Recently, Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan took exception to comments made by SUN President Mike Victoria, when Victoria said in an interview that, “Stapletonians are exceptional.” “No one should think they are exceptional,” stated a frustrated Hogan in in an interview with The Aurora Sentinel. “What makes Stapletonians any better than anyone else in the Denver Metro area? In particular, we Aurorans certainly are not impressed with Stapletonians. We don’t look up to them, so they certainly should not look down on us.” [Read more…] about Aurora Mayor Hogan to Stapleton: “No One Should Think They’re Exceptional”

The King Soopers gas station has had several struggles and its fair share of complaints over the years. With the opening of two 711’s, some of the congestion at the King Soopers gas station has subsided, but the organization and wait time still has a lot of work to do. A couple of years ago, King Soopers tried to help with the organization by painting some arrows to help customers getting in and out of the station. Problem is, either people don’t understand how arrows work, or they simply ignore these arrows. [Read more…] about King Soopers Gas Station Works to Make Direction Arrows More Meaningless

Recently, the 2013 DPS School Performance Framework Scores came out, and not surprising, McAuliffe Middle School passed with flying colors. In fact, McAuliffe is considered “Distinguished” in School Performance Framework, and “Exceeded Expectations” in both the Growth and Parent Satisfaction areas. “We were very pleased to see the scores, but are always looking to improve,” said McAuliffe Principal Vogel. “There are a lot of great schools in Northeast Denver, and it is nice to know that we are the greatest of those great schools.” [Read more…] about New McAuliffe Slogan: “When ‘Meets Expectations’ Just Isn’t Good Enough”

Whether or not you use Facebook, you get the general idea. People can let other people know about their lives and thoughts, and are able to stalk others to find out how their lives are going as well. Typically, personal Facebook users use Facebook for some of the following reasons:

• Those using Facebook as their personal Hallmark: These users use Facebook to tell close family and friends how much they love them. For example: “Thank you to the greatest wife in the world. Happy anniversary, Becky. Here’s to 15 more years!” or “Happy birthday to the most beautiful three year old in the world. We love you, Charlie.”
• People letting others know how great their life is: These users make sure to post pictures of their vacations, expensive purchases, and all around fun times with friends. They include job success stories as well as how great their relationships are. Essentially letting others know, “my life is perfect, so you should feel really, really bad about yourself.”
• Those updating all aspects of their life with an effort for a comedic twist: These users post every hour or so to update mundane details of their lives, almost like they are in a reality show that people care about. They mention their workouts, paying bills, waiting in lines, etc. To feel better about this obsession with believing everyone cares about their lives, they always attempt to make the update funny. Ex: “Just finished a five mile run. Excited to drink those calories right back tonight at The Berkshire!”

Resident Chad Druvenga has recently added a new category: Updating standard daily work tasks. Chad saw the other three types of Facebook users dominating the space and decided a new category needed to be added. “So many people would post things about work,” said Chad. “But none of the work posts I saw painted a true picture of office life. Being at the office rarely is funny, nor does it have self-fulfillment. So, I wanted to give a truer understanding of daily work life than what was being represented on Facebook.” Chad began posting in October, and friends and users are already enjoying his posts. “Of course, they are not interesting or funny,” said Facebook user Mike Gates. “But, I respect them because you know you are in the same boat with someone. I am a realist, and therefore, appreciate his posts.” Other users agree. “Misery loves company,” said Kristen Seery. “I get sick of reading people’s happy-go-lucky positive posts every day, so reading his posts actually make me feel better.” Here are some examples of Chad’s posts:

• “Just got done responding to angry client email. Had to be nice to them, but didn’t want to.”
• “Boss just showed up 10 minutes late to meeting he scheduled. I know I am not important, but have a little respect for my time.”
• “Review time. I have to spend the next four hours reviewing myself which will just go on file, and has no bearing at all on if I will get a raise.”
• “Just started responding to emails I have been completely ignoring for weeks. I hope there was nothing pressing in there. If there was they would have called, right?”
• “Every time I log into my system every morning I think to myself, “why am I here?”

Chad plans to continue to make his pointless work posts as long as people are reading them. “If people continue to like them, I will continue to post.” Chad has also started to see others making similar posts. “The idea is that I hopefully started a whole new category. Maybe it is not entertaining, but at least posts like these will let people know they are not alone in the world.” ]]>

As suspected for several years now, the bubble of elementary school-aged children is continuing to grow in the Stapleton community. We don’t mean growing in number of kids, but AGE of kids. What was once a simple concern over the number of seats in existing elementary school classrooms, is now becoming an alarming new reality: Our little ones are growing into teenagers. At the same time. “There’s no doubt about it.” said resident and parent of twin tweens, Mike Herold. “Our boys are indeed getting older. I just knew this was going to happen.” [Read more…] about Survey Shows Most Stapleton Parents in Denial about Growing Teen Bubble

If you have been on a walk on any of the wonderful Stapleton trails , or played at one of the many pocket parks in the early evening, you most likely have not enjoyed your experience. “The mosquitos have been unbelievable,” says resident Mitchell Schall. “My kids are getting eaten alive, and I spray them with bug spray. I don’t know what to do.” [Read more…] about Mosquito Problem Really Bugging Stapletonians

If you didn’t know that the school board election was coming up (November 5th), you are not alone. In fact, most people have no idea who the candidates are, what they stand for, or how and where they would even vote for them. “You know, I am still exhausted from the Presidential election,” said resident Amanda McCoy. “I just don’t have the time to read about the issues. Why don’t they have commercials on TV or have a debate I can watch? That would be so much easier to follow.” [Read more…] about School Board Election Interests Almost No One

Teachers have long struggled with the best way to appropriately incentivize kids to work harder at school and behave better. Dozens of studies have been done in regards to what will work best to encourage children to do better on tests, including one where students were actually paid for better test scores In the end, teachers are pretty much in a corner, as public schools will not fund these rewards so teachers are forced to find an inexpensive way to motivate the kids. “I’ve been giving kids small pieces of candy for years,” says Bill Roberts Elementary teacher John DeLay. “It is inexpensive, and the kids respond to it.” DeLay says that he is not giving the kids a large amount, just small pieces. “Literally, I will give kids one M&M,” says DeLay. “It is more about them seeing the reward and feeling proud that they did it, and the class gets to see them rewarded before they eat their 3.44 calorie treat.” Not shockingly, this reward system has drawn the ire of some Stapleton moms. “I don’t want my child having candy at school,” says Erin Herold, mother of a Swigert Elementary student. “When I am with them, I can control this intake. I have no faith that the school is going to monitor this appropriately. We already have too many obese kids in this country.” Other moms agreed. “Why can’t they give away broccoli, or maybe let the kids run a mile or do 25 pushups every time they do well,” asks parent Becky Axtell. “To me, there is just a lot more synergy in that than rewarding good behavior with a negative item.” The PTA and teachers decided the best way to incentivize kids at school would be to use the same incentives Stapleton kids have at home. “A lot of Stapleton parents get their kids expensive gifts for doing well in school, being nice to siblings, or just going to bed without making a fuss,” said PTA President Angela Benning. “So, we decided to put some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars we raise towards video games for teachers to hand out to kids when they get a good score on a test, behave well, or help with a classroom task.” The schools were smart about how they purchased the games, getting them used from Craig’s List and eBay, and donations from homes that are tired of the games they have. “We spent about $125,000 on used video games,” said Benning. “We will use this as a benchmark, and see if we need more games next year, or if we can allot less money to the fund.” Luckily for the PTA, there have been no studies directly connecting childhood obesity and video games (we don’t think). ]]>