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Play It Smart National Service Week
"The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service."
-Henry Wordsworth Longfellow
The 8th Annual Play It Smart National Service Week will run from April 20-26, 2009. We are asking member schools to keep the Play It Smart tradition by volunteering in their communities during this week.
Please let your Program Officer know what your plans are for this week of service. We want to publicize your efforts on the national stage.
Also be sure to update your ORBIT account with events completed during this week, as we will be rewarding schools who participate in service events during this week at the National Conference in July.
Service is a wonderful opportunity for student-athletes to learn and give back to their community. Thanks for all you do for your communities!
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Options for Sustaining the Academic Coach Position
In these challenging economic times sustaining Play It Smart in our member schools takes commitment and creativity. Upon returning from school site visits, our Program Officers reported that many school administrators were interested in hearing about the variety and creativity in funding scenarios being employed among our member schools. Accordingly, we want to share some of those with you.
The following link contains a brief description of some of the methodologies and sources of funds being used to sustain Play It Smart in schools across the country:
Sustaining Options
http://www.playitsmart.org/pdf/Play It Smart Academic Coach Sustaining Options.pdf
Making the Case for Title I
http://www.playitsmart.org/pdf/Play It Smart and_Title_I.pdf
We hope these will spark some ideas for those of you deciding how best to fund the program in your school. If you would like more detail on any of these alternatives, please do not hesitate to contact your Program Officer in the national office.
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Smart Skills Lesson Plan Spotlight
Play It Smart member schools around the country
implement varying strategies in incorporating workshops to focus on Smart Skills and other valuable transferrable life skills. Within the Smart Skills Platform, there is a guide for "Effective Workshop
Delivery" that is designed to encourage Academic Coaches to facilitate their
own innovative active learning exercises with their student-athletes.
This month we would like to highlight a lesson plan
submitted by Academic Coach Hillary Greene of Crenshaw
High School in Los Angeles, CA. "The Smart
Skills Challenge" activity will be
added to the growing number of resources under the "Forms" section of ORBIT. In this activity you will find that a variety
of Smart Skills areas are targeted.
The lesson plan can also provide you with the opportunity to initiate
invigorating group discussion around potential daily decisions our
student-athletes make, how they use their skills, and their own impact on
others.
Play It Smart would like to encourage all of
our member schools to continue to share their ideas, activities, and best
practices. The national office staff
will assist you with formatting your ideas and activities for the network. In the coming weeks, please look for more
additions from Houston, TX, and New Brunswick, NJ! If you have an activity or lesson plan that
has been effective, please contact us so we can share the resource with our
network! 
Athletes from Sharpstown (Houston, TX) team up with special needs students for an afternoon of fun and games. |
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Service Learning for Smart
Skills
Play It Smart has a strong tradition of
student-athlete community service engagement, especially during Play It Smart's annual National Week of Service,
which will be upon us April 20th - April 26th. This past summer, Play
It Smart introduced the concept of Service Learning in
conjunction with the Smart Skills Platform to further capitalize on
learning opportunities outside of sport and to assist student-athletes in
connecting to and developing transferrable
skills. Click here to continue reading article.
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STUDENT-ATHLETES OF THE MONTH |
