How Sioux Falls schools are urging kids to take care of themselves this year

Superintendent Brian Maher starts each day with a specific, intentional routine.

He begins with reflection, followed by a morning workout and a healthy meal before he heads to work, he said. 

If he misses a beat, he's in trouble. If he misses more than one step, he's all out of sorts. 

"That can manifest itself in being tired or being crabby or not thinking well," he said. "Hopefully, nobody else notices, but I think I'm being naive if I think nobody else notices. I've got to have a good start to the day. I've got to have a good Monday for a good start to the week. I've got to have a good January for a good start to the new year, and as I look at the school year, I've got to have a good August for a good school year." 

But with that first day of school just days away, Maher's routine carries a new sentiment, he said. And it comes with a mental health mantra he hopes the Sioux Falls School District will embrace Thursday as students return for the new year.

"Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Take care of this place," Maher said. 

Maher became familiar with the quote from writer and author Margaret Wheatley sometime last spring, he said. But he used it to set the tone for the year at a speech given to nearly all 3,400 district employees last week.

The theme comes at a time when the district is in a state of transition. For the next two years, the district will be focused on opening a new high school and middle school as part of a $190 million bond passed by voters almost a year ago to address overcrowding. 

The district held groundbreakings for both campuses earlier this summer.

And this October, district officials will begin a community wide discussion about redrawing attendance boundaries to shift the number of students across the district as a way to help alleviate the pressure and decide who will attend the new schools.

More:Your kid might have to change schools in Sioux Falls. Here's when it'll happen.

"We've said for years that personal development is professional development, and to me, it just fit in," Maher said. "We need everybody to take care of themselves, personally and professionally. And if they do that, I think we'll take better care of our kids."

The district has already seen "good evidence" of when intentional actions can work well to get a positive result, like with the historical amount of support the community gave the $190 million bond and the district's strategic plan. 

"We did a lot of listening before we came up with a document," Maher said about the bond. "We're going to have to do that when we come to this boundary question that we'll wrestle with through this year. But the other thing, I think, too, is just constant communication."

More:Your kid might have to change schools in Sioux Falls. Here's when it'll happen.

And while the district won't necessarily be starting any new initiatives this year to embrace the theme, Maher challenged his staff to find their own intentional routines to help them start each school day off on the right foot, he said. 

"I don't know that we can make anybody take care of themselves, right? We can encourage it, nurture it and model it," Maher said. "And that's what we're trying to do. In terms of taking care of others, that's what we're set up to do."

How schools are talking mental health

The district already has multiple partnerships and programs focused on mental health to support social and emotional learning for students, and helped launch two new programs last year. 

The first was, "Move this world," a well-being program that uses daily movement and dance activities, along with emojis to help kindergarten through fifth grade students better understand how they're feeling from day to day.

"All of our teachers are great at identifying and reading kids when they come in through the door in the morning, but this might kind of take them to that next level to see where they're at,"  Cleveland Elementary Principal Mitchell Sheaffer said earlier this year about the initiative.

And the second was a South Dakota Early Childhood Mental Health Collaborative to help Southeast Behavioral Health therapists reach an underserved population by teaching young children healthy coping skills.

But the district serves as the third-largest employer in Sioux Falls, and while it's important to take care of those who may be hurting, it's also important to care for those who aren't, Maher said. 

Sioux Falls counselors themselves often handle heavy caseloads, and teachers often spend hours trying to address issues beyond just understanding curriculum.

More:How Sioux Falls counselors manage high caseloads and work with cops, nonprofits to keep kids safe

Maher compared the idea to listening to a flight attendant tell passengers on an airplane to put an oxygen mask on themselves first before helping others around them in case of an emergency.

If the theme can be embraced consistently, Sioux Falls School District employees can serve as better models for students, parents, other staff and eventually see that effort spread to the city as a whole, he said. 

"These teachers are going to bring it when kids are in front of them," he said. "And if they do that, we're going to be in great shape."