Contact School District of La Crosse
807 East Avenue South
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601
(608) 789-7600
https://www.lacrosseschools.org/

Transcription is for SEO only

Had conversations on and off for the last 12 years and I really enjoyed that I really enjoyed watching you bridge the schools with the community I mean just watching how somehow things work as might my cavities, my kids is an example to my four children went to the construction academy at Central High School and had the opportunity to build a garage build a house. My middle son who is enjoying a career now as a as a union carpenter. My youngest son is taking this class at Central High School minutes. Cool to see how to getting kids real life skills that they're going to use after they graduate. Well I think it's I think this is an important part of schools. Fact of the matter is your schools or your community in your community are really your schools. It's a symbiotic relationship and so we really take pride in building strong relationships but also making sure that were were helping students navigate for themselves, their interests, what they might be interested in. We do several skill surveys to help students, determine get some ideas about what they may want to do as they get older and what they may want to consider that nothing locks that under stone your children may be used as some of those who said I always wanted to be a coward. They watched you and the work that you do. Or maybe they took a skill servant said carpenter is one of something I want to get into. They look at what I do. Others, like I want to be in radio's path of a hole in the school District of La Crosse. We have been working diligently to establish opportunities for students and so along the way. Not only have we established the construction academy. We have also have a health science Academy that it's in. Since 10th 10th year we've had a few hundred kids move through this health science Academy grades 11 and 12 and it's really the epitome of I think strong partnerships and that we have for instance as partners. We have male health systems with Gunderson health systems we have UW well in the turbo and we have Western all involved in kids getting credit there getting opportunities inside of that and the getting opportunities off of our campus. It's an important part. We try to do our academies is a get kids off the campus is the most authentic opportunities they can find and we can provide for them inside of the community and those those entities. Those organizations that are working with us are are all about it at the same time they're also looking for a future employees lets us put that on the table. Of course, what were trying to do is to try to find connections. Our health science Academy. For instance, one of the things that our students are required to do is to still watch a surgery. Sometimes you find out the student finds out quickly that the sight of blood. It is not for them and so the sale Decided I am knocking to be a nurse or I'm not cyanotic of this, but I might want to look at something else in the health field really help students start to understand what they are really excited about by actually trying some of those things out and it also saves parents the money and tuition because it helps the students don't maybe go down up a better path maybe what their thing because they've experienced a little bit in their understanding they're talking to adults there talking to mentors and the mentor saying here's what we have to do and we do this, and here's how this happens and so I think that these community connections, the academies, the partnerships that we been running are so important. So why is a sense of community important in schools, but I think that community means everything inside the heart of the community as a strong relationships and so we whether talking about a neighborhood you're talking about a school being at the heart of the neighborhood and or vice versa. It's the relationships in the positive relationships that we bring to school every single day, student to student adults and students and families and other adults. Parents working side-by-side. This community building pieces all based on relationships in the good strong heavy webs that we create on relationships of a metaphor that I use sometimes when we talk about some of our programming and many times people will say well we need to have a strong safety net on our community. Absolutely I get that but I think of Safetynet. I'm thinking of the people in the flying trapeze at the way top of some sort of circus tent and now they're going back and forth and then got a safety net below them so they don't get hurt if and when they fall, and for our students. I think that a safety net is not the right thing. I think that what we need is a trampoline and needs to be so tightly woven that when a student does fall when a student misses the grab from that adult way up there. The top that they fall hit the trampoline, but they come right back up and someone grabs onto them again because it's to let him have a safety net just cushions the false they don't hit the floor, but hardly ever get back up again except starting at the very thing I climbing a ladder all the way back up to the top again I will make sure that we've got a good Safetynet that's really tight like a Leica, you know like the trampoline so student can bounce and get right back into it again. Were all in this together and we all need to be working together, we need to be supporting our children. They are the commodity that we have in front of us is so important for the future and well-being. Everyone one of us. We need to acknowledge that we need to support them