SOS Zebras: Pine Bluff Junior High School Students Take Initiative to Focus on Emotional Well-being and Provide Peer Support

As a former educator, I fondly remember the days where there were 30 kids in the classroom each and every day, bringing their own unique personalities and outtakes to each lesson and conversation. I spent days at a time trying to strategize how to add hours in the day in order to meet all the needs brought to me. It was a good five years into my career when I finally just asked the kids- what should we do? What should we do about all of these needs, all of these expectations for class, and one me? That’s when they started to step in and help me find solutions. 

Pine Bluff Junior High School teachers and leaders didn’t even have to have the a-ha moment of realization to ask the students: two young ladies approached them and asked if they could take on a need themselves. Aariyah Carter and Lailah Walker, both 9th graders at PBJH approached Ms. Kendria Jones at the beginning of the school year and expressed concern with the level of grief many of their peers were dealing with and unable to take on. After various losses within the community and just a tumultuous start to the year, they saw emotions bubbling up and students who had clear and evident needs around coping with grief and reality, and they saw a teaching staff that cared but had no additional time. So, they took it upon themselves to launch “Save OurselveS, or SOS Zebras,” a student-led group for coping with grief and implementing strategies to move forward with their daily needs. 

“We came up with this idea because we don’t have a lot of clubs that just mainly focus on mental health and what students actually need and go through. Teens in our age group are passing away left and right, we have a lot of grieving students. We felt we could support because we have and are growing through most of the things that our classmates are battling and it feels good to know you’re not alone,” Aariyah explained. 

“I felt like my peers and I just needed a safe space to talk and be ourselves. There are so many things society alone puts on us, we may feel like we’re going to break,” Lailah added. 

The girls worked with Ms. Jones and the Assistant Principal, Mr. Thaddeus Pearson to get the club a meeting place, a protocol, so basic processes for when instances come up that require counseling and conversation, and then just created a flyer and ran with it. 

The staff has seen a drastic change in how students are working together, relying on one another, and focused on solutions and providing help, rather than holding things in and letting them take over their days. 

Aariyah and Lailah are hopeful that their program can continue after they move on to high school. Aariyah said, “I would like for them to take it to the next level and go on trips speaking to other schools about grief and mental health and ways to manage these issues. I would like to see more teens smiling.”

Lailah added, “I would like to see the group continue and maybe the social workers can help to push forward with more change.” 

In the mix of the day-to-day expectations of educators, it’s often hard to meet all of the needs of the students. This is just a clear example of leadership letting go of a little control, providing students with resources and encouragement, and allowing them to have a clear part in helping generate solutions that meet those needs.