Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning
1700 N. Holly Street, Denver, CO 80222
303 759-2076
Dear Recipient ,
Congratulations on your lottery
selection and admission to Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary
Learning. We are excited for your
student and family to join our crew. Our
school is proud to be considered the first expeditionary learning school in the
country and is currently in our 26th year of existence. We are inspired by the concept of outward
bound and teach project based learning rather than a traditional
curriculum. There are a few nuts and
bolts of our unique school that we would like you to consider prior to your
student’s first day of school.
Home Visits and Crew Meet Ups
RMSEL Crew Leaders conduct home visits so in a
few short weeks you should receive a welcome letter from your crew leader along
with a link to a Sign-Up Genius form.
Your new Crew Leader would like to visit your student at your home and
take about fifteen minutes to get to know and connect with your son or
daughter. There is nothing that needs to
be prepared or done, just please sign-up for a time that is conveienant for you
and your student. In addition, all elementary
school classrooms offer a Crew Meet Up before the school year begins just to
connect with other students in the crew and spend more time getting to know
their crew leader. This is completely
optional and are just for you and your family to connect with your new
community. Some are scheduled in a park
near school, others at the playground our in your classroom. The time, date and location of the Crew Meet
Up will be sent out in your Crew Leader’s welcome letter.
Field Work, Crew Trips, and Calendar
Students
at our school participate in over-night camping trips starting in kindergarten
with an one night overnight in a cabin all the way up to high school were they
participate in a three week traditional outward bound experience including a
solo. This is a special part of the
RMSEL experience and we are grateful to have our students be able to connect
outside of the classroom and make their standards come to life in a very
authentic way. Further, each crew
has a specific
day of the week (this will be communicated by your Crew Leader) in which we
will take our buses out in the field to conduct fieldwork. We have a busy crew trip season in addition
to all the other wonderful events happening at our school please click here to
get access to our full calendar for the school year.
Forms for Parents
As a result of all the wonderful adventures
that students get to participate in at our school we have a myriad of liability
forms, medical forms, and other miscellaneous forms that must be filled out for
our crews to be safe out in the field.
Please click here
to access electronic versions of all or the necessary parental forms to be
completed.
Ground School for Parent Volunteers
Before the school year starts, our adventure coordinators
Andy and Tara hold a Ground School for parents which is a half day course on
basic wilderness first aid, getting bus driver certified and general logistics
of helping with a crew trip. Please look
out for an email from our adventure team in the upcoming weeks inviting you to
attend one of three ground school trainings offered throughout the year. If you want to volunteer and chaperone on a
crew trip or field work, attending Ground School is highly recommended.
Crew Leader Welcome Letters and
Supply Lists
Each Crew Leader Crew Leader at our school
creates a summer letter and supply list outlining what each crew will be
learning, where the crew trips will take place, and any supplies a student may
need to be successful from a pencil and composition notebook, to a sleeping bag
and waterproof rain pants. Please
reference the letters, supply lists and continuum of community structures for
each respective grade level here.
Welcome
to our RMSEL community. You should look
forward to a communication from your crew parent along with your crew leader in
the next few weeks. If you are
interested in being part of our DAC (District Accountability Committee), please
reach out to our President, Margaret Biermann at dac@rmsel.org . If you have any questions or concerns in
the interim feel free to reach out to me as I would be happy to answer them for
you. I speak on behalf of our whole
RMSEL staff when I say, we look forward to partnering in you and your student
to become both and expeditionary and life-long learner.
David Sheldon
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