Welcome Back Meeting October
7, 2014 7:00pm
Elliott Library, Glenbard West High School
Although this event is sponsored by West Nation (formerly Gen Ellyn Youth Center
Board). All District 87 community members are welcome!
West Nation is a Glenbard West
school community collaboration of staff, students and parents. West Nation
empowers student involvement and connections to promote healthy decision making
in our students to set a positive course through high school and beyond.
Parents are offered education and opportunities for involvement to support
student activities and events during the school year. West Nation is proud to
partner in that mission with CARES (the high school equivalent of PTO/PTA, which
organizes events for students, parents and staff, such as the Post Prom Party,
Staff Appreciation Dinner, and Valentines for Vets etc.), Glenbard Parent
Series (GPS), which brings incredible education to parents and faculty via
speakers and invited guests, and Boosters (which raises funds for
academic, athletic and co-curricular activities at West). We like to
think of West Nation, CAREs & Boosters as being integral parts of the
foundation that helps to keep our fine castle together by promoting the West
Way.
Please join Mr. Peter Monaghan,
Principal, Glenbard West, and Dr. David Larson, Superintendent of Glenbard
District 87, as we kick off a new year of parent-school-student collaboration. Sign-ups
for committee opportunities will be available to parents.
We are excited to welcome Andy
Duran, Executive Director of LEAD as our guest speaker.
Andy Duran has served as the
Executive Director of both LEAD* and the SpeakUP! Prevention Coalition since
May 2012. Andy is passionate about youth. Equipped with years of
experience working with youth and a new approach to drug prevention,
Andy hopes to successfully position LEAD to make a positive impact on the
behavior of youth in the community. Andy hopes that, under his direction,
LEAD will develop into a model that other organizations across the country
can follow. Please feel free to peruse their website at http://www.leadingefforts.org/
* LEAD™ is a 501(c)(3) non-profit
organization dedicated to parents and other adults and their role in the
promotion of healthy family relationships and the prevention of alcohol, drug
use, and other risky behavior by youth. LEAD has served the Lake Forest,
Lake Bluff and Knollwood, IL communities (population 30,000) for over 25 years.
LEAD also manages and operates the Speak
UP! Prevention Coalition.
Speak UP! is a grassroots community anti-drug coalition formed in 2006 to
significantly reduce the levels of alcohol and drug use by youth in Lake
Forest, Lake Bluff, and Knollwood. The coalition is funded in part by a
federal Drug Free Communities grant and has volunteer members from all
sectors of the community. Speak UP! is specifically focused on reducing
alcohol, marijuana, and prescription/over-the-counter drug use by youth and has
established logic models and detailed strategic action plans to do so.
In our culture, we believe that hard work and sacrifice lead to happiness. But
according to the latest science from Positive Psychology, we may have that
backwards. In her blog Positively, Disruptively Happy! Jane S Anderson,
former Glenbard West parent, explores the research. She provides proven tools
and principles useful for everyone who influences how people think, act, and
live – leaders, managers, parents, school teachers, social workers, students,
coaches, health professionals – and shows how these tools offer pathways to
flourishing in key life domains like work, relationships, and well-being
