Investing in Hope Education to Support Pandemic Recovery
Hope levels among Washington’s students decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but research shows that hope is a skill that can be learned, and educators in Washington are teaching it.
According to data from Washington’s 2021 Healthy Youth Survey, a biennial representative survey of Washington’s youth, 35–45% of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students reported feeling sad or hopeless for two weeks or more in a row. The same year, Governor Inslee declared a health emergency and put youth mental health at the center of school building reopening efforts.
Learning hope skills has been shown to help children and adults manage stress, regulate emotions, build resilience, and engage in positive behaviors.
According to the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, hope is the belief that the future will be better and that we have the power to steer our destiny. Hope is defined by three elements: goals, pathways, and agency. Goals are tangible — the thing we want to achieve. Pathways are the actions we take to achieve our goals. Agency is the choices we have in life that allow us to pursue our goals.
Since September 2021, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has partnered with Kitsap Strong, Olympic Educational Service District 114 (OESD 114), and several community-based organizations (CBOs) on a program to teach hope to students in 23 of Washington’s school districts. The program is funded by OSPI through an investment of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) dollars.
The program has trained multiple cohorts of Hope Navigators who have then developed hope projects for students in their schools. The projects vary depending on the unique needs of each local school community. Below, OSPI details how students across Washington are cultivating hope by focusing on goals, pathways, and agency. (This story is the first in a two-part series. Read the second part here.)
West Valley School District
Following a challenging year returning to school buildings after the COVID-19 pandemic, Stacy De Wet was seeking inspiration for her teachers. When De Wet, a Social Emotional Support Specialist at Mountainview Elementary School near Yakima, found that the school’s teachers had high hope levels, she realized “we need to take hope to the kids.”
“Let’s get it to the kids so that we can kind of have this domino effect where it rolls out through our entire school,” she added.
The Hope Navigator team selected seven fifth grade students to attend a Hope Bootcamp during this year’s spring conference week. These students meet with their Hope Navigator every Friday and do projects to help them learn about themselves. For example, they might take a character assessment and then discuss how they can use those qualities to set goals, overcome obstacles, and create hope for others.
Fifth grade students (mentors) are paired with younger students (mentees) to share what they learn. De Wet encourages them to do community-building activities, like playing games or having lunch together.
“These mentees [younger students] will become our mentor kids in the fall, so they’ll have a little bit of information about hope and we’ll be able to help them with a lot more information when we meet with them for those two full days [of the Hope Bootcamp],” De Wet said.
Debbie Cameron, the elementary school’s principal, said she’s already seeing results in her students’ behavior.
“One of my fifth graders ended up in school suspension earlier this week [at the same time as] another student … a first grader,” Cameron said. “I got busy with phone calls … the next thing I know, he’s picked up the book ‘Alexander the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.’ He read the story to the first grader, and they were talking about it.”
Both students were in Cameron’s office for behaviors related to anger. She said it was inspiring to see the fifth grader coaching the younger student using his hope training.
“He did something [on his own] that builds self-esteem,” Cameron said.
Spokane Public Schools
Hope “is a cognitive skill that can be taught,” said Amanda St. Pierre, the College and Career Readiness Coordinator at On Track Academy, a choice option school that serves Spokane Public School students in grades 11 and 12.
Instructional Coach Molly Johnson, who partnered with St. Pierre to bring Hope Science to the school, said she sees hope as a tool students can use to build resilience and manage pathways in future life.
Johnson guides students in imagining the journey towards their goal, anticipating barriers, and finding alternate solutions.
“Chunking into smaller segments has been one of the huge success points,” Johnson said. “When I’m sitting beside a student and we’re brainstorming … imagine in advance of hitting barriers, what are you going to do?”
Lisa Mattson, On Track Academy Founder and Principal, said many students at the school struggle with the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACES), which are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). She said Hope Science has the potential to be “the antidote to ACES in a very tangible way.”
“Students really need the skills of Hope Science, because it’s about agency, it’s about willpower and waypower [pathways],” Mattson added. Students have “a conversation with their advisor weekly around their direction, their dreams — short term, long term — and then how to get there.”
St. Pierre is also seeing the effect hope education has in the community.
“We are seeing the way it impacts beyond education,” she said. “Employers are seeing how that could impact their hiring practices and mentorship practices in their workplaces.”
This story was written by Jenny Sandbo, Visual Design and Content Strategy Intern at OSPI. You can contact the Communications Team at commteam@k12.wa.us.
