Sandpoint, Idaho Guide to North Idaho Information and Media

NEW YEAR’S EVE Mountainside

Schweitzer ready to ring in the New Year

During the holiday break, Schweitzer sees a boost in both local and out-of-state visitors who take a few days off from work or school to enjoy the mountain. There are many events going on during this time, all culminating in the annual New Year’s Eve celebration. For those under the age of 21, you can gather around the giant clock tower in the middle of the village as the clock ticks down to midnight. Those looking to end 2019 with a bang will want to get tickets to the celebration going on at the Lakeview Lodge.

After a day on the slopes, you’ll have plenty of time to recover, wash up and get ready for an unforgettable night. The entire upper floor of the Lakeshore Lodge is reserved for the evening with the doors opening at 8pm. Those 21 and older are welcome to attend, and your ticket gets you admission, drink specials, free late-night snacks, party favors and a special midnight toast with 10 Barrel canned cocktails. The Rub will be performing live starting at 9pm, so be sure to get there early.

OPEN FOR DISCUSSION

THRIVING PROGRAM LEAD BY STUDENTS

As children grow they become more independent. For parents this is both rewarding and challenging. When they hit late elementary school or early middle school, getting kids to open up, even about something as simple as how their day went, can be difficult. It is a time of great change in bodies and social structure, which can lead to feelings of jealousy and anger, loss of self-worth or being bullied. Children who bury these feelings can fall into drug and alcohol abuse as coping methods, and in the saddest of cases even take their own lives. A unique program in the Lake Pend Oreille School District is bringing awareness to kids about how to cope with these feelings while putting them in charge of leading the discussion.

January will mark the third year of the CAST program being implemented in the district. CAST stands for Coping and Support Training and is a nationally recognized program aimed at improving moods of youth, decreasing drug and alcohol usage, and improving classroom skills and success.

FROM GLOBAL TO LOCAL

STUDENTS AIM TO SOLVE COMMUNITY PROBLEMS

In a quest to teach graphic design to elementary students, Ann Dickinson stumbled into a program that has slowly taken over her classrooms in the six years since.

Now there is evidence of it across Sandpoint, too—but Dickinson isn’t the one steering the change. Her students are the ones doing that.

“The adults don’t drive the project, kids do,” Dickinson said.

Dickinson teaches health at Sandpoint Middle School, but before that she taught at Washington Elementary. That was where she first heard about Design For Change: a K-12 program that can be adapted to just about any educational setting.

The program uses the tagline “Young People Changing the World,” and the idea is that Design For Change “equips young people to transform empathy into social action” using four steps: feel, imagine, do and share. “What makes this program so powerful is, with any adult and a group of kids, you can do this program,” Dickinson said. “It’s meant to fit any situation.”