Think back.
Growing up, were you an egg, or a ball?
Did you crack under pressure?
Or, did you roll yourself back to a true trajectory, after an unexpected negative bounce?
These days, it’s Michael Ryan’s mission in Monongalia County Schools to steer students to the latter.
Ryan, who was West Virginia’s School Counselor of the Year for 2018, now heads diversity and inclusion services for the district – with emotional health coming under his purview.
Joined by associates Angela Hayes and Stacey Sylvester, Ryan talked about that effort at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Monongalia County Board of Education.
Today’s youngsters are dealing with stressors unheard of 20 years ago, he said.
Recent surveys undertaken by Ryan’s department chronicled student worries over their parents getting behind on the mortgage – or being bounced out of a job due to an uncertain economy.
And those were just the third-graders, he said.
That means teachers need new skillsets to help the students in their classroom cope, the trio told the board.
Besides those old-soul, kitchen table woes about household budgets, students also deal with bullying magnified tenfold by social media and the spectre of gun violence in the hallway, they said.
State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt often adds to that chorus.
While Morgantown and Monongalia County are exceptions, there are still 700,000 West Virginians living in communities across the state where there aren’t enough mental health professionals to go around.
Mon’s district, meanwhile, organized an “Emotional Blueprint” gathering this past summer to help teachers help their students.
And Ryan’s department has already spent the past several weeks planning the 2025 edition for this summer.
Look for this summer’s blueprint to draw in nationally known keynote speakers and frontline workshops and other sessions for the teachers, Sylvester told the BOE.
“It’s important that we fill the buckets of our educators,” she said, “so they can create and provide and teach these essential life skills.”
