In this generation, many are living with anxiety, pressure, stress and so on. Each of them has a unique reason. This is not just for RHS’s students, but also for everyone in this building.

Some of you may remember the Rhinebeck Reality Newspaper feature about mental health and wellness published in May 2019. The article described the proposal to improve students’ Mental Health with an advisory program. This program would give students a space to talk about current events, concerns, and mental health.

However, this program is still under consideration. RHSD and teachers are still talking about how they can put that in place. Most students already have so little time that it is hard to find schedule.

It has been about 8 months since that article was published, so what has RHS done to improve our mental health?

This September, RHS started taking a new step to improve mental health. Teachers and professional staff have been learning about emotional intelligence with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence program.

The program’s approach is called RULER and can help us “recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate emotion.”

The training team, including Dr. Davenport, Ms. Rodier, Mr. Pallazolo, Mr. Jutton, and Ms. Grande, is sharing techniques to identify and express emotions to ourselves and others. The goal is that soon, we will hopefully be able to regulate ourselves.

This program is not only for teachers, but for students and parents as well. The program will be shared with students in classrooms next year, and to parents in the third year.

When talking with our own Principal Davenport, he mentioned that everyone in this school needed support for their mental health. A goal of this project is that everyone in this building will be able to regulate ourselves. He is hoping that we all will be able to identify our emotional states after the Yale Center’s program.