September 5

Dear Parents,

Now that this school year is in full swing, it's time for our first Level UP! schoolwide challenge. Our first challenge will focus on regular school attendance. Each school day is an opportunity for your child to advance and excel.

Why Attendance is the Key to Leveling Up

1. Academic Achievement: Consistent attendance is like consistently practicing in a game—it's essential for mastering new skills. Each school day builds on the previous one, and missing even a few days can create gaps in your child's learning. Regular attendance ensures they stay on track, understand key concepts, and are well-prepared for the next academic level.
   
   
2. Building Strong Habits: Regular attendance helps children develop important life skills. By attending school every day, they build responsibility, time management, and perseverance—traits that will help them tackle future challenges and reach their goals.
   
   
3. Social Skills Development: School is like a multiplayer game where interaction with others is important. Regular attendance allows children to build and maintain friendships, work collaboratively on projects, and navigate social dynamics, which are crucial for their social and emotional development.
   
   
4. Early Problem-Solving: Consistent school attendance helps educators identify and address learning or behavioral issues before they become significant hurdles. Teachers can provide timely support when students are present, ensuring that your child overcomes challenges and progresses smoothly.
   
   
5. Boosting Engagement: When students attend regularly, they are more engaged, participate in class discussions, join extracurricular activities, and fully immerse themselves in the school experience, making school more rewarding and enjoyable.

Our challenge this month: We would like the whole school to achieve an overall attendance rate of 90% for September. If the school achieves that goal, we will have an extra Dress of Choice day in October. Each classroom with 90% or higher attendance will also receive a prize.

We realize that students will get sick, and we don't want kids to come to school while sick, so our goal isn't perfect attendance. Hopefully, by setting the bar at 90%, we will see increased overall attendance while also not penalizing students who miss school due to illness.

There is an additional attendance incentive available as well. Please see the article below about free Rapids tickets!

Tomorrow is Bronco or NFL spirit day. Uniform bottoms are required, but students may wear NFL or regular spirit wear tops and of course, crazy socks. Go Broncos!

Have a great weekend!

Diana Simpson

We have partnered with the Colorado Rapids to reward and incentivize attendance here at Ben Franklin Academy by giving students with perfect attendance in the month of September, a complimentary ticket to a Rapids match with the purchase of an adult ticket.

The Rapids boast one of the most family-friendly and fun game day experiences in town. From celebrating the goals together, to the roar of the stadium crowd, to the hot dogs at halftime, Colorado Rapids games are where memories can be made. Students who qualify will receive a ticket link voucher to redeem their complimentary ticket with purchase of additional discounted tickets. Vouchers will be redeemable for Rapids home games on 10/2 & 10/5.

Please visit our Bi-Monthly Newsletter dated August 29 for Grades K - 4.

Please visit our Bi-Monthly Newsletter dated September 5 for Grades 5 - 8.

Please visit our Preschool Newsletter dated September 5 for Pre-K 3s and 4s.

Bookmark Our Events Calendar Now!

We are so fortunate to have an active community. We hope to see you all very soon at one of these events.

Students may wear a Bronco or their favorite NFL Team TOP ONLY. Students who do not wish to wear NFL top can still wear Spirit Wear tops. Don't forget your crazy socks!

Students MUST wear approved Uniform bottoms. Please refer to our Uniform Standards for more information.

Book Fair will be held the week of Oct. 7th thru Oct. 10th the same week as Parent-Teacher conferences.

This year, Book Fair will be a NO CASH event. We are encouraging families to set up an e-Wallet account through Scholastic. We will accept credit cards, debit cards and Apple Pay.

We realize that the kids want to use their own money but every year we have had so many tears over lost money or the students feeling like they had to give some of their cash to a friend so that friend can buy something and then they have no money left to buy something for themselves.

We realize this is a big change so that's why we are getting the word out early. We will talk with the students about this change closer to the Book Fair.

Library is one of the best places to volunteer your time. Please read all instructions before signing up and limit to signing up for a couple of spots at first so everyone has a chance. If there are still open spots in a couple of weeks, please go back and fill up those spots.

Check your student(s)' teacher's pages to find out what day their class comes.

Sign up on Sign Up Genius and check back often. Thanks for all your help.

SORA has four types of reading levels: interest level, ATOS, Lexile and text difficulty.

This is a great way for the students and staff to have access to more books. You can even add any public library to your account as long as you have a library card for that library. Click here to learn more.

Apple App Store

Android App Store

Fall break is just around the corner. If you would like for your child(ren) to attend the week long break, Oct 14-18, please register them through your MSB account.

Registration will open on Monday Sept 9th.

There will be 45 spots available. Once those spots have been filled you will no longer see it in the drop down menu.

If you have not paid the one time yearly family BASE registration fee of $25, you will need to pay this as well.

The cost for the camp is $250 per child for the week. There will be lots of fun activities planned and we hope to go to a pumpkin patch as well.

Please email Leigh Savoy with any questions.

The Ben Franklin Academy (BFA) Board of Directors (Board) generally holds its regular meetings at 5:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month at BFA. Board meetings are open to the public and are conducted in compliance with Colorado Open Meetings Requirements. All are welcome to attend. The time and location of all Board meetings are posted on the school website calendar. If you would like to be proactively notified about all regular and special board meetings, please email BFA’s Board Secretary to be added to our “sunshine” distribution list.

Agendas are posted below 24 hours prior to a meeting. If you would like to appear before the Board, please email the Board President. We’d love to see you at these meetings.

Visit our Board of Directors page for information on agendas and minutes from the meetings.

Our Parent Teacher Organization looks forward to an amazing year full of events, fundraisers and sponsorships.

