I walked into school the week after first semester finals, ready for the last semester of high school. However, this semester was going to be more challenging than last semester for a multiple of reasons. Two of my classes in the first semester were electives, and the classes that replaced those were my last two English classes at Arrowhead. Unfortunately, they weren’t spread apart across the year. My English classes were American Literature taught by Mrs. Passler, and Creating Writing taught by Ms. Jorgensen.

Creative Writing, I think now that it is an awesome English class, I enjoy writing. No sweat about it. But, American Literature on the other hand, was not my forte. I didn’t enjoy reading, and was just taking it to complete my English credits for graduation requirements.

But that all changed the instance I walked into Mrs. Passler’s classroom. She was eager to teach us about some novels. But more importantly, she also had a serious conversation on day one about mental health. She talked to us about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. She talked to us about what she needs from us. She talked to us about what we needed from her. As we sat down and chose a seat, she gave us a notecard. On our notecard she instructed us to write our preferred name, our pronouns, anything interesting about us, and anything that she needs to know about us. She also let us know that these seats are not permanent and that she will create a seating chart later in the week and that if we need any accommodations to talk to her or shoot her an email if we prefer doing that.

Me being a quieter person, but also needing that accommodation, of sitting in the front of the room, near the board really helped me out. I was able to express all of my feelings on the notecard for anything she needs to know to help me out, and I was also able to email her regarding a specific spot in the classroom I would need to sit at.

What really stood out to me though was how Mrs. Passler cared about mental health awareness more than American Lit. She gives us access on her daily agenda slides to mental health hotline numbers. She also does Check in’s on the Google slides at the start of class each day—which consist of breathing techniques, meditation, posture checks, and relaxation techniques.

She has overwhelming support of each of her students, and is flexible and allows for extensions on assignments if we need it. This has been really helpful for me, because with my classes being harder this semester than last, and my increase in hours at work due to staffing issues and my promotion have really impacted my life. Getting up at 5:30, being at school by 7, and then heading straight from school to work, a 6-9 hour shift, and getting home at 10:30pm-11:00pm isn’t easy to do homework, and sleep.

I would really like to thank Mrs. Passler for all the hard work she does for her students in the classroom and outside of it. She is truly a unique and amazing human, and I could go on and talk all day about her charming personality. Thank you Mrs. Passler!