After five weeks away, and a year of many COVID-19 restraints, Pagosa Peak Open School opened its doors on schedule August 2 for the 2021-22 school year — the school’s first year with its full complement of grades: Kindergarten through 8th grade.
Students were met with old and new features: a communal lunch space where classes eat together, visible teacher smiles, welcoming games, and schoolwide norm-setting.
The school opened its doors in 2017 serving Kindergarten through 4th grade, and has added an additional grade each year. The PPOS ‘middle school’ is now complete, with grades 6-8. Also new this year: middle school students were excited to learn that they will begin choosing elective classes.
“As our middle school students take on more responsibilities and independence in life, we strive to also reward these developments with more choices,” School Director Angela Reali-Crossland said. Students will have choices between Restorative Practices, World Languages, Art, Yearbook and the Teacher Assistant Program.
Eighth-grader Hevon is applying for the Teacher Assistant position, where middle schoolers assist in the elementary school classrooms twice a week. “I love hanging out with children, helping to walk them up the stairs of maturity and growth; to become great adults in their community,” he said in his application.
Middle school students are also eager to take their learning outside the classroom with the first camping trip of the year at Big Meadows Campground. After their ‘rock cycle’ rafting experience in Moab last June with middle school teacher Kelsey Scott…
… students are ready to show their camping knowledge with PPOS’s new middle school humanities teacher, Brooks Letchworth. During the Moab trip, the students were sleeping under the stars in the desert, analyzing rock formations and narrating the history of canyons in Utah. Now the students are ready to work in their own backyards. Their Big Meadows camping trip this month will allow them to apply their previous Moab trip knowledge to new geography.
“I’m grateful to be at a school that cares about and values the outdoors, where character traits and life skills have real life applications,” Mr. Letchworth said.
This first trip includes team building opportunities, as well as a reconnection with Audubon Society through an extension of their High Alpine Tundra project. Students will continue their study of the environment and behavior of Colorado pikas — small rock-dwelling relatives of the rabbit family, but with short limbs, short rounded ears, an even coat of fur, and no external tail.
“I’m excited to get back into this work with my students after a year of having it on hold,” Mrs. Scott said. Keith Bruno will be leading students through their pika work at Big Meadows this year, and students are eager to continue their research with this local expert.
PPOS’s Project-Based Learning curriculum continues in all the classes, and students across PPOS are looking forward to applying their learning inside the classroom and out in the community.
Emily Murphy is School Director at Pagosa Peak Open School, the first District-authorized charter school in Archuleta County. Prior to her appointment as School Director, Emily filled various roles at PPOS including Project-Based Learning advisor, instructional coach, and assistant director.