Whole Child Heroes across our districts
April 2019 Heroes
Dr. Theodore Fulton (President-Elect, NYSASCD), Brooke Yonick and Kelly Newham, and Tara Falasco (Principal)
ASCD's Whole Child approach is defined as “…an effort to transition from a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to one that promotes the long-term development and success of all children.” This approach is grounded in the belief that to fully prepare students for college, career, and citizenship we must address students' comprehensive needs through the shared responsibility of students, families, schools, and communities. A whole child approach ensures that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. More than ever, the mental health of our students is an area of focus. This year, in the Bayport-Blue Point School District, no one has embraced this important area more than Ms. Brooke Yonick and Ms. Kelly Newham.
Ms. Brooke Yonick is the Blue Point Elementary School Social Worker and works very closely with our Blue Point Elementary School community. While she is only part time in the building, she does the work as if she’s there five days a week. She works diligently to get to know each student and their families, speaking with them on a consistent basis but also when there are needs, especially around the holidays when needs are higher than usual. She creates, plans and runs our character education assemblies, focusing a central theme, finding picture books, quotes, activities, etc. that helps engage the students and enhance the idea. Ms. Yonick was the first one “on-board” our new building initiative of developing leaders in all our students using Jon Gordon’s “Energy Bus” and quickly volunteering to be a trainer of teachers for the upcoming school year. As a member of the district Social Emotional Learning Task, she shares her expertise on specific topics and shares resources to help us find more information to help make decisions. She takes initiative, shares ideas, offers guidance and is always a phone call away in an emergency.
Ms. Kelly Newham is one of Blue Point Elementary School’s fourth grade teachers. She has embraced the idea of creating a community in her classroom, incorporating many social emotional learning tasks and activities on a daily basis. She visits my office on a weekly basis asking what else she can do to help her students, offering ideas herself, but also open to collaborating on suggestions. She has implemented morning community meetings, talking about what’s going on in and out of the classroom, and more importantly how to utilize problem solving skills. Ms. Newham takes the time to moderate and help students who are having a disagreement, teaching them skills to use in the future. She has fully implemented the district-wide initiative of having a “go-to” person and respects the needs of students who would like to meet with that person. While the “Energy Bus” program will be fully implemented next school year, she has volunteered to pilot some of the aspects of the program into her classroom as a way to develop her students into leaders as they go into fifth grade.
Ms. Brooke Yonick and Ms. Kelly Newham have championed the “whole child” approach in Bayport-Blue Point, and they are most deserving of the special recognition of Whole Child Heroes.
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http://www.ascd.org/whole-child.aspx
January 2019 Heroes
ASCD's Whole Child approach is defined as “…an effort to transition from a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to one that promotes the long-term development and success of all children.” This approach is grounded in the belief that to fully prepare students for college, career, and citizenship we must address students' comprehensive needs through the shared responsibility of students, families, schools, and communities. A whole child approach ensures that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. More than ever, the mental health of our students is an area of focus. This year, in the Kings Park Central School District, no one has embraced this important area more than Dr. Danielle Colby-Rooney and Mrs. Nicole Duffy. Dr. Colby-Rooney is the district’s Administrator for Pupil Personnel Services (PPS), and Mrs. Duffy is the district’s Assistant Administrator for PPS. Through their leadership, Kings Park established a mental health theme for 2018-2019, which is, “Everyone Matters in Kings Park.” Additionally, they helped to establish the following written goals: • Provide a team-based approach to facilitate effective coordination of mental health services and interventions. • Provide relevant and ongoing professional development on mental health and crisis intervention (threat assessments) for all staff. • Enhance the health curriculum to integrate social emotional skills and recognize the signs of mental health conditions. • Engage families and community providers as meaningful partners in providing mental health supports and generalizing strategies and practices into the community and home. • Implement school wide frameworks for creating and maintaining a positive school climate while decreasing the stigma related to mental health. • Develop and implement a guidance plan that enhances the social emotional skills of each student through the development of personalized educational and career plans. • Increase opportunities for students to develop persistence, resilience, and “grit.” In order to accomplish these goals, monthly areas of emphasis were established across the district. For example, the area of emphasis for October was, “Bullying Stops Here,” and the area of emphasis for February will be, “Healthy Relationships” (just to name two). Dr. Danielle Colby-Rooney and Mrs. Nicole Duffy have championed the “whole child” approach in Kings Park, and they are most deserving of the special recognition of Whole Child Heroes. |
