Principals Message
Principal’s Message May 12, 2025
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
May has already started off with some fun family activities with some great weather to boot. The annual Art Night was a huge success and very fun to attend. Thank you to the myriads of PTA volunteers that helped to make it such a fun time. Lunch on the Green (or Gray) was also a well-attended and fun event. It was great seeing parents, grandparents, and others having some food with the students. Another great thank you to the PTA for helping organize and host the event and for the paraprofessionals and teachers for helping to supervise during the event.
End-of-Year testing is in full swing for all grade levels, too. Thank you for supporting your child to show what they have learned by helping them to get some good rest, a nutritious breakfast, and helping them to be at school on time. It really makes a difference.
As you may have heard, we have some changes to our faculty and staff for next year. We don’t know all the new faces yet, but this is what we know at this point:
Ms. Cook is moving from 6th Grade to Kindergarten as Ms. Lake in kindergarten is moving back to Taiwan. We will miss you, Ms. Lake!
We have hired Keenan Burkley to be the new 6th Grade teacher. Mr. Burkley is coming to us most recently from Meadowlark Elementary where he is teaching 6th Grade. Welcome aboard, Mr. Burkley.
Because of the number of students we have in 4th grade, for next year we will have a third 5th Grade classroom. We have hired Alex Brown to be our teacher in that new classroom. Mr. Brown is coming to us most recently from Franklin Elementary where he is currently teaching 6th Grade. Welcome aboard, Mr. Brown!
With two of our 1st Grade teachers retiring, (We love you Ms. B.C. and Ms. Brown!) we have two openings on that grade level. We have hired one teacher for sure at this moment and are working on the other. The teacher we know who is coming is Brittany Henry who is joining us from 1st grade at Parkview Elementary. Welcome aboard, Ms. Henry!
We know that we will have a few paras leaving us and wish to give them a shoutout of thanks and appreciation. Ms. Ginny and Ms. Maggie, both in 2nd grade, will be leaving us at the end of this school year. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors. We will be hiring for new para positions at the end of summer before school starts.
With all these changes, there will also be a few new room assignments for next year; we are working on those now shifts and through the summer. We look forward to sharing those with you as we start the school new year this fall.
As we wrap up the 2024-2025 school year, we wish to express our deepest appreciation for you being willing to partner with us to help your child/ren be able to learn and grow in many ways. As part of the work we have done this year, we have a new Uintah Mission Statement and a new Uintah Vision Statement. I will leave those with you along with my gratitude for the support you give to our community every day. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Uintah Elementary Mission Statement
At Uintah, we create and maintain an inclusive, safe, and nurturing environment for all while empowering students academically, socially, and emotionally.
Uintah Elementary Vision Statement
At Uintah, we envision a positive environment of learning and growth where all members of the school community are treated with respect.
Principal’s Message April 6, 2025
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
We hope your Spring Break has been relaxing and fun, and that you have been able to spend some time with those close to you. We want to thank the PTA and the Uintah community for the love and support that was shown the last week of March for our Teacher Appreciation week. Our faculty and staff felt supported and valued by the many ways that students and adults showed their gratitude and appreciation for all we do to help kids every day. Uintah is a great place to learn and to educate kids.
This first week back from Spring Break, April 7th – 11th, is our annual Uintah Spirit Week. We have fun ways to celebrate Uintah and Unicorns each day this week including International Unicorn Day which is every year on April 9th. We wrap up the week with our Trait-of-the-Month assembly and a great picture of everyone we are hoping to get into the yearbook. Please see the announcement regarding the fun ways to dress and celebrate Uintah and Unicorns in this month’s SWAY.
Later in the month, on Thursday, April 17th, we will be participating with many other schools and businesses in the Great Shake Out earthquake preparedness drill. We look forward to practicing this each year, so we know what to do in case of such an emergency.
And finally, you have may have noticed or you will soon that work has begun on the revitalization of our field. We would like to thank the generosity of the PTA and the broader Uintah community to help make this happen along with the support from the District Facilities Services and Buildings and Grounds teams. This process will take some time in order to allow the new grass to come in, so we ask that you share with your neighbors who may not know about this project that we are requiring everyone to stay off the field for as long as it takes to get the grass up and growing again. This will likely take the remainder of this school year and into the summer. We will keep updating the community as we get updates from the contractor and the Buildings and Grounds team. We know it will likely be difficult and require patience from all of us, so we thank everyone in advance for supporting this project and look forward to enjoying the field when it’s ready.
