☆ Kou’s analysis of FUHSD’s wellness center initiative: Students must know their rights
First-term Fremont Union board member Stanley Kou dissects the district’s push for holistic student/teacher wellness centers (to be developed in each of the five local campuses) — highlighting that clear communication with students about mandated reporting is key. Part of an Opp Now exclusive series assigning goals and apprehensions to the New Year.
My biggest wish for the district relates to our students’ and teachers’ mental health. On December 13th of last year, we — not just family and friends, not just Homestead High School, not just our district, but our community — lost a student to suicide. He was a sixteen-year-old very gifted senior. We think this student was experiencing “gifted application trauma,” or stress and anxiety from being expected to get into prestigious colleges but not getting accepted by his desired school.
Personally, I was really shocked by the situation. For 2023, the FUHSD will implement wellness centers in each of our five school campuses (we’ve already completed one at Cupertino High School). These centers will offer a full-time licensed counselor for students and teachers. This is because we want more focus overall put on mental/socio-emotional health. We want to prevent a tragedy like what happened to this student from happening again in our schools. At the end of the day, the FUHSD is a very high-achieving district, and there’s inherently lots of pressure on students’ academic lives — especially after the pandemic. We’ve heard also that teachers have mental health needs we could address. Thus, we’re making the environment available of wellness centers to help teachers and students.
Because students are minors, there are particular situations in which what they disclose with a school counselors might be told to their parents. Because of this, sometimes students are afraid to share, and facilities like wellness centers are underutilized; they can’t perform their actual function optimally. So to build trust, I think communication with students about mandated reporting is very important. They need to be made aware that there’s certain, specific information counselors are required to disclose with their parents.
Another thing I’m excited about for this next school year is that starting September, we will be offering two new classes for freshmen: ethnic studies and health education (which will include mental/social-emotional health as well as general wellness). Each class will be one semester long and worth two units. They will be required classes of our district’s high school graduates. Pilot programs. Currently, our teachers are working very hard to build curriculum for these pilot programs; this is an ongoing process until the end of this current school year. This is also great because California will mandate ethnic studies classes for all public high school students starting 2024, so we’ll be one year ahead of the requirement. We really want to make sure these two programs meet students’ needs, as well as aligns with and adequately represents our diversified community. Further, that’s why we’re requiring a science certification (and providing additional training) for all teachers interested in instructing this class.
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