• The District continues to experience unprecedented growth. One in every four homes built and sold in the Denver metro area is sold in Douglas County.
• The New York Times calls Douglas County the second-fastest growing county in the nation.

• The Douglas County Educational Foundation is formed to raise funds and to develop partnerships with businesses.

• Construction begins on additions to Highlands Ranch and Ponderosa High Schools. The expansion will add space for 400 new students to each school.
• Enrollment tops 18,000 students.
• Standards-based processes for measuring academic performance moves forward.
• Year-round schools enroll 12.000 students – for the first time, more than half of DCSD students will be attending year-round schools.
• 1997
• Eight new schools open: Buffalo Ridge, Pioneer and Trailblazer Elementary Schools, Castle Rock Middle School replacement facility and Chaparral High School. Three new charter schools opened: Platte River Academy, Montessori Charter and Colorado Visionary Academy, bringing the charter school total to six.

• Enrollment was close to 30,000 students.
• A magnet program for gifted and talented students is implemented, housed at three District schools: South, Acres Green and Pine Lane Elementary Schools.

• The Rock Canyon High School yearbook Black & Gold 2008 has earned the All-American rating from the National Scholastic Press Association, the top rating available. The Black & Gold joins The Rock as an All-American. The newspaper learned of its second consecutive All-American rating in July.


• Yvonne Miller has been named the Colorado State Librarian of the Year. Miller’s work as the Library Media Specialist at Sagewood Middle School has been recognized before when her library was named a High Performance Power Library.  She will be recognized at the Colorado Association of Libraries conference awards banquet on November 7, 2008.


• A $3,000 grant proposal written by Susan Quatrocelli of Cresthill Middle School was granted by the Douglas County Mill Levy grant committee. The money will be used by the school to increase the adaptive skills of students with disabilities in their community, through community resources.


• DCSD’s new elementary school prototype has been selected to appear as an Outstanding Design in the 2008 American School & University magazine, in the November Architectural Portfolio issue. DCSD’s prototype is one of only two in Colorado that is receiving this recognition.

This is the third national publication that is recognizing the elementary school design, which won the Impact on Learning award in the August 2008 School Planning and Management magazine, and was chosen as a Building of America project in the Real Estate & Construction Review - 2009 Colorado Edition.