The Pulse
Pikes Peak Early College, November Edition
A Note from Rochelle Kolhouse, Principal
Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful break, and after just about three weeks off due to some snow days, you are rested and ready for more learning.
Pikes Peak Early College has much to celebrate in November. We are happy to announce that we will be receiving the Colorado John Irwin Schools of Excellence Awards this month from the state of Colorado! The state of Colorado awards the John Irwin awards to schools that demonstrate exceptional academic achievement over time. The schools need to have received an “Exceeds” Expectations rating on the Academic Achievement indicator of the School Performance Frameworks reflecting exceptional performance in Math, English Language Arts, and Science. We are so very excited and honored to have this designation for our school. Our staff and students work extremely hard, and it shows! If you are interested in reading more about this award, please feel free to click this link on the Colorado Department of Education’s webpage.
Impact Aid forms went out this week to students. Please make sure you complete these forms as soon as possible and return the completed forms directly to PPEC. Unfortunately, we must have a signed paper copy. A faxed or emailed form will not count. The deadline to return this form is Friday, November 15th. This is a relatively short turnaround time, but largely due in part to the two snow days we had this week.
Before we know it, the holidays will be upon us. I’d like to take a moment to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving and to tell you all how very thankful I am to be a part of Pikes Peak Early College. We have such amazing and talented students, teachers, and families! I am in awe of our students and their achievements each and every day that I get to see them. Thank you, everyone, for being a part of our school and for making Pikes Peak Early College what it is, great! Happy Thanksgiving!
Science
Biology students have entered the second phase of their science-based community service project. This project gives students an opportunity to develop an awareness of needs in various communities and address those needs through service-learning. Students are designing their project around the framework of how science impacts their community. As a consolidation of learning, their community project engages in a sustained, in-depth inquiry leading to service as action in the community.
The second phase of their project involves developing their proposals for action. In this phase of their project, students should already be clear on what they want to achieve and the service they will conduct for their project, but now is the time for them to further develop their proposal for their action plan. What are some specific tasks or activities they can do to develop their project? Students can use checklists, rubrics, timelines, flow charts, or other strategies to prepare their proposal. Their proposal should include designing, problem-solving, decision-making, and/or investigative activities. Proposals should be achievable based on the time and resources available to the student.
Students often find the hardest part of this phase is finding a balance between a proposal that takes too much time, is difficult to follow through, or costs too much money to implement vs. projects that are too simplistic. Students will also continue their research. They will be looking for reliable online sources, as well as interviewing individuals involved in whatever their project is related to and who can offer valuable information and insight. Students are keeping track of all of their sources, information, efforts, research, and hard work in their process journal.
Our students have some really neat projects being developed that will make a big impact in our community! We have students developing projects that will help our homeless community, dogs missing limbs, climate change, disabled children, cancer, homeless pets, mental health, the list goes on. We have amazing students doing amazing things!! Go PPEC!!! Yeti’s forever!!
Math
Burr, November brings snow and cold. Mr. Beadles has been making videos called Geominutes to help students with Geometry type questions that come up many times on STAR, SAT, and PSAT testing. PPEC curriculum is Algebra I, Algebra II, and Pre-Calculus, so many times, these questions are not covered in our ALEKS curriculum. Geometry is a very important component to STEM education and can be taken as an elective at PPEC. I encourage every student who is on an engineering, art, architecture, or anything mathematical pathway to take Geometry sometime during their time at PPEC. Plane Geometry was developed by the Greek Philosopher Euclid in Ancient Greece, and it’s applications are still very applicable today. These Videos “Geominutes” will give students a basic understanding of the many important postulates and ideas that our state and national testing feel are important. Rest assured, if students do not take Geometry, they can still go towards college math courses, but it might be a nice high school class to take as juniors or seniors after students are in college courses to complete high school requirements.
Looking forward to warmer weather, seeing our students after a long break and snow days, and Pi Season!
English
Where did October go? It’s hard to believe that we only have a few more weeks until the semester is over! AHHHHH!!!!! These next few weeks are jam-packed with amazing projects. All English students will participate in the Yeti Winter Festival- a carnival our students are hosting for Springs Studio Middle School. Each ‘booth’ will host a fun and educational activity for middle school students to complete. This will be a great chance for them to be the teachers and to create more community in our building.