Here's to a great April and a wonderful rest of the school year. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message March 8, 2025
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
We hope your March is going well. The weather has given us quite the variety so far. Please remember to have your child dress for whatever the day will bring as we really want students to be outside to interact, play and use up some energy, so we have them go outside as much as possible.
March has us heading toward the end of the year and looking toward next year for our School Improvement Plan and Landtrust plan. We will be discussing these at our School Community Council meeting next Tuesday if you are interested. In looking at our data, the positives we saw are high levels of student achievement and the areas we will work in have to do with increasing student growth. These two plans will address these needs.
Along with learning goals, we are looking ahead at staffing for next year. There will be some changes at some grade levels. Based on our projected enrollment, we received another FTE from the District and have decided to use that in in 5th grade and have another teacher there so there will be three teachers in that grade level next year.
We also have two teachers on the 1st grade team retiring, Ms. Lori Brown and Ms. Lori Briggs-Cook. While we are sad for us to see them go, we are happy for them and the new adventures this will bring them and their families. Please wish them well when you get the chance. Ms. Cook, who currently is in 6th grade will be moving into one of those positions, so we will have new teachers from outside our building in 1st, 5th, and 6th grades next year. Those are still to be determined in the coming months.
This month we are also excited to see the hard work that students are putting into their learning. For example, we just had the 4th grade Wax Museum, which was amazing. The students did such a great job learning about and representing so many historical and modern figures. And coming later in the month is the 3rd grade play. The students and teachers have been working so hard on their parts with many other grades helping out with the sets. We hope you are able to come and see the hard work of so many of our students and teachers.
We would also like to thank the PTA for arranging for our Teacher Appreciation Week this month, which is happening the last week of the month. Look for information coming from them on ways to support our teachers and paraprofessionals and show them gratitude for all they do to support kids every day. We are so grateful for the support from the community and the PTA. Thank you for helping make Uintah such a great place to learn and work. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message February 8, 2025
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
THIS IS A LONG READ, BUT THE ENTIRE FACULTY AND STAFF AT UINTAH HAVE ASKED THAT ALL PARENTS KINDLY READ THE FOLLOWING IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION IN REGARD TO CLASS PLACEMENTS FOR THE UPCOMING YEAR.
Dear Uintah Community,
We need your help. We are heading into the end of the year, which means that soon we will be looking at making class lists for the upcoming year. Over the past several years we have solicited information from parents as part of this process. What we have seen, though, is that all too often, this ask for information has turned into many parents simply stating what teacher or classroom they want their child in the next year. This was never the intent in soliciting class placement information from parents and this practice of ‘choosing a teacher’ has had many unintended negative consequences.
We know that parents are experts on their own children, and we value and respect that knowledge.
Our task as educators each year is to use the six and a half hours a day we spend with children to become experts on the academic and behavioral strengths and weaknesses of a myriad of children across a classroom and entire grade level. All educators at Uintah take this task and responsibility seriously.
Creating classroom lists is a very, very complex task that involves balancing the needs of often close to 75 different children. Grade-level teams take hours working together to create the best possible learning groups for all students for the next school year. We truly want ALL students to be in a place where they will feel safe, valued, and will be able to thrive socially and academically.
Teachers have often felt overly obligated to honor ‘teacher requests’ for their child for the next year. Unfortunately, we have seen over the past several years that this pressure to weigh parent requests over the other information gleaned through a year of working with all children in the grade level has created more issues for classrooms the following year.
Here are some examples of problems created by focusing on ‘specific teacher requests’:
-The creation of classrooms with cliques or pockets of students who struggle accepting others outside their known group of friends who they have been with for multiple years. We also have seen many friend issues within the clique or group that affect the environment of an entire classroom and even the grade level.
-The creation of unbalanced classrooms with many more student academic needs in reading, math, or in both. This affects the ability for educators to support so many student needs in a specific classroom.
-The creation of unbalanced classrooms with many more behavioral and social emotional needs. This affects the ability for teachers to support students’ behavioral needs and can lead to more distractions, disruptions, and a loss of learning for many in the classroom.
