Rock Canyon is the high school for all Castle Pines North public schools and schools within the
surrounding area. At the start of the 2005-2006 school year, 144 students had open enrolled at Rock Canyon from other Douglas County high schools.
Principal Dan McMinimee attributes the large number of open enrolled students to the programs that Rock Canyon offers. He feels that there is a balance of academics, athletics and activities and the school encourages students to become involved in each of the areas. “I’m really proud of what we’ve built at Rock Canyon. We have great kids, great parents and great teachers,” said McMinimee.
A typical class size at Rock Canyon has around 30 students with one teacher. McMinimee stated that open enrolling students outside the feeder area doesn’t affect class size. Having fewer students would simply mean the school would have a smaller teaching staff, not smaller class sizes. Having larger classes actually allows the school to run efficiently. Teachers don’t teach multiple subjects. Instead, they teach more sections of the same subject allowing for less prep work and providing an expertise in a particular area.
Even with the large number of open enrolled students, Rock Canyon is still considered a small high school. The school currently has approximately 800 students. In comparison, Douglas County High School, which used to serve the CPN neighborhood, had over 2,300 students enrolled last year.
Rock Canyon opened its doors with about 210 students in the fall of 2003. Now the school has almost 800 students including freshmen, sophomores and juniors. The largest class size is the
freshman class at 334 and holds the majority of open enrolled students. The current school building was built to hold 1,600 students and there is an additional wing that could be added to increase that number to 2,000. McMinimee anticipates the enrollment of 400 students per grade to happen over the next five years.
To find out more about Rock Canyon High School visit their web site at
www.dcsd.k12.co.us/secondary/rchs.
