Building a System of Support Around Students

A PreK–12 school holds an extraordinary range of childhood under one roof. 

And within all of that change lies extraordinary possibility. 

Students are discovering new interests, building friendships, developing confidence, and learning to navigate challenges with greater independence. As they grow, what they need from the adults and systems around them changes, too. Support may look different for a five-year-old than it does for a fifteen-year-old, but the goal remains the same: to create the conditions in which every student can feel safe, connected, and able to learn. 

Our youngest students at TAS are at an age when their dependence on the adults around them makes their safety and care especially important. By Middle School, students have entered one of the most rapid periods of human development, with significant physical, neurological, emotional, and social change happening at once. By Upper School, students are navigating greater independence and responsibility while making decisions about identity, relationships, academics, and life beyond TAS. 

At TAS, all of these ages walk the same campus. 

Making sure students have the right support at each of those stages is at the heart of TAS’s PreK–12 Student Success and Wellbeing department, led by Director Joe Gorski. 

Introduced last year, Student Success and Wellbeing is building a more coordinated approach to supporting students across all three divisions. Its work brings together the people, information, and areas of expertise a student may need throughout their time at TAS, with a focus on recognizing concerns earlier, strengthening safeguarding practices, and creating clearer pathways to support. 

Every stage of growing up brings new possibilities, but rarely without challenges. Students will have moments when they feel overwhelmed, isolated, or unable to navigate something on their own. Some will struggle in ways that are easy to see, and others in ways that are not. 

“Life is hard. As you grow up and move through adolescence, you will be met with challenges and moments when you feel discouraged or overwhelmed,” says Upper School Psychologist Kari Johnson. “That doesn’tmean there is anything wrong with you. It simply means you are human. Growing up can be hard, plain and simple. So, as faculty on campus, we want to be ready to meet our students wherever they are.” 

The question is not whether a student will ever need help. They will. 

The more important question is whether, at every level of need, there is someone paying attention and a system already in place to support them every step of the way. 

Building a Connected System 

This starts with the people closest to students. Students need to know where to turn, and the adults around them need to know what to look for, from obvious warning signs to small changes that could easily fly under the radar. They need to know how to offer support, when to bring in additional expertise, and how to make sure a concern reaches the right people. 

In a school as large and complex as TAS, however, no single person will always have the full picture. A teacher may notice a change in the classroom. A counselor may know important context. A coach, nurse, or administrator may see something else entirely. Without a way to connect those pieces, a student’s needs can be harder to see in their entirety. 

Student Success and Wellbeing brings those pieces together. 

That coordination matters because support should not happen in isolation. Information needs to move appropriately between the people supporting a student and, when needed, across grades and divisions. Students also need to be connected to the right resources, whether that is a counselor, psychologist, nurse, academic support teacher, safeguarding specialist, or another trusted adult. 

When those pieces work together, students have more room to learn, develop, and thrive. 

But how does a school build a system that is both proactive and responsive? 

Being proactive does not mean expecting concerns will never arise. It means creating more opportunities to notice smaller signs and offer support earlier while still having the people, expertise, and processes ready when greater needs arise. 

A proactive system does not replace a responsive one. It strengthens it. 

Noticing Earlier 

For Mr. Gorski, the reason for building these systems comes back to something fundamental: students cannot fully engage in learning when their wellbeing is compromised. 

“A stressed mind does not learn well,” Mr. Gorski says. “If a student is afraid, overwhelmed, or struggling, we cannot expect them to walk into a classroom and learn at their highest level. A student’s ability to learn and thrive really begins with how they are doing as a whole person.” 

The challenge is that students experience and communicate stress differently. A student may continue showing up to class and completing work while struggling in ways that are much less visible. Not every student who needs support will ask for it. 

TAS is therefore creating more opportunities to notice students who might otherwise fly under the radar. Wellbeing screeners such as PASS and SDQ, used at multiple points throughout the year, can help counselors identify changes that warrant a closer look. 

That information can also reveal patterns across a grade. If a concern begins appearing more frequently, such as increased levels of anxiety as students are coming into their freshman year of Upper School, TAS can consider broader support through advisory, counseling, or other programming rather than waiting for individual students to reach a crisis. 

That is what being proactive can look like: not predicting every challenge, but creating more opportunities to notice one earlier. 

Turning Awareness Into Action 

No survey, however, can replace the people who spend every day with students. 

This year, safeguarding training has emphasized what Schoolwide Safeguarding Lead Zanthe Ng calls “professional curiosity.” A teacher may sense that something is off. A counselor may hear something in a conversation. A coach may notice a student pulling away. 

Adults do not need to investigate or determine exactly what has happened. They need to notice, take the concern seriously, and know where to take it. 

That is why safeguarding training is being extended across the adults students encounter on campus, from bus monitors, cleaning staff, cafeteria workers and more. Creating a culture of safety depends on every single people being prepared to recognize when something has changed, and knowing how and where to report a concern so that it reaches the proper individuals.  

The same thinking is behind TAS’s investment in Mental Health First Aid. Mr. Gorski compares it to learning basic physical first aid: people do not need to be doctors to recognize if someone has a broken arm, that the individual needs help, providing support and stabilization in the moment, and help them get further care. 

TAS has made a two-year commitment to Mental Health First Aid, with the goal of training approximately 50 people each semester and 200 by the end of two years. Most of the counseling team has also completed QPR training, a suicide-prevention program centered on Question, Persuade, and Refer, with plans to train and certify more staff and students. 

