At Gilpin County Elementary School our mission is to care for and nurture each student's academic, social, and emotional needs in a safe and secure school environment. Small student numbers in classes allow teachers to provide individualized student attention. We also believe in educating the "whole child" and in addition to literacy, math, social studies, and science, we offer music, art, technology, physical education, and library media instruction at all elementary grade levels.

Our elementary school offers traditional programming instruction classes and Montessori programming instruction classes. Montessori instruction is provided by Colorado-licensed and Montessori-certified teachers. In the Montessori program, children work at their pace and level of interest. The teacher's role is to be a guide to each student. Peer group learning is fundamental to Montessori. Students share with their younger classmates what they have learned and the younger children consider the older children to be role models and guides.

Pre-School programming provides parents and students with both Traditional and Montessori options. Both full day, four day a week and half day morning, four day a week slots are available.

We also offer a full-day kindergarten program. The children benefit from a full-day kindergarten experience and show significant progress in literacy, math, general learning and social skills. Full-day kindergarten children spend more time in teacher-directed individual work.

Our elementary library offers the Accelerated Reader program. Accelerated Reader is a reading incentive program that facilitates reading practice by providing students and teachers feedback based on the books students read. The program gives students the opportunity to practice reading books at their level, provides feedback on student comprehension of books and helps students establish goals for their reading. The elementary library has recently received the distinction of a Model Library through Renaissance Learning.

Snow Dodgers is our recreational ski and snowboard club open to all students in grades 4-12. The ski season begins the first week of December and often lasts through mid-April. Every Friday, our kids board a bus and travel to Loveland Ski Area for a full day of fun on the ski slopes. To learn more see our Snow Dodgers Page.

Our teachers are focused on curriculum alignment and delivering Colorado Standards and the Common Core curriculum to students. Teacher use research-based instructional strategies to engage students in the learning. And, teachers frequently monitor student achievement and growth to generate data to inform teacher instruction to students. Teachers care about your child and his/her educational experience at Gilpin County Elementary School.