It's the PALS Press!

Greetings, PALS Family!

High School PALS' campus visits and Elementary PALS' mentor pairings have begun. Many combinations are familiar--many of our high schools have been visiting the same campuses in their vertical team for ages. We have had some exciting changes this year, though, that are making big impacts at each campus.

For the first time ever, McCallum PALS are visiting students at Maplewood Elementary School. Garza Independence High School is gearing up to train its first-ever cohort of PALS this spring. Moreover, our UT PALS have begun to mentor 9th and 10th grade students at Austin High. If you are leading a secondary campus and would like UT PALS to visit your 9th and 10th grade students, please reach out. We've trained our UT PALS just like AISD PALS. They are bound to the same ethics code and are a registered student organization on campus at UT--and many of them were high school PALS, themselves.

Beginning this holiday season, McCallum and Anderson PALS will be supporting a clothing drive that began with Highland Park Elementary students several years ago. Each year, Mrs. Kristin Castaño has led efforts to provide gently-worn, high-quality, still-fashionable clothing to students across Austin ISD. Through a survey sent out by Karen McGarity, counselors from all over Austin ISD have been asked how many bags of clothes--sized Child, Youth, and Adult--they can use for their students this winter. Twenty-two campuses have responded with need, and the high schools' participation in the drive will mean that everyone gets what they need this year. Thank you to Mrs. Castaño for beginning this tradition, and to Ms. Lily Garza of Highland Park for taking the lead on the clothing drive this year. Thanks to Karen McGarity for surveying for schools' needs. And, of course, thank you to Anderson's PALS teachers Lacey Lake and Tessa Popp-Guttmann and McCallum PALS teacher Richard Cowles for stepping up to help our students to feel good about going to school in style.

If you have service projects that really work for your campus, please let me know. I'll bet other PALS counselors and teachers would love to hear about how your students get good work done. If you need help with a service project, please let me know that, too! There's a good chance that other PALS people have trod the same path, or may be ready to lend a hand.

Thanks to everyone who's reached out and pitched in to connect well-trained PALS with students who can use a friend, and thanks to your PALS. Have a beautiful holiday break.

All the best,

Stacia

Remember to share good news when you have it. The PALS Press is all about you! Send pictures, thoughts, and updates to sbowley@youthlaunch.org. :)

Dates to remember:

11/25-29 - Fall Break

12/2-12/6 - Inclusive Schools Week

12/4 - PALS Teacher/Counselor Social Gathering

12/21-1/3/25 - Winter Break

1/9/25 - Elementary PALS Training

Mac PALS learning to type braille at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

UT PALS have their fist visit with Austin High students for mentoring and friendship. They'll start visiting Crockett and Navarro after winter break.

We are excited to support these campuses with their PALS programs this year:

Akins, Anderson, Andrews, Ann Richards, Austin, Bailey, Baldwin, Barrington, Barton Hills, Bear Creek, Blanton, Boone, Bowie, Brentwood, Casey, Clayton, Covington, Crockett, Cunningham, Doss, Galindo, Garza, Gorzycki, Graham, Harris, Hart, Highland Park, Hill, Houston, Jordan, Joslin, Kocurek, Langford, LASA, LBJ, Lee, Linder, Maplewood, Mathews, McCallum, Menchaca, Mills, Navarro, Norman-Sims, Northeast, Oak Springs, Overton, Padron, Patton, Pickle, Pleasant Hill, Rodriguez, Sadler Means, Sanchez, Small, St. Elmo, Summitt, Travis, Walnut Creek, Widen, Williams, Wooldridge

PALS is a cross-age peer mentoring program founded at Crockett High School in Austin, Texas in 1980. PALS support K-12 students at all levels of their education, and are at work at campuses across Austin ISD.

Email: sbowley@youthlaunch.org
Website: austinisd.org/pals
Location: 4000 South Interstate 35 Frontage Road, Austin, TX, USA
Phone: 9176931344
Facebook: facebook.com/AISDPALS