It's been a week of wrapping up projects, taking final exams and finishing classes before we head into preparation for Transitional Presentations of Learning and lots of graduation festivities. Please join us this evening to take a break from the academic action as we gather at Rotary Park for the AHS End-of-Year Family Picnic, from 5:00-7:00. Thank you to AHS Student Council for organizing the event! Grab a frisbee (and maybe an extra layer!), bring some food to share and join us for this informal social event, open to all Ospreys--future, past and present.

This weekend presents opportunities to see musical Ospreys performing, with tonight's iAM Music Student Spring Fest, from 5:00 to 10:00 at the Henry Strater Theatre.  AHS students in our Music Theory and Performance elective will close the show, playing three songs they've learned this semester in classs.  On Sunday, the Setting Light Concert at the Animas City Theatre will feature four seniors--Derek Junttonen, Perrin Kileen (HeartbreakP), Dana Stahl and Julianne Marqua (RubyBlu)--performing as the culmination of their Senior Project.  This is a student-produced concert featuring indie-folk and hip hop, with tickets going for $5 for AHS students, $10 at the door.  Please support our student musicians!

senior Dylan Katz explains the future of artificial intelligence to Kathy Setka, mom to Eric, AHS Class of 2015

Next Tuesday, May 23, the entire community is invited to Senior Celebration from 5:30 to 7:00 at the Rocket Grill in the Fort Lewis College Student Union.  Join us as we acknowledge the amazing community support that the AHS Class of 2017, celebrate the accomplishments of this particular group of students and invite local organizations to present scholarships.  There will be light refreshments and a cash bar.   We will distribute caps and gowns and tickets for the graduation ceremony to seniors and their families at this event.  

Thursday evening, seniors and staff will gather one final time in the AHS Commons for Senior Supper, 6:00 to 8:00.  We are so grateful to all the families who are preparing food and helping with this event--we are all set with everything we need and humbled by the response to our call for volunteers.

	AHS Board Member and Osprey parent Jeff King examines the school design plans from the Class of 2020 with an eye toward using student voice and the design thinking process in building our future campus

Next Friday morning, seniors head up to the Community Concert Hall decked out in their caps and gowns at 8:25 for their official class photo and a full dress rehearsal of the graduation ceremony.  Meanwhile, 9th through 11th graders will gather at Memorial Park for Advisory Olympics.  Please make arrangements to get students to Memorial Park in the morning; they will be released from Memorial Park at noon and we are not providing transportation.  Parking for Memorial Park is on the corner of East 3rd Avenue and 29th Street.   The AHS campus will be closed on Friday.  

sophomore Brigid O'Brien works on the Anatomy of an Osprey mural in the Michael Ackerman wing

Graduation for the AHS Class of 2017 begins at 4:00 at the Community Concert Hall on Friday, May 26.  Families of seniors, who will all have tickets for reserved seating, should plan to be seated no later than 3:45.  We will begin seating those without tickets in all available seats at that time.  There are approximately 100 general admission seats set aside for non-ticketed guests.   Please arrive early and know that we've always had room for everyone in past years.

With the year drawing to a close, we want to ask families to please pick up any sutdent medications we may have in the front office.  For those of you looking ahead to next year, we have finalized the 2017-18 school calendar; you can view it here.

Finally, we want to share the sad news that we lost a member of the Osprey community this week, as freshman Bryce Day's father Tom passed away.  Please stay tuned to hear our plans for supporting Bryce and his mom Terri in this difficult time.  We are in communication with Bryce and his mom and will share information as soon as we have it about the best way we can rally our community around them.

 We hope you have a restful weekend.  Thanks for all you do to help the Ospreys soar!