Impact
A comprehensive, multi-year program designed to touch every girl's life every year she's a student at GPS, Impact goes beyond academic preparation. The innovative program uses interactive activities and speakers to prepare GPS girls to lead a balanced life as a female and as a citizen and to make an 'impact' on her local and global community. To read about the typical month’s worth of activities that are part of the Impact program at GPS, click here to read the October/November newsletter.
Through the four components, students learn to change tires, consider their own philanthropy, discuss civic responsibility, and develop awareness of financial issues, internet safety, global advocacy efforts, and environmental responsibility.
The faculty at GPS plays an important part in teaching and modeling life skills to the students. The sophomore faculty, for 
example, meets in groups with the tenth graders and talks about how to balance the many demands on their lives and how to handle personal characteristics that can be stumbling blocks to success: procrastination, too much socializing, never saying ‘no.’ Students are surprised to hear their teachers talk so openly about their own struggles with these issues.
To teach tire changing (and a dose of self-confidence), the faculty volunteered their own cars as guinea pigs and helped the students struggling with lug wrenches, hub caps, and jacks.
Presentations to teach public speaking and interviewing skills are also well received by the students who know that college admissions interviews are in their future.
The Global Speaker Series, Lunchtime Learning presentations, and new history electives (Global Conflicts, Democracy in a Global Setting) are pieces of the Horizons component of Impact. In addition, news magazines written specifically for middle and high school students are distributed and discussed during advisories. In a world in which many families no longer subscribe to a daily newspaper, reports from history teachers cite the magazines’ effectiveness in keeping students current about national and world topics.
The active Model UN club researches global issues to craft position papers for countries from Brazil to Thailand. Seven were invited in 2008 to attend the National Model UN Conference. As the club’s advisor says, ““We never stack the deck with our strongest delegates to make a super delegation just to win awards. We focus on diplomacy, really understanding issues, and knowing how to work in committee.”
Philanthropy and hard work are dual ways that GPS gives back to local and international community organizations. The traditional Robin Hood fundraiser, which in the past has built a school in Pakistan, has more recently contributed to the renovation and technology needs of a new all-girls’ charter school in Chattanooga. Student groups assist local non-profits such as the Community Kitchen, Chattanooga Area Food Bank, Children’s Home, and McKamey Animal Shelter.
Groups of students volunteer during Winterim to cook meals at the Ronald McDonald House, join a crew in building a Habitat house, or teach science experiments in area elementary schools.
Working in twos or in larger groups, GPS girls are trying to make a “world” of difference.
Girls are bombarded every day with advertising images and airbrushed magazine covers that make them feel imperfect. They sometimes don’t know how to deal with transitions or relationships. A series of classes and special Impact programs are designed to encourage healthy choices.
One activity in eighth grade Changes & Choices classes involves free associating elements of character with parts of the GPS summer uniform; qualities mentioned by the girls were integrity, pride, completeness, strength, and helpfulness.
In physical education classes the SHAPE program (Starting Habits to Attain Physical Excellence) is a sequenced program of fitness and wellness that fosters an appreciation for a strong healthy body and helps girls realize the importance of establishing lifelong wellness goals.
In a biology classroom that deals with sex, drug, and alcohol education, or in an assembly with a speaker on body image and eating disorders, GPS students are encouraged to ask questions that will lead to informed choices.
