Our School
Welcome to Pine Grove Elementary!
At Pine Grove Elementary, your child will learn in an environment defined by our motto: “Building The Bridge From Foundation To Innovation”. This motto means that your children will learn foundational skills of reading, writing, computation, and problem solving in engaging and innovative ways. But our teachers don’t stop here. They will provide opportunities for their students to apply these foundational skills to real world learning experiences. Our teachers are all certified and over 85% have advanced education degrees beyond a Bachelor’s. Our staff goes above and beyond to know your child and meet their personalized learning needs at their level.
STEM learning is one example of opportunities offered to all students. For example, you’ll see students coding in our STEM Lab while they steer a drone along a designated path to foster problem solving and collaboration skills. In our younger classrooms, you’ll see students using engineering skills to build a storyboard out of Legos to reinforce foundational skills of plot development found in literature.
The Arts are alive at Pine Grove! PGE values your child’s daily learning experiences through our Specials programming consisting of Physical Education, Music, Art and STEM. Several times a year, the specials teachers collaborate to offer performing arts opportunities. For example, our first, second and third graders perform a specials show each spring based on a theme. The students sing, dance, prepare artful backdrops and use technology to research to demonstrate their learning through performance. Another example of performing arts at Pine Grove occurs when our specials teachers survey our incoming 6th graders about their interests. The teachers take the survey results and create sixth grade specials electives based on these interests. We know your child will love being a student at Pine Grove Elementary where we balance academics with the arts.
We are fortunate that our students come to school each day ready to learn. Our community supports learning through thousands of volunteer hours each year and are involved in our organized parent groups of PGEA and SAC. Because our students are so well supported at home, they are ready to take on many leadership opportunities in addition to their academic work. When your child attends PIne Grove, they will have the opportunity to join many different clubs and organizations during the school day, as well as before and after school. Our student leadership groups consist of Anti-Bullying Team, Community Service Team, Green Team, and Technology Team. New this year, Pine Grove will participate with National Elementary Honor Society.
Kelly Coonts, Principal
Pine Grove Elementary
About the PGE Sculpture
Artist: Barbara Baer
Ms. Barbara Baer earned her BFA from Tulane University in New Orleans and her Masters in Sculpture from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
She has designed and installed sculptures in San Francisco, New York, St. Louis, Chicago, Vail, Denver, Berlin and Hamburg in Germany, and Nagoya in Japan.
Ms. Baer has had a long-standing fascination with spatial design and the interaction of materials with light. Her plastic and metal constructions incorporate rich, translucent color and shifting shadow-play to engage and reward perception. The abstract works are designed to interact with changes of light across a room, park or plaza. Most sculptures are commissions, which offer the opportunity to create works with a specific sense of place and emotional intent.
Inspiration
Imagine the slender, arching curves of a cluster of pine needles. Then color them the brilliant blue of the Colorado sky. Pull in the platted geometry of the school's entry plaza. Spangle these shapes with glowing color and playful symbols. These ideas combine to create a signature sculpture for Pine Grove Elementary. This steel and polycarbonate work is designed to evoke both friendly exuberance and peaceful delight.
Image and Color
Familiar shapes are designed to be perceived in unfamiliar ways. Letters and numbers are tumbled in space and, from certain angles, seen in reverse, as if the viewer is standing inside the page looking out. Atop the highest curve is a radial pattern of hands, traced from the student apprentices who work on the sculpture. Steel arches in a tripod configuration communicate shelter and stability.
Symbols are the familiar black of type, but displayed against fields of greens and yellows. The color is harmonious and vivid but unpredictable. In sunlight the painted polycarbonate glows like stained glass.
Scale and placement
The sculpture is 12' tall with a tripod base spread 9' x 6' x 8' apart. The work is placed in a triangular open space to be encircled by pedestrian traffic without impeding it and to separate from the bench activity area. The light standard at one tip of the site provides ambient illumination at night.
Materials
The sculpture is constructed of welded and bolted steel plate, projected to be 1/2" thick. The metal is sandblasted before a rust barrier primer is applied and then painted with epoxy for outdoor durability and color stability. The final paint layer is a urethane clearcoat formulated for graffiti and UV resistance.
The plastic elements are polycarbonate sheet bolted to the metal forms. This 1/2" thick plastic is highly impact resistant and UV stabilized to retain its colorless nature. Surfaces are sprayed with lightfast paint rated for outdoor applications. The shapes are clearcoated on both sides with urethane auto enamel: an extremely durable finish that is also UV and graffiti resistant.
All structural decisions follow the recommendations of a licensed structural engineer.