As the awareness of the negative effects of schools grows, more schools, like Bolles, are trying to lessen the stress on students. Bolles created a joint committee with Episcopal, called the Student Wellness Committee, aiming to improve student life. This committee is primarily student-run because Mrs.Cussen noticed more success with student-run activities like Girls Night In.

Two representatives from each grade and 3 senior representatives will meet each quarter with episcopal students to speak about the potential changes that could be made. The seniors involved are Jack Swinson, Olivia Elksins, and Graham Ungrady, while the underclassmen involved are Asha Anderson, Rushton Roberts, Julian Crosby, Shalina Chithriki, Campbell Farace, and Kenny Sogbesan

Mrs.Cussen says that she has no clear goal in mind but believes that the students will have suggestions on what to change, “We don’t know where it’s going to take us, but it’s very much student run.”  Olivia Elksins adds she likes that students have this opportunity to share their ideas, “they have the actual perspectives of students, sometimes things get lost in translation.”

Mrs. Cussen said Bolles joined with Episcopal in order to share costs, but more importantly so that Bolles can find inspiration within Episcopal and gain more ideas. Olivia Elkins agrees that working with Episcopal was beneficial, “We’re all high school students, with a lot of the same problems.”

At the first committee meeting on October 17^th, two senior representatives, Jack Swinson and Olivia Elksins, met at Episcopal with two episcopal representatives. They started the meeting with asking each student where they would like to be in five years and Olivia Elksins commented that she enjoyed Jack Swinson’s answer that stated he would like to be traveling the world. The students then debated on how to run a student-led committee. Some issues that may arise include that different grades may have different problems and that some Freshmen may be hesitant to share their ideas. So that the freshman are more comfortable older students will be paired with the younger students and share each other’s ideas.

In addition, they are thinking about having suggestion boxes around school so that they can receive more peer input. The committee will also be contemplating the scheduling and whether having all eight classes is too stressful. The students also spoke on how to change the idea of social classes at schools. When asked why student perceive other students as “popular”, Elksins replied “Everyone gets fixed on people and wants to be like them and do what they do.” She also describes how people have a “desire to fit in, masking your identity and your morals to go up in school standing.” The Student Wellness Committee will be looking into ways to change this pattern of behavior.  Along with making changes to high school, Bolles will be trying to retain more students by uniting the middle and high schools.