- Principal Kati Vasquez said the groups were separated by gender and met for about 30 minutes a week.
- Ryan Rivas, a fifth-grade teacher at the school who is one of the program leaders, said joining the group was better than he expected.
- Sessions are open to students in grades 3-6.
Farmington — Elementary school staff in the Central Integrated School District are very pleased with the results of the new Student Support Group program that started this year and will bring it back in the fall. Other schools lead.
The managers and faculty members of Oshiro Amarilo Elementary School in Fruits Land have held weekly student support group meetings since October, which are very popular with students and will continue throughout the rest of the school year.
This session is open to students from grades 3 to 6 and is designed to provide an opportunity for participants to talk about issues they may face when making friends, home issues, bullying and other issues. It has been.
Principal Kati Vasquez said the groups were separated by gender and met for about 30 minutes a week. There are four groups, 3rd and 4th grade girls, 3rd and 4th grade boys, 5th and 6th grade girls, 5th and 6th grade boys, each with 10 to 20 students, each session. Begins and ends with a short reading or affirmation. In the meantime, students are given the opportunity to share their feelings and discuss the issues that their classmates are having trouble with.
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Ryan Rivas, a fifth-grade teacher at the school, one of the program’s leaders, said joining the group was better than expected.
“My experience with the boys group seemed to be pretty much what they wanted to talk about,” he said. “Some young people hesitate to share their feelings, but for others, I don’t think the opportunity to share their feelings is built into life.”
Basquez acknowledged Rivas for being able to pull out the boys in his group without feeling the pressure to do so. She said that as students became more and more confident in the group leader, and their fellow students, the tensions and shyness that represented many of the early sessions melted, and the group continued as they lasted. He said they created their own momentum. ..
Basquez was hesitant to elaborate too much on some of the issues that arise during the meeting, fearing that they would violate confidentiality. However, if she raises an issue that the student may have related to domestic violence, the counselor and social worker attending the meeting will then report and follow up with the student. Said to put aside the support.
She said she was unaware of group participants that 21 people were killed in an elementary school shooting in Yuvalde, Texas on May 24, and how much national news was in her eyes and ears. I explained that I didn’t know if it would arrive. student. She also said that many of them are, of course, obsessed with their own problems, so they can only face so many concerns at once.
She also said that while there was little direct discussion of the COVID-19 virus throughout the year, the pandemic clearly influenced student thinking. well experienced.
In fact, according to Basquez, the situation caused by the pandemic has a lot to do with the launch of a support group. She said CCSD staff gave a presentation on mental health issues early last fall while students were returning to direct learning at school. Almost immediately, Vasquez and other school leaders found that they needed a mechanism to handle the isolation that students experienced during distance learning.
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“Our students needed more than just scholars. They needed a place to speak,” she said.
She said the student support group was started as an experiment to address that need.
“I decided,’I’m better off doing something than doing nothing, so I’ll give it a try,'” she said.
Vasquez and Rivas admitted that they did not compile empirical data to support the value of the support group, but both claimed to have come to believe in the project and had a significant positive impact on the school.
“When the support group started, we noticed a dramatic reduction in the amount of time spent on disciplinary action,” Basquez said. “I don’t think the group can recognize all its achievements, but I know it’s not as disciplined as it was at the beginning of the year.”
In some cases, the group was able to solve each other’s problems directly, so the group directly helped solve some disciplinary actions, she said.
“They were able to go back to what we talked about as a way to solve the problem and create restorative justice, thanks to the topics we covered in the support group,” she said. rice field. “They learned how to get rid of their anger without doing unfriendly things.”
Rivas said a key element of the group was the idea that students should not only talk about their problems, but also build healthy relationships with each other. He said the conference would provide activities aimed at making it possible.
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As the program enters its second year next fall, Vasquez and Rivas said they have some ideas for editing the data that can be used to analyze the success of the program. They plan to keep attendance records to graph the number of participants, and Rivas wants to perform a “mood check” of the participants.
“This year I did some similar research, and many students reported that they felt better all the time,” he said. “I think many of them came to the support group and found a lot of value in it.”
Basquez said he has no plans to export the program to other schools in the district at this time, but hopes that the group’s success in Ohoa Marilo will be tested by others. In any case, she is already sold at the value of the group.
“I shared it a bit here and there,” she said. “… No one has grabbed it so far, but it’s okay.”
You can contact Mike Easterling at 505-564-4610 or mesherling@daily-times.com. Supports local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.
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