Girls on the Run, an after-school program to improve young girls’ health and confidence, is just one of the programs that has blossomed under Phoenix-Talent School District’s Community Care Program. The program puts staff in school specifically focused on improving the general mental health of students and their families. (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)
Fifth grader Natalie Ponce Bulux said she joined the Girls on the Run after-school program to make friends so she wouldn’t be bullied.
Third grader Kiara Rodriguez Camargo said she hopes Girls on the Run will help her learn how to ignore bullies because they don’t stop when she tells them to. She wants to make friends too.
Twenty minutes after first meeting, the two girls were doing cartwheels together and holding hands as they walked around a Phoenix Elementary School yard.
Girls on the Run is just one of the new initiatives launched as part of the Phoenix-Talent School District’s Community Care program. The mental-health focused program aims to help students do better in school by lowering the stress level for students and families. The program enlists “community care specialists” to help families overcome obstacles, everything from filling out a job application to finding glasses for a needy student.
Phoenix-Talent is one of four Oregon school districts to receive a grant in spring 2022 as part of the Oregon Department of Education’s Community Care Demonstration Project. The project is funded by $5.5 million in federal pandemic relief funds and a $5.4 million grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, according to ODE.
The project calls for embedding linguistically and culturally responsive staff in schools who can respond to local needs and connect families with community resources. ODE Director of Mental Health B Grace Bullock said the specialists focus on the “fundamentals of mental health,” such as helping families find housing, medical care, clothing and transportation.
“We all know that if we don’t take care of basic needs … families aren’t going to thrive and students aren’t going to learn,” Bullock said.
ODE selected Phoenix-Talent, Hillsboro, South Lane and Lake County as geographically and demographically representative school districts to create models for other districts to follow. ODE is working with the University of Oregon to analyze district efforts and provide support.
The federal emergency money runs out in September 2024, and ODE has only committed district grants through then. Bullock said ODE is looking for other potential funding, but the goal is locally sustainable, community-driven care programs.
Phoenix-Talent, a district of more than 2,200 that straddles Interstate 5 between Ashland and Medford, received about $1.1 million from ODE, which it braided with other mental health-related funds. Phoenix-Talent has embedded a specialist in each of the district’s three elementaries, and one serves the middle and high school.
Kelly Soter, the director of equity and community care, said they try to connect families to local resources so that help isn’t dependent on school money. The program has done things such as setting up a health and wellness fair with more than 100 local organizations and enlisting free haircuts for children to start the school year.
Mostly it’s about the personal touch.
Katie McCormick, the Phoenix Elementary specialist, said their team has joined families on medical appointments, brought food to doorsteps and even helped get a cat spayed.
“Sometimes we’re just a friend to talk to,” she said.
She brought the Girls on the Run program to Phoenix because she saw young girls who needed a place to meet and talk and parents who needed an after-school activity for their daughters.
Girls on the Run is a national organization that supports joy, health and confidence in girls through relationship building, goal setting and physical movement. According to Girls on the Run, girls’ confidence starts to drop by age 9, physical activity starts declining at 10 and 50% of girls ages 10-13 have been bullied.
McCormick raised money from other sources to provide the 10-week program for free to girls in grades three to five.
On a hot day in mid-September, the girls met first in a classroom to have a snack and to discuss choices. Then they headed outside for stretching and exercises combined with lessons on health and confidence.
Phoenix Elementary fourth grader Jupiter Bolinger (left) and third grader Nora El-Beheri work together during the second meeting of the Girls on the Run after-school club in mid-September. “I already have confidence, but sometimes I lose it,” El-Beheri said. “I hope this club helps me not lose my confidence sometimes.” (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)
Superintendent Brent Barry said the specialists are helping families and also taking some of the burden off teachers. He would like to see the state continue its funding, but the district is looking at ways to leverage other grants.
“It would be pretty devastating to just cut this off after we made so much progress over the year,” he said.
Phoenix-Talent School Board member Dawn Watson said the program is immensely valuable to a community still recovering from a devastating 2020 wildfire. Funding the program without state help would be difficult, however, said Watson, an OSBA Board member.
Board Chair Michael Campbell called the program “essential.” He said continuing the program, though, would depend on budget numbers in the spring.
“Every school district grapples with the balance between the need for social supports for students and families and the relationship of that with education,” he said. “Sometimes we need basic life supports for kids to get to a place where they can learn.”
The four districts’ specialists share ideas. Lake County Community Care Specialist Jennifer Schulze said many needs are similar but some are unique to communities.
Lake County, a district of about 750 students east of Klamath Falls, doesn’t have a lot of local support services. Schulze recently had a student who wasn’t going to school because he was embarrassed about his teeth. It took some research, but Schulze found a grant for orthodontia that she has since been able to share with other students.
Schulze attends all sorts of local meetings, ranging from a pastors group to local probation hearings, to find out who needs help and who can give help. She is trying to build a web of family support.
“We’re only in year two, but we’ve got big dreams,” she said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
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