Greetings Osprey Community,

Colleen, Jessica, Brian and Matt, all dolled and duded up at last weekend's prom

We are happy to share the news that Sean Woytek has accepted the Head of School position here at Animas.   Sean comes to us from High Tech High's Chula Vista campus and we are excited about his deep commitment to transformative project-based learning as a powerful, effective way to prepare students for college and post-secondary success. Stay tuned for information about an upcoming Town Hall that the Board will host as a way to introduce Sean to our community.  

It's a truly full, celebratory time around the Nest, with final Exhibitions, Osprey Week, Senior Projects, tPOLs and Graduation all in the next four weeks.  And another dance--MORP!--tonight at the Animas City Theater, 8:00-1:00pm with DJ Lyle Bronson and Drew Allsopp's band, Another Youthful Disease providing the tunes. 

Jessica and Roxy, MA

Speaking of graduations, huge congratulations go out to Roxy McKnight and Jessica McCallum who will walk at tomorrow's Fort Lewis College commencement alongside the other educational mavericks who make up the first-ever cohort in the Teacher Leadership Masters Program.  Come cheer for them (goodness knows they've done plenty of cheering for others!), 11:30am at Whalen Gym.  We are so proud of them, and grateful that they bring their inspiring teacher leadership to the nest every day!

  

junior Derek Pansze desribes Calculus concepts through a whale shaped puzzle at this week's Math Exhibition

Next Wednesday evening, both Matt Dooley's 9th grade Humanities and Kyle Edmondson's Statistics students will hold Exhibitions beginning at 5:00pm.  Matt's two classes will premier back-to-back productions of William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream in the AHS amphitheater at 5:00 and 6:00, where you can see Dylan King get turned into a donkey while singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and hear Jason Caplin muse poetically that love is as "brief as the lightning in the collied night."  Kyle's students' forum "Beyond Standardization: Accountability in a Project-Based Model " begins at 5:00 in the Commons.  Please note that this community dialogue about standardized tests and their role in how we assess student learning was originally scheduled for yesterday, but was postponed due to last night's Board Meeting.

On Thursday of next week, the All-School Exhibition will provide an opportunity to celebrate student learning across disciplines and will feature everything from Spanish-language food carts to cutting-edge science, with a poetry cafe thrown in for good measure.  Please join us for this end-of-the-year learning extravaganza!

Students in Matt Hughes' skateboarding Osprey Week group, stoked

T hursday also marks the beginning of

Senior Project Presentations, which allow students to share the intensive independent  research  they've completed in Humanities over the past couple of months.  There are an amazing variety of guiding questions, including: "Is the Ivory Tower built out of student debt?" "To what extent would comprehensive and transparent banking regulation protect taxpayers?" "How does the NCAA exploit its student-athletes?" and "Is asteroid mining a feasible solution to resource depletion?"  Senior Projects require  college-level research papers and professional quality TED-talks before authentic audiences.  All are welcome to attend the presentations, which take place in the AHS Commons.  Please see the complete schedule here .

Osprey Week is the week after next, and students are looking forward to diving deeply into  activities  including backcountry skiing, dog training, filmmaking, music production, clothing design, river rafting, mountain biking and more.  Osprey Week is a culture-building tradition that provides a welcome break to the academic pressures at this time of year, and we are excited about the adventures ahead!

Finally, please be sure that your Registration Packet is turned in to hold your spot for the 2015-16 school year; today is the deadline!   Questions about enrollment? Contact AHS Registrar Maureen Truax at (970) 247-2474 x2307.

Thanks for all you do to help the Ospreys soar!