Colorado Academy Junior Kaley Chavez is a self-described “psychology nerd.”
“I want to get inside people’s minds and really understand them,” she explains.
Arriving at CA as a Sixth Grader, Chavez recounts that at first she felt a little adrift. But it didn’t take long for her to realize that lots of Middle Schoolers experience a similar feeling, and from that point on, her curiosity about people became unstoppable.
“When I realized that I wasn’t the only one who felt misunderstood or didn’t feel heard, I used that to push myself to build relationships with others. I became the kid who was always asking, ‘Who are you, and what do you need help with? What can I do to support you or just be a friend to you?’”
When Fred Rogers quoted his mother’s advice to “Look for the helpers” as one way to face fear and uncertainty in the world, he could have been talking about Chavez. “Knowing that I am able to brighten up someone’s day, that’s always my highlight. Why would I just want to stand around when I know that someone’s suffering?”
CA, argues Chavez, has offered nearly limitless opportunities for her to use that ability to empathize—that impulse to understand and even to lighten someone else’s burden—for good.
As a shy Middle Schooler, it was being pushed by her CA teachers and advisors to participate in STAMP (Students Taking Action and Making Progress), a Colorado youth program organized by the Denver nonprofit CIRCLE, that first convinced her that her voice and her energy “were worth sharing, and there are people who want those things from me.”
She was struck by the way that STAMP’s high school-age leaders (a group that includes several CA Upper School students most years) were able to teach her “the important things that aren’t taught in classrooms”—lessons about how even a Middle Schooler can make an impact by educating her peers on issues such as tech equity and access to health services.
She went on to gain experience as a member of the Middle School Leadership Team, and once in the Upper School, Chavez’s belief in her own power to understand and support others continued to grow. She took her place beside other CA students as a STAMP leader and started looking for new ways to connect with the school community.
“It didn’t mean I was out there building a deep level of trust with everyone,” she says. “It could be a simple conversation starter, like you experienced something that was unfair, or something happened at lunch, and you just really needed to talk about it. I’d be there for you.”
Eager to be more involved, she signed up for Mock Trial, Speech & Debate, and Horizons Colorado; she took on the management of the Volleyball team, too. As a bilingual volunteer with HOPE, she was overjoyed to be able to make things easier for Spanish-speaking families who travel to campus to shop for donated clothing and other essentials on a day every December.
When, at the end of her Sophomore year, she was part of a discussion about potential affinity groups at CA, she and a friend, fellow Junior Johanna Mata, sensed an incredible new opportunity, and after just a single conversation with administrators, they found themselves appointed the leaders of Somos, CA’s official Latine affinity group.
In Spanish, Somos means “We are”; at CA, says Chavez, it feels like a home within the larger CA community.
“In one of our meetings recently, we realized that it is truly a space where we can empathize with one another. We don’t have to explain our experiences, because we all grew up in the same way and share a lot of the same beliefs and frustrations. We all know this is actually our chance to be real with each other.”
For Chavez, being able to “recharge” with her closest peers in Somos means she’s better able to spread her energy in an ever-expanding circle across the Upper School. The group has made it a point to meet with teachers, discovering adult allies in the process. “It’s not just us teenagers now; these are our people, too.”
Employing her curiosity to build connections—not only among faculty and staff, but also with students she might otherwise never have met—is one of the most rewarding parts of each day.
“I love to watch how my teachers use their humor and their understanding to create bonds with students; I feel like it gives me permission to jump in, too.”
She’s “everywhere” her Junior year, she jokes: from her Introduction to Computer Science course—where she’s the wise elder in a classroom full of Ninth Graders—to the ASR class History of Epidemics—in which she broke the ice with jokes and sports talk in a project group of Seniors she’d never worked with before—“Being involved in different communities here is just so big for me.”
“I always say, there’s nothing to lose by trying. Let’s have fun with things; let’s see the positive in everything we do together.”