eedback coming from parents, Manzo anticipates a spring season. Right now, the classes are comprised of only fifteen girls and two coaches. If more girls want to join, Manzo expects to split the classes.
Manzo summarized the importance of the after school program by saying, "life is about choices, and the more positive choices we can make the better, not only our life but the better society will be in the end." Blanche Sims Brag Tags
Lake Orion has many such educational initiatives that may not show up on a year-end standardized test. Another example of a difficult to assess but all-important aspect of a child's education is seen over at Blanche Sims Elementary.
In what she calls the Respect Circle, Principal Jennifer Goethals pow-wows with her students in the morning. Standing in the middle, she announces birthdays for the month, and then the students and staff sing the school song and Happy Birthday together.
Goethals then talks about the school's good behavior program, and presents "brag tags" to the best behaved students of the month.
The Respect Circle and Brag Tags are new for Blanche Sims this year. Goethals said her school teaches students "what respectful behaviors look like, what school is, what it means to be in control of yourself. If a student has trouble with that we re-teach them."
The behavior program seeks to instill a life-long love of learning and positive self-image. Goethals knows that a child's basic needs aren't always met at home, and educators are responsible for meeting those needs.
"We feed kids, and we find snow pants. For instance, today, I got a $100 gift card for a family to Kroger because they were having trouble putting food on the table. Those are just things that we do because we love kids. You can't measure that stuff."
"The Respect Circle," Goethals continued, is designed "to increase the feel of community in the building and to celebrate kids. Each week, teachers choose someone who has behaved well, has been a nice friend, and has basically shown a better role model on what good behavior looks like."
The reason to go beyond the main three content areas (Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic) is that students will perform better as a result.
"If all a student's basic needs are met, then they do better at learning and hence better on assessments," Goethals argued. Basic needs "have to be in place before kids in Orion can think about doing well on a state assessment. Those are things that you can't measure."
Perhaps it is difficult for standardized exams to capture these types of gains, but that doesn't mean they can't be tested.
"Teachers and parents can tell a difference," Goethals said. "But the state assessment doesn't measure those things. We could tell you that we feel like it's making a difference for our kids. They're happy to come to school, our attendance is high, we have high turnout for school activities. Those things are how you measure a healthy school community, but I don't know if you see that in MEAP scores."
Superintendent Marion Ginopolis applauded the efforts of these two educators. She knows the value added to Lake Orion and the larger community when the entire child is considered when building a curriculum.
Goethals and Manzo are examples of "two of many initiatives that we've got that focus on the whole child and not just the academic part," Ginopolis said.