Last week, members of the Revere High School Welcome Club traveled to the Paul Revere Innovation School to introduce the club to the Paul Revere’s staff and administration. The Welcome Club is led by RHS students who work directly with the guidance department to establish the first connection between club members and newcomers to the school.
Once a new student arrives at RHS, these students essentially become big brothers and big sisters to newcomers by showing them the ropes of high school. The goal is to ease the sense of anxiety some may feel in an overwhelming and intimidating new environment.
The club members provide newcomers with tours of the school building, introduce them to their teachers, provide information about the school’s technology, help them navigate their school workload, or simply seek out newcomers at lunch and sit, talk, and introduce them to fellow students.
The RHS Welcome Club was created as a pilot program through Revere Public School’s Equity Advisory Board to provide a sense of belonging to all the kids in the district. The board’s Student Agency/Restorative Justice/SEL Support Working Group developed the Welcome Club at RHS with the hope of spreading the program to all schools in the district.
“The Welcome Club at Revere High aims to create an inclusive environment where all students feel comfortable and accepted,” said Lino Paulo Cabral, RHS’s Transfer Student Activity Advisor and member of the Student Agency/Restorative Justice/SEL Support Working Group. “Our mission is to focus on making new students or those who might feel ‘social and emotional anxiety” feel welcomed and integrated into our school community.”
Cabral said that as we try to reimagine the feeling of “belonging” in our campus, our local community, state, and country, the Welcome Club will strive to create positive experiences that can lead to improved academic performance, increased self-esteem, better social skills, higher motivation to learn, and a stronger sense of belonging.
“Essentially, through individual support, social activities, and outreach efforts, we will foster a positive attitude towards learning and engagement in school activities,” he said.
Jose Marin is the RHS student leader of the Welcome Club. Jose explains when he arrived at RHS it was very challenging and scary, so helping to create the Welcome Club was a no-brainer.
“When I got to high school it was a very challenging time,” he said. “To have a program like this back then, for me, would have been very powerful because there are many students today going through what I went through.”
During his time as a club member, he has been impressed by the kindness of his fellow club members.
“It could be as simple as asking someone who is sitting alone during lunch to join their table or asking someone to go to lunch,” said Jose. “Those actions can bring a smile to a new student, and they are very powerful actions that can change someone’s life because I’ve seen new students sitting alone in the cafeteria because they are too afraid to talk to other students or getting lost in the hallways on the way to class. I know how stressful this can be because I went through it. That's why I would like to see this in all our schools in Revere.”
Another club member, Maicon Pais Ribeiro, said the first day in a new school is not easy, and that’s why he joined the Welcome Club.
“It’s very scary because you don't have anyone to help you,” said Maicon. “So we also take `new students to lunch, we teach them how to ask for and get what they need, we sit with them at the table, we eat with them, we show them around the building, and we introduce them to teachers and how to find their classes because our pleasure is helping newcomers and making them feel comfortable in our community.”
Francoise Kodjo, a club member and senior at RHS, said even if you speak English or not, it's very difficult to walk into a room or a building where you don't know anyone.
“I recently joined the club, and I immediately found the beauty of it because it's really important and impactful,” said Francoise. “First and foremost, I feel like with the welcome club, it builds a lot of leadership skills because you're helping newcomers relate to things through your past experiences. You are helping that new student feel comfortable, and then, as time goes on, eventually you have someone who was nervous and didn't really know how to go about things or maybe communicate their feelings, and they finally become someone that's thriving, whether it be in academics, social interactions, sports, or whatever the case may be.”