Since the pandemic, the mental health of students and teachers has been an increased area of focus. On Monday, the Orange County Schools Board of Education met to talk about mental health in elementary and high schools in the district.
This year, Orange County Schools implemented a survey that gathers data about the mental wellness of students. The school district has administered the mental wellness survey three times to students throughout the year in order to tailor their educational efforts to students’ needs.
Fifth grade teacher Angela Breeze says the New Hope Elementary school improvement team has used data from the survey to make their students more comfortable.
“When we looked at our beginning and middle of the year data for our school we saw an improvement, compared especially to last year’s data, for how our students are feeling in our building,” she said. “I know my fifth grade students, all 28 of them, have completed this final one and they have taken it seriously. Many of them have called me over and asked me ‘what exactly is this question asking?’ and I’ve reworded it or tried to give them an example.”
According to the survey, 85 percent of students in grades 3 through 5 ‘responded favorably’ that they “have a teacher or other adult inside school who they can count on to help, no matter what.” 92 percent responded favorably to the same question about an adult outside of school. Only 43 percent, however, responded favorably to a question about being able to pull themselves out of a bad mood.
Sixth through 12th grade students were asked a similar set of questions, with 93 percent of students responding favorably they have an adult outside of school they can count on. 78 percent agreed they did not hear many hurtful comments about students based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or disabilities from adults at their school. Still, only 48 percent responded favorably to the same question about hurtful comments from other students.
Along with the survey, Orange County Schools started using a targeted Social and Emotional Learning program called reThinkEd.
Breeze said her students have been highly engaged with the reThinkEd lessons they have done so far, about breathing exercises or topics like how to deal with rumors and gossip.
“For us, it has been a beneficial program,” she said. “Many people know that we have a lot of SEL Social Emotional needs at New Hope, and I believe this has given us an avenue to reach those needs and to provide some consistency and security for our students.”
Mental Health Case Manager Coordinator Daniel Kearns-Pickett commented on the necessity of having programs and systems like the survey and reThinkEd.
“I think that since the pandemic has happened, a lot of attention in our nation has been on mental health and making it a priority so I want to ensure that we stay ahead of that and ensure we are taking care of our students and staff and showing that we do appreciate them and we are here to put systems in place to support them,” he said.
In the past four months, he has implemented new resources for teachers and staff too, like monthly emails with wellness tips, trainings, workshops, and mindfulness activities.
As the presentation finished up, board member Sarah Smylie thanked the presenting district staff and reiterated how important mental health in schools is to her.
“I just wanna say,” she said, “I think you all are doing really essential work and it is really exciting to see the progress from even just a year ago um and this sort of attention to students well being and teachers well being too just love it, love it, love it.”
The Orange County Schools district plans to continue using data from the survey to prepare for the upcoming school year. To watch the full presentation from the May 8 Orange County school board meeting, click here.
Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.
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