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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.17 55 Hess, a petite stylish woman recruited out of retirement, was hired by CSP to make sure schools carry out the program as scientists intended. She's a veteran with this sort of thing. Under superintendent Shel- don Berman, she helped implement the CARE for Kids program at JCPS, another initiative with goals of increasing empathy in classrooms and building strong relation- ships. It eventually fizzled. Before CARE for Kids, in the '90s, Hess worked on the Child Development Project, a program fo- cused on social and emotional learning that JCPS and other districts nationwide took part in. A few other programs sprouted from that. She's crossing her fingers that CSP sticks. "It's not just a cute little program. It has purpose. It takes the social and emotional skills that are needed, that students lack," she says. "And they have intentional time set aside for that." CARE for Kids and oth- er similar programs were often inserted into academic class time. One teacher described CARE for Kids to me as "one more thing I had to do." (A lot of teachers still incorpo- rate CARE for Kids in their classrooms.) Hess knows these next few years will be critical to the fate of CSP. Schools that like it will start scrambling for funds. "I think realistically there has to be some money from the district," Hess says. Late this spring, schools will make individual requests to the school board for money. at may be a time when JCPS puts dollars behind compassionate schools. As for acting superintendent Marty Pollio, who often talks on the need to improve school climate, he says he's supportive of CSP. "ere is value for all students in learning how to tap into what they are feel- ing, why they are feeling that way and how they can help regulate their emotions," he says. "We have to teach students the skills to be successful in life and in the classroom. We know that students who control their emotions spend more time in the classroom learning." Crums Lane principal Anna Byrd shows me a picture that a second grader drew in CSP class. Students were instructed to draw things that make them happy. e little girl drew herself and her dad as blue and green blocky figures with literal ear-to-ear grins. Her mother is drawn as a brown stick figure off to the side. Byrd happened to be in the room during the lesson. "She turned to me and said, 'Ms. Byrd, my mom doesn't love me.' at little girl is probably dead right," Byrd says, her eyes pained. "I said, 'Your father loves you. Your grandmother loves you. And we love you.'" Traditionally in public education, the counselor's office might have filled the role of compassionate space attempting to unlock the hurt. But these days, counselors and school social workers must juggle a lot more, like individu- alized education plans for students with special needs and behavior assessments. ere's less time to spend one-on-one with kids. "When you have kids as high risk as we (have), we can't have enough inter- ventions," says Byrd as she walks through the hall, occasionally making eye contact with a child and scratching the air with her index finger — the Crums Lane sign for "I love you." Byrd gathers four fifth-graders for me — Blyden, Isaiah, Justice and Mikayla. Byrd urges them to tell me their thoughts about CSP. "ey're honest," she says. "ey'll tell you if they don't like it." ey may be honest, but it's also true that these four recently stood in their school library and read testimonials on the benefits of compassionate schools to Owsley Brown III and a group of philanthropists. (CSP is still trying to raise about $3.75 million of the project's total $12 million cost.) Blyden reads his letter first: "CSP is calming and fun. I have a short temper… Now I can keep my temper down by going to a pause place." Sitting in Byrd's office at a table with glittery pumpkins and a glass dish full of mints and butterscotch, our conversation strays from their written statements. Isaiah, an outgoing boy with chipmunk cheeks and what he describes as "bad anger issues," shares that last year he graduated from therapy. "I said, 'I really don't think I need you anymore because Compassionate Schools is helping me,'" he says. "I had two or three appointments, then I quit because I was doing so well." e group starts discussing what stresses them out. At first, answers are predict- able: girls who "think they're better than everybody" and start fights. Bullies, the unanimous thorn. Blyden says he's scared he'll get to high school and get a "supreme (urge) to fight back" if someone needles him. "I'm scared I might get into a whole lot of trouble." Mikayla, a tall girl with purple-framed glasses, clings to different worries. "I'm in AP (Advanced Placement) and I'm going to have a whole lot of pressure on me. Plus, a whole lot of stuff at home," she says, tears creep- ing into her eyes. "My dad's sick. And I'm a daddy's girl." Isaiah pats her shoul- der, then speaks. "I'm scared of how the future will work. How technology will work. I'm scared of healthcare and the people who are, like, not rich or poor." "e middle class," his classmates say. "Yes," he says. "ey say in the future that healthcare will start going up and up. Say they're sick and they don't have a healthcare card and they have money, but they still can't afford it." I'd been wondering and reading about what's causing anxiety in kids, why schools across the country feel so drawn to pro- grams like CSP. eories exist — social me- dia, overly organized, busy lives that create a "stress framework" around children, difficult socioeconomic situations that have strained the poor and working class. Maybe CSP will neutralize some of that and instill a little empathy and self-love along the way. Maybe something else will come along by the time researchers have completed their analysis. Blyden looks down, nervously. "Say you're in high school and this super rich kid gets access to these guns," he says. "And if you fight with them, you'll get shot and killed." His classmates sit silent for a moment, just a heartbeat or two. Isaiah then leaps into a rapid-fire tutorial on robot cops ("Real RoboCops!") in Iraq. But Justice, who is sitting across from Blyden, quietly inches toward him, gives a reassuring nod and checks in. "You OK, Blyden?" "It's not just a cute little program. It has purpose. It takes the social and emotional skills that are needed, that students lack. And they have intentional time set aside for that."