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How do I get involved in SOS?
Anyone can be involved in the SOS
process. Our team is broad and includes strong
supporters of SOS intervention programs, skeptics about
the process, and members who are simply curious and want
to be involved. Come to an SOS event and speak your
mind. All our events (except for the “Stanford Student
Experiences Survey” results) involve cross stakeholder
groups of students, teachers, administration and staff,
and parents. Next year, SOS events will be held on
different nights of the week, and some will be held
during the day and on weekends so that we can increase
availability to our highly scheduled community. The
intervention process is very broad involving issues in
health and wellness, integrity, academic engagement and
connectedness. There is room in this process for
everyone, including you.
When are the next meetings?
Our leadership meetings are on the
first or second Thursday afternoon of the month,
depending on the month, check the website for details.
Our final cross stakeholder outreach event for the year
is Health and Wellness, and will be held during Stress
Awareness month.
Mission: SOS is a data based
intervention program firmly based in the expectations
and experiences of the Mission community. During April,
several feedback events will be held to share some of
that data, the results and trends found in the analysis
of the Stanford Student Experiences Survey. Around 900
students gave feedback in this survey and the analysis
is being done by teams at Lewis and Clarke and Stanford
University. These events will be held in separate
stakeholder groups at convenient times for that group.
During those meetings there will also be opportunities
to look at the trends and opinions expressed on the
Teacher and Parent Surveys.
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. The colleges and Universities we have been
working with when setting up this program, have
expressed a profound appreciation of our efforts.
Distress is a costly and destructive trend growing on
many University and College campuses and in companies
around the world and something institutions around the
world are now addressing. Top companies like Genentech
and Cisco foster interventions to lower distress in the
company environment and promote achievement.
Universities and Colleges are doing the same. Distress
happens even at the elementary level and affects young
minds far more profoundly than adults. Mission is not a
way station for college, but a school designed to
educate young adults; learning to make individual
healthy choices and promote a life in balance is a
valuable education for every human being.
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 on individuals at MSJHS, that
Mission: SOS would like to lower.
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 “lightbulb” 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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