While English class does not have a formal final exam, students are expected to create a cumulative project that demonstrates the skills they have mastered- reading, writing, speaking, and listening. English 1 will complete a passion project and create an activity for the class to complete to learn more about their passion. From chocolate to shoes, these passion projects always surprise and inspire me! English 2 has a surprise project- I can’t give this one away yet! For English 3, the class will complete a debate over a topic of the students’ choosing. Each student will come to class prepared with reliable resources to support their viewpoint. It will be amazing to see how they come together to learn how to respect and learn from others!
In light of this ‘thankful’ season, I want to pass on my thanks to you! Thank you for entrusting me with your students. Thank you for empowering your student to work hard and try their best. Thank you for your support! I appreciate YOU!
World Language - Hello! Hola! Hallo! Salut!
Thank you so much for meeting with us during parent-teacher conferences. We are so thankful for our wonderful families and excited to be able to share your child’s successes with you.
It is hard to believe that we are already in November, and Thanksgiving is here. It will be a short month since we will have a week's break.
This month advanced students will be writing letters and exchanging information about culture with a school in a Spanish-speaking country. This will be an incredible experience for students who will have a global vision of language acquisition and develop authentic cultural connections. Communication is the foundation of culture. However, once you open the door and really start to discover a language and culture of a people, the experience becomes more enriching and enthralling.For beginner’s levels, we will be talking about family and holidays and comparing our traditions with Spanish, German, and French-speaking countries.
I am wishing you all happiness for this new month!
Tech Electives
This semester is flying by! 21st-century skill students will start working on a collaborative genius hour project. Students will dive into what it means to be innovative and creative. Students will explore the passions and interests they have. All PPEC students are encouraged to participate in Makerspace activities that include 3D printing, programming drones, and Arduino, and using any of the video equipment. Digital Photo students have been using photo editing tools to get creative with comic strips and photo collages. Teen Leadership students continue to develop the skills and tools necessary to become great leaders. This next week students will work collaboratively, creating multimedia presentations on a variety of leadership skills.
Counselor's Corner
October was college application month and the 5th snowiest October for Colorado, by the way! We had a record-setting number of college applications this year, especially on the free application day, October 15th. If you have submitted applications, you can breathe a sigh of relief for all year 13s and 14s. If you have not, don’t panic, as you still have time to get them done. Now is the time to finish them up so that come May, you have options for schooling. For those of you who need transcripts sent out, please go to the College Advising page, where you can request one to be sent from the registrar. If you need your SAT scores sent, you can go to collegeboard.org Lastly, don’t forget to apply for PPEC graduation no later than February 1st. We need to order diplomas for all students who will be graduating or exiting the program.
We also launched the PPBEA (Pikes Peak Business & Educational Alliance) page. All 9th & 10th grade students created accounts and can now access internships, apprenticeships, and job shadowing in the area from over 100 different experiences. If you have not created an account, you can still register at any point. See Mrs. Bonavita for details.
Lastly, students took the Accuplacer test prior to fall break to determine college readiness in English and/or math. Our students did incredibly well with many qualifying for college classes based on test scores. Qualifying students need to obtain a College Readiness Assessment Interview form here or from their teacher if they would like to take a college course in the Spring. Deadlines to participate are prior to Thanksgiving.
Family Engagement Council
On September 9th, our new council met and discussed PPEC assessment data as well as zone priorities for this school year. If you are interested in viewing the agenda from our meeting as well as our meeting minutes on our website, please feel free to click on the FEC Additional Information link below. Our next Family Engagement Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 18th on our new campus (6113 Constitution Ave, Colorado Springs) from 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm! Thank you for your time and dedication to our school!
Check out the links below for some great information!
Upcoming Events
Please be sure to check the website calendar for information.
November 4-Building Closed due to field trip to Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science
November 15-Impact Aid Forms Due
November 18- Family Engagement Council Meeting 5-6:30 pm
November 22-Academic Lettering Awards Ceremony
November 25-29th- Thanksgiving Break No School
*Reminder, school hours are M, W, F 7:15 am-3:15 pm