We are confident that these negative consequences were never the intention of parents giving ‘teacher requests.’ But seeing as we are educators, and that we have seen an increase of ‘teacher requests’, and therefore an increase in the negative effects stated above, we are reaching out to educate parents of this situation and ask for changes.
We ask parents that, if they choose to share information regarding class placement for the next year, the following is understood:
-Requests for specific teachers are not helpful, and that there is no guarantee that a request for a specific teacher will place a child in that teacher’s classroom.
-Requests to keep a child with their friends are not helpful and that there is no guarantee that this will happen. We always work to have students with someone they know. We also support students to make new friends each year.
Some feedback that teachers have found useful in helping them make class lists are:
-Trusting teachers to create class lists. We won’t claim to be perfect, but we really do care about ALL kids and want everyone to succeed, so we take a lot of time and effort to make the best classes that we can.
-Sharing specific and unique information about a student such as physical or mental health concerns, learning issues, changes or challenges in family situations, or other personal information that may help their current teacher make a more-informed decision regarding next year’s placement. This information will always be treated with discretion and respect.
-In rare instances, sharing that there is a specific student that you want your child to not be with in a class. Teachers often know about such situations/relationships as they have seen negative interactions between the students during the year, and, in an effort to help all students be successful the next year, are already planning on keeping the students apart. But we know that there are sometimes negative interactions that happen outside of school between students of which we are unaware, so letting us know of the need to have students apart while in school can be helpful.
Occasionally, parents ask us to justify the reasoning behind some class placements. While we can usually give some limited and general details, often there is much we cannot share because of FERPA privacy reasons involving other children. For example, if Child A’s parent wonders why their child was not in the same class as Child B, we can’t divulge to Child A’s parents that Child B’s parent said that they didn’t want their child with Child C who is in Child A’s class. This is a simplified version of situations that can become quite complex. Please know that we take FERPA privacy laws very seriously for all children and families, so we appreciate your understanding when we can’t share details.
Thank you for reading through this long message! And thank you for your support of the Uintah school faculty, staff, and administration. We hope that this information helps us all to work together to make the best classes we can for the next year. Here’s to a great rest of the school year. GO UNICORNS!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message January 3, 2025
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
Happy New Year! We hope your Winter Break has been full of great memories, fun family time, and other relaxing and enjoyable activities. With the new year comes new changes, and one of these is that with the retirement of Ms. Mary Jane, we have a new school Counselor. Her name is Melissa McKinlay. She comes to us from West High School where she’s been working with the great team over there. We are so excited to have her joining the Uintah Team, so please say hi and introduce yourself to her when you get a chance to meet her.
January at Uintah is full of lots of fun learning activities many of which revolve around science. We have our annual Science Fair coming up on Thursday January 16th. The following week on Friday, January 24th is our annual Science Fest full of fun science-related activities. Please bring the whole family for the event. Look for more information on this in the SWAY. Thank you to the Uintah PTA for their work and support of these awesome events.
A new year brings new beginnings and often, new year’s resolutions. May I suggest that one resolution many of us should consider involves student attendance. We continue to have many, many students who are regularly tardy and absent. Too many of these are beyond a simple sickness or the occasional traffic issues or sleeping through the alarm. For many of our students, arriving consistently late or missing many days of school contributes to heightened feelings of anxiety and worry with thoughts like, “What did I miss when I was gone?” or, “Everyone will look at me when I walk in late.” While it may seem like this isn’t a big deal for us adults, this can have a detrimental effect on our little ones and their ability to feel comfortable and safe and to be able to do well in school. If you and your family are ones who struggle with attendance, please consider making the lifestyle changes that will allow your child to be at school on time more consistently. It really will make a positive difference.
Thank you for all you do to help support the children and adults who are at Uintah Elementary school. We appreciate you! Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message December 7, 2024
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
We hope you had a great Thanksgiving break and are ready for the upcoming holiday season. We are working hard here at school on lots of different things. Our 5th and 6th graders are preparing for the annual holiday music program coming up on the 12th. It should be a great presentation as usual. Besides math and reading, many students are also working on fun art projects of many differing kinds. December is a great month of fun and learning here at Uintah.
We know that with the colder weather and the unique layout of our valley that the air quality can get very dirty. Please know that we check the air quality regularly and adjust how we hold recesses according to district guidelines: Orange air days have our students with health care plans regarding asthma or things of that nature inside the building and red air days have all students inside. Here’s hoping that we get more storms to move the air and clean it out soon.
