Wellness Center Books New Location in Library
The Wellness Center has moved to the library and hired new staff members just in time to receive a large influx of new students.
By Tyler Lilly
The Wellness Center has moved to the library and hired new staff members just in time to receive a large influx of new students.
By Tyler Lilly
Student mental health, even in a school year without a global pandemic and increasing political strife, is always a concern for high school campuses. In an effort to improve mental health and combat the stress that comes with being a high school student, the Pioneer Wellness Center was created and now, in time for students to come back to campus, it is bigger and better.
The Wellness Center was moved from the attendance office to a room in the library because the office needed more room for administrative duties and the center’s need more room to take in the larger amount of students that it was predicted would be using the center this year. The new space also allowed the implementation of new strategies that there was not space in the old center.
This assessment about the number of students was correct as over 260 students checked into the Wellness Center just two weeks into school. This is a sizable increase in the number of students.
“If we stay at this pace we will have over 3,000 check-ins by the end of the school year,” said Wellness Center Coordinator Amy Hernandez. This would be around double the amount of students that visited in the 2019-2020 school year. Hernandez said that there has been an “increase in need,” and that students have been “experiencing a lot in the past year and a half and for some of them they have not dealt with it until now.”
The Wellness Center this year has introduced two new staff members, Jane Bahou and Heather Goodman. Both have been running workshops in the Wellness Center during FLEX. Heather Goodman runs a workshop that focuses on solving stress and anxiety through yoga and meditation on Wednesdays. Bahou, a licensed therapist, runs a class on dealing with stress and anxiety on Thursdays.
To afford these new changes, the center received a grant of $51,512. “Most of this funding goes to supporting Wellness Program staff,” said Hernandez.
Magaly Rivera, 12, has used the Wellness Center a few times, most recently in mid-Oct.
“I was having a panic attack,” Rivera said. She took part in a journaling activity at the center. “I wrote everything I was going through, it helped me get stuff out and relax.”
Rivera said she also used the center to set up additional therapy.
“If you need it, it’s there, and you should take any opportunity that’s available.”
Another senior, Haydon Behl, 12, used it the week of October. 11.
“I had a small nervous breakdown during FLEX, so I ‘noped out’ of class and went there. I sat on a beanbag and sort of spaced out, it was a way for me to clear my head,” Behl said. “I wasn’t stressed (after), so that was a positive.” Ashley Rodriguez 9 has used the Wellness Center 3 times “because of stress from school”. Rodriguez said “the environment is so calm and relaxing, which really helps. They have lots of activities and things you could play with to take your minds off things, like playdoh, writing letters, drawing, and more! it’s a really cool place and i’m so glad it exists.”
AP Psychology teacher Lillian Luu said she has sent around one student per week. First-year English teacher Stephanie Harvey says that she has a student ask to go to the center around two or three times a week. Both teachers feel like the Wellness Center is having a positive effect on their students.
Harvey says “when they come back I do see there is a noticeable kinda change they seem a lot more calm ready to focus and be on task because if our mental health isn’t there it’s hard for us to focus on other task so I think it’s been very beneficial for our students” and that she would have used it when she was in highschool. Luu said “having a place where they can go and learn coping mechanisms and deal with any issues that have outside of academics is a life saver.”
The Wellness Center was moved from the attendance office to a room in the library because the office needed more room for administrative duties and the center’s need more room to take in the larger amount of students that it was predicted would be using the center this year. The new space also allowed the implementation of new strategies that there was not space in the old center.
This assessment about the number of students was correct as over 260 students checked into the Wellness Center just two weeks into school. This is a sizable increase in the number of students.
“If we stay at this pace we will have over 3,000 check-ins by the end of the school year,” said Wellness Center Coordinator Amy Hernandez. This would be around double the amount of students that visited in the 2019-2020 school year. Hernandez said that there has been an “increase in need,” and that students have been “experiencing a lot in the past year and a half and for some of them they have not dealt with it until now.”
The Wellness Center this year has introduced two new staff members, Jane Bahou and Heather Goodman. Both have been running workshops in the Wellness Center during FLEX. Heather Goodman runs a workshop that focuses on solving stress and anxiety through yoga and meditation on Wednesdays. Bahou, a licensed therapist, runs a class on dealing with stress and anxiety on Thursdays.
To afford these new changes, the center received a grant of $51,512. “Most of this funding goes to supporting Wellness Program staff,” said Hernandez.
Magaly Rivera, 12, has used the Wellness Center a few times, most recently in mid-Oct.
“I was having a panic attack,” Rivera said. She took part in a journaling activity at the center. “I wrote everything I was going through, it helped me get stuff out and relax.”
Rivera said she also used the center to set up additional therapy.
“If you need it, it’s there, and you should take any opportunity that’s available.”
Another senior, Haydon Behl, 12, used it the week of October. 11.
“I had a small nervous breakdown during FLEX, so I ‘noped out’ of class and went there. I sat on a beanbag and sort of spaced out, it was a way for me to clear my head,” Behl said. “I wasn’t stressed (after), so that was a positive.” Ashley Rodriguez 9 has used the Wellness Center 3 times “because of stress from school”. Rodriguez said “the environment is so calm and relaxing, which really helps. They have lots of activities and things you could play with to take your minds off things, like playdoh, writing letters, drawing, and more! it’s a really cool place and i’m so glad it exists.”
AP Psychology teacher Lillian Luu said she has sent around one student per week. First-year English teacher Stephanie Harvey says that she has a student ask to go to the center around two or three times a week. Both teachers feel like the Wellness Center is having a positive effect on their students.
Harvey says “when they come back I do see there is a noticeable kinda change they seem a lot more calm ready to focus and be on task because if our mental health isn’t there it’s hard for us to focus on other task so I think it’s been very beneficial for our students” and that she would have used it when she was in highschool. Luu said “having a place where they can go and learn coping mechanisms and deal with any issues that have outside of academics is a life saver.”