8th Grade Magnet Program Assembly

Friday, September 4th, a representative from the Cobb Magnet High School programs will be speaking in an assembly to the entire 8th grade class.  While parents are welcome to attend, the same information being presented is available through the link below.  The assembly will be hosted during 4th period.

More information about the Open House dates for the  programs will be forwarded once they become available.

Cobb Magnet Programs

6th Grade Open House

6th Grade Open House

Tuesday, August 18

Food Truck Dinner Options: 5:30 p.m. start

General Session: 6:30 p.m. in the gym

Homeroom/Classroom Sessions: 7:00 p.m. start

Camp I Believe

Gentiva Hospice (including Hospice of Charleston) currently oversees the operation of twelve bereavement camps located across the country that provide a combination of therapeutic intervention and traditional camp activities to support grieving children.  Funding for the camps comes from the Gentiva Hospice Foundation, a nonprofit, 501 (c)(3) organization, with a commitment to providing compassionate assistance to those at the end of life’s journey.

All camps aim to equip children with coping skills to help them successfully navigate the grieving process. Camp activities and programs are designed to help campers identify and express their emotions, build self-confidence, foster a sense of community, and identify with other children that are experiencing similar struggles.  The overall operation and structure of each camp varies in areas such as staffing and scheduling.  Camps are organized and operated by skilled professionals such as social workers, bereavement and spiritual care coordinators, and trained volunteers.

  

Each camp has a different and unique approach to providing therapeutic interventions through a variety of modalities. Camp activities and programming focus on providing campers with opportunity to express feelings and tell their story in a safe environment.  Although all of the campers have been identified as grieving, not all of the programming is focused on grief and loss.  Many of the children who come to camp attend for the opportunity to have fun and to feel “normal” again.  All activities, whether directly or indirectly, help campers to establish a sense of community and provide teambuilding opportunities; activities place an emphasis on personal growth through creative expression and through establishing positive relationships with peers. 

Children between the ages of 7-17 (it varies based on program offering) that have experienced the death of a loved one in the past several years are eligible to participate in Camp I Believe.   

At Gentiva Hospice, we don’t believe that death is black and white so we do not place limitations on the nature of the relationship lost; campers may have experienced the death of a parent, sibling, grandparent, aunt/ uncle, friend, cousin, etc.   Less than 25% of campers that attend Camp I Believe had a loved on our hospice services; we find that the majority of campers that attend live in the local community and have experienced a sudden loss or trauma.  And because we recognize that many of the children and families that participate in Camp I Believe come from an at-risk or lower socioeconomic status, camp is offered at no charge.

Please email Dr. Deane at christopher.deane@cobbk12.org for an application if you are interested in participating.

Counselor's Purpose Statement & Activities

The counselor's office exists 

to help students overcome the obstacles and barriers 

that keep them from being successful in the classroom, 

and ultimately in life.

As adults all of us have clutter and distractions that are a normal part of life, yet we still have jobs and responsibilities to manage.  As counselors, we work with students to teach them the life skills that enable them to work through those issues without being tripped up.  Among others, topics covered during classroom guidance will include:

• Peer relationships
• School to work transitions
• Mapping an educational plan
• Career exploration
• Truancy/attendance
• Personal management/disciplines
• Decisions that derail goals
• Sexual harassment
• Bullying
• Conflict management

Tulsa Police Warn About KIK App

Anyone who knows a child between 13 and 17, won't be surprised by this: 93 percent of teenagers say they get on the internet at least once every day - 90 percent send text messages daily.

But a lot of kids are no longer texting through the phone company. Instead, they're using messaging apps.

By far, the number one app generating cases for police right now is Kik. Kik lets people message each other anonymously.

The app is rated for people 17 and up, but millions of younger kids use it and predators do, too.

Police say Shea Cutler is one of those predators. He is going to prison for 15 years after pleading guilty to using the Kik app to send and exchange nude pictures with a 14-year-old Tulsa girl. He even drove to her house to try to pick her up but she refused to go. Police say he drove to Del City and was caught by police having sex with another underage girl. That case is still pending. Police say he had was communicating with about a half dozen young girls through Kik.