One other thing to look for is the PTA’s annual Uintah Goes East charity drive for the East High pantry. Look for more info coming home on how you and your family can help support our more needy families in the community.
Also, if you have a student in 3rd grade on up, we have some help for anyone who wants to enter a project in the Uintah Science and Engineering Fair. Please see my Parent Square post about that. Thank you to Ms. Buchsbaum and Ms. Cook for helping students and parents with these fun projects.
Here’s to a great holiday season for everyone. We hope the month and the year end on happy notes, and we look forward to seeing everyone in the new year. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message November 4, 2024
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
Thank you for a fun and safe October and Halloween. The costumes were awesome, and the parties were a blast! One thing that we noticed during the parade was that masks and blow-up costumes made it difficult for many to navigate the stairs. For next year, I would encourage that we have students and families consider face paint in place of a mask at school so that students can be safer when walking down the stairs and through the rest of the parade. Hopefully, this will help us in future parades.
Thank you to the PTA for some great activities in October, too. The Movie Night and Fall Fest were both well attended, and both were given rave reviews by so many kids and adults. We appreciate all the volunteers and the generosity of the PTA for making these activities happen.
The weather has definitely turned into more typical Fall weather with colder temperatures and more rain in the valley and snow in the mountains. Please factor the weather in when sending off your child for school each day as students will be outside for recess most of the time.
We are quite busy with the business of learning and are using all kinds of activities to help us learn and show what we have learned. Many classes and grade levels have been on field trips already with many more planned for this year. Thank you to all the parents who have signed up with the district and gotten background checked so that you can help with groups on field trips. We appreciate the support.
As we move into November, our thoughts often turn toward Thanksgiving and gratitude. Here at Uintah, we have so much for which we are grateful. We have wonderful educators, support staff, office staff, and custodial staff who care so much about student safety and student learning. And we have a wonderfully supportive community who helps to make Uintah the best place to learn and to work. I hope that we all take the opportunity throughout this upcoming holiday season to express our gratitude to and for each other more often. We have a lot to be thankful for. Have a great November.
Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson Principal
Principal’s Message October 4, 2024
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
We hope your October is going well thus far. We are so, so grateful to all the support that everyone in the broader Uintah community has given to the school for us to be able to raise over $80,000 for the PTA. Parents in the PTA have earmarked this money to go toward helping to support our school with things such as supporting all the wonderful arts programs here at Uintah, to helping increase the number of field trips the students get to experience this year, and to helping support classrooms so that teachers don’t pay for supplies out of their own pockets. Thank you for helping to make Uintah such a great place for students to learn and for us to work. We appreciate you!
We are also looking forward to the PTA activities this month: The Movie Night on the 4th and the Fall Fest on the 25th. Thank you to the many volunteers who make these fun events possible. We appreciate you!
With Fall upon us, we know that the weather will eventually turn colder, so please help your child/ren be ready for outside recess by sending appropriate outerwear for the day. If you have already done so and are wondering, “Where did my child’s jacket go?”, please come and check our lost and found as the pile is large and could contain your child’s items. We will have the lost and found out in the front foyer for SEP Conferences, too. Here's to a great rest of the month at Uintah. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message September 16, 2024
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
Principal
Principal’s Message Summer of 2024
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
Dear Uintah Community,
Welcome to the 2024-2025 school year! We hope you are having a great summer and hope that you get to enjoy the rest of it before school starts. Remember that registration is open, so thank you to those who have gone in and finished that process for this year. If you haven’t yet, please do so ASAP so we can get your child officially on the roles and in the computer systems.
This year brings with it a few changes and opportunities for us. First, you likely have received an invitation to use Parent Square. This is a new communication platform that the entire district will be using to communicate with parents and the community. Several other districts in the valley are using this as well, and parents there have lots of positive things to say. To get the maximum experience with the platform, you can download the Parent Square app. You will also be able to receive emails, texts, and phone calls even if you don’t, but the app will likely be the most convenient way to get communication from the school and for you to communicate with your child’s teacher. Let us know if you have any questions at Back- to-School Night, and we’ll help you get set up on the app then.
Another change this year is that our Friday and short days end time will be at 1:15 p.m. This change was made to accommodate for some needed extra learning time on those days. All other days we will get out at the usual 2:30 p.m. end time and start times on all days will be
at the regular 8:00 a.m. when the tardy bell rings.
