ESTEVAN — The Estevan Comprehensive School is bringing back the unique experience of the Challenge Day for its Grade 9 students in March.
This daylong experiential workshop will allow the participating students to experience powerful love and belonging, connect across lines of difference and move towards creating the culture they want in their school, says the event's description. The last time this California-based program was brought to ECS was in 2014.
"With the generous support of our school community council [SCC] and our community of Estevan, we're really excited to announce that ECS is bringing Challenge Day back on March 12th and 13th, 2024. It's going to be for our Grade 9 students over the course of two days," announced ECS principal James Jones.
"It's a transformative day for our youth, and I'm really excited for that opportunity here at ECS. It's about having fun, it's about leadership. It's about bringing students together and creating positive connections for our youth in our community. And I really feel like it's something that's going to have a positive impact on building a great school culture here at ECS and helping to support the community of Estevan.
"The goal of Challenge Day is to help students break down barriers. It helps to stop things like teasing, violence and alienation that, unfortunately, sometimes are a big part of young people's lives. [The experience includes] a variety of fun games, working with trusted adults in our community. There are team-building exercises. It's an engaging presentation, and students have a unique opportunity to hopefully put themselves into a different situation where they can come together as a collective group."
The Challenge Day activities are centred around core competencies that help to support social-emotional learning, including self-management, self-awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.
"Anything we can do for our young people to help develop those social-emotional learning skills is going to have positive benefits not only here at ECS, but in the greater community," Jones said.
Grade 9 students will be divided into two groups of about 100 people, and each group will have a full Challenge Day. Jones noted that the initiative was in talks for a while, and they felt that it was time to make it happen.
"Challenge Day is something that I think as a school community council and as a school, we feel that would benefit students' well-being," Jones said. "In light of some of the events that have happened not only in our building, but in our community over the last couple of years, it's important to focus on helping to support our youth make positive connections with one another, and also with adults in the community."
He noted that as part of the Challenge Day, students will work with 25 adult volunteers from the community.
"These Grade 9 students are going to be the future leaders of our school. And spending time and investing in building those healthy relationships and breaking down some of those barriers is going to be a good thing," Jones said.
Challenge Day is appropriate for Grade 7-12 students, however ECS has historically offered it to its Grade 9s since they are new to the school and would carry that knowledge and attitude into their future years in high school and then into their adult lives.
"Those Grade 9s come from different feeder schools, and we're trying to create that positive school culture, which is going to take us forward in the years to come," Jones said.
"The one piece that you read online and that we've heard in the past is after Challenge Day, students move ahead with a real emphasis or a target on making the culture better, or doing different school-level, community-level initiatives to make things better not only in the school but in the community. And I think that's super powerful because these Grade 9s that are coming to ECS are learning about what we're all about. But then they're also going to get some great ideas of what steps they can take as students to make a positive impact in their school," he added.
Jones also noted that the ECS student representative council (SRC) has been breaking records in participation lately, with over 70 students attending weekly meetings and willing to take on leadership roles for the school and the community. The school hopes that the Challenge Day will only help to strengthen that tendency and the youth leaders' skills.
The cost of bringing the program is about $20,000, and the school along with the SCC started the fundraising efforts to help students get through this life-changing experience.
"We're looking for community support by way of donations, and also a sponsor for the students' lunch each day," said Kelly McConnell with the SCC. "We have started our fundraising campaign with a cash calendar raffle. Tickets are $10 and we'll be drawing every day in January for a cash prize.
"We have approached the United Way for funding. We will be launching a local business campaign requesting donations for Challenge Day. We have a Burger for a Cause booked with the Days Inn in January. There is also a free-will donation gentle yoga class at the ECS on November 30. All are welcome, and it'll be run by Kim Mayuk with OM Yoga.
"We're hoping to raise the funds to pay for this initiative and continue running it every year after," McConnell added.
The ECS also plans on engaging the SRC members in fundraising efforts.
"The Estevan community has always been a generous supporter of the Comp., and we are looking forward to having that type of generosity and continuing support," Jones said.
"We know that it is a significant cost, but we know that it can have such a positive and meaningful impact. And it's something that's been done here before, so if we go back to some of the students that have been a part of that Challenge Day in the past, they would speak very highly of the benefits that it had to create that positive school culture."
Cash calendar raffle tickets are available at Henders Drugs, Frank's Men's Wear, House of Stationery, Rooted Family Chiropractor, Diamond Skin Solutions, Suds Zone Carwash and ECS. The SCC and SRC will also be selling tickets at the Dec. 13 Estevan Bruins' game.
