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A missed school day is a lost opportunity for students to learn. There is a direct correlation between students who attend school regularly and higher academic achievement levels.

During November and December, McLaughlin School has collaborated with local storytelling groups, See Stories and Wild Voices, enabling select residents to create and produce their own digital narratives.  Residents who were selected for the internship opportunity have been provided with appropriate equipment as well as being taught vocabulary and concepts to create either their own short documentary film or podcast episode.  Throughout this process, residents have worked collaboratively in order to creatively interpret and tell a story of value to them, record and edit their own content, and will ultimately create their own podcast episode or short film product.   

Sunday, December 5th, local songwriter and hip hop artist, Tayy Tarantino, performed his "most important concert" at McLaughlin Youth Center on STX.  Select youth have been working with Tayy over Zoom for multiple weeks during a Shakespeare & Hip Hop class.  The class is a collaboration between MYC, the non-profit See Stories and McLaughlin School.  As part of the course, students learned how to write sonnets, understand the similarities between sonnets and hip hop, and write and record hip hop songs.  

On Sunday, youth were surprised and excited to meet Tayy in person. Tayy spent time between each song in his set to give positive messages to the youth.  He encouraged them to always remember where they came from, but as they move forward to work hard and focus energy into people and passions that will make them a better version of themselves for the future.

Over Spring Break, the Girls Detention Unit participated in an artistic workshop.  Local artists Jesse Rosenstein & Lila Hobbs collaborated to introduce residents to "found poetry." Found poetry takes existing text and changes it by adding or deleting text, changing spacing, and/or deleting lines to create new meaning.  

Residents were given the book "Home is Not a Country" by Safia Elhillo as the basis of their found poetry.  Participants were also able to incorporate other text and collage elements from magazines and newspapers.  The week culminated with the opportunity for residents to share their work with each other and various staff from the facility.  

At the end of each term, McLaughlin School Staff nominates students for REACH awards.  REACH awards are based off attributes that enable students to be successful inside and outside the classroom. REACH posters are hung around the school building and inside classrooms as a reminder to students to stive to REACH their full potential daily.

Students may be nominated for displaying responsibility, effort, attitude, character, honesty, or a combination of any attribute.  Any student who is enrolled at McLaughlin, regardless of grade or credit status, is considered for the award.  Awards are presented by the staff who nominated the student.

Students who earn a REACH award receive a certificate as well as other REACH gear to include a shirt or water bottle, depending on how many awards they have won.

McLaughlin Schools' Weather Center is now up and running!  Students in Mr. Jenkins' Science classes are now able to monitor atmospheric conditions in the Anchorage area to collect real-time data as they learn about concepts such as Dew Point, Barometric Pressure, Humidity, and more.