Our mission: To support a school environment that nurtures integrity, academic engagement, connectedness and well being.

Mission:  SOS is springing forward!  With 3 outreach events done, and data ready to be shared on the Mission experience, April will be a great opportunity for the Mission community.  Stress management is a hot topic at Colleges, Universities, successful companies and organizations around the world.   The prevailing advice is to encourage individuals to develop a life in balance.  

T.S. Elliot wrote “April is the cruelest month” and while this may have been a commentary on modern life, for those of us trying to balance extracurriculars, classes and responsibilities April can indeed be cruel.  Between taxes, letters from colleges and universities, sports, plays, and April/May testing, not living a healthy lifestyle during the pressure cooker that is April can quickly turn our own lives into a cruel cycle of negative reactions. The best defense for the crazy demands of April and May is a life in balance.  Check in with yourself regularly to keep yourself healthy and well during this month of high demand. For more on health and wellness, visit our services and activities page.

On Thursday, February 7th, Jim Lobdell led his workshop “Choices:  A Guide to Reducing Academic Stress” in C-120.  Parents and teachers from the attendance area came, but the large majority of the crowd participating in the workshop were Mission students; and it was their frank openness and pointed feedback facilitated by Jim’s leadership that made the evening so powerful. 

Lobdell opened with an exercise that defined each participant’s definition of "life success."  These were shared out in small groups of adults working with young people, running from their seats in the front rows back into the crowd of students.  Saving these definitions of success for later discussion, Jim moved on to "A Day in the life of Andy Bicious", a high-achieving junior.  Over the course of two hours, Jim Lobdell’s presentation explored the scheduling demands of today’s students, the pressures on these students, the choices they and their parents are making in response to those pressures and how we recognize when stress in students has turned to distress. 

The evening culminated with a discussion of who’s responsibility it is to support Andy to make healthy choices and Lessin’ his Stressin’.   Ultimately, those choices are made by Andy and his parents.  Andy’s parents are the only adults in Andy’s life who see the whole picture, and Andy himself must learn to recognize when he is in distress, explore who he is and seek support to make healthy decisions.  For more on Jim Lobdell’s “Choices:  A Guide to Reducing Academic Stress” and additional resources from the SOS website and program, check out Jim’s power point presentation!  View Presentation (PowerPoint)

Moving Forward in April:  Student Survey Outreach events coming in April for teachers and staff, parents, and students:  “Listening to Student Voices:  Where do we go from here?”

April 2008:  check out “Health and Wellness activities” during Stress Awareness Month!

Support SOS and a “life in balance”, buy Hawaiian BBQ during Multicultural Week! 

Our Mission Statement

Our mission is to support a school environment that nurtures integrity, academic engagement, connectedness and well being.

 

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