High Five Adventure Learning Center Inc.

DEDICATED TO HELPING INDIVIDUALS, SCHOOLS, AND COMMUNITIES USE EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION AS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR IMPROVING THE WAY THEY LIVE, LEARN, AND WORK TOGETHER.

Our future is driven by what characterizes our best work, and what we have learned over our 20 plus

Goal One: Provide support to classroom teachers, administrators, and students to increase their social-emotional intelligence as they work together to shape a successful post-COVID educational experience.

Goal Two: High 5 is actively expanding access to its signature program, Edge of Leadership, through online access by classroom teachers and school administrators.

Goal Three: All High 5 programs are related to a core philosophy: Connect. Empower. Lead...Be the Example. All programs are based on the unifying concepts of social-emotional learning.

High 5’s Edge of Leadership (EOL) program is school-based. With the pandemic’s forced closing of schools, the staff changed their focus from delivery to development of an innovative online social-emotional learning (SEL) program designed to facilitate the return to school for teachers and students. With the launch of that online program, the staff have broadened their roles from classroom delivery to curriculum development and consulting, allowing them to guide and interact with a larger number of educators and, in the process, strengthening program and organizational leadership.

Our mission is to bring people together, improve their ability to recognize and respect their own and others’ strengths, understand the impact of decisions and actions, enable them to work collaboratively, and become effective team members. That work was severely impacted during the COVID pandemic with the result that our traditional sources of operating revenue declined. Despite that financial challenge, High 5 has emerged strong, with its staff intact, and made excellent use of the hiatus. Our EOL staff developed a variation on the EOL curriculum to support teachers and students through the return to school, following a long period of isolation, interrupted learning, and personal loss. Rebuilding After COVID is a curriculum providing educators with the means to identify signs in their students’ behavior of COVID-related stresses and respond quickly and effectively with remedial activities. The program has three areas of focus: • Rebuilding Community: Restore school climate and community. • Rebuilding Emotional Wellbeing: Recognize and manage the emotions that are likely to arise in the COVID recovery period. • Rebuilding Physicality: Use physical activities to create kinesthetic outlets for overcoming social distancing, screen learning, and other internalized experiences of trauma. This professional development curriculum is delivered in an easily searchable, online learning site. In less than 10 minutes, teachers can find an activity or prompt, learn how to lead it, and bring it to their students: • 30+ targeted developmental games, discussions, and lessons — each with easy-to-follow instructions and demonstration videos. • Downloadable resources for program evaluation, communicating with families, and more. • Resources for team meetings and in-service days. • Live online training events with the High 5 team. • Access to a community of like-minded educators. • Meets requirements for the federal American Rescue Plan Act and ESSER state funding programs.