Whitehall Schools Counselors & Nurses Check-In

CARLIE JESSOP, Elementary School Counselor:

Things here are rapidly speeding up as we officially approach Springtime! Here are a few things to look forward to:

K-3 will be continuing our Zones curriculum and moving slowly towards tools that we have within each zone.

4th Grade is currently watching Disney's Inside Out. We will be having in-depth discussions about the importance & purpose of each emotion.

5th Grade will be jumping into Media Detective, which is a program focused on critically thinking about the media and advertisements in our everyday lives.

Finally, I am constantly revamping our counseling page and recently showed it to all the kiddos. Upon request, here is a QR code to get to the "Virtual Counseling Center", parent resources, curriculum links, as well as archived newsletters from this year!

CASEY NORBECK, 6-12 Guidance Counselor:

Juniors will take the ACT on March 29th as part of the statewide assessment for Juniors in Montana.

The ACT with Writing is aligned to the Montana Content Standards (2011) in Math and English language arts (ELA) and currently under alignment studies to the Montana Content Standards (2016)in Science. It is used to provide state, district, school, and individual student achievement information on the state-adopted content standards in mathematics, ELA, and science. More detailed information regarding the test, and test day policies will be sent out via Infinite Campus!

I will be going into middle school classrooms later this month to present on the topic of cybersecurity/bullying. With so much of our daily interaction occurring behind a screen, some education regarding this topic should be beneficial to all students!

KRISTA GLAUS and MARY BETH HUNTER, School Nurses:

Clocks go forward an hour on Sunday which can be very hard for kids (and their parents). Help your child by trying to shift your routines earlier this weekend if you haven't started already and hopefully waking up on Monday will be a little less difficult. We will be working with the marketing class to post articles about good sleep habits for us every day next week since it is National Sleep Awareness Week. You may find that some things help and some do not, that is ok. If your child is struggling with sleep despite trying different routines, make sure you are talking to their doctor about your concerns. Remember that most changes won't help overnight, you need to give them time to make a difference.

We challenge you to make sure your younger child is in bed between 8 and 9 and your older child is in bed by 10 every night next week and by Friday, getting out of bed should be much easier!