To all parents of 9^th graders and other interested people in the CA community:

 

Earlier this year I sent out an important announcement about a new program for freshmen.  I have updated it here with additional specific information.

 

After years of research and visits to other independent schools employing similar programs, we are launching an “academic intensive” for freshmen this year. This week-long, curricular-based study will take place from January 29-February 5, 2018 and will provide the opportunity for us to connect a topic in one of our core freshman courses to deeper, real-world and real-time study.  Several independent high schools nationwide provide such programs, and these have proven to be innovative, intellectually exciting, and engaging efforts on many levels. For this inaugural year, we will use Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey as our central text.  Students in Ninth Grade English (in their course called Coming of Age in the World) have been reading this book for a few years, and it always elicits much good conversation and investigation into the multitude of topics raised, including immigration policy, border conflicts, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and refugees. The idea is to provide either an in-town or out-of-town program that offers a deep dive into the historical issues, larger policy questions, legal implications, and individual stories of people directly affected. As part of this, some students will have the opportunity to spend several days in El Paso, engaged in a program that CA will offer in conjunction with World Leadership School.  There will be costs (roughly $1800-2000 all expenses included) related to this particular trip and financial assistance will be available to those who qualify.  All other local options will not result in additional costs to families.

 

The partnership with World Leadership School (WLS) continues a positive relationship established many years ago with this Boulder-based educational agency.  Their mission has always been to provide immersion experiences in places that students would not normally travel to, and to do so through interactions with people who live and work in those communities in the U.S. and around the world.  They also stress that a curricular connection to the experience is always best, so that students can better understand the culture with which they are forming a new and mutually respectful relationship.

 

So far we have all the Intensive offerings mapped out, some with greater clarity than others at this point, as the teachers involved continue to put the pieces together.  For sure so far we know we have the following choices in addition to the El Paso trip, which can take up to 30 students.  There is “The Immigration Legacy Project,” in which students explore their own ancestry and tell their own family’s story of entry into the United States.  “Immigration History and Policy in Denver and the U.S.” features field trips and guest speakers in law enforcement, immigration law, immigrant support organizations and immigrants themselves from a wide range of backgrounds.  Also, a journalism-oriented intensive will allow students to dive deep into an investigative piece on immigration, whereby CA students will connect to and hear the stories of other teenagers who are recent immigrants to Denver.