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Principal Message
Students have settled into their classes, and content is creeping up on them, which means they have a bit more to do and things are getting a bit more difficult. There is also a lot going on beyond the school day with athletics, social gatherings, fall activities, etc. In other words, it is the time of year that students start to get a bit run down, and at times may struggle to stay engaged with their learning, or remember to bring their supplies to class, etc. We want to keep moving in a positive direction at GDS so we are asking for your cooperation with a couple of situations we are experiencing.
The first area is the hands on area. We understand students' ability to communicate appropriately is still maturing in middle years, however we need students to do their best at keeping their hands to themselves, especially in less structured situations. For example, the recess area is unstructured. Students may be playing basketball or tag or just hanging out, and out of nowhere someone comes and jumps on or grabs or tackles someone else, just for fun because we are friends. But someone gets hurt or gets angry and a fist fight comes next. A high five, tap on the shoulder, fist bump are fine but otherwise please try to help us curve more physically aggressive actions, be that play or out of anger.
Associate Principal Mr. Kamoku and School Resource Officer Jessica Helgeland went around to all 8th grade core classrooms last week and talked about “depantsing”. The basic message was, “you may not pull down, pull off, tear, or rip away other students' articles of clothing”. Mr. Kamoku explained how any actions of such are in violation of our board policy on bullying and possibly harassment. He talked about how unsafe it is for the victim both socially and emotionally. He also explained possible school consequences for the offender. Officer Jess talked about the legal ramifications of the situation if the victim’s family wanted to pursue legal action and/ or if the school were to refer a situation to the police department for investigation. Students were surprised to learn the magnitude of these actions. Pulling clothing off a student, regardless of personal sexual identity, friends or not friends, could rise to the level of sexual harassment. In this past week, we have had three situations in which we conducted a school investigation into students pulling down other students' shorts. We need your help to make this stop immediately. Something that may seem funny and silly, is extremely harmful and inappropriate and will not be tolerated.
In more positive news, our 7th grade students were at Cottage Grove School last Thursday meeting their book buddies, then spending time in the school forest working on science and art projects. The 7th grade staff set up a wonderful and even ordered perfect weather.
The majority of our students have completed their fall iReady testing, with only a few make ups left to take. iReady is our district progress monitoring tool. We use this testing to make sure our curriculum is meeting our learning needs, and we make changes as needed. Students test in ELA and Math in the fall and then again in the spring. I am anxious to see where our students' biggest needs are after a couple rough years of pandemic. Our state test is the Forward Exam which will be held in the spring. Please watch for more information come January 2023.
Lost and Found - Has your child lost a new sweatshirt, a pair of shoes, 6 water bottles??? No worries, we probably have it. Ask your child 12 times to stop and look in our lost and found. We take a batch of items to a donation center at the end of every quarter, but we prefer the items get returned to their rightful owners.
I hope to have a new video or a live video near the end of October.
Go Silver Eagles,
Kris Langer
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