Denair school district offers ROX empowerment program for girls
Ten girls, dressed in black T-shirts with bright pink writing on the back that states, “I am strong, independent and courageous,” gathered at Denair Charter Academy to participate in a Ruling Our eXperience, or ROX, group led by Kara Binkley.
Their classroom was blooming in pink decorations with words of encouragement and posters of trailblazing women.
ROX is an empowerment program for girls in grades 6 through 12 designed to help them believe in themselves and prepare for the world.
In 2019, the Denair Unified School District became only the second school district in California to offer the program to its students.
Binkley, a school counselor at Denair Charter Academy and ROX facilitator, opened with a discussion about mistakes the girls have seen and don’t want to repeat.
Responses included, “Don’t get pregnant at a young age” and “Take care of your own finances.”
“ROX empowers our young women to respect themselves and build positive relationships with other young women,” said Terry Metzger, superintendent at DUSD.
Metzger said the district was excited to integrate ROX into its student support system, which identifies resources to support the academic, behavioral and social-emotional needs for students.
“Girls are referred to ROX by teachers and occasionally by parents because they think it might help,” said Metzger. However, any girl can enroll.
Suzie Ramirez, director of special education at the district, said, “Students who look on the outside like they have it all together can benefit, too.”
She said that in the past year, about 40 girls have completed the program at Denair Middle School and Denair Charter Academy.
In January, DUSD started two groups at its high school, one at Denair Charter Academy and two at the middle school, including one for Spanish speakers.
Challenges for adolescent girls
Kermit the Frog reminded us it’s not easy being green, and adolescent females remind us it’s not easy being a girl.
Kaitlyn Perez, an eighth-grader at Denair Charter Academy, said self-defense was the best thing she learned because some boys think they can do whatever they want to girls.
“ROX helps you learn that we’re all real people with real problems and not everything is true that you see (on social media),” said Breanna Dubois. “Not everyone is pitch perfect and happy all of the time, and we all face real problems.”
“We do a lot of activities that help us learn things we need to avoid to have healthy relationships and things that happen on social media ,” said Gwenyth Fox, a senior at Denair Charter Academy who completed the ROX program last year.
Meredith Wyatt, education specialist and ROX facilitator for the district, said, “It’s important that girls are able to express their feelings, be assertive, and learn how to overcome the struggles that they have between sixth grade and 12th grade.”
Development of ROX
Adolescents of both sexes and all gender identities struggle with self-confidence, peer and dating relationships and bullying, including cyberbullying. But ROX researchers found that some of these issues are more intense for girls, based upon their nationwide survey of more than 10,000 girls.
In their website, ROX states that adolescent girls experience pressures from many directions, including social media, family, friends and classmates. Many girls struggle with bullying, including by other girls, intimate partner violence, developing confidence and maintaining their self-esteem.
“The messages they are receiving about how they look, how they should dress, everything,” said Hinkelman. “These constructs are inter-connected for girls, and no one was looking at their needs comprehensively.”
Hinkelman holds a doctorate of counselor education and she is the founder and CEO of ROX. She volunteered doing the overnight shift at a rape crisis line when she was an undergraduate student. She said that many of the calls came from women awakened by nightmares about sexual assault that had happened years before.
Something was needed to help girls at much younger ages to prevent such traumatic events, Hinkelman said. From that, she focused her research on bolstering girls’ abilities to navigate the world, which led to creating ROX.
The curriculum consists of 20 sessions designed to empower young girls by teaching them skills for handling conflict, developing healthy relationships with friends and dating partners, thinking positively about themselves and planning for the future.
One teamwork activity is called caterpillar. Girls are each given a sports ball, and they have to figure out how to cross the room, as a group, while keeping a ball between each of them.
The girls discussed lining up, tallest to shortest to avoid mismatches in heights for placing the balls. After a couple of failed attempts and a few laughs, they succeeded with lining up with balls placed in the backs of the girls.
Other lessons include instructions in self-defense, learning about bullying vs. being assertive and developing communication skills including with other girls, among many others.
“It helps you open up and you make lots of friends,” said Amelia Bolivar, a senior at Denair Charter. “You do activities but you also learn from them.”
Need for girl empowerment
DUSD has not had significant differences in the academic successes between its male and female students, and the graduation rate is more than 95%, one of the highest in the state.
Despite this, Metzger said she has noticed that some female students seem to struggle, especially at times of transition, such as from middle school to high school and high school to college.
“We see more self-harm, anxiety and depression in middle and high school girls. This is alarming.” she said.
However, she acknowledged that adolescent boys have challenges too. “But we haven’t found a similar program for the boys,” said Metzger. “We wish there was a ROX for boys.”
Ramirez thinks the ROX program has benefited the participants. She said, “We’ve seen growth, like better understanding of the things that they can do.”
“Raylynne Griffin, a senior at Denair Charter, said ROX taught a lesson that she carries with her: “Be yourself and don’t care about what others think about you because you’re beautiful inside and out.”
This story was produced with financial support from The Stanislaus County Office of Education and the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
