Author: communications

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a program designed to help students learn a language in new and effective ways while enhancing cultural awareness. On this episode of the Supercast, we visit with Chinese Dual Language Immersion students and teachers from Southland Elementary School to find out why they love learning another language. Find out what happens when we follow the students on a fascinating field trip to a Buddhist temple.

We're here with two teachers from Southland Elementary School on the field trip to the Cambodian Buddhist Temple. Thank you very much for letting me join you. Go ahead and introduce yourselves, please.

Xiaoyu Fan:
This is Xiaoyu Fan. I'm the fourth-grade teacher at Southland.

Jia Wei:
I'm Jia Wei, the Southland sixth-grade teacher.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me what is the purpose of the field trip here? It's been really interesting hearing from them about the Buddhist religion, about and about the temple. Tell me about what you hope the students gain from this experience.

Xiaoyu Fan:
So we feel like this field trip provides a great opportunity for the students, not only in the immersion-like environment in the school but also brings that immersion experiment like experience for them outside school as well. And the purpose of coming to the Buddhism temple is to let them know, because Buddhism is the most people worship in China, it's their major religion. So we would like to have the students have an opportunity to not learn, not necessarily learn about the religion, but to expose them to the more diverse culture.

Jia Wei:
I agree with what Ms. Fan said. I think it's important for students to be more open-minded to the cultures and the philosophies and realize we can work together with other people also.

Anthony Godfrey:
It was fascinating to watch the kids. I got to sit up front. They were rapt with attention. They were paying close attention. They're fascinated by all of this. So I think it's really a rich cultural experience for them to be able to do this. So thank you for going to the work to make this possible.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Thank you. It's an honor to have you to be here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about teaching here in the United States and teaching in the Dual Immersion program.

Xiaoyu Fan:
It's, to me, it's such an eye-opening experience because in China usually you have one subject taught by one teacher. But here we have, we get to teach all different subjects in our language, in Chinese. And I think it's definitely seeing how much students learn, seeing how much students are able to say in Chinese, and see how much students love about the culture and learn about the culture and really immerse in that culture. It's very fascinating

Anthony Godfrey:
Learning a foreign language for me has always been important. My father was a foreign language teacher, but I still am always impressed when I see a teacher stand in front of children this young and speak rapidly and they understand and they respond. It's really, really remarkable. So thanks for doing such a great job with them.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Thank you. Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about your experience teaching in the United States and in the Dual Language program.

Jia Wei:
I think the best part is to grow with my students together to understand the language. I think my students taught me more than I taught them in the language immersion program. And they helped me to understand myself and the cultures.

Anthony Godfrey:
Students grow very close to each other when they're together. I know that they mix up the classes somewhat, but you pretty much get to know the same kids through those elementary years in particular. Tell me about the value that you see in that.

Jia Wei:
The value is to be, to find out who they are, and to find out what we can do for the world.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, this is an exciting program. It's an exciting experience. Thank you for everything that you're doing to make this such a great learning environment for kids.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Thank you so much. Thank you.

Jia Wei:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hi Kimball. What grade are you in?

Kimball:
I'm in sixth grade.

Anthony Godfrey:
Kimball, tell me about your experience here today.

Kimball:
It was pretty cool. It was fun.

Anthony Godfrey:
What are some of the things that you learned?

Kimball:
I learned that the monk, like anyone can be the monk. I thought just males should be the monk, but girls can also be the monk.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what did you learn about what it's like to be a monk? What is a monk's life like?

Kimball:
You can't eat. Like you have to eat only at like 12:00 or like 12:00 or under and you can't eat anything after that.

Anthony Godfrey:
It was the fasting all afternoon and evening that made me decide. I don't think that's my path.

Kimball:
Yeah. Seriously.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's pretty impressive though. Tell me about being in the Chinese Dual Immersion program.

Kimball:
It's great. You speak Chinese, the teachers are awesome. They're so kind and if you don't understand anything they're like really welcome and like help you.

Anthony Godfrey:
You're in sixth grade now. Do you remember what it was like in first grade when you were just starting out?

Kimball:
I do.

Anthony Godfrey:
What was that like?

Kimball:
At first, it was kind of weird. I remember the first day I was sitting there and I was like, can I speak English? Is that okay? Cause I don't know any Chinese and they were really nice.

Anthony Godfrey:
They were nice about it.

Kimball:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:

And now do you need to speak any English in class?

Kimball:
Not really, no.

Anthony Godfrey:
Do you start to think in Chinese when you're not even in class?

Kimball:
Yeah. Well, but when I'm in English, I think in English. But when I do Chinese I'm thinking in Chinese and saying Chinese.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you're able to switch back and forth?

Kimball:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Great. Teach me a little bit of Chinese here.

Kimball:
Nǐ hǎo is hi.

Anthony Godfrey:
Nǐ hǎo

Kimball:
Zàijiàn is goodbye.

Anthony Godfrey:
Zàijiàn

Kimball:
Zàijiàn.

Anthony Godfrey:
Zàijiàn. Okay. And what’s your favorite word?

Kimball:
I like Píngguǒ.

Anthony Godfrey:
Píngguǒ.

Kimball:
Píngguǒ, it’s apple.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's cool. Yeah. Okay. Very nice meeting you Kimball.

Kimball:
Yeah. Nice meeting you too. Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
And tell me your name.

Eden:
My name is Eden.

Anthony Godfrey:
And Eden, what grade are you in?

Eden:
Fifth.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what do you like most about being in Chinese Dual Immersion?

Eden:
I don't know. I really love being in Chinese Immersion cuz it's so fun to see what we have in common with Chinese culture. And also it's really fun to learn new things cuz it's like you can always learn new things and have something to look forward to.

Anthony Godfrey:
Do you think it keeps your brain firing a lot to be learning Chinese every day?

Eden:
Yeah it does take a lot of like thought and stuff to like learn Chinese, but like after doing five years of Chinese, it's like getting slowly easier.

Anthony Godfrey:
Have you been surprised at how much Chinese you've been able to learn?

Eden:
Yes, I am really surprised. I remember when I was like in first grade and I couldn't understand Chinese at all and now I can understand and whenever I hear someone at like the grocery store speaking Chinese, I can understand them. It's really cool.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's kind of like a secret language that you get to use with your friends, right?

Eden:
Yeah. My dad has been learning it and sometimes we talk at home with him and my mom is just like, waka, waka, waka.

Anthony Godfrey:
She just doesn't even know what to say.

Eden:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's really fun that you have your own language. What would you say to parents who are thinking about putting their kids in a Chinese Dual Immersion program?

Eden:
I'd say they should try it. It's okay if it's not like that easy for them, but I always like to try new things and I'm so glad that I tried it. It was really awesome. It may be hard at first cuz like it's a whole new language, you know, but like I know that if you can just keep going with it and try it then you can do it. But like, if it's way too hard then that's okay.

Anthony Godfrey:
I love your curiosity that you always wanna learn new things. That's awesome. Thanks for talking with me.

Eden:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Please introduce yourself.

Raymond Hour:
My name is Ray. I am the director at Utah Cambodian Community Buddhist Temple. And my job is to coordinate, help the monks and the priest and the community what they need for our temple in terms of operation and that kind of stuff.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you very much for allowing our students to come and visit today. You had some great questions from them.

Raymond Hour:
I do. The student here they ask very good question. Then some of them look like they understand the philosophy and the basic one. And hopefully when they grow up they study more and then they have very open-minded.

Anthony Godfrey:
I like when you asked them about karma. Tell me about their answers.

Raymond Hour:
Oh, they are so good. They understand and say, do good thing in life, many thing come back in return. They call good karma. Do bad thing in life, many bad thing might come back. And he say that the bad karma. I say, wow, you understand it so good.

Anthony Godfrey:
I remember the first student said if you do bad things, that will come back to haunt you. I thought that was a pretty good summary as well.

Raymond Hour:
That is correct. Always. That's why I try to encourage students and other members, Hey, just do good, help each other. Whatever. You can even talk to an elderly. Donate a little bit. It makes you feel good. That's called good karma.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thank you for being so welcoming and allowing our students to be here.

Raymond Hour:
Oh, you're welcome. It's very good education.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you.
Stay with us. When we come back more with our Chinese Dual Language Immersion students and a trip to Chinatown.

Break:
Hello, I'm Tracy Miller, President of the Jordan School District Board of Education. There are seven members on the Board of Education, one in each voting district. We are committed to listening and serving our constituents as we work together to provide the best possible learning environment for the students we serve. As members of the Jordan Board of Education, we believe it is our duty and responsibility to: increase student achievement; provide parents with the choices they deserve and desire; recognize and reward quality in educators; empower school leaders through policy governance and professional development; and communicate with the public, legislators, business leaders, cities, and parents. We invite you to get to know the Board member who represents you in your voting district and to please join us at our monthly board meeting held on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Or listen from the comfort of your home, on our live stream. For more information and to find your Board member, visit jordandistrict.org. With parent and community input and support, we will continue our work to give students every opportunity to succeed in Jordan District schools and beyond. Thank you for your support. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now we are at the Chinatown Market. Is that correct?

Jia Wei:
Yeah, that is absolutely right.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. Now tell me, this is a large grocery store with all Chinese products.

Jia Wei:
Yes, it is the biggest one in the whole county.

Anthony Godfrey:
And tell me what is the activity that the students are engaged in right now?

Jia Wei:
So students going to learn the Chinese food and the merchandise, whatever they interested and they're gonna bring something to the class and talk about that in a Kiva.

Anthony Godfrey:
So do they get to kind of choose what is most interesting to them?

