TJ seniors and cheer team welcome freshman Ricardo Diaz and the rest of the class of 2022 on their first day of high school. photo by Will Forrester
As summer comes to a close, Spartans embark on the 2018-2019 school year and welcome the class of 2022 with open arms.
As the 2018-2019 school year commences, Spartans bid their farewells to summer vacation and look to the upcoming school year with great anticipation and high hopes to surpass last year’s outstanding achievements and statistics. For the third year in a row, TJ was dubbed the 29th best high school in Colorado in addition to being a Silver Medal Award Recipient. Furthermore, TJ was ranked a “Green” school according to Denver Public School’s School Performance Framework (SPF) for the fourth consecutive year.
Despite the fact that the school year only officially started two weeks ago, Spartans have already gathered many times for a variety of end-of-summer festivities and traditions. On August 4th, TJ hosted its annual Clean-Up Day, where students, staff, parents, and others gathered at the school and spent the morning and early afternoon voluntarily picking up trash and doing other outdoor chores to ensure that the school was in tip-top shape for the arrival of students, particularly the new freshman class of 2022.
In the spirit of TJ traditions, the senior class held the annual Senior Sleepout on the softball field, where the class of 2019 gathered with little other than sleeping bags to spend the night together, and greeted the new freshmen class in the morning with a warm, welcoming applause and index cards with high school advice from the seniors. This year, the freshman class consists of a whopping 411 students, which is nearly double the size of the senior class and the largest class size since 2003. While the hallways are noticeably more packed than previous years, this surplus of freshmen seems to be beneficial to the school, as it will hopefully help positively impact TJ’s statistics and test scores. Furthermore, the new members of the student body will certainly increase student involvement and school spirit. Assistant Principal Jon Poole advised, “Make sure you get involved in activities so you can form connections with people…You always do better and enjoy things more when you have connections, so join an interesting class, football, world language, choir, drama, ping-pong club, or anything else that might interest you.”
In addition to getting involved in extracurricular activities this year, it is crucial that Spartans start the year off strong academically in order to provide a solid foundation for the rest of the semester. Over the summer, the district re-vamped the student portal, so checking grades and viewing transcripts is much easier and straight-forward. Furthermore, parent involvement is highly encouraged and will help contribute to academic success. In fact, Back to School Night, which is on Wednesday, September 5th from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., is the perfect opportunity for parents and families to get a glimpse into their child’s education. Moreover, parents will have the opportunity to converse with teachers directly in regards to their child’s academic success at Parent-Teacher Conferences on October 17-18th.
With new goals and intentions to go above and beyond last year’s successes, the Spartan community is sure to have a meaningful and impressive year ahead.