We have quite a few new Unicorns at the school this year, and we welcome everyone who will be at Uintah for the first time. In case you didn’t know, a group or herd of unicorns is known as a blessing, and it really is a blessing to have everyone here at Uintah. To help welcome our new Unicorns and to help all of us feel more united and a part of the Uintah community, our theme this year is:
One Horn, One Heart, United at Uintah
As part of the process of becoming a more united community, we will be crafting school Mission and Vision statements, so if you are interested in being a part of that process, look for more information coming from the school.
Here’s to a great year! Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message May 8, 2024
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
We hope your May is going well despite all the snow and crazy weather. Thank you for helping your child be flexible with clothing to match whatever is happening outside.
A huge thanks and shout out to our PTA for a wonderful Art Night! We hope you were able to come and enjoy all the activities and each other’s company. Thank you to all our PTA leadership and volunteers who helped make the night a success. The arts are alive and well at Uintah thanks to your generous support of time and resources.
As you know, we are right in the middle of our Show-What-You- Know testing season. Thank you for helping your child come to school well-rested, fed, and ready to share all they have learned this year. Students and teachers have worked very hard this year, and we want them all to be able to share all their knowledge on these end- of-year assessments. Together, we got this!
One thing several people have asked me to mention now that the weather is starting to get nicer is about our pets and the school grounds. Let’s all do our part to keep our school a safe and clean place for children to play and adults to visit. If you do bring your dog to the school, please keep them on a leash as not everyone is as friendly and safe with animals as you may be. And we’re probably preaching to the choir here, but please clean up and dispose of any waste from your pet. Students still regularly find dog doo ‘the hard way’ as they play on the school grounds both on the field and in
front of the school. Feel free to encourage your neighbors to do their part as well. It takes a village to keep our school clean and safe.
As we wind the year down, I want to personally say what an honor and privilege is has been to work at Uintah this year and every year. The community is engaged, supportive, and helps Uintah to be a great place to learn, to teach, and to volunteer. We hope everyone has a fun and enjoyable summer, and we look forward to seeing everyone who’s coming back next year. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message April 1, 2024
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
Happy April! We hope everyone had a great Spring Break, and that the children and adults in our community are feeling refreshed and ready to head into Spring. We are gearing up to begin testing at the end of this month and then through May, so look for more information coming out from your child’s teacher regarding their scheduled testing dates. Please remember to have your child get plenty of rest and a to have a good breakfast so they are ready for the tests.
This first week back from break is our annual Spirit Week/Unicorns United Week. We have lots of fun activities planned, the first of which is to watch the solar eclipse on the 8th, weather permitting. Fingers crossed there! The eclipse will peak around 12:15 p.m., and we have enough glasses for every student and staff member who wish to view it. Thanks to Mr. Jon, Ms. Trish, and Mr. Mario for helping make this even possible by being flexible during lunchtime and with lunches. Please read further in the SWAY for a detailed list of all the activities happening during our Spirit Week/Unicorns United Week and remember that April 9th is always International Unicorn Day!
A huge shout out and thank you to our wonderful Uintah PTA for supporting teachers, paras, and staff the last week of March for Teacher Appreciation week. The hearts were wonderful, the flowers were beautiful and smelled so great, and the food and other treats including the gift cards were very appreciated. We are so grateful for the support of the Uintah PTA and the parents and other relatives
that make possible all that happens at Uintah every day.
We are looking forward to the upcoming Art Night on May 3rd as well. Please join us to celebrate the myriad of wonderful art forms in which students at Uintah participate all year long. Thank you to the PTA, the Uintah Art Committee, the students, and to parents and others who make the arts possible at Uintah. Together, we make a great team. Go Team Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message March 8, 2024
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
Happy March! It seems to have come in like a cold, wintery lion, so we’ll see if it goes out like a lamb. We have lots of fun activities happening in March, like field trips to see plays or to visit Clayton Middle School to hear the symphony. The Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company is coming to share their talents with us this month. We’ve had and will have more informances with Tanner Dance and BTS Drama classes. Our 3rd Grade is hard at work on their play that we will get to see in April. Break a leg, 3rd Grade! And the PTA has declared the week of March 25-29 to be our Teacher Appreciation Week! Thank you, Uintah PTA, for your support of teachers and students at our building. Look for more info about this week coming from our PTA.
