Kent City — Clustered together on a blue tarp laid out in the grass, a small group of Kent City Middle School students known as “the Funk Family” debated what to do next. Their goal: to flip the tarp over without anyone’s foot touching the grass. Their strategy: unknown.
“I think if we all jump at once, we could make it over,” one student suggested. The group decided to give it a try.
“One, two, three…JUMP!” they yelled, and pulled up on the tarp. A few students toppled over onto the ground. Laughter ensued.
They agreed to try again, with one small modification:
“Three, two, one…JUMP!” Again, most of the Funk Family lost their footing trying to clear the tarp.
As the saying goes: It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey. Or, in this case, it wasn’t about flipping the tarp; it was about students coming together as a “family.”
To get the academic year started on the right foot, the middle school recently devoted time to team-building exercises for its WIN families.
WIN, or “What I Need” groups, offer both academic help and relationship-building opportunities for students. Each day during WIN time, students gather with their WIN teacher and fellow family members — from all three grades — for homework time, academic help, team activities, fundraising challenges and more.
“(WIN) is basically a time for kids to catch up on things they need to do if they need a little extra time, to work with individual teachers or to get additional help with something,” said math teacher Kattie Funk, leader of the Funk Family. “It’s also a chance for them to have one specific group (of students) and one specific teacher they can connect with if they need help with anything.”
The beauty of WIN is that it offers student support that’s built directly into the school day, said Principal Curt Gerbers. On Tuesdays and Thursdays during WIN time, teachers can request to meet with students individually for one-on-one instruction or interventions. Fridays are for family activities, while Mondays and Wednesdays are set aside to accomplish whatever the families may need.
WIN leaders also regularly take time to teach and reinforce the school’s GREAT behavior matrix, making sure that students show respect and are following expectations at all times (GREAT = Give and Get respect, Responsible and safe, Engaged, Accepting and Trustworthy).
“One of the goals we’ve had since the beginning of (WIN) is that kids have a place where they feel like they belong at school,” Gerbers said. “Obviously, they’re going to see six different teachers throughout the day, every day, but their WIN teacher is somebody that they’ll do different stuff with — it’s a different atmosphere (and) hopefully a place where they can make a connection and give them at least one person that they can trust.”
Eighth-grader Brianna Washburn is now in her third year as a member of the Funk Family. She’s enjoyed all of the fun activities and challenges they do together, and last year, their family came away victorious at the annual end-of-year field day.
But WIN is more than just the fun stuff, she said.
“It’s kind of like a homeroom time. It’s a lot of connecting with my friends and new people, and also getting time to finish my homework whenever I need to do that. I like that it’s pretty flexible so that you can get your work done.”
Fellow Funk Family member Brianna Kline, a seventh-grader, said the week full of team-building exercises was helpful to her last year as a newcomer to the middle school, and she was looking forward to getting to know their new sixth-grade family members.
“A lot of us know each other already, but we’re doing these activities to get to know our WIN better this year,” Brianna K. said. “I think it gives (the new sixth-graders) an option to talk to some people who have gone through this before and just get to know the school better.
“We have a lot of teamwork (in WIN), so we get to know each other a lot. You’re not going to be best friends with everybody, but you can still be able to get along with them if you try.”
Read more from Kent City:
• Art club mural reminds peers how to be ‘GREAT’
• Making middle school ‘the absolute best it can be’
