Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Students, families and the community are encouraged to start a chain reaction of kindness and compassion by first attending a special Rachel’s Challenge assembly tonight.
Named after Rachel Scott, the first person killed at Columbine High School 10 years ago in Littleton, Colo., the free assembly will be held from 7-8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28 at the Presque Isle Middle School auditorium.
The featured speaker will be Brandie Orozco. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in curriculum design. Her passion for kids has ranged from teaching fourth grade to now speaking to thousands of young people through Rachel’s Challenge.
“It is a character building, anti-bullying initiative that brings the message of kindness and compassion to parents, teachers and the community,” said Marianne Dyer, seventh-grade teacher at PIMS who is helping organize the assembly. “It will have an impact on the school, students and the community because of how powerful the message is. It’s emotionally charged.”
Started by Scott’s family in 1999, Rachel’s Challenge seeks to motivate, educate and activate.
According to the organization’s publicity material, “Without any politics, religion or profit involved, we motivate by grabbing kids’ hearts in an assembly. We educate their minds with training and curriculum. We help activate them to get involved with their hands through exercises and community service.”
Earlier in the day, freshmen and sophomores at Presque Isle High School will attend a school assembly based on Rachel’s Challenge, as will OTC students and middle-schoolers at PIMS, some of whom will be involved in student training, as well.
Dyer hopes the community will attend the evening assembly in large numbers.
“I’m hoping that parents, teachers and administrators from other districts, business leaders, guidance counselors and social workers, and students will come to this moving program,” she said. “I hope that they will be entertaining thoughts and take seriously the issue of bullying in the schools. What we – as teachers – see in the building is nothing compared to what boils underneath the surface in kids … kids who are being pushed, shoved and called names to the point where they don’t want to come to school.
“We want people to know that this isn’t part of growing up and it’s not OK,” said Dyer. “It’s time that we eradicate the problem and make a zero-tolerance for bullying because kids suffer lifelong consequences to these ordeals in schools. It’s one of the things that gets in the way of kids being able to learn, and we hope that message will be heard and accepted by those who come to the assembly. The more people in the community who get on board with us, the more support we’ll have and the more support the kids will have to stand up against bullies.”
In addition to the assemblies, PIMS students have been involved with a number of projects, lessons and activities that tie into the character building/anti-bullying theme including character vocabulary projects (posters, collages, paragraphs, graphic organizers, etc.), bulletin boards, goal development, classroom speakers and read alouds.
“We’ve been reading ‘Letters to a Bullied Girl’ and ‘Rachel’s Tears’ orally to students in class and parts are being read on the public address system for the entire school during the morning announcements,” said Dyer. “Our whole seventh-grade team is involved in this … it’s become the theme for this school year. We actually began meeting in August to plan activities and we plan to do at least one activity a month till the end of the year. We want to keep this message in front of the students all year so they’ll be thinking about it constantly and working to make that chain reaction.”
For more on Rachel’s Challenge, log onto www.rachelschallenge.org.
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