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As an antidote to the stress that builds up during first semester finals week, this California school plans a week of stress-free activities to start second semester off on a positive note.

Stress free what? Why would a high school need a Stress Free Week? Don't students just have fun all the time? Not exactly! At Monta Vista HS in Cupertino, CA, the Associated Student Body (ASB) officers and members of the leadership class have organized a stress free week every year for the past three years. The week is held the first week of the second semester, right after students have completed finals and are beginning a second semester of classes.

The evolution of Stress Free Week came out of the anxieties we observed in so many of our 2,200 students. We found that in many instances, students really got "tied up in knots" over studying for finals and waiting to see what their final grades would be on that all-important transcript. In our first year, we held a Stress Free Friday. This one day of fun was such a hit that the next year the leadership class students requested the staff allow an entire week of stress free activities. The staff agreed that this would be a great way to begin the second semester.

Each year, the leadership class begins planning this week in October. They brainstorm activities that they feel would allow students to "play and have fun and be a kid again." Some noontime activities have changed from year to year, and this year we added a new evening activity before the dance.

The activities are not set in stone, which allows the leadership class to design a week in which all students would be willing to participate. Because we have an open campus at lunch (students can leave and return during lunch), these activities were designed to keep the kids on campus. We found that because of the stress free activities our lunchtime population was very high during this week. Listed below is the outline of the Stress Free Week activities held during the 2001-2002 school year.

Faculty Involvement

Staff members agree to give fewer homework assignments this week and to give no tests on Friday. They also agree not to give long-- range assignments that would be due the following Monday.

The ASB officers present the concept for the week at the November staff meeting, two months before Stress Free Week. They ask the staff members what the leadership class could do for them to lessen their stress. Staff members came up with the ideas listed below. Each year these rewards change based on staff members' requests. Offering the staff the opportunity to create their own "less stress ideas" results in a high percentage of staff buy-in. Flyers placed in staff members' mailboxes the week before remind them of the pending Stress Free Week. We also send the whole school staff an e-mail reminder the week before.

Staff Incentives: The leadership class held a drawing each day for our "Stress Free Staff Winner." Winners' names were read during morning announcements indicating that (daily winner) was to be commended as a "Stress Free Staff Member." Daily winners were given Starbucks gift cards. At the end of the week, the grand prize stress free staff member was announced. He or she received a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant of his or her choice. The names were drawn randomly and all staff members really got into this part of the week. Staff members also wanted free food. On Wednesday the leadership class provided juice, bagels, cream cheese, and Starbucks coffee for the staff at brunch. (The staff room was packed on this day!)

Daily Events Monday-Holiday

The school takes a holiday for Martin Luther King Day-the ultimate stress free activity!

Tuesday-Old School Day

We have a large outdoor area where the students eat lunch and this is where all the activities took place. If you have an enclosed campus, these activities can take place in your cafeteria or student center area. Lunch time activities included:

* Four square games

* Kiddie music played at lunch

* Blowing bubbles

* Candy bracelets

* Sidewalk chalk drawings.

Wednesday-Relaxation Day

Lunch time activities included:

* New Age music played at lunch (Enya, etc.)

* Stress balls handed out

* Scavenger hunt for pairs (see sidebar for scavenger hunt list)

* Twister games

* Origins salt scrubs with students to administer the scrubs set up at a table,

Thursday-Big Toy Day

Lunch time activities included "big toys" selected by leadership class -sumo wrestling ring and an obstacle course. There are companies that rent, set up, and take down these big toys. It is important to have leadership students monitoring the lines for participating in these games.

The sumo wrestling is where two students get into huge padded sumo suits and wrestle until one falls down. It takes a number of leadership students to get the suits on the participants and help them up when they fall down. This is a great crowd pleaser. Anyone can line up for the obstacle course, so there was always a line of students waiting to play on this big toy. We also played dance music during these games.

Friday-TGIF Day

On this day we had a special schedule for an all-school assembly. Because we are so large, we have to hold the assembly two times with half the school at each assembly. We have our Link Crew serve as escorts to each assembly. When it is time for the classes to go to the assembly, two Link Crew leaders meet the teacher and his or her class and direct the class to follow the leaders. They hold a large sign with the teacher's name, escort the class to the gym, and seat them in the reserved seating for this class. With this process we are able to load in an entire assembly of 1,100 students in less than seven minutes. The teachers don't need to remember where their assigned seats are located because all they have to do is follow the Link Crew leaders. This seating system has streamlined the seating all of our whole-school assemblies.

This year the students selected a hypnotist as their all-school assembly. Be very careful in booking a hypnotist. Make sure you book with a reputable agency and you call and speak with their school references. Jostens Speakers Bureau represents reputable school hypontist assemblies.

Lunch on Friday: A DJ from a popular radio station set up at lunch and played music. We purchased eight watermelons for a watermelon smashing activity. Each watermelon had a stress producing term on it such as: tests, SATs, parents, teachers, boys/girls, rumors, pop quizzes, and college apps. The DJ facilitated calling out one student at a time to smash the watermelon on his cue. To do this, make sure you have lots of plastic tarps under the watermelons and a heavy-duty mallet. This was a great crowd-pleaser!

Another "smashing" activity if you can't get watermelons is to get a few pinatas. You have to be careful with pinatas to make sure that the kids don't storm in to get the candy. We recommend that you limit the number who can be in the pinata area by cordoning off the area.

Bonfire Rally Friday Night: The leadership class began in October to secure the needed fire department permits, work with the school plant foreman, and do everything needed to make sure this was a safe yet fun activity. Because we do not have lights on our football field, we had to rent lights for this evening. Almost 500 students attended. (See the sidebar for the rally schedule of activities.)

An incentive for students to come to the bonfire rally was a free gift that would give them a dollar off on entrance to the dance after the rally. Their free gift was a glow necklace, which was distributed during the rally. If a student was wearing the glow necklace then his or her dance admission fee was reduced. The glow necklaces also provided a great visual effect during the bonfire rally. Dance in the Gym: The stress free dance followed the bonfire rally.

Funding

This week was not cheap! The ASB earmarked $5,000 of its budget to pay for this week. Another group got the dance profits, but you could earmark all of your dance profits to pay for the expenses of the week. There are less expensive-or free-- activities that your students can brainstorm, but our class knew that they had $5,000 to work with.

The expenses that we covered for the week were: Two school assemblies; stress balls; 500 candy bracelets; 500 glow necklaces; big toys rental; bagels, cream cheese, juice, and Starbucks coffee for teachers; Starbucks gift cards; restaurant gift certificate for staff winner; rally supplies and foursquare balls; Origins salt scrubs; stand-by fire truck for bonfire; overtime for plant foreman to build and set fire and clean up bonfire; rental of lights for bonfire rally. The DJ at lunch was free. Dance expenses are not included as another group paid the expenses and got the dance profits.