Oct 21, 2020 9 min read

Dr. Aileen Ondoasan, 

Alicia and Will Davies – founder and manager of CHILL project, mindfulness informed preventative school based program. Increase reslieincy and decrease streess, 6,000studetns in 7 schools, in virtual and in-person. Serve students and teachers.  Alicia Anderson, CHILL therapist at Baldwin HS, been in CHILL room, a cool space in school for students to calm down and take a break, see kids  2 people in each school, walk-in and group oprroutnitnes, and school based therapist.  We are still teaching same strategies, but cater to needs of kids and what they’re talking about related to their . focusing on what you can control and what you can’t . we’re consistent with strategies and being mindful of big change we are going through. 

I have seen both ends of the spectrum, some kids are coping really wely , some are struggling, they want to be at shcool or it’s hard academically, as much as we want to stay away from technoloyg, we’re encourging kids to reach out to friends, faceteim, communitcatingwith reinds outside of the family. Kids ahve been talknig about their secheule is off, they’re staying up really late during the night and sleeping during the day, encourgagin kids to stick to a scheule, keep up with studies and socialize with their friends. 

That’s kind of one of the bidggest concerns, are they sociliaizing with each other as they ahve done before, you can’t see your riends and socialize, you’re on zoom or whatever platform, it’s directed and scripted, but you dont’ thave thouse tinmes in the hallway, or lunch with them, or kids younger you’re messing core memmoemens of devleopment of peper to pper releaistionsihip. 

We also have seen a lot of kids with the scheeuld sconecrns when we were 100% online, kids sleep scheudels wer filpped.  We were wkaing kids up at 11:30, help keeps .

I feel like HIGH SCHOOL – 

I think one of the bibggest sturggles i’ve seen is the balance at home where kids are on line an d parents have to simultaneious ly be the teacher as well, becaue of that you get kids who are not focues on lesson, they’re hgihly districated in their space, kids can get fidgety and it’s incredibly distriacitng, it would be hepful, the sooner we can get them back in to shocol the better, developmentall, how the younger studetns are perceiving this, in their worl,d things are a little more things revolve areound themesleve, they have less pserepctive in thersms of how thier actiions impact others, it’s interntally afecting. They have these types of egocentric behaviors, we can direct it around how can we connect to them through language that doesn’t expect them to understand that doesn’t expect them to understand teh larger percetipon of the world.

What can we do today? HAve crucial conversations with their young wones around, even though there’s a lot going on in the world, were trying our hardest to keep you safe. 

Id’ say there’s a real concern from my presrpactive acaedmically for a lot of studtes anre they going to fall behind and regress , when wego into summer vacatin the y can loseup to 1/3 of knowlege they gained,when you havekids not fully engaged becaue theyr’e not getting socializaion or interastion with teacher, hard to redirect a student when they’re notin the room, theres huge concern acadmeically and socially A lot of students who need 1 on 1 interaction aren’t getting it. We know 

Youre gettin ghe best that we can do right now scneario . and hyou have a highly stressed educator population, we’ve spoken with a lot of veteran teachers who taught face to face for 30 years, and now you’re telling them they ahve to do virutal online format, There’s a lot of variables that we’ve neber been here before in modern society, lot of stuff is ggetting built as we went, there probably will be academic and socializianon.

LISA – staying on a stric schedule, everyting will said, i think it has taken abit of a toll on academics on kids, a lot of sguidance counselros are trakcing kids down because they haven’t checked in , make sure they’re not sleepting through classes.

Especially kids who are remote, we have virtual chill room, they can reach out to kids for exta support, they can do virutally, constantly poutting out, saying it’s ok to feel anxious and stressed and sad, normalizing it, remind them there are people here to support them, seeing kids in the chill room, if they need xtra support, school based. 

We also push self-care, wehn we get streetsed, somet things that go quickly are are you eating healthy, getting exercise, having socialiaztion times with friends, getting sleep, sticking to a schedule and a routine, often you cant address higher lefvles of stress without talkinga bout self-care issues. 

Wehn womeone doens’t feel safe , it’s challenging to thingk about higher level things. You have a student at ohome, parents working, woryreid about getting sick, parents might have gotten laid off, so other issues on hierecry of needs, when teacher gives feedback ans sadyt they didnt’ do well on algebra, step back and see why that’s happeend. Instead of saytin gwhat’s wrong with this kid, iway what happened to this kisd. It’snotlike we’re going to see it this way. 

