PCES recognizes February HEROs
GUILFORD — More than 20 students in the younger grades at Piscataquis Community Elementary School are now HEROs for their outstanding conduct during the month of February. The HERO honorees were recognized with the presentation of certificates during an elementary-wide morning meeting on Wednesday, March 20.
PCES K-4 pupils earn recognition in honesty, effort, respect or responsibility and/or others — showing concern and caring for others — and by doing so they get to be HEROs (the honor is an acronym for the criteria). Up to several HERO students are chosen per grade by the teachers.
With the student body gathered in the gymnasium to the start the day, Principal Anita Wright called each HERO honoree down from the bleachers to receive their certificates and be recognized by the audience.
Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
HEROS OF PCES — More than 20 HERO honorees in kindergarten through grade 4 at Piscataquis Community Elementary School in Guilford were recognized during the March 20 morning meeting. Students are selected for exhibiting honesty, effort, respect or responsibility and/or showing concern and caring for others. February HEROs are front, from left, Dakota Marshall, Desirae Maloon, Olivia Goodwin, Dantae Michaud, Braden Gilbert, Knolan Berry, Karalyn Redmond and Addalyn Chamberlain. Middle, Cooper Carson, Aireana Bickmore, Emma Folsom, A.J. Watson, Bella Tarsook, Khloe Farnham and Abbie Hunt. Back, Rylee Libera, Tanner Tracy, Tyson Badger, Avery Pomerleau and Nathaniel Beckwith.
The latest HERO recipients are kindergarten: Ethan Long, Rylee Libera, Dakota Marshall, Karalyn Redmond and A.J. Watson; grade 1: Knolan Berry, Wyett Parker and Avery Pomerleau; grade 2: Nathaniel Beckwith, Braden Gilbert and Bella Tarsook; grade 3: Tyson Badger, Addalyn Chamberlain, Khloe Farnham, Abbie Hunt and Dantae Michaud; grade 4: Aireana Bickmore, Cooper Carson, Emma Folsom, Olivia Goodwin, Desirae Maloon and Tanner Tracy.
The morning meeting included the recognition of more than a half dozen PCES “Upstanders,” students who have stood up for their peers and/or others over the previous few weeks.
All Upstanders are presented with a personalized boomerang made by Guidance Director Jason Schriver to be hung on the wall in the main lobby and scheduled to go home with the recipients at the end of the school year. The boomerangs signify that good deeds come back to you.
“If we can convince the other people we can fill the entire wall, unlike just part of it like last year,” Wright said in encouraging present and past Upstanders to get their classmates to stand up for their peers and others.
Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
PCES UPSTANDERS — Each month Piscataquis Community Elementary School recognizes Upstanders, students who have stood up for their peers or others over the previous few weeks and honorees are presented with customized boomerangs to signify that good deeds will come back to them. The latest Upstanders were recognized during the March 20 morning meeting.
“This Friday our sixth-graders are heading to LabVenture at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute,” Wright said in her office after the morning meeting. “So they’re very excited about that.”
“You get selected to go and it doesn’t cost anything,” she said.
The LabVenture experience brings grade 5-6 students from across Maine down to Portland for a day to become scientists and conduct hands-on ocean-related research. Wright said the Gulf of Maine Research Institute provides a charter bus, with LabVenture on the side, to pick the students up in Guilford and return them that evening.
“We have had it for four of the five years I have been here,” Wright said.
“All of the students really benefit and take it real serious,” she said. “I’m always impressed because there is a lot of academic work.”