RickScheibner.net

Our school district has invested in training for 40 Developmental Assets from Search Institute.  These answer the question, “What do our kids have in their lives that help them grow to be healthy?”  Rather than just being a new program that we have to squeeze in between 2nd Step and recess, this is just a way of looking at what we do  at school to help kids grow to their potential.  External assets are the things that kids have around them.  Internal assets are based inside the students themselves.  Some of the external assets we directly have here at school, others are based in the home and the community.  External assets are:

• Support
• Empowerment
• Boundaries and Expectations
• Constructive Use of time

Internal boundaries include:

• Commitment to Learning
• Positive Values
• Social Competencies
• Positive Identity

Each of the 40 Developmental Assets falls under one of those categories.  At Sunset Elementary, one activity we are focusing on is catching kids doing the right thing, which falls under the heading of “Caring school climate” in Support.

What are you doing at your school or in your personal life to promote kids growing up healthy?

From the Register-Guard in Eugene:

The State Board of Education has made modest improvements in the way that high school athletic leagues will be restructured in the future. But the board failed to make the bold changes necessary to fix the current six-tier plan that imposes unnecessary hardships on schools in three of the state’s largest communities - and to prevent similarly flawed plans in the future.

Last Thursday, the board unanimously adopted an administrative rule change that will require the Oregon School Activities Association to “consider and address” student safety, loss of class time and costs to school districts the next time it reshuffles athletic leagues.

I just don’t get it. It’s ok for Pendleton to travel to Bend on a regular basis for athletic events, but it’s not ok for McNary to travel to Redmond for the same purpose? Can somebody please explain the logic of all of this to me? And please be careful not to use big words. I live in Eastern Oregon, you know.

The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA

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