Education

Is it time for Park City to have two high schools? Should one be a traditional curriculum, the other more career and technical? Should elementary schools include 6th grade? Or should there be neighborhood kindergarten through 8th grade schools. One thing people seem to agree on is that it is time to move 9th grade back to the high school. Tuesday, April 30th is another opportunity to give input on what the future of the Park City School District should look like.

Ecker Hill Middle School has received the Schools to Watch designation under a national program designed to reform middle-grades learning through academics, whole child development and social equity. There are fewer than 500 middle schools nationally that have qualified for the designation. Ecker Hill first received it in 2013 and recently learned they’ve been named again after going through the recertification process.

A couple of Park City High School Seniors and members of the Girls in Tech Club have organized a first ever all-female coding workshop. It’s open to any girl in the state and no experience is needed. The event is Saturday and will run for 12 hours.

Park City High School senior, Claire Oberg says the idea behind the All Girl Hack-a-Thon is to explore career options while collaborating on real world projects.

The South Summit School District recently approved all- day kindergarten beginning in the fall.  To accommodate the change, they’ll be hiring two new teachers.

South Summit Elementary School Principal, Linda Flinders believes the transition to all day kindergarten will assure a more equitable opportunity for all students. She says early literacy is critical for success in life.

The Park City School District will continue with the grading system transition. It’s a departure from the traditional A,B,C,D and F protocol. The issue dominated the last two public input sessions. Tuesday’s school board meeting had four people comment and 12 people gave input during  the March School Board meeting.

The Park City School District budget is $80 million and includes the anticipated $5.7 million tax increase. Due to an increase in property assessments, tax payers will pay about $11.00 per $100,000 assessed value.

Park City School District Business Administrator, Todd Hauber says the budget on target with expectations.

After five years, Utah’s standardized testing is changing to a new system that Park City School District administrators hope will have more student participation than in the past. Utah grades schools based on test performance but when the opt out rate is high like it is in Park City schools, the school’s grade is impacted negatively.

The Park City Center for Advanced Professional Studies, PC CAPS is an experiential, real world learning model offered at the Park City High School. A documentary film called Where Student’s Lead is made by students and presents the new learning paradigm. It shows how CAPS programs can inspire high schoolers as they make their way into the real world whether they’re career, or college bound.

Park City School District officials, administrators and tax payers will see the results of the eight-month long master planning project during the Board of Education meeting next week. The Hispanic community had an opportunity to give input during the Solomon Fund summer program sign up event last week.

The Park City Education Foundation celebrates another year of funding for teacher inspired innovative ideas and programs. Phonics based reading, Elementary School coding and PC CAPS are examples of successful programs originally funded by the Ed Foundation. The foundation contributes up to $1.5 million to the school district to help fund the Ideas to Impact program.

The Park City School District has been working on a master plan since last fall. The process is coming to an end with the consultants presenting facilities options to the school board on April 16th.

Wasatch High School had four Sterling Scholar winners with seven who were runners up. Park City High School had two Sterling Scholar winners and three runners up this year. Winners represent a variety of categories.

The Park City School District and Summit County have agreed on a project to restore the Jeremy Ranch wetlands and build a multiuse pathway from Homestead Rd to the elementary school. It’s part of the larger I-80/Jeremy Ranch interchange round about project scheduled to start this spring.

Now that the $10.6 million-dollar interchange project is about to commence, the school district, Summit County and Basin Recreation plan to work together to restore the wetlands and build a safer pathway for students to walk and bike to school.

Concerned about the financial hit to residents-the South Summit School Board has decided to lower the ask for a bond to build new schools to deal with growth. The board is moving forward with plans to put a $75 million bond on November's ballot-that's down from a $90 million bond the board had considered earlier.