School board hears about further efforts to create safe, welcoming schools at Thursday's meeting

(Originally published in the 4/24/16 edition)

   Dr. Carolyn Patton, the director of special services to Benicia Unified School District, presented an update to the school board on the work being done to create Safe and Welcoming Schools at Thursday’s meeting. Three programs were highlighted, which fit in with Superintendent Charles Young’s goal of creating and maintaining schools that were safe and welcoming. 

   The three programs that were discussed were Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) at the elementary schools, the Second Step and Special Friends Supports program also at the elementary schools and the Sources of Strength program at Benicia High School.

   “Just a disclaimer: these are not all of the things we are doing toward these goals, so I don’t want you to think this is it,” Patton said. 

   Patton then talked about about the goals of PBIS, which academically covers topics like what students are expected to learn, how those lessons should be taught, what faculty should do if students do not learn it and how they should intervene. As Patton noted, those same topics could be applied at the social and emotional level. She then allowed Benicia Middle School teacher Faith Shaw, Liberty High School Principal Joann Severson and Robert Semple Elementary School Principal Christina Moore go over what their schools were doing in their PBIS training. 

   “It really is about teaching our kids behavioral expectations,” Patton said. “Just like we don’t expect kids coming into school knowing how to read, we shouldn’t expect them to come into school with the same behavioral expectations or understanding. We really need to teach those things and help reinforce them in a positive way.”

   Next to present was BUSD psychologist Kelli Leiner who talked about the Special Friends and Second Step programs at the elementary schools. Special Friends is an early mental health intervention program in which students and specially trained aides interact one-on-one in a playroom.

   “Students who are identified for this program are usually demonstrating some mild to moderate adjustment issues,” Leiner said. “There could be anything from being new to the school to a loss.”

   Second Step is a social skills program, usually consisting of groups of two to four students. Leiner then introduced Joan Burnett, a Special Friends aide at Robert Semple, who then introduced three students who had participated in the program.

   Patton then introduced Mental Health Coordinator Jessica Garcia to talk about a new program at Benicia High called Sources of Strength.

   Sources of Strength is a suicide prevention program consisting of 65 students and 11 faculty members including Garcia and three of the school’s counselors. The group meets every other week in peer groups to foster a sense of positivity for students dealing with anxiety or depression. The idea for the program was brought forth by Barbara Gervase, the mother of 16-year-old Benicia High student Kyle Hyland who died by suicide in 2014. 

   “I’m very happy that you agreed to finally bring that program to BHS,” Gervase said in a public comment before the presentation. “From what I’ve heard, it’s been going wonderfully well. One of the things that I’m asking from you is that if this program is working so well, then we need to make an effort to bring it to more kids at BHS because it’s limited.” 

   Gervase also recommended bringing the program to Benicia Middle School, as students tend to begin exhibiting mental health issues at the middle school level. 

   To demonstrate what students were learning, sophomore Amaya Clark talked about a 21-day challenge in which students were given journals to write about three things they were grateful for.

   “I noticed for the first day I kind of did broad things,” she said. “By the fourth day, I had to really think about things I was grateful and appreciative for, and I had to be more specific because I would have ran out of things. It just made me have an open mind and think ‘Wow, I really am grateful for this.’ It was a really good idea.”

   The board’s trustees praised the presentation. 

   “This is probably the best presentation I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been on the board 12 years,” Andre Stewart said. 

   Stewart said he has hired interns who did not know how to talk to adults.

   “This first thing you’re teaching them (PBIS) will teach them how to have presence, how to present themselves and how