Police say, like it or not, we are now fighting a war in cyber space.

"We can't win this war," said Sergeant Malcolm Williams, Tulsa Police Department Cyber Crimes.

He says by the time a case gets to them, the damage is done and all they can do is react to it, but he says parents can be proactive because they're on the front lines of defense.

Police are getting case after case of sextortion that originates from Kik.

Sextortion is where someone convinces you to send a racy picture then they threaten to post that picture all over creation and even send it to your parents unless you do one of three things.. send them an even sexier picture, have sex with them or give them money. Police say kids want to avoid embarrassment so they give in to the extortion and things snowball out of control.

"They're threatening if I don't do this, they'll put it on my Facebook page or put it where everybody can see it and that fear of embarrassment tends to make people do things they normally wouldn't do," Sgt. Williams said. "If you have a lack of judgment and make a mistake, go talk to mom or someone, let's not compound the problem."

Here are the reasons police say Kik is a bad app for kids. Kik's settings don't block approaches by strangers. Porn bots send unsolicited porn regardless of the privacy settings

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The real problem is all the apps or web pages hidden within the Kik Messenger App. They have not been put through the Google Play or iTunes verification process and cannot be disabled by a parent permanently and even if a parent has blocked app purchases, these aren't covered.

The hidden apps are designed for adults and can include pornography and most of them are "chat with strangers" apps

Parents cannot share a kik messenger account with their child to supervise them and if you log into your child's account from another device, it deletes all their messages and conversations.

Kik has chat groups with lots of members your child can join and the only way to log out of Kik is to do a total reset of the device.

"Take the initiative to talk to your kids, take the initiative to randomly go through your kids' phones, take the initiative to know who your kids are communicating with," Sgt. Williams said.

Police say no app is bad by itself, it's how some people misuse it. Kik's website says it cooperates with law enforcement and it sponsors the annual Crimes Against Children National Conference.

Kik says when it comes to approaches by strangers, all messages from strangers go into a "new chats" channel and are automatically blurred. A user has to actively agree to chat to a new chatter before a conversation is initiated.

When it comes to porn bots, all unsolicited messages are blurred and separated into the "new chats" channel. Users can report span directly from the chat and user profile pages.

And when it comes to hidden apps, Kik says there are many hundreds of web apps on Kik, the vast majority of which are not about chatting with strangers.

So, what should your kids use to message? I recommend Skype or Apple's messages, because parents have more supervision. Teach kids not to accept friend requests or messages from people they don't know and they should never send any kind of intimate photo online.

To schedule a TPD cyber crimes detective to speak to your group about online dangers, call 918-591-4740.

Kik's head of privacy Heather Galt released the following statement:

"User safety is extremely important to Kik. We’ve built unique safety features right into the app, allowing people to block, filter, or report inappropriate behavior. We are also actively involved in a broader societal effort to educate parents, kids, and law enforcement about online trust and safety.

Unfortunately, child exploitation is an industry-wide issue that affects any provider of online communication tools, including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Snapchat. Kik has partnered with global anti-child abuse organization Virtual Global Task force (VGT) and implemented Microsoft PhotoDNA Cloud Services, industry-leading technology that helps identify and eliminate abusive content (See details). We take a proactive approach to trust and safety, and continue to develop and implement technologies and partnerships to keep Kik safe."

Article source - http://m.newson6.com/story.aspx?story=29535771&catId=112042

Who is Your Counselor?

Mrs. Cindy Zell

Counselor for

6th Grade letters A-L & 7th Grade

770 975-6615 x230

cynthia.zell@cobbk12.org

Dr. Chris Deane

Counselor for

6th Grade letters M-Z & 8th Grade

770 975-6615 x231

christopher.deane@cobbk12.org

Allatoona Required Summer Reading

Announcement from Allatoona High School for incoming Freshmen:

There is a summer reading requirement for all incoming freshmen next year both on-level and honors.  The information should be posted on the AHS website and on our English department blog in the next couple of days.  We apologize for the late notice, but because of extenuating reasons, we did not have final decisions made about summer reading until a couple weeks ago.