We have seen some high profile acts of violence in schools lately. We want to assure you that our students at Diamond Ridge are safe. We have procedures in place to deal with emergencies of fire, crime, and threats to our school. The adults in our building are trained, and we repeatedly rehearse lock down procedures, fire drills, and how to react to an earthquake. We are pleased that our students are well served at home by parents and guardians who love them and help them feel safe by establishing a sense of normalcy, security, and by helping them deal with their fears. Here are a few tips for talking to kids about violence from the National Association of School Psychologists.
- Reassure children they are safe. Tell them schools are very safe and explain why.
- Explain when tragedy occurs that their feelings are okay, let them talk about their feelings and help put those feelings in perspective.
- Make time to talk. Patiently let their questions guide as to how much information to provide. Some kids prefer writing, playing music, or doing art as an outlet.
- Please emphasize we all play a role in school safety. Help them understand the difference between reporting and tattling. Coach them on when and how to report any threat at home or school.
- Help them see that violence is never a solution to personal problems.
For additional tips for parents on school safety, violence prevention, and crisis response, go to www.nasponline.org.
Our Wonderful Music Program
We are thankful to Mrs. Briggs and Mr. Wolf, our district music teachers, for the meaningful addition they bring to our students. Their efforts were displayed beautifully as our students performed during our holiday concert in December. Music is not only fun and beautiful to play and hear, it is good for the brain. Every culture that we know of has used rhythm and melody to communicate musically. The beat and lyrical qualities of language are very similar to music. Researchers see many benefits to including music in school. Stanford University researchers found listening to music helps people pay attention, make predictions and update short term memory. Other studies discovered that music training has a positive effect on mathematics, reasoning and language ability.
We work to involve all our students in positive, musical experiences at school. We’ve asked Ms. Turner to work with many of our students each week in a special music class. They learn the basics of rhythm, the musical scale, and the joys of singing great songs. Mr. Cracroft is teaching some of our sixth grade students the basics of song writing to create meaning through merging language and music together. We start each day singing the National Anthem, and we begin our assemblies by singing our school song. As the culmination to our holiday festivities, each grade performs a song at our school sing-a-long. Walk by our classrooms and you’ll hear students singing songs about math, the days of the week, our constitution, and many other subjects including French. La musique est merveilleuse! Music is wonderful!
Debbie Koji, Principal
Tod Cracroft, Assistant Principal
