The Counseling Connect
November Newsletter
Hello Parents!
We are so excited to be heading into the second quarter of the semester and we want to thank our families for such a great start to the new school year! Your LaSalle Springs counseling team is here to help you and your child have the best experience possible at LaSalle Springs.
You may notice that the LaSalle Springs counselors follow their students. What that means is that we begin with our students in 6th grade and follow them until they are in 8th grade and leave us to go to high school. Teachers will change from year to year, but your child's counselor will remain the same!
Communication is Key!
Contact information (phone number and email address) for all counselors and social worker is listed at the bottom of this newsletter. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.
One way we will communicate with you is through this newsletter. Please keep an eye out for it as it will contain very important information such as special event dates, progress reports, student need data, classroom lessons, groups, and topics related to mental health.
Suicide Awareness Presentations with CHADS Coalition for Mental Health
CHADS offers school outreach programs, community awareness presentations and classes as well as family support programs to advance the awareness and prevention of depression and suicide. They will be visiting our 8th grade classrooms on Monday 11/12 and Monday 11/19 to discuss self harm and signs of suicide. They will also be visiting our 7th grade classrooms on Monday 11/26 and Tuesday 11/27 to discuss signs of suicide.
New Bulletin Board outside the counseling office. Let your students know to come see us!
Classroom Lessons: Empathy!
Our Equity Team
Our Equity Team is working hard to make sure that ALL students feel welcome and safe at LaSalle Springs. In the month of September they participated in a training, hosted by the Anti Defamation League, in order to eventually conduct school wide programming and lessons on equity and diversity. In October, a group of our Equity students facilitated a lesson called "Lemons" where topics such as judgement, bias and perspective taking were addressed. On November 1st, our equity team met for our first after school meeting to discuss possible school wide activities that will begin process of making LaSalle Springs a "No Place for Hate" school, initiated by the Anti Defamation League.
Anti-Bullying Ambassadors
Our 8th grade students are raising awareness and acceptance as the district's new anti-bullying ambassadors. They recently spent their day in leadership training to become people who speak up against bullying. School-wide activities, events and lessons are approaching and our ambassadors will take the lead on all of this.