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Leadership event joins three schools Ryan Adams......................... staff reporter Students involved in C.L.A.S.S. Leadership met with students from St. John and Fairfield to discuss how to lead and interact with others on September 27 in the little gym. Consultant Joe Coles ran the program. He has been working with groups of students and teachers all over the Midwest for many years. While this is the first year participating in the program for some students, others have already been involved in it for over a year. “When you give kids an opportunity, tools and time, it is amazing what they could accomplish,” Coles said. The students were put into different groups or pairs throughout the day with students from other schools. They learned how to make a good first impression, how to hold people accountable, and how to build strong relationships. “It was a lot more fun to meet people that I didn’t know than I expected it to be, ” sophomore Caleb Reece said. “I got used to talking in front of a lot of people, which is something I didn’t think I could do.” The students will meet two more times this year at St. John and Fairfield on November 1 and January 11.
Consultant Joe Coles leads a discussion with students from the three schools about grit. Some of his main points on the topic were for students to be more proactive, replace bad habits with positive ones, and to have good self-discipline. He had the students commit to five acts to make their school a better place between the first meeting and the last. photo by Jesus Marquez
High school students receive mentoring opportunity Ryan Adams staff reporter
The entire high school attended a mentoring assembly which was held by Youth Core Ministries September 26 during seminar. The goal of YCM is to connect mentors with young people to help influence them and to build strong relationships.
All of the high school students were given the opportunity to apply to mentor an elementary student. If the application is accepted, then they will be paired with a younger student that has similar interests and they will meet weekly for 30-45 minutes. For the application to be accepted, the students had to share what activities they were involved in, date of birth,
reasoning for wanting to be a part of the program, and have a clean record. “You don’t have to have great leadership skills to do this,” Student Success Coordinator Diane House said. “Anyone can do it.” During the weekly sessions the pairs could play games, go outside, do a weekly craft, or just work on school work.
“I think it is a good way to get high school kids involved with the elementary school kids,” senior Carson Lee said. Some surrounding schools like Cunningham, Pratt and Kiowa County are doing similar programs already. YCM challenged the Skyline students to have more kids involved than the other schools.
see mentor pg. 2
Skyline High School Volume 42 Issue 1 October 12, 2017 www.tbirdtimes.com