Vaping in Schools

I will admit, being a parent can be scary at times.  Alcohol, drugs, bullying, peer pressure, dating, and today's topic…vaping.  This is new for me, but recently there is a lot of talk about E-Cigarettes that are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, they almost look like flash drives, so this appeals to students, as they are easy to conceal.  The use of an e-cigarette basically heats a liquid into a vapor, which can then be inhaled. The liquid could be a flavored water type mixture, liquid nicotine or even THC, the active element of marijuana.

There is a product called JUUL that is being used.  These devices are introducing teens to nicotine use.  Besides their sleek design, the pods are flavored, so the taste is desirable to adolescents.   Kids are calling it ‘Juuling’, as it sounds better than ‘vaping’, and kids don’t associate it with becoming addicted, because it's not a cigarette.  What they don’t think about is that a single pod of a Juul has roughly the same amount of nicotine as one pack of cigarettes.  Studies are stating that using E Cigarettes, like JUUL, is leading adolescents toward more risky behaviors.  Students are able to do it in class, they quickly take a ‘hit’ and exhale into their sweatshirt hood.  Because there is a sweet mild smell, it is not detected.  Its easy to do in class when a teacher turns around, and equally easy to do in the bathroom.  I explored the JUUL website a bit.  The flavor pods are certainly made to look desirable.  They are cute in size, and advertised with lovely pictures of brightly colored fruit, depending on the flavor.  Certainly, the website clearly states you have to be 21 or over to purchase, and that this device os for adult smokers looking for an alternative to smoking.

Please see the links provided.  Articles from New Hampshire Public Radio as well as an article from the Boston Globe.  Boston Globe article      NHPR article

What can we do?  Communication is always key.  Ask your child if they have heard of “Juuling”, or if they have tried it?  Share your concerns with your child, why this is not a healthy choice, and what it could lead to.  

I have found, even if the conversation is a tough one to have, its better to have it, than not at all.

Find other helpful  links below:

https://e-cigarettes.surgeongeneral.gov/about.html

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/teens-e-cigarettes

Blizzard Bag Days the KRMS Way

KRSD has been utilizing Blizzard Bag Days for at least 7 years now.  The idea came about by a prior superintendent (Jerry Frew) based on Kearsarge being the largest geographic region in NH.  The idea was that students would work from home and it would count as a school day.  The program has evolved over the years and KRMS has created a unique way to manage these days.

Our goal at KRMS on a Blizzard Bag Day is for students to learn some important Habits of Mind skills such as persisting, creating, imaging, innovating and remaining open to continuous learning.  We have used a book over the past several years so that all students and staff would have a common experience for future discussions.

This year, we are using Newsela.  This is their motto:  Our motto is “Read closely. Think critically. Be worldly.”  We use daily news to help every student become a better reader and critical thinker.

Students read a variety of articles, submit a written response and take a short quiz to check for understanding.  Students also watch videos related to the theme of the day and submit a brief response.  

We strive for students to learn about a digital citizenship topic on each Blizzard Bag Day in order to enhance their understanding of a specific topic such as online safety or how to set a strong email password.

Each day has some element of student voice that allows students to contribute to the topic of the day.  A new element this year is adding in a global perspective.  Students are participating in what is called The World's Largest Lesson.  This is a link to the KRMS website that has the most current Blizzard Bag Day assignment.

When students return to school, they spend some time in their Blizzard Bag Community Group discussing the readings, activities, and topics that were part of the assignment.

We understand that this is a unique school day so that is why we established the KRMS BB Learning Objectives.

We know that students are learning how to be self-directed and self-motivated to participate in this distance learning model.

We know students have to use their critical thinking skills to figure things out from home.

We believe that these are important skills that will serve students well over the course of their educational endeavors as most students will participate in some sort of distance learning such as VLACS or an online course in middle school, high school, college or in life after school.

What are your thoughts regarding Blizzard Bag Days at KRMS?  Please feel free to share your experiences.

Winter Health Tips

Can you believe the switch in weather?  As beautiful as it is, it also means cold and flu season is upon us.

We all know what to do, but sometimes a few friendly reminders are needed.  This year we were able to vaccinate 132 students here at the Middle School.  This is a service provided to NH schools through the Department of Health and Human Services and the Public Health Department.  While we can’t be 100% positive that this vaccine will prevent the prevalent influenza strain this season, it does decrease the chances of becoming infected. 

Of course we don’t willingly hang out with sick people, but sometimes it is just not avoidable.  Public places like schools, work, grocery stores, gas stations are Petri dishes with an assortment of germs that may, or may not make us sick.  Fortunately, our immune system helps protect us, but we have some leg work to do as well.

            #1: Vaccinate against the Flu.  Ask your family Medical Provider about vaccine clinics in your area.  This is a safe and easy way to help prevent the virus.

