Fossil Ridge High School’s Mind Center offers students a place and curriculum to help handle all that life throws at them.

Mind Center teacher and creator Kim Gardner describes the class as a place that provides students with academic and/or emotional support.

“It’s a place that’s structured, there’s accountability, there’s expectations,” Gardner said. “There’s a lot of freedom for kids to problem solve, and to figure out what they need and how to get it. My job is to manage that space and guide kids in figuring out what they want and how to get it done.”

Junior Jane Morgan finds the Mind Center community to be supportive. 

“It’s a really nice place for me to go to just be able to keep up with my work and with my emotional needs,” Morgan said. “It’s a really nice start to the day.”

Morgan said that Mind Center is certainly not a free period. 

“You can’t just do whatever you want. We do get assignments and even though they’re not that big, they are important to our grades. So it’s not a dilly dally class,” said Morgan, who added that lessons have helped her improve her organizational skills. 

Sophomore Campbell Birch said the Mind Center provides time and support to complete assignments.

“In some of my classes, I go home with a bunch of homework and then it gets so late and I just lose the motivation to do it,” Campbell said. “But knowing I have a first period that I can work on the homework that I’m missing is really helpful.”

Campbell would like to see more team building in The Mind Center.

“I really like how we start our days with our questions and how we’re all feeling about today,” Campbell said. “If there was more of that, I think you’d be able to make more friends. You’d be able to grow as a group.”

In 2016, when Gardner began teaching the Mind Center class, it did not carry that name. It was credit recovery, then the testing center. 

“So how it is today, is me just working with kids by understanding what they need,” she said.  “I love Mind Center; I love being in the classroom, working with kids, that’s where I’m going to be. I really love what I do. If you show up with an open heart and open mind and you’re like ‘yeah, this is what I want to do today’ it’s a little easier to have a good mindset about it.”

Gardner wants students to remember the life lessons from Mind Center, not just the class time.

“If you keep showing up in the world, people are going to show up with you,” Gardner said. “And they’re going to help you and that they’re completely capable of solving whatever life throws at them.”