By Rebecca Dopp
Times-News Correspondent
Juab High School will graduate 165 students tonight at commencement exercises at 6:30 pm in the high school gym. A list of the top scholars was handed out to school board members. “We had another outstanding year academically,” Catherine Bowring, JHS counselor, said. “Our students never cease to amaze me. They work so hard, they’re involved in so many things from drama to sports, and they maintain such high standards in the classrooms.” Of the 165 graduates, 6 are junior and 11 are considered early graduates (those who finished after 1st quarter, the 1st semester or 3rd quarter). Six students earned the Snow College General Ed Certification of Completion. There were nine students who graduated from Mountainland Technical College (MTech). Three students earned a 24-credit diploma which is an alternative-type of diploma. “I don’t think we’ve ever had 17 early graduates [juniors or early grads],” said Superintendent Rick Robins. “That’s like a record between the two.” Bowring said that two students dropped out because they would not have enough credits to graduate. They were both 18 years old and had transitioned into the adult education. Bowring anticipated a 90% or better rate of graduates this year. Robins said that the counselors worked very hard to get the students to this point. He said they did everything they could to see that these students made it over the finish line. “I just love and respect what you do,” he said. JHS has been in the top 2 in graduation rates for the past three years and they get compliments statewide from other districts, he said. To sustain that, it takes a lot of work and effort from those at the high school. “We love the kids, we are very invested in them, especially the ones we are pushing and pulling,” said Bowring. “It’s not just pushing and pulling their senior year; it’s usually a four-year process that we’re working not just with them, but we get to know their parents and their family situation and different things like that.” She mentioned the two students who had dropped out and how hard it was to make those phone calls to parents. “It’s been hard,” she said, fighting back emotion. She reported on the concurrent enrollment numbers from fall of 2015 to spring of 2019. The number of kids taking concurrent enrollment classes has steadily increased over the years, going from 121 in fall of 2015 to 205 in the 2018-19 school year. The GPA in those classes had also stayed pretty consistent, ranging from a low of 3.04 in the fall of 2017 to a high of 3.47 in both the spring of 2018 and fall of 2018. Bowring also talked about the data project for the year. “Every year counselors are asked to do a data project,” she said. “This is the template that the state requires us to turn in to them so they can review one of the things that we wanted to focus on as a goal in our counseling office.” Every week they meet with their youth support team, she said. This year they focused on attendance. A majority of the students that are referred to them on youth support have chronic attendance problems. She said that they tracked 19 students that were on the watch list at the beginning of the year. They tracked them from 1st quarter to 4th quarter. The goal was a 10% decrease in unexcused absences from 1st quarter to 4th quarter. Some of the practices that they have to help them with that on the youth support team are restorative practices. They want those students to stay in school instead of getting detention or expelled. They looked at what they could do to get those students to school be it phone calls, home visits, meeting with them weekly, or checking in with the counselors. “Building relationships with those kids kind of summarizes all of our efforts on the youth support team,” she said. “Also getting the teachers involved by asking them to form relationships with those students as well.” After analyzing the data, with the help of Christian Clark, JHS math teacher, they found they had decreased those absences by 35%. Those practices made a difference with those students who were tracked. Kevin Jacobsen, JHS counselor, commented that those kids were missing over 100 days from the previous year. Because of this support some of those kids had raised their GPAs and were doing very well. “When they make a connection with somebody...just somebody who’s checking with them daily, that knows their name, that talks to them everyday,” said Bowring, “all of a sudden they want to come and check in with you. It’s not a punishment. They want to come say hi and let you know how they are doing. We do grade checks with them and celebrate with them. It’s really been a good thing for us to see some of those wins.” Bowring and Jacobsen had been running a social group this year. They had noticed several kids who struggled with social anxiety and autistic kids who had a hard time making friends. She spoke of one student, a freshman, who was new to the school who had a fear of eating in the lunchroom. She said they decided to start a social group during lunchtime and invited a few kids who were struggling. They had done this periodically over the year. “The first lunch date we had was up in one of the special ed resource rooms, that was as social as he would get,” she said. “So we invited about six students. At first, the invitee list was mostly teachers and we told the student, we want you to invite students. We had pretty even teacher to student ratio at the first one. Today was our last one and three students actually came. The last two [social group meetings], we got them down in the counselor’s office eating their lunches, and today we had a goal with that student, by the end of the year we wanted him in the lunchroom and one of the students in the social group said, let’s just grab our pizza and go into the lunchroom. We wondered how this was going to go. They all got up and walked into the lunchroom. That was a big win for us. He stayed out there the whole lunch. They talked the entire time. Things like that help balance out the hard things that we go through.” Dale Whitlock, board president, said that he appreciated all the work they had done. Jacobsen reported about Senior Trek, the yearly trip to Southern California that is taken after graduation. “We have about 79 kids going this year compared to about 82 kids last year,” he said. He said this year’s senior class decided to go to two days at Disneyland, a day at Universal Studios and attend an Angels baseball game. “We have great seats at the Angels game, it’s like 3rd baseline,” he said. There are three kids with special needs going this year who will need a little more attention, he said. There will be a few more chaperones because of that. He said that Senior Trek is a great experience for the seniors. It keeps kids from leaving graduation and going partying. By offering this experience, he knows these kids will be safe and have a good time. “I think our Senior Trek is one of the most wonderful things our high school does,” Whitlock said. Jacobsen said that he enjoyed seeing kids leave behind the cliques of high school and get to know each other better. Friendships from elementary school were reborn and they all had a great time. He also said it was a good experience for some of the kids who might have never been out of the state of Utah or seen the ocean. Lindsey Downard, JJHS counselor, also gave her report. She had also focused on attendance numbers on her data project along with academic skills and social skills. She identified a group of students in 1st quarter and was able to do some group counseling with them. She focused on them and tracked them through 4th quarter. Her main goal was to increase those skills and attendance by 10%. “Compared to the high school, its a lot different because theirs was mainly attendance issues,” she said. “Mine was kind of across the board.” Overall, attendance did increase, but not by 10%. The ones who had attendance problems did show some improvement in one or two quarters. They had been missing most of the week, which on an A/B schedule was not good, she said. “I really loved my group,” she said. “It gave them a purpose, a focus, friends, skills to use in class, so overall I felt like they were more successful in school. They seemed a lot happier and more involved in different things.” One thing she started this year was Hope Week which coordinated with the Community Night Out. Hope Week is used for suicide prevention, but instead of focusing on the negative, they wanted to focus on inclusion of all students, making sure it was a positive atmosphere, and including everyone. She said they had some cool activities throughout that week. Dave Adams, who was born without arms or legs, presented a new view for students who may be going through some hard things, but not to the extent he did. He showed them some skills to get through those hard times. There were also dress up days, and activities that promoted hope and hope for the future. They ended the week with a balloon stomp under the theme “Stomp out Suicide.” “Our gym was chaos, but no one broke a leg,” she said. “Everyone had a good time.” She says that next year they will try to have two Hope Weeks, one in 1st semester and one in 2nd semester. She also talked about the Career Fair held at Snow College-Richfield. Seventh graders were able to go to different classes, meet professors, and tour the campus. She said it was a great experience and she hopes they will get to do it again next year. Robins said he appreciated her hard work with the junior high students. He knew it was not easy. Downard said she appreciated the help and cooperation she received from the high school counselors.
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