We started off the New Year on an uncertain note with the high number of Omicron cases and implemented new precautions to keep each other safe at Squash on Track. Now that we have all of our students back, we are excited to keep our programs rolling.
Our theme for January was “Setting Intentions” and made vision boards to connect our SMART goals with. The students flipped through the many magazines that were donated by Squash Zone members (thank you!!) and chose different images and words that stuck out to them or inspired them. Check out some of the final products below.
We followed up our vision boards with creating SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound) goals for the rest of this semester. Students made three goals: one squash goal, one academic goal, and one personal goal. Many wrote about improving their backhand and serves, reading harder level books, recalling math facts quicker and many more. We challenged our students to think about who they want to become and what steps they will need to take to get there. None of us are capable of skipping steps and jumping to a magical outcome—we must work to achieve our goals, even if it can be difficult at times.
Pablo’s Vision Board
Juan’s Vision Board
For our monthly Saturday, we did a community clean up around East Palo Alto Charter School, where our SoT students go to school! At pick up, they often commented about the litter around the streets, so we decided to do something about it. Some of the junior Squash Zone members also joined our students to help out (shout out to Evan and Blake Mihalic!) We collected 21 bags of trash!
Huge shout out to Giovanni Borragon (G5), Juan D Dios (G5), Kelvin Romero (G5), and Pablo Constanza-Rodas (G4) for helping out the community! The students kept saying how much fun they were having, and they all echoed Juan after he said he felt really good doing something positive for his community. Pablo said, “seeing so much litter makes me feel sad because it makes me feel like people don’t really care about the environment.” We are so glad the kids made some very important connections to littering and the impact it has not only on our immediate community, but also our earth.
To end out our month, we had Junior Ramirez win our TRACK Star of the Month Award!! Junior was really helpful all month and made an effort to listen well and be respectful. Congratulations, Junior!
Feb. TRACK Star of the Month, Johan Ruiz