Red Ribbon Week is Coming!!!

KICKOFF RED RIBBON WEEK

Red Ribbon Week is being celebrated October 23-31. As a kickoff to Red Ribbon Week we would like all students, teachers, and community members to WEAR RED on Friday, October 23^rd. The Carlisle High School JEL/SADD group will be kicking off this year's theme "Our goal is to be alcohol, drug, and tobacco free" at the home football game Friday, October 23^rd. The group will be conducting activities throughout the week to spread awareness about the harmful effects of substance use to students in the district.

Red Ribbon Week was originally created to honor the memory of U.S. Special Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, who gave his life in the fight against drugs. He was killed after discovering a multibillion dollar drug ring in Mexico that slipped drugs over the border and had a history of violent encounters. The week has since evolved into a country-wide week dedicated to preventing drug use and showing the pledge that many students have taken to stay drug free.

H1N1 Virus Cases Being Confirmed Around the State....Even in Carlisle!

Friday, we learned of our first confirmed case of H1N1 at Carlisle, a case in the high school. Since predictions state as many as half of the American population could contract the virus at some point this year, we knew it was only a matter of time before our first confirmed case. However, this was earlier than our district had hoped. Staff and school nurses have been working with students on how to protect themselves from contracting this virus with hygiene lessons, tips on how to cough/sneeze into elbows (not hands), and what to do if someone gets ill from anything, especially the virus. While there will certainly be more students who get the H1N1 virus, following simple hygiene tips and using safety at all times will keep any outbreak contained as best as possible.

Please visit the CDC site often if you have questions and of course, don't believe everything you read online! When in doubt, refer to the CDC site:

http://www.cdc.gov/

New Student Group Meets

After postponing the first meeting, the Middle School New Student group met after school Thursday with about 12 students showing up. The students got a chance to introduce themselves, have a snack, and play a game/activity for prizes. Through this activity, students got to know even more about themselves. My favorite part was learning that we had students come to our school from just a nearby Des Moines school and a student come from New Hampshire! Wow...what a difference! The next new student group will meet Thursday, September 10th, after school in the Life Skills room.

Recent Abduction Attempts Means We Need to Keep Watch!

Recent abduction attempts in central Iowa towns, even Hartford, have all us taking a little extra time to notice our surroundings, especially around our kids and our students. As a parent, please keep up to date on the latest news and descriptions of what the vehicles and people look like in these suspected abduction attempts. But also talk to your child about "stranger danger" and how to say "No". I have copy/pasted a helpful site below with some tips, but talk about strategies for your child to attract attention to the situation such as yelling/screaming, shouting "NO!", and running away. If you are present, try to get a detailed description of both the vehicle and person in the vehicle. In all the cases so far, no one has remembered the license plate, but if they did, that would have really helped.

Please know that your teachers and counselors are also keeping any eye out for any suspicious activity and suspicous looking people in and around our building. We now wear name badges both inside and outside our building to identify us. With the high school and Hartford remodeling, we are adding in extra safety and security items to our building as well. Hopefully, no more abductions or attempted abductions will happen in our area, but preparing our students and children now will help keep them safe in the future.

Tips for kids and parents:
http://www.villageofworth.com/Police/Crime%20Prevention/stranger_danger.htm

A Big Backpack Thank you…..

Thank you to the community of Carlisle! Due to the families, community members, local citizens and buisnesses we hosted another successful Operation Backpack event. We provided supplies and funds to support students and families that attend Carlisle Communitiy Schools. We were able to provide approximately 125 stocked backpacks to Carlisle students. If you would like to support similar events or if you are in the need of school supplies, contact the guidance counselor at your child's school. As counselors, we strive to to connect with families and the community to help children become successful students and future workers. --Rhonda Ray, Elementary Counselor

One Tip for a Successful Year

Wow, the school year is basically just one month away. Seems like summer went so fast, but there is still a lot of time to prepare for another great year. I have been doing a lot of reading over the summer and the first book I started with was called "The Energy Bus" by Jon Gordon. He speaks to schools, businesses, teams, etc. all over the world teaching all of them how to have a positive attitude, atmosphere, and outlook on their team and in their lives. This book was very powerful and I plan to use pieces of it and some material from it with the 8th grade Life Skills class this year. I now subscribe to his weekly newsletter and have received some great information from these, as well as very simple tips. I wanted to share one with you today that if practiced now, could lead to great successes in your child's life this school year and possibly all the way through life.

