Allison Beck, Reporter
@abeckcourant
Every other Wednesday, all students have an extra built in class known as “Connections”, where they perform a variety of activities that benefit the school climate. On January 2, Student Advocates Club participants were selected to sit in on a meeting about possible ways to better the Connections curriculum. This meeting was half of the school day and consisted of students, counselors, and administrators testing out a variation of activities that could potentially be used starting in the upcoming academic term.
Guidance Counselor, Rachel Hartong attended the meeting to assess the possible success of the proposed solutions. “The students seemed to have enjoyed themselves and they had a lot of good feedback to give,” she said. “The more students can be involved in the process with themes and trying out activities for the class, the better”
The school hired an outside consultant, known as Brian, to create and revise outlined structures for the class who went through a series of exercises, and possible class outlines, to see how students and administrators would react. Junior Anna Meli, a member of the Student Advocates club said, “He is in charge of trying to make the school climate better and just help us get to know each other better and become more of a community.”
Anna was involved in testing the new ideas presented at the meeting. “We each anonymously wrote a letter asking for advice and then they were collected and redistributed.We then tried to give each person specific advice,” Anna said. We are trying to bring more activities like that to connections to help students and try to help them with what is going on in their lives.”
Each club member was invited to this meeting for a specific reason. “The club and Connections have the same goals which is bettering the school climate” Anna said. “We all want the school community to be closer. So the student advocates is an extension of Connections class.”
The Student Advocates Club is a group of students that meet each week who focus on bringing the student body together with an emphasis on inclusion.
The meeting set future goals revolving around student interactions and participation for the future. “I hope that the activities prove interactive for kids,” Anna said. “Hopefully the ideas are able to get the students more involved in the future.”
