Walking through the halls of Grove City Christian School, you will see students as they run up and down the hall laughing and teachers as they greet every student they pass by name. This is just a glimpse of the effects that many schools in the Grove City area have had as they work to further the wellness of their students and staff.
The recent growth of mental health awareness has sparked a change in how schools all across America, including those in Grove City, treat students who may be struggling in and outside of school.
Tools for success
Over the years, the South-Western City School District, home to more than 21,000 students, has created a multifaceted approach to mental health support for its students.
The school district has implemented several programs and curriculum changes to help students across all grade levels.
Courtesy of Grove City Christian
One example is the Second Step curriculum, a social-emotional program implemented at the elementary and intermediate levels. In this program, young students focus on building positive relationship skills like empathy and conflict resolution through mock scenarios demonstrated through common in-class events.
Evan Debo, the executive director of communications at South-Western City Schools, says the district has made all these changes to make sure students have the resources they need to succeed in life.
“For us, it’s about equipping students with tools and the know-how to develop and sustain positive relationships, to have self-regulation tools and tactics that they can apply to a number of different scenarios on a developmentally appropriate basis,” he says.
Grove City Christan shares many of the same programs as South-Western Schools.
The private school focuses on incorporating counseling and mental health care into the class, as each grade in the elementary, middle and high school get different classroom-focused mental health lessons.
This ranges from kindergarteners learning emotional identification, to third graders learning how to identify stress and how to deal with it, and eighth graders and beyond learning how to reflect on their mental health on a deeper level.
The main idea behind these mini class programs is to slowly build a student’s mental strength, as well as identifying what the student cares about the most.
Courtesy of Grove City Christian
“I am always encouraging students to be option thinkers, think in terms of options,” Grove City Christian school counselor Nancy Gillespie says.
“‘What is it that matters the most to you? And how are you going to chase after that?’”
On top of all the grade specific courses students can go through, Grove City Christian also has special programs which they provide to different age ranges and groups of students. One example of these special courses is ROX, which stands for Ruling Our Experiences.
This program for girls is available to students when they enter high school and details how to manage social media safety and relationships as they get older. In this 20-week course, the students also learn how to stand up for themselves, practice proper self-defense and positively lead others.
“Ultimately, (ROX) is trying to teach them that they’re worth defending, that they are valuable and that it’s okay to set personal boundaries and not let people in them,” Gillespie says.
Limiting screen time
What seems to be a universal solution for many schools fighting to better their students’ wellbeing is the disappearance of phones during the school day. In accord with Governor Mike DeWine’s signing of House Bill 250, all schools in Ohio must devise a policy to govern and limit cellphone use in school.
Courtesy of Grove City Christian
Debo says that the South-Western City School District’s policy consists of limiting the visible use of cellphones during school, although students are still allowed to have phones in their pockets, backpacks or lockers.
For Grove City Chrisitan, high school students are not allowed to have their phones in school, which according to school counselor Nancy Gillespie, was not an easy transition at first. However, once the students got used to the change, there was an obvious improvement in overall energy within the school.
“Interestingly, our rates of depression and anxiety among students from last year to this year, with nothing else changing except getting rid of phones, has decreased,” Gillespie says. “Conversations are much richer and greater and are just taking place among students, and that has been really cool.”
Improvements after setbacks
Of the many mental health issues which students of all ages must deal with, anxiety is often near the top, along with different forms of depression. Many school officials cite the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor that has drastically increased awareness of mental health challenges faced by students all across the world.
“The isolation was bad, the motivation was low, the anxiety was high, the depression was increased,” Gillespie says. “Pre-COVID numbers for just academic success, in terms of testing, in terms of overall grades, the whole world just shifted on them, and so we’re still kind of recuperating.”
While turning in homework on time and getting good grades on tests may feel like the top priority for many students, the most important item to always keep in mind for themselves and for those around them, is mental health. Ensuring a sense of belonging is what Gillespie wants every student to feel when they walk into school.
“I would hope that every kid in this building knows that they’re loved and valued,” Gillespie says.
Wil Steigerwald is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
