WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE — Washington High School Principal Brady Streitenberger recently met with the Record-Herald to discuss the first annual Blue Lion Service Day.
The event will take place on Friday morning, May 10 and will include all students and staff at Washington High School.
The service projects will take place all around the community and will include cleanups at Gardner Park, Paint Creek, the Washington Cemetery, bike path, Eyman and Christman Park, the splash pad, and other areas around town.
According to Streitenberger, all staff and students will be wearing a bright green or yellow Blue Lion shirt to help provide visibility.
In the afternoon, students and staff will have friendly competitions against each other in games of kickball, pickleball and dodgeball.
Streitenberger talked about where the inspiration from this event came from.
“This started when I was at Greenfield, and this is actually their 10th year of doing it. They call it MHS Day, and I love the idea behind it. It actually came from an Ag teacher there. We really want to teach the students the importance of serving others. We are gonna shut down things and just give back to the community for the day.
“This was something that when I got in here for year one, I said that if we could do this and it fits the staff, this is something I want to do. I didn’t want it to be something where it was my idea and we were doing it regardless, I wanted input and the staff really embraced it. The whole high school will be involved. If you come to school on May 10th, this is what you are doing. The students that don’t come to school that day will miss out on a really great opportunity to give back and pour into the community, but I think the majority of our students are really excited about it.
“I met with Joe Denen (City Manager) and talked with Gary Dean (Service Director) to get some ideas of projects around town. They were really supportive, and helped buy our shirts for the event. Our athletic department also pitched in some money to help pay for shirts as well. The plan is to go out in the morning and service the community however we can for about three hours, and then come back and have games and activities with students and staff in the afternoon.
“This service day will be a great capstone on the year. It is going to get some of our seniors a community service seal towards graduation. Hopefully this event will grow. I’m not a bigger and better guy, but once we finish this first service day, hopefully next year people are calling us with projects they would like us to help with, so instead of looking for projects the projects come looking for us.
Streitenberger began to reflect on his first year as principal at WHS.
“At the beginning of this year, we set forth three goals. They were to improve communication with our students, staff and families, being cognizant of our impact in the community as the high school is a focal point in the community, and finally to maintain a sense of discipline in the building and keep academics first. We are really close to the end of the year and I feel like we can check off some of those goals.
“It is a different feel in the building, and the staff has really embraced things. Pushing into year two, there is some really awesome stuff that we want to do. We are revamping our credit recovery options because some of our students are credit deficient. We are revamping our work study program, which I’m really excited about. I think work study has been used in different ways in the past, but how we want to use it is to highlight and develop some of these soft skills. Not every graduate is going to go to college or trade school, and that is perfectly fine, but let’s make sure they are super employable when they graduate.”
He finished, “Washington High School is and should be a place that our community is proud to call their own. We think that being a Blue Lion is really special, and we think it is important to understand that. We want our community to be proud of our Blue Lions. Here recently, we have been creating individual graphics for each of our seniors, and I think that is important that we celebrate our kids because they deserve it.”
