Evergreen Schools’ Lunch with Students Program Helps District Make a Difference for Student Mental Health

On a Thursday afternoon right before Christmas break at East Evergreen Elementary, first-grade teacher Craig Fickle sat at a table in the lunchroom, surrounded by his students.

One student, wearing “Wicked” pajamas in honor of the blockbuster movie, asked if he’d seen it. Another asked about Fickle’s own children, while Fickle asked a third student what his family would be doing for the holiday.

The ritual is one Fickle participates in at least twice a week, volunteering to give his lunch hour to his students to build deeper connections with them. Fickle isn’t the only teacher who opts to do so. Across the Evergreen School District, several staff members have taken part in a program that allows them to sit down with students outside the bounds of the classroom.

The program, aptly called “Lunch With Students,” originated with a grant from the Funders for Thriving Communities in Partnership with the Montana Community Foundation. Laurie Barron, the superintendent of the district, said the program is part of an effort to aid students’ mental health through the grant.

It’s the second year the district has offered the opportunity to its staff members. Grant funding pays for staff meals, should they opt in.

From the start of the 2025-2026 school year in August through the end of November, 24 staff members had lunch with students 197 times, Barron said.

Fickle, the first-grade teacher, said it was his first year as a full-time teacher in the Evergreen School District. At his last job as a long-term special education substitute teacher, he had lunch duty and said he enjoyed spending time with his students and getting to know them in a more casual setting than the classroom. Participating in Lunch With Students has allowed him a chance to continue developing more one-on-one relationships.

Fickle and several of his colleagues said the connections they build with their students through the program make classroom management easier; help give valuable context to better meet their students where they’re at; and offers social safety.

As for his students, they said they find Fickle to be “funny,” and enjoy that he takes time to eat with them.

“I like that today, I get to sit next to him,” said first-grader Lily Amos.

Joan Jepsen has worked at the Evergreen School District for 22 years, moving her way up from a baker for food services to the administrative role as the district’s food services director.

In administrator meetings, the topic of mental health has become a focus, Jepsen said.

Youth mental health has gained traction as a point of concern across the country, with recent surveys suggesting the prevalence of mental health challenges like depression and anxiety are surging among school-aged children. In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General put out a report detailing how COVID may have affected mental health across the country, along with identifying factors like technology as contributing to increasing mental health challenges. The Flathead Valley is no stranger to the real-life impacts that can come from facing difficulties with mental health among school-aged children. Between 2019 and 2021, a string of suicides rocked the Flathead as eight children died by suicide in 16 months.

At Evergreen, administrators have aimed to recognize ways where they can make a difference, in part by fostering opportunities to help students feel like they belong at school. It was Barron, the superintendent, who first suggested the idea of teachers eating lunch with students and who secured the funding, said Henry Mack, the principal at East Evergreen Elementary.

But it’s staff members who have taken the opportunity and run with it. Mack and Jepsen said participation in the program is simple.

Administrators share about the program with teachers and staff at the school year’s beginning. Then, staff members sign up for the program. Jepsen said from a food service perspective, they need to know which building staff members participating are in, and how much additional food they need to prepare. Grant funds fill in payment for the lunches, and so long as a teacher is on the list, they can grab a meal any day it fits in their schedule.

“The requirement is that they’re engaging with kids at the table,” Mack said. “They wait with their table to be dismissed, and they’re connecting the whole time with students.”

There are no rules guiding what tables teachers must eat at, which students they must eat with or how often they must participate in the program. Several staff members described trying to maintain a regular schedule of eating with students at least once per week, sometimes on the same day each week, though they said they had flexibility to shift their schedule in busier weeks too.

Mack said the opportunity has helped fill gaps in lunchroom supervision. And Jepsen has noticed students’ excitement rise on days their teachers come to eat with them, marking a noticeable change in the environment in the cafeteria during lunch.

“Whether we realize it or not, (students) are paying attention to what we do as adults,” Jepsen said. “And as staff members, if we can be a good example in this way, I think it really goes a long way in making them feel important and special and, you know, I think that’s important as they grow socially.”  

Cynthia Thorsen has been the junior high librarian at Evergreen for 11 years. She’s always been a teacher who occasionally joins students in the lunchroom or had students who asked to eat lunch in her classroom.

When the opportunity to participate in Lunch With Students came, Thorsen leaped at it. Typically, she eats with students on Fridays, and she usually grabs lunch with the fifth- or sixth-graders, rotating exactly which students she sits with.

She’ll talk with them about favorite foods, what they like to do for fun and shares about her own interests too. She can bring those interests into the classroom — and she does, building pop culture references or specifics about her students into lessons.

For her, the highlight has been the kids’ excitement about the chance to sit with their teachers. Thorsen has groups of students who ask her to sit with them each week and said she’s built important relationships with students through taking the extra time to know them.

“You see how much more amazing they are than you initially thought,” Thorsen said.

For new teachers in the district, the program has also helped them feel more welcome. Sabrina Collins, a first-year kindergarten teacher who moved to Kalispell from Nebraska, came into the district and signed up for the program at the start of the school year.

One of Collins’ favorite parts of the job at Evergreen is how welcoming the district is — and that goes for both students and teachers. Programs like Lunch With Students, she said, showcase that culture. 

“It feels like a family,” Collins said. “They’re so interested in kids’ lives and things going on and have so many things to help students feel welcomed and loved.”

She eats with her East Evergreen Elementary students two or three times a week.

During that time, students open up to her. It helps her understand more about their home lives, what they might need if they’re struggling in the classroom and how she can help.

Thorsen seconded Collins’ assessment. Even for the older students at the middle school, Thorsen said eating with them helps them open up.

“Kids are more responsive when they know you care,” Thorsen said. “If you sit and have lunch with them, they know they matter to you.”