Students at Coppell High School buzz around talking about class rank, which clubs to join, recommendation letters and more. Yet, amidst all the chaos, there is often one priority left behind: mental health. 

This is where the CHS Hope Squad comes in. 

Previously started at New Tech High @ Coppell and Coppell High School Ninth Grade Campus, Hope Squad takes ownership of initiating the mental health focus at CHS for the 2024-25 school year.

Round-Up yearbook adviser Katrina Hester and American Sign Language (ASL) teacher Delosha Payne each lead one class period, advising a total of 12 students. 

“[Hope Squad members] are all super interested, not only in raising awareness of mental health issues, but they’re also really interested in helping their peers,” Hester said.

Invested, kind and mindful are key traits of each student in Hope Squad, who have been nominated by core teachers and approved by counselors to join the philanthropic group.

“I wanted to learn about people and what their thoughts are behind suicide, and how we can help prevent that,” Hope Squad senior Arya Adhikary said. “I thought it was a cool opportunity and I’ve never heard of it before.” 

Its main goal for this year is to raise awareness about suicide prevention by increasing communication of mental health.

“That’s a really good thing because as a society, we’re afraid of talking about our own mental health issues; we’re afraid of getting judged,” Hope Squad junior Kelton Chen said.

The class dynamic of varying grade levels and experience initiates discussion of mental health and grade levels contrasting from other CHS courses offered. 

“We have an interesting [dynamic] because people with my experience of Hope Squad are my youngest students and my people with experience of CHS don’t have experience of Hope Squad,” Hester said. 

Hope Squad participated in “Hello Hope Week,” from Sept. 2-6, a movement that began in Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, referred to as “Start With Hello Week.” 

The purpose of the themed week is to create a culture of kindness and increase inclusivity within the student body, along with an introductory bulletin board near the Commons. 

“Right now, we have our faces and names on there, so it’s more of putting a name to a face kind of thing,” Chen said. “If we can interact with the student body, like we were doing with the selfie booth, that is something that can really make someone stay and make us more known to the school.”

With Hope Squad being a course elective and not a club, members are given the opportunity to collaborate for longer periods of time and have greater access to plan school activities. Hope Squad members are learning to pursue healthy conversations with peers who may be struggling, with their priority being suicide prevention.

Originating from Provo City School District in Utah, Hope Squad follows a flexible curriculum. One of the processes for peer assistance is questioning, persuading and referring (QPR). The acronym is built to ask the hard questions to provide help in a healthy manner, directing them to a trained counselor on campus or from a local organization. 

“I told the students at the time, this is a once in a decade conversation, not a once-a-week conversation, but if we can just help one person, then we’ve done a great job,” Hester said.

Hope Squad encourages students to place a high priority on mental health and inclusivity as it is more commonly found for academics.

“This is my 26th year of teaching and I’ve seen the impact of student tragedy on schools and that’s something very hard for anyone to go through,” Hester said.

Hope Squad plans to collaborate with CHS organizations and other campuses to further the healthy discussion of mental health through activities such passing out Lifesaver candy or setting up a selfie booth at CHS.

“We’re hoping that we can encourage other students to pay that [kindness] forward,” Hester said. “If we succeed at changing the mindset a little bit so that students are more willing to lift each other up and less willing to put each other down, then we will have made a huge difference.” 

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