With the end of our first semester, I want to thank our staff members for their dedication to our students and the high quality educational opportunities we provide across Falcon School District. We continue to make strides within our Innovation Zones to use community, student and educator collaboration to build and approve innovation plans that will support our students as we prepare them for success in the classroom and beyond. I encourage you to continue your involvement with our schools throughout 2012 ñ we are all contributors to our studentsí achievement.In getting into the holiday spirit, students at Ridgeview Elementary joined in to help out the ìBelieveî campaign and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. By writing letters to Santa, students helped to raise money for the foundation ñ for every letter contributed to the ìBelieveî campaign, $1 is donated to Make-A-Wish-Foundation. In December, that donation was doubled to $2 and Ridgeview students contributed 883 letters ñ $1,766 ñ to the foundation. The spirit of giving trickled over into Vista Ridge High School where one motivated student collected more than 315 letters in one day. The Imagine Classical Academy also participated.In addition, HMS students Kerri DeVoll, Season Romero and Taylor Hipps have been busy working on a service project for Front Door Ministries.†These Horizon Middle School seventh graders organized a toy Drive Dec. 5-12 and collected 782 toys!†Front Door Ministries is a nonprofit organization that helps children in low income neighborhoods.†The students learned about the organization outside of school and reacted by asking what they could do to help. The toys were delivered before Christmas, making the holiday season a little happier for many children in Colorado Springs.†Kerri, Season and Taylor are an example of students thinking about the global community and the difference one can make for others.Moving into 2012, we will see some exciting changes as we bring cutting-edge technology to our classrooms, integrating Apple and PC platforms to best meet the needs of instructional technology in our schools. We will be preparing staff with appropriate training and an ongoing understanding of how technology can be used to open studentsí minds and support critical thinking and problem solving.I hope you enjoyed a joyous holiday and wish you all the best in 2012!
