The high school conducted a senior seminar Oct. 16 while other grades were taking the PSAT.
Principal of Secondary Schools Jason Caudill said the seminar was an event where seniors were given a variety of information that hadn’t been covered.
He said the program began with three stations. Students were broken up into groups covering CPR and AED training, receiving new Chromebooks and going over graduation information, Caudill explained.
According to the CPR Training Cincinnati website, an introduction to CPR has been a requirement from the Ohio Department of Education since the 2017-18 school year.
Physical education and health teacher Sarah Flower said she ran the CPR and AED station.
“It went really well,” she said. “The students were engaged with what I was saying and with what was going on. They had presentations, mannequins, baby mannequins and the AED machine.”
The AED is a small device that analyzes heart rhythm, Flower added.
“No one, even a doctor, can look at a person and determine why they are unconscious,” she explained. “It’s recommended to always use it if available.”
Due to the district-wide update of student devices, Caudill said, all students will be receiving new Chromebooks, and the seminar offered seniors a head start.
Senior Lauren Cooper said the seniors had their old Chromebooks since eighth grade, and it was time for an upgrade.
“It was getting hard with tests going online, and you really do need a whole class period for a test if it’s on a computer,” she said. “Having technological difficulties took up a lot of time.”
Senior Talia Duquette also thinks the new Chromebooks are needed, she said.
“A lot of students like to do more on their Chromebooks to get ready for college because it’s something they can rely on, especially with kids who don’t have any other devices,” Duquette explained.
The final station was an opportunity for staff to discuss graduation information, Caudill said.
“I wanted to talk to the seniors and get some input before I sent out the letter to parents about the details,” Caudill explained.
He addressed that maintaining good character and keeping up with grades is an attempt to keep everyone on track, he said.
Cooper said she had a greater understanding of the graduation information after the presentation.
“Right now, I think people haven’t thought too much about graduation, so the fact that we got some information was helpful,” she explained.
Following the conclusion of the breakout sessions, all seniors were brought together in the Cassingham Theater for a presentation about sextortion, Caudill said.
“There’s a couple of safety initiatives we wanted to talk to the kids about,” he said. “The one we landed on for this one was around sextortion and human trafficking.”
Caudill explained that sextortion and human trafficking are a prevalent issue for high school students, especially seniors heading off to college next year.
Duquette said the presentation was well done and the speakers engaged with the students.
“You could definitely tell the people presenting were passionate and genuinely wanted to help,” she explained. “They acknowledged that a lot of sextortion happens to many of our students, and they said that if we needed help, then we could reach out.”
Cooper said the presenters were interactive with the audience, using an online survey students could respond to that compiled statistics about how many people give in to coercion.
Caudill explained this is an important topic for students.
“Helping students understand the risks out there is the biggest thing,” he said.
