Thanks to funding from United Way, an anonymous donor and the Stemmons Foundation, Uplift Education was able to kick off summer  with a Science and Math Summer Institute. Uplift hosted two weeks of the institute during late June for last year's K-5 students. Students spent mornings in hands-on Science and Math Exploration classes learning about the physics of bubbles, playing math games, solving crimes with forensics, digging up fossils, programming robots and practicing their architectural skills. Afternoons were spent on field trips to exciting science venues such as the Museum of Nature and Science and the Children's World Aquarium.

The goal of the program was to promote a love of science and math among elementary school-age children and to help ensure students retain science and math learning over the summer break. Scholarships were provided to the majority of students to allow them to attend the camp for free.

Click here to watch some of the youngest campers as they work toward solving, "Who stole Mr. Bear?"

Click here for pictures from Week 1 of the camp.

 
We recently welcomed two new members to Uplift's Teaching and Learning Team, the team that oversees the implementation of the Uplift Model, curriculum, and professional development across all Uplift campuses.

Richard Harrison, Senior Director of Curriculum and Instruction

The leader of our Teaching and Learning Team is Richard Harrison. Rich came to Uplift from the Denver School of Science and Technology. After graduating from the University of Chicago, Rich started teaching at a boarding school, and 14 years later his love for education continues to grow. He has worked in boarding schools, New York City public high schools, and charter schools in a variety of rolls from teaching English/Language Arts to College Advising to school administration. He's excited about joining the Uplift team and strengthening its structure to impact Uplift scholars at scale and put all scholars on track to be competitive for top colleges. Some of Rich's goals for next year include 1) ensuring that all classrooms execute instructionally at the highest level and improving scholar engagement in the classroom, 2) strengthening Uplift's systems to collect "real time" scholar achievement data around mastery at each grade level, and 3) improving cross campus collaboration and professional development. Rich loves hearing stories of former scholars as they go on to graduate college and begin their careers, and he looks forward to the stories that he will influence as part of the Uplift team.

  

  

Vachon has worked with Rich for the past seven years, both at DSST and KIPP Denver, and was thrilled by the opportunity to join the Uplift team. Vachon started his career in education as a middle school math teacher, where he found that he loved the opportunity to shape students' futures and be a part of their "a ha!" moments, but it wasn't until he had the opportunity to move into a position as 5th Grade Chair that he discovered his passion for building culture within students and teams and helping students overcome hard situations. As he joins the Uplift team, he's excited by the opportunity to define the teaching model, improve supports for teachers and push the bar with what we expect for students. His goal is to have scholars pushing themselves toward more rigor and asking involved questions in line with the International Baccalaureate level of learning. He also shares Rich's goal to use data to guide instruction decisions on a daily basis to make sure that students are mastering objectives daily.