Religious Education

RE Survey Results

We had a very strong response to our RE Family Survey in February and March—big thanks to all the families who took the time to share their information and feedback with us! We are synthesizing the results and look forward to sharing and discussing them with our parent community. We will plan to convene all interested and available families to discuss the results around the service on Sunday, April 14—please stay tuned for an email with specific meeting details.

—Andrea Ward, Director of Religious Education

 

 

Happy spring, everyone!

We are wrapping up our offering of 4th-6th grade OWL, with our last session/celebration on April 28th!

We look forward to having parents join us for a portion of the celebration to reflect on all that we have learned! Thank you to all the parents and facilitators in this group for your support and dedication throughout the course. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Looking ahead, we will be offering 8th-9th grade OWL beginning in September. Please reach out if you would like your child to participate (and we have not already spoken). The middle school curriculum is robust, and includes 25 weekly sessions held on Sunday evenings in Ashland. We still have a few spaces available, so feel free to share within the larger Chequamegon Bay if you know of any youth that might be interested!

Finally, thank you to the families that completed the RE survey. The results indicated a strong desire to continue to prioritize the OWL curriculum in our fellowship, so we are affirmed in knowing that these offerings are an essential part of the RE program. (More to come on this from Andrea.) As always, please reach out with any questions, comments, reflections!

Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Safe Congregations and Background Check Policy for Religious Education Staff and Volunteers

  • The Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (CUUF) recognizes the importance of fostering and creating communities where everyone, especially our most vulnerable populations such as children and youth, are protected. We seek to preserve that spirit of welcome, respect and trust in balance with our concern for the safety of our children, applying the best practices from the Unitarian Universalist Association to any policies or guidelines we adopt.
  • Religious education (RE) classes will be conducted following best practices from the Safe Congregations handbook: two adults or attendants will be present and classes will be conducted in open spaces or with doors open.
  • The CUUF Board will conduct a background check on all staff hired to work with RE, such as the Director(s) of Religious Education. The RE director(s) will conduct a background check on all RE volunteers who are hired to work with the youth. Background checks will be repeated once every five years.
  • RE director(s) will be mandatory reporters and will attend an annual training. RE volunteers will be provided an incident report form for accidents, injuries, medical situations, student behavioral incidents, or other concerns and will turn this into the RE director(s).
  • Every employee and every volunteer who comes in contact with children and youth will receive a copy of the safe congregation policy, ethics policy (under development), and sexual harassment policy (under development).