Students also exercise, have fun with recess during One Yard program
TO CHECK OUT THE STUDENTS’ NEWSLETTER, PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINK: Room 9 Times
Published in the March 19-April 1, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Hailey Freeman and Saskia Vaillancourt
Photo by Hailey Freeman
From left: School newsletter crew members Roman Pereira, Nomar Salom, Aliyah Habib, Heidi Sailor, Brooke Bevington, and principal Swati Dagar in front of the school.
It’s 7:40 a.m. and the morning bell rings, starting off 700 Paradise Valley students to go to their classrooms. Each Paradise Panther is eager to learn and have a great day with their teachers and friends.
Among them is Jenna Majors, a fifth grader who says school is fun, especially since the One Yard program came to the school. Through this organization, a coach helps the students have fun with their physical education during recess.
“Kids are having more fun,” Majors said. “I like PV because the others students are nice and the teachers care about everyone.”
Principal Swati Dagar has worked with the One Yard organization for five years at different school sites and has seen the students develop into student leaders through the program.
The program’s Junior Coaches, or “difference makers,” are fifth and sixth graders who make sure the other students are following the rules and playing games and having fun.
“The Junior Coaches have given students an opportunity to become leaders not only in the middle school but in the elementary level,” Dagar said. “Student leaders are out there helping other students with conflict resolution and feeling proud of being a Junior Coach and serving as role-models for their peers at PV. This has been a success and that’s what I want for PV.”
Dagar said she wants students at Paradise Valley to gain a balance of sports, academics, leadership opportunities to “shine” at all levels.
Paradise Valley is the only school in the Morgan Hill Unified School District that has a classroom newsletter, called Room 9 Times, produced and run by the students. Fifth-grade teacher John Loyd started the newsletter three years ago because he wanted to teach Paradise Valley students about journalism. He was the editor-in-chief of the Evergreen Flyer, the newspaper at Evergreen Valley College.
“It improves their writing skills. They learn about deadlines,” he said. “It gives students an opportunity to interact with other students and adults.”
Fourth graders wanted to be in Loyd’s class so they could contribute to the newsletter, so he allowed students from fourth through six grade to contribute and stories and illustrations.
“I think a lot of people are excited about it,” he said. “We are getting story ideas and illustrations put in the suggestion box. There’s a lot of buzz about it.”
Hailey Freeman, a fifth grader at Paradise Valley, is the student mentor of the Room 9 Times. Saskia Vaillancourt, also a fifth grade at Paradise Valley, is the co-editor-in-chief of the school’s newsletter.
