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Goup of people gather around a bear mascot who is holding a check from Care Source for $10,000

Middle School Receives Grant

West Carrollton Schools

October 15, 2026

The Middle School has received the $10,000 Healthy Minds, Bright Future Grant from the CareSource Foundation. The grant guidelines are to support student mental health.

Middle School Principal Eric Krissek learned about the grant from District Social Worker Nicole Meyer. His application included:

As a school, we strive to collaborate with mental health professionals to best meet the needs of our students.

As a school, we strive to collaborate with mental health professionals to best meet the needs of our students. Our school is served by two Samaritan Behavioral therapists, one district social worker, two school counselors, one restorative justice coach, and one school psychologist. This team has worked with building administrators and teachers on several mental health supports over the last couple of years. This includes, but isn’t limited to, a student coping day, counseling and mental health group interventions, push-in classroom supports, and more.

The school's Student Support Team continues to look for resources that best benefit students and to embrace programs that have worked. One program is ROX (Ruling Our eXperince). ROX is an evidence-based empowerment program for girls that is led by trained school staff.

A student survey has helped identify other resources students may need and has helped the Student Support Team form community groups, including the Lunch Bunch, to address those needs. Krissek's application stated:

We have experienced the most success with groups, building communities around social skills, grief, anxiousness and more mental health needs to alleviate anxiety and stress. These groups share community building experiences and have extended into our teaching staff, who have given up lunch times and planning periods for these communities.

The programs and student-group meetings have had positive outcomes. Krissek said, "As a result of these efforts, we had 93% of students identify an adult with whom they feel safe and 98% of students feel safe at school."

The Student Support Team has relied on grants to help cover the cost of these projects, and the $10,000 grant will help them continue. Plans for the grant include:

  • increase the number of girls going through the Ruling Our eXperiences group

  • offer curriculum supports with executive functioning

  • building community intentionally through school spirit and food initiatives

  • spread our Tier 2 systems with more students who need mental health supports

  • push-in support for students in classrooms in real time

 

The grant recipient was announced at a pep rally-style event at the University of Dayton Arena. Krissek, along with educators Nicole Martin, Luke McNeil, and Lauren Sutton, attended with 30 WC Middle School students. The event focused on mental health and suicide prevention for adolescents and young adults in the Dayton area and was hosted by UD, CareSource, and Coach Anthony and Chris Grant. It included Dayton Flyer athletes, a panel conversation with local experts led by Brandon Saho, and remarks from Anthony and Chris Grant.

WKEF and WDTN covered the event, including the Middle School being recognized as a grant recipient.