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

 
 
 
 

How do I get involved in SOS?

Attend an event, or a meeting, or email us. Anyone can be involved in the SOS process. Our team includes both strong supporters of the of SOS process and skeptics, and members who are concerned about distress at Mission and want to work with the community to lower distress without lowering achievement. Come to an SOS event and speak your mind. All events involve cross stakeholder groups of students, teachers, administration and staff, and parents.

When are the next meetings?

Meeting times will be set after school begins and our students know their schedules. We will post those here and on the Mission website.

Will lowering stress at Mission lower our school performance?

It is not the goal of Mission: SOS to lower the achievement levels of Mission students. There is a difference between distress and stress. Stress results from trying to meet deadlines, improving performance, watching exciting movies, and handling unexpected events. Distress is a result of chronic stress. As parents and students we can learn to tell the difference. Distress can keep us up at night, disrupt relationships, isolate us from our support networks, change eating habits, and lower achievement levels. Distress in this country and in many countries across the globe, costs billions of dollars to educational institutions and businesses in associated health care costs and lost productivity. There is no downside to reducing distress on students and community members.

Isn’t stress normal?

Stress is normal and many would say necessary, but chronic distress is not normal and is destructive over time to both health and achievement. There is anecdotal evidence and data from the student survey that points to the existence of high levels of academic distress within the Mission San Jose High School community. It is the effects of chronic distress that Mission: SOS would like to reduce.

Can we really change at Mission?

It’s been said that institutional change reaps results over 2 – 5 years, so yes; Mission can change in baby steps over time. Today’s SOS leadership may not see the benefits of the work they do at Mission, although younger members of the community may reap the benefits of the work put in today. Careful change and timely assessment of interventions using a well thought out rubric will increase the effectiveness of the change process. Data based solutions are site based and, we hope, well planned and managed over time.
Individual change occurs in a single “light bulb” moment. What a speaker says, the anecdote they tell, a story offered by the student in the row behind you at an event, an incredible passage read in a book or article that you picked up; each of these moments has the potential to profoundly affect your life. Some of the best support and learning opportunities an individual can have is through a process like this one. But like any great learning opportunity, it’s only worth what we put into it; we have the opportunity to change, but it’s just that, an opportunity not a certainty.

 

 

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