Meeting adversity head-on, Red Canyon grads tell the full story of the Eagle River Valley

The Red Canyon High School graduating class of 2026 really tells the story of the Eagle River Valley — the story of a group of young adults who are in so many ways emblematic of the fabric of our community, who will likely stay here, continue to work here, and in so many ways contribute to what makes the valley such a great place to live.

That class was honored Friday at 4 Eagle Ranch north of Wolcott as 53 Red Canyon High School students (32 from the Edwards campus, 21 from the Gypsum campus), 19 World Academy online students and four High School Equivalency Diploma (HSED) students all earned their degrees after traveling a path of nontraditional learning in Eagle County Schools.

The school started in the early 2000s with a handful of students in old farmhouses on the site of what used to be June Creek Elementary and is now the Edwards Early Learning Center (students and teachers also spending time in a church basement and a trailer down by the wastewater treatment facility). The school has come a very long way since its current building opened in Edwards in 2008 and its Gypsum campus opened in 2019.

But it’s really the students and the staff who’ve completed the most meaningful journey.

Retiring Red Canyon High School Principal Monica Lammers honored her final graduating class on Friday as she retires after 26 years working for Eagle County Schools — 14 of them at Red Canyon. She was asked if her time at RCHS has been her most fulfilling experience.

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“I would say so only because of knowing the stories that the kids bring to the table, knowing their lives, knowing what they’ve gone through. Many of our kids, Red Canyon students, they’re the workers of the future in this valley. Many of them don’t move away. They join the workforce or they stay local and go to CMC (Colorado Mountain College),” said Lammers, who started out teaching in the valley in 1999 at Eagle Valley Elementary School.

“And so the reward really is huge. I am a consumer in the valley. And running into these kids has just been so awesome. At the elementary level, you say goodbye to them, they move on to middle school, and then they may or may not remember you,” Lammers added. “At the high school level, though, it’s so cool to run into these kiddos in the community and they’re adulting and just knowing what their stories have been and what slowed them down and what caused them to need an alternative high school is huge, because it’s just so fun to watch them be successful out in the community and giving back, basically, to the community that supported them as they were struggling.”

Red Canyon High School fills so many different needs in nontraditional learning locally.

The vast majority of students come in as juniors, seniors and even super seniors because, due to life circumstances, it takes them five of six years to graduate (up to the age of 21). The structure of traditional education doesn’t work for most RCHS students, or they’ve been slowed down in their studies by some form of trauma or just the twists and turns of life in general.

There are teen parents; students with special needs; others who want to graduate earlier, with RCHS offering more credits faster than other high schools; students who suffer from social anxiety and therefore are more comfortable in classes of 10 or 12 versus 30 or 35. Often, it’s just about scheduling flexibility to allow students to both study and work.

“Many of them they have to support their families or at least help support their families,” Lammers said. “So a lot of single moms, single parents. And, as teenagers, they step up to the plate and they go get jobs. We are way more flexible, and we have the ability to do that.

“It’s pretty cool to have a place for them, those who’ve been disenfranchised with education or have gone through some life trauma that really slowed them down in their education,” Lammers said. “Every one of them has a story to tell when they cross that stage at graduation because they’ve all fought through adversity and have come out on the other end with a high school diploma.”

Lammers vividly remembers moving from Eagle Valley Elementary, where she was determined to see through the full authorization for the International Baccalaureate there, to Red Canyon. At first, she was not sure she’d made the right move.

In her first year at RCHS, she was talking to fellow English teacher Ann Constien in late April, wondering if she should go back to the elementary level, unsure whether she was making a difference of any kind, or having any sort of meaningful impact with her students.

“Ann was the one who said to me, ‘Monica, you just need to hang in there until graduation. Graduation will bring you back every single year.’ And she was right,” Lammers said. “It’s just that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you’re watching these kids with stories you know walk across that stage …”