It’s Time to ROAR!
by Jennifer S. Christensen, MSW
Grant & Community Liaison
In the three short months I’ve been working at Roy High School, I’ve learned that caring about kids is a deeply-rooted Roy City tradition. I was hired by Weber School District in late September as a grant and community liaison for a Partnerships for Student Success grant funded by the Utah State Legislature, and I’m enjoying this wonderful opportunity to serve our students.
What We’re Talking About
If you’ve been around awhile, you’ve probably heard of the Roy Cone Project. The term “Roy Cone” refers to 11 schools in our community – Roy High School and its 10 feeder schools, which include:
• Roy Junior High
• Sand Ridge Junior High
• Freedom Elementary
• Lakeview Elementary
• Midland Elementary
• Municipal Elementary
• North Park Elementary
• Roy Elementary
• Valley View Elementary
• West Haven Elementary
The Roy Cone Project was created in January 2014 to support the State of Utah’s Prosperity 2020 initiative. More important, it was designed to help Roy’s students achieve a higher level of pre-kindergarten through 12th grade success, with “laser-like focus” on seven “goals and strategies that will best prepare all of our students for college, career and life in a global, high-tech environment.”
The Roy Cone Project was originally made possible by the commitment of many Roy educators and community members and a large donation from the Alan and Jeanne Hall Foundation. The grass-roots vision behind it ultimately grew from a living room conversation to a legislative initiative, with the Utah State Legislature ultimately funding SB 67, a bill sponsored by Senator Ann Millner, R-18, who served from 2002 to 2012 as the 11th president of Weber State University.
A Brief History Lesson
To better understand where we’re going, it’s important to know where we’ve been. Basically, we want you to hear us ROAR! We’re currently in the process of retiring the Roy Cone Project’s original name, we’re working hard to expand its vision under a new name, “Project ROAR.” This important acronym stands for “Reaching Out, Achieving Results.”
We accomplish our goals through strategic partnerships in business, our community and education. As we continue to grow, our partners include:
• Alan & Jeanne Hall Foundation
• AmeriCorps
• Boys & Girls Clubs of Weber-Davis
• Department of Workforce Services
• Intermountain / McKay-Dee Hospital
• Local Businesses
• Logistic Specialties, Inc. (LSI)
• Midtown Community Health Center
• Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce Partners in Education Committee
• Ogden-Weber Community Action Partnership
• Ogden-Weber Technical College
• Roy City
• Roy Communities That Care Coalition
• Roy PTA Regional Council
• United Way of Northern Utah
• Weber County Commissioner’s Intergenerational Poverty Initiative
• Weber School District
• Weber School Foundation
• Weber State University
What We Intend to Accomplish
We embrace the Roy Cone Project’s original vision to be “recognized as an outstanding, innovative and unified force for good in the lives of the students it serves and a major contributor to increased economic prosperity in Utah.” Project ROAR is focused on the same seven goals and strategies developed by the project’s founders. The outcomes we are working to achieve are these:
- Children enter kindergarten ready to succeed in school
- Third grade students are proficient in reading & math
- Eighth grade students are proficient in reading & math
- Students are mentally & physically healthy
- Students will graduate from high school
- High school graduates will enroll in post-secondary education
- Students will graduate high school prepared for careers
Would you like to help us accomplish this mission? We’d love to welcome you on board. Project ROAR’s team is led by principals Kirt Swalbert (Roy High), Matt Williams (Roy Junior High) and Diane Rockwood (Freedom Elementary) and is facilitated by Jennifer Christensen (Roy High), with Kassandra Tello serving as grant evaluation specialist (Weber State University). For more information, please email jechristensen@wsd.net.