Jon starts his newsletter (see link below) by noting he finishes each day by putting his kids to bed and asking them a simple question: "What was your success today?". See, by finishing their day with noting a success, they finish their day on a positive and with something they did well. They go to bed with that on their mind and they wake up with success on their mind. This can build, and build, and build and become a snowball effect of future successes. Good and bad things happen each day, but the amazing part is that we can choose to have the last part of our day before we close our eyes to be a success. I started something similar to this in my senior year of high school when I was confused and scared of the next step. I learned a trick from a weekend workshop of sorts to end my day by thinking of two positives during the day and the same two positives when I awoke the next morning. Then that night, think of two new positives from the current day. They could be as simple as a pretty sunrise or nice weather to something great that happened at school or in my personal life. I did this over and over and was amazed at how much good happened in my life and the negative that I was thinking of before was actually just a small part of my life that I dwelled on way too much. I think this strategy has lead me to be the positive person I am today, some co-workers tell me I am TOO POSITIVE! I don't think that is possible.

Anyway, give this strategy a try with your kids or even yourself! End the day by thinking about a success you had and repeat this every day. I am interested to see if you or your children see any changes over the next month or even over the school year. I am also interested to see if you have any "success tips" that you do at your house. Leave a comment below and share your tips with all of our Carlisle blog readers!

link to Jon Gordon's newsletter: http://www.jongordon.com/newsletter-071309-celebratesuccess.html

Did you know...the Iowa Youth survey we did statewide last year shows that students in 6th, 8th, and 11th grade note that schools let parents know when they did something wrong 90-96% of the time, but only let parents know good things or successes they have had 57-86% of the time?? Hmm....hopefully we can change that this year.

Summer is Winding Down, but the Carlisle Counseling Blog is Just Now Starting Up!

(click picture to enlarge)

Welcome back parents and students! Well, almost back. We still have over a month of a great summer to enjoy (some would say the weather hasn't even allowed summer to start yet!). The picture above is a satellite image taken of Carlisle and pulled off of Google Earth 5.0. Using Google Earth 5.0 has been a fun and interesting experience. Many educators across the state and country are using it in their classrooms for multiple reasons. In fact, educators everywhere are trying to use more and more technology to help improve their lessons, communication, and relevance to the students, parents, and community. Well, to make a long story short, the Carlisle counseling staff plans to use this blogging technology to attempt to increase our communication and ability to get news and information out to the students, parents, and community. We also hope to get some dialogue going from time to time, so please comment and give us feedback as we blog.

The members of this year's Carlisle Counseling staff are Leah Heidemann and Traci Lee (High School), Ben Barry (Middle School), Kim Flagor-Fuller (Middle School/Hartford), and Rhonda Ray and Julie Long (Elementary). We will be posting on this blog from time to time to give you important info. on upcoming events and newsworthy items, posting links and helpful information for students and families, and even posing some questions to all of you so that multiple great ideas can get posted for all to see! This blog is not a method of counseling or therapy as despite all the technology in the world, the best counseling and communication still occurs face to face. We hope many of you will log on from time to time and see posts and information. You will notice below is a place to click in order to leave a comment. Please do so, but please use a username or your name, not the anonymous choice. This will allow us to better communicate with you back and forth. Your comments will be seen by others who log on which could be great if you give some good advice or good tips as then the others will be able to use that.

The counseling staff at Carlisle wishes you a great rest of the summer and is excited to welcome all of you back to our school this year!

---Carlisle Counseling Staff