Projects and Progress for Polson Graduates

Pirate Pursuits, one of the new graduation requirements at Polson High School, challenges a highschooler’s perception of the world and encourages them to think and present a project created  by them. Andy Fors, the current principal of Polson High School and soon to be Superintendent of District 23, said with this project “we would prefer you’re a little uncomfortable here, in this controlled environment where we can help you, before you have to go out into the real world and experience that for the first time.” 

Pirate Pursuits offers students four different pathways to complete their project:  Community Involvement, Career Readiness, Cultural Understanding, and Creative Expression. Each pathway asks the students to contribute fifteen hours to their field of choice, with an additional minimum of two hours of volunteer work. This encourages students to team up with and assist the families and community in Polson and the surrounding area. 

Seniors propose their projects to their PHS staff advisors who help them find a project, gather parent consent forms and mentor contracts, and check to ensure the projects are both safe and within the guidelines of the handbook. Students also rely on a community mentor to help them along the way. Mentors must be twenty-one, not related to the student, and cannot be the staff or employer of a business the student works at. Students are also allowed to change their mind midway and approach a new project, but it is required for the student to log their previous project, what went wrong, and why they chose the new project. 

The pursuits are approved in November, with the students left to manage their work on their own with assistance from teacher advisors and monthly updates. In March they turn in the proof of completion: an activity log (an extensive record of work done on the project), a community service log with the two hour minimum (Pirates Give Back log sheet), a project reflection paper, and a portfolio. The project ends officially in April, with a presentation where seniors give a five to seven minute slideshow and thank you letters to all collaborators and assistants to the student’s project. 

So what have some of our seniors accomplished? Shay Morin originally focused her Pirate Pursuit Project on knitting hats on a spinner wheel but later found it to not be what she wanted to do with her project. She then decided to make cakes for the elderly after she spoke to Crystal Walker in the office about her past experiences making sheet cakes at Super One. Morin was later asked by the Activities Director of Providence St. Joseph Assisted Living Center to assist in making fresh cakes for the elderly birthday parties they host every Thursday and was encouraged by Melissa Withrow, her staff advisor, to pursue it. Morin excitedly accepted, and dedicated her project to making cakes every Wednesday and decorating them after school in Stephanie Anderson’s culinary classroom with permission and her own ingredients. Morin was inspired to accept the position due to her eighty-five year old grandmother with poor memory, who helped her be more patient and understanding of the elderly she assists. Morin even mentioned how she gained her community hours by volunteering to help set up the parties and assist with the elderly she bakes for. Morin said she loved baking for others because “when you make things homemade, you can feel like you did something authentic.” 

Morin shared her opinion of the project, saying, “I know a lot of people are used to things just being handed to them, versus Mr. Fors having us work for our graduation, but it’s in a good sense to get us ready for adult life and know that things aren’t just going to be handed to you after highschool.” She later said how most seniors in her class that she knew saw it as a frustration, and said that “although it’s tough it helps kind of push our way through graduation and actually give us something to work towards to graduate.”

Another senior, Landon DesJarlais, coached basketball at the Fun and Free Learning Center, a local Polson Daycare for his senior project. And got his community hours volunteering as a coach for the Little Dribblers association. Although he originally found the project idea as stressful, he later came to value it as a great system to allow the students some choice and independence to pursue career supplements and experience the real world. DeJarlais’s main takeaway from his project  was gaining a better sense of empathy for his students, and how it helped him better understand the thoughts of the kids and allowed himself to be more patient. DeJarlais’s project was inspired by his own coaches, Dejarlais said, “I can remember being taught by those coaches and they really inspired me, I wanted to give back those experiences.” He found the experience to be memorable and enjoyed the excitement of the kids when they ran up to him for lessons, excited and eager to learn.

Vivian Lazaro, a senior who learned American Sign Language for her project, also valued the project but thought it would have been more ideal to approach it in a different way. Lazaro said she wished for the project to be made more like an elective, with time to work on it during school hours. Lazaro appreciated that she learned the discipline in learning a new language in between her two jobs and school, but it took commitment and time away from her other activities. She was proud of herself for picking up the language instead of her phone but did not appreciate the threat to her graduation status. Lazaro said, “There’s a lot of benefit, obviously, but some people only did what they could with the time they had.” She said she wished students were allotted more time to accomplish more, since she believed she had some very committed and interesting colleagues who could have done better with the opportunity if they had more time. However, Lazaro didn’t completely hate the project and found it as a great opportunity to learn sign language to better communicate with her deaf aunt. Her favorite experience was when she first got her name in sign language. Lazaro best explained this as how “people who are hard of hearing, they use house signs, where you make a sign for something that’s like a shortcut, but they also give you a sign for your name. So when I got mine from my aunt, that was just really cool.” Lazaro was primarily self taught and cross referenced multiple sites online. She also practiced with her sister, who also learned sign language in highschool, and with her aunt. She hopes to possibly take professional classes in the future.

Overall, opinions of this project are across the board: some annoyed and some content. The Pirate Pursuits project at Polson High School is still developing, and the staff intends to take this year into account and improve their system with these changes being put into effect in 2025-26 with Besty Wade as the new principal.