Jia Wei:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
And then come back and explain it?

Jia Wei:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Can we go take a walk down the aisle and you can show me something?

Jia Wei:
Absolutely.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. Let's walk through. If they wanted to stop by, where is the market located?

Jia Wei:
Okay, it's on the State Street in South Salt Lake.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let’s see what we've got. I see belt fish here. I've never had belt fish.

Jia Wei:
I've never seen that before.

Anthony Godfrey:
How about turbo fish?

Jia Wei:
Nope.

Anthony Godfrey:
No turbo fish. Okay. So it's full of surprises for you as well?

Jia Wei:
Yes, yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
What are some things that you might have expected to find here that you can't see elsewhere?

Jia Wei:
Maybe some spices or chopped meat.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Jia Wei:
They have a very thin sliced pork for the Chinese New Year Hot Pot.

Anthony Godfrey:
Looks like we have pork heart and pork liver as well.

Jia Wei:
It's called fish meatball, I think.

Anthony Godfrey:
A fish meatball. Fish ball with dried mushroom. I had that for breakfast.

Jia Wei:
Really?

Anthony Godfrey:
No, I'm just kidding. Okay, so we're on the candy and cookie aisle, it looks like here in this market. Are you seeing anything that looks good to you?

Student 1:
Well, they're these cookie things that look like straws or just like any cookie things, they just look very good. They just look good because I have something called Piroulines. If you know what those are, and they're just really good.

Anthony Godfrey:
How about this right here? It looks like it's bursting with fruit flavor.

Student 1:
I don't really like jelly.

Anthony Godfrey:
You don't like jelly?

Student 1:
No.

Anthony Godfrey:
So that's not gonna work?

Student 1:
No.

Anthony Godfrey:
Anything else? What else looks good here? How about you? Egg rolls. Egg Rolls. Crisp is what it says. Do Crisp Egg Rolls sound good in a canister with a smiley face on it?

Student 2:
I like the ducks. It's really cute.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, so the cute package. Maybe you can judge a snack by its package. Anything else look good to you guys?

Student 3:
These like weird rice things. They just look kind of like interesting to taste.

Anthony Godfrey:
They do look interesting. Just kind of an odd cereal kind of stuck together.

Student 3:
Because for me I like trying new foods. That's why it's like so fun to try Chinese candy and things because I've never had it before.

Anthony Godfrey:
Does it surprise you that all this is available here? Not that far from where you live?

Student 3:
Kind of. I didn't know Chinatown was even a thing in Utah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Can you read the label for me?

Student 3:
Reading Chinese labels

Anthony Godfrey:
What does this one say?

Student 3:
I don't know.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think this one says you should buy this. It will taste really good in your tummy. I mean, that's a rough translation.

Student 3:
I don't think it says that, but good job you tried!

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. Thanks for making me feel good. All right. Good luck shopping.

Student 3:
Okay, thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. We're talking with one of the parents here, volunteering on the field trip. Introduce yourself.

Amy Nicholson:
My name's Amy Nicholson.

Anthony Godfrey:
Amy, you and I've met before, but you have several students in this program over the years, right?

Amy Nicholson:
Yes, I do. I've had two of my own and then I've had three nieces and nephews that I take care of after school that have been in the program.

Anthony Godfrey:
And tell me what impact this program has had on them.

Amy Nicholson:
Oh, it's amazing. It's fantastic. They have been able to move forward quicker in college and they've been able to use it in some job settings and they love to use it at restaurants and be able to communicate. So I think it's a great asset for them.

Anthony Godfrey:
Have you seen an impact on their learning generally?

Amy Nicholson:
I think that they did pick up reading better and I think their communication skills are better.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think it gets the brain firing in a different way and opens you up to additional learning for sure.

Amy Nicholson:
Yeah. I agree.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, it's an exciting field trip, so let's get back to it.

Amy Nicholson:
All right. Hey, thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
We're on the cookie and candy aisle it looks like. Tell me, what should I be paying attention to? What's the best stuff here?

Xiaoyu Fan:
Since you're American, you probably wanna pay attention to sweet stuff.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, the sweet stuff.

Xiaoyu Fan:
And you're at the right spot.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right, perfect.

Xiaoyu Fan:
We have chocolate, we have mochi, we have vanilla wafers, we have that one is called ChocoPie, but they're kind of like Ding Dongs in the states and they're all really good.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, the ChocoPies look good. Okay. What would challenge me the most?

Xiaoyu Fan:
Seaweed.

Anthony Godfrey:
Seaweed.

Xiaoyu Fan:
How about you try this one?

Anthony Godfrey:
This one. The seaweed. The big roll of seaweed.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Yep. Big roll of seaweed.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Xiaoyu Fan:
That's like an entrepreneurial level.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Xiaoyu Fan:
It's like an entry level.

Anthony Godfrey:
Entry level. Alright.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Yeah. Next level up for you will be spicy. Something spicy.

Anthony Godfrey:
Alright.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Like a dried octopus or dried squid.

Anthony Godfrey:
Spicy dried octopus.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Would you like to try that?

Anthony Godfrey:
That is out of range for me a little bit. That's not on this aisle, right?

Xiaoyu Fan:
It’s not on this aisle.

Anthony Godfrey:
What is the spicy dried octopus section?

Xiaoyu Fan:
It's over there on that aisle. I'll take you there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, let's take a look. Oh wow.

Xiaoyu Fan:
This might be the next level for you. It's a little bit spicy. It's called salted salmon.  A salted egg salmon skin.

Anthony Godfrey:
Salted egg salmon skin. Wow.

Xiaoyu Fan:
So they take this huge salmon and they skin it, and then they dry the skin and they put some salted egg yolks on the outside for coating. And they dry for a long time. And that's what it becomes like. It tastes like a fish chip.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Wow. And then we see these chips are the lobster on the front. Yes. What are the lobster chips?

Xiaoyu Fan:
Supposedly they're made with lobster flavor. They're like lobster chips.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Yeah. All right.

Xiaoyu Fan:
They're good too.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, there are lots of great delicacies here and I can tell the kids are really excited to experience some different things.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Yes, they are loving it. This is a great experience for the students to immerse themselves, not in the classroom setting, but also in the real setting. All these stuff that they see, they see in books, but they don't know what they are. They don't know what they look like. So bring them here. It's like dream come true.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Do you think some of them will come back and bring their family and continue to explore different foods here?

Xiaoyu Fan:
For sure. Actually, before we came here, some of the students, because right now it's during Chinese New Year, they already brought their parents back here. And some of them actually made dumplings at home. They take picture and send it to me. They're like, Mrs. Fan, look, we made dumplings at home. We celebrate Chinese New Year.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, that's awesome.

Xiaoyu Fan:
So some of them actually already very familiar with this place. I see some students, they are like tour guide. They're touring their groups, telling them this is what it is, this is what it is. This is really good. So it's really fun.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's fun for the kids to be tour guides for their family, like you said. The learning goes well beyond the classroom. Congratulations. That's fantastic.

Xiaoyu Fan:
Thank you so much. Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a full day set aside for students, teachers, and staff in Jordan School District to prioritize their health and wellness at home and in school. The second annual Health and Wellness Day is Friday, February 10th. And while there will be no in-person school for students that day, they are invited to participate in a Wellness Quest with family and friends. On this episode of the Supercast, we explain what the Wellness Quest is and how something called the "SELFIE" model is at the heart of the Wellness Quest curriculum.

We're here in our little studio talking to Casey Pehrson, the school psychologist at Herriman High School. Casey, thanks for joining us.

Casey Pehrson:
Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Anthony Godfrey:
Health and Wellness Day is coming up. It's our second annual Health and Wellness Day, which is set aside to focus on the health and wellness of our staff members, our parents, and our students educated with Jordan School District. And we're just excited for that day and we want to really talk about how we can each focus more on our own personal health. Casey, you've developed a program called the “SELFIE" Method that you've presented over 150 times. You presented it to our administrators in our opening conference and it's an acronym that reminds us of all the things we ought to be doing to help keep ourselves healthy. So can you go through the acronym? Tell us a little bit about where it started and tell us about yourself as well.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah, so as was mentioned, my name's Casey Pehrson. I'm the school psychologist and I'm at Herriman High School. And this is my eighth year at Herriman High but my ninth year in Jordan School District, so I've also worked at East Lake Elementary and South Hills Middle School. So the "SELFIE" method is an acronym that was actually kind of developed based on experience at all three levels of education. So in elementary, middle school, and high school. But in "SELFIE" the ‘S’ stands for sleep, the ‘E’ is for exercise, ‘L’ is for light, ‘F’ is for fun, ‘I’ is for interaction and ‘E’ is for eating right. And these are kind of elements of self-care. But really, I call it your ticket to thrive because when you do these things you feel better. But a lot of times these things fall to the bottom of the list. We don't take time for them.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, they're at the bottom of my list I'm afraid.

Casey Pehrson:
You’re not the only one.

Anthony Godfrey:
They need to move up. They need to move up. So that's why we're here. Let's talk about let's just work our way through the list. Let's start with sleep.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah, so sleep. We as a society, we stink at sleep. We're really bad at it. And we tend to stink at sleep in one of three distinct ways. So the number one way that we all stink at sleep is we don't get enough. So if you're not getting enough sleep at night, you're in the majority because that's a lot of us. So for elementary-age kids, they need 9 to 11 hours of sleep per night. For adolescents, they need 8 to 10. That's the window. Research shows that 9.25 hours of sleep is optimal for most teens. And then adults we need 7 to 8. Research leans us a little more towards 7, but 7 to 8 is about the window. So if you're not getting enough, you're in the majority. So the number one way that we stink at sleep is we don't get enough.

