To the CA Community

Dear CA Community:

At Colorado Academy, we are committed to continuous improvement. When I first set foot on CA’s campus nearly 13 years ago, I found myself instantly impressed by the motivation and collaboration of all constituencies—from the Board of Trustees and administrative leadership team to the faculty and Parent and Alumni associations—everyone works together to provide the best and most relevant education to young people. CA is known for its long tradition of putting the needs of students first. Currently, we are in the midst of a “reaccreditation” process which helps drive improvement. You may hear that term a lot in the independent school world, but most are hard-pressed to come up with “the re-establishment or re-statement of the status, legitimacy, or appropriateness of an institution.” Our process, guided by the Association of Colorado Independent Schools (ACIS) and accepted by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), is an intensive effort that involves teams of faculty and staff conducting internal reviews and asking hard questions about whether we are living our mission and serving students. It involves extensive constituent surveys and teams of visiting educators working as peers to observe and review our work. Simply put, we look at all areas of school operations to determine our strengths and challenges and to define our plans for the future. One early result of this process is a reworking of our Mission Statement. (See page 10.) As part of our review, we found that we needed a mission statement that better reflects who we are and what we aspire to, and also is something that is memorable and memorize-able. With nine words, we have captured the unique spirit and tradition of CA. We are a school that exists to transform lives in positive ways. Be on the lookout in the next year for more feedback about our reaccreditation process. The goal is to build on the original vision of CA and continue to work towards excellence in all areas. The adults and professionals involved in this process are modeling something very important for young people: how to look at one’s work critically and set goals for improvement. I have no doubt that this will be positive process for our school as we continue to raise the bar at CA.

Mike Davis, PhD

Head of School Colorado Academy Read my blog here: https://www.coloradoacademy.org/about/head-of-school