1. Thursday, April 16, 2015 Page 3The Chronicle-News Trinidad, Colorado
EducationACHIEVEMENT & RECOGNITION
Trinidad State students
honored at Denver
event as Community
College ‘Rising Stars’
By Greg Boyce, Communications Director
Trinidad State Junior College
DENVER – Select students from each of
the Community Colleges in Colorado were
honored at a luncheon in Denver on April
7, 2015, by the Colorado Community College
System. Included in the group of “Rising
Stars” were Danielle Armstrong from Trin-
idad State’s Valley Campus in Alamosa and
Shane Boice, from the Trinidad Campus.
Danielle is an exceptional student from
the San Luis Valley. She’s Vice President
of the Student Government Association
and serves as the Legislative Liaison to the
Student State Advisory Council in the Colo-
rado Community College System. A hard-
workingwifeandmother of young children,
Danielle also recently represented Colorado
college students at the National Student
Advocacy Conference in Washington D.C.
and has been asked to serve on the National
Leadership Council. After graduating from
Trinidad State next year, Danielle plans to
continue her education at Adams State Uni-
versity in Alamosa.
Gunsmithing Student Shane Boice was
also honored at the luncheon. Now at the
end of his first year in the demanding gun-
smithing program he still finds time to stay
active on the Trinidad Campus. He’s also a
residence hall assistant and a positive force
on campus. When he found that a group
of students weren’t happy with internet
speeds at the residence halls, which ham-
pered homework assignments, he studied
the housing contract and monitored actual
internet speeds being delivered. When he
found the data speeds didn’t come up to the
level the contract promised, he brought his
findings to the Student Government organi-
zation on campus.
Shane regularly attends student govern-
ment meetings, is involved in the Student
Activities Committee and constantly comes
up with fun ideas to engage students. He
spends time at Trinidad State’s Prator Gun
Range and has been known to take along
fellow students, instructing them in proper
shooting techniques.
Photos courtesy of Greg Boyce / Trinidad State
Dr. Nancy McCallin, top left, Colorado Community College System President, Rising Star Danielle
Armstrong, center, and Trinidad State Junior College President Dr. Carmen Simone at an April 7
luncheon in Denver. Gunsmithing Student and Rising Star Shane Boice in the machine shop at
Trinidad State Junior College.
CEA
Educators push
high standards
amidst high
poverty in the
San Luis Valley
By Mike Wetzel
Communications Director
Colorado Education Association
SAN LUIS, Colo. – This small town near
the Colorado border with New Mexico has
already made a name for itself. San Luis
has the distinction of being the oldest con-
tinuously occupied town in the state. The
town was celebrating another distinction
when the Colorado Education Association
visited Centennial K-12, honoring a student
wrestler with a school assembly for a sec-
ond-place finish in the state.
The school’s wrestling coach, Gilbert
Apodaca, has ideas to further distinguish
Centennial and San Luis beyond the mat.
Apodaca, a member of Centennial Educa-
tion Association, is the school’s lone high
school math teacher, and his employer,
Centennial School District R-1, is one of the
state’s integration districts that first made
the shift to teaching the Colorado Academ-
ic Standards for its students.
“I think it’s one of the best things we
could have done,” said Apodaca. “We’re ex-
pecting kids to be able to describe the math-
ematics, understand the mathematics, and
see how the mathematics are applied. It’s
a big change, and we’re hearing feedback
from our students and families about how
rigorous it is. It’s a struggle, but we want
our kids to have access to that struggle. It’s
our job as teachers to make it meaningful
and give them opportunity.”
‘Struggle’ is not a new concept for stu-
dents growing up
in the San Luis
Valley. Costilla
County is among
the poorest in
Colorado. Centen-
nial K-12 serves a
growing number
of families set-
ting in undevel-
oped areas, some
going without
electricity and
running water.
Valley educators
explored poverty
issues plaguing
area families at
a recent confer-
ence hosted by the
Ethnic Minority
Advisory Council
of CEA’s San Luis UniServ Unit. Centen-
nial Principal Curtis Garcia was a confer-
ence speaker and acknowledges extreme
poverty has changed the nature of school
work here.
