Like many educators, I am increasingly concerned about the well-being of our public high school students and their teachers. I’m hearing sad stories from the schools I work with about distressed adolescents, chronic absences, school anxiety, oppositional and defiant behaviors, disengagement, alienation and depression. We all hear about burned-out teachers, increasing numbers of resignations and early retirements, and decreasing numbers of candidates to enter the profession.

My grandniece, a bright, resilient 14-year-old, is an eager high school freshman this year. Their eagerness, in classic teen terms, focuses on their friends. For them and their peers, school is a social community center — classwork and homework are the dues you pay to belong there. They’re eager to learn — they’re constantly learning. They’re eager to learn in school, too, when the learning engages and addresses their vital interests and social needs.

Yet they find themselves, daily, struggling to overcome the challenges of high-school life. They work out the most efficient routes for racing across campus (especially after P.E.) in the allowed four-minute passing time. They strategize about the points assigned to every assignment to “make the grade” without being crushed by the workload. They minimize their water intake — to the point of dehydration — to avoid using the bathrooms they describe as “dangerous,” full of biohazards, vapers and rumors of worse.

They leap from one disconnected class to another, in monkey bar fashion, reaching for the safe connection — friend or caring teacher — across the void. Of the six teachers they encounter each week, one is a long-term substitute — the second substitute this year for this class — and two are raw beginners (one an uncertified “emergency hire”) who seem overwhelmed by the task of managing rooms full of active adolescents.

Contrast this vision with another model I know: the Aloha ‘Aina Innovation Academy at King Intermediate School. There, 25 students and two highly qualified teachers share a self-contained classroom. They have the time, space and skills needed to build a real community based on respect and empathy, with frequent talking circles that address social-emotional issues with genuine honesty and support.

Their learning work includes collaborative projects that integrate science, math, engineering, technology, the language arts, history and cultural studies. They spend one day a week at a cultural preservation site cultivating taro with cultural practitioners. But that’s just one classroom in one intermediate school. This small, close group of eighth-graders then disperses — most to Castle High School where they face the shock of “normal” high school life.

So much has been learned about the devastating impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the social-emotional health of vulnerable teens. Teachers have been advised, even mandated, to incorporate socially-emotionally supportive strategies into their practice. They’ve been sent to workshops and faculty meetings. They’ve been given handouts and digital program resources to guide them. Consider that demand for the public high school teacher addressing six teaching periods a day, with 30-plus students in each period, ever mindful of the standards-based curriculum requirements and the importance of achievement test scores. What it comes down to — at least in my grandniece’s school — is get-to-know-you “ice-breakers” the first week and a “student assistance period” weekly that focuses on administrative updates.

We know what it takes to turn high schools from hurtful to humane learning places. We have the models that show the way: smaller classes, integrated curricula, project-based collaborative learning activities, and — most important — planned time and skills for building the relationships of mutual trust that create genuine social-emotional support for all. What we need now is the will to make it happen, for the sake of our common future.

Elly Tepper is a consultant educator and Ulu A’e Transitions Grant Team member.