We are so excited about the start of the school year!  It is amazing to have our students back and experience learning in our classrooms once again.  Our families have been amazing, and I want to extend a sincere thanks for helping us with new procedures and new supports throughout the start of the school year.  Week one is always exhausting, but week one is always very exciting.  This year was no different.

Just a few items this week to share with parents:

Traffic Patterns - Student Safety

What a difference on Friday from Tuesday.  The start of the year is always packed, and this year we were learning new tricks with our traffic patterns.  By Friday, things were running very smooth for our families who pickup, as well as our students on busses.

Families, please continue to pull forward as far as possible for students to unload in the morning.  This creates much more linear feet for families to drop off, and keeps us from backing up on “Wildcat Way” which is the loop road around the schools.  

In addition, please help us with our students (we will remind them too) to use the crosswalk.  We want to make sure students are safe coming and going from school.

Also, this week we host our first home athletic events.  For after school events such as volleyball, families should use our event entrance.  We will have signs posted to assist in directing families.

As always, the flexibility and patience of our families is appreciated!  Thank you so much for helping us through this process.

Core Values/PBiS - Academic and Social Growth

Each of our students are asked to live by our core values of Trust, Respect, Ownership, and Leadership.  You will hear our staff and students alike use these terms because we strongly believe in them.  Please use them along with us when speaking to your child.  We strongly believe these values are universal, and if we come together under these values we will be much stronger as a community.

Some students this week may have received a “Core Value” card as part of our PBiS program.  Each of these cards have a ticket that students can turn in.  Each Friday, we will select a student from each grade to honor.  The winning students will receive a gift card from one of our community partners.  Thank you to The Coffee Peddlar, Dunkin, Harrison Bowl, McDonalds, Starbucks, Harrison Bowl, Diversion Arcade, and our PTO for helping sponsor this program.

If you have not heard of PBiS, please allow us a moment to share what it is all about.  PBiS stands for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.  Quite simply, it is the teaching of expected behaviors inside of our school and our community, and done in a way to honor the individuality of our families, while setting a common expectation at school.  Our common expectations are our core values, but we also have expectations that we want each of our students to have at school. This includes things as simple as how do go through the lunch line, how we change classes, and how we treat each other when we disagree.  Students this week went through specific lessons on expectations within our school, and we will continue to assist them through this process throughout the year.

This also is part of our structure to work with students who may face bullying within our schools.  Every school, workplace, and community face the challenge of bullying within its organization.  Harrison Junior School is taking specific steps to not only teach our students how to deal with bullying, but also how to better report bullying, and work to cope with struggles that come along with bullying.  This past Spring, we added some information to our school website to better inform our parents and include steps that they can also take within their home to support your child.  Please take a few minutes and click on this link:  https://www.southwestschools.org/harrison-junior-school/bullying-20/

As always, if you have a concern, please contact us directly by responding to this email or via phone at 513-367-4831.

Class Change Requests - Academic Growth

At this point of the year, our class change requests have closed.  Since Open House our guidance office has received over 500 requests, and while many were honored, others were unable to be honored due to constraints within our struggle.  Countless hours are spent typically starting in December to set up our schedule to best support the near 1200 students we have in our care.

Our counselors should be finishing up this week to help balance the number of students in each classroom and complete requests that we are able to honor.  If you have specific questions please contact them directly.  Students with the last name A-L can contact Britney.derisi@southwestschools.org, and students with the last name M-Z can contact Kelly.young@southwestschools.org.

Social Emotional Learning - Social Growth

This past Thursday, we held our first ever SEL (Social Emotional Learning) Day.  During this event, each student worked to complete a calming plan.  This plan consisted of identify emotions and feelings (I.e. my stomach hurts, I start shaking, etc…) when I get upset.  In addition, it identified times where students start to feel upset or when they will “flip their lid”.

What has been awesome to watch is students already implement these plans.  For example, we had a student on Friday night get upset, and one of the steps that he could take was to simply “take a walk”.  At the football game, we saw a student who was upset, and taking a walk.  When we stopped to talk with him, he stated that he was going to “flip his lid” and needed to calm down.  Him being able to articulate this, and then put the plan in action saved him from making a bad decision.  This was great to see.  Parents, please take a moment to talk with your child about their calming plan and steps that they can take to assist them in they are getting upset.

Pack the House - Social Growth

This week, we will be hosting our first Pack the House events of the year.  Our Football Team will be hosting East Central at the Stadium at 6:00 P.M. on Wednesday.  Our Volleyball Team will be hosting Meet the Team vs. East Central on Thursday at 5:00 P.M.  This is a great way for our students to get involved.  With the late starts, we do ask that students go home and return to school for the event.

Thank You

Once again, we want to thank our families for an awesome week!