The following was submitted by Orcas Christian School.

Week of worship

Last week at Orcas Christian School, we had our annual week of worship from March 26–30. A ministry team of college students from Walla Walla University spent the week interacting with all of the students. Each morning started with a Chapel program of music, activities and a spiritual thought followed by the team visiting the different classrooms throughout the day.

The week’s theme was “Labels.” Society often puts us all in little boxes that in time come to define how we see ourselves and others, saying that we are short, tall, thin, fat, smart, slow. We go on to narrow our vision for life to liberal, conservative, socialist or anarchist. Even our color, race and ethnic background can come to define who we are.

In reality, people are much more complicated than the labels that we give ourselves and others. Labels make it easy to define people, but skip getting to know them. It is said that to get to know someone you must walk a mile in their shoes. Until we are willing to take the time to get to know someone we will always find it easier to just put each other in labeled boxes, dismissing their basic humanity.

On March 15 we took time to remember the 17 students who were killed in Florida and looked at ways that we as a school could become more inclusive of those around us. This week we looked at the example that Jesus gave to us. He was always there for the outcast and down and out. No labels. No rejection. He showed us that each one of us has value; each one of us must treat each other with the value that Jesus has placed on us. Each one of us is a Child of God.

As we go through the rest of this year, and even years to come, we need to build a community that rejects the labels that people and society attempt to stick on us. Each one of us is valuable in the eyes of God, therefore before our own eyes as well. In words of the band Tenth Avenue North, “You are more than the choices that you’ve made, you are more than the sum of your past mistakes, You are more than the problems you create, You’ve been remade.”

Reading specialist

For the last six years, Orcas Christian School has employed a dedicated specialist to work with students who are not reading at their grade level.

“A reading obstacle for students has a ripple effect on all of their other subjects and is critical to their success,” said Jessica Giasullo, M.S., who has developed the program at OCS. “I work with teachers to identify learning opportunities so that a third grader can catch up to their peers or a High School student can gain command of an assignment that otherwise would not be possible. As the reading specialist at the Orcas Christian School, I have one of the most wonderful jobs on the planet. I have had the incredible good fortune of hearing a nine-year-old child, who had been failing at reading, say to another child ‘I am a beautiful reader,’ and of finding out that children I’ve taught are going on to college and succeeding. My job demands creativity, resourcefulness, love and a strong commitment to helping each child succeed in reading comprehension and skills and, especially, finding the wonder in being able to enjoy a good book.”

Giasullo has credentials in English and Classics, Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes and is certified in reading skills and comprehension and is currently in pursuit of a PH.D.

“The school provides these one-on-one sessions on a weekly basis and has seen the fruit of these students performance, test scores and confidence,” said OCS Principal Kirk Haley.