Challenge Success assembled the student body to survey their school-life balance and stress levels. In their English classes, students filled out an online form designed to explore students’ perspectives on the role of the school in their lives, and how it could be changed.
“The overall goals are the chance to look at the current school climate around student stress in general and look to see if we can find any patterns that we need to shift to make students feel supported and have a learning experience,” Principal Brent Daniels said.
Daniels, with the support of the department chairs, the site council, and the administrative team, turned to Challenge Success, an organization he had contact with from his previous position.
“Challenge Success grew out of a previous effort by the Stanford School of Education called SOS, for Stressed Out Students,” said Schools Program Director Margaret Dunlap. “We’re using our survey to measure student perspective on health, homework, academic engagement, and teacher support.”
The breadth of the Challenge Success’ survey served in part to attract PHS to the program.
“We like that it looks not just at academic achievement, but at the whole student, emotionally and personally,” English teacher Debora Hill said.
Other schools in Challenge Success’ network, including local high schools suchs as Acalanes, Campolindo, Gunn, and Palo Alto, recognize similar challenges to Piedmont’s, and offer the chance for collaboration, Daniels said.
“They’re dealing with the question of how do you coordinate homework, how many APs do students take,” Daniels said. “They are facing the same challenges and have similar demographics. Access to them is an advantage of partnering with Challenge Success.”
Schools in the Challenge Success network bear similar burdens to those of Piedmont.
“We’re a very successful school, but could be even better,” Hill said. “Before any changes are made to Piedmont, we need word from all the school’s stakeholders.”
The results of the survey will be ready within a few weeks.
“There will be a time for us to analyze the findings, but essentially this is an opportunity for our school site council and our school leadership to look at those trends and then come up with a plan,” Daniels said.
Dunlap also sees the survey as the start of a process.
“We’re here to support the students at Piedmont High School,” Dunlap said. “This is the start of a change process to help students in school.”
Though neither Dunlap nor Daniels had any specific plans, they both offered the possibility of moving finals to before Winter Break, coordinating assignments between teachers, and freeing students from homework over breaks.
“This is a collective initiative, a shared program, any changes we consider will be part of a conversation,” Daniels said. “The idea is that whatever plan we set forth next year, we’ll achieve it by end of the school year through a series of smaller goals.”
Once Challenge Success has finished analyzing the results of the survey, the school will use the data to implement policies aimed to help students cope with the stress of school and extracurriculars. In September, the school will send representatives to the Stanford campus to review the findings and further refine plans, according to the Challenge Success website.
