Annual Report 2023-2024-DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 25
BOARD OF CHILDREN, TEENS, & FAMILIES
Chair: Tracy Codel
Vice Chair: Rachel Bruns
Secretary: Alice Fuglsang
Chair of Education Committee: Tracy Codel
Chair of Safety and Space Committee: Rachel Bruns
Chair of Fellowship Committee: Jennifer Wigton
Staff Liaisons: Melody Webb, Samantha Whalen
Plymouth Nursery School Liaison: Jess Patterson
Trustee Liaison: Benton Maas
Mission from Bylaws:
The board will assist in recruiting, training, and placing
volunteers for their board’s associated ministries. The board,
with pastoral and staff assistance, will plan and implement all
programs including, but not limited to, Church School and
Vacation Bible School. The board will approve choice or design
of curriculum for children up through sixth grade, Confirmation
Classes for middle-school students, and programs and activities
for high-school students and families. The board will procure
necessary materials and equipment for this programming and
maintain the children’s library. The board will have a liaison to
the Plymouth Nursery School Board of Directors.
Major Events/Achievements in 2023-2024:
This program year has been a year of renewal and stabilization,
creating partnerships, trying new ideas, as well as trusting in the
Holy Spirit as we practiced waiting, pivoting, and letting go.
Staffing: We continued to be blessed by the heart-filled
presence of Pastor Melody who completed her first full year at
Plymouth in December. We have appreciated her commitment
to creating stability, warmly welcoming families, providing
weekly communications, and extending gentle guidance to our
confirmands. Her art of listening and finding pathways forward
were gifts, I often think of Pastor Melody as Jesus’ example of
providing loaves and fishes. Samantha Whalen was promoted in
2024 to Assistant Director of Children and Families. Samantha
has become an integral member of our planning teams and
brings a can-do spirit and heart for our youngest learners – she
understands their need to explore the world with all their senses
and was our key designer in creating our new Godly play space.
Education Committee:
Continued to partner with Pastor Melody to shape our programs.
• Sunday School: We increased the number of Church School
sessions and expanded the number of classrooms by separating
Pre-K from K (Pre-K, K, grades 1-2, grades 3-4, grades 5-6). We
recognized that our 5th-6th graders benefited from more discussion,
so we eliminated their all-group lesson with the younger
students to provide more time for connecting with each other
and sharing about Bible lessons. Great thanks to our teachers
Ruth Staplin, Jocelyn Smith, Jane Wilson, Rebecca Masucci,
Brian Leckrone, and subs Lisa Wieland and Scott Cornelius.
We launched an electronic kiosk attendance system that
increased child safety pick-up by having matching parent-child
badges, streamlined the sanctuary dismissal process by directly
releasing students to teachers so that parents did not need to
escort their children to classrooms, and our kiosks allowed for
electronic attendance recording. We piloted having the Pre-K
and K attend Church School for the whole worship hour so
that they could have an added rotation in our new Godly
playroom with many hands-on activities related to the month’s
Bible lesson. For many children, this is their favorite space.
• Stepping Stones: Families gather during eight significant times
during a child’s life to provide a supportive place to nurture
their family faith. Thanks to facilitators Pastor Melody,
Michelle Mullins, Jessica and Jack Schroeder, and Tracy Codel
we completed six of the eight stones: Infant, Toddler, K, Bible
(grades 3-4), Adolescent (grades 7-8), and Senior (grade 12).
Next year, we hope to bring back the Communion Stone
(grades 5-6) and Confirmation Stone when we have more
bandwidth for our instructors.
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