The Staff Behind the Scenes

By Nayeli Esqueda

Feb 13th, 2017

Phoenix high school is full of unique students, but some students struggle with the day to day life of being a high school student. From having issues of attending class, behavior, or just personal issues. Restorative justice is here to help. Some of these staff members include Andrew Jordan and Erik Morrison. Andrew specialized in being able to find solutions and help students realize the importance of school, and Erik who helps students that have mental issues.

Andrew Jordan is one of the restorative justice members and is located in the old PHTV room. The room next to the library. Andrew works both in the high school and at the talent middle school. Andrew deals with kids, meeting with kids and showing them the importance of showing up to class. He helps them show up to class if they are having trouble, mediate between students and staff, and tries to facilitate students and staff relationships. Solutions such as these are to deal with mediation groups or have circles to talk and find a solution and help the movement forward. Even though he helps students talk Andrew isn’t a counselor. Andrew started to work for the school at the beginning of september after moving from Wyoming. Before working as a restorative justice team member for the school Andrew used to work at a juvenile corrections facility. He enjoyed helping the kids, but he wasn’t able to see the impact that he was having on their lives. By working in a school he was able to see kids in the real world and see the impact that he was doing to the kids.

Erik Morrison is the family solutions mental health counselor at Phoenix. Erik works with students that deal with mental issues such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. His goal is to provided psychological support to those that need it. What interested Erik in this type of job was having a long life interest in human behavior, psychology, and enjoys being able to help people. This will be Eriks first year at Phoenix as well. Erik is an OHP counselor and works with students that have OHP. If a student does not have OHP he will work with the office in order to find a solution. Before coming to Phoenix Erik used to work at South Medford high school. Being able to work in a smaller school is much easier and be allows him to connect to an already connected community.

Thank you Andrew Jordan and Erik Morrison for the time and the information of the impact that you create at Phoenix. It was nice meeting both of you. Students and staff can contact Andrew and Erik by email. Have a nice day to all the students and staff. See you in the next edition.

 

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