“We don’t want a student’s first point of support to come when they are already in crisis,” Mr. Gorski says. “We want students to have multiple opportunities to be noticed and access help before a concern ever becomes a crisis. 

“The more people we equip to recognize the signs, the more opportunities there are for someone to notice, step in, and connect that student with help. We are building those layers intentionally so that wherever a student is and whatever level of support they need, there is a path to getting them there.” 

The goal is not to turn adults into mental health professionals. It is to give more people the knowledge and confidence to recognize when someone may be struggling and knowing how to give them help and immediate assistance if they are experiencing a mental health crisis. From there, individuals will have an understanding of the resources available, and the confidence to support that person until they can get the appropriate help. 

This learning will also reach families in an important new way. TAS will host Taiwan’s first Mandarin-language Mental Health First Aid training for Youth in Schools offered at a school, opening the course to parents and guardians. While Mental Health First Aid has previously offered Mandarin-language training focused on adults, this marks an important expansion of youth-focused training in Taiwan. Offering the course in Mandarin also removes a significant language barrier for many families, making this learning more accessible to the TAS community. 

Matching Support to the Need 

The level of support each student needs may vary. The important part is that students do not have to know which level they need before asking for help. 

That becomes particularly important in safeguarding. 

At TAS, safeguarding extends beyond what happens after a serious concern has been reported. It can include mental health and safety, challenges at home, peer-to-peer harm, online safety, and other circumstances that may affect a student’s ability to feel safe and access learning. 

“In the past, safeguarding was seen as responsive,” Ms. Ng says. “Modern safeguarding has moved into a preventative response.” 

Over the last year, TAS has been strengthening the structures behind that approach, including practices around peer-to-peer harm, risk assessment, visitor management, school trips, and child protection. 

One of the largest projects has focused on bullying and peer-to-peer harm. Because conflict, bullying, harassment, and abuse require different responses, clearer frameworks help adults consider the nature and impact of an incident and determine what support is appropriate. 

Every situation will be different, but what surrounds a student should remain consistent: the concern reaches the appropriate people, safety comes first, specialists are involved when needed, and the response reflects what that particular student experienced and needs to move forward. 

Seeing the Whole Picture 

Recognizing a concern and knowing how to respond matter only if the right information reaches the right people. 

Student Success and Wellbeing has strengthened that continuity through the implementation of CPOMS (Child Protection Online Management System), a centralized system for documenting and managing student safeguarding concerns. Something a teacher notices today may make more sense alongside information already known by a counselor or relevant context from an earlier grade. 

Access is limited according to role to protect student information privacy, and counselors hold progression meetings as students move through grades. The goal is simple but significant: students should not always have to start over. The adults supporting them can build on what is already known about what has helped, what has changed, and what they may need now. 

But the point is not CPOMS itself. It is what becomes possible when information reaches the right person. 

A teacher may notice first. A counselor may understand the context. A psychologist may provide specialized support. A nurse may see something different. Sometimes the appropriate next step may involve resources beyond TAS. 

Student Success and Wellbeing helps connect those pieces so that the student does not have to. 

A Way In 

Perhaps the clearest measure of the system comes when a student decides to tell someone that something is wrong. 

“The practice that we try and cultivate in all students is to speak up if they have a concern,” Ms. Ng says. "A student should never have to worry about whether they are telling the right adult. Our responsibility is to make sure that the adults around them know what to do next.”

Students should not need to decide whether what they are experiencing belongs with a counselor, psychologist, nurse, teacher, administrator, or safeguarding specialist. 

They need a way in. 

From there, the adults around them need to listen, connect the right people, and know what comes next. And when students do not speak up, the responsibility to notice becomes even more important. 

Support does not end when the immediate concern has been addressed. The larger goal is helping a student return to the life of the school: engaging in class, reconnecting with friends, participating in activities, taking on academic challenges, or simply feeling safe enough to focus on learning again. 

For one Upper School student, who asked not to be named, asking for help became a turning point. 

“When I was a junior, I was going through significant mental health challenges, including severe anxiety and depression, followed by a difficult mental health diagnosis. There came a point when I wasn’t even sure how I was going to make it through Upper School and graduate academically,” she remembers. 

“I was scared to talk to my counselor and teachers, or to really reach out for help. But it turned out to be the best thing I could have done. People rallied around me, and what surprised me most was how genuinely everyone wanted to help me succeed. They worked with me to create a plan that accommodated what I was capable of at that time without asking me to give up the goals I still had for myself, both for the rest of Upper School and into college. I don’t know where I would be today if I hadn’t had so many people instantly rally around me when I finally asked for help.” 

A PreK–12 school cannot remove every difficult moment from growing up. Students will experience conflict, stress, disappointment, and change. 

But those moments do not have to define what comes next. 

A student who is struggling should have someone who notices. A student who speaks up should reach an adult who knows what to do. A student who needs more support should be connected to it without having to navigate the system alone. 

The goal of Student Success and Wellbeing is not simply to build better systems. 

It is what those systems make possible for students, with more room to learn, to belong, to take on challenges, to recover when things are difficult, and ultimately, to thrive. 

Continue the Conversation 

We would love to have you join us for Raising Kids Today: A Conversation About Well-Being on Monday, October 5, from 5:30–6:45 PM. Hear from Joe Gorski and Brandon Wiley from Challenge Success, with Deputy Head of School Kevin Heffel facilitating the conversation, as they discuss what children and young people are experiencing today, what we are seeing and doing here at TAS, and how schools and families can work together to support student wellbeing. 

Learn More and Register