The Spirit Rock is an opportunity to share exciting events with our school community by painting

your own message. Parents, students, and staff may rent the Rock to recognize a student’s

birthday, show school spirit, wish a team good luck, thank a teacher, announce an event, etc. It is a

great way to spread positive messages and increase excitement! The rate to rent the Rock is $20

per day. All proceeds directly benefit Ben Franklin Academy!

Want to rent the Rock? Here’s how:

First, reserve the date you want by visiting the ‘Rent the Rock’ Sign Up Genius. Then, pay for your

reservation through MySchoolBucks.

Have questions? Contact Lindsay Bullock, Spirit Rock Committee Manager.

Our September PTO Spirit Night will be a Colorado Rapids soccer game on Saturday, September 14

at 7:30 p.m.

The Rapids play at Dick's Sporting Goods Park (6000 Victory Way, Commerce City) and are playing the Portland Timbers that night. BFA families and friends will receive special discounted pricing, and $5 from each ticket sold will be donated to the BFA PTO when purchased through our ticketing link. Tickets are available for the Spirit Night in Section 120. We hope to see you there! It will be a great night to cheer on the Rapids with fellow BFA families!

Join us for our monthly PTO meetings to find out more about what’s going on at BFA and get

connected with other parents. Meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month, and

begin at 6:30 p.m. Our first meeting will be next Wednesday, September 11 in the Sanders Science

Lab.

All BFA community members are welcome! Attendance at meetings counts toward your family’s

recommended volunteer hours. We look forward to seeing you there!

Want to learn more about the BFA PTO? Visit our web page.

The PTO’s online spirit wear store (in partnership with locally owned and operated Denver Athletic)

is open now through September 8. No orders will be accepted after the store closes. You can place

your order and pay online through the Denver Athletic website. Once the store is closed, all orders

will be ready in approximately 3 weeks. Spirit wear from the last round of sales will be distributed

the first week of September.

Not only do we have classroom-approved sweatshirts, fleeces, and spirit day shirts (remember,

every Friday is a spirit wear day!), there are additional tops, shorts, hats, and more! Show off your

school spirit and support the PTO by placing an order today.

If you have any questions, please email Gen Townsend, PTO spirit wear committee manager.

This time-honored event is a great way to connect with the whole Ben Franklin community! We hope you'll join us for activities, food, and fun on Saturday, September 28 from 3 - 7 p.m. at BFA. There will be games, bounce houses, obstacle courses, lawn games, face painting, balloon artists, cotton candy, and the always popular CAKE WALK!!!! Hamburgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, and sides will be served between 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. All families are welcome!

Tickets are on sale NOW through September 21 on MySchoolBucks.

Ticket prices are:

Family of 3- $40,

Family of 4- $50,

Family of 5- $60,

Family of 6- $70

Additional individuals are $15 each

Families who have completed and logged their family’s recommended volunteer hours (30 hours per family or 15 hours per single parent household) for the current school year in Help Counter by

midnight Saturday, September 21, will be given free admission to the event!

And, families that volunteer at least 2 hours at FranklinFest will get half off their admission ticket price to the event! We can't make this event happen without our volunteers! Volunteers spend a little time helping with setup and tear down, inflatables, food, and check-in, and can spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the event with their family! We hope you’ll consider volunteering to help staff the event, or donating a cake for the cake walk! These are great, and FUN, hours that count towards those family totals!

Please contact Ewelina Chrzanowski, PTO social coordinator if you have any questions.

Please join us on October 1 at 4:30 p.m. for our SAC monthly meeting. Join in person or online. Zoom information is on the top of every agenda. You can find the agenda and minutes on their webpage.

Do you like to volunteer doing At-Home Projects? Email Volunteer to get on the list. Throughout the year, we receive many projects from teachers that require a volunteer to take home and bring back finished.

We even have projects ready so email today!

The 4th and 5th graders will be doing fitness assessments for their next unit in P.E.

We will be starting with the mile run/walk as part of this, and Ms. Nichols would love some help to keep the children safe as they run around the school. We will meet in the big gym (thunder gym), and I will give you some instructions before we head out to the outdoor classroom to get started. Thank you in advance for your help!

We offer many before and after school Fine Arts clubs throughout the year. We update our webpage frequently, so look often.

Arts

Music

Fall Sports were in full swing this week. Our game schedules will be up on Events Calendar for Girls Volleyball, Boys Soccer, Co-Ed Cross Country and Landsharks.

Visit our Athletics Page for more information about our Athletics Programs at BFA.

Parents-when you are attending functions after school, as a courtesy, please do not park in the 6 clearly marked parking spots for the BASE parents during the hours of 4pm-6pm.

Our delicious lunch is provided by DCSD. Check out the menu for the first weeks of school.

If a student has a specific dietary restriction or allergy, parents must contact DCSD Nutrition Services to arrange an allergy/restriction lunch section.

BFA does not provide breakfast at this time.

Join Douglas County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Highlands Ranch Metro District park rangers to learn the basics or advance your angling skills. Colorado Parks and Wildlife will provide fishing rods for each participant to use and take home. This is a catch and release event.

Saturday, Sept. 28

8-11 a.m.

Fly’n B Park

$15 ($18 for nonresidents)

Discounted group rate available for registrations of 3 or more.

Register Here

Mission:

Our mission is to create young adults with character like America's founding Renaissance man, Benjamin Franklin: well-read, scientifically curious, and civically engaged.

Vision:

Our students will excel academically through a challenging, sequenced curriculum that emphasizes math, science, the arts, and literacy. We will be a data-driven institution, focusing on individual students. Our students, teachers, parents, staff, and leaders will be held accountable for the success of our school. Finally, we recognize that an education is incomplete without fostering social emotional development, character, sports, and nature.

13 Virtues:

Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Purity and Humility.