Protecting and preparing students

Protecting students now and preparing them for the future are two of the priorities of Sweetwater County School District No. 2. 

Working towards these goals, the school district is hosting presentations from Uprising next week and is continuing to develop Work Based Learning programs through the RIDE grant. Assistant Superintendent Alan Demaret and Superintendent Craig Barringer presented these topics to the SCSD No. 2 Board of Trustees during Tuesday night's meeting. 

Promoting online safety  

One area the school district wants to focus on is working with students to address technology and online dangers like exploitation and sextortion. 

"We know that online safety is a big concern," Demaret said. "Most of our students have devices in their hands, and so we want to try to equip them with some information and raise awareness around some of the risks."

To accomplish this, the school district has partnered with Uprising, a Wyoming nonprofit organization based out of Sheridan that travels around the state to provide education about the risks of human trafficking as well as topics related to online safety. 

Uprising will be conducting presentations in all SCSD No. 2 schools next week. There will be two separate programs, with one for elementary schools and one for the middle school and high school, according to Demaret. The elementary program will be for fifth graders and will focus on age-appropriate material surrounding topics like having healthy relationships, recognizing red flags, understanding social norms, and how students can protect themselves around online technology. The presentation for older students will focus on more specific topics such as grooming, consent, sextortion, and other areas related to online safety. 

"We're just wanting to raise that awareness that this is out there and we can't have our heads in the sand," Demaret said. 

Some have brought up the objection that these types of issues aren't a problem in Wyoming, Demaret pointed out, but his response was that even a quick Google search can pull up a number of articles about Wyoming-related incidents with charges related to alleged child pornography, exploitation, and more. Beyond just the state-wide impact, Demaret pointed out that these issues have already been seen within Sweetwater County, particularly regarding dangers like sextortion, which involves extorting money or sexual favors from someone by threatening to reveal evidence of their sexual activity.

"We have had incidents of this taking place in our buildings where our School Resource Officers have had to be involved, the FBI has been involved in a couple cases," Demaret explained. "It's important that we do raise awareness about these behaviors because they're real. This is happening, even in Sweetwater County."

Demaret also acknowledged that many say these conversations should be happening at home, which he agreed with. However, he pointed out that many parents struggle to address these hard topics with their children, and many students aren't equipped to know what to do when faced with these dangers. Just as the school district takes measures for school safety in other areas, online safety is also an area of concern.

Parental rights are also important in these conversations, according to Demaret. He explained that the purpose of presenting to the board about the Uprising presentations was for transparency about the school district's plans, and he pointed out that parents have the option to opt out if they don't want their students to attend the presentation. 

While each school will have a presentation for students, there is also a "Parent Night" presentation for parents, caregivers and educators that is free and open to the public to attend. This presentation will take place from 6 - 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 21 in the Green River High School auditorium. 

The board expressed concern over the parent night taking place after some of the school presentations, which Demaret explained was a matter of scheduling. Since the board wanted parents to have the option of viewing the presentation before deciding whether to have their children attend, they decided to put the presentation up online so parents can preview it. Demaret also noted that the presentation was seen by school counselors, who wanted it to come to the schools, and has been distributed to administration already as well. 

"I think it's good the school district is being proactive in this," Board Chairman Steve Core said. 

Pursuing Work Based Learning 

When it comes to preparing students for the future, SCSD No. 2 is working on ways to ensure that graduates can gain experience that will help them be prepared to enter the workforce. 

Last year, the school district was accepted into the RIDE (Reimagining and Innovating the Delivery of Education) Pilot program through the Governor's office, connected to the "Wyoming's Future of Learning" grant. 

The grant was awarded last July, and in August the school district started collaborating with 2Revolutions, the group working with all the school districts that were chosen for RIDE. Last month, 2Revolutions came to Green River to work with staff at the high school to do training and continue developing the program, which will focus on pairing students with local employers. 

"The reason is that we have to prepare kids for the workforce," Barringer said.

Starting next month, the school district hopes to be able to implement the first stages of the program. The goal is to have full implementation by August.

"We'll have kids out into the community job shadowing," Barringer said.

In preparing to get started, there are already plans to pair students with employers in fields that the students are interested in pursuing. For example, one of the current students is interested in becoming a veterinarian, so plans are being made for that student to spend a period each day job shadowing with and learning from a local veterinarian.  

Students who participate in the program will earn an elective credit initially. In order to get their grade, they will be required to demonstrate proficiency through the end of the quarter and do a portfolio defense of their work. Students will also have to do weekly assignments reflecting on what they've learned. 

Another program SCSD No. 2 and 2Revolutions have worked together to implement and learn from is "Profile of a Graduate," which included four 90-minute sessions and had around 100 participants. This program gathered input from students, teachers, and community members discussing what graduates need. Barringer said that the results from these meetings will be shared in March, and said that a survey will be shared because the school district still wants more input.