After five years with Pagosa Peak Open School, School Director Angela Reali-Crossland has decided to move onto new adventures, leaving the school in the hands of its current staff, and with myself taking over the director position.
I am grateful and excited to say our staff is returning; some in new positions, all with their talents, experience and passion for our students and work at PPOS. Joining our team this year will be Brian Tunin, our new physical education teacher; and Alison Beach, our new English Language Arts teacher. We are happy to have them bring their expertise and energy to our staff and students.
Additionally, while PPOS will be sad to see Pagosa Community Initiative move their after-school programming downtown, we are looking forward to launching our own after-school program for PPOS students with Linda Hayduke. The program includes hands-on collaborations and is based around the Destination Imagination SkillFire curriculum.
This time with Linda will surely be fun and educational for our students.
We are grateful to have the Forge taking over the whole school’s warehouse space, adding additional programming for after school for the entire community, including gymnastics. PPOS students this year will get to dabble in martial arts, Ninja Warrior, and gymnastics programming during the school day: Fridays will be “Forge Days,” with every student receiving programming two Fridays a month with Forge. We are happy to have this partnership with such a great community program.
PPOS is also excited to see the playground construction plans underway. After receiving a nearly $700,000 grant from the Colorado Health Foundation, the playground team will be organizing, scheduling, planning all the steps of this process, with a goal of starting construction toward the end of the 2024-25 school year. This community space will revamp our outdoor play areas not only for our students during the day, but also for all people after school hours.
We are committed to our community, and looking forward to providing a fun, beautiful playground space uptown for all of Pagosa.
The school year starts August 19, and our Back to School Night is Thursday, August 15 at 4pm. New families can meet their teachers, check out their classrooms, sign up for after-school, and turn in enrollment paperwork. I look forward to seeing all our families at this event.
Pagosa Peak Open School is a small, K-8 district charter school focused on implementing a project-based learning (PBL) curriculum in a Restorative Practices environment. To enroll your student for the 2024-25 school year, visit https://pagosapeakopenschool.org/.
Emily Murphy is School Director at Pagosa Peak Open School, the first District-authorized charter school in Archuleta County. The intentionally innovative school serves grades K-8, with plans for a preschool in the near future.