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Our school had a great year focusing on the areas of need that came from the School Health Index results. In our previous years, we focused on staff health and wellness as our main concern. This year, as we continued to make that part of our areas of concern, we also focused on community involvement and partnerships, as well as branching out to include some whole school initiatives.
Areas of staff health and wellness that were successes this year were when we partnered with local area businesses to provide wellness services. Ascension Wellness, an area spa, came to the school to provide 10-minute chair massages for staff twice this school year. Additionally, we partnered again this year with a local business, Pride Protein, to provide protein shakes and smoothies to staff during our SEL Day.
Our Health and Wellness Team also continued past successful events as well, as we had 20 staff members participate in Donut 5K at Duke Island Park in Bridgewater in May. During Heart Health Month in February we held a Wellness Challenge to any staff members who wanted to participate.
Along with focusing on expanding our community connections and staff wellness, this year we also incorporated several whole school and student activities as well. The first was having the Wellness Team work with administration to plan our annual Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) day. The administration set up a guest speaker with Dr. Jacynth Joyce, who is working closely with our school district. Her message to staff and students is “I Am the Answer”, explaining how the students and teachers need to remember they are each other’s purpose and have self awareness to be successful. We also had a positive affirmation photo booth set up in the cafeteria for students to take photos. We had a schoolwide Volleyball tournament, where the winning student team played against the faculty. Each period the classes began with mindfulness activities and we provided protein shakes to staff during lunch. To add to this year’s festivities, we also had our Athletic Trainer offer wellness sessions for our staff where they focused on stretching and overall physical wellness.
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Our final school-wide activity I am proud of, was logging how far we walk as a school for the last 4 weeks of the year. As a whole, we logged over 400 miles. We set up a Google Form that was sent out weekly for everyone to fill out.
Our Senior AVID class participated in a Scavenger Hunt around Princeton University, allowing them to collaborate in teams to compete in answering trivia questions and photo challenges.
Conclusion:
We are proud to continue to promote self-care and wellness through the various initiatives this grant has allowed us to implement. As we move forward, we will conduct a climate survey among our staff and students, as opposed to just staff. We would like to create different schoolwide challenges throughout the year and use some of our funds as incentives to participate. Additionally, we would like to create a possible Multicultural Night in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. We look forward to continuing to increase participation in the events that we plan throughout the year.
Through a climate survey, the updates on the School Health Index, and feedback from the Health and Wellness Team, we look forward to the upcoming school year and growing our program ideas and activities even further.
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