Junior high can be tough. Here's how CBE plans to help

At Lakeshore School, roughly three out of five students don't feel respected. That's pretty standard for junior high kids in Calgary, but the number shocked eighth grader Toby Harris.

He's a tall, soft-spoken boy at Lakeshore School who likes sports and was picked by his teachers to be one of the school's student wellness ambassadors. They looked at their school's statistics at a wellness symposium last fall, then he started thinking about the struggles of kids he knows.

Other kids have told him: "'I don't want to go to school. There are some people that aren't being nice; I just don't want to see them today,'" he said.

"A lot of people feel like they're giving respect but not getting as much back. That's what we're trying to work on."

Harris and his team are part of a new effort to improve kids' happiness and mental health that's taken off throughout Calgary's public schools. 

At Lakeshore School in the southeast community of Auburn Bay, the students decided to try kindness awards — tokens of appreciation for when they witnessed other students being kind to each other, later displayed prominently on the wall near the front office.

It's only been a matter of months so far, but Harris believes it's already making a small difference. He's also been checking in on those kids who didn't want to go to school.

"I check up on them and they say, 'Yeah, I'm fine. I'm coming to school. I'm actually happy now.'"

Student well-being action teams are an expanded initiative launched two years ago by the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) to create a culture of well-being in schools and improve annual student survey results. There's now a team that's focused on tackling wellness head-on established at every single middle and high school in the city. 

Dropped your pencil? Got it — if a teacher is looking

At Lakeshore, Grade 7 wellness ambassador Tia Soliman said she noticed a change in students right away.

But in ways that make her laugh.

"Once they learn that we're looking for these things, they become very clearly fake kind, the students in my class," said Soliman.

Classmates drop pencils so their friends can pick it up for them — while making sure their teacher is watching. Others say nice things sarcastically, or make dramatic eye contact with her when they do nice things to make sure she sees it.

Soliman said she's not upset because, in her eyes, any positive action can be beneficial. And fake or not, she believes it could encourage others to also do nice things.

"It's a good thing to get into because you'll notice as it goes farther on, it'll become a habit. So instead of purposefully dropping your pencil and getting somebody to pick it up immediately, they're just going to go and pick up that pencil out of instinct," she said.

And Soliman said the biggest difference is actually how she feels about herself. Before moving to Lakeshore School when it opened three years ago, she said she wasn't proud of who she was. Now she is.

"I've been trying to be kinder to others; I notice that I'm much happier now."

Focusing on middle schools

David Dyck, the CBE's education director of well-being, said this work is especially important as Calgary continues to grow. With record numbers of new students joining the school system, he said many of them probably don't feel like they belong — yet.

In addition, he said there's a strong desire for connection after the pandemic.

"We have an emotional gap, learning gap as well, social emotional gap — not just an academic learning gap," said Dyck.

"So recognizing that, capitalizing on these opportunities to find out from students themselves [is critical] — what is it that you need or what are you looking for in order to move into that next step of success?"

This work initially started with high school students. But after Dyck and his team noticed lower student survey results among middle school students, they included that age group.

The CBE conducts three student surveys throughout the school year — one of which is legislated by the provincial government to collect among certain grades. Results are shared with parents online.

Dyck said Lakeshore School's survey results are average. They include figures like 58 per cent of students feel students respect each other, 60 per cent feel students care about each other, and 68 per cent have a high sense of belonging.

"As students transition from an elementary setting into a middle school, there's lots of changes going on in their lives.… The format of junior high school is different from elementary. There's new people in your school," he said.

"All of these variables in the culture of the school make for a time of adjustment."

However, one of the challenges with the surveys is that officials like Dyck don't know how students interpreted the questions. That's one thing he's hoping the student action wellness teams can help him understand.

"Why is it that you're feeling like you're not connected at the school? We have all of these things available — what's in the way?"

Connection week

At Centennial High School in Calgary's southeast, the action team has been doing this work for about a year longer than the middle school students. 

At their symposium, they noticed their student surveys showed a specific problem with feeling connected with staff. So this month, they held "connection week" — five days filled with trivia games and dodgeball, and "Coffee with Joe," an opportunity for students to chat with principal Joe Sturgeon.

Rosie El Mehtar, in Grade 12, said students and teachers spend so much time together in the classroom and it's important that they see each other as human beings.

"I've personally felt that when I do kind of have that personal bond with the teacher, I'm more encouraged in the class," said El Mehtar.

"This week is to give those students who maybe are a little bit more shy when they are communicating that opportunity in a non-stressful environment, [with] no pressure, just to have some fun. And we're hoping that will encourage students in the classroom as well."

Grade 12 student Kyla Layton said the goal is for her classmates to feel excited about going to school.

"Coming to school, it's not just a place to learn and take your classes. It's a place where you really come and you make connections and you thrive."

Each student well-being action team across Calgary is now gathering photo and video evidence of the impact they've made so far. They'll be sharing those presentations with CBE officials by the end of May, and are hoping to see progress reflected in their student statistics and happiness for years to come.