By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
USD 428 classes have been in session for nearly a month now. The fall sports season is underway, students are already taking field trips, and sixth graders across the five elementary schools in Great Bend are ready to begin the All-Stars program. Casey Rowland, family engagement coordinator for the 20th Judicial District's Juvenile Services, said the first sessions were held at Lincoln Elementary last week.
"The All-Stars program is a prevention program taught to kids about reputation, how you can have a bad reputation or a good reputation, how to think about your future, what kind of choices you might make in life that could disrupt the future you want to have," she said. "It also talks about how to communicate with your parents."
Students take work home to help open up the discussion about topics like drug and alcohol use, teen dating, and internet safety. The program is comprised of 13 units, and each school has the discretion to cover those units as it sees fit. The first unit includes some history and how inventions have helped society, and encourages the sixth graders to come up with their own inventions. Another popular unit involves creating a family history.
"The kids get to do a project about a family crest, and they get to talk about what's important in their family, what are important values, what are some of those things, and they get to draw," Rowland said. "Those crests get turned in and we get to judge them, and they get a little prize."
All-Stars can also serve as a recruiting tool for Juvenile Services' Youth Crew program, a community service and prevention program that is available for students in grades 6-12. Juvenile Services also offers other family engagement programs for all families. For more information, contact Rowland at (620) 793-1930.