![The cross country team poses for the camera after finishing the district meet. The varsity boys, JV boys and JV girls all placed third and the varsity girls placed fourth. “Coach put in the right training for us for this season, so I think we will be peaking this week and the next couple of weeks,” varsity runner and junior Nathan Kukla said. “The chances of making it to state are very high, but we don’t settle for the lowest and there is always going to be that chance, so [we] race for the best.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Heidi-831-1200x900.jpg)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
![Standing proud, varsity senior athletes Rafael Escobar, Griffin Jacobs, Jakob Martin, and juniors Jackson Springer and Jack Morris pose with their newly earned medals. The varsity team finished third out of 14 teams on Sept. 25. “The team's primary goal is to win the district championship,” head coach Cody Price said. "We're confident that with our action plan in place, we can accomplish this mission. [For the next tournament], our preparation involves assessing our strengths and weaknesses, celebrating milestones and creating individual development plans." Photo courtesy of Cody Price](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/golf.jpg)
![Hope Squad is a peer-to-peer mental health support system focused on suicide prevention. Lead Counselor Sarah Cable volunteered Cedar Park High School to be the first campus in the district to implement the program into the school. “In my previous campus, I had three suicides,” Cable said. “It’s really, really hard. Hard to go through those things. Having the three losses of students on campus was so tragic and detrimental to everyone that knew them and was around them and their families and friends. If we can prevent the loss of a life and be proactive, I think we should try anything that we can. [By trying Hope Squad] we’re not just trying something willy-nilly; we’re trying something that schools have been using for a while and has seen success with.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Hope-Squad.png)
Hope Squad is a peer-to-peer mental health support system focused on suicide prevention.
In over 1600 schools nationwide, the Hope Squad is a growing organization, expanding internationally with locations in Canada. Lead Counselor Sarah Cable volunteered Cedar Park High School to be the first campus in the district to implement this squad into the school, a decision based on her experience at the last school she worked at.
“At my previous campus, I had three suicides,” Cable said. “It’s really, really hard to go through those things. Having the three losses of students on campus was so tragic and detrimental to everyone who knew them, and was around them and their families and friends. If we can prevent the loss of a life and be proactive, I think we should try anything that we can. [By trying the Hope Squad] we’re not just trying something willy-nilly but something that schools have been using for a while and has seen success with.”
The Hope Squad will consist of peer-nominated students who will be trained to look for signs of concern in fellow students. They will also be trained to respond to these signs and connect students to the right resources, including the counselors on campus or sources off campus.
“I’ve worked with teenagers for 22 years now, and [they] tend to talk to each other more or first before reaching out to adults for help,” Cable said. “I think the idea of having peers on campus that are specifically trained to have those conversations, hopefully, will make [struggling students] feel more comfortable in reaching out to someone their age and starting to request that help.”
Members of the Hope Squad will be announced to the school so that other students will know who they are. It is very important that these individuals are students that others can trust, Cable says.
“[Hope Squad will be] students that you feel comfortable talking to,” Cable said. “They are empathetic and compassionate, reliable, friendly, and not someone who’s a bully or anything like; [someone students] feel like they can approach.”
Math teacher Joanna Pangilinan and interior design teacher Katie Travis are the lead teachers involved with the Hope Squad.
“Even if we can only help one person, it’s totally worth it,” Pangilinan said. “Over the past few years, my own children have experienced the loss with their friends because of suicide. And since I’ve lived through that myself, [the Hope Squad] became something that I really wanted to get involved with.”
According to Cable, the teacher leaders of Hope Squad are hoping to recruit students from all grade levels on the team, with a greater number of sophomores and juniors. These selected individuals will undergo training to become a member of the organization.
“This year is really like initiation,” Cable said. “We’re walking in, not blind because we’ve been through training, but not ever having done it, to see how it goes. I’m sure that we’ll tweak it along the way to make it a better fit for our campus, but I’m hoping [it will be] successful.”
The benefits for students involved will be big, according to Pangilinan.
“I think that the students, as they are being trained and learning about [suicide prevention], are going to [learn] tools to help themselves,” Pangilinan said. “I suffer from anxiety, I suffer from depression sometimes, just like everybody else, and you build tools for yourself to help yourself get through those things. I think that the students in Hope Squad, even though they will be helping other students, they are going to learn also how to help themselves, which is amazing.”
Students can nominate their peers for Hope Squad by filling out a Google Form posted on their class of google classrooms. More information about the organization can be found on the Hope Squad website.
“We’re the first school [in our district to implement Hope Squad], but I’m hoping it spreads,” Cable said. “Hope Squad has support all the way from high school, middle school, and elementary school. So if we can get into elementary schools and we can help the students that are struggling there before they even get here, that’s a true benefit.”
