Mrs. Ridder Message

Dear Middle School Families,

A huge thank you to our students, families, and community for the incredible support of this year’s Boosterthon. We have already raised more than $50,000 and are now about three-quarters of the way to our goal. That is an amazing accomplishment, and we are so grateful for the enthusiasm and generosity behind it.

Our Color Party will take place next Wednesday afternoon, and parents are welcome to join us and cheer on our students. Students who are participating will be released from Access to attend the event. For students who choose not to participate, Access will continue as scheduled as a study hall. They will remain with their Access teacher and have time to work on assignments, organize, or catch up on schoolwork.

I also want to ask for your continued partnership with our middle school technology expectations. We are still finding some students with cell phones in their backpacks during the school day, and a few students have shared that they were encouraged to keep them there. We absolutely understand that families may have questions or concerns about the policy, and we are always happy to have those conversations.

At the same time, it is important that students are not put in the middle between home and school expectations. We want to help them develop good judgment and integrity, and that is much easier when the adults in their lives are reinforcing the same message. If you have concerns about the phone policy, please reach out to us directly so we can talk through them together.

We are also seeing some students find ways to download games onto their school computers so they can play offline during class. Teachers are addressing this with reminders and redirection, but repeated issues will lead to increased consequences. We would appreciate your help in occasionally checking your student’s school computer at home and reinforcing that school-issued devices are intended for school-related use.

Thank you for continuing to partner with us. These expectations work best when school and home are working together to support students in making good choices.

We are excited to celebrate the success of Boosterthon together next week. Thank you again for helping us get so close to our goal - let’s finish strong next week!

In partnership,

Maura Ridder

Middle School Principal
STEM School Highlands Ranch