Megan Lee:
My job is to move a really big heavy needle. I think about things like can a community really change? Can I help facilitate all of the things that need to come together so that North Clackamas is the healthiest school in Oregon.

My role is to kind of take a look at the health of our population. That’s all staff. Everything from our superintendent to the folks that get our kids to and from school, our lunch staff, support people, teachers. Also, kind of coupled in that is trying to create a culture shift where we are sort of engineering the culture of our school district to encourage healthier employees.

Most schools are committed to wellness, but we are one of, if not the only district in the state of Oregon that has a person like myself dedicated to doing this work full time. Health is important and you always want to have people working there that feel good about what they’re doing and about where they are. Additionally, if you don’t have a healthy staff, you can’t have healthy students. Kids are always watching and so whatever little things that those adults are doing in the building, bringing in a healthy snack to eat while their kids are watching them. If you see that teacher or that administrator walking, the kids are going to be more inclined to follow suit. We have yoga going in several of our schools right now. We also have sort of a stress management curriculum that’s being adopted, and I’m piloting a couple of schools. We are in the process of finishing a zen den for staff at one of our high schools that has a pretty unique population so that they can have a space to go and sort of deescalate before going back into a classroom after crisis.

Teachers have a really hard job. So they’re not only responsible for the educational success of every student that comes into their building. They’re also responsible for their safety, to make sure that they’re getting something to eat during the day, that all these other things that these kids are bringing in with them, they have to take that on as well.

Stress, compassion, fatigue. So having to help navigate through the trauma of their students, those desires to give when there’s not a lot left to give. But because these stressors don’t really go away, some of these things can manifest over time into health conditions for people. You also get anxiety, depression, inability to sleep, lack of focus, and this is true outside of education, as well, but teachers definitely are experiencing that.

For some kids their best support is happening while they’re here in our buildings. And then those habits, that education, that whole child’s education, social, emotional learning, academics, all of it, those kids take that home with them and so then they have an opportunity to enrich their own families with some of the things that we’re able to provide them with here.

I love seeing people do things that they didn’t think they were capable of, making choices that are hard, but that make their life better. Those are the things that remind me that not only is the work important, but that it’s working, little by little, one person at a time, and that, over time, we will get there.