Education

Students preparing to go back to school were given a confidence boost Sunday at United Methodist Church of Evergreen during the annual blessing of the backpacks.

During the 10:30 service, Pastor Russell Fletcher called all children to the front, where they each received a church backpack. Some brought their own, too.

Part of Fletcher’s blessing thanked God for sending Jesus to school, where he “learned to serve you.”

Jeffco students are largely outperforming national averages when it comes to reading and math, but semester-to-semester growth is lacking.

According to the school district’s presentation of its year-long Measures of Academic Progress, student scores in math and reading improved over the last year, with about 60 percent of all students in grades three through 10 scoring in the high-average or above-average range for math and reading.

Overall positive feedback from parents and students was offset by employee concerns about workload and pay in a recent survey taken by Jeffco Public Schools.

The district’s Make Your Voice Heard survey, which polled students in second through 12th grades and was completed by about 77 percent of the district’s students, found that most students felt cared about and respected by teachers and school staff; furthermore, about 90 percent of all students said they had friends or people they felt connected to at school.

Two Evergreen teachers retired at the end of the school year, taking with them a combined 60 years of experience in area schools.

Sue Queen has been a teacher for 35 years, 17 of them at King-Murphy Elementary and 16 at Wilmot Elementary. She retired after seven years as Wilmot’s instructional coach.

Yvonne Bader spent 35 years as a primary teacher, working with 3- to 6-year-olds at Montessori School of Evergreen.