On Wednesday, April 23, West Elk Jr-Sr High School will host “Rachel’s Challenge,” the largest school assembly program in America. It is designed to help school administrators, parents, and students create safer and more productive places to learn and achieve. The goal is to motivate and equip students to embrace new values of kindness and compassion so that no child is left behind because of fear and violence in their school.

The program is based on an essay entitled “My Ethics, My Codes of Life” written by Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999.

This will be the ninth year since the Columbine High School tragedy. Rachel’s father Darrell Scott has devoted his life to preventing future Columbines. Rachel left behind six diaries and several essays about how she want to change the world through small acts of kindness. Those scripts have become the basis for the Rachel’s Challenge Foundation, a program that under Scott’s leadership has reached out to more than 1,000 schools to deliver a “chain reaction” of hope through school assemblies, workshops and outreach programs.

West Elk Jr-Sr High School will hold three assemblies and a student training.
Two of the assemblies will be during the day for students and faculty. A community evening assembly will be held at 7 p.m. Rachel’s Challenge promises to be a life-changing experience.

We hope you can be a part of this exciting experience. For more information check out Rachel’s Challenge website at: www.rachelschallenge.com or contact Dina Cooper-Counselor at West Elk Jr-Sr High School, 620-374-2147, cooperd@sktc.net.

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