By Ben Gibbons
Staff Writer
Mira Costa’s Associated Student Body hosted its first Core Values assembly of the year on Nov. 9 in the Mustang Mall, in order to promote important core values for students and to give awards for non-academic achievement.
Some examples of the promoted values include dependability, compassion, respect, leadership, integrity, tolerance, determination and loyalty. The necessity for focus upon core values and non-academic recognition was brought to the attention of the school through parents of Costa students.
For more information on how these values were chosen, click here.
“Through a movement by the parents last year, a group of parents wanted some sort of recognition for kids that was not tied to academics,” activities director Lisa Claypoole said. “We did two of them last year, and this year there are four on the schedule.”
During the assembly, ASB honored the dodgeball tournament winners, “Goats and Po’s”, and the artists who created the cover art of Costa’s 2016-17 planners. The award recipients received a certificate of achievement, a gift card courtesy of a private donor and balloons.
Photos: Students line up for photos with their awards and balloons at the core values assembly during lunch.
“We want to recognize things that kids do on campus that are either community service like, or fun,” Claypoole said. “It is cool to recognize the kids that kicked butt at the dodgeball tournament.”
Chairman for the Social Emotional Wellness Committee Jennifer Cochran spoke about helping to reduce stress for students at Costa. According to Cochran, Costa teachers, staff and parents will be shadowing a day in the life of a student to understand their workload, difficulty of classes and the amount of stress they are receiving.
We started looking at the culture at Mira Costa last spring and began talking about some of the root causes of the highly competitive, stressed environment that students live in,” Cochran said. “Many of those root causes are things that we have to address with the greater community.”
“We started looking at the culture at Mira Costa last spring and began talking about some of the root causes of the highly competitive, stressed environment that students live in,” Cochran said. “Many of those root causes are things that we have to address with the greater community.”
Chris Stretch, a Costa performance coach and physcotherapist, talked about depression and anxiety in teenagers. Stretch talked about his own life and his difficulties trying to fit in socially. He also spoke about social media can inaccurately portray one’s life.
Visit the Character Lab website for more information about character promotion in schools.
“People need to accept themselves for the way they are,” Stretch said. “After I was able to do this, I could guide myself and find better happiness socially.”
Every quarter, Costa focuses on one or more of these core values. Costa’s main goal is to expand the core values assemblies by possibly making them mandatory assemblies, Claypoole said.
“I want to institute a new way where kids can nominate other kids to be recognized, kids can nominate teachers, teachers can nominate kids, etc.,” Claypoole said. “I hope to create an open nomination system for non-academic recognition.”
The Core Values assemblies will continue quarterly in the Mustang Mall during lunch. Many staff members hope that these assemblies can have a greater impact on students and that our campus can emphasize core values even more, Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale said.
“I think this will be a great candidate for the future to have an additional mandatory assembly to give it more emphasis,” Dale said.
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