The number two way that we stink at sleep is some of us try to splice it. My high school students are really good at this. Where they'll come home from school and they're so exhausted after the school day that they'll crash into a two-and-a-half-hour power nap. And I'm here to bust that myth. There's no such thing as a two-and-a-half-hour power nap. It sounds like I'm against naps though. I'm not against naps. I'm pro nap. Go nap. But you gotta do the power nap right. So in order to actually be a power nap, it needs to be 25 minutes or under, that's your power nap zone. If you're taking a two-and-a-half-hour nap, it's gonna actually exhaust you and steal from your nighttime sleep. Some of my students are doing this so they're falling asleep after school for two and a half hours and then they can't fall asleep for the night until 3:00 AM and a vicious cycle ensues. So splicing your sleep doesn't work. You need to get all of your sleep in one go.

Anthony Godfrey:
I've never heard that term for it. I've heard it termed falling asleep on the couch while you're doing email and letting your iPad fall to the floor.

Casey Pehrson:
That's it too, yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
That’s what we call it around my house.

Casey Pehrson:
That makes sense.

Anthony Godfrey:
And then you wake up, you're up for a while and then you try to get back to sleep and the sleep is disrupted. So that makes a lot of sense. And if you take a short nap, like a 20-minute nap, 25-minute nap, then you don't get pulled down into the abyss that I get pulled into if I nap or fall asleep. It's really hard to recover from that and your night's kind of shot.

Casey Pehrson:
Exactly. The number three way that we stink at sleep is sometimes we get too much. And there's kind of a law of diminishing returns with sleep. It's like Goldilocks, you wanna get the just right amount. If you get too much, you're gonna start negating some of your benefits of sleep. So that just right zone is what we're seeking.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now let me ask you about this. I've read over the years, I seem to recall, that you can actually catch up on sleep a little bit over a weekend. So I have been really open to my 13-year-old sleeping pretty late on a Saturday morning when it's possible. Is that true? Can you kind of catch up and make up a little bit for lost time?

Casey Pehrson:
Not a ton. To some extent you can, ultimately though sleep hygiene's important, and in order to achieve that, you kind of need to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day to get your body in that sort of natural circadian rhythm.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's it Thomas, you're not sleeping in anymore. It's over. Game's over.

Casey Pehrson:
You can still sleep in on the weekends.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, okay. Next. What's the ‘E’?

Casey Pehrson:
So exercise. And there's actually a magic of exercise. You're gonna release endorphins in your body and the best way to describe what endorphins do, they make you feel good. And the best way to get those going in your system is to move your body. We have to make kind of active, conscious choices to put exercise in our day. A lot of the research that I've done, it's talked about how our ancestors they had physical exercise built into their day. It was part of their livelihood. All their jobs involved movement. And so it wasn't really a choice for them. They had to, as part of their survival, they had to go move. We don’t. Like a lot of my work, I do, you know, sitting in a chair talking with people or a lot of people have jobs where they're in front of computer screens and they don't move. And so we've gotta make a little more of a conscious active effort and choice to plug exercise into the day.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sure, and finding the time for that is difficult. Is there an optimal time to exercise during the day or is it really a personal choice?

Casey Pehrson:
It depends on what you're trying to do. So for weight loss you're gonna wanna exercise first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. For just general like mood-boosting it doesn't matter as much the time of day. So yeah, it depends on what you're trying to do.

Anthony Godfrey:
And I would guess that you ought to just start somewhere.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah, exactly.

Anthony Godfrey:
Try to stretch it beyond, say walking back and forth from your car to the office.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah, and building it into what you're already doing as part of your day is crucial. So yeah, even the little things like parking a little further away, those little things can add up.

Anthony Godfrey:
Talk to me about ‘L’.

Casey Pehrson:
So the ‘L’ is for light and that's sunlight exposure. And so what gets activated through sunlight exposure is vitamin D, but vitamin D is not a great name for it. Vitamin D isn't even a vitamin, it's a hormone and you have enough of it in you, but it doesn't wake up to do its jobs in you until the sun wakes it up. So in the summertime, super straightforward, 10 to 15 minutes of direct sunlight and vitamin D wakes up and it does all of its jobs in your body and in your brain. It has a bunch of jobs in your body and brain, in your blood, in your immune system, in your heart, in your brain in your bones. Vitamin D has a lot of responsibilities, but it can't do those while it's asleep, while it's dormant. So wintertime we get knocked flat backward here, especially in Utah, you've probably heard the winter blues or seasonal affective disorder, which is aptly acronymed SAD because that's how we feel a lot of times in the wintertime.

Seasonal affective disorder. A lot of that has to do with our lack of sunlight. So the workarounds, how do we get that vitamin D into our system? It's still possible through the clouds and the inversion and the yuck that's outside. But it takes twice as long in the wintertime than it does in the summertime. So 20 to 30 minutes instead of 10 to 15. Ain't nobody got time for that and ain't nobody wanna stand out in the cold for that. So workarounds for winter, you can ingest vitamin D, meaning you can eat it. There are certain vitamin D-fortified foods and a lot of people, they actually get prescribed a vitamin D supplement because a lot of us are running around vitamin D deficient in the winter time.

Anthony Godfrey:
I never thought about vitamin D as being activated by the sun. I knew we needed to do it and get a little sunshine every day. I didn't realize the full impact of winter and the long list of responsibilities that vitamin D has.

Stay with us when we come back more on the "SELFIE" method. Find out how the ’F’, ‘I’ and ‘E’ can help improve a student's personal health and wellness.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right, let's get to ‘F’.

Casey Pehrson:
The ‘F’ is for fun and we need fun. We need relaxation, we need laughter, we need to be able to enjoy. Fun fact is in Portugal they just passed a law where employers can get fined for bugging their employees outside of work hours. So, and this is actually, it's really bad for us to be on all the time, right? And that's kind of what modern-day jobs have become. And so we need to be able to take that time to separate actually, and relax, laugh, enjoy, just be in the moment instead of being on all the time in work mode.

Anthony Godfrey:
So part of fun is separating from work and really having a life separate from that, even for a few moments or for an hour or just for a small stretch of time. I also heard recently that even if you aren't looking at your phone but it's right near you, you still have a connection to it that prevents as strong a connection to the people and events around you.

Casey Pehrson:
Absolutely. Yeah. When those phones are around, they can create a barrier toward human connection.

Anthony Godfrey:
My phone listener is in my shirt pocket right over my heart as we speak and I'm getting my alerts the whole time so I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm very connected to my phone. So just fun that disconnects us from work and allows us to connect with the people around us.

Casey Pehrson:
That's right.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, take me through ‘I’.

Casey Pehrson:
And that actually is a great segue into ‘I’, which is for interaction. And we need each other. We are social animals and I've learned to be careful how I talk about this with students because some students have called me out and they say, Casey, ‘when you talk about phones, you sound like an old person complaining.’ And I'm like, ‘oh, I don't wanna sound like that.’ So I try to tell them in a way that doesn't offend anybody. And so far this has been the rule of thumb that hasn't offended anybody. So I tell students, ‘Hey, if you interact with other humans in real life, in real-time, you use your texting and social media as a supplement to that, then you're okay. But if you never interact with humans in real life, in real-time, you use your texting and social media as a replacement to real-life social interaction it's not gonna do what it's supposed to.’ So the us being social animals, it's actually science. When you are in the presence of other human beings having a caring, connected, cooperative experience with other humans, your body actually rewards you for it. It releases a chemical called oxytocin. And oxytocin it makes you feel good. You get that from being with other people, having caring, connected, cooperative experiences, not through text and not through social media.

Anthony Godfrey:
I've never heard it put quite that way, and I really like that. So as long as your primary interactions are in person, then having secondary interactions online is still healthy as long as you keep it in check and it's a supplement or a support to the real-world interactions with other humans.

Casey Pehrson:
Absolutely. Yes. Nailed it.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, so far, as long as we're interacting with others, we've got the oxytocin, we get little sunlight, we're activating the vitamin D, and then we exercise and we get those endorphins flowing. Our body is saying, thank you very much for taking a "SELFIE".

Casey Pehrson:
That's exactly right.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right, let's talk about ‘E’.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah. So ‘E’ is for eating right.

Anthony Godfrey:
Eating right, yes.

Casey Pehrson:
We need to be very careful about what we're putting in our bodies and keep in mind our food is our fuel. So a lot of times I'll ask my students, I'll ask 'em, ‘did you eat breakfast?’ And you can imagine the answer that I get 85% of the time. It's no. 10% of the time my students are like, yeah, I had a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a Gatorade. And I'm like, oh, how do you feel? And they're like, great. And I'm like wait till 10 when that sugar kind of runs out of your system and dumps you off. So we're trying to sustain ourselves on things that aren't designed to sustain us. So we gotta, it's not like if somebody told me, Casey, you can't ever have ice cream again. I'd be like, then no more happiness. Like that would be a terrible thing for me. But we've gotta like kind of balance things out and pay attention to remembering your food is your fuel. And so that's what's gonna fuel you through your day.

Anthony Godfrey:
As long as our primary nutrition comes from healthy foods, we don't have to cut out the secondary foods of ice cream or some other things that we really enjoy. We want to firm kind of base that we build our nutrition on, and then we can have some other things as well. Build those relationships on personal, direct, in real-life relationships and then supplement that online. So it's about where we're focused predominantly. And with sleep too. Get your sleep at night. If you need a short nap, take a short nap, but don't make a nap a main part of how you're getting rest.

