Meeting students’ needs
Cold weather and less sunshine makes January, February, and March a natural time for attitude changes in all people. Couple this with added stressors like job changes and supply chain issues, and even the calmest adults are feeling out of sorts. We all try our best to deal with our stress, but sometimes these issues affect our children, too. Even though they might not say anything, kids pick up on adults’ moods. At school these feelings manifest themselves as behaviors like children seeking extra adult attention or it might be the opposite and a child would rather be by themselves instead of connecting with their classmates or teachers.
Because of changes like this, the staff has spent more time than ever meeting the emotional needs of the students. We have expanded the services of our school psychologist. A pupil services team has been created that meets once a week to address student needs. Staff members or parents can suggest children that have issues that need to be addressed. Creating this group has allowed us to develop plans for students so that they miss less school making them more academically successful.
We also have four staff members who have taken courses to identify youth mental health needs. This team will be training the rest of the staff each year from now on. Clark County also offers counseling services at our school. An intake appointment is needed to initiate the services, but after that the student is seen in a confidential setting at school. Maintaining these options for our students is important to me so that we can create positive, well-rounded students. As always, the students and staff have been working hard to attain academic success this school year. Teachers are currently completing mid-year assessments to identify achievement. The fourth-grade students completed NAEP testing for math and reading and the third- through fifthgrade students will be doing another round of state testing in April.
Students have also been participating in other activities. Sagia Kubista and Cloey Bell will be representing the elementary school in this year’s spelling bee. In March, the Lions Club will be doing vision testing with the 4K – sixth grade students. The third trimester starts in March and there will be one more day of parent/teacher conferences in April; and the annual Easter Parade will also be in April.
Even though it seems like it is a long way off, teachers are hard at work preparing summer school courses for kindergarten through middle school students. As always, we are happy to be working as partners with our parents to build a positive environment for all of our learners.
