Behind the scenes of Wellness Week

By Maddie Snyder ‘26

Courtesy of Wework.

On Friday, March 6, 2026, Catlin students opened their inboxes to find a surprise announcement from head of upper school Derek Kanerek about the following week’s schedule. The altered “Wellness Week” was the first of its kind at Catlin, or most private schools, for that matter. 

Students were encouraged to use the early release on Tuesday and 40-minute class work periods on Wednesday to catch up on work and take care of themselves. What for some was a strange and abrupt change was seen as a necessary relief valve identified by members of the administration. 

The schedule change was fairly short notice for the administration as well, as the concern was first brought to Upper School Head Derek Kanerak around 4 pm on Tuesday, March 3, following a meeting of the Student Support Team (SST). 

The SST, comprising Kanerak, dean of students John Harnetiaux, academic dean Shannon Rush, learning specialist Jeffery, DEI director Jewell Sparks, and counselors Charlie Boyce and Erin Gilmore, meets every Tuesday to keep a pulse on the stress and mental state of the CGS student body. During meetings, each member raises concerns or observations from the groups they interact with most closely. 

Kanerak observed that the meeting on March 3rd stood out as “this was the first time in years that we felt we were seeing [stress] all around.” Reports included accounts of students feeling overwhelmed, behind, and burnt out on their workload. 

Kanerak also acknowledged that this stretch of time from mid-February to spring break is typically more difficult for students, not just at CGS but across the country. “This time of year, more generally, is often a lower time in schools,” he said, citing less sunlight, colder weather, and long time stretches as main contributing factors. Kanerak followed up his observations by saying that due to a particular strain of illness, “We’ve been a little harder hit this year.” 

The “Catlin Plague,” or just more simply the virus that spread throughout campus this winter, hit students and hit them hard, causing many to miss a full week of school instead of just a few days. Falling behind in schoolwork because of this only added to the pressure on mental well-being that wears thin this time of year anyway. Kanerak says the Wellness Week schedule was the administration’s attempt to be responsive to a negative situation. 

After the idea had been approved and encouraged by Kanerak and other members of the SST, they brainstormed many ideas for how to implement some relief in the following week.  Having a normal schedule with Wednesday completely free would throw off scheduling too much with the middle school, and having no schedule change but declaring all classes work blocks for a day wouldn’t give students the rest they needed. 

So the half-day, late start, and 40-minute class prototype schedule was ironed out, implemented, and tested on March 11th.  

The response, Kanerak said, has been a mixed bag. “I’m not seeking to sugarcoat it; this wellness pause wasn’t what every student and family wanted,” he acknowledged. Although some expressed that every class day is valuable, the response from his side was that the break “was anywhere from really nice to absolutely critical.” 

In an anonymous form sent out to a group of Upper School students, all voted that the Upper School should do another Wellness Day in the future, even though they all seemed to have used their time differently. One student reviewed that they liked that “it gave me an opportunity to catch up on my work and hang out with friends.”

Another student was just happy to have the pressure relieved. Students were feeling acknowledged, saying, “I think the wellness schedule allowed for students to have freedom with how they spend their time and also gave the message to the student that the administration cares about student mental health and is doing something about it.” 

Their appreciation was something Kanerak also found echoed within parents. Even though the degree of perceived necessity varied, he said that “one common thread was parents who expressed appreciation that the school was willing to do that at all and model for the students that it's ok to take a break.” 

For tenth and eleventh graders, the relief valve might have been more necessary from a work perspective. For seniors, like one who was a part of the 20% of the student body absent on Wednesday and opted to ski, the break could be used to hang out with friends or catch up on work of their own. Either way, the point of Wellness Week was to have students take a break, in whatever form that took for them. 

The main critique of the schedule from the teacher side, Kanerak, was the abruptness of its implementation, as it threw off work calendars planned a year in advance. Whether CGS will have another wellness week is still to be seen, but Kanerak assured that it would be on the schedule well in advance for the future. Another problem he found with the schedule was that the forty-minute work blocks didn’t allow students to fully “lock in” and be as productive as they could be. 

The Wellness Week schedule came as a surprise to all, to some helpful, and to others a bit unnecessary. Upper school counselor Erin Gilmore explained that the schedule didn’t really aim at completely solving any momentary or institutional troubles. “I don’t think it was about fixing anything,” she said, continuing that it was mostly “about centering humans and people.”