As we begin to wind down the school year, we are also wrapping up a year of enlightening presentations for parents. I hope you’ve been able to take advantage of at least one, if not all of them. We started the year with inspiration from Rachel’s Challenge, followed by breakout sessions on stress, substance abuse, suicide and depression, and bullying. In October, we were honored to host Nausheen Din, M.D. to share her knowledge on adolescent suicide signs and symptoms. In November, over 600 of you heard Dr. Michael Riera as he furthered our skills on "communicating with your teenager" and in January, Detective Rich Wistocki shared the wealth of his law enforcement experience on youth computer and cell phone problems in "High Tech Trouble." Finally, last week, an amazing number of parents turned out to meet Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, who shared some of the breadth of his phenomenal work on building resiliency in children and teens. We are also fortunate that Rachel’s Challenge and Dr. Ginsburg spent valuable time with our students, teaching them the value of healthy living, stress reduction, compassion, sleep, clear thinking, and just plain "communicating with Mom and Dad."

An enormous thank you goes to all the groups who had a hand in bringing these wonderful speakers our way: the District 220 Educational Foundation, HERE in Barrington, National Alliance for Mental Illness, District 220 PTO Presidents’ Council, the BHS Special Services Department, the BHS Administration, the District 220 Administration, and the BHS PTO Morningline Committee.

For those of you who did not have the opportunity to participate this year, I hope you will consider joining us next year. And to all of you….if you have topics you would like to see addressed in future presentations, we welcome your input….please contact me anytime at bhspto@comcast.net.

In these presentations we’ve all shared that the teenage years are choppy waters to navigate at times, but the rewards are endless. As parents, we all need to trust ourselves, and lean on each other. One of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain is:

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."

I’m astonished at how much we’ve learned in one year!

On another note, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to some PTO Steering Committee members for their service throughout the year. Thanks to Ann Kimes who faithfully updates us each month on all the goings-on in the Fine Arts Department (and there are always a LOT of goings-on there!) Thanks to Julie McGowan who accepts all our last-minute submissions and still manages to get this newsletter out each month. Thank you Julie! Thanks to School Board member Penny Kazmier who comes to each PTO meeting and answers our multitude of questions about budgets, taxes, improvements, class sizes, and even chocolate milk.

The PTO’s annual general meeting is April 12 at 9:15 in C-271. We love company!

Deanna Griffin

BHS PTO President

bhspto@comcast.net