School participates in national kindness program

Feb. 21—Center for Disease Control (CDC) data states students routinely experience a disproportionate level of threats to their mental health and well-being now more than ever.

Nearly half of students (44%) have reported they consistently felt hopeless or sad during the past year. More than half of parents and caregivers express concern over their children's mental well-being.

One program seeks to answer the call to action. Rachel's Challenge is a national program addressing the root causes of school violence, bullying, prejudice and self-harm through social-emotional learning programs that build connection, hope and resilience.

Rachel's Challenge was started by the family of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shooting. The goal of Rachel's Challenge is to bring healing and hope through its content.

The Creston Community School District is hosting Rachel's Challenge today and Wednesday.

"They will work with our students, staff and community members in a partnership to step up to the challenge of basic kindness and doing the right thing," Creston School District Superintendent Deron Stendor said. "In light of some of the things that have been happening in our district with our students, this is a great opportunity not just for our children and our staff but also our community members to participate in this and learn what they can do to help support our children as they help support the challenges children have nowadays."

The elementary and middle school assemblies will be Tuesday during school hours and the ECC and high school assemblies will be Wednesday during school hours.

Parents and community members are encouraged to attend the public event at 6 p.m. today at the middle school.

Creston Activities Director Scott Driskell said the different presentations will be geared toward their audiences. For the high school and community members, the content may be tough at times.

"It's about a young lady killed at Columbine," he explained. "Her goal was to make this place better by being kind, thoughtful and caring."

As an extension of the Rachel's Challenge presentation, a Friends of Rachel Club (FOR) will be organized at the middle and high school levels. Any middle or high school student may participate in this club whose purpose is to spread acts of kindness and create an enhanced connected school community.

"It's a student-led group," Driskell said. "Their charge is to bring this forward to create a more positive, inclusive atmosphere in their building."

Statistics reveal almost 20% of high school students in the United States have seriously considered suicide and nearly 10% of students attempt it.

"School culture plays one of the most critical and influential roles in preventing not only teen suicide but the youth mental health crisis as a whole," Rachel's Challenge states. "By taking a ground-up approach, modeling behavior, and providing shared experiences, school students, faculty and staff members can make an enormous difference."

"We felt in this social climate this was something we needed to look at," Driskell said. "With the AEA, this doesn't cost the school district anything. We just felt this was something we had to take advantage of."