Local News Update
School Safety Academy
The school safety conference was fascinating. The sessions ranged from how to design your building to limit the entry points to new laws concerning cyberbullying as well as the latest on the drug front. The drug presenter stated that a huge percent of theft and property crimes are committed because people are desperate for money to feed his/her drug addiction. He also shared the fact that the United States has five percent of the world’s population, but we consume ninety-five percent of the world’s opioids. There was also a lot of talk about common sense approaches. Examples were, do you lock the entry doors each day, do your staff members check to make sure doors latch behind them when they enter or exit the building, and do you have a system to check visitors in and screen them.
Seniors
On May 29 at 3:10, the 2018 members of the PHHS Senior class that attended Maple Ridge will be replicating their sixth-grade walk. The five sixth grade teachers that year were Kirsten Diedrich, Doug Habben, Trish Schellinger, Brian Simpson and Heather Snodgrass. Three of the five still teach here and Brian Simpson will be back to join us too that day.
Pesky Pests
A few of you have asked our custodians if they can stray bug spray in your room. The answer is no. We have a few other safer options to solve the bug problem you may have. Please let our custodians know you have a challenge and they will implement our new methodologies right after school and collect them before students return the next morning. No dangerous chemicals will be left behind.
Summertime at Maple Ridge
As always please be cognizant when you come out for wet wax or paint signs. The crew will be working from 6-2:30 each day. We will be holding K camp the first two weeks school is out. That is the only planned programming we have in the building this summer. The end of year checklist I sent out yesterday has more details.
Did You Know
We will have a major repaving project this summer in the bus lot area.
We have collected 510 diapers for the diaper drive.
Mark Hall is now Dr. Hall. He received his Doctorate a few weeks ago from Ball State.
We have three staff members participating in the Geist 5K, 10 K, race tomorrow.
Lebanon schools are adding stop-arm cameras to their buses. They will turn any violation footage over to the Boone County Sheriff’s office for citation.
The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown Down
Valerie's Vision
An Answer for Everything
During one of the grade level meetings this week, I had a crazy case of the hiccups. I received the following pieces of advice to get rid of my hiccups:
- Eat a spoonful of peanut butter. A teacher graciously offered me their leftover peanut butter from lunch, but I declined the offer.
- Hold your breath until your diaphragm hurts. (Basically come as close to passing out as possible.. no thanks!)
- Hold your breath while taking a drink of water. (Been there, done that- never works for me)
- Put a fork in your mouth and take a drink. To visualize this, picture putting the fork in your mouth sideways and hold it there with your teeth. While biting down, take a drink of water. (We all laughed while visualizing this.)
We all got a good laugh out of the variety of strategies to cure hiccups. And when the laughing was over, my hiccups were gone.
One teacher said, “I bet you just needed to stop thinking about them.” I’m sure this was true.
And at this time of year, when behaviors of students can seem like “hiccups”, I have no other piece of advice then to allow yourself to have a laugh, take a breath and allow yourself to let go- just a little.
I say this every year and I believe it to be true: your students will miss you- whether they admit it or not. You are the most constant thing in their lives for the majority of the school year. You are with your students for more awake hours than anyone else.
Sometimes when our students approach the uncertainty of summer or the next school year, their behaviors can turn into hiccups. Just remember to breathe, laugh, and realize that all hiccups (and school years) will come to an end.
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” -Seneca