Spirit of Team Project

In fall, 2017, a group of teachers at Stevens Middle School worked with the YMCA and other educators in our community to plan for a 2-part Spirit of Team project.

1. Trudy Robbins will lead hands-on team building activities for all 8th graders.

2. Michell Gentry and Dana Christenson adapted team building activities for all SMS teachers to be able to easily lead in Study Skills or any class.

This project was funded by the YMCA Dennis Watson Spirit of Team Grant.

For many years before he passed away in 2016, Dennis ran the TEAM program, which helped dozens of SMS students improve their communication and teamwork skills. In honor of his life and contributions to the youth of our community, the Spirit of TEAM grant was established in 2017.

Dennis's work and our Stevens Middle School Spirit of Team Project deliver what is now commonly known as social and emotional learning or SEL.

The Goal of this Spirit of Team Project:

Increase student confidence, kindness, school spirit, and integrity (SMS PRIDE) and decrease student discipline incidents, absenteeism and bullying.

How?

1. All 8th graders do a full block of team building activities with Trudy Robbins the week of February 5th.

2. Following this, teachers regularly incorporate team building activities into SMS through the Study Skills or any other class - an AmeriCorps member Sam Ashmore (when available) will help teachers run these activities.

Here are the activities:

sites.google.com/view/spirit-of-team