“We’re not just focused on teaching,
learning and academics, but really think-
ing about the whole child. So we’re con-
cerned about access to health care, to men-
tal health care, to other kinds of services
that these kids need if they’re going to be
able to function and succeed in school,”
Garcia told CEA. “As a small rural district,
we’ve taken on a lot of that initiative, a lot
of that work, to identify families and help
them get access to services.”
“In the classroom, you know who isn’t
engaged and it’s a challenge to figure out
why,” said Apodaca. “Is something going
on at home? Have they had a good meal
since yesterday at lunch?
“It’s not that the kid doesn’t want to try,”
Apodaca added. “There’s something going
on and we have to get to the root of it. So we
have to dig deep, get to know these kids and
see what’s going on, see where we can help
them out.”
As Apodaca works to meet the needs of
his students well beyond the classroom,
he’s going through as much training and
conditioning as his wrestlers to perfect his
professional practice. With support from
the Colorado Education Initiative and the
Gates Foundation, Apodaca entered into a
national math design collaborative to meet
math instructors around the country. They
share ideas on what’s working well and he
introduces the latest cutting-edge strate-
gies on math instruction into his small-
town classroom.
Born and raised in San Luis and him-
self a graduate of Centennial, Apodaca is
unapologetic for pushing his students to
reach high standards even when he knows
many of them suffer in high poverty. “I
firmly believe to give these kids an oppor-
tunity to actually succeed in their lifetime,
we can’t lower the rigor. We cannot go
down to their level. We need to give them
an opportunity to succeed in life by raising
the rigor... without it, our kids are going to
fall behind and it’s going to continue the
poverty cycle.”
Garcia enjoys empowering his teachers
to push beyond what most would expect
from a poor, rural district and create more
authentic, relevant learning experiences
for Centennial students. “I see it as an op-
portunity for us in school to be able to own
up to our responsibilities to think about
the whole child,” said Garcia. “It’s that
impetus that drives us to create change in
our community and in our state to really
get the resources in place to help these kids
learn. The rigorous standards set the expec-
tation.”
“It’s a rough area, but I wouldn’t be
happier working in any other place in the
state,” said Apodaca. “A lot of our kids
come through some big challenges. I know
for a fact they can do it, and if they come
out of here, they’ll be some of the best out
there.”
Photos courtesy of CEA
Centennial’s Principal Curtis Garcia, left, and the school’s wrestling coach,
Gilbert Apodaca talk with the CEA at Centennial K-12 in San Luis.
Photo courtesy of Mileene Sanchez / The Aguilar School District
Aguilar Students of the Week for April 13
Back Row, L-R are Valente Holguin (Preschool), Adison Canales (Kindergarten) and Aria Broach
(2nd). Front Row, L-R: Vincent Garcia (1st), Roan Broach (3rd), Reina Fountain (6th) and Franch-
esca Porras (5th).
Associated Press
The Colorado Board of Health Wednesday
passed new immunization rules that officials
say strengthen school policies and will im-
prove the state’s low vaccination rates.
The new rules, effective July 2016, will
require parents seeking non-medical exemp-
tions from school and child-care vaccine re-
quirements to submit them more than once.
They will be required ateachagewhenrecom-
mended vaccines are due for pre-kindergart-
ners and then annually from kindergarten
through 12th grade.
Currently, the state requires submission of
an exemption request just once.
Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a written
statement that the new rules will strengthen
immunization rates in the state, which are
among the lowest in the nation.
“Yet we know our work is not done,” Hick-
enlooper said, “and will continue to work with
the Board of Health, medical community and
our state agencies to ensure parents have the
facts about immunizations.”
States with strengthened exemption poli-
cies have lower overall exemption rates, ac-
cording to research cited by the Colorado De-
partment of Public Health and Environment.
Colorado’s non-medical exemption rate is 4.6
percent, compared with a national average of
1.8 percent.
And children whose parents claim exemp-
tions are more likely to get and transmit vac-
cine-preventablediseases,healthofficialssaid.
Also, beginning July 2016, schools and
child-care centers will have to report annually
on immunization and exemption rates to the
health department, which will make the infor-
mation public.
Health officials said the reports will allow
parents concerned about the risks of vaccine-
preventable diseases to make decisions on
where they send their kids.
CDPHE director Dr. Larry Wolk said the
health department will continue to work with
educators and parents to encourage higher
vaccination rates.
Colorado strengthens vaccination
rules, adding exemption requirements
HEALTH & WELLNESS