            #2: Stops Germs!  Limit exposure to sick people.  Stay home and rest!  If you can, stay home at least 24 hours after your fever is gone without fever-reducing medications.  Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue, or ‘sneeze in your sleeve’.  Throw tissue away and WASH YOUR HANDS.  If soap and water is not available, an alcohol based hand sanitizer may be used. Soap and water are best. Avoid touching your nose, mouth and eyes.  This is an easy way to transmit germs. Clean and disinfect surface areas when needed. 

          

#3: Stay hydrated.  Water is a miracle…we need it to survive.  When we are ill, we need more to prevent dehydration and flush out our systems.

This is a tough time on the calendar.  We are run down, stressed, tired, not to mention the weather is dark and cold and we have 2 major holidays before the end of the year.  This is a perfect storm allowing germs to settle in and take over. 

Take time for yourself and your family.  Care for one another, and stay healthy.  

For more information, please use this link for the CDC:  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

Alphabet Soup: RUP versus AUP

Have you noticed how often acronyms are used in education?  It’s a language all its own and it can cause confusion or make someone who doesn’t know the "code" feel left out.  For this post, I want to offer an explanation on two of these as they relate to technology.

The two alphabet soup items I want to discuss are the RUP and AUP.  RUP stands for Responsible Use Policy and it is an upgraded thinking from the older philosophy of AUP or Acceptable Use Policy.  Both of these policies are about computer and technology use such as how computers are handled, how the Internet is used and how a person behaves online.  The RUP serves as the document that guides these technology practices.

The AUP was written in what is referred to as negative language.  It would make statements such as “don’t do this or you will lose access” for example.  It was long and wordy and tried to cover every possible issue that might arise and address it in advance.  The RUP is written in more positive language discussing what the expected behaviors are to be when using various forms of technology.  Check out the Kearsarge RUP here.  

The Kearsarge RUP expects that each teacher will have ongoing conversations and instructions on how to be a responsible user of technology.  Our policy even has a “call to action” charge because we believe our students should be creators of valuable content and not just consumers.

We believe that the RUP serves as a guide for moral character development for the digital realm but is grounded in common sense training such as “what is the impact to others” by your actions.  We expect students to push the boundaries and to make mistakes.  The RUP allows for education to be the first line of discussion instead of consequences being the first option for infractions.  We do have consequences for infractions, however, as sometimes it is warranted.

Parents sign the RUP once during the elementary school timeframe and once during the MS/HS timeframe.  Students no longer sign the actual policy but are involved in annual contracts with their teachers.  These contracts are written in a grade-appropriate language and allow for the ongoing discussion and education that signing the policy one time did not afford.

In the hopes of initiating dialogue, I am asking that you read the RUP.   Then I am asking that you use the comments box below to ask questions about it or share your strategies on how you handle the moral character development regarding digital etiquette in your home.  Parents and guardians often feel isolated when trying to manage technology access outside of school.  This blog was created for this very reason.  This is the symbiotic relationship that we hope to foster between home and school.

I am looking forward to engaging in a conversation about this very important topic that will be at the forefront for our students as they move forward in life.  They will need to have the self-discipline to stay off social media at work, to not have a negative digital footprint if their name is searched online by a college or a future boss, and to keep a healthy self-esteem by not getting their identity from likes and follows.  The RUP is a guide for this important work.

Photo Credit

Here We Are

The fact of the matter is:  we need one another.  Life is full of unexpected challenges, and single-handedly navigating all of the twists, turns, and storms that come our way is, while perhaps possible, really hard.  And when you throw the well-being of children into the mix, it can feel completely overwhelming. So, we work together, we lean on one another, we support and encourage each other, and when we hit a wall, we share further resources to get around, climb over, or tunnel under that wall. This is the idea behind our Symbiosis blog. My name is Kara Byrne, and I am one of the School Counselors here at the middle school. I am also a parent and step-parent of three boys, two in high school, and one in college. I feel incredibly lucky to be working with your children -- believe it or not, middle school age kids are my favorite. Working with these students is clearly a large part of my job, but so is working collaboratively with teachers and parents, as well as raising awareness of the different roles of a School Counselor. This blog fulfills part of my role - that of a resource to parents. But, to be honest, I feel like a forum like this, where we can share our collective expertise and experience as educators and parents, is much more valuable than anything I could offer on my own. Additionally, having a more interactive give and take allows us to address issues, concerns, and resources as they come up, or as we learn about them. This idea is particularly relevant when it comes to issues around social media and technology. In fact, technology concerns were the original impetus for creating this blog. How do we keep up with all that is happening with technology in order to educate our children so they can be safe, responsible digital citizens? How do we know what to look for? We don’t know what we don’t know. So - let’s help each other. As far as technology goes, a fantastic resource that I’ve been using since last winter is the site www.screenagersmovie.com. Last spring we showed the film, Screenagers, at the High School, and followed it with a discussion panel. It was a great experience, was well attended, and generated some lively discussion. One of my takeaways from that event was utilizing the Screenagers site as a go-to source for things like Screen Time Contracts, Parenting Apps, and info about Digital Citizenship and Anti-Bullying Campaigns.  There is also up-to-date research about sleep and screens, internet addiction, and other digital media issues. I also subscribed to the weekly blog, Tech Talk Tuesdays. Highly recommended!!  I would love to hear about the ideas and resources you have found to be invaluable in your parenting journey. My next blog contribution will continue with parenting issues, as a follow up to the first (which was on Oct. 26) in a series of four Parenting Classes that we are holding here at the Middle School. Please share your concerns and resources so that I can address and share them in the next post. Thank you, so very much, for reading! And please join in the conversation. We are in this together, and for that, I am grateful!

