Today concludes the second week here at PSO, 100 mile house. This week was pretty hetic, jumping around to many programs in the district. This week I got to take part in the resource department, store front school and of course the alternate.

The resource department is a graduate certificate program for students with learning imparments. I spent most of my time there getting to know the wonderful ladies on staff and some of the fascinating students taking part in the department. These students with the aide of there TA’s and teachers are able to build community and make connections with one another through one on one experience.

This week I spent two days at storefront school. Storefront is an off site alternate program usually dealing with students showcasing severe behavioural cases. These students are classified as high risk not to graduate, but with the individualized learning method, and the one and one involvement most students are able to earn their dogwood certificate. Practicing these strategies has earned PSO and Storefront alternate programs some of the highest completion rates in the district.

This week both of the alternate programs were prepping themselves and their students for a very special “out in schools” presentation coming to the district. For some of these students it would be the very first time beig exposed to LGBTQ in a positive non threatening light. “Out in schools” held two private, more personaliZed presentations for the alternate programs. This help facilitate a dialogue. I took part crowd managing the presentation at storefront school. Many faculty were concerned with the behaviours that could arise during the presentation, and were fully prepared to send students to in school, or home for the day. To the surprise of all the staff the students responded quite well to the presentation, with few rude interruptions. This presentation was such a progressive and large step for 100 mile house to take part in. Years before students had been trying to facilitate an environment for their hidden LGBTQ community, and now with the help of “out in schools” their voices were being heard for the first time.

For our pro D day we were pleased to attend another Out in Schools, informative presentation for staff and community members. It was so great to see the community open their hearts to the presenters, and open their minds to facilitating a more LGBTQ friendly environment.

I can’t wait to see what next week holds for me. I’m planning to hold a sharing circle for the students where we will be designing our own temporary tattoos. The tattoos will serve as representational journals, to help the students open up to me, and to one another.