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Hello Ospreys,
Last night's 9th and 10th grade exhibition was so impressive and we loved having the opportunity to view students stepping up in so many important ways. Thank you, class of 2026 and 2025 for a powerful evening full of beautiful work!
We look forward to seeing you for our ONLINE community conversation about our move to the new campus at Fort Lewis College TONIGHT at 5pm. We’re honored that we’ll be joined by Dr. Jenni Trujillo, Dean of FLC’s School of Education as we present important information about our partnership with the college, including hopes and expectations. Please tune in via meet.google.com/ivj-junq-yyv.
With first semester drawing to a close, we are putting plans in place for the second half of the year. As a charter school, we have the ability to be flexible, responsive and innovative, which allows us to make changes when we see ways to improve student learning and experience. Of course, any changes are considered carefully and we are always committed to making sure they serve our school’s mission: to prepare all students for college and postsecondary success by creating critical thinkers and engaged citizens through an innovative, student-centered, project-based curriculum.
To increase personalized challenge and support for students, 9th, 10th and 11th grades will have 3 pods per grade for all core classes next semester. This will create smaller class sizes across the board. This fall, we experimented with reducing class size in 9th and 10th grade math and science classes and found that, unsurprisingly, students found more success. Now we’d like to make that shift for humanities as well. Moving to 3 pods per grade will make all core classes have somewhere in the 15-18 student range, which is a great class size for ensuring a diversity of voices and perspectives while also making sure each student gets individualized attention.
Rather than having a double-period block of humanities each day, students in 9th through 11th grade will have 1 period of humanities that emphsizes direct instruction from their grade-level humanities teacher and a separate period that will allow students to work individually and collaboratively on humanities work (e.g. reading, writing, revising, project work). During that period, core teachers from all disciplines will connect with students to ensure they’re being adequately challenged and supported. This might include honors meetings, challenge extension support or other one-one-one check-ins. Core teachers and our Inclusion Team will be actively working with students to keep them engaged and on track during this period. This will not be a free period or study hall, but rather an intentionally designed time set aside for students to do rigorous academic work, receive support, collaborate and apply what they are learning, with a primary focus on the language arts and social science skills and content they are learning in humanities classes.
Students will be able to view their new core class schedules in Infinite Campus before the start of next semester. Core teachers are working on creating new rosters for the 3 pods, with an eye towards creating positive classroom dynamics since they know their students well.
Making this change will cause a few shifts in our elective offerings, but we will still have a strong variety of classes available each period. We’ll send more details about those changes out to students soon, and they’ll be able to make course requests through our registrar, Maureen Truax, or through the Add/Drop Form. As a reminder, students can also make changes to electives in the first 2 weeks of the semester.
Knowing every Osprey as the beautiful individual they are is key to our school’s magic and we are excited to implement this shift as a way to further support that. We have a TWIGS Parent Coffee scheduled for next Monday morning at 8:30 and we’d be happy to field questions there if you have them. Of course, you can also always reach out to us!
Thank you for all you are doing in these busy weeks between the breaks to help students finish the semester strong. We are looking forward to Presentations of Learning and the way they showcase every student’s individual educational journey, providing an authentic audience for their thoughtful reflection on the semester.
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