encouraging students to take rigorous and college level courses the standard expected from our student body continues to soar.  We are excited about our future and appreciate the support and communication from our school community. 

“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.”
― Sigmund Freud

Coffee With the Superintendent

FYI Community-

Superintendent Stevenson and Standley Lake area principals invite parents/guardians and key communicators

for coffee and an opportunity to discuss important school and district issues 

 

Tuesday, October 8, 2013
8:30 – 10:00 a.m.
STANDLEY LAKE HIGH SCHOOL

Library

9300 W 104^th Avenue • Westminster • 80021

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please RSVP to 303-982-6808 by Friday, October 4

Welcome SLHS Class of 2017!

We welcomed the class of 2017 to the building today as school kicked off with freshman orientation.  We have over 320 of our incoming freshman here all day getting acclimated to their new building.  The LINK program is one of  the best and most important traditions as SLHS as upper classmen have a chance to mentor and track a group of freshmen on the ins and outs of high school life. 

TCAP results have record GROWTH

SLHS Community,

I've been waiting to release these results to you for two weeks now.  I am extremely proud to say that our TCAP and ACT results are in and we performed amazingly!  Our students showed growth in all 7 areas with specific results below-  As you will see from our data, we not only showed growth in all areas, but our status scores are better than they've been in four years!  That says a lot about the staff, student dedication, and the support this community provided us last year. 

Many of you were involved and informed of our "portfolio" approach to education this past year and the staff really pushed the importance of students taking responsibility for all aspects of their education to include any an all standardized testing and our new approach to challenge students to take the "right" classes based on this portfolio of educational information. 

Percentage of student Proficient/Advanced
TCAP	2009-2010		2010-2011		2011-2012		2012-13
	9th	10th	9th	10th	9th	10th	9th	10th
Reading	73	78	73	65	72	69	77	81
Writing	53	59	57	51	56	51	65	66
Math	51	42	47	35	47	40	52	45
Science	-	55	-	52	-	49	-	66

SLHS Construction Update

SLHS community,

The summer construction project is moving right along as crews have been working day and night to stay on schedule as we inch closer and closer to the start of a new year.  We are anticipating a completion date of August 12th with some final walk throughs the following week.  We still do not have parking access on site but expect the parking lot to be completed by August 5th.   Pictures of the project are included below and to the right. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer vacation.

Congratulations to Zoie Hoben- JEFFCO Female MVP

Congratulations to Senior Zoie Hoben as she was voted the Femall MVP/Athlete of the year for JEFFCO schools.  She along with her family attended an MVP brunch where players of the year, coaches of the year along with hall of fame inductees were honored last week.  What a tremendous honor to have another Gator representing JEFFCO athletics- 

Student athletes, State Championship game, and Letters of Intent

We have mutltiple SLHS student athletes that parcicipate on the Wheat Ridge Lacross team who plays for a state title tomorrow afternoon at 2:00pm at Sports Authority Field- 

Congratulations to the following student athletes who signed letters of intent to play college athletics-

Marcus Washington- Ottawa University- Track and Field
Haley Lopez- Grinnell College- Basketball
Eric Ung- Evansville University- Swimming
Dylan Sherry- Adams State University - Baseball

I also want to send a warm thank you and congratulations to Coach Gary Allen as he is retiring this year from baseball.  Gary served as our head coach for the past 5 years.  Best of luck on your next endeavors Gary! 

Awards and Accomplishments

Hello SLHS community,

I cannot belive the month of may is half complete, but that means a very busy season of student achievement recognition is underway along with preparations for our commencement ceremony. 
We held our annual academic awards night this past Monday and I am once again impressed with the diverse representation of awards and recipients from this school community.  We have such a talented group of young men and women and to see them be recognized by staff for their hard work is extremely fulfilling. 

- The senior class of 2013 has earned to date a total of $1.3 million in scholarships with nearly half of that amount being earned by the 24 IB graduates.

- 41% of our entire student body this year was enrolled in at least one honors or above course! 

- Danielle Benton was awarded the Pro Start student of the year and recognized at the annual state awards banquet.

- We have our first acceptance to Standford in the history of SLHS- Katlyn Alapati

- Multiple Ivy league acceptances with one that will be attending Yale next year- Evan Narvaez

- Our athletic awards will take place next Monday May 20th and will recognize the amazing year in sports for our teams.  We just recently learned that 5 of our athletes earned JEFFCO MVP status at the league awards banquet with Zoie Hoben earning Female Athlete of the Year!!! 

