Castle Heights Elementary Principal Wendy Fluckey stopped by the KOAL newsroom for another Carbon School District Update. Principal Fluckey covered topics such as recapping the first quarter, looking ahead to future events and discussing mental health resources available at the school for both students and parents.

Starting by going back, Fluckey discussed what the first quarter was like for the Castle Heights Knights. “The first quarter was wonderful, as always. You’re getting into the beginning of the school year, teachers have new classes, and we’re testing the kids to see where we’re at academically, which helps guide our instruction and intervention groups. Also this year we do have a new English language arts program called CKLA, so that has been very challenging to the teachers, but they’re loving it.”

We then asked Fluckey what is one area the school is looking to improve going into the second quarter. “Our focus is always reading first, just because we need to make sure those kids get those foundational reading skills, but we also have a huge focus on our math as well as social sciences and science.”

Fluckey then discussed some upcoming events for the Knights, starting with archery tryouts,” we start our archery tryouts next week and they go from November 12th through the 15th, so we’re excited to see who will be making it on our archery team this year.” Fluckey also covered some events being hosted by the student government at the elementary,” so our student government, with our focus on service, wanted to come up with a way to help kids. We do have a backpack program where we send food home on the weekend for students in need, and so they came up with a fundraiser that they are calling Fruit Wars, and with that money that is donated, we’re going to donate that to buying food for Carbon Cares for Kids. So we have that activity coming up, and then we also are doing our annual Turkey Trot, which will be on Friday, Nov. 22, this is something that we have done since I’ve come to this school, and the kids look forward to it.”

Our penultimate topic of conversation was mental health awareness in the school for both parents and students. She explained,” Every Friday morning my counselor and our mental health therapist make themselves available for parents to come in to ask questions, or to get some insight on some things going on, and then once a month on that Friday they host a breakfast and breakthrough where they focus on a theme that we’re working on. And so that’s a nice change that we’ve had this year, just making those resources available to parents free of charge, 7:45 a.m. on Friday mornings.”

In closing, Fluckey shared,” We appreciate all the continued support we have from all of our parents, and we are just so fortunate to live in this wonderful community.”

To stay up to date with Castle Heights Elementary, you can visit the school’s website or find them on Facebook.