Parent Conference Tip: Focus on Student Strengths Jenifer Fox, author of the book Your Child’s Strengths, is big on turning educational paradigms inside-out. As an advocate of uncovering children’s strengths and passions to help them achieve genuine, authentic success, she asserts that teachers and parents should focus less on grades and areas of weakness, and more on the very specific activities that energize and excite children. She offers tips for doing just that in her article entitled, “Parent-Teacher Conferences, a Time to Celebrate Strengths,” which you can read by clicking here.   Keep the WIA in Mind When Dealing with High Risk Teens Teen pregnancy, a disability, a juvenile record and homelessness are a few of many situations that can put a student at high risk for dropping out – and create a formidable obstacle for the teen to overcome when seeking employment. Programs offered within the parameters of your state and local Workforce Investment Act (WIA) are available to help. Youth programs geared to a specific age range, say 14 to 21, with specific economic and personal challenges and are available through organizations to help them get the education they need to gain employment. Among the services offered are guidance counseling to define educational goals, basic skills assessments, tutoring opportunities, occupational training, access to critical resources, exposure to employment options, job shadowing, mentoring , both unpaid and paid internships, leadership development and various follow-up services. To learn more about WIA status in your state, please click here.   Useful Links The SchoolAnnouncement Platform Uses for SchoolAnnouncement The Parent Portal Live Demo News & Events Contact Us

Don't forget to change your clocks back! Helpful Summer Info for the Busy Education Pro Holidays, meetings, report cards – oh, my! It seems the time is flying by as the first two to two and a half months of school, depending on when your school year began, come to a close. I hope you are feeling satisfied with what you have accomplished thus far, and a sense of happy anticipation for the months to come. As distributor of School Pro Quick Tips I feel “protective” of your well being in your critical role, which is why I include articles like the one featured here about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). May it be a good reminder to you of ways you can fend off this energy sapper – or may you help another by passing this information on to someone who needs it. Also in this issue: Some practical, vital help for high-risk teenagers that’s available under the umbrella of the Workforce Investment Act, an idea for an innovative approach to parent-teacher conferences, and a definitive resource for getting a grip on plagiarism. Over the last month School Announcement services have continued to grow, and I’m convinced that this is the very best mass communication messaging system for schools and districts, bar none. For information about our reliable high-tech, high-touch messaging, which you can put to good use in both emergencies and vital everyday announcements, you’re welcome to call me at 401-243-8415 or email me at tracy@schoolannouncement.com. I wish you Happy Hauntings this Halloween, and I’ll be touching base with you again around – can you believe it? – Thanksgiving! All the best! Tracy Duncan About SchoolAnnouncement.com We provide both emergency and everyday messaging options – including phone, emails and texting – to your school or district, enabling you to reach parents/caregivers, teachers and staff, students, Board members and others in a moment’s notice with just one phone call, text or email. You can reach thousands in minutes, whether you need to squelch rumors of a bomb scare or send an alert about a last minute change of venue. You can also segment messages; this means that if the buses from the fourth grade class trip are stuck in traffic, you can reach out to all parents and guardians in that grade to provide updates and information. No special hardware or software is required, and the price per student is one of the lowest fees families will pay for anything this school year. Learn more by clicking here. Notice Staff Feeling “SAD?” Some people swear they are affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a depression of sorts that is linked to decreased exposure to sunlight from late fall through the winter months. Most experts agree that this condition affects more women than men, and more people in climates further away from the equator. If you notice that you or some of your staff members are a bit logy in the upcoming months, you might want to try and/or recommend the following: Exercise. As the Nike commercial commands: “Just do it.” We all well know that exercise both reduces stress and increases those feel-good endorphins. As those L’Oreal commercials of old used to say, “You’re worth it!” Vitamin D. The theory that increasing Vitamin D – specifically Vitamin D3 – can ward off SAD (and numerous other ailments) has been around for several years and has been both proven and disproven by health experts, depending on their spin. For a well-balanced article on this vitamin that includes links to tests and treatments for Vitamin D deficiencies, visit: http://www.womentowomen.com/healthynutrition/vitamind.aspx Light Therapy. If increasing the amount of time you spend outdoors is not enough to get you out of your slump, you might want to look into light box therapy. We went right to the experts on this topic, the Canadian Mental Health Association, for an informative link on this topic: http://www.cmha.ca/bins/content_page.asp?cid=3-86-93-291 Call your doctor if you are unable to muster energy for daily activities, have thoughts of suicide, require alcohol or drugs to get through the day or have feelings of complete hopelessness. The Mayo Clinic offers a Depression Self-Assessment here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression/MH00103_D Alternative therapies involve approaches from acupuncture to yoga, and the World Wide Web is full of suggestions for everything in between. Browse carefully, try what appeals to you and always, if in any doubt, run these ideas past your doctor before putting them into practice. A Resource for Understanding & Handling Plagiarism What is beneficial can often have a detrimental underbelly, and one aspect of the Internet’s underside is undoubtedly the opportunity it provides students to plagiarize. Whether students engage in plagiarism overtly or inadvertently, it makes for an increasingly tough challenge for teachers at all levels of education. Here is a great place to start exploring this topic to get a stronger handle on what it is and how to handle it: http://www.plagiarism.org/

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