- We've had fifteen student athlete letter of intent signings with a record five division one scholarships for athletics. 

This has been a year full of celebrations, sadness, and fear at times, but as always we persevered through to once again put another notch in the wall on the road to excellence. 

SLHS Pro Start Featured in DENVER POST today-

The amazing Pro Start culinary program at SLHS received some very good press today as they were featured in the Denver post- Listed below are the culinary results and a link to today's featured article.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_23128300/more-colorado-high-schools-cooking-up-recipe-culinary

Congratulations to the following FCCLA Food Event winners from the State FCCLA Conference:

Silver Medal Winners

Meghan Sheehan, Baking and Pastry

Annie Wong, Knife Skills

Gold Medal Winners

Alexx Blasczyk, Gourmet Sweet

Jacy Potter, Themematic Table Setting

Sabrina Nunez, Baking and Pastry

1st Place Gold Medal Winners and National Qualifiers

Danielle Benton, Culinary Star

Amber Harrison, Culinary Star

Brendan Underwood, Culinary Star

Day Without Hate- Friday April 26th

SLHS Community,

As many of you are aware, tomorrow is the annual Day without hate event not only at SLHS but across the district, state and has even taken off in some other states.  We have recently seen colleges take an active role in promoting this annual event as well.  What is DWOH? 

“A Day Without Hate is a student-led, grassroots organization that promotes nonviolence, respect, and unity within our schools.”

This annual event started right here at SLHS in 2007 after a group of students saw the massacre on the Virginia Tech campus.  The students in Mr. Ben Reed's class made a pact to inform, educate, and promote non-violence to the school and eventually to the state and across the nation.  The event has grown each and every year and has made it way across the state and into others as well. 

SLHS would like to encourge parents and community members to wear white tomorrow Friday April 26th in support of this tremendous event.  Below are some specific details and information regarding the 2013 event. 

1. The Rally is at Jeffco Stadium (6th Ave and Kipling). Gates open at 5:00. Admission is free to all Jeffco high school students and staff wearing any DWOH t-shirt. Shirts will also be sold at the gates for $8.

2. The Rally features music from Flobots and Zach Heckendorf and speakers from MTV's The Buried Life.

3. Governor Hickenlooper is proclaiming April 26 as a Day Without Hate for the state of Colorado. The State Senate has written a tribute to DWOH, as well. State Senator Andy Kerr will read the proclamation and the tribute at the rally.

4. The following City Councils are also proclaiming April 26 as a Day Without Hate for their cities: Golden, Lakewood, Westminster, and Wheat Ridge.

5. Over 13,000 shirts were sold across Jeffco, Colorado, and several states.

6. At least $4,000 in scholarships will be given away to students working to promote peace and nonviolence in Jeffco schools.

IB Art Presentation by Mirana Samon

I was extremely excited and proud to witness the mirage of art exhibits all completed by our IB art student Miranda Samon.  The timeline and process she worked through to accomplish these amazing pieces was powerful to witness.  The night was filled with classmates, teachers, mentors, community artists all showing up in support of the work Miranda accomplished.

Pictures below

Congratulations to the SLHS Poms Team!

The SLHS poms team recently returned from their trip to the national competition in Florida.  I am extremely proud to inform you that not only did they return to the Swamp, but they brought back some serious hardware with them! 
Their incredible 4th place finish out of more than 30 teams in the JAZZ competition was a first for any poms team in the history of SLHS.  They not only completed that top 5 finish in the JAZZ competition, but they topped the competition off with a top 10 (9th place) finish in the Pom competition!  What an amazing feat and trip for our talented young ladies and their coaches-   SEE THEIR PICTURE TO THE RIGHT

STUDENTS-

Ayla Schuetz 

Brittany Marks

Brandi Fenimore

Carrie Bumgardner 

Danielle Lombardi

Hailee Frazier

Jazlin Hanson

Julia Connolly

Mary Pankow

Morgan Kreiger

Taylor Frandsen

TCAP

SLHS Community,

Thank you very much for your support during the past two days with our annual TCAP testing.  Its important to know that we had a 98% plus attendance rate, the best since I have been at SLHS.  That shows me the message we are sending to both our students and community is being heard and is of significance.  As noted in last week's blog, we are now using a "portfolio" of information to help determine college and career readiness.  This portfolio helps staff and counselors in conjunction with parents find the "right"courses for students and will be used to determine enrollment in honors, AP, and IB courses.  We are half way home with TCAP testing, but the assessments will continue once again next Tuesday and Wednesday-  See the schedule below- 

