The revised social-emotion curriculum of 2018 introduced new opportunities for learning in Kansas Schools. Each district can choose from different curriculums provided by the State of Kansas, and Southeast of Saline follows the Character Strong curriculum. Character Strong teaches specific lessons that help students develop skills like empathy, courage, leadership, etc.
Last school year, FCCLA was working on a community service project in Leadership class. When brainstorming what they wanted their project to be, Faith Swank and Ava Rupert came up with the idea for Trojans Together. They remembered when Big Brother’s Big Sister’s was around, and based their project on that. Since that program didn’t work out the way people hoped for, Faith and Ava wanted to come up with a new one that brought the whole school together. While they didn’t know how long this project would last, they hoped that it would be taken to a bigger scale. Even though it started out with just a small test group of kids, it was always their goal to expand their new program.
Since it was Ava and Faith’s project, they were in charge of setting everything. All of the pairings, when it would be taking place, and activities that would occur were solely up to them. When asked about how kids were paired up, Ava Rupert said they would sit in the coffee shop for hours and talk to different teachers to see what students needed help with. For example, if a younger student struggled with making friends, they would get paired up with a high school student who was very social. Faith also talked about activities they would do, and how it differs from this year’s program. She said that it was not as structured, and the activities depended on what the elementary student wanted to do that day. They had the option to choose whether they wanted to play a game or walk around, rather than having scheduled activities. Finally, when asked how they felt about the program this year, both talked about how they are excited to see how it turns out, but are really sad that they aren’t as involved. Faith and Ava stated that they feel weird not helping out as much this year since last year it was all up to them, but they are glad that it was taken to a bigger scale this year, and every student gets to be involved.
When Mr. Nick Owen started his first year at Southeast, he always wanted a program that involved the whole school. He mentioned something along the lines of Trojans Together when he started, but it just wasn’t the right time for it yet. However, after everyone saw how well the program worked out with FCCLA last year, they were on board with the plan. When asked what the main goal of this program was, Mr. Owen stated, “We really wanted to create a partnership between the elementary school and the junior high school.” He goes on to say that we are very unique since we are a K-12 school, and this program will hopefully create bonds between the elementary and high school students. He is also hopeful that this will make younger kids excited about coming to school, knowing they have an older friend in the building with them. Mr. Owen also shared that this is a great way to incorporate Character Strong lessons without having to just look at slides the whole time. He mentioned that it was getting a little boring for the older kids to sit through, and with this program, it was a new and fun way to still learn the traits without having to stare at a screen for 20 minutes.
Mrs. Kristen Franklin was also involved with Trojans Together. She helped with the elementary side and even had teachers create lesson plans for this program. On one of their professional development days, the teachers got into groups and created activities to do based on the word of the month. They also spent that time talking with high school advisory teachers in order to determine the best pairs between high school and elementary students. It was a little difficult because the teachers had to talk about the previous class they had and not their new class, and each advisory class could have pairings in multiple classrooms. High school advisors didn’t have a specific teacher, so they might have had to talk to all three teachers in the specific grade level that they had. Her main goal for this program is to build leadership and community through our school. She wants the high schoolers to be leaders and help elementary students learn different character traits, and she wants all of SES to be involved with each other. Mrs. Franklin is excited to see how this turns out and can’t wait to see how this new program evolves
Overall, everyone is super excited about Trojans Together. It is a great way for the whole school to get to know one another and create memories that will last forever. While it is not guaranteed that this program will last, there are high hopes that this could be the new normal at Southeast.
