Most of us at KO have attended VQV classes before: the mandatory life skills course for freshmen and the college counseling course for juniors that meets every so often during students’ free periods or study halls. For freshmen specifically, topics such as mental health, consent, and study habits are often discussed, and different teachers come in to lead various sessions.
Many of us may remember the somewhat mild annoyance of figuring out you had VQV during a period you needed to study, or how the classes often felt too short to fully explore and discuss the deep topics that were covered. Well, according to the Wellness Team, all of that is about to change.
One of the biggest fixes the Wellness Team hopes to implement into the curriculum is the length of these classes. In the first semester of this school year, freshmen students only had two VQV classes: one taught by learning specialist Jennifer Hayman-Gross and the other taught by Upper School counselor Felicia Velez, each of them only about 45 minutes long.
The Wellness Team feels as though they don’t have enough time in the current schedule to have VQV classes that have meaningful and comprehensive discussions about topics such as mental health, consent, and study habits.
Coinciding with upcoming changes to the Upper School schedule, the Wellness Team plans to have VQV be more present in students’ lives at KO. “Our present schedule doesn’t allow for us to have those classes without taking away free time from kids, which is just a bad setup,” Direct of Wellness Jackie Rubin commented. “Moving forward next year, we hope to have a full freshman curriculum, and the year after that, we hope to have a curriculum for the whole Upper School.”
The Wellness Team also hopes that by having VQV be more present in students’ schedules, they can tackle large issues such as mental health properly. “It’s so hard at a primarily academic institution to lead with mental health,” Ms. Rubin explained.
Middle School counselor Brenna Chiaputti, known commonly as Ms. Chip, agreed and added that the plan is to have the Upper School VQVs resemble the sessions currently offered in the Middle School. Currently, students in the Middle School meet with their equivalent of VQV classes two or three times a week for an hour and fifteen minutes.
“The initial idea was that it’s an opportunity for kids to sit down with a counselor or their support team in an informal way and just talk about things that are on their minds,” Ms. Chip said, describing the Wellness Team’s vision for VQV in the future. “What kind of support and guidance can we give you based on what you guys are interested in talking about? So that could be like peer relationships, it could be developmental concerns, it could be about consent, boundaries, anything like that.”
Although these plans sound wonderful, these goals are a lot to reach, especially since, as of now, teachers volunteer to lead VQV lessons. Ms. Rubin hopes that when VQV classes become part of students’ schedules, more faculty will be hired to help teach. For this reason – as well as limited resources, time, and budget – the modifications to the curriculum will occur in two phases. The changes will first be implemented in next year’s freshman class and spread to the rest of the Upper School in two years.
“We don’t want to rush into building something out,” Ms. Rubin said, “so this year is like a planning, observing, figuring out year.” The Wellness Team hopes to use the time to fully flesh out a VQV curriculum that will help to emphasize emotional and physical health in the KO community, alongside teaching important life skills and study habits.