Lastly, I wanted to revisit attendance as we are still struggling. This is some up-to-date information that I shared with our School Community Council this past month. From the graph we can see that January was a tough month for absences. February got better and we’re hoping that March and the rest of the year trends downward.
What this leaves us with is that almost 60% of our students are at risk or worse for their attendance. Yikes! Please do what is needed to keep your child safe and healthy and at home when they are sick and contagious. Also, please do what is needed to have your child/ren at school and on time. We know that attendance matters.
Here is some information from the attendanceworks.org website regarding attendance. If you have any questions or want to know more about their work, feel free to visit their website.
As always, please stay safe. Let’s have a great March! Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message February 6, 2024
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
Happy February! I hope that this message finds everyone as safe and health as possible as we know that there have been a lot of absences and tardies the past few months, many due to sickness. School attendance has been in the news recently, too, as regular attendance since the pandemic has declined across the U.S. We are definitely seeing that here at Uintah. We know that COVID is not the only germ going around, and that many students have been sick or have even been sent home from here as they have a fever, have thrown up, and/or are just not feeling well. This is part of what makes addressing school attendance such a tricky subject right now. We want students here at school and on time as much as possible as any tardy and/or absence for any reason affects a child’s learning and their relationships with fellow students. But we also don’t want kids here if they are sick and especially not if they are contagious. And, for some of our kids who are anxious or have anxiety, coming late to school or missing school, even when they are sick or for something fun like a vacation, gives them a heightened sense of missing out, which can exacerbate their anxious feelings of returning to school and make it more difficult for them to get up in the morning and want to come back to school. I have experienced this with my own children, too.
So, what can we do about this complex issue? There isn’t an easy answer that will fit every situation, but here are some suggestions that may help. First, communicate and even overcommunicate with the school. Let your child’s teacher and the office staff know regarding attendance issues right away both for tardies and absences. While there is no way for us to excuse tardies, absences can be excused.
Second, please keep in mind that just because an absence is excused, this does not take away the effects that an absence will have on kids who miss out on learning and miss out on time with their peers. Consider, the following:
As of Friday, February 2nd, we had been in school for 100 days. As of that time –
58 students have been tardy 10 or more times with many with well over 10 tardies. That equates to 10% or more of the time students have been in school so far this year. Yikes!
51 students have been absent 10 or more times this year with several well over 10 absences. That equates to 10% or more of the time students have been in school so far this year. We know that many of these are from illnesses, so thank you for keeping your child home when they are ill. We also know that many of these absences are for reasons other than illness. Also, yikes!
Please use your best judgment regarding when to keep a child home, like when they have thrown up and/or have a fever and are likely contagious. Also, may I suggest that we consider taking time away from school on a vacation or trip when it is the least impactful to the child, such as during the scheduled breaks that occur regularly during the school year. Missing school when others are attending can be especially difficult for our students who are anxious or struggle with anxiety. We hope that everyone who is ill is able to recover quickly and that all of us wash our hands more, cough into our sleeves, and do everything else we can to stay healthy for the rest of the school year. Here’s to a great February. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message January 2, 2024
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
Happy New Year! We hope that everyone had a great holiday break, enjoyed time with family and friends, and has renewed energy for the new year. We are jumping right back into the swing of things here at Uintah, and we have several important and fun things happening this month. First, we have our Middle-of-the-Year math and reading testing on Tuesday, January 9th, which allows our students to show what they have learned so far this year. Please help your child get some good rest the night before and have a great breakfast for the day’s tests. We also have our voluntary Science Fair coming up on Friday, January 19th and our awesome and fun Science Fest happening on Friday, January 26th from 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. There are quite a few partners coming to the Science Fest with fun activities for the whole family to participate in, so please come with your child/ren and explore some awesome science, technology, math and, of course, science activities. There will be a food truck there as well. Should be a great night. We know that Uintah Elementary thrives because of its strong community. We encourage you to come and be involved in what’s happening here at school. We are incredibly grateful for your continued support and partnership in creating a nurturing environment where children can learn and thrive. Here’s to a great January at Uintah. Go Unicorns!
Principal’s Message December 4, 2023
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
Happy December! We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with good food and friendly company. Here are a few highlights of the many fun learning activities and events that have happened at our school in November:
Ms. Webster’s class has been working really hard in November to finish up several units of study such as finishing reading “The Witches,” learning about fossils in science, and working on multiplication and division in math. Way to go!
