Dear IACS Community,

This past week, students engaged in activities that focused on enhancing student connection and a sense of community. It is always a pleasure to share “feel good” news with the IACS community and these stories are exactly that!

Middle school students, as part of Advisory this week, participated in the program “Start with Hello.” “Start with Hello” is a program offered through the Sandy Hook Foundation. The goal of the program is to help end social isolation in schools and make all students feel welcome and connected to their school community. Middle school students shared what it might look and feel like to feel lonely or left out. They also talked about ways to reach out to those who may be in need and reasons why we all carry this responsibility ,and the positive impact it can have on the entire school community. One 7th grade student shared that the Start with Hello activity “made me think about the kids who do feel left out, and how and why I should help.” Another 8th grade student acknowledged, that “everyone feels left out at sometime and many kids don’t know what to do about it.”

This past week high school students participated in “Mix it Up” day. “Mix it Up” is a program sponsored by Teaching Tolerance. The goal is to encourage students to reach beyond their immediate circle, and interact with peers who they may not have believed to share common ground or a social connection. Student leaders, along with the high school advisory coordinators, created a hype video and planned the event held during lunch period on October 23rd, international “Mix it Up” day. Student leaders Peyton Ballam and Kaylin Donoghue shared how validating it was to hear feedback like “I never thought I would become friends with a junior,” or “who knew that the senior class was so friendly?” The buzz around the lunch hour on Tuesday was palpable; congratulations to the students who made this happen!

Thank you to all who came out and enjoyed the brisk but sunny day we had for Pumpkin Run.

We doubled the number of runners in our 3K Trail race and want to thank Bill Rozen/Yankee Timing for timing this event and helping us organize. We’d also like to thank the small army of volunteers that came out to monitor the trails, bake, cook and serve the food, organize the trunk or treat cars, supervise the kids games, create a cool selfie station and register our runners.

A special thanks to our amazing facilities crew for marking and grooming the trails so that they would be ready for Pumpkin Run. We’d like to thank our sponsors and donors as well. Allways Healthcare, Circle Health, Century 21, Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union, Bodega Shoe Store, Laser Craze, Showcase Cinema and Parlee Farms.

Hope to see you at next year’s race!

Thank you to all who came out and walked in our Walkathon on Monday and Tuesday of this week, we were lucky to have beautiful weather and we had a lot of fun walking around the track and singing along to some tunes. Thanks to your hard work we raised over $6000! An extra special thank you goes to our top individual fundraisers: Maddie Evans-Cole (1st place) Abby Noel (2nd place) and Sarah Gierke (3rd place). The top fundraising advisories were: Grove, Patterson, Stephens-North, and Kent advisories. The advisory that showed the most school spirit was the Moodie/Schraeder Advisory! Way to go and Thank You!