Once again, the Oyster Bay High School is presenting the award-winning Challenge Day Program, a transformational day of fun and empowerment that can change the way people view one another forever. Students and adults who have participated in these events over the past eight years were so thrilled with their experiences that the Board of Education, administration, and PTSA have collaborated to put on this exceptional program again this year.
Seventh-grade students will experience this program on either Wednesday, Feb.12 or on Thursday, Feb. 13. Students and adult facilitators are required to be present for the entire school day and lunches will be served. Volunteer adult facilitators are welcome at the upcoming Challenge Day.
Challenge Days are powerful, high-energy programs in which youth and adult participants are guided through a series of experiential learning processes. The overall goals of the program are to increase personal power and self-esteem, to shift dangerous peer pressure to positive peer support and to eliminate the acceptability of teasing, violence and all forms of oppression. The Challenge Day Program is designed to unite the members of the school or community and to empower them to carry the themes of the program back to the school population. Challenge Days also successfully addresses issues of violence, teasing, social oppression, racism, harassment, conflict management, suicide, peer pressure, alcohol and drugs.
Since 1987, the Challenge Day Program has touched the lives of more than a half-million teens and adults nationwide. The Challenge Day Program has received numerous awards from the juvenile justice system, government officials and many school districts and cities throughout the nation. The program was also featured in the book Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul and the Emmy Award-winning documentary Teen Files: Surviving High School.
Adults are encouraged to volunteer as positive role models for the benefit of the youth. The program welcomes parents/guardians, teachers, administrators, police officers, elected officials, community members and any other interested adults. Your participation is crucial to the success of the program. This allows youth to see another side of these adults in addition to their assigned community roles. Please notify the Oyster Bay High School Coordinator, Matt Brown, at MBrown@obenschools.org or 516-624-6539 if you know of any other adults who would like to be a part of the Challenge Day Program.
Adult facilitators are crucial for the success of the day. The staff will meet with all facilitators at 7:20 a.m., (25 minutes prior to the start of the program), to let you know what is needed from you and to answer your questions. No prior training is necessary other than the “morning check-in meeting.” The Challenge Day staff closely monitors the program and the presenters will give all instructions throughout the day. The program will end at 2:16 p.m., but facilitators are needed until 2:45 p.m. to provide critical feedback on the day. Lunch will be served.
– The Oyster Bay High School Challenge Day Staff
