ThunderRidge Weekly Update
Welcome back, on this finally snowy Friday! Many thanks to our custodial team who begins clearing snow on these days while it is still dark outside! It’s so good to see our hallways filled again with students and feel the gradually ramping up energy of the spring semester. For those of you with seniors, congratulations! This will be a big semester for you - and I hope it’s filled with events and activities that create wonderful memories.
I wanted to shift focus from TR to district news for much of this newsletter because there are many things on the horizon that will impact us.
The State of Colorado passed legislation mandating that all school districts create and publish their stance on devices like cell phones. DCSD has been hard at work on this all year. As your students learned this week during Grizzly Hour, the district will soon be hearing the final proposal on its Communications Device policy (JIHA). The draft language for high school says, in a nutshell, that cell phones must be stowed and silent as directed by the teacher during instructional time. The draft policy also speaks to wireless headphones, smart watches, etc. It allows for exceptions for instructional purposes as dictated by the teacher. Here at TR this might look like getting pictures for Yearbook or taking pictures or video to upload into Canvas.
In anticipation of this passing, this semester we are having students keep cell phones put away/stowed as directed and we encourage any students who have their own laptops or Chromebooks to start bringing those to use as their instructional tools instead of their cell phones. I know we’ll need to adjust some of our practices over time to become less cell phone dependent as a school, so we’ll be making those changes this semester as well. We know parents and students will be thinking about how to access their devices during an emergency. We will be working with District security for guidance on this matter.
The State is also changing how schools will be graded on their School Performance Framework (SPF). This is like our school report card, and is publicly available for families to look at.
There is a section called Post-Secondary Readiness. The calculation of this section is changing. Starting with the Class of 2029 (this year’s Freshmen), each student is expected to have met one of the following Big 3 criteria:
They will have earned 12 hours of college credit in high school,
They will have earned an industry-valued credential, or
They will have engaged in some form of work-based learning.
While not a state site, this website does a nice job explaining the Big 3 if you want to read more.
Why do you care about this? It means we’ll be gradually shifting our course catalog to align with these expectations. You and your students might see changes like more college credit-bearing options instead of just Honors classes, more opportunities to earn credentials, and more options for partnering with workplaces for job-shadowing, internships, and career expert visits.
If you are a business-owner or believe your employer would love to help us in these efforts, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I love this pragmatic and future-focused thinking for our high school students and hope you do too! Thanks for understanding that this is a lot of new work for our staff and for the district, but we’re excited to provide you all with these opportunities while students are still in high school.
Be safe out there today!
Liz
January 15 - 17 - Winter Play: Steel Magnolias - 7:00pm - Auditorium
January 19 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - NO SCHOOL
January 21 - 8th Grade Registration
January 21 - 8th Grade Parent Information Night - 5:30pm - Auditorium
January 22 - 8th Grade Registration Workshops - 4:00-6:00pm - Library
January 30 - Registration for the 26-26 school year closes
February 12 - Parent/Teacher Conferences - more information to come
February 12 - Senior Parent Information Night - more information to come
February 13 - Professional Development Day - NO STUDENTS
February 16 - Presidents' Day - NO SCHOOL
February 19 - Grizzly Path Junior Information Night - more information to come
Steel Magnolias largely unfolds in Truvy's Beauty Salon where the women regularly gather to share gossip, advice, and emotional support. The central character is Shelby, a young woman with diabetes who is determined to live life on her own terms. Despite her mother M'Lynn's fears for her health, Shelby marries and later decides to have a child—an extremely risky choice because of her illness.
The plot balances humor and heartbreak highlighting themes of friendship, resilience, family and strength found in community, showing how laughter and love can coexist even in the face of profound loss.
Thursday, January 15 - Saturday, January 17 at 7:00pm
Purchase tickets here.
Adults: $13.00
Senior or Military: $12.00
Student: $11.00
Purchase your parking permint by January 16th.
If you purchased a permit at the beginning of the school year, you do NOT need to purchase one now. This is for those that did not purchase one at the beginning of the year.
Juniors and Seniors - there are a limited number of parking permits available for purchase on a first come, first serve basis through January 16, 2026. If you will be getting your driver's license at any time during the spring semester, now is the time to purchase your permit.
To purchase, scan the QR code, or visit myschoolbucks to complete the application and pay.
It is best to complete the application on a computer or laptop rather than the mobile app to minimize any issues. Please have your vehicle's year, make, model and color handy when applying.
All student fees must be paid in order to receive the permit. Permits can be picked up at the main security kiosk after January 20th.
Please contact the finance office at trhsfinance@dcsdk12.org with any questions.
During the visit, students explored how visual art communicates perspective, emotion, cultural context, and narrative—skills directly connected to analyzing advertisements, photographs, documentaries, and other multimodal texts in the course. Pissarro’s paintings offer a rich opportunity to examine composition, color, and technique as meaning-making tools, helping students strengthen their ability to identify stylistic features and authorial choices beyond written language. By engaging with a world-class collection, the students increased their understanding of how creators shape meaning across different media and developed confidence in discussing non-literary texts.
It was an amazing day and a wonderful experience for everyone who went!
About Us
Principal: Liz Walhof
Mission Statement:
Empowering Grizzlies through curiosity, compassion, courage, community and service.
1991 West Wildcat Reserve Parkway, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
303.387.2000
Facebook: ThunderRidge High School
X (formerly Twitter): @TRidgeGrizzlies