OPINION: Prioritize wellness, vote YES on the bond

October 29, 2021 | By Tara Cariano

My name is Tara Cariano. I teach Personal & Future Exploration at Harwood Union High School, and for the eight years prior, I worked as a school counselor at Harwood Union. After reading some of the recent opinion pieces, I found some comments to be disrespectful and hurtful to those of us who show up everyday at Harwood to support our students, listen to them, and advocate for their needs especially during quite possibly the hardest year in education. Due to this, I am not going to sit back any longer and not speak up. I have considered not speaking up as I no longer live in the community, but our students deserve better and more for their future.

In response to discussion about Harwood's academic rigor, I have this to say: It is not about the test scores anymore! We have to stop teaching to the test which Harwood is [in many ways, no longer] doing! 

We are focusing on the social-emotional needs of our students first because if they are not well then they will not do well academically. They are not well and it is not because of Harwood. It is because they are growing up during an incredibly stressful time in America. This is being seen across the country. The pressures students are facing to “have the best grades” vs. the skills they need to survive in this toxic world is stressing them out. 

There is a 3-4 month wait for our students and students across the state to get the mental health help they need. It’s hard and sad. Harwood teachers are working incredibly hard to support students on a daily basis, and I could not be more proud of the work we are doing. This bond will allow us to further support the social-emotional needs for our students to provide them with additional space in our school. They want this. They ask all the time for more quiet places to go because life feels so loud.

In addition, I have the following thoughts on the Harwood bond: As a teacher at Harwood this bond is needed more now than ever. I personally teach in a windowless classroom and our school is far from state-of-the-art. It is not healthy or does not meet regulations. Some of our water is not drinkable and the science classrooms are full of asbestos. 

As for the sports piece, some kids, especially our youngest middle schoolers, end up having practice that starts at 7 p.m. because of gym time. In addition, we cannot hold a track meet at Harwood because no one wants to come since we are one of the very few dirt tracks left in the state. 

If our communities do not finally support the passing of a bond which has been discussed for the past eight years I have been at Harwood, more faculty will leave. It’s definitely unfortunate, but these upgrades are needed for our next generation of learners. They deserve to be educated in a school that is not falling apart.

Lastly, as a 2018 Rowland Fellow, I spent a year studying ways to integrate social-emotional learning and wellness into our school. I worked in partnership with students whose voices led us to develop and open the Harwood Wellness Center which finally opened in December 2020. This space has become vital within the Harwood community and has immense room to grow. With the Harwood bond, it will allow us to expand the space and add additional wellness spaces throughout the school so students have more quiet spaces to reset, focus, and meet their needs. 

Right now, Harwood does not have the physical environment and spaces to meet the needs of all of our students (or staff) which adds to them not feeling well at school - a place that often feels prison-like for them. It may have worked for you when you were a student, but times have changed and our students have different needs now. They are speaking up for their needs, and we hope you will trust us and the HUUSD Board and vote YES to the bond to show support for both current and future students of Harwood as well as the staff who show up day in and day out to serve our community. 

I know that if I still lived in the district I would be willing to spend the extra money each month to support the needs of our future students, the next generation, and the future of our community. If we don’t do something now to fix our building and bring it up to code, we may end up in a similar place as Burlington High School and need to move to a different building(s) and rebuild our entire school. I can’t even imagine this for our students and our community. It breaks my heart. With that being said, thank you for taking the time to read this, and please consider these thoughts as you consider your vote.

Tara Cariano

Northfield

Tara Cariano teaches Personal & Future Exploration at Harwood Union High School.