JCIB PG Campus PTO Update

MEET LAURA  Laura Hope Laws was an active member of her Atlanta church’s youth group. She was known for helping people in a time of need, but she couldn’t help herself—she had a heroin use disorder. At 13, Laura experimented with alcohol and marijuana; at age 14 she started misusing prescription pain medications prescribed for a broken jaw, which led to an opioid use disorder. When her doctor quit prescribing them, she took other people’s pills and eventually turned to a cheaper and more available drug: heroin. She reached out to her family and they helped with treatment programs. Laura eventually spent 30 days in a residential treatment program, but the drugs were stronger than she was, and she relapsed and started taking heroin again. In the end, Laura overdosed on a mixture of the opioid morphine, alcohol, and cocaine when she was just 17. This is an example of drug use progression. At the same age as some of our children, Laura started experimenting with drugs and alcohol....

Hello Family, In coordination with red ribbon week, we'll be posting some snippets about drug use among adolescents. Here's the first in our series. As a parent, it is hard to believe that my middle schooler could be doing drugs. But, the truth is substance abuse in teens is an ongoing reality in the United States. Though the rates are lower than rates in 1990, the rates of drug use in middle school and the number of 11- or 12-year-old kids doing drugs in the United States are alarmingly high. Close to 5 million American adolescents suffer from substance abuse or alcohol use disorder. These stats should raise eyebrows and catch all of our attention because adolescent drug use can severely affect their futures. The younger a person is when they start using substances, the greater the chance they’ll become addicted. The immature adolescent brain is also uniquely susceptible to irreversible brain damage from drinking and drugs. Studies show that marijuana and alcohol use tod...

From JCIB PG Campus JCIB Service Day is Friday, October 18. Students will be serving  in the county, throughout the community, and at school.  Students who will be participating in the county or community hubs received a Permission to Travel form last week. Those forms were due Tuesday, October 15. If that form was not submitted, those students will be completing service projects at school. A complete list of those approved for travel is located outside of the counselor suite. Students reporting to an off campus county hub should be reminded that lunch is on your own. If parents are not staying, students should bring their lunch. Students may not ride to a restaurant during the lunch break with somebody other than the individual that transported them to the location. As a reminder, county service hubs are from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. Students participating in community service events will report to school as normal. Students will be bused to their assigned location at...

Hello Family, How are you today? This is a question we ask multiple times during the day. The typical response is I'm fine or OK. We walk away and go on to the next "How are you today?" We don't think twice about it. But, sometimes, I'm fine or I'm OK is just a mask for the way they really feel. You may be wondering what's this all about. Well, yesterday was World Mental Health Day. Mental health is a global issue that also lives in our community. For some of us, it lives right in our homes. Let's talk for a moment about suicide. Mental illness is one of the major causes of suicide. There was a time when we rarely heard about someone committing suicide. Those times are changing and so are the demographics. Suicide among middle schoolers is on the rise. According to a 2016 CDC report, suicide is one of the leading causes of death among children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24. In particular, the percent increase in suicide rates for...

Hello Family, Who doesn't love a good movie?! Who wouldn't love it more if it was FREE ?! Well, you could WIN a FREE MOVIE! Donated by Summer Axford We will be giving away this movie basket to one lucky winner who completes 3 special steps by Sunday, October 6, 2019. Join the PTO. Click the JOIN NOW link above and complete the payment. Subscribe to this blog. Click the SUBSCRIBE link above and enter your email address. Join our Facebook group. Click the FACEBOOK link above. We want everyone to be a part of the family, stay in the know about school-related activities, and interact with and meet other members of the JCIB family! The drawing will be held on Tuesday, October 8, 2019.