School News: Trina Norris-Buck has accepted the offer to serve as principal at Vikan Middle School

Students at Landmark academy at reunion celebrate first annual latin culture week

Landmark Academy at Reunion , a tuition-free public charter school, recently hosted their First Annual Latin Culture Week, a week focused on educating students on the various aspects of Latin culture, from music and art to sports and celebrities, through unique activities. During the week-long celebration, students were able to step into the lives of the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans with Latin culture lessons through piñata making, cultural crafts, songs, traditional foods and more. Students made maracas and learned a traditional Mexican Hat Dance; created Aztec suns working with metal tooling; and studied different countries in Mexico , Central America and South America . Aztec dancers from the Colorado Folk Arts Council also visited with students and educated them on the spiritual and traditional aspects of Aztec culture through dance. “We reside in a community with strong Latin and Hispanic roots,” said Matt Carlton, principal of Landmark Academy at Reunion . “Our community culture is important to us at Landmark. By providing unique ways for our students to learn the various backgrounds of our diverse community they are able to understand and appreciate different cultures.” For more information about Landmark Academy at Reunion , please visit www.landmarkacademy.org.

March 23, 2012

Trina Norris-Buck has accepted the offer to serve as principal at Vikan Middle School

27j is very pleased to share with all of you that Trina Norris-Buck has accepted the offer to serve as principal at Vikan Middle School! As many of you know, Trina is currently the assistant principal at Vikan.

Trina was one of two finalists interviewed this morning by Terry Lucero, Kelly Corbett, and myself. She did an amazing job this morning with the three of us as well as during the screening and panel interviews chaired by Ruth DeCrescentis. My sincere thanks to Ruth, her staff in Human Resources, and the numerous stakeholders from Vikan, who made this another excellent principal selection process!

Trina has served for the past four years at Vikan as assistant principal and served prior to that as an instructional coach at Second Creek Elementary. Prior to joining us in 27J, Trina served as a Literacy Coach and ESL and Reading Teacher at Angevine Middle School and as a CHOICE teacher at Nevin Platt Middle School in the Boulder Valley School District.

We were once again extremely blessed by the quality of our two finalist! Dr. Nate Howard, current science teacher at PVHS and former administrator in Denver Public Schools, was the other finalist and was very impressive this morning as well. I have communicated our decision to Nate and indicated how impressed we were with him and encouraged him to apply for future administrator positions in the District.