Casey Pehrson:
That's a great way of saying it. Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
As you've talked with people over the years as you've done this training, I'm sure a lot of people come up to you afterward and tell me about some of those stories that you've heard over the years.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah. One of my favorites, so I was, I'd been working with a student for over a year and he came in one day with his mom and he just looked different in a good way. And I called him out on it. I was like, Hey. I was like, you look brighter. I was like, you are carrying yourself different. You have just a cool energy about you right now. I was like, what's going on? I was like, what are you even doing? And he looked at his mom and his mom looked back at him and said, well, tell her. And he goes, Casey, he's like, it's my "SELFIE". I've been taking care of my "SELFIE" and it works. So things like that when people can see like, I can actually do this and feel the difference. That is so exciting. And that's the cool part about teaching this is this stuff works.

The problem with teaching this though is none of this is revelation. You're not going out of here like what? Exercise? Nobody has ever told me exercise is good for me or I didn't know nutrition mattered. We've all heard this stuff, we all know this stuff, but there's a gap between what we know and what we do and that's the problem. So we've gotta be able to bridge that gap between what we know and what we do. There's a phrase that I love. Information is not transformation. And so how do we make that information? Our transformation is sort of the quest and the challenge in "SELFIE".

Anthony Godfrey:
I was gonna mention what you have already said, and that is that none of this is a shiny new object. It's not a new 90-day challenge where you eat broccoli only from 3:00 to 3:15 every afternoon and suddenly your body changes. It's the stuff we've always known. But I think doing those things in combination and probably making just small incremental changes to start with, instead of completely trying to shift everything all at once can really make an impact. I think sometimes my own problem is that I think, you know, I'm doing fine, I'm making it, I'm, you know, I feel okay, so why am I going to invest? You know, I'm surviving. So I'm not sure that we always see how much of an improvement we could experience if we just take that first little step of committing to an improvement.

Casey Pehrson:
Absolutely. And that's another testimonial that has come in. Actually, a student said, Casey, I didn't realize I could feel better than, okay, I've been feeling okay this whole time. And that was sort of my max. I feel better than okay doing this stuff

Anthony Godfrey:
Better than okay. That's a pretty good slogan.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah. So you mentioned the science of "SELFIE" before and I give this presentation a lot. And I have a whole, usually there's 40 minutes that's devoted to the science of "SELFIE", but I'll summarize it. So I'll spare you the 40 minutes and put it in a sentence. So "SELFIE" is science, there's your sentence. When you're doing this "SELFIE" stuff, all those things that you mentioned, the endorphins, the vitamin D the oxytocin, the vitamins and minerals from food and then others that we didn't talk about. So the glymphatic system, which is involved in your sleep and we get serotonin and dopamine and all sorts of other things that we didn't even discuss yet. All of these things do the same thing. They give you energy and they boost your mood so they make you feel better and energize you.

Anthony Godfrey:
There's a reason that it's called the "SELFIE" method instead of the "SELFIE" experiment.

Casey Pehrson:
That's right.

Anthony Godfrey:
We know it's gonna work.

Casey Pehrson:
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Anthony Godfrey:
You do these things, you're gonna feel better, you're gonna be better off things are gonna be easier. Your mind's gonna be clearer, connections are gonna be deeper and problems don't go away, but you're sure gonna be better equipped to handle them.

Casey Pehrson:
For sure. Yeah, and it's an acronym for your physical health, for your mental health, for your social health. And it works in all of those ways.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, hopefully, we can all do a little better and feel a little better and have a great health and wellness week.

Casey Pehrson:
Absolutely. I’m into that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yes, thanks very much.

Casey Pehrson:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is something you don't hear about very often, sixth grade students becoming published authors. But that is exactly what has happened at Riverton Elementary School. On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside Cassie Crandell's classroom where students wrote and illustrated a picture book telling the true stories of trees surviving tragedies and natural disasters. The book was inspired by a survivor tree at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Meet the young authors and find out where you can now buy their book. We're here in Mrs. Crandall's classroom at Riverton Elementary, talking with her sixth graders and with her about a very special project they've been working on. Tell me about that.

Cassie Crandell:
So we started this project called The Tree of Hope, and what we did is we wrote a narrative fiction book about five survivor trees, and my students did all of it. I gave them the trees and they researched them, learned about how they survived, what they went through, and then they narrated the stories and they gave each of the trees a character and a struggle. The whole idea of this book was to create the power of hope and resilience. And then what we did is we created a schoolwide mural. So my students painted a tree, and then they went and explained the project to each class, and each student got a circle and a color that they colored or drew or something that represented hope to them, or just colored it in for the younger kids. And then we put it up on the tree. Then we invited each of the classes to come down and we read them our book about the Tree of Hope and the power of hope and resilience.

Anthony Godfrey:
So what was the impetus for starting a project like this?

Cassie Crandell:
I knew I wanted to do something. I wanted to create something with my students that would be beneficial to not only them but to our community as a school. And now it's kind of reaching out into the community, which I think is amazing. I love the tree from the 9/11, the survivor tree from 9/11. I visited the monument years ago, and I always thought that that was such a powerful story. And I feel like our kids, with everything that they've gone through and the things that continue to happen, sometimes the world can just feel really heavy. But I felt like we could create something that would be beautiful and give hope to not only my students but to the whole school and the community.

Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me how this has been organized and what the creation of the book and publishing and distribution of the book have looked like.

Cassie Crandell:
Yeah. So I essentially gave my students the idea. I told them the idea and asked them how they felt about it and if they wanted to do it. And they were really excited from the beginning. And then I picked five survivor trees. I split them into five different groups, and they got with their groups and they did everything. They did the research, they wrote the narratives. I met with them, I would listen to their stories. I gave them feedback. They met with other groups and got feedback from them. They did multiple revisions. And then we split into new groups after we'd all written. And so then I had another group that wrote the introduction and the conclusion and information about the actual trees. I had another group who was working specifically on just the formatting. I had a group of illustrators who illustrated and met with the writers and what their ideas were, how they wanted the story to be portrayed through pictures. And then I had a group of students who worked just on the mural and designing the tree and taping it up and putting all the circles on. And then I had another group of students who actually went to all of the classrooms and met with the teachers and collected the circles and explained what was going on, wrote the email to the teachers, explaining it and all of that. And so they really have, like, I've just kind of been the director of all of it, but they have really taken it and just done this amazing thing.

And then as far as publishing, they formatted the book. I made a few simple formatting changes and put it into an online website that I found. And then we were able to publish the book and it's available for anybody to buy if they wanted it. And so I know that some of the students' parents have bought the book and it's been a really cool thing. I've seen their confidence in their writing grow. But also this idea that they can make a difference and actually do something that can affect people for good has been awesome.

Anthony Godfrey:
It is wonderful for students to get that sense of efficacy. I can do something and it has an impact in a positive way on the lives of others. I love the Hope Tree, we walked by that. Now, sixth graders generally rule the school, but this way, they're leading the school as well by being in classrooms and sharing a message. What was the reception like from teachers when they heard about this idea?

Cassie Crandell:
They were really excited about it. They were really willing to help. And they've been, I mean, they've been willing to take time out of their class to come and have us read the book to them. All of the teachers that I talked to personally were really excited about the project. They were really impressed with what my kids created. And were really willing and helpful and just supportive through the whole thing.

Anthony Godfrey:
What are some of the things that you hope your students have learned through this project?

Cassie Crandell:
First and foremost, I hope that they have learned the power of hope and resilience. Life is not an easy thing and these kids have been through a lot. You know, they've been through a pandemic and war and inflation, and that's not it. That's not gonna be the only things that they deal with. And my hope is that through these stories and through doing this project, that they will really realize that they are resilient. And that they can choose to find hope, and that they can have that hope and keep that hope. They don't know this, but my husband recently lost his job. And it was a really, really hard thing. And as I sat there struggling with it, I remembered this project that I had done with my students and the power of hope that we had talked about. And it was such a good reminder to me to remind myself that what I had tried to teach my students and what we have been trying to teach the community, that when we rise together, when we work together, when we come together, we can always find hope. And it doesn't necessarily mean that everything's the way we want it to be, but it does mean that we can be okay.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's had a huge personal impact for you, obviously.

Cassie Crandell:
It has. Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
And for these students, I think it has probably shifted the way that they view the world and their own capacity for making it better.

Cassie Crandell:
I hope so. That's the hope.

Anthony Godfrey:
There are a lot of academic concepts embedded in this project as well.

Cassie Crandell:
Oh yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Absolutely. Talk to us about that.

Cassie Crandell:
Yeah. So this is my first year doing any kind of project like this. So in sixth grade I teach narrative writing and generally, we write a personal narrative. So this was kind of a different shift on that, but it was such a fun experience. And I feel like my students have really grown as writers and they really see themselves as writers because they were able to take these stories and really narrate them. And so each of the trees actually has something that real people might struggle with. Depression, anxiety, overconfidence, the innocence of youth, and the loss of family members and friends. And so they were able to take real-life things and put it into a narrative and use descriptive language, and dialogue, and all of these really great narrative techniques. And then on top of that, bringing in the art, and writing the emails, and the formatting, and working with groups, and the revision, and the editing, and just all of that has been so amazing to see my kids really take on the process of a writer and what that really looks like, rather than just writing a paper.

Anthony Godfrey:
I like the way that you described that they get to see themselves as writers, so they envision something beyond what they might have otherwise. Because too often we may look at just the assignment in front of us, instead of what that means about us, the fact that we're engaging in this activity.

