Downing Middle School has started a pilot concussion recovery program, Return to Learn (RTL), for students who return to school during their healing process. So far this year, Downing has helped two students through RTL. They’ve been able to speed up student’s recovery while also accommodating their needs in the learning environment.

Most students who suffer from concussions are advised to stay home and rest, but this often causes additional stress because of missed school work. This new recovery program will allow the school to fulfill the students’ needs to avoid an unnecessary lengthy healing process.

Sophomore Regan Rodgers suffered from three whiplash concussions during a football game his freshman year and endured a longer than usual recovery because of his early re-entry into the school setting. He decided to prematurely return to school to reduce the amount of work he would miss.

“If teachers made it a little bit easier, knew what [the students] were going through,” Regan said. “Then that would definitely help.”

While most of his teachers were understanding and patient as Regan suffered from his headaches and memory loss—at one point forgetting his own name—they still couldn’t provide him with all of the help he needed.

“Some of [my teachers] did help,” Regan said. “But it’s a hard thing to get a grasp of whenever you’re not going through it.”

The RTL program is a part of a consulting business, Get Schooled on Concussions, which helps teachers understand how a concussion affects the brain to better take care of their concussed students. It also educates them on how to adjust the learning environment for students suffering from concussions who return to school before they’re fully healed.

Co-founder of Get Schooled on Concussions, Brenda Eagan Brown, visited Downing at the beginning of October to help introduce and integrate the RTL program.

“There’s a lot of… training for coaches and athletic trainers on the sports side of [concussions],” Brown said. “But there aren’t many people teaching teachers what to do when students have headaches, or are dizzy or foggy.”

The first course of action when a student returns to school is to reduce his/her schoolwork and homework by at least 50 percent. The energy it takes to think cognitively is needed to heal the brain, and overtaxing the mind with too much work is what prolongs the recovery process.

Next is to build in “rest breaks”, that way the student can take a mental recess to avoid overloading their brain throughout the day.

“We would rather have students recovering in a month rather than pushing it to 100 days or more,” Brown said.

Regan’s mother, Jennifer Rodgers underwent the training with Brown to learn possible effects of concussions, and how they can help concussed students in the academic setting. They also learned different ways to support students emotionally, as concussions can cause depression and suicidal thoughts.

“It has to be individualized,” Jennifer said. “Each kid is treated individually based on what their symptoms are day to day.”

In training, they also received a digital toolkit which contains a “symptom checker,” that assists teachers in quickly identifying symptoms and treating them on sight. The toolkit also includes forms that can be used to explain to parents how the school is accommodating their child.

The effects concussions inflict can vary person to person, whether it be different symptoms or level of severity. Teachers talk with the student and their parents to make the program benefit each student in the best way possible.

Jennifer said that having the training gave teachers permission to do what they figured would be best for the student’s recovery.

“You can’t always see their symptoms, but their symptoms are there,” Jennifer said. “[The program] empowered us to do the best thing for each kid individually.”

Another student who is familiar with the struggles of returning to school while concussed, junior Kaitlyn Lunsford, went through the same hardships as Regan when she returned to her middle school with her first concussion.

“It was really hard because I still had really bad headaches sometimes,” Lunsford said. “And some of the teachers weren’t…cooperative with what the doctor ordered.”

Kaitlyn said teachers that better understood concussions and their effects were more supportive and helpful during her recovery. Other teachers didn’t understand the doctor’s request to slowly reintroduce work, thinking that Kaitlyn was just over-reacting.

“I feel like [the RTL program] would benefit…schools a lot because kids who have concussions don’t really feel comfortable coming back,” Lunsford said. “They feel like some of their teachers don’t really understand the pain and the trauma that they’re…going through.”

Senior English teacher Meghan Regent said that piloting a program like RTL at the school would be a good way to inform teachers on symptoms to look for and what to expect from students returning to school with concussions.

“I think it would be a great idea to implement that here,” Regent said. “Often times the concussions are conveniently overlooked for the sake of sports, but it really does harm our kids in the long run.”

Stories like Lunsford’s and Regan’s are what prompted Jennifer to take action. After getting the “go-ahead” from the District Leaders, Jennifer worked to implement the program with the help of other teachers and staff around campus.

“I really hope that this program can take off in more schools in the district,” Jennifer said. “It’s been great.”