CAMDEN — The Preble Shawnee Board of Education welcomed a student to its table during a board meeting on Thursday, Oct. 25.
From now on, at every board meeting a member of the PSHS Student Senate will be present to report on happenings within the district and to weigh-in on appropriate subjects. For October, that student was Kaylie Campbell.
She opened the meeting with her report.
Campbell shared, Homecoming and Spirit Week was a success. A Suicide Prevention initiative was kicked off that week for the junior high and continued through the next week for the high school.
A new program called “Start With Hello” also began, to help educate students on “social isolation.” The program was focused on the junior high students, but still included high school as well.
Student Senate also had a meeting with Superintendent Matt Bishop to discuss Preble Shawnee’s strengths and areas of improvement.
“I think we all agree that we did a nice job on including students in activities, especially our junior high. I think we do a nice job announcing our sports teams and sharing when the games are on social media, especially on Twitter. We talked about bullying, and it doesn’t appear to be an issue. I can’t speak for the elementary schools, because we’re not there, but I haven’t heard about a big issue,” Campbell said. “For our areas of improvement, we’re really concerned about the ACT and I know it is a difficult test to take. I know students have had to retake it multiple times. We don’t have any ACT Prep of any kind for our students. We would like to try to add an ACT Prep class. This is a very difficult test that we need to be prepared for, and I don’t think we have enough opportunities to be prepared for that test that helps us get into college.
“I also don’t think that students are well informed on what they need to be doing for college. If you’re a first-year college student in your family, your parents might not know what to do for your situation. I think we need to have a way to inform them on what they should be doing if they play to go to college. If students do not plan to go to college, they need to know that there are other options for them.”
“Also,” Campbell continued, “We were talking about starting a student-led tutoring program. I know I struggle with some classes I am taking now and I know other students are struggling with the same issues I am having. I think we need to try and get help to those students, because I feel like instead of [accepting] failing a class [we could help them]. I think something like that would be helpful.”
