Cardinal to begin happiness program for students

Cardinal Community School District has announced a new happiness program called 'Project Orange” is in the works and will soon be available to the district's students.

The district has been running a similar program since 2010, and more formally since 2015, for the district's staff called 'Project Spark.” Both programs are inspired by a pair of books called 'The Happiness Advantage” and 'The Orange Frog” by New York Times bestselling author Shawn Achor.

Achor's guiding principle is that 'happiness is not the belief that everything is great; happiness is the belief that change is possible.”

The program was implemented for Cardinal staff after a Pennsylvania State University study revealed high levels of stress among teachers, how that stress negatively affects students and gave suggestions on how to combat the growing issue.

'Project Spark was started because of a huge concern for the mental well-being of my teachers, faculty and staff, knowing that education is a very stressful job,” Cardinal Superintendent Joel Pedersen explained.

The Project Spark program focuses on four areas of health: emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual. It implements strategies from Achor's books to foster positivity such as using gratitudes, meditation, and making conscious acts of kindness.

'We identified that we need to do little things to increase happiness in our faculty and staff,” Pedersen said. 'There are people struggling with emotional health, financial health, physical health, or spiritual health.”

In order to support staff in all four of those areas, Cardinal has staff members divide into growth groups that match their interests and beliefs. The groups take part in different activities that support the different areas of health such as yoga classes, family events, financial classes, and more. Some of these activities are even led by staff members who are experienced in the activity and happy to share with co-workers.

'Our growth group through Project Spark opened the opportunity for faith-based conversations within our staff and provided a community for members to ask for support and prayer,” said Taylor Torres, third grade Cardinal teacher and spiritual health coach. 'The deeper relationships we formed allowed us to come alongside each other to work through personal struggles and future goals with a spiritual lens.”

Aimee Sivak, at-risk coordinator and director of the Cardinal Before and After School Daycare program, has found a similar sense of community by partaking in Cardinal's yoga classes.

'The community of staff who bought into the idea of yoga at work supported me to keep going; to keep attending,” Sivak said. 'Poor posture from screen time, long commute time, demands of the job left me needing an outlet. I appreciated yoga at work because it left me feeling physically and mentally refreshed.”

This year, due to COVID-19, growth groups and classes have been through virtual means, but it's made their effect and impact more evident as staff members ask, 'When can yoga come back?”

Pedersen said he hopes it and other classes can return soon, but in the meantime, the school is determined to keep up Project Spark's positivity and feeling of community with virtual cooking classes, trivia nights, and other safe activities.

'We know the mental and physical health of our staff is more important than ever during these times,” he said. 'It is our goal for this program to increase the happiness and satisfaction our staff members receive from their jobs and that they use the program's strategies for positivity and health in all areas of their lives.”

Voted a top workplace in Iowa two years in a row, Cardinal school hopes that this is proof that its program is helping staff members release stress, find community, and choose positivity.

'We are excited to see what Project Orange will do for our students as they embark on a similar program, coming soon,” Pedersen said.