School Views: A big thank you to Vail Health
School Views
Eagle County School District is incredibly fortunate to have wonderful partnerships throughout our valley. Thank you to everyone who works tirelessly throughout Eagle County to assist us in educating our youth with skills for their futures, both inside and outside of the classroom. We are extremely appreciative of our supportive community and couldn’t do the hard work of developing young hearts and minds without your help.
We want to acknowledge Vail Health who year after year has come through for Eagle County School District with funds to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics programming. Vail Health donated $45,000 for this school year to fund various programs in our schools across the district. They have been a long-standing partner in our community and we have been fortunate to work collaboratively with them over the years. Thank you, Vail Health, for your continued partnership.
In schools across the district, we see these funds going toward Project Lead the Way programming. Project Lead the Way is an organization that provides transformative learning experiences for Pre-K-12 students and teachers across the United States by creating hands-on classroom environments and empowering students to develop in-demand knowledge and skills they need to thrive.
A couple of our schools have been recognized for their accomplishments with PLTW. Edwards Elementary School and Red Sandstone Elementary School have both held the honor of being Distinguished Schools in the Project Lead the Way program.
In addition to ensuring students have equitable access to behavioral health services, another long-term goal of this partnership is to fuel our local job force by helping students find their way from high school to a career in health sciences. At Eagle Valley High School, there is a four-year sequence of Project Lead the Way classes focusing on medical science. Approximately 150 students participate in the program, and the Vail Health grant helps fund professional development for staff as well as resources and equipment for those classrooms. This school year, Eagle Valley High School has also added a PLTW engineering program.
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It’s partnerships like these that highlight what makes not only ECSD but our entire community stand out from the rest. It’s easy to look out the window and see the beauty that surrounds us and recognize how lucky we are to live here, but it’s when you dig deeper and see how much more our community has to offer that we can truly appreciate what a special place Eagle County is.
So from myself and the rest of the Eagle County School District staff, I would like to say thank you to Vail Health and all of our partners we work with to ensure an amazing learning experience for our local youth.
Philip Qualman is the superintendent of Eagle County Schools. Email him at philip.qualman@eagleschools.net.
