Honor the Role

Homework Club/Detention. Students can voluntarily come for help, each teacher has a day that they stay after school specifically for this, I suppose these kids are part of the HW club. Other kids are made to stay after school when they do not have their homework done so that they can complete it, these kids are in detention. I think that it is a weird dichotomy to have. My mentor says that some kids use the time as a quiet time to get work done. Whether kids are in detention or members of the elite HWC the result is the same, kids are getting work done. This was in evidence when, during a house meeting, High Honors ( all grades above 93), Honors (above 85), and effort/conduct (a 1 in every class, one teacher prefaced the distribution of these by saying that it was a great achievement and in some ways more impressive than the ‘honors’) certificates. A large percentage of kids received at least one of these certificates to the applause of their York house-mates.

During the house meeting (just the teachers) Progress reports came up. It was mentioned that many of the students who were on the honor roll were not at the moment. Particular kids were discussed. At this point the Special Education teacher interjected a reminder of a students learning disability and what that meant for the work load of that student, particularly work involving reading. My mentor and the SE teacher discussed possible accommodations, including my mentor volunteering to read aloud to the student after school, to help keep the student up to date.

It is really amazing to see the comradery of the teachers. They support each other in many ways and all seem very invested in the kids, their colleagues , the school, and what the school stands for.

Building a Sense of Community

Today is the third Tuesday of the month, that means Community Service at KMS. The entire house participates. In groups of seven or so, along with a teacher, they were bussed to PROP, Preble Street Resource Center, Ronald McDonald House, Nathan Clifford School, Reiche School, to help out in whatever way they were needed. I think that it is fantastic that the school fosters this sort of community service.
The group I was with went to Preble street and helped organize the clothing 'store'. They have a room that is filled with unsorted donations and another that is set up like a big walk-in closet with donations that have been sorted. We helped to straighten up and organize the closet portion, this is where clients come to pick out clothes: shirts, pants, coats, hats, gloves, shoes, etc. The kids did a great job, one in particular was really motivated and worked at motivating his classmates too. He and two others tackled the mountain of shoes, matching them up and organized them on the shelves. He stepped up and made sure it was being done right and called out those who were not doing a good job. I was very impressed by this seventh graders involvement in what we were doing.