When a binder full of personal stories about past cases of sexual abuse, suicidal thoughts and bullying hit Interim Principal Brandi Hosack’s desk this year, she said she almost had a breakdown.

Akins students contributed their own “ghost stories,” which were shared at a Peer Assistance Leadership Service statewide conference in an effort to help students overcome some of the troubling things they have already experienced at a young age.

“Our students bring a lot to the table and we must address this stuff in order to help develop them into successful adults,” Interim Principal Brandi Hosack said. “It is our job as educators to make sure that we educate the whole child.”

During a professional development day in February, Hosack challenged Akins staff to come together to improve its structure and curriculum for providing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) to students.

“Akins needs a program that teaches students that they are worth something, that their life has a purpose,” said Jaimie Phillips, who is president of the PALS group at Akins.

The campus is supposed to provide SEL training to students during advisory classes.

“I feel like a lot of teachers just think its fluff so they don’t really do the lessons during advisory,” AVID teacher Christina Garcia-Mata.

Hosack is proposing that the campus establish a required course for all freshman to take to help provide them with SEL skills.

“SEL teaches students skills beyond the classroom that they will need in life in order to be successful,” Saxe said. “Every day students bring their problems to school and for some of those students it creates a barrier to learning.”

A jump in enrollment in the PALS classes from 15 to 70 students was another example of evidence to Hosack that there is a high demand for SEL training at Akins.

“This big jump in numbers just helps show the need for classes like PALS,” Hosack said.