Relationships over Rules

This past week on Lori Desautel's Facebook page I read an article about how stressed out our youth are.  I think that it is easy to forget what their young minds have to deal with.  On one hand, our students have high expectations academically.  College admission requirements, completing technical certificates, SAT/ACT scores, homework, GPA, scholarships . . . the list goes on.  This list, of course, is just their daytime stress.  Many students have jobs, play sport(s), and other responsibilities at home - not to mention spending time with their peers.  Their days are full and their expectation is perfection.   

Sometimes a student's reason for stress is not as visible.  Last week at the Whole Child Conference in Bloomington, we had a presentation from the Indiana Youth Institute.  This organization tracks the well-being of children across the state.  Currently, the state of Indiana shows that our students have a lot of silent stresses in their lives:  1 in 6 experience food insecurities, 17% of students do not live with their parents, 48% of children face maltreatment (there is a call made into DCS every 2 minutes on average in Indiana), and 14.5% live in working poor homes (homes where people are working full-time jobs but not making enough money to get out of the poverty level.)   In Perry County alone the data shows that we are 2nd in the state in the number of Child In Need Of Services cases (CHINS), 5th in teen birthrates, 20% live with food insecurities and 21st in homelessness rates. 

Even though stress of each individual child looks different, all of our students are impacted.  As educators, I think it is important that we remember this about our students.  Learning can only happen when our student's brains are in their executive state.  Our work in conscious discipline, restorative practices and brain aligned work comes at a time when our children desperately need our guidance and support.  Andy Stanley, in his book Irresistible, reminds us of the importance of doing something relational and not legal if we want to really want to make a difference.  When we take time to build relationships, teach students how to manage their stress, and help them navigate social/emotional states of mind, we can then get to learning - and that is what changes the world!   


Important Information:

Learning Objectives:  A lot of great working being done in the classrooms around Learning Objectives!  I wanted to share some great examples that I saw this week: 
   * I can determine how the time, place or culture of a work influences character.
   * I can cite evidence to support inferences in my writing.
   * I can determine if a sample is a representative of a population.
   * I can calculate the number of moles from a given amount of a substance.
   * I can describe the phases of mitosis by creating a mitosis video. 
   * I can analyze the impact of slavery on Africa and Europe by doing the group web quest.

A LOT of great learning happening at PC!  :-) 

ISTEP Testing -  This week, all 10th grade students will be taking the math and English ISTEP test.  We tried to build the schedule so that it doesn't interrupt other classes, but we appreciate your flexibility along the way!  You can find the ISTEP schedule through the link below - remember to look at the math and English tabs.  Math tests will be March 5,6 and English will be 7,8 and 11.

Click HERE

Adv Manufacturing Advisory Board Meeting - Monday, March 4th, Josh Craney and Bo Gibson will be hosting 12 guests from the community to talk about their programs and make sure that our programs are aligned to the economy needs.  Advisory Board meetings are a requirement for vocational classes for Perkins CTE Funds.   All of our vocational classes are required to have these meetings throughout the year. 

ASPIRE - All 10th grade students will be participating in the College Success Coalition's ASPIRE event on Wednesday, March 13th.  Over 60 members of the community will come together and talk about careers with our students.  All of the girls in the county will be at Perry Central and all of our boys will travel to Tell City's gym.   It is a very exciting event!  We will send more information out next week.

Commodore Pride - It is that time of year again!  Vanessa Johnson is leading our efforts in Commodore Pride this year.  Anyone interested in helping can meet in Vanessa's room at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, March 8th!

Important Dates: 

Monday, March 4 -  Adv. Mfg Advisory Board Meeting 11:15 - 12:15

Tuesday, March 5 - ISTEP Math Test (see schedule)

Wednesday, March 6 - ISTEP Math Test (see schedule), Junior High Brainstorm Meeting 3:10 HS library

Thursday, March 7 - ISTEP English Test (see schedule)

Friday, March 8 - ISTEP English Test (see schedule), Commodore Pride Meeting 7:30 a.m. Vanessa Johnson's room