24. Health & Wellness Program

Dalton’s comprehensive Health and Wellness Program began in 2012, addresses topics surrounding mental health, sexuality, and nutrition through a social justice lens. Representative objects are a Genderbread Person Ornament that helps clear up misconceptions about gender and a Mandala colored by students as a potential anxiety coping strategy.

Dalton’s comprehensive Health and Wellness Program began in 2012 with a focus on grades 4-12 until 2017. Now with four health educators, this larger initiative addresses topics surrounding mental health, sexuality, and nutrition through a social justice lens reaching students, parents, and faculty. The following objects are representative of the work we do:

Genderbread Person Ornament: This object symbolizes gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, sexual orientation, sexual attraction, and romantic attraction and helps convey that gender is not binary. The genderbread person helps clear up any misconceptions about gender (which is frequently misunderstood) fostering greater understanding. Taught in our sexuality classes, students have been able to make sense of their own identities and embrace the diversity in others. During an ornament making event, a faculty member created these two beautiful representations, a visual demonstration of allyship within our community. By now, most faculty members are familiar with the genderbread person and many incorporate it into their lessons.

Mandala: Coloring, an option in senior health classes, helps students unwind while also staying attentive. Used in therapy as an adaptive and creative coping strategy for anxiety, it has provided its own therapy to seniors in health class. Coloring, along with fidget toys, are ways that the Health and Wellness program honors our students’ different needs and coping strategies.

Pronoun stickers: The use of these stickers, beyond Ally Week, demonstrates that we support and promote allyship every day in our school culture, recognizing our community’s spectrum of gender identities.
—Justine Ang Fonte, Director of Health and Wellness