We are excited to announce that the Lions AIM Mentoring Program has begun.

40 Community Member Volunteers have been partnered with 40 Washington Middle School Students to support them in their academic, social, and life goals!

On October 13th, all of the mentors and mentees officially met and completed some challenges to get to know each other and start their relationship for the year. We are so thankful for this group of amazing adults and students!

Suzanne Walker's Food Science Students who are members of IKE FCCLA Club participated in the Central Washington State Fair in the School Division where they canned peaches donated by Thompson Farms and made cookies that were entered into the fair.  Items made were on display at the fair in the Modern Living building.  

Students learned about Food Preservation with canning peaches and learned about chemistry in baking cookies.  Congratulations!

Thank you to Mr. Cyr, the shop teacher at Davis for helping me, Mindy Sparks, provide coconuts for my horse lesson in music! I bought the coconuts at the local store and needed them cut in half and hollowed out to provide instruments for my Sped students here at Adams. He was able to use his saw and his talents to cut them in half. I picked them up, took them home and baked them so the white meat of the coconut would separate from the shell. I scraped and popped out the white meat and now we have awesome instruments in our classroom for everyone to play! The students loved playing their coconuts! They were so surprised they could be used as instruments! I am very thankful for the collaboration that took place for the education of our students! They will also be used for my kindergarten classes at Hoover, Gilbert, and McClure in the coming weeks!Mr Cyr, you made a positive impact on my students' learning and I am very grateful! - Mindy Sparks

MIGRANT PROGRAM SPOTLIGHT

Each summer teachers and students from Washington Middle School are invited to participate in the Voices from the Field Arts Academy.  The narrative from OSPI reads:

Voices from the Field Arts Academy provides outstanding arts experiences for middle school students and educators through the Washington State Migrant Education Program. Many of the participating students have not had a great number of opportunities to experience the arts in their regular school day. OSPI has partnered with Arts Impact to create arts infused Math and ELA lessons designed to help educators build student voice and experiences with the assistance of artist mentors.

One of our participants was a student named Cristina.  She now attends Eisenhower and is sharing her experience with Student Advocate Nora Lopez.  She had the opportunity to attend this academy two years in a row.  She shared what fun it was to meet new friends, use her imagination for projects, see other student’s projects, listen, learn, and laugh. 

Here is her mask project from this past summer.  Isn’t it cool?!  Cristina believes this opportunity has given her confidence to engage in the classroom and grow through leadership. 

One of the services the migrant program offers is STUDENT LEADERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT.  The goal is to offer activities that build supportive networks that enhance the feeling of belonging while at school, which then improves engagement and academic achievement. 

McKinley Elementary usually has an all-school assembly on the first Monday of every month where we celebrate student success.  We can't all be in the gym this year, so we tried our first virtual assembly this week... and it went great!  It started with a screen of instructions as the individual classrooms accessed the assembly via Google Meet.

Then the students participated in the Google Meet assembly, watching their classroom screens.

When it was an individual classroom's turn to shine, they unmuted themselves, letting the school see them on the big screen!

It was a lot of fun.  Even though we can't gather in the same room, we can still find ways to work together as one community.  Go Mavericks!