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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.
Important Dates:
-
Thursday, September 10 “Back to School Night”.
- Thursday, September 17, “College Choices:
Pathways to Success”, 7 pm – 8:30 pm.
- Friday, September 25, Stanford University
“Challenge Success Conference” at Memorial Auditorium,
7:30 – 9:30 pm. Free Friday Night Plenary
Session with Dr. Denise Pope, Dr. Michael Thompson
(renowned psychologist and author), and Chris Kelly,
Chief Privacy Officer and head of Global Public Policy
at Facebook.
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 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 “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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