Carbon School District Press Release
While facing difficult circumstances, Castle Heights Elementary has flourished this year in many ways, and it is satisfying for all to see.
For the holidays, the student government will be tying fleece blankets that will be given to the Children’s Justice Center. It is part of working for the good of others and being kind. Students and staff are very thankful that they are in school and working hard.
“We feel lucky that we are able to do school this year with everything that is going on,” Castle Heights Principal Wendy Fluckey said. “We’ve had a few positive cases of COVID 19, but mostly we have been missing some students because of quarantine.”
Activities are still going on at the school with a lot of ingenuity being used to host them. Halloween was a good example with the student body having its carnival and parties.
“It really was a huge success,” she stated. “We did our parade outside the building, and after it was done a lot of people thought that it should be done that way in the future as well.”
October was also bullying prevention month and the school concentrated on that as well.
“That was spearheaded by our school counselor, Amanda Ori,” said Fluckey. “Two of our school’s goals were emphasized with one being kindness and the other on being responsible. That goes along with our school’s other goals of being safe and being respectful.”
That also comes into play as the Turkey Trot takes place Thanksgiving week. Kids’ behavior over the term will determine their points as to whether they can participate or not in that activity. It is a result of the Hero program that helps kids with positive behaviors.
“I will be doing a school-wide broadcast on the Monday before using a PowerPoint that will be shown in all classrooms describing what the Turkey Trot is and the history behind it. We did the same thing last year and the students loved it,” she said.
Fluckey said that while it has been a challenging year in many ways, it has also flown by.
“Based on what we have been seeing, there has been phenomenal growth with students’ learning,” she explained. “Our scores on reading are really rising and we are coming close to where we were last year.”
She said that because of what happened last year, the older grades are utilizing their Chrome Books a lot more this year and would be well prepared if things change in school scheduling.
Another technology-related activity was a virtual PTA meeting the school hosted recently.
“We can’t have any group meetings like that now, so we did it electronically and it went really well. I need to talk to the PTA about what their thoughts are on how it went, but that might be something we do in the future as well. We may even be able to get more parents to attend the meetings if we do it like that,” concluded Flukey.