At the Sept. 29 Whitehall-Coplay Communities That Care meeting, coalition members welcomed the return of students to the group.

Joining the CTC for this academic year are Whitehall-Coplay Middle School students Wyatt Bachman, Maya Sankari and Makenna Reichenbach and Whitehall High School students Tiana Waithaka and Vincent Lavery.

The CTC committees met to discuss the next steps for achieving their goals. The Pennsylvania Youth Survey will serve as the basis for tracking the progress of the goals.

The low commitment to school committee is looking to reduce the number of students who do not participate in additional extracurricular clubs, sports or activities. They are planning to distribute a survey in grades 6-12 to determine what obstacles students face in joining clubs and activities, what groups students are currently involved in, what new groups students would like to see added and additional outside interests.

The committee hopes to maximize the input from the students to help increase their engagement.

The substance use prevention committee wants to limit the increase in vaping among students. It was noted there were a few environmental changes within the schools, such as shifting the timing of the school day to allow for less downtime and the implementation of smart passes, which track how often students leave classes during the day. These will help reduce the opportunities for students to slip away to vape.

Denise Continenza, CTC coordinator and Penn State Extension educator, also noted they are working on addressing the prevalence of evidence-based programming within the schools. She spoke of arranging a meeting with administration and building leaders to discuss the importance of continuing the district’s history of evidence-based programming and finding the right fit for the district.

The mental health and wellness committee aims to reduce the students reporting considering suicide in the district. They are specifically following the data for a particular subset of students, namely the current 12th-graders. The committee will compare the 2023 PAYS data to the 2021 report.

The committee would like to work with the students and media groups in the middle and high schools to create video PSAs sharing the importance of reaching out and addressing mental health problems. The hope is these videos - created and produced by and starring students - will help fight the stigma behind asking for help. It was noted there should be some geared specifically toward males based off the observations of high schoolers.

In other business, Dr. Peter Mayes, WHS principal, noted this year marks the start of requiring a certain number of community service hours for graduation. He reported they are utilizing an electronic system to help track and verify hours, as well as listing requests or needs from the community. He said next steps will include engaging with the community to share their volunteer opportunities on the app to help the students.

Mayes said this new system will help remove some of the boundaries and obstacles involved with finding volunteer work. This app will make the whole process less complicated and make it easier for the students to give back to their community.