Written by: Jon Watson, High School Counselor, A-K
We have finally made it! The end of the 2020 portion of the school year is finally here, and we could not be more proud of all of our students, staff, and families for all of the work they put in this year. We know this year was not easy, and many of us took on new roles or modified versions of the roles we thought we knew. We learned that it took a team approach, and we are thankful for everyone involved in making this first part of the school a success. Throughout the year we saw an increased amount of stress and anxiety from everyone at some point, and we want to make sure everyone feels supported going in the break, and at the start of the New Year. Below are articles written throughout the counseling department with more information on how to find and utilize supports over the break and outside of school hours. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to your counselor, but please know that counselors will be on break as well and are not expected to reply during the two week break. We will be back in the office on January 5th. Resources As we move towards a well-deserved holiday break from the stress of Remote Learning, we want you to know that the D’Evelyn counseling team is thinking of you. This challenging time of COVID is not going to go on forever and soon students will be back to school. We look forward to that day. During these uncertain times, it is essential to address and tend to the wellness and mental health of our children and ourselves. According to a recent nationwide study by George Mason University on teacher and student wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic, 46% of teachers reported encountering student mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression, academic stress, trauma and grief more often than they did before the pandemic. Below you will find a variety of resources to support you and your family while school is not in session. The ones that we found helpful are student mental health supports, family resources, and the virtual calm room. Here is a link to the district mental health hub. https://www.jeffcopublicschools.org/services/mental_health_services/mental_health_hub If you feel like your child is experiencing emotional distress, there are several community resources available to assist you during this challenging time.
Seniors Scholarships Now that the application season is starting to come to an end, we want you to start considering looking for scholarships. Although scholarships may be hard to win, there are thousands of scholarships out there, and you never know what will happen if you don’t apply. The counselors have put together a scholarship page in the Senior Google classroom for you all to access whenever you would like. This page has a handout that has all of the top scholarship search engines to help you find scholarships, the handout has directions on how to utilize the Naviance scholarship search, and it has information on the best places to look for scholarships. The page also contains a google spreadsheet of all the scholarships that are shared on Thursday’s in the classroom. We have started a segment called “Scholarship Thursday” where we roll out 2-3 new scholarships to students every Thursday. We are hoping this takes away some of the stress students have from looking for scholarships. The universities and colleges you decide to attend are going to be your best bet in receiving some type of scholarship aid. The next best place to look is going to be through the D’Evelyn Education Foundation Scholarships. Those will be shared with students in January. We have over 20 scholarships that students are eligible to apply for, and they are only competing against themselves! Please tell your students to take advantage of these scholarships once they are available. Scholarships do take some time to complete, but you do not need to reinvent the wheel. The majority of scholarships have essays that need to be completed, but a lot of them have very similar prompts. Students may need to tweak the essay in some way, but don’t be afraid to use essays that have already been written if it meets the prompt. Students can contact the counselors at any time to receive more scholarship information. FAFSA The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is available for students and their families to apply for, and we highly recommend that you do, even if you don’t think you will receive any funds. We say this because the majority of schools won’t provide scholarships to students if they have not applied for the FAFSA. The FAFSA is completely free to apply for, and you DO NOT have to accept any funds that are offered to you if you do not want them. Universities and colleges like to have this information for their own financial aid packages that they offer students. The website is https://studentaid.gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa. You will need your prior-prior year tax return information, and you will need to complete it with your student. If you have more questions we have information on our website, or you can contact your counselor. Application Deadlines There are more college application deadlines that are arriving in the near future. Please make sure you take advantage of the break, and finish your applications. As second semester gets going you will not want to stress about last minute applications and your homework assignments. Big deadlines are January 15th and February 1st. They will be here before we know it, so double check when your deadlines are and start planning ahead. ALL GRADES Course Selection Early in second semester the counselors will be presenting in classes about course selection. This will fall around the end of January, and we want students to be thoughtful of the classes they are choosing. For our older students, we want to make sure they are choosing classes that they are interested in, and that will help them as they start thinking about applying for college. For our younger students, we want you to use this time to start exploring classes to discover those subjects that you enjoy and excel in. We want students to be thoughtful with their selections, and we encourage family discussion on possible class choices. We will have more information about this next semester. HAVE A GREAT BREAK!!! Written by: Suzanne Roberts, Social Emotional Learning Specialist As this edition of Jaguar Tracks goes to print - or online - we know that we have overcome much and have much more to face. It goes without saying that 2020 has been a lot. This year has been different, challenging, and at times quite difficult. We have responded to the many challenges as we could as individuals, families, and as a school community. I have had the great pleasure of working with Sources of Strength and our incredible team of peer and adult leaders during this time, and it has been a wonderful opportunity to see how challenges create opportunities also for connections and growth. D’Evelyn Sources of Strength has continued this year to work to spread hope, help and strength throughout our community. Our incredible team has brought us multiple campaigns and contests, including a strength masks campaign, an Inkvember drawing challenge, a Halloween costume and pumpkin carving contest, a letter writing campaign, a positive messages campaign, a story advent calendar, a 12 days of good news broadcast, a holiday baking contest, a What Helps Us video, an ugly sweater contest, an author of the month campaign, and much more. Our students in Sources of Strength are passionate about growing strengths and connections in our community, and the national Sources of Strength team is, too. They have created a resource guide for us to use this holiday season, that includes strengths-based conversation starters, activities, and other fun. This twenty page guide is available for all of us here: Practicing-Strength-at-Home-for-the-holidays.pdf I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and winter break, and have fun building strengths using this resource, too. See you in the New Year! =) Written by: Ashley Jetton, District Registered Nurse Did you know… JCPH offers class on how to talk with teens! Visit: www.twelvetalks.com Topics include: Friends Corona Virus Marijuana Mental Health Tobacco and Vaping Dating Gender Identity Prescription Drugs Hopefulness and Coping Setting Boundaries Sex/Consent Did you know… Jefferson County Public Health offers a Parenting Workshop called Navigating Substance Experimentation in Teens (NSET). This free, interactive, online workshop provides strategies, information and resources for parents or guardians whose teen has begun experimenting with, or using vape, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and/or other drugs. The workshop is led by Jeffco School nurses who specialize in teen substance use prevention. The class is free, but requires registration: Register here NEW! Explorando la Experimentación de Sustancias en Adolescentes (NSET) Register here. Did you know… Your DIS Nurse can discuss referrals to programming with Denver Family Therapy Center, including:
Your (DIS) High School Nurse can also refer your son or daughter to a 6-week group called:
Please contact your school Nurse who can directly answer your questions about Health Services for your student. Ashley Jetton, RN, BSN 720-315-3864 [email protected] Written by: Suzanne Roberts, Social Emotional Learning Specialist As we all move into and/or through our winter holiday season this year, we may well be facing some challenges. This has been a year full of unique challenges, and at times has felt quite difficult. How in this place and time do we take care of ourselves and our loved ones and enjoy a beautiful holiday season? Regardless of what level of travel, activity, and time spent with others is right for you and your family, it will quite likely be different in many ways from typical years. How do we cope with that and help others to do the same? Current recommendations are for us to continue to do much of what we have been working to do all year, including working to:
These are but a few ideas to make this unique holiday season a fabulous one! For more information about these ideas to consider some more, please check out:
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