Nurse Amy

This is a new adventure for me.  I have never read a blog, or even considered writing one.  I am honored with this, and I look forward to sharing information and ideas for supporting our families.

There are so many health related topics that I could share.  Upcoming Influenza vaccine clinics, immunization requirements, how to stay healthy in the upcoming winter months, concussions, eating disorders, I could go on forever.  I am hoping through collaboration, this blog will evolve into something helpful for families.   

So for starters, I thought I would start with our District word of the year: INSPIRE.  To me, the word inspire means many things. It makes me think about all that we do, that we say, how we act/react, how we influence others.   I think about my own children as well as the children at KRMS, how they influence me, and I influence them.   

Exercising and running are two activities I enjoy.  I have a few favorite running routes, but they usually involve a short drive from school to start the run.  Mostly because I did not want people to see me, running.  Then one day, a colleague said, ‘you should run from school.  Be happy that students and staff members might see you’.  ‘Seeing you run, may spark something in them’.  What a great way to motivate me, and possibly another person.  I was so focused on my actions while in school, it didn’t dawn on me, that I could be equally influential OUTSIDE of school.    

Being a part of a school district, I realize how front and center we can be.  I want to live my life in a way that might encourage my children, my students or my fellow staff to make a positive change in their life.  It might be as simple as smiling, and spreading some joy to someone who might need it.

My goal as the nurse of KRMS is not only to keep kids healthy while at school, but encourage them to embrace healthy habits out of school, giving them the foundation to grow up with a strong sense of themselves and their wellness.  I try daily to help kids assess their situation, use their resources and see what they can do for themselves before resorting to a “medical” intervention.  How much rest are kids getting, how much hydration?  Healthy food choices with a few fun ones?  How much social media exposure/screen time are they getting?  Any exercise?  I find so often, children are not eating well, they have a lot of down time, on some sort of device, and they don’t sleep. 

As an adult, I need to check in from time to time to rebalance my life.  I don’t always get enough sleep, I love Swedish Fish and buttery movie popcorn, and I spend a lot of time on my smartphone!  Growing, impressionable children, need us. As parents, teachers, school support staff, we are natural mentors.  Willing to inspire, by demonstrating a well balanced life, that sometimes needs to be tweeked in order to regain balance again.  Its ok to make adjustments, that’s life! 

So that was my opener.  Nothing too earth shattering, but hopefully some insight into who I am as a person. Hopefully this blog will be looked at as a way for you as parents to communicate with me, what you want to see for your kids.  Any health issue that is important enough for you to mention, is important to me.  This is a process we will tackle together.  Learning, collaborating and inspiring along the way!

Yah, But Why?

Remember when your child was about four years old and everything was a puzzle to them? Combined with this puzzle was an irrepressible need to know why, hence the “yah, but why?” refrain. Somewhere along the line, students stopped wondering, or maybe they still wonder, but no longer ask. There is also the possibility that your child still asks many questions. Either way, I would ask that you foster this type of thinking, it’s wonderful. Unfortunately for educators, some students seem quite rusty at wondering, and we as educators know that the Inquiry Model of instruction is a valuable strategy. Inquiry Model is a form of active learning that starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios—rather than simply presenting established facts or portraying a smooth path to knowledge. The process is often assisted by a facilitator. (wikipedia)

What we now benefit from in the 21st century is the ability to look things up in an instant. I know with my friends and family if there is ever a second that we can’t remember, who sings this song, what year did that movie come out, etc. we can check immediately with a “phone.” I know my phone is barely used for calling, and really is a hand-held computer. Teaching has hopefully evolved with the technology, and as such teaching students ways to navigate so much information successfully is our task.

