RHS Students Find RIGHT Path to Success

Life’s not easy for a teen-age girl these days. 

But, through a new organization at called RIGHT (Really Intelligent Girls Hanging Together), Assistant Principal Yolanda Jordan is trying to do something about that.

“There is so much animosity, so much negativity out there today,” said Jordan, who says it’s all about helping young women feel good about themselves. “Self-esteem is such a huge part of growing up.”

RIGHT isn’t new to Valley View. When Jordan was a Dean at , she founded what has become a very successful club at BHS. So when she came to RHS a year ago, one of her goals was to launch RIGHT at RHS as well.

RIGHT’s goal is simple: provide a forum where young women, regardless of age or ethnicity, can come together to discuss issues pertinent to them.

“It doesn’t matter what GPA you have. You don’t have to fill out an application. Nobody has to give you a recommendation to join,” Jordan said. “You just come and bring whoever you are. If you don’t want to say anything the whole meeting, we still love you here. If you want to talk the whole meeting, this provides the forum.”

For now, the group meets monthly but Jordan hopes to get members together more often than that.

Their first meeting, attended by about 40 students, focused on the importance of the type of music you listen to because, as Jordan puts it, ”what you listen to plays a big part in how you feel about yourself.”

Their second meeting, held in mid-October, included appearances from RHS nurse Joan Waller and BHS nurse Sandra Pierce, who talked about breast cancer and a variety of other women’s health issues with roughly 50 girls and two dozen teachers in attendance.

“The girls have really embraced the concept,” Jordan said, adding that the students invited the teachers to the discussion by placing notes in their mailboxes.

“Oftentimes they don’t even go to the school nurse unless they are very sick,” Jordan said. “But now they know we have registered nurses who can provide some guidance to them. They know who Nurse Waller is and they know they can use her as a resource.”          Future topics and tasks may include some community service, an alumni day and even perhaps a fashion show similar to the show staged by BHS RIGHT.

And, of course, every meeting will end with the RIGHT Topic Grab Bag where girls anonymously submit questions about anything that is on their mind. The questions go in a box and are shaken up before Jordan pulls out a couple and they all discuss solutions.

“They find out they’re all dealing with the same issues,” Jordan said.

Somewhere down the road, Jordan hopes to “bridge the gap” between RHS and BHS by creating some joint RIGHT activities. And she would eventually like to start a similar organization for young men at RHS.

“I love these kids,” she said. “A lot of them don’t feel good about themselves. Some of their parents don’t make them feel good about themselves. At least in my presence, I’m going to make them feel like superstars.”