This. Depends on an agerange, littlekidslike to play around, tends to be more phuysically, that’s part of their play, Selective quaranting,following CDC, but ultimately We recommend standard preucautions. 

Alicia, notjudging yourslef, there’s no right or worng, families think of it differnetly ,someone might be more strict with quaranting, some are more lax,that’s something I restsress. 

Something you said earlier Alicia, not be so hard on ourselfves, it’s easy to judge ourselve, what should we have done, what should be do in the future. Mindfulness is about being nonjudgmental, take a nonjudgemental attitiue, it’s ok atht i’m feeling streess, we’re in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, it’s ok to be stressed, to help normalize discussions about metnal health stigma, if in realyity, it’s a normal way of being, life is stressful, life is hard, to step back and try to enjoy the deeepr and simpler things in life, to step back and be mindful and say that 

s a beautiful funsirse, i was able to spend a n extra five minute,s with kids, focus o nsmaller mmoments tha add depth to our lives. The state parks. Going

Just when you get stressed, tak a mmoment and take a deep breath, take us from acute stress reaponse to peacueflu state of mind. In thorugh our nose and out through our mouths. 

Gratitdue, recognizing those things we appreicate, now in tpe present moment. It doesn’t have to be gloom and doom, there 

Scott Martin – Concerns about kids who are not sociali

Karen i’ll be hoensftfrom the beggiing we’ve talked about orf amileis,w e could not figure out ohow ourfmailies could jubggle one or two day isn ession,one or two out, especialy in multiple grades, if none of htem are in high school, difficutl tie fore parents, how do they juggle it? Those were the concerns we had, how to suport that and communities. We want’ed it to be safe for our kids and how do we do that, we had to hvae a 5 day a week option for those fmailies who had many kids in shocol who didn’t hvae the techonloyg to juggle it, aswell as having kids isolated, i belive is detrmiental to their mental health, we’re doing tring to make the best environmetn we can, given our litmiatations.

Several of te things we did we don’t see us changing when this all goes back. elneghtehed periods at high school, shortened number of clases, increased our instruciton al time by more than 50 hours in a year, the prinicpals have we’ve added a third lunch period at high school middile school and elemtnery, teachers postibie about that. By adding, incraseing time of classes, we decreased transition time, did that to ekep from trnasitioning between classes, but it’s increased insturicontal time. We’ve made cdrtain stairs up, certain down, keep kids going past each other.

Elemetnary desk we have study carrels and sneeze guards, made out of plexigrlas, 400 of them, made in house, elem students sneeze, don’t remember to cover their motuths, in order to do social distainicngi we removied teachers desek from all middle school desks, they have carts instead, teacher transition, not students. in middle and elementary teachers go from classroom t classroom, i had a parent say why dont hs teachers have to do that. We’re doing what we can, bell rigns, kids go to all parts of the schoool Can’t in the high school antyhign we can do, we are, we’r etrying to do, and we conatstnly relfet, if something doesnt’ seem to be working we refltct 

all teachers must wear face shiled and can wear maks, worry about eleemtnary students not beign aboe to see teacher’s face when doing fphonics.

Briningin up much more fresh arir into buidligns, through air conditioning system, so echcanging air more, w’er bringing in fresh air, coolingandtaking back out of building, that’s a n added exprsen, wear and tear on machinery, will be doing smae thing in winter, makes it hard to ..we have teachers, tents, big part y tends outside high shcool and midle school to eat so we could separat, constant communitciont..

This we hanvent even touchedon sports, bleachers and how many people we can get in. foro the thermal cameras that scan kids when they come in. it just blows your mind everytnig you think about, each eleemtanry gradetht toes outside, we broke playgroundinto 5 areas, each with their own equipment. Mrs. Jones alwasy getst he same play equipemtn, balls, hula hoops, eqipment. And then to think it’s just one of those things where youhave to stay consistnet and do the same thing every day. Our teachers are tired. Live streatming all of our classrooms, teaching students inf front of them but students who are remote, tekas consiuos evfot to teach the studetns online, anot to mention the tehc issiues we’re going through. Purchased microphoens for all classrooms so students online can  hear beter. to livestream each class wears on our teacher. Tried to ahve Eary ldismissl callaers.