Ms. Carter’s class has been working hard in science to answer tough questions about water, climate, and weather. They recently discovered that the water we drink and use today is the same water that dinosaurs used. Wow!
The entire First Grade did a great job on their field trip to the zoo. The teachers said that the students were very respectful and enjoyed looking at the animals. All the teachers are very proud of the way the students handled themselves and represented Uintah, and so are we!
During December, we have many more fun learning events happening, so I’ll highlight just a few here:
Several grade levels have field trips coming up to places like the Natural History Museum and the Nutcracker.
Our PTA is also doing our Uintah Goes East donation drive to help stock the pantry at East High School. Look for more info about that coming home soon.
Our 5th and 6th Grades have their annual music concert coming up on the 12th of the month. Look for more info coming home soon about that event.
The 15th of December, which is the 3rd Friday in December, is National Ugly Sweater Day, so bust out the ugly sweaters and give them a good cleaning so we all can wear them proudly on the 15th. I look forward to seeing them!
We are so grateful for all the parent and community support that goes into making Uintah such a wonderful place for kids to learn, parents to volunteer, and staff to work. We hope that everyone is able to stay warm and dry as the snow moves in and the temperatures drop. Please remember to help your child/ren to come prepared for the changes in weather. We also wish everyone a happy holiday season and a fun end to the calendar year. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message November 6, 2023
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
Welcome to November and to a time to reflect on all that we are thankful for. I’d like to start by thanking everyone who was able to participate in any way in the Halloween festivities. We appreciate everyone’s support of Uintah’s fun activities such as our Halloween parade and parties.
We have many more fun learning activities planned for this month. One activity of note is this month’s 6th grade service project. On November 9th, the 6th grade students will be raking the leaves around the building to help our grounds look even better. Thank you to Ms. Carter and Ms. Cook for arranging such great service-learning activities and for parents who help to make this activity a reality. We also have several field trips planned for different grade levels. Should be a great month.
A huge thanks goes to the PTA as they have provided funds that allow a presenter from the Mad Science company to come to Uintah many Wednesdays this year to hold an in-class field trip with a hands-on science project in our science lab. Different classes come each week. So far, our kindergarteners have had a blast learning with dry ice. First grade is up next learning about lights and color. Every homeroom class at Uintah will get to do at least one hands-on activity this year with the Mad Science presenters with lower-grade classes enjoying two different science activities. Thank you for your generosity in supporting the PTA who have helped these activities come to Uintah.
We hope everyone takes the opportunity this month to reflect on the amazing blessings and opportunities we have been given and to cultivate a deeper sense of gratitude. We hope that everyone is also able to spend some time relaxing with family and friends and sharing the spirit of gratitude that permeates this month. I am thankful to be working with such amazing students, faculty, staff, and parents here at Uintah. We are blessed to partner with you and our community to help make Uintah a great place to learn and grow. Have a great November. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message October 4, 2023
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
WOW and THANK YOU to the entire Uintah Community for the incredible generosity during our Color Run/Fall Fundraiser as the PTA raised over $75,000 for its priorities and programs to support Uintah children and teachers. We are humbled and grateful for this support and pledge to continue working hand-in-hand with the PTA to bring wonderful learning opportunities to the children at Uintah. We look forward to all the different activities happening this month, like SEP conferences, our free, outdoor Movie Night on the 6th – dress warmly and bring a chair and blanket! Fall Break is also coming up and this year includes the Monday afterward. Our monthly Community Council is on the 19th because of Fall Break, too. We also have our free and fun Fall Festival on the evening of the 27th and, of course, the Halloween Parade which will start at 9:00 a.m. on the 31st. Thank you to the PTA for arranging and paying for many of these activities. The Uintah community is awesome!
