Photo: (from left) Shelby Skidmore, Maddie Thornton, Tracy Hodges, Dakota Stewart and Laney Stanford.The Calico Rock Junior Beta Club has received a bid to national competition following a trip to Hot Springs earlier this month for a state-wide leadership conference.
Maddie Thornton, president; Dakota Stewart, vice president; Laney Stewart, secretary/treasurer; and Shelby Skidmore, student council representative; learned peer mentoring, leadership and real-world people skills. They participated in a 24-hour competition called Lead Out of the Box. Upon check-in, these students were given a real world scenario and had to present a curriculum, program and an environment or system that will meet state law.
The state board of education recently passed a requirement for every middle school to develop and implement social and emotional learning. This is an attempt to alleviate the growing stress and anxiety among middle school students experiencing overwhelming pressure to improve standardized test performance and succeed extracurricularly.
Students report feeling isolated and disrupted sleep patterns, headaches, stomach issues and racing heart rates. Likewise, the student counselors are seeing an unprecedented number of students withdrawing due to high stress and anxiety levels. The Junior Beta Club members were asked to form an advisory committee with a budget of $500 to address the issue.
Their solution to this problem used the funding to design and build an anonymous concern box and begin giving positive affirmations to students across all campuses. Calico students competed against more than 40 represented schools from all over the state. This is the first time junior beta has attended this function, and it is the first time the club has been invited to take this solution to a national level. The convention will take place in Fort Worth, Texas in June 2020.
Calico Rock Junior Beat Club is sponsored by Tracy Hodges.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady®NSI