About Snowy Peaks Junior/Senior High School (8375)
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Snowy Peaks Junior/Senior High School
2023-2024
Snowy Peaks is Summit School District's small school option for students who benefit from a non-traditional learning environment. The school, serving grades 7-12, offers a 7:1 student-teacher ratio, and the staff is highly skilled and sensitive to the needs of students who choose a nontraditional approach to learning. We utilize small class sizes, competency-based instruction, and innovative instruction and assessment practices. Staff members strive to develop close mentoring relationships with …
students, and we challenge students to succeed and set goals toward graduation and higher education, military service, or employment. Our curriculum utilizes a blended learning instructional approach to focus on authentic and demonstrable mastery of Colorado Academic Standards. We believe all students can experience success, and we believe all members of the learning community deserve respect. In the spring of 2020, the Board of Education accepted a proposal to identify Snowy Peaks as a magnet school for Transformational Education. The school's overarching goal is to re-engage students and their families in a smaller, more intimate academic setting in order to teach students the essential skills and academic mindsets to transform students into their best selves. The mission of Snowy Peaks (SP) is to provide a safe, student-centered, relationship-based environment in which all students have a chance to excel in academics, develop strong character, contribute to their community, and find their place in nature. The SP diploma ensures that each student has the skills to be successful in post-secondary education and the workforce. All students at Snowy Peaks elect to attend based on their interest in the school's unique programming. Students who choose to attend Snowy Peaks typically have not had their needs met in a traditional school setting, and more often than not, these students have many mitigating circumstances that have negatively impacted their academic success. 80% of new students report feeling academically unsuccessful and a general dissatisfaction with their previous school experience. While there are a multitude of reasons that students join our school, we frequently help students recover from these negative experiences: the inability to thrive in large educational setting, bullying or a lack of social success in a traditional education setting, credit deficiency or below grade-level knowledge and skills, struggles with mental illness, difficulty formulating effective relationships with adults, behavior infractions, parent/guardian issues, including deceased parent(s), homelessness and struggles with adoption. These students often carry deep emotional and academic wounds. They struggle to build positive relationships with meaningful adults, fail to develop life habits that lead to success, and there is a lack of academic confidence required to invest in being lifelong learners. On a daily basis, the school helps heal students? emotional and academic wounds and reinvigorates students? interest in being lifelong learners. This nurturing environment puts students on the path to mend their academic careers and swiftly encircles the child and family, illuminating the path to high school graduation, literacy, and math skills. Now in its twelfth year, Snowy Peaks serves approximately 85 students from all of the Summit townships (Blue River, Breckenridge, Dillon Valley, Frisco, and Silverthorne), and the unique, individualized programming also draws students from the surrounding districts of Park County School District, West Grand School District, and Lake County School District.
Accredited with Distinction - This is assigned to the highest performing districts. These districts are meeting or exceeding expectations on the majority of performance tasks.
Accredited - Districts with an overall rating of Accredited are meeting expectations on the majority of performance metrics.
Accredited with Improvement Plan - These districts are identified as lower performing. They may be meeting expectations on some performance metrics, but they are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on many.
Accredited with Priority Improvement Plan - These districts are identified as low performing. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these districts until they improve.
Accredited with Turnaround Plan - These districts are identified as among the lowest performing districts in the state. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these districts until they improve.
Accredited with Insufficient State Data - These districts are assigned this accreditation rating when the state does not have enough data to report publicly. To better understand why a district received an Insufficient State Data rating, all publicly reportable data are reflected in the performance framework report. More information about these ratings is available here.
School Ratings
Performance Plan - Schools with a Performance Plan are meeting expectations on the majority of performance metrics.
Improvement Plan - These schools are identified as lower performing. They may be meeting expectations on some performance metrics, but they are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on many.
Priority Improvement Plan - These schools are identified as low performing. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these schools until they improve.
Turnaround Plan - These schools are identified as among the lowest performing schools in the state. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these schools until they improve.
Insufficient State Data - These schools are assigned this plan type when the state does not have enough data to report publicly. To better understand why a school received an Insufficient State Data rating, all publicly reportable data are reflected in the performance framework report. More information about these ratings is available here.