One final word on safety. We want everyone, students and parents, to get to school and depart from school safely. We have noticed an increase in people either sending their children across 1300 south, through traffic, to get to and from the school or taking them with them across this busy street. This is so dangerous even if you are the one shepherding them. Please use the crosswalks nearby or please consider dropping off and picking up along the east side of 1500 East as the gate to the field is open for this very reason. Many people also park on a nearby street and walk over to get their child or have a designated spot on a nearby street to meet. Let’s all do better to be as safe as possible with ourselves and our little ones. We care about everyone in our Uintah community! Let’s have a great month. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message September 5, 2023
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
This school year sure is off to a wet start and is shaping up to stay green for a bit longer than usual. I heard there was snow in the mountains recently and that some of the leaves up higher in the mountains are changing, so it does appear that Fall is still approaching. Here at school, most of our leaves are still green, and we are enjoying the milder weather at recesses while we can. We are also working on all the regular start of the year things, like taking our beginning-of-the-year reading and math assessments, getting to know each other better, practicing our procedures and how to follow the rules, and we are diving into science and other curriculum as well.
Coming up on Thursday, September 14th at 4:45 p.m. on Zoom is our 1st School Community Council (SCC) meeting of the year. This is an opportunity for you to learn more about what happens behind the scenes at the school and to help make some of the decisions on how the school spends our Trustlands funds distributed from the state. Please see our Uintah SSC website for information on how to be a voting member of the committee and how to join the Zoom meeting. We look forward to seeing you there!
We are also looking forward to the upcoming PTA Color Run again this year on Friday, September 22nd! Last year we had a blast running around the neighborhood, getting chalk colors all over ourselves and the sidewalk, and we raised around $60,00 for the school on top of that! It was a win all round. We look forward to having more fun this year exercising with lots of colored chalk on us and raising money to help support the fun the PTA has in store for us this year. Thank you to all the adults who help to make this a fun, exciting, and colorful time for students and adults and a great way to support Uintah monetarily. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
Principal’s Message August 14, 2023
Unicorns United
Dear Uintah Community,
Welcome to the 2023-2024 school year! This year marks the 30th year of students learning in this new building. If you have a chance, look at the plaque in the front entrance way that includes one of the original Uintah signs from the old building along with some pictures of the original building as well. One of the symbols of a 30-year anniversary is the pearl, which conjured up in my mind the image of the pearly white coat of a unicorn, so let’s have fun this year celebrating 30 great years in our building as Unicorns with many more years to come!
Uintah has also undergone some wonderful construction projects this summer, which have impacted not only the inside of the building, but the grounds as well. The construction is part of the Board of Education’s efforts to minimize the impact our buildings have on the environment and to be carbon neutral. Here is a short list, provided to us in part by Greg Libecci from the district, of things that have been done at Uintah:
First, right before the school year ended, all lights inside the building were replaced with LED bulbs and fixtures. This will reduce cost and allow for more flexibility in the lighting settings of classrooms.
Second, the HVAC system was retrofitted and upgraded to be completely electric. This new system will not emit harmful emissions associated with gas fired boilers such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4). The other major improvement is the elimination of the antiquated pneumatic HVAC controls system with a state-of-the-art electronic controls system, so each classroom has more control over the temperature in the room along with giving more consistent temperatures across the building. Only parts of West High School and Uintah still had a pneumatic system.
There is a very large new piece of equipment located on the east side of the building called an Air Source Heat Pump, which performs the same service as the boiler system used to, providing the hot water required by the HVAC system to heat the school. 50 Variable Air Volume (VAV) boxes, located above the ceiling tiles, have been replaced as part of the overall new system throughout the school.
New electric kitchen equipment has been installed replacing gas fired equipment. This will make for a healthier kitchen environment by eliminating unwanted byproducts from gas combustion.
A part of all this construction was the need for a new main power line from the street to the building, which necessitated the power being shut off for almost a whole month and a half. This meant, among many things, that our sprinkling system did not go off automatically at night. To help with this, the custodial staff and I started manually turning on the sprinklers, which resulted in some issues with watering not only our grass, but also our new trees we planted just this last May, so we lost a few of our new trees. I have already talked about this with our District grounds people, and we are doing the best we can to replace those and keep up with the watering now that the power is back on to help the rest of our trees stay healthy. Trees are also great for the environment!
We look forward to seeing everyone at Back-to-School Night this coming Monday, August 21st starting at 4:30 p.m. There will be a short informational meeting for parents given at the following times:
4:30 p.m.
5:30 p.m.
6:30 p.m.
Come on by the auditorium to one of these and learn more about the school and what we are doing this year with the Zones of Regulation and hear from the PTA. The rest of the time during the evening, parents and children can meet with teachers and see where much of the learning this year will take place. It should be a great start to a ‘pearly’ great year. Go Unicorns!
Bruce Simpson
Principal
