Seeing the importance of its teachers’ mental health, the district invested in the LifeMatters program for teachers for the new school year. This program is designed to assist teachers and their families and to help them with their mental health in an anonymous and personal way.

Assistant principal Jennifer Smith feels the program is important to helping with teachers mental health.

“In order for a teacher to give everything they can for their students, they have to take care of themselves first,” Smith said. “[LifeMatters is] an opportunity to provide support to all the employees in the district, so that they can do their best here at work and be healthy and happy individuals.”

For Smith, the ease of use and personal aspect is an important aspect of the LifeMatters program.

“[LifeMatters is] really pretty simple,” Smith said.” [Teachers] can either call … they have a web address they could go through and they even have a phone app … They’re always going to get a person on the other line responding to them.”

Debate coach Sohail Jouya is happy to see the district investing in its teachers. 

“The message and the purpose of [LifeMatters is] … quite necessary and important, especially since teachers are oftentimes overstressed, overworked, underpaid and oftentimes undervalued,” Jouya said.

Smith is excited about all of the opportunities that LifeMatters offers for the teachers.

“LifeMatters … provides a lot of different resources to help alleviate and manage some of the stress that happens in day to day life,” Smith said. “They provide assistance with financial workshops, debt management, legal services … [and] help with daycare.”

Jouya feels the stress that is put on teachers is at times overwhelming and programs designed to help that are much appreciated. 

“I think that, especially for people who [coach] extracurricular activities, the demand that we have on teachers is oftentimes really ridiculous,” Jouya said. 

For Smith, the most important thing is that teachers are not afraid to use the program.

“I just hope that when things do come up, that people don’t hesitate to contact life matters and let them ease some of those some of the stress that some of those issues may be causing,” Smith said.