Cassie Crandell:
Right. I agree. I think it's been really good for them.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's amazing that you're giving them such great experiences to have this deep emotional connection to their learning as they're helping other people and really connecting to the work that they do in class. So thank you for providing that opportunity.

Cassie Crandell:
Thank you. I appreciate it. It's really important to me. I think academics are obviously why I'm here, but at the end of the day, if my students can walk out better people and better citizens and didn't learn as much math as they needed to, or didn't score as high as they wanted to on a test, then I still feel like I've done my job as a teacher.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, connecting the academic learning to learning how to be a better person makes both types of learning last even longer.

Cassie Crandell:
Right, exactly.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back the book’s authors share their story and excitement over being published authors.

Break:
Hello, I'm Sandy Riesgraf, Director of Communications for Jordan School District, and we want to invite you to connect with us. So many exciting things are happening in your child's school, your neighbor's school, in every school here, every day. Don't miss out on following the fun or simply staying informed when there's important information we need to share. Join us at jordandistrict.org, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @jordandistrict. We can't wait to connect.

Student reading aloud from the book:
The ground started shaking and the tides seemed to retreat from the shore. On the horizon, I saw small waves slowly growing and marching across the ocean.

“Tsunami! Earthquake!” The lifeguard shouted, jumping up from the shade of my branches.

All I could do was hope as the wave shortened the distance between us. Wave after wave, quake after quake, my family fell around me.
“No!” I wailed as my close friend fell. “Why?”

The salty water felt like my tears. It sickened me to know that my family was falling without me. I had known that the tsunami was coming. I was the only one that knew. When the dominant wave finally washed back, the devastation was real. Entire buildings crumbled. Families separated. Nothing was as it was before. It would never be the same again.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me exactly how would you define a survivor tree?

Cassie Crandell:
I think a survivor tree is a tree that has survived against the odds in a natural disaster or even a manmade disaster. Some of these were bombs that were dropped, those obviously weren't natural disasters. Some of them survived earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes. And while most of the other trees were lost, these trees were nurtured back to health. Mostly because people came and found them and saved them. And I think that that's a really important lesson, that because often it's hard to find hope alone, but we can find hope in those around us, and this with the support of others. And so, like one of my students mentioned one of the trees did end up dying, but it was still a symbol of hope because it did survive initially. And I think a survivor tree gives hope to us because if a tree can survive, then so can we.

Anthony Godfrey:
Anyone who wants to buy the book, how do they do that?

Cassie Crandell:
It's on a website called Bookemon. Like Pokémon, but Bookemon.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay. Gotta catch 'em all.

Cassie Crandell:
Yeah, that's right. And it's called Trees of Hope by Mrs. Crandall's class. There's a link that I don't know if you want it.

Anthony Godfrey:
We'll put a link in the show notes.

Cassie Crandell:
Yeah, you can put a link in the show notes. I know that the Riverton Journal is doing an article on it as well, and they'll have a link to it as well. But yeah, it's a great book. And obviously, we don't make any profits from it. We're just here to kind of spread hope and joy.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'll hop on and get a copy. Thank you.

Cassie Crandell:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now let's talk about the trees that you guys covered. Tell me your name.

Parker:
My name is Parker.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. Parker, what tree did you write about?

Parker:
I wrote about the Oklahoma City bombing tree. It was about it happened in Oklahoma City in a big work building and a truck pulled up with a bomb in the back. And then when the bomb blew up, basically the entire building was destroyed. But the tree was like the only thing left.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you wrote from the tree's perspective as a narrator in the story, right?

Parker:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
What issues in the story was the tree dealing with?

Parker:
The tree was really dealing with anxiety a lot because it was like a near-death experience and in the tree's mind we tried to convey that the tree was riddled with anxiety forever but still could get over it because it had hope.

Anthony Godfrey:
What were some of the things that you learned from this project?

Parker:
I learned that hope is a very powerful thing and that you shouldn't give up on things. Even though it's hard, you should always keep on trying, keep on fighting.

Anthony Godfrey:
Does this make you want to keep writing?

Parker:
Actually, yes it does. I really like this story. It was a lot of fun to create.

Anthony Godfrey:
Great. Thank you. Tell me your name.

Ellie:
My name is Ellie.

Anthony Godfrey:
And Ellie, what tree did you write about?

Ellie:
I wrote about the Miracle Pine.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the Miracle Pine.

Ellie:
The Miracle Pine was one of the thousands of trees that survived a tsunami and an earthquake in Japan. And sadly it died a few years later, but they're rebuilding a monument of it so that everyone can still come visit and see.

Anthony Godfrey:
What did you like most about this project?

Ellie:
What I like most about this project is that I was able to explore more of my writing capabilities cuz I've hardly ever written true stories.

Anthony Godfrey:

And does this make you want to do more of that?

Ellie:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, great. Thank you. Tell me your name.

Sophie:
My name is Sophie.

Anthony Godfrey:
And, Sophie, what was your tree?

Sophie:
I did the Puerto Rico banyan tree.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Tell me about a banyan tree.

Sophie:
The banyan is a kind of fig tree and the one in the story was by the San Juan Gate in Puerto Rico. And Hurricane Marina came through and tore it and threw it into the sea, pretty much.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what did you, what did you learn going through this project?

Sophie:
I learned that hope is powerful and it can save lives.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Tell me your name and what tree you covered.

Wyatt:
My name is Wyatt and I covered the bonsai tree in Japan that survived the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The bonsai was like in its outdoor nursery and it was like surrounded by walls. And then when the bomb was dropped it exploded the walls around it. But the wall protected it from the bigger blast. And like, it didn't feel the blast much, it just felt the pieces of rocks from the wall.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. And what did you learn from this project?

Wyatt:
I learned that, like Parker said, hope is a very powerful thing and you can learn lots of things from it and you should never give up on things even though they might seem hard.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Awesome. And tell me your name.

Claire:
I'm Claire.

Anthony Godfrey:
And Claire, what tree did you cover?

Claire:
I did the 9/11 Callery pear tree.

Anthony Godfrey:
And tell me about the Callery pear tree.

Claire:
It is a tree and it was during 9/11. It was around 30 years old and about eight feet tall. In the book, the tree is living its perfect life and nothing hard or anything. And then terrorists took over two planes in New York City and crashed them into the Twin Towers and it covered the 9/11 tree in debris. He lost all hope and his perfect life just vanished in a few moments, but people found him and like nurtured him back to health, and he survived.

Anthony Godfrey:
So what did you learn from being a part of this project?

Claire:
I learned that like Parker and Wyatt said,  hope is very powerful and it can save you from the most difficult circumstances. And whenever you are in a hard spot in your life, you can always find hope.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wonderful, does this make you want to do more writing?

Claire:
Yes, definitely.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Had you been doing much writing before this project?

Claire:
Kind of, but this project has really made me wanna write more.

Anthony Godfrey:
Awesome. All right. Thanks you guys. Fantastic.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. She is a champion for students with special needs in her classroom at Mountain Ridge High School. Now, Sarah LaFond has risen to the top in something else she is passionate about. Sarah recently became the women's world champion in arm wrestling during a competition in France. On this episode of the Supercast, we head to Mountain Ridge High where we meet this dynamic educator and athlete who is a powerful force in and outside the classroom. Find out what it takes to make it to the top as a world champion for both right arm wrestling and left arm wrestling.

We're at Mountain Ridge High School with Sarah LaFond, world champion in left and right hand arm wrestling. Sarah, thanks for taking time to talk with us.

Sarah LaFond:
Thank you for having me.

Anthony Godfrey:
When you're not arm wrestling, you're also a special education teacher here at Mountain Ridge. Tell us about your career.

Sarah LaFond:
I've been teaching, this is my sixth year teaching. I've always done math resource at a secondary level. So I teach the kids with mild, moderate disabilities the high school math content.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what made you want to become a teacher?

Sarah LaFond:
I'm dyslexic. Had a hard time learning to read and so I guess I saw the difference a good teacher could make and wanted to be that teacher for some kids.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you ended up with math as the focus?

Sarah LaFond:
Yes, definitely. I have always preferred math to language arts.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Fair enough. Now let's talk about arm wrestling. First of all, what got you into arm wrestling in the first place?

Sarah LaFond:
Okay, so I've lifted a very long time. I started out lifting when I was a young teen with my dad and have lifted for most of my adult life. And it got to a point where I felt like I was strong enough and not doing anything with the strength that I was building. So I kind of started researching different options. My upper body's always been my strength and so I thought breaking into arm wrestling would be easy. There was a local team and so I just started going, that was only about a year and a half ago, so I'm pretty new to it.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you've only done it for a year and a half and you're world champion?

Sarah LaFond:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
That feels pretty awesome I’ll bet.

Sarah LaFond:
It's pretty good. Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
So how did you find out there were teams to start with?

Sarah LaFond:
My dad really, cuz I was talking to him about different competitive outlets and he was like, you should look into arm wrestling. So I googled it, you know, found a Facebook group.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.

Sarah LaFond:
Yeah. That's pretty much it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Are you generally a competitive person?

Sarah LaFond:
I'm very competitive.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Yeah. So you needed an outlet for that?

Sarah LaFonda:

Everything's a competition.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, you knew you had to compete somehow, somewhere.

Sarah LaFond:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about the equipment that you, when you, if you walk into the club or the competition, what does the table look like? What does the equipment look like? I've pictured in the past someone, you know, having to hold a post with one hand and then wrestle with the other. So will you describe that?