Monady March 11- Regular Period 1-8

Tuesday March 12- TCAP Testing-  7:45 Start Time

Wednesday March 13- TCAP Testing-  7:45 Start Time

Thursday March 14- Wednesday Block Day- Periods 1,3,5,7

Friday March 15- Thursday Block Day- Periods 2,4,6,8

** We will once again serve breakfast to all students both Tuesday and Wednesday starting at 7:00am in the cafeteria- Please help support you son or daughter and encourage healthy eating and a good nights sleep on Sunday and Monday night for the best results. 

"Portfolio" The New SLHS Buzz Word

Parents,

We have recently begun discussing a new buzz word for our students at SLHS.  "PORTFOLIO"  We are using this term to engage students in learning the how and what is needed to be college and career ready over the course of their four years in HS.  With that said we as a staff have spent time and energy looking through data, discussing ways to determine what's the "right" course for students to take to include honors, AP, and possibly IB.  Here are some talking points we are using with our students-

- Students ability to take adanvced, honors, AP and IB courses can and will be reflective of his/her score on standardized tests.
- We can now utilize data from standardized assessments, GPA, other sources in both 9th and 10th grade to help determine what a student is projected to score on the ACT which is the PRIMARY entry exam for colleges across the nation.
- Our registration process now includes a portfolio of information on the registration card so teachers, counselors, parents, and students can make necessary and proper recommendations for selected courses.
- Data shows that remedation rates (college level courses required for students to take if they are not ready for college level material in an area which cost and does not count towards graduation) significantly decrease with the more college level courses taken in high school. 

We will continue communicating this important information to our student body but feel its also important that parents too understand the significance of student performance in ALL areas of their high school education. 

Jeff Pierson

Proud to be An AMERICAN Ceremony

SLHS Community,

I am very proud and honored to announce that SLHS was awarded the Proud to be An American Award by the Korean War Veterans Association at a ceremony that took place this morning in our Library.  Our staff, students, and community are recognized for our dedication to the recognition of veterans, patriotism, and the education of students about this great country!  We will display this recognition placque proudly.  In addition to the recognition, we too received a letter from Governor Hinkenlooper honoring our efforts as a staff, student body and as a community.   You can see pictures to the right of this post-

A special thanks to the teachers pictured Ms. Jennifer Brooks and Ms. Megan Madsen for their tireless efforts and work this past November as we hosted an all school assembly where students had the opportunity to meet and talk with veterans, learn about our nations history, and share stories from these past that helped shape our nation. 

Hat Day for Jessica Ridgeway Park

SLHS Community,

On Friday February 2nd, SLHS is participating in the Jessica Ridgeway Memorial Fund with a "WEAR A HAT" to school day-  All proceeds from this event will go to the Ridgeway Memorial Fund- 
The cost is $2

EVENT UPDATES-
Sadies Dance- February 9th-  8-11pm    TICKETS- $15 single/  $25 couples

Winter Assembly- February 8th-

NO SCHOOL- February 15th and 18th

1st Grading Period ENDS- February 14th

Parent Confernces- February 21st- 3:30

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

As we prepare for our Spring semester, I wanted to extend a token of appreciation and hope for a successful and productive new year.  We persevered through some tumultuous issues in the Fall, but as always we stayed the path, worked hard, and fought through. 

I am excited to announce that along with the Class of 2013 I was able to fund new tile for the main entry/commons area in our building.  The project is completed and looks amazing!  Please see the pictures located to the right-  THANK you Class of 2013 for the work and financial support in making this project happen. 

For those that havent heard, we lost one of our staff members to a new position.  Robert Van Dyke who taught Family and Consumer Sciences and was our Student Council sponsor accepted the state director position for FCCLA.  Congratulations to Robert on his new endeavor as we wish him the best! 

REMINDER-  When students arrive on Wednesday Jan. 9th we will be on a 1-8 Period schedule for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday-