We hope you and your family are having a wonderful semester! We love serving as your student’s counselors at Leadership Academy of Utah (LAU).

Thanksgiving is coming up next week, which is often the time of the year when we reflect on the things we are grateful for. Gratitude helps us have a positive frame of thinking, which boosts our mood. It helps us remember all the good things in our lives and how beautiful life is, even when facing challenges.

As the holiday season approaches, we invite you and your student to focus on gratitude and experience the increased happiness gratitude brings! Here are a few exercises you might consider doing with your family between now and Thanksgiving:

• Write down at least two things you are grateful for each day (try to make them different each day)!
• Think of someone you are grateful for and write them a letter, then either visit them or call them and read it to them. 
• As a family, cut out a tree trunk from paper and some leaves.Tape the trunk to your wall and leave the leaves out with markers for you to write one thing you are grateful for on a leaf and then tape it to the tree! As you walk by, watch your gratitude tree grow, and see what’s on the leaves, you cannot help but feel happier!

The great thing about these powerful gratitude activities is that they’re not just for the holidays; they work year-round!  

As always, please encourage your student to reach out to us anytime. As school counselors, we help with class planning and much more! If your student’s last name is between A-L, they can reach out to Kate Chaney, or M-Z, they can reach out to Shauna Larson.

We hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Kate Chaney & Shauna Larson

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.”

Zig Ziglar

Action Items

Reminder: Order your student’s winter semester books! Amazon book ordering for the winter semester is now open! Parents are responsible for all book ordering through our Amazon book order process. Please see our Ordering Books via Amazon page for step-by-step instructions. If you have any questions, please email us at books@lautah.org.

Join us on December 9 at Fat Cats in Provove for Dinner and Bowling! Participants will enjoy unlimited bowling, unlimited soft drinks, one trip through Costa Vidas private line, game tokens, and virtual reality. LAU Students are free! Family and friends can join us for a $5 per person cover. Registration closes on December 2. Find all the details and register here.

Time Sensitive – Please complete the Assessment Intentions Survey: If you have a student in grades 6-11, please complete this 22-23 Assessment Intentions Survey before November 22. Schedule your student’s assessment date and location, including the ACT, or complete the parental exclusion form in the survey. Please see the State Assessment Schedule for additional information on RISE, UTAP & ACT assessments. If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Melanie Capener at melanie@lautah.org.

Is your student signed up for Adventure Fridays next semester? Here are examples of the kind of activities your student will get to take part in: escape rooms (Cache County), Turtle House service project to help people experiencing homelessness (Weber), state capitol tour (Davis), self-defense with the Elizabeth Smart Foundation (South Salt Lake), Top Golf Science (Utah County), robot-build engineering (Central, near Manti). Registration is now open in SIS! Space is limited, so register today!

Announcements

Assignment Due Dates: As we approach the end of the semester, we encourage you to remind your student of the upcoming assignment deadlines. All live class assignments are due by Tuesday, December 13, by 9:00 PM MT. All assignments in self-paced courses must be submitted by Friday, December 16, at 5:00 PM MT.

Questions about your students’ winter semester schedule? Email your student’s counselor: Your school counselor is ready to help you with any questions about your student’s schedule. If your last name begins with A-L, please email Kate Chaney at kate@lautah.org, or M-Z, please email Shauna Larson: shauna@lautah.org

Student Mental Health Resources: Many individuals, including students, feel increased stress and anxiety during the holiday season. LAU School counselors have compiled a list of Student Mental Health Resources that we will share with all LAU students on Monday, November 21. Please review these resources and share or use them as needed!

Tech Tip: Computer Updates: Running regular updates on your student’s computer will keep things running smoothly. Computer updates should be done monthly, and laptops should run updates automatically if the laptop is shut down completely. If your student is having computer problems, this may be why. Note: computers can not update when in sleep mode. See here to learn how to run a laptop update.

A glitch in our communication system: If you haven’t been receiving this email every non-holiday Friday this semester, you may have been affected by a glitch we recently found in our system. You should receive this email around 12:00 PM on Fridays for the remainder of this semester, as well as a text message reminder to view this information on Mondays. If you are having trouble receiving either email or text communication from us, please email communications@lautah.org.

Upcoming Events

November 22: Secure Your Proctor assignments due for all high school science, math, and social studies classes

November 23: Study Day – No class; office is closed

November 24-25: Thanksgiving Break – No class; office is closed

December 1: Inspiration Hour – 3:00 PM MT (Find details in Homeroom)

December 9: Fat Cats Dinner and Bowling Night –6:00-8:45 PM MT