These achievements reflect the dedication of our staff and community. While challenges in education are often highlighted, Platte Valley continues to thrive. We have a great amount to be proud of for the year we had and remain focused on continuous improvement and student success.

Focus 2026-2027. As we step into the 2026-2027 school year, we remain committed to building on our prior work and focusing on key areas to ensure continued growth and excellence. Our community is supportive of the idea of public education and more specifically of Platte Valley’s continued work. This continues to be exemplified by our district’s strong attendance rate and participation in all offerings within Platte Valley Schools.

Our focus continues to be on the important things we are charged to do: (1) providing a quality education for all students; (2) providing a safe learning and working environment for students and staff; and (3) ensuring we continue to be financially sound and maintain our current facilities while planning in the District’s best interest for the future. Specifically, our focus heading into the upcoming school year is around the following core themes:

• Academics
  • Student Centered Accountability Program (S-CAP): S-CAP is a program set up to improve information, accountability, and better reflect all work measured in state accountability. The S-CAP is focused on delivering timely and meaningful feedback for improvement with consideration of the “whole child” and involves local stakeholders in innovation/improvement work that is supported by a network of peers. This approach is aligned with the District’s Success Skills work, emphasis on using assessment including PSAT/SAT, CMAS, NWEA, and TS-Gold as a valuable tool, but not the lone tool, in measuring success. Platte Valley will begin its onboarding year with the S-CAP in 2026-2027 joining 22 existing small districts from across the state ranging from the eastern plains to the western slope and everywhere between.
  • Focus on Education: We continue to focus on the essentials of reading, writing, and math while also providing a broad array of opportunities for all student interests which include engineering, computer sciences, agriculture education, business education, health and family sciences just to name a few. A total of 15 college courses is available to be taken through Platte Valley High School through partnerships with UNC, AIMS, and NJC.

  • Success Skills: We continue to focus on our Student Success Skills, working to thoughtfully and intentionally integrate skills our students will need to be successful and productive members of society. We will hold celebrations in grades 5th, 8th, and 11th /12th. This work is focused on students applying the success skills they have obtained at Platte Valley in addition to academics which include being a Resilient Learner, Creative Problem Solver, Constructive Teammate, and Effective Communicator. The combination of academic skills and success skills are essential for success as an adult.

• A Safe Learning and Working Environment
  • Safe and Secure Spaces: Student and staff safety is always a top priority and focus area. The emphasis on having a safe learning and working environment provides the basis for successful learning to take place. This includes bullet proof entries, protective glass film at all ground level areas, district-wide high resolution security cameras, and secure outdoor play and learning environments.
  • District & Building Culture: A continued focus on a strong district and building culture conducive to all students and staff with an emphasis on truly getting to know students, an attribute that only small schools can truly excel at.
  • Safety Protocols: A focus on our safety protocols, Standard Response Protocol (SRP), through the I Love U Guys foundation.
  • Community Partnerships: A strong partnership with North Range Behavioral Health for behaviorist services for student support when needed in addition to our partnership with Kersey Police for School Resource Officer services for added visibility, collaboration, and allowing students to see police in a different light.
  • Student and Family Resources: Finally, we continue to partner with the Cook Center and Parentguidance.org to provide resources and supports for our families to help support their students as they grow. Resources include on-demand courses, mental health series, and parent coaching with live virtual workshops. This resource will continue to be free to our families for the 2026-2027 school year through a grant from the WeldTrust. This information can be accessed via the District’s “Families” tab on our district website.

• Financially Sound, Maintaining Facilities, and Planning for the Future

  • Thoughtful use of Resources with Transparency: We will continue to focus on being transparent with our community on the use of our resources and being financially sound with a focus on using funds to improve education and increase opportunities for students. This transparency can be found in our annual adopted budget, by engaging in our District Accountability, and by reading our regular newsletters.

  • Maintaining Facilities: A focus on using our resources to maintain and take care of the facilities we have to honor the support provided from the Platte Valley community.

  • Thoughtful Planning: Continued focus on thoughtful planning for the future to ensure we protect the high-quality learning and working environments we have as a result of practical and prudent planning.

• Reminders for Beginning of the Year

  • Middle School Ribbon Cutting: The Middle School Ribbon Cutting and Open House will take place on Friday, August 7th from 4:00–5:30 p.m.. This is a community celebration with refreshments, desserts, and light food. We look forward to celebrating the new building with our community.

  • Continued Sitework Construction: While the new middle school is open for business, we still have significant site work taking place throughout the fall. The demolition of the old building will be taking place through the middle of September due to the amount of asbestos that was required to be abated. New field space and elementary parking and drop off will be completed this fall once the building is completely down.

  • Middle School Student Drop-off and Parking: Speaking of the new middle school, the entrance, parking, and student drop-off for the new middle school is off of 9th Street. The new entrance features both a student drop-off lane and drive-thru lane along with 50 parking spaces. All new parking spaces throughout the district have been intentionally designed to accommodate the larger vehicles we have in our community.

  • Preschool Parking: Preschool parking is off of Hill Street: Please be conscientious of not parking in undesignated parking areas and work to make student drop-off is quick as possible to be considerate of others.

  • No Parking on 5th West of Playground: Parking is no longer allowed west of the elementary school playground off 5th Street. It is a safety issue where we have had students nearly hit by cross-traffic and vehicles backing out of the area. Individuals who park here may be ticketed by Kersey Police. Students will continue to enter the elementary school either through the south playground entrance off Clark Street or the main entrance by the bus loop.

  • Clark Street One-Way: We are still waiting from the Town of Kersey to learn whether Clark Street will be able to continue to function as a west bound one-way from 9th to 5th Street. The idea was always for this to be temporary, and we have requested for this to continue through the fall until all site work is completed. We will make sure to update as we learn more.

  • Bus Loop: Finally, only buses are allowed to enter the new bus loop off of Hill Street. This is not a student drop-off area or parking area.

  • Alma Student Update: Please remember to complete the Alma Student Admissions and Data Update prior to the start of school. The update has useful information, required acknowledgements and forms, and is important to make sure we continue to have updated information for your student. All families are required to complete this prior to the start of school. This link can also be accessed via the “Families” tab on any of our district's and schools' websites.

  • Back-to-School Details: All specific back-to-school information for students will be addressed in the individual school newsletters coming later this week. Additional information about school supplies, pictures, etc., can be found on the Back-to-School Central web page.