Stout Field Elementary School in Indiana is an inner-city school with an abundance of at-risk students. They also have an abundance of committed staff members who recognize these are kids who desperately need healthy ways to connect. I’ve had the pleasure of working with this staff and was enormously impressed. Here is a simple activity that these teachers developed for their students.

As a faculty, the teachers sat down and brainstormed groups of “high-risk” students. A few of the groups they identified included:

1. Kids whose parents have recently divorced.
2. Children whose parents abuse alcohol or drugs.
3. Latch-key students.
4. Fatherless boys.
5. Fatherless girls.
6. Overweight students.
7. Socially-isolated students.
8. Students with a high number of absences.

The list continues. The staff then grouped the students according to similar problems. Volunteer teachers took responsibility for meeting once a week during lunch time with a gorup of five to eight students. This group became that teacher’s Lunch Bunch. During that time, students shared their common problems and teachers guided the students into productive laternatives, such as goal-setting and problem solving. The groups now recognized that other students hared the same problems and the students also recognized that someone at the school cared.

One group was always tardy. When the teacher realized none of these kids had anyone to wake them up in the morning, she arranged to have a local business donate alarm clocks to each. During the lunch bunch meeting that week the students learned how to set their own alarm clocks, and voila!- the following week tardies were significantly reduced. Sometimes we overlook simple little things - or make such big assumptions.

I love the constructive, proactive approach and applaud Stout Field teachers.

If you have simple ideas your staff is doing to help your students, please do pass them on! Sometimes we all need to take a little Reality Check and not overlook the easy ways to make differences for our students.

Michele Borba
www.micheleborba.com