Our motto is “Students First”, and we don’t just say it, but we show it through our actions.
One of the ways this is implemented is through our CATS/homeroom time. The acronym CATS stands for Character, Achievement, Teamwork and Success. It is an essential part of the structure of Carson High School. The idea is for a group of students to have “homeroom” time with one teacher for all four years that they attend Carson High School.
The idea was the vision of two original members of Carson’s staff: Terry Holt, the assistant principal in 2006-07 and Jim Pope, a wonderful history teacher for many years. This is meant to be a time to build relationships and make connections with other students and the CATS teacher. CATS teachers become someone from whom students can ask advice and share concerns and positive moments with on a regular basis. In many cases, these connections continue after the students graduate. We get to follow their college and work experiences. We are asked to write letters of recommendation and invited to weddings and baby showers.
I texted two of my former students with whom I still keep in touch. I asked them what CATS meant to them. One responded with this sentiment, “ My best experience was being able to keep in touch with my CATS teacher after high school. I think CATS is meant to help give advice and be there for the students. It is a time to help the students learn how and what to do to apply for college, work etc.”. The other student, one who really struggled his sophomore year said,” I think the really best part of CATS class for me was that our class was together for four years. It was a class that helped each other out. We held each other accountable. It was a time to make a stronger bond with people. I think it really made me a better person in general. We had to learn to accomplish things as a team, too.” So, CATS can definitely make a difference in a student’s life.
Over the past ten years, we have had some turnover with teachers. The original purpose of CATS was not well known by all the staff. At the end of the 2014-2015 school year and over the summer, a group of teachers guided by Brooke Misenheimer got together to revise, revamp, and reenergize CATS. We wanted to give it a boost and new structure, to get it back to the original meaning and purpose. Our main goal was to bring back that sense of Carson community. This is one thing that has made Carson a great place to attend high school.
Our group came up with a revised schedule for the week. I am not going to go into details about the whole schedule. It can be viewed on catsunpluggedweebly.com. I want to focus on the part about which our group was the most passionate. Bree Stillings, Carson’s French teacher, shared a video she watched on Edutopia. It was about a program that was implemented at another high school for students to have “unplugged” time everyday. It was like an epiphany for our group. We had to do it at Carson. It was decided that every Tuesday and Thursday during CATS, we would have CATS Unplugged. The teachers would hold sessions/activities that didn’t require laptops or cellphones. This was shared with the rest of the staff at our opening meeting on August 18. They were asked to fill out a Google document to list their session/activity choice. I knew that the teachers at Carson bought into this idea when I looked on the document at the end of the meeting; so many staff members had already typed in their information. It was a wide variety, too. Some of the suggested activities were: Legos, card games, crochet, walking, making balloon animals, paper football, meditation, discussion groups, origami and do it yourself projects.
The students were exposed to the changes in CATS through discussions with their teachers and a video. They were told to have three possible choices. So by Friday, August 28, they were getting pretty excited. We held a pumped up school wide pep rally in the football stadium. I have never seen the students so animated as a group. It made my heart happy. You could feel the energy all around. The students were sitting with their respective grades levels in the stands. The teachers were lined up around the track holding up our signs with our sessions/activities on them. Upbeat music was playing while the students and teachers were dancing and laughing. The seniors, as a privilege, got to sign up first. Many were running to the teacher with the session that they wanted. I don’t think I have ever seen some of those students run. Students had anxious expressions on their faces as they stopped to ask, “Is this session full?”. If the teacher’s answer was ”Not yet”, then their faces would break into smiles. At the pep rally, all of the students were loudly shouting, “ We are Carson!”
Our hope is to give the students down time and another adult with whom to make a positive connection. Also, we would like this to be something that helps motivate them to do well in the classroom. All students will be participating the first nine weeks. Students that make below a C in a class on the first quarter report card will have to attend CATS Catch Up the second nine weeks. Students, who make a C or greater, will get to choose a new session for nine weeks.
Be sure to check out the catsunplugged.weebly.com to see the different ways we are doing things in CATS this school year. The teachers and staff on the CATS committee are excited about all these changes. We see good things happening. By investing in our students through CATS, we are building an interdependent community. It will promote an even more positive school environment that makes Carson High School special.
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