DCSD Home Page

The vision of the Douglas County School District is to help students acquire the knowledge and abilities to be responsible citizens who contribute to our society.

Timely Topics

Web, Portal, Infinite Campus outage

There will be a website, portal and Infinite Campus outage starting at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 1, 2008 for several hours. During this time, maintenance and upgrades will be completed. Service is expected to be restored by 7:00 p.m. Monday evening. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

Transition Night coming up

The 2nd Annual Transition Night will be held Tuesday, December 2 at Douglas County High School (DCHS) from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Hosted by DCHS and Castle View High School, students that have a current Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and families have an opportunity to learn about agencies that provide support services in the County such as employment, adult living, education, careers and many more!

Open Enrollment window opens December 1

Douglas County School District will accept applications for open enrollment for the 2009-2010 school year beginning December 1 through the close of business January 15, 2009. Applications will only be accepted at schools that have been designated “Open” or “At or Near Capacity” based on space availability. A separate application form must be completed and submitted for each child. For more detailed information and a complete list of available schools and application forms, click here. Applications are also available at school offices.

International Baccalaureate application deadline approaching

The application deadline for the 2009-2010 International Baccalaureate (IB) program at Douglas County High School (DCHS) is fast approaching. Click on this link for more information about the program. The deadline for applications is Wednesday, December 3, 2008.

Book adoption considered

Douglas County School District is currently considering the textbook, Geography Alive! Regions and People, created in partnership with scholars from the National Council for Geographic Education, for adoption. This book will be used to teach 7th grade Social Studies. The text creatively challenges students to use the tools of geography to view, analyze, and understand the world around them. It includes seven mapping labs and a case-study approach which turns kids into geographic thinkers. The program has also been carefully designed to build students’ content area reading skills. Geography Alive! will be on display in the Cresthill Library Media Center from November 18 through December 2. A comment form will be available at the display location.

District News

DistrictNewsShowPage.jsp

Creative solutions to budget reductions

This week, Douglas County School District (DCSD) began a feedback process surrounding budget reductions by asking school principals, department leaders and staff to provide thoughts and ideas on areas for reduction. DCSD is determined to engage all of its staff in providing feedback on areas for elimination, reduction and redesign. Moving forward, our goal is to minimize the impacts to students and classrooms.

In the meantime, the District continues to review what was done in the past and what it can continue to do in the future to operate as an efficient and effective organization. DCSD has always relied on cost-saving measures to minimize impact on taxpayers and maximize available funds.

At the end of the 2007-08 school year, DCSD implemented a District-wide energy management program. Schools and sites are working on reducing energy usage and demand in hopes of bringing down utility costs. The program, which began in 2006-07 with just four schools, saved $40,000 in the course of that school year.

“First quarter electric bills are in, and the performance was great. As a School District we have been able to reduce usage and demand by 5.4 percent – even with four new schools opening – a savings of $178,000,” says District Energy Manager Lee Smit. DCSD anticipates saving $800,000 this school year with the entire organization doing little things like turning off lights, shutting down computers, and removing small plug-in electronics like coffee makers and small refrigerators.

DCSD has also moved toward virtual servers. By doing so, the School District was able to reduce its number of servers from 111 to 14, saving 32.47 kilowatts in operating power, and 40.60 kilowatts in cooling power, and 140 square feet of data center space. The District has reduced 856,060 lbs (388 tons) of carbon emissions, equivalent to the average emissions of taking 71 cars off the road per year. DCSD projects saving $ 1,565,585.

DCSD will continue to seek stakeholder feedback through mid-January.

Also in the news...

Avs night a success

Leading in Education... by example

Photo of the week

News, Information and Resources

Spotlight

Foundations

*Take a look at Foundations,* our quarterly district publication created to inform you, our stakeholders, about what's happening in Douglas County School District, particularly in the areas of construction and finance.
Fall 2008 537.68 KB PDF file	October 2007 484 KB PDF file	July 2007 2.68 MB PDF file