Some 400 guests attended Colorado Academy’s festive Grandparents & Special Friends Day on December 19, 2024, the last day of school before Winter Break. Visitors spent the morning on campus to enjoy breakfast treats, hear from Head of School Dr. Mike Davis, see their Lower and Middle School students in their classrooms, and enjoy an art show and musical performances.
Family members and friends first gathered in the Field House inside the CA Athletic Center for refreshments and a welcome from Dr. Davis. Grandparents and other family members and special friends give so much to the CA community, said Davis. “You volunteer, you serve as mentors and role models, you drive your students to school, you give to The CA Fund, you support your grandchildren socially and emotionally, and you even substitute teach—you make us who we are.”
Davis went on to highlight just a few of the ways the hundreds of honored guests help impact the lives of all students:
- CA this year is committing $5.5. million—the most of any Pre-K–12 school in Colorado—to support financial access for families.
- CA continually enhances the student experience with new offerings tied to our mission: to create curious, kind, courageous, and adventurous learners and leaders.
- CA is able to take a long-term approach to each student’s success, maintaining a 100% college matriculation rate among graduating Seniors by nurturing healthy, independent, and critical-thinking adults who contribute to the world.
Davis offered special shoutouts to several groups in attendance, including the grandparents of the Senior Class of 2025, those with Middle School grandchildren, and the families of Pre-Kindergartners, who Davis noted comprise the Class of 2039.
After Davis’s remarks, guests were treated to several wonderful musical performances from Kindergarten and from the Lower School’s Fourth and Fifth Grade Choir.
Visitors then accompanied student guides to classrooms, where engaging activities and games allowed grandparents and special friends to spend time with their students.
In the Lower School, visitors were delighted to see samples of student work, read together, enjoy poems and presentations, and test their math and language skills, while guests of students in Grades 6–8 had fun touring the halls of the Chowdry Middle School, performing science experiments, reading aloud, and sitting in desks alongside their students.
Guests also enjoyed stopping in to the Ponzio Art Center to view the hundreds of artworks displayed in the annual Pre-K–Grade 8 Art Showcase.
While grandparents and special friends were touring campus and admiring the work of their Lower and Middle School students, CA’s Ninth through Twelfth Graders were staging their own special event in the Leach Center for the Performing Arts. The annual Upper School Talent Show included amazing performances by student musicians, singers, and dancers, and faculty members contributed their own hilarious skits and singalongs to round out the show.
At the end of a packed morning schedule, many students departed with their grandparents and special friends, eager to begin a relaxing and fun-filled Winter Break.