GAINESVILLE – Hall County School Superintendent Will Schofield called it, “An ‘Ah-ha!’ moment’”. That’s how he described to the school board Monday evening when he and Kevin Bales, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, realized the magnitude of the situation facing the school district and the pressing need to respond.
“We get to hear all of the autopsies of what’s gone on in the school district that day,” Schofield said of almost-daily meetings he has with Bales. “It was probably six months ago that we looked at each other and said, ‘This is getting overwhelming, isn’t it?’”
“A day is not going by when we don’t hear of a horrific case of something that a student is dealing with that I just never heard about when I was going to school,” Schofield said. “And it’s becoming commonplace.”
Schofield said policy and procedure for dealing with such challenges has been limited in the past but the time to change has arrived. “We truly believe you’ve hired us to teach reading, writing and arithmetic and get kids ready for jobs.”
“And so over the years when people have said we need to do more with trauma, we need to do more with mental health, he (Bales) and I have been very much on the same page, saying, ‘We’ll do what we can. We’ve got a counselor; we certainly want our teachers to be caring people; we want to be the most caring place on earth, but that’s not our core mission.”
But being pedestrian in the personal matters of students is no longer possible, Schofield said.
“If we want students to be able to read, write, be fluent with numeracy, get jobs, we’ve got to get some of these huge issues that are in their lives out of the way or they’re not going to do any of it.”
“A kid who’s in their seventh house in the last three months and has a step dad that’s beating the heck out of them, and a mother who’s addicted, just doesn’t care much about advanced algebra. It’s not even on their radar screen.”
Bales agreed. “It’s probably time as a district that we get a little more aggressive in how we work to address the various mental health needs that are across our district.”
Bales said earlier in the year the school board was briefed on how mental health problems were being handled by the district up to that point. “On April 22nd of this calendar year…we presented for this board an outline of how we try to provide mental health services and counseling supports to our 37 schools.”
“It was like a checklist of how we utilize various agencies,” Bales explained. “But at best, at best, that was a Band-Aid approach to mental health.”
The time to change had come; enhanced focus on mental health would now be a priority.
Bales explained that work to effect change began almost immediately, that team leaders were in place, that needs were being determined and prioritized, that research and data collection from students and their families had happened and was ongoing, and that the school district was now ready to launch its pilot program.
“We are excited to share with you a pilot that we are working out at LCCA (Lanier College Career Academy)…that we’re really looking to be able to scale to the other 36 schools down the road,” Bales said.
Schofield explained the reason for starting at just one school rather than implementing the new program districtwide. “Much like we’ve done with our thirty-five Programs-of-Choice, we started small, we’ve seen what works, and we’ve scaled it.”
“The tip of the spear in the school district is LCCA,” Schofield said about questions regarding implementation at only one location. “We’re going to do this with fidelity; we’re going to do it well; we’re going to do it in a way that we think we can replicate; and then we’ll begin to scale pieces as we go.”
Schofield said he believes the statewide estimate if one in five students needing mental health help isn’t accurate in Hall County. “Twenty percent? I think that’s incredibly low. I think we’ve got kids who have got trauma and mental health issues, I would think it’s closer to a third to a half of our kids.”
Bales introduced the team orchestrating the new program: Jeff Jenkins, Principal of The Foundry at LCCA; Tamara Etterling, Director of Student Services; and Joy Schofield, Student Success Coach.
Each shared their involvement in the pilot program and perspective on what would unfold in the months/years ahead.
A three tiered approach will be employed, in simple essence: Tier One - training teachers and staff members how to recognize possible mental health issues and seek help; Tier Two – linking the students to help, including the involvement of outside community agencies and services; Tier Three – internal and/or external support for students who pose a threat to themselves or others.
Schofield added, “By the way, it’s not just students; it’s the big folks too. Whatever we’re seeing in our students, we’re seeing it in our faculty; whatever we’re seeing in our faculty, we’re seeing in our parents; we’re seeing it in our law enforcement agencies; we’re seeing it in our firemen; we’re seeing it in our pastors. Folks, if you don’t believe we are living in an age of anxieties and challenges that we’ve never seen before, you’re living in a different world than I am.”
