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Q&A: Senior Katrina Peacock shares how she lives out the Core Value of respect

As we prepare to celebrate the DSST Class of 2023 at Senior Signing Day on April 27, we are featuring how this senior class lives out the six DSST Core Values (Respect, Responsibility, Integrity, Courage, Curiosity and Doing Your Best) at school and beyond.

Our first spotlight is on Katrina Peacock, senior at DSST: College View.

Her English teacher Tony Conte said, “Katrina both respects and commands the respect of everyone she encounters. Full of love and understanding, Katrina makes others feel valued and respected through her kind words, actions and positivity. CVHS will always use Katrina as a model for respect in the community.”

Read our conversation with Katrina on respect, close-knit community, and her future plans below.

Highlighting our amazing social workers for National School Social Work week

School social workers are culture leaders in our community. They play an integral role in ensuring that students receive mental health counseling services, leading crisis interventions and supporting our students in vital social-emotional development.

A step outside of STEM: How one DSST student learned to love photography through junior internship

For DSST: Green Valley Ranch junior Quinten Newbern STEM has been the main focus throughout his time at school. It has been a passion of his, and he has dedicated a lot of his time to developing those skills. 

However, when it came time to pick what he wanted to do for his junior-year internship, Newbern decided to step outside of his STEM comfort zone. 

“I have a lot of afterschool activities related to engineering, so I wanted to explore art through my internship," said Newbern.

Through the school’s College Success program, Newbern was placed at Downtown Aurora Visual Arts (DAVA), where he began to learn how to work with ceramics, developed skills in photo printing and more.

Post-Covid, DSST teachers chart long journey back to reading proficiency

Every day of our lives almost all of us will spend time reading. It could be a work of fact or fiction, a magazine or newspaper, or something online.

Through the written word we gain new knowledge. We combine these 26 symbols based upon the sounds they represent, or where they appear in a sequence and instantaneously recognize a word. As a species, it’s one of our most amazing skills.

Through reading, we quietly entertain or inform ourselves; are magically transported to other times—past, present and future; meet both real and imagined characters who exist in their own universe and are memorialized on the pages of books. Indeed, reading is the fuel that propels wonder.

What can be gained through reading is what literacy interventionists like Kelly Francisco and Samantha Hakes work on daily to impart to dozens of young minds at DSST: Green Valley Ranch Middle School and Aurora Science and Tech Middle School, respectively.

What to know about the updates coming to your medical benefits

Effective March 1, 2023, all DSST team members who are enrolled in medical will move to the Aetna Open Access network (the larger, expanded, network of care providers) as we are moving away from the Aetna APCN Network. 

DSST celebrates Black History Month 2023

Throughout the month of February, our campuses held various events celebrating Black History Month with the help of Black student leaders and special community guests.

DSST: Montview HS's award-winning journalism program is making huge strides for young journalists

Written by the DSST: Montview High School journalism team:

Journalism is the activity or profession of writing for newspapers, magazines or news websites or preparing news to be broadcast, but by MTVnews’ definition, it is being creative and using that as a stepping stool for an intellectual, scholarly community. The journalism class at DSST: Montview High School has informed the community of school events and national holidays and acted as a beacon of positivity in today’s world.

DSST: College View student finds perfect-fit internship at Bluff Lake Nature Center

On any given Wednesday afternoon, you can find Tara Peña, junior at DSST: College View High School, muddying up her Converse shoes walking the Bluff Lake property completing her internship assignments. And she loves every second of it. 

Changes and updates you should know for the 23-24 calendar

The 2023-24 calendar is now live! The calendar includes several adjustments, which are a direct response to your feedback.

Introducing a new leadership position: President of DSST

As you may have seen from Monday's email from Bill Kurtz, DSST will be introducing a new leadership role.