Posted July 22, 2026
Dear Swigert Community,
We hope you are all having a wonderful summer. We are gearing up for the upcoming school year and look forward to seeing everyone soon. We just wanted to share a short update as we’re about 28 days out from school starting.
If you have any specific questions please reach out, we are here and ready to support.
Shelby Dennis, Principal – Shelby_Dennis@dpsk12.net
Amber Holthus-Pera, Assistant Principal – Amber_Holthus-Pera@dpsk12.net
Emily Pool, Community Liaison – Emily_Pool@dpsk12.net
Krystie Warlum, Office Manager – kwarlum@dpsk12.net
The office staff will be back on Monday, July 27th from 8:30-4:00, ready to assist!
Below you will find some important summer and back to school dates!
This is your August at a Glance calendar. A full resolution printable of this and instructions on how to link our google calendar to yours can be found here: https://swigert.dpsk12.org/about/calendar/
Registration is the process by which you confirm the information we have on file for your household. This is the annual process of providing and updating your student and family information, such as emergency contacts, health information, etc. It will reopen again July 27th and you have until the end of August to complete it. For the full details on how to complete registration, please see HERE.
Please note: Families who do NOT complete online registration before August 20th will be held up at the Meet the Teacher Night. You will need to complete registration paperwork on-site before receiving your student’s class class information.
If you have already completed online registration, please disregard this message.
To register online, primary legal guardians of current DPS students must have an active DPS Parent Portal account. Visit myportal.dpsk12.org to sign up or to check that your account is active and ready.
For more information on how to complete online registration visit
schoolchoice.dpsk12.org/o/schoolchoice/page/online-registration
Click HERE for school supply details. You are no longer able to buy through our vendor EPI, but use the lists to buy from any of your favorite local or online retailers. Please bring your supplies on Meet the Teacher Night.
Discovery Link, our before and after school care program is open for fall registration. See all the details here: https://swigert.dpsk12.org/2026/07/17/2026-27-discovery-link-registration/.
Fall Enrichment sign up will happen in early August and we will share the date as soon as it’s published. Then, you can take a look at the options. Enrichment activities run one hour after school. Students can participate in both Enrichment and Discovery Link on the same day by registering for both programs! You have to sign up for an Arux account to be able to register, so do that now. 
Sign up for account – https://dps.arux.app/
Thursday, August 13th, 5:30 PM and Sunday, August 16th, 9 AM
We have two New Family Playdates scheduled in August to give parents and kids a chance to meet classmates and other families and to feel more comfortable on the first day of school. Just come to the playground for hanging out and popsicles. Current Swigert families are encouraged to come!
Thursday, August 20th, 5-6 PM
Join us at Swigert to find out who your teacher and classmates will be for the year! You’ll have an opportunity to say hello to your new teacher, sign up for an assessment time (during the first two days of school in the afternoons), let teachers know your child’s plan for getting to and from school, and pick up any other pertinent information about the start of the year. The PTA will sell Spirit Wear and administrators will be making their way around to say hello. You can also bring your school supplies to drop off in the classroom. This is an open-house style event; you and your family can come by anytime during the window. The Kona Ice truck will be on the playground as well for purchase.
The first two days – August 24th and 25th – are half days. This allows students to ease into their new schedule and provide time for individual assessments in the afternoon. Your classroom teacher will reach out to you to set up individual time slots for these afternoon assessments. The arrival time is the same, with students arriving between 7:55 am and 8:05, with classes starting at 8:10. The dismissal time is noon, no lunch will be provided. Be sure to pack a water bottle and snack.
We will have our annual park to school walk on the first day. We have a new location to begin our walk this year. We wanted to eliminate the challenging crossing on Central Park Blvd.
We will gather at 7:45am at FlyteCo Tower in the parking lot (MAP). They will allow you to park there. Grab coffee from Panda Coffee House there anytime from 7-9:30am and they’ll be giving Swigert 20% of proceeds.
We will begin our walk to school at 7:45am. Parents and siblings are welcome to join us for this walk. Staff will be out on the playground beginning at 7:55 am if you are unable to join the walk. Buses will be running their regular routes for both arrival and dismissal.
Saturday August 29th 8:30-10:30 am
Thursday, September 3rd from 5:30-7:00 pm.
This event is for parents to learn about the year ahead from their classroom teacher and school wide programming from the leadership team. We will send out details as it gets closer.
We strive to have great communication around all thing Swigert. Please also visit our website at www.swigert.dpsk12.org to learn more about Swigert and events that are coming up. You can also join our “Friends of Swigert International School” private Facebook page – www.facebook.com/groups/friendsofswigert. We post pictures of events at school, interact as a school family, and you can see friendly reminders of upcoming events. Who to contact if you have questions about:
| ROLE | NAME | |
| Instruction, Programming, etc | Shelby Dennis Amber Holthus-Pera | Shelby_Dennis@dpsk12.net Amber_Holthus-Pera@dpsk12.net |
| Daily School Life, Eagle Post | Emily Pool | Emily_Pool@dpsk12.net |
| Registration & Office Support | Krystie Warlum TBD | kwarlum@dpsk12.net |
| Building Use & Restorative Justice | Dani Pinto | danilson_pinto@dpsk12.net |
| Health | Nurse Hoang Tran | Hoang_Tran@dpsk12.net |
| IB Program, Service Learning | Tabitha Jones | tjones2@dpsk12.net |
| Swigert PTA | Kristen Manning | president@swigertpta.com |