Minarets Mustangs' Community Day

When I was hired at Minarets High School, I was asked to establish and teach the Minarets Cs class, a freshmen introduction course to help the 9th graders adjust to life at Minarets. Naturally, we always have a discussion  about the Minarets Cs, the learning objectives for students which include the 21st century skills as well as a vital addition: Community. During our discussion last year, we talked about which of the Cs were most common on campus and least common; creativity was the most common while community was the least common.

This lack of community involvement was not only recognized by the students, but our staff as well. As a result, the staff members at Minarets High School decided to do something innovative and dedicate the last day of the fall semester to the community, appropriately named Community Day.

Rather than submitting final projects or having a movie day, every student was engaged in a community project, whether it was making gift tags and cards for kids and their families at Valley Children's Hospital, restoration of the trail behind the Sierra Mono Museum in North Fork, clean-up on Road 200, caroling for veterans, building gingerbread houses with the elderly, working on the Coarsegold rodeo grounds, making care packages for soldiers currently serving, making food for the Oakhurst Outpouring Christmas Dinner, and much much more:


While unconventional, this new holiday tradition ended up being incredibly successful for the students, staff, and, most importantly, the community. One reason I came to Minarets was because of the school's fearlessness for trying new things and innovating when others do not and Community Day was yet another reason that I'm proud to be a Mustang.


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