Welcome to the 2023-2024 School Year! I hope that everyone's year has started off well. I'm sure that many of you are in the midst of the craziness that is Homecoming like we are. Congratulations to those of you who have successfully completed yours already. If you are new to StuCo and/or District. 18, we are excited to have you join us! If you don't know what that means, The Texas Association of Student Councils (TASC) is divided up into districts. If you are receiving this, you are part of TASC District 18. We provide events that are often more local than some of the state events. Events at the TASC state and district level are GREAT ways for your students to network with students from other schools as they learn leadership skills and bring back ideas to their home campus. The district is also a place for YOU to make connections with other advisors that can give you advice or help support you with ideas. Please consider attending at least one of our events this year if you never have before. Middle schools--this mean YOU, too!! The D18 Executive Board is here to serve you this year. If you ever have a question, feel free to reach out and we will do our best to assist you. I am attaching the D18 contact list below. This edition of the newsletter will address the following:

TASC ADVISORS' CONFERENCE

DISTRICT 18 FALL CONVENTION--November 13, 2023

TASC MIDDLE LEVEL CONFERENCE

DISTRICT 18 WINTER RETREAT

TASC ADVANCED LEADERSHIP WORKSHOPS

DISTRICT 18 SPRING CONVENTION

A SPECIAL REQUEST

DISTRICT 18 ADVISOR OF THE YEAR

WEEKLY GIFT EXCHANGE

If you are a brand new advisor, you may find this information on the website helpful: https://tasc.memberclicks.net/new-advisor-starter-kit

We look forward to seeing you at the District 18 events this school year!!

Sincerely,

Chris Helkey

This is the optional t-shirt that can be purchased with your workshop registration.NOTE: This is NOT the color of the shirt. We are going to be getting a new color so that students who bought one previously have options. When we have decided on the new color, this will be updated.

If enough advisors are interested, District 18 will provide a workshop to assist you with any questions you may have about the inner workings of students councils as well as how to fill out the state reports to get recognition for your campus. Please fill out this survey. If there is enough interest, we will schedule this workshop and update this with the workshop information.https://forms.gle/tcj5KVzaTRSHFmpv8

TASC hosts advanced workshops for students to attend. Information can be found at the state website here: https://tasc.memberclicks.net/advanced-leadership-workshops. This workshops are like mini-versions of the summer workshops. They are a great follow-up to summer, but can be attended by anyone. The number of participants is limited, so make sure you know the registration dates and don't wait too long!

District 18 will be hosting a Spring Convention. At this convention, elections take place for the following school year and students also participate in leadership activities. More information on this event will be available in future newsletters.

Individual schools can get recognition from TASC for your work on your individual campuses. You can qualify for awards in the following categories: Pride & Patriotism, Drugs, Alcohol, Safety, & Health (D.A.S.H.), Energy & Environment, Community Service, and Outstanding Student Council. Those schools receiving recognition in all 5 categories are awarded a Sweepstakes award. These awards are a great way to prove to your administration how much you are doing on your campus. An overview of these programs can be found on the state website here: https://tasc.memberclicks.net/state-report-forms-overview

Hi, District 18! I'm emailing this random unsolicited offer in hopes that someone has a masquerade-themed dance or event coming up.

If that's not you, feel free to delete. If you do have a masquerade on the horizon, would you be interested in buying some discounted masks to give to students? We just had our homecoming dance, and while it was a success, we ordered rather aggressively. Consequently, I have 387 masks in a box in my room, and I'd love to make a deal.

Here's what we ordered:

We paid about $0.45 each for them, but if I can get a quarter back (so, $96.75), I'll call it a win. If you might want to acquire these cheap but reasonably decent quality items, let me know, and we can work out details. I'm happy to create an invoice so your bookkeeper can pay my school's council. As for delivery, I can bring them with me to Advisors Workshop on Sunday if you're going to be there. If not, I can work on shipping or delivering so they'll get to you in time.

Thanks, y'all, and feel free to pass along to anyone else you know who may be interested. Looking forward to seeing some of you in San Marcos this weekend!

Brian Meyer (bmeyer@bisdtx.org)

Student Council Advisor

Cedar Creek High School

We will be choosing our Advisor of the Year within the next month. We will be asking for nominations for advisor of the year and are looking for advisors that are doing great things with their student councils as well as attending District 18 activities with their students. Please start thinking about advisors that you would like to nominate. More information will be released soon.

A tradition in Texas is for student councils to participate in the "Good Sportsmanship League". This simply means that student councils from both schools meet at midfield prior to football games to exchange friendship tokens. These should be positive messages for the other school and not negative. Schools sometimes give baskets of candy or other little goodies and sometimes even donate to charity in the name of the opposing school. I wanted to just make sure that our new advisors are aware that this is one of the many activities that student councils do. For some pictures of this in action, you can check out the Smithson Valley Instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/stuco_sv/