District employees are working to establish the RHS Wellness Center. At the Wellness Center, located in Admin 2, students can seek emotional support and aid from specialized counselors.

According to wellness and prevention coordinator, Christina Dobon-Claveau, the district began implementing wellness centers due to responses on the California Healthy Kids survey last year.

“Our numbers were increasing in terms of students who were reporting having feelings of chronic sadness and hopelessness. Across the board there is a lot stress, a lot of student anxiety, a lot drug abuse – those were the top five,” Dobon-Claveau said.

The Wellness Center will take student walk-ins in addition to referrals of students from staff and parents. Wellness employees are currently solidifying the referral process.

According to RHS principal David Byrd, though the physical Wellness Center is not currently in place, the wellness staff and resources are already available to help students.

“The Wellness Center actually is people…We’ve got three people that are now on our staff who are actively involved in setting up the Wellness Center, but they’ve also started to work with some students who need some help. So I would say on some level it’s here.”