This years Parent University (PU) was another major success! Despite the cold, rainy night, we had over 180 parents and 180 students show up for a night of education and fun. Again the largest evening event held on the School campus. Launch Pad joined forces with Celebration Church who provided 32 student interns to help with promoting and volunteering at the event. The Celebration interns were a key part of the night’s success and fun. THANK YOU Celebration Church!
We used dance and drama to entertain the 180 students. While students were engaging in fun filled team building activites, parents were gathered in the school theater learning from a variety of special speakers such as Rolando Fernandez, an assistant to the City Manager of Austin who brought a powerful testimony of overcoming obstacles and poverty to achieve lasting success through education and perseverance. We also had the Austin Police Department provide insights to key areas such as domestic abuse and school truency issues. The goals of Parent University were achieved by educating parents about the critical importance of engaging in thier student’s education while at the same time engaging the students in fun filled games teaching them the importance of team building!
The 2009 fall semester After-School Program blasted-off with a roar this new school year! Last school year, on our first day we had 12-15 students attend our program, as the school year progressed our program grew to a consistent 30-35 students per class. This year on day one we had 40 students and maintaining every class since then!
The school Principal moved us into the school cafeteria due to our tremendous growth.
Maximizing this new space, we are able to bring innovative media and sound to keep the students engaged and interested. The venue also has allowed us to utilize team building games at the beginning of our classes to allow the middle schooler’s to burn off some energy!
The most exciting part of this new school year is the launch of our new curriculum, RESH180. This curriculum is written by my good friend and team Chaplain for the Oakland Raiders. The NFL Oakland Raiders use this program for all their incoming rookies and it’s also been used throughout the country to train youth with necessary life skills.
Through this program our at-risk students, grades 6th thru 8th are taught how to plan their dreams (set goals), know where they are going (direction for their life) understand self (purpose and destiny) renew their thinking (mindset and behavior) and so much more! RESH180 will set the important foundation for our core values curriculum later on in the school year.
