Editor’s Note: This is the final installment in a three-part series about Onalaska High School. Previous pieces in “Smart Ax” — a pun on the school’s Logger mascot — explored the school’s natural resources and aquaculture classes, a Lewis County history class, and students’ efforts to support one another. Those stories can be found at chronline.com/schools.
High school freshmen, the class of 2027, were in the fifth grade when the COVID-19 pandemic started.
Sophomores are the first students since the class of 2019 to have a high school career without masks, remote learning, school closures and social distancing.
In an advisory published this year, the U.S. Surgeon General said America has an “epidemic” of loneliness and isolation that was exacerbated by COVID-19. The advisory mentions the unique hardships of the pandemic for children as they “missed out on the many benefits of interacting with their friends.”
At Onalaska High School, home of the Loggers, sophomore Kate Zandell said she noticed her classmates become “comfortable with being uncomfortable” during the pandemic. This year, though, Zandell said, the student body’s social and educational health has been on an upswing.
“There’s been a dramatic change. Just overall, the drive of everybody in their work,” Zandell said in a Nov. 28 interview. “The aroma of everybody wanting to do better — it’s so much easier to get better grades and do better in school.”
Asked what caused this shift, Zandell cited the school’s counselors.
Previously, a single counselor advised on academics and mental, social and emotional health in Onalaska. For the 2022-23 school year, the school board voted to divide that position in two.
This year, Onalaska native Heather Jacoby started as the mental health specialist. Every Tuesday, students receive a “social and emotional” lesson developed by Jacoby and Academic Advisory Kaylene Kenny.
Lessons are built around the “Only 7 Seconds” curriculum, based on the idea that it only takes seven seconds to make a connection with someone.
The curriculum’s website says loneliness is the strongest predictive factor in suicide attempts, depression and anxiety, and that the simple act of starting a conversation with someone reminds them they’re not alone.
In one social and emotional learning activity, students were encouraged to decorate shoes with “their story, as they feel comfortable sharing,” Jacoby told The Chronicle in an interview. Then, kids were encouraged to describe their shoes to classmates. The shoes are on display in the hallways.
“We’ve had some good response back from kids,” said Principal Wade Pilloud of the curriculum. “It’s pretty neat.”
At the start of the school year, Loggers were anonymously surveyed for a “snapshot” of their social, academic and mental health, Jacoby said. Among the most common concerns were wellbeing, safety, boundaries, worrying about post-secondary education or work, and emotions.
Over the year, she’ll track the success of the social and emotional learning process in comparison to that evaluation.
The school has shifted methods in academic advising, too.
When it comes to tracking educational progress, teachers empower Loggers to do the heavy lifting.
“It’s very powerful stuff,” Pilloud said. “And making learning visible. If a student sets a goal for themselves and they start tracking their goals, if they find that they’re not making it, then, the teacher intervenes. … It really opens up the focus and gives students a greater voice.”
In 2017, The Seattle Times ran an article headlined “Big News in Tiny Onalaska: All 43 Grads Were Accepted to College.”
Pilloud, in his second year, has helped add new targets for success.
Faculty are still helping kids go to college — 2023 valedictorian Brooklyn Sandridge attends Harvard — but with the focus toward what the student “needs and wants,” Pilloud said.
“Want to go to college? We’re going to do everything we can to help them with financial aid and the enrollment process, everything that we can possibly do to get them there,” he said. “If they want to go to technical school, we're going to do everything we can to get them to that. You're military bound? Great. We have a marine recruiter coming in on Friday.”
On Nov. 28, The Chronicle had six interviews with staff and students at Onalaska High School.
Pilloud and history teacher Mazen Saade were interviewed in separate rooms, yet had the same message.
Saade said the school encourages students to “Be whatever you want to be. You want to go to college? Go to college. You want to go to work? Go to work. Want to go to trade school? Graduate school? Go. See what the world looks like. But, know that this is always your home.”
Saade, too, credits Onalaska’s supportive atmosphere with educational success and a shift in student attitudes.
“(Students) want to be part of Onalaska again. And that’s a really good thing to see,” Saade said. “They’re excited to be here and come to school and learn things. And that’s cool.”
