Brookside hosted two pep rallies during our school year. In October we jump started the school year with a focus on RESPECT and learning all the new and fun initiatives we have planned for the students. In June we closed up the school year with a BANG! We hosted another pep rally to come together to celebrate the amazing accomplishments that the students have made together. Students faced the staff in an epci RPS battle and sang songs. It was so much fun! 

During the winter months classes chose a theme and worked with their teacher to decorate their doors. We saw so many creative and incredible door themes. Everyone gave their full effort and it was incredible! We had such a hard time picking one winner we had to choose three! The winners received an SEL party where they worked with their classmates on team-building skills. 

To celebrate and extend Read Across America week, Brookside participated in a school-wide MARCH BOOK MADNESS activity. Modeled after March Madness in college basketball, it’s a single-elimination tournament where books go head-to-head, with the winner of each matchup decided by student votes. This March Madness Book tournament began with 16 books. It decreased down to 8 books, then 4, then 2, and finally, a champion was crowned! The books were carefully chosen with themes spanning from kindness, acceptance, empathy toward language learners, inclusivity, diversity, and more. A massive bracket was created and displayed in the cafeteria. Throughout the month of March, students read each book and then voted. The CHAMPION of Brookside’s 2023 March Madness was What if, Pig? A perfect book for everyone, but ideal to help kids who have worries or help understand friends who have worries. The book shines through with how kind words and actions go a long way and the special bonds of friendship. 

Our very first Brookside Day was held on Friday, June 2, 2023. On this day we planned a cross-grade activity where we created groups of students from each grade level and had them work in unison on a creative task. This year students planned and painted rocks to create a rainbow stream of positivity. In the second half of the day, students participated in a schoolwide pep rally where the advanced band played songs and each grade will face off in an epic Rock, Paper, Scissors battle. The intention of the day was collaboration, community, and having fun! It was a major success! We were blown away by the student's creativity and it was so cool to see the students interacting with different grades. We are excited to plan next year's event!

Students wrote ways they could make others feel happy and bright and we posted them on their teacher’s light in the cafeteria. Students were able to read each post and get ideas to put into action in their own lives. 

 To motivate the students and demonstrate our support during testing teachers wrote inspirational quotes and we hung them in the cafeteria for students to read each day. We also hung genius entrance banners, signs around the school, and kind messages in chalk for their walk-in 

State testing can be a major source of stress and worry for our students. Together with the Brookside teachers, we wrote inspirational quotes and sayings on the sidewalk. We hoped that the students would read them and walk into the test with ease and a smile. 

Student input is crucial for making Brookside a strong community. We spoke with a selection of students from each grade, sparking discussions on safety and how to improve Brookside. We analyzed the data and made goals for the year to come to put their ideas into action.