As we count down the days to Thanksgiving break, Lakota is asking staff, students, parents and residents to help us count all the ways we are blessed as a school community. Looking back at the last year, who or what gives you a good reason to be thankful for your Lakota experience?

Advisory period at Liberty Junior School looked a little different last week. Encouraging teacher voice, student voice and student choice were all a part of creating an event called Hawk’s Choice.

For the first time, Lakota East dedicated an entire afternoon to encouraging students to explore the full range of post-graduation options available to them. Called “4E Day,” the event tapped into 70-plus local professionals representing career paths involving one or more of the 4Es Lakota promotes to all students: employment, enrollment, enlistment and entrepreneurship.

Cherokee Elementary sixth-grader Landyn Bomar was among just six students in the Tri-State honored at the Oct. 25 Heroes of Character Celebration. Hosted by the Character Council, which serves Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana, the event honors youth and adults who consistently demonstrate outstanding character traits in their everyday lives. Landyn was the youngest recipient of all six student honorees.

Over 200 Lakota students honored 75 veterans as they participated in Honor Flight Tri-State’s last flight of the year on Oct. 23. The morning began bright and early for a group of about 20 Lakota West students, as they headed to CVG airport at 3:30 a.m. in order to welcome the veterans and their guardians to their flight. The event was organized by the school’s new club, Patriotic Firebirds. Advisor Kristin Henley explains that the purpose of the group “is to support Firebirds who have joined the military or who are in the process of joining the military, their families and all veterans.”

The longstanding tradition behind Lakota’s annual food drive, hosted by the Lakota Board of Education, helped the district bring home a win in the inaugural match-up against neighboring school districts Mason and Middletown. But the real winners were all three communities that collectively brought in more than 53,000 items for their respective relief organizations.

Lakota’s new monthly learning series, Family & Parent CommUnity University in partnership with Miami University Voice of America, continues with a session focused on understanding the complexities of gender-expansive youth. In the spirit of love, curiosity and respect, Lakota parents, staff and residents are encouraged to attend Saturday, Nov. 17 from 8 a.m. to noon at Miami VOA Learning Center, located at 7847 VOA Park Drive.

Creativity and communication have Lakota’s junior school students thinking about media in a whole new way. Media Design and Communication, a new English elective, gives students the opportunity to explore communication through a wide variety of tools and media. Students are also challenged to apply media and communication to real world learning.

When the sixth grade teaching team at Endeavor Elementary was seeking a future-ready experience for their students, they looked no further than one of the school’s longest standing traditions - an annual field trip to Camp Kern.