Question 4A - Facilities Improvements
Principal's Message
Welcome to Canon Exploratory School! This is a wonderful school with amazing staff. My name is Jessi Hamilton and I’m the principal. Canon Exploratory School is a school of choice. Each student attending, is attending here on purpose, by choice. Please take a few minutes to explore our website where you can learn more about our school history and founder Molly Merry. Our exploratory model started out as a single classroom housed within Lincoln School! Here at CES, your students will grow in relationships with their teachers and peers while experiencing authentic learning opportunities. There are four major components that make us CES: multi-age communities, explorations, Choice Theory, and multiple intelligences.
Students are a part of smaller school communities, of which there are six; Scouts (kinders), Wanderers, Voyagers, Adventurers (all 1st-6th), Rangers (1st-4th) and Trailblazers (7th-8th). Students in 1st-6th grade classes are in multi-age settings. In addition, we work with cross-age buddies. Throughout their time at CES, everyone gets to be a little buddy and a big buddy. Fostering these cross-age relationships is important to the culture of CES. You will often find the bigs eating and playing with the littles at lunch. Our communities also work together in larger multi-age settings by taking field trips together and completing multiple intelligence projects and activities together.
Another fundamental root of CES is our Explorations or project-based learning. Students have the opportunity to engage in Explorations in a variety of ways. These projects may be individual or group, passion or topical, and short or long term. While they end with a presentation and product, the emphasis is on the process and the learning that occurs not just regarding the content, but about how students manage time, research, problem-solve and work through the process. Families have the opportunity to come and watch the presentations.
Glasser’s Choice Theory is our philosophy overarching through how we interact with students, each other and families. It is a way of thinking about our needs and choices, our perceptions and values and then the impact of those choices on the relationships around us. We work with students assisting them in learning themselves better- how they think, what they need and connecting those needs to the choices they make and then to the consequences of said choices. We look at our choices and habits determining whether they are caring habits (negotiation, respect, etc) or dealy habits (gossiping, complaining, etc) and if what we are doing is helping or hurting the relationships around us. Our hope in working with students in this way is that they are able to mature through personal responsibility fueled by intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation.
Finally, throughout their educational experience we also offer opportunities for students to grow in and express themselves through Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. We encourage students to explore intelligences that may not be their strengths as well as foster opportunities for them to shine in their individual areas of intelligence.
Please feel free to come in and visit us! If you are interested in learning more about our school, please take some time to explore our website. We would also be happy to answer any questions you may have. You may obtain an application from the website or at our front office.
Follow us on FaceBook to see what’s happening at CES!
Together We Make a Difference!
Jessi Hamilton
Principal, CES
2855 N. 9th St.
Canon City, CO 81212
719-276-6050
