Laughs and cheers filled the vast room as teenagers gathered together on the bleachers. In front of them lied a podium and a projector; a row of chairs waited adjacent to the podium. They began to quiet down as the PASL pep rally began.

The Personal Academic Social-Emotional Learning program or PASL is a program found at multiple schools that blends personal life and academic learning in an effort to help students become stable adults.

“Students who are in the program have higher GPAs, less discipline infractions, less absences, and are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities.  These characteristics yield high school graduates who are happier, more productive members of society.”

PASL also tracks specific data points of freshman as a grant for universities such as Florida State University and Vanderbilt University. As a result, the universities become more familiar with a student’s strengths and weaknesses and are more likely going to accept them into their schools.

“The goal is to give the students necessary skills and strategies to be successful in both school and life,” said thinking skills and mathematics teacher Matthew Sheppard.

Once a month, PASL teachers, who were selected before school began, meet up with students to discuss academic struggles, personal issues, and help students learn better goal setting skills. Students also learn how to cope with stressful situations and plan ways to increase their knowledge and/or grades.

“PASL Pep Rallies inform students of the PASL Program, build awareness, and team building,” said Sheppard. “Our SIDT team that is implementing PASL at South Broward attends quarterly meetings with the other PASL schools to share strategies, successes, and failures.”

Students meet up in the gymnasium each quarter to listen to a speaker talk about their life and struggles with the purpose of motivating them to take risks. S, another student who attended the rally, said she was more motivated to work harder in school. Her grades and GPA have benefited as a result.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said M. “I wish more people knew about the program.”