Some middle school students would prefer to do work that doesn’t require a deeper level of thinking. Middle school teachers obviously ask students to do some surface thinking, recall what they learned last year, or show us the different features of a map. When the thinking gets more complicated and sometimes abstract some students are out of practice, don’t trust their ability, or simply do not know how, to hypothesize, draw conclusions, investigate, or revise. As educators we refer to these levels of thinking as Depth of Knowledge. The connection for me when it comes to inquiry based instruction is about the thinking needed to be inquisitive, and then to understand what to ask to know about something as fully as possible.

I read an article recently that made me think about all our students. I know that kids are curious. My question is do they know what to do about satisfying that intellectual curiosity? Teachers plan instruction to guide students in this personalized active learning. It seems to some teachers that students don’t know what questions to ask. I gave a couple of these teachers this article, but then while thinking about it, I thought, why can’t parents help from home too? I talk with many parents who ask about helping their students from home. While not all the suggestions in the article apply to both school and home, I thought a few certainly do, and if nothing else the conversations at home could shift a bit to foster the “yah, but why?” effect.

Take a look at this one-page article Five Ways to Strengthen Student Questioning, and because this blog strives for a back and forth dialogue, add any strategies you may do at home, and of course any questions (pun intended) are welcome.

Works Cited

Ascd. “Road Tested / Five Ways to Strengthen Student Questioning.” Education Update:Does Homework Help?:Five Ways to Strengthen Student Questioning, www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/jan17/vol59/num01/Five-Ways-to-Strengthen-Student-Questioning.aspx.

“Inquiry-Based Learning.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, June 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry-based_learning.

Welcome to the Symbiosis blog!

Purpose

This is a new blog that we hope will serve our KRMS community, specifically parents, but students and community members are encouraged to participate as well.

This blog is a long overdue promise made to parents during an activity night conversation on social media and students.  The parents in attendance asked questions and shared their fears, concerns and parental practices in navigating social media for middle school students.

We had discussed how having a platform such as this would serve as a way to offer timely and two-way conversations on issues and topics important to middle school parents.  

Often parents are not able to attend school meetings because of work schedules as well as hectic lives raising children and all that this entails.

Our goal is to get this blog up and running with weekly posts from a series of professionals (admin, tech, guidance, and nurse) as well as allow guest bloggers to share their expertise.  Each blog will have a comments section where readers can add to the conversation and pose questions that we hope to answer or address immediately or in future posts.

Name Choice

The four KRMS employees who are committing to managing this blog sat at a table brainstorming names to represent or symbolize our blog.  We wanted to make sure that it didn’t feel like a top-down approach where we do all the talking and the readers do all the listening.  We wanted it to feel open and collaborative.  

After dismissing many options, our nurse thought of symbiosis.  The dictionary defines symbiosis as:

“Interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.

A mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups.”

This is definitely the metaphor that we were seeking.

Why Blog?

Blogging is a communication platform that has become very popular because of the ability to generate immediate feedback from readers.  It allows the readers to share their perspective and directly question the blog author.  This allows both the blogger and the reader to engage in a conversation that might never have occurred without this medium.

Communication using social media and technology tools is a goal of ours at KRMS.  Our work is guided by ISTE and their student standards. We believe that our students should learn how to navigate social media and become proficient, respectful and savvy users of these tools. We begin blogging with students in 4th grade where students write a simple book review and receive comments from a peer.  There are discussions on how to be safe, respectful and helpful with the actual blog post and any comments made.

Resource: ISTE. Used with permission.

I’m sure you have read news articles and seen comments that are inappropriate, off-topic and show no respect for proper grammar, sentence structure or punctuation.  We are working with students to teach them that thoughtful comments using proper grammar will go a long way towards having their message be taken seriously versus a poorly worded response.

The Plan

The plan is to create a weekly post that will be available on Monday with the blog author on standby to respond to your comments and input.  We have a representative from KRMS administration, Paula Mercier will be posting from that lens.  I (Laurie Prewandowski) am the technology integrator for KRMS and will be posting on various technology topics.  One of our guidance counselors, Kara Byrne, will be posting from the guidance perspective on the middle school years and finally, our school nurse, Amy Holobowicz, will be posting on health-related topics for our students.

We hope you will comment, add your voice, seek clarification and suggest new topics for discussion as we move forward with our desire to communicate, inform, challenge, be challenged and open a healthy, respectful, two way dialogue all with the goal of serving our students as they spend 3 precious years with us.

Your Turn

On the blog, there is a tab called Future Post Topic.  There is a form that allows you to suggest the topic of a future post or offer your services as a guest blogger in an area of your expertise.

Thanks for reading this post.  We look forward to hearing from you, serving you, providing our insights to you and working with you to navigate the middle school years in a symbiotic way.