Innovation at Dalat #13 Awards Program

The pins and plaques that students receive in our awards program are to recognize achievement, inspire students to try something different, and to serve as a memento of a student’s activities during their time at Dalat. This is a one-of-a-kind program that we designed from the ground up ten years ago, modeled after a “letter-jacket” concept that is traditional in North America. We have worked to improve every year since by recognizing more activities with pins. Dalat custom designs each pin (thank you, Mrs. Roberts) and crafts them for only our students.

When a student graduates, in addition to a diploma, they are handed their plaque and pins as a keepsake to remind them of their activities at Dalat. I have shared the unique program that Dalat is using at several conferences and have consistently received positive feedback from other schools or have heard from them that they intend to emulate what we are doing.

Most of the pins are awarded during our year-end High School Awards Ceremony at 9:30 am on Friday, June 7. This ceremony is for all of our HS students in grades 9-12. Parents are encouraged to attend and help us celebrate. This will be our first year in the Harbor Hall for Baccalaureate, Commencement, Senior Tea, and the Awards Ceremony; and I am excited to have a beautiful space for these celebration events. I hope you will make plans to join us for this special event.

If you would like more details on the program guidelines, please refer to this link. Student Award Program Description

Innovation at Dalat #12 Student Absences

Sometimes too much of a good thing is actually not a good thing…like when you have just a little too much frosting on your piece of cake!  Perhaps that is not the best example since I have never had too much frosting! How about too much exercise? How about too much innovation at school?

As Dalat has grown, so have the number of great opportunities for students to learn outside of the classroom.  Between sports trips, Impact trips, band/choir trips, class trips, Forensics & History Bowl trips, and academic field trips, there are a lot of great reasons for kids to travel the world and miss classes. In spite of our best efforts to schedule things carefully and do what we can to minimize the negative impacts of these outings they do add up to have an impact on the other primary thing that we do at Dalat…teaching classes.

Dalat has reached a sort of “tipping point” where the drawbacks of all the time out of the classrooms have begun to outweigh some of the positives of all of these great opportunities. Teachers have rightly expressed concern that you cannot teach students who are not present, and it is difficult to move forward with the curriculum when many students are away for extended times. Add to this the fatigue factor for students who are constantly trying to catch up from their last outing, and the cost to parents who are trying to pay for all of the enrichment activities and you arrive at the need to make some adjustments.

This is where we found ourselves this semester. Long discussions ensued. These are not easy decisions because sometimes it means “saying no” to great opportunities. But in the end, several policies to try and help will be implemented for next year:

Adjustments

• The biggest change that students must be aware of and plan for is that they will be allowed a maximum of three major trips (two or more nights) in a school year. Students who are involved in multiple sports or other activities may need to make some decisions about what their priorities are and if they are adding an Impact trip, what will they be giving up. The only exception that will not be tallied toward the three trips is the senior sneak in which all students are strongly encouraged to attend.
• Each varsity sports team will be allowed a maximum of two trips per year. One can be the longer ACSC trips, but the other will be limited to a single overnight.
• The administration will work to schedule events so that multiple trips happen at the same time so that everyone is gone at once. This means that everyone is back in the classroom together.
• There are several other scheduling and organizing internal adjustments from multiple departments that will also be implemented.  We will evaluate next year if further changes will be needed.

Here are other notes to continue to be aware.

·    

Our final exam time in high school is important enough that we do not allow a students to be absent from exams or reschedule. We end sports and most activities early to give students study time. Students are not given permission to leave early or reschedule exams in any way except in extraordinary extenuating circumstances.
      
 Our absence policy does allow parents to decide to miss up to eight days of class in a semester without penalty. While we don’t encourage this, we also know that life happens outside of school and there are good reasons why a family may need to miss a few days throughout the semester. However, unless there are serious medical or personal emergencies that fall outside of the control of the family, we have held to the standard that grades are dropped by 10% if a student misses more than eight of a particular class in a semester. School-sponsored absences for trips do not count towards this policy. There is more information about this in our parent and student handbook.

As always, we welcome your feedback. Let me know if you have any questions.

Innovation at Dalat #11 Technology Contract

It is no secret that there is a significant downside to using technology in the classrooms. It means that our students spend more time looking at computer screens and there are more distractions when work needs to be done. Computers open up a world of new opportunities good and bad and I have heard compelling arguments for both schools that adopt 1 to 1 programs and those that eschew technology altogether.  

What tips the scales in favor of keeping them at Dalat is the opportunity we now have to teach students to use the technology well, to use their time wisely, and to make good decisions about what they access online.  Once they graduate and leave our care, we lose the opportunity to mentor them as they navigate a digital world. No matter where they go and what they do, they will use technology. So I believe we should be investing in teaching them wisdom rather than sheltering them. Our role as a school is to partner with families in this education process, not to replace the family.  We want to empower parents to engage in the process of guiding young minds to learn how to make good decisions regarding the use of technology.

Our 9^th-grade students piloted a trial program this school year working with their parents to develop their own “Family Technology Contract.”  Students spent time talking with their parents about expectations for technology use and care of devices. The questions on the plan help families think through important questions and establish expectations up front so that the kids and parents know the family guidelines.

Next year we will require the plan of all students and their parents in high school. Filling it out each year as the student progresses will allow families the opportunity to talk about what is working or not, and reevaluate the rules and expectations as the student matures.

As summertime approaches with extra free time, the challenges families face to establish healthy boundaries may increase. I am offering the questions from the technology plan below for families that want to get a head start. You are encouraged to take some time and work with all of your kids to talk through the questions below.