Catskill Teachers to Attend National Summit
June 10th, 2010
Catskill Central School Friends of Rachel Club advisors have been asked by Darrell Scott, the founder of Rachel's Challenge, to attend the Rachel's Challenge Summit for Educators in Colorado from June 23-June26. Kimberly Bushane and Colleen Clancey from the Catskill Central School District were invited as a result of the success on their Truck Day project, which benefits Shriners Hospital for Children. Truck Day partnered the schools, businesses, community members, and Rachel's Challenge.
 Truck Day started last school year and no one realized the enormous impact this event would have on our school and community. Catskill Friends of Rachel club decided it wanted to give back to Shriners Hospital as many local students have benefited from the hospital's services. Shriners Hospital accepts can tabs which they recycle and melt down in exchange for money to be used to help provide services to children and their families. Last year Catskill Friends of Rachel club collected over 1.5 million tabs and filled the back of a pick-up truck. Truck Day 2010 proved to be even more inspirational as with the assistance of schools across the nation, local community members, and businesses over 3.3 million tabs were collected and two trucks were filled with can tabs. It truly is amazing what can be accomplished as a community and nation when we all work together toward a common goal.
Rachel's' Challenge was started in memory of Rachel Joy Scott, who was the first person killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Her acts of kindness and compassion in combination with the contents of her diaries have become the foundation for a presentation called Rachel's Challenge. In March of 2008 Rachel's Challenge presented Rachel's story to Catskill Middle/High School. After seeing the Rachel's Challenge presentation, many schools across the country have set up Friends of Rachel clubs to decimate violence and bullying. The presentation touched Catskill's student body so much that the Friends of Rachel Club has taken on a “life” of its own. We have accepted the five challenges presented to us with avengeance. Our students strive to set goals, dare to dream, use kind words, eliminate prejudice, and start a chain reaction. This has evident by being asked to attend the Summit in June.
The Rachel's Challenge program started from a tragedy and has moved from tragedy to triumph through the creation of permanent positive culture changes in our schools. By attending the Summit Friends of Rachel Club advisors will have an opportunity to learn how to promote this chain reaction of kindness and continue to influence youth to make positive change. Topics included in the Summit are discovering how to provide a safe learning environment, developing a classroom atmosphere that builds positive relationships and fosters mutual respect, learning strategies for addressing bullying, social aggression, and harassment, discovering how to increase your effectiveness with difficult-to-reach students, receive instructional and behavioral strategies for motivating students, and learn strategies that can deepen student engagement leading to increased achievement.
The opportunity for the advisors to attend the Summit in Colorado has been made possible by the generosity of The Bank of Greene County. The bank has provided the school with a donation that will over the expenses of the trip.
(pictured left to right are: Kimberly Bushane and Colleen Clancey)
photo credit: lance wheeler
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