Sarah LaFond:
Yeah. So you've got a table that's just, at least on me, just above hip height. There are certain requirements, but I actually don't know 'em off the top of my head. And then you've got these square pads that your elbow has to stay on at all times. So your elbow's always on the pad and then you've got a peg off to the side that your other hand has to be on. So, like the main rules, if you had to say what are the rules, is you have to have one foot on the ground and one hand on the peg, elbow on the pad. Right? And then you're just trying to pin the other person. There's a pad just next to you that you're trying to pin their hand to.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. So are you sometimes trying to pull people off of those rules to get them to break the rules?

Sarah LaFond:
Oh yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Not necessarily just win, but disqualify them because they break the rules?

Sarah LaFond:
Yeah, so you can win based on elbow fouls, right? So if their elbow comes off the pad, they get an elbow foul. And if that happens twice, you win. So you can win with elbow fouls and you can definitely do that. I mean, it takes a lot of lat strength, but it's a strategy to just elbow foul 'em out. You just pull 'em off the pad.

Anthony Godfrey:
So do you do research on people as they come into this and now, okay, this is a person where lats are a strength and they may try to pull me off the pad. I'm gonna be ready for that.

Sarah LaFond:
Yeah, absolutely. Like you try to know your competition, right. And to see kind of, so there's different methods. The main two are top rolling and using a hook. Right? So you like to know if they're a top roller or use hooks and how you can combat that. So you go into it trying to know how they're gonna attack you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay now I instantly have to know what top rolling and using hooks are, so tell me about that.

Sarah LaFond:
Of course. Okay. So the top roll is what you would see in Over the Top, right? So you're kind of trying to pronate your hand and drag your elbow back to essentially attack their fingers and just win your hand straight.

Anthony Godfrey:
To attack their fingers? Can you show me kind of what that would look like?

Sarah LaFond:
Yes. So if I were to grip up with you, what I'm doing here is instead of just going sideways, I'm coming through here and attacking your fingers.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, so you're kind of pulling my arm and hand toward you. I see. I can see you’ve done that before.

Sarah LaFond:
Uh huh,  and then a hook you want to go ahead and you're gonna actually hook your wrist together and then you're just trying to drive them that way. So they're almost opposite.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Hook the hand again, because when you hook it, you're kind of pulling toward me a little bit, aren’t you?

Sarah LaFond:
Yes, uh huh. And then I'm just gonna drive my bone into your bone there.

Anthony Godfrey:
I can see that that would be very effective. So because they're opposites, you kind of have to think what are they gonna try to do? And if you're defending for one, you're actually opening yourself up to the other.

Sarah LaFond:
Definitely. Yep. And you have to kind of know, cuz I mean, speed is huge. So if you're a top roller and they use hooks, if you're faster than them, you'll probably beat 'em. But if you're not, a hook's gonna beat a top roll. Right.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, how much of the competition is about matchup then? Is there, if you top roll and they hook, does that make that more difficult or?

Sarah LaFond:
It really, at that point, it's just gonna depend usually on speed. Right. Whoever hits first is probably gonna win. If you're going a top roll against a hook.

Anthony Godfrey:
So I have so many questions. So do you go fast and hard or, I mean, is that the strategy?

Sarah LaFond:
Almost always. Right. Unless you're significantly stronger than your opponent and you kind of just wanna get a feel for 'em, otherwise you wanna hit. so it's called the ready go. Right. You can go as soon as they say go, right, but you get a warning if you go before the go. So, ready go, you wanna hit, you wanna make sure you get the advantage because as soon as someone's wrist breaks, not breaks, but just like cracks so to speak, that person's probably gonna win, right?

Anthony Godfrey:
So when the wrist gives, they’re gonna lose.

Sarah LaFond:
Yeah, you've got 'em. Almost always, almost always. I did that in the finals on left hand. I came back from a bad wrist position and won. But it doesn't happen very often.

Anthony Godfrey:
Have you experienced injuries over the last year and a half as you've been arm wrestling? And what kind of injuries are possible?

Sarah LaFond:
Okay, so I mean, I just have basic like tendon pain, right? Like, and that's super common. Just your elbow's not really meant to go that direction, right? It's a hinge joint and you're trying to make it go every which direction. So that's just tendon pain. But that's just, if you just rest it, usually it gets better. And your tendons get better at enduring it so that I don't get a lot of pain anymore. But I've seen spiral fractures. So if you aren't good, you gotta be careful, right? I've seen guys have, so that's just up here in their humerus. It's just they're pushing one way and the other person's pushing the other way and their humerus just is a spiral fracture. So just twists in the two different directions and snaps. It's a loud noise.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'll bet it is. Yeah. Is that kind of a stubbornness, like it's not going your way? Or does it just happen out of nowhere?

Sarah LaFond:
No, you know, if you're, if you're doing it right, it won't happen. So you have to just look at your hand. That's like the first rule. Like you pretend there's a pencil from your thumb to your nose, and if you stay there, you're never gonna get a spiral fracture. But if you let your shoulder get in front of your arm like that, then it can twist. If your technique's good, it shouldn't happen.

Anthony Godfrey:
So do those who are just starting out sometimes do that and pull their shoulder to try to get a little more leverage?

Sarah LaFond:
Definitely, yeah. They think that it's gonna make 'em stronger. It gets you in a weaker position, but it's just natural to try to pull your whole body to try to win, you know, so you just have to practice it.

Anthony Godfrey:
I feel like I do that with a golf swing. I do things that feel better, but actually make my swing worse.

Sarah LaFond:
Yep. We all do it.

Anthony Godfrey:
So do your students know about your arm wrestling and does the faculty know?

Sarah LaFond:
Yes. I'm somewhat prideful about it. I have my arm wrestling awards displayed in my classroom, so my students know it's a point of pride for me.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, that's fantastic. You should show it off. Absolutely.

Sarah LaFond:
I do, all the time.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what is their reaction?

Sarah LaFond:
Well, when I get new students, they're always like, what are those for? And I say, arm wrestling. And usually they don't believe me. Right. And then I'm like, no, go read 'em. You know, and they say arm wrestling all over 'em. And then their immediate reaction is, will you arm wrestle me?

Anthony Godfrey:
So what does an arm wrestling trophy look like?

Sarah LaFond:
Oh, most of the time they're medals. I do have a couple belts in my closet but I don't know how to display those so they just stay in my closet.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Stay with us when we come back. Sarah LaFond helps me up my arm wrestling game.

Break:
In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families, free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends. There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists and counselors. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about coaching. Who's your coach? How does that work? And what are some of the things you've learned from them that you can share? Don't share any secrets.

Sarah LaFond:
Okay. Yeah. So I kind of have three coaches I would say. Bob Brown, he's really big in the arm wrestling community, trained for a very long time with Brzenk, which is what over the top is based off of. Brzenk's like the goat. Right. So, they're good friends. And so I train with Bob Brown and he's really well known in the community. I train at his house. And then I have Craig Tullier and he's now back in, I think Louisiana, I can't remember. He was out here for a while and he trained me. And also Luke Pulscher and he's in ooh, Minnesota maybe? And so those are more like remote, you know, they'll give me tips and stuff like that as they're watching live streams. They can text me and stuff like that. Bob, I train with all the time.

Anthony Godfrey:
What percentage of success is based on strength versus technique? I know, I know it's a 100% mental also.

Sarah LaFond:
Right, right. Oh, there's lots. But I would say if I were to say a percentage probably 30/70. 30% to strength and 70% to technique. Cuz I think I'm, and not to be boastful, I think I'm stronger than most of my opponents, but my technique's not as good because I'm new. And so they can sometimes beat me out in that way. So I think usually technique's gonna win. If you're even in strength, even if you're a little stronger than someone, but their technique is better, they'll probably beat you.

Anthony Godfrey:
But with your level of strength and the focus you've had on lifting for a long time, over time you're going to continue to hone that technique so you are going to get the full benefit of your strength at a certain point.

Sarah LaFond:
Yes. Eventually, hopefully. They say usually kind of around two to three years is when you really kind of hit your stride. So we're getting closer.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. Yeah. That's fantastic. Now let's talk specifically about the national competition. Where was this held and how many rounds did it take to get to the finals?

Sarah LaFond:
Okay, so Nationals was in Texas over the summer. Dallas. And I went there and I was uncontested, meaning there was no one else in my weight class. So it's a weight class sport, just like wrestling is. So I was 57 kilograms, which is around 125 pounds. And so there was just no one else in my weight class. It's a small sport, not a lot of women in it. And then, you know, if you get down into the really finite weight categories, there wasn't anyone. So I was by default the state's 57 kilogram female arm wrestler.

And so then I went to this past September, end of September, beginning of October was Worlds and that was in Dieppe, France which is like an hour outside of Normandy, off the coast. Super pretty area. So I  went there, got to explore Paris a little bit, and then went down to Dieppe and there we had a more sizable pool of females. It's a double round elimination tournament. So if you lose twice, you're out. So left hand, I lost to the first girl, her name was Fia. So I was on the B side of the bracket cuz I had lost once and beat everybody else. So then you come back for finals and she hasn't lost any. So in order to beat her, I have to beat her twice. Because she's beat me once, so I have to beat her twice to be better than her. So I did, I came back, I beat her twice. That was left hand, and then right hand, I stayed on the A side of the bracket. So I didn't lose any, I was just won 'em all.

Anthony Godfrey:
So let's talk more about left hand. You have to come from the B bracket and come back and beat the person twice.

Sarah LaFond:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
That you'd lost to. How many matches is that, and in what period of time are you doing that?

Sarah LaFond:
So at worlds, it was very fast just cuz they're efficient, they've gotta get through a lot of people. Right. And so I had to go and win three matches in between to get to her. Which sounds like not much cuz they're so fast. But you'd be surprised by the adrenaline and how exhausted you are. And then sometimes it's an immediate turnaround. You do a pull and then you're the next person up at the next one. So you get one minute, you know, they give you 60 seconds.

Anthony Godfrey:
How can you do that with the same arm? It does not sound easy at all.

Sarah LaFond:
No, it's exhausting. It's exhausting.

Anthony Godfrey:
It sounds, it sounds absolutely draining.

Sarah LaFond:
It is. And it can be frustrating sometimes, you know, you go and you have a really big battle with someone and then you're up next on the bracket again and then you lose to someone who you might not have just cuz you're totally beat. Right. So sometimes it's luck of the draw with the bracket. That's just how it goes.

Anthony Godfrey:
And it's a little bit about how much energy you have to expend  to get to the finals so that you're as fresh as possible against your most difficult opponent. Tell me about the right hand in this competition.

Sarah LaFond:
Yep. Right hand. So I actually didn't go up against the girl who gave me more trouble left-handed. She elbow fouled out with one of her first opponents. And so she got eliminated before I ever pulled against her. She was from Sweden, so left hand, the final was against Sweden and then right hand my final was against a woman from Poland. And she was a battle too, but I always felt in control of that one. The one left hand, I wasn't sure how it was gonna go for me. I was surprised by the outcome. Right hand went a little bit smoother for me. I think just confidence was boosted, maybe by left hand, I was able to keep my calm.

Anthony Godfrey:
So it was maybe good to do left hand first, maybe.

Sarah LaFond:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Which hand do you prefer?

Sarah LaFond:
Usually I'm more confident left hand. I'm right hand dominant, but my strength is pretty even and most people are weaker left hand, so I just tend to perform a little bit better left, but right went well. So I won't complain about it.

Anthony Godfrey:
That makes sense. Well, congratulations again. That's awesome. Let's talk about this video. This is your left hand video?

Sarah LaFond:
Yeah, this is the final.

Anthony Godfrey:?
Can we start this over?

Sarah LaFond:
This is Fia from Sweden, so she slips, right.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay.

Sarah LaFond:
That was an intentional slip because, you see, I was in a winning position, so then our hands get strapped. Right. If you slip, you get strapped. And then she beat me in the strap.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh yeah.

Sarah LaFond:
And this is just another girl from Sweden. So that was my first loss, my first pull. Then I beat this girl from Sweden.

Anthony Godfrey:
Is it harder when it's strapped?

Sarah LaFond:
It depends. Some people are really good in the strap. I'm usually good in the strap, but I did not get it that time. So then here we come back, this is finals. We actually slipped and got into the strap. And so I beat her in the strap this first round. So now we're even, she's won one, I've won one, and I have to win one more to beat her. And so this is our last pull here. And you can see she definitely gets me right there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, it looks like she's got you. She's leaning way in.

Sarah LaFond:
And like coming back from something like that. It's a, I mean.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right here. Did you think you had a chance to come back?

Sarah LaFond:
I didn't, but I just was gonna give it my all the whole time.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh that is so cool. That is so cool. She is leaning in, she's got her whole body going. She's got one foot down, one foot down.

Sarah LaFond:
You’ve got one foot up, one foot down. Lots of people ask me about that. So, but I was able to yeah pull her back from that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh wow. You just crank, crank, crank. It's like three cranks and she's down.

Sarah LaFond:
Yep.

Anthony Godfrey:
What did it feel like to win two world championships left and right?

Sarah LaFond:
It was amazing. I did not go into it expecting that. I went in expecting to go two and out, especially being that I didn't have anyone to compete against at nationals. I was just like, I was the default person, you know? So I didn't feel like I had really a, and being new to the sport, I just thought, well, this will be a good experience. I won't win. I didn't even think I'd win a single match, you know? And so then once I saw, you know, I stood a chance, it changed my mindset a little bit after pulling a couple girls and then that left hand win, that was, that was an unparalleled feeling cuz I came back from the B side. I came back from a losing position. It was my, you know, first world's champion win. It was, yeah, it was unreal. Definitely. Like, just the adrenaline was unbelievable. And then obviously right hand was great too. It was just that left hand. Yeah. That was an unparalleled moment.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, that's pretty remarkable. Congratulations again. Maybe we need to submit a request to the state to start an arm wrestling class here at Mountain Ridge.

Sarah LaFond:
In Sweden they have an arm wrestling high school so…

Anthony Godfrey:
An arm wrestling high school? Oh my.

Sarah LaFond:
We're way far behind in the States compared to Europe.

Anthony Godfrey:
We are behind the Swedes once again. In another area. Oh wow. Okay. That's something. I'm looking that up. That's incredible. I know that you don't arm wrestle students, do you arm wrestle superintendents?

Sarah LaFond:
Ooh, I don't know.

Anthony Godfrey:
Not with full intensity, but just kind of show me. Let's do a reenactment. Let's do a reenactment. So show me how it felt when you, on the left hand when you were back. So first of all I'm not gonna give a spinal or a spiral?

Sarah LaFond:
A spiral fracture?

Anthony Godfrey:
First of all, I'm not gonna get a spiral fracture, am I?

Sarah LaFond:
No. Nope. Keep your eyes on your hand and you're good.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right.

Sarah LaFond:
Okay. So you just wanna feel kind of how I do it?

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Sarah LaFond:
Slow motion. Okay. Yeah. So I'm gonna go like this.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh wow.

Sarah LaFond:
And then I would come down here. Okay.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. I instantly had no ability to stop you.

Sarah LaFond:
Right, with the top roll, cuz I'm attacking your fingers, you can't use hardly anything up there. It's all about your hand strength and I’ve got you in an amazing position right there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right, it’s hand strength only and I have no strength whatsoever. Wow. Yeah. I was going down, you were taking me down. There is no question about that. So what was the other move? That was the top roll. Sarah LaFond:

That's the top roll. And so the other one's a hook. So that'd be, I'd go in here and then the goal would be to just push against your bone. Right? With my bone.

Anthony Godfrey:
I could feel, that does not feel great. That's like I am going down again. That's incredible. Well, congratulations. I know you've got some secrets too.

Sarah LaFond:
Of course.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's very, very cool. Very cool. So, well thank you for taking the time and for explaining all this to us. It's fascinating. Congratulations on your success and thanks for being a great teacher here at Mountain Ridge.

Sarah LaFond:
Thank you. I enjoyed talking with you guys and I love being a teacher here at Mountain Ridge.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are a top-notch team of professionals devoted to promoting the individual growth and well-being of students, teachers, staff, and families throughout Jordan School District. On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the district's student services team to hear more about the important work they do on a daily basis, supporting the overall social emotional wellness of students in and outside of school, empowering them to achieve academic success along with college and career development. Listen in and learn about services available to support your child and your family.

I'm excited to have our Student Services department here with us today. We're gonna start with Travis Hamblin, the director of the department. Just a few years ago, this department did not exist in this form. Travis, Student Services covers a wide range of student needs and district services. Everything from maps and enrollment to behavior and other services. Services through McKinney Vento for students who are experiencing homelessness. Let's focus on talking about the health and wellness and mental health aspect of what you and your department are responsible for.

Travis Hamblin:
We have an amazing group of people that provide a countless number of resources and supports for students. We have McKinley Withers with our Health and Wellness, he works with everything from our clinical support staff to prevention. We have Fulvia Franco, who is our consultant for Guidance, which are all of our psychologists and our Jordan Family Ed. We have Stacee Worthen, who works with all of our school counselors, K-12 and the Comprehensive Guidance program and working with them to provide direct services to students. It should be noted that all three of those individuals work with professionals in the mental health field that work directly with students to help them in whatever area or need that they may have, whether it's academic, whether it's social, whether it's emotional or mental health, any of those areas. We also have student support personnel people that work with our students that have concerns with truancy or any other areas. But specifically, we work a lot with our mental health for students and staff.

Anthony Godfrey:
We talk about student health and wellness. We talk about bolstering health and wellness, but we also talk about responding to emergencies and difficulties and hard situations when they do occur. So let's talk about prevention. I think people have looked at prevention over the years in silos. There's suicide prevention, there's bullying prevention there's school safety and prevention of school violence. How does that all fit together now, the way that we're looking at things in Jordan?

Travis Hamblin:
The prevention efforts that we're doing now, look at everything holistically. We see things not just in a bucket of preventing and responding, but in a holistic view of doing that all at the same time. The example would be this, is if there is a student that's in suicidal crisis, we're not only looking at, okay, how can we respond? But we're also looking at how we can look at preventing or addressing the unknown factors that are out there. The students that we don't know about, and supporting them in a wide variety of manners so that we can address students who may be suffering in silence and those that we don't know about. So it's not just about addressing one side of an issue or another. It's about saying, okay, we do, we know we have students that are struggling in certain areas or in many areas. So how do we address it holistically, both from an adult perspective, but also from a kid-centered perspective?

Anthony Godfrey:
And I think all of those issues overlap when we address one issue, we're really addressing others, bullying, suicide, school violence, all of those are interrelated. And really, if we're addressing the health and wellness of students early on, then we're able to prevent a lot of issues rather than simply respond to them. So I wanted to go around the room and talk with each of you about some of the efforts that are in place to address both aspects of the issues that we encounter. How are we helping prevent problems in the first place? And then how are we responding to them when they do occur? Let's talk with Stacee Worthen, who works with all of our school counselors. First of all, let's talk about the expansion of school counselors in our schools.

Stacee Worthen:
Yeah, that's pretty exciting. So we've expanded to a true K-12 program. So we've been able to lower our school counselor to student ratios in the secondaries from about 1 to 350 to about 1 to 300. So we added a half-time position in every middle school. So we have a ratio of one school counselor to about 300, in some cases even 250 students per counselor. So that's actually really exciting. What that does is it allows our counselors a little bit more time to create connections. And that's really what we're focusing on is, in the secondary level, trying to build relationships with our students so that they feel like they have an adult that will connect them to the school. And so that's a prevention piece that we're really trying to focus on. Is there one adult in that building that they really feel like they can come and talk to about academics, about mental health issues, about you know, if the student’s in crisis, who is that adult that they feel like they can trust in that time of need? And in the high schools, we have about a 1 to 300 ratio with the support of our principals in lowering that ratio.
The other exciting thing is that Jordan School District has approved hiring one elementary school counselor for every elementary school. We have been able to hire 12. Those school counselors are working with their students. Anything that the teachers and the principals feel like that community needs within that school, then that's what that school counselor is focusing on. But then they're also working with those kids by providing groups. Grief groups, friendship groups you know, all sorts of different needs that these kids have. They're really working on helping them so that they fill those supports with their school counselors.

Anthony Godfrey:
I'm really excited about our elementary school counselors, but we've also added some supports at the district level as well. So we're providing greater support to our counselors out in the schools, additional training. And that's a trend that's been in place for several years now. I think the role of counselor is more important than ever, and there's more access than ever to counselors for students. The elementary role really allows everyone to get a chance to do their job. I think that need has always been there, but now that there's a counselor at the elementary level, that reduces or shifts the workload on a school psychologist and on administrators so that those unique roles can be fulfilled, and the unique needs of students can be met even more effectively.

Stacee Worthen:
That's right. And we've had really great success with our school counselors working with our school psychologists. They've been really successful in providing group opportunities for students. So we've been able to really meet the needs of more kids because they've been working as a team. And also with our social workers. They really are a team of school clinicians that can provide a lot of different opportunities for our students. That really creates a connection to the school and a lot of opportunities for us to really put in a lot of preventative measures so that these kids are successful.

Anthony Godfrey:
The point that you made there is really important, I think, because we've had part-time positions here and there over the years for psychologists, and for counselors, and for assistant principals. It's very difficult to be effective in building those relationships when you're only there Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday. So I'm excited to see the changes already this year in the connection that we have with students and with parents.

Stacee Worthen:
That's exciting.

Anthony Godfrey:
When talking with parents, if parents are concerned about their students, a great place to start is with a school counselor or school psychologist. Just call up, make an appointment, have a conversation. Speaking of which, Fulvia Franco, talk to us about our school psychologist and what's happening there.

Fulvia Franco:
With our school psychologists, we do do assessment, but we do direct service to students. We provide individual and group counseling. We do crisis intervention, crisis counseling with students. We do post-crisis postvention kinds of things to support children who've been impacted by a crisis in their lives. We also provide services at the Jordan Family Education Center. Jordan School District is unique in having a center like the Family Ed Center in that, that center, was established 44 years ago. We provide parenting classes, we provide intake assessments. That's where a parent, if they have a concern about their son or daughter, can come in, meet one-on-one with a school psychologist or school counselor who's trained to do clinical intake assessments to try to determine what the nature of the concern is and make recommendations to the parent. Those recommendations can range anywhere from something we'd like schools to implement, some support in mental health areas at a school level, or working with our clinical support staff in connecting families with community resources.
One of the biggest things that I've seen change with Student Services is that Travis Hamlin has been instrumental in bringing us together to be school-based mental health teams. For years, we've read in the research that we need school-based mental health services. Well, Jordan District, to me, is doing it the right way in that we put staff directly into the schools. We have full-time allocations for school counselors, K-12, as well as school psychologists. Our secondary, middle and high schools all have clinical support staff, whether they be social workers or clinical mental health counselors. We are doing so many things to support children's needs and students needs, and in that we help parents.

Anthony Godfrey:
And again, I would say it's hard for parents perhaps to imagine all the resources that are available. I would just say make that call. Connect with the professional at the school, and they can really open some doors. Stay with us, when we come back more with the incredible Student Services team.

Break:
Are you looking for a job right now? Looking to work in a fun and supportive environment with great pay and a rewarding career? Jordan School District is hiring. We're currently filling full and part-time positions. You can work and make a difference in young lives and education as a classroom assistant or a substitute teacher. Apply to work in one of our school cafeterias where our lunch staff serves up big smiles with great food every day. We're also looking to hire custodians and bus drivers. In Jordan School District we like to say people come for the job and enjoy the adventure. Apply today at employment.jordandistrict.org

Anthony Godfrey:
McKinley, let's talk with you now about some of the things that we're doing to connect students to outside resources if they need longer term care or more specialized care. Because as we just talked about, we've got a lot of great people that can help with many issues and concerns that would be facing families, but sometimes families don't know where to go next for outside services that they would seek as a family. Tell me about how we connect them to the right people.

McKinley Withers:
Over the last few years, we've established a partnership with several, I guess 19, community-based mental health providers that are partners with our district. And through our Mental Health Access program, we can facilitate access to one of those community mental health providers that have, you know, clinicians that speak a specific language that a student might need, that might provide specialized treatment that a student might need. And by being able to have an existing partnership with our community resources, we can better match a student to their need.

Anthony Godfrey:
Over the last few years, we've also added clinical support staff to all of our secondary schools and some of our elementary schools. Can you tell me what role they play in the lives of students?

McKinley Withers:
So these are individuals that have outside of school mental health experience. So these are DOPL licensed mental health clinicians who, the intent is to have them meet with students who have more severe mental health needs, and to be a bridge between those students and their needs and the community resources that would best match those needs.

Anthony Godfrey:
So that's their focus is to work on maybe some of the more severe needs. But counselors and psychologists work every day with students with severe needs and help them make the most of their school experience and help them make the progress they need to be making.

McKinley Withers:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Talk about some of the things that we're doing to prevent suicide, bullying and violence in the district.

McKinley Withers:
So again, there are a variety of efforts within Student Services and within Health and Wellness specifically. We've worked with schools to create their own unique but district supported Prevention Plan that addresses each of those topics. And the foundation of good prevention work is understanding and acknowledging that, like you mentioned earlier, prevention of suicide and what characteristics or components are essential to that kind of prevention, are the same characteristics that prevent school violence, those same efforts. So trying to connect all of those efforts under one umbrella, a comprehensive prevention plan. Where if you're making an everyday effort in your school to deepen connections with students, to notice them, to know names, to have added staff, like has been mentioned, so that there are more adults to connect with students. That's going to be prevention effort across the board, whether it's suicide, bullying, or violence.

So because prevention shares common characteristics, each school can create their own unique plan about how they are meeting students' unique needs on building skills, social skills, so they can have quality relationships with peers and adults, and building skills for emotion regulation. Those two things, those two skill building opportunities commonly are referred to as social and emotional learning. So how are we intentionally building skills, providing opportunities for students to practice skills in real time for problem solving, relationship building, emotion regulation. Those are all efforts that lead to prevention in all of those areas. So it's giving people throughout the system the skills for making an everyday effort to enhance students' skills for life.

Anthony Godfrey:
And I like the way you described that, and you described it to principals the same way in a recent meeting, that there's a school-based plan that's district supported. So there's some consistency across the district, but there's also specialization and customization based on the specific needs of a school. And it's pulling a team together around that common effort of prevention and promoting health and wellness in students.

McKinley Withers:
Yeah. And some of those district-wide systems. So district-wide, all of our schools are on the Safe UT app, which means any student in any of our district schools, if they notice something, they hear something concerning, about a friend wanting to hurt themselves or others, or they themselves were bullied. They can submit tips through Safe UT and it will get to the school staff and they can respond accordingly. So all of our district schools are on that Safe UT app. Within the app, students can connect directly with professional crisis worker. So if they themselves are feeling intense emotions, don't know what to do, they can chat or call using the app. And then also our district has implemented a content monitoring system. So on the student accounts, specifically, if a student types in an email or a document or you know, is chatting to a friend about wanting to die, wanting to hurt someone, or an incident that has happened that is concerning we are alerted of that so that we can respond and intervene.

Anthony Godfrey:
Many layers to help prevent and respond to difficulties in our schools. Travis, you've assembled an amazing team of people and it's really exciting for me to watch the progress that we've made as a district and as we referenced earlier, just how we've been able to empower every adult in this district to be a part of helping support our students and promote their health and wellness. Anything you'd like to add about the efforts of Student Services?

Travis Hamblin:
Well, I would say one of the biggest things that we operate on is that relationships don't support the learning, they are the learning. So we focus on helping the adults and helping all of the staff members to build meaningful relationships with students to ensure that we know of the needs that they have, that we can respond, that we can prevent, and that we can assist them through their journey to whatever their journey is going to end in academically, socially, and any kind of wellness activities. We are focused on ensuring that we provide the support that every student needs to succeed. At the end of the day, that's why we get up. We are passionate about making sure that our students have everything they need to succeed.

Anthony Godfrey:
And the bottom line is in the short term and long term lives are being saved.

Travis Hamblin:
Every day, every day.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thank you for your hard work everyone. Thanks for taking the time. And just another reminder, call your school, call your counselor, call the psychologist, talk with your administration, ask for help because there's a lot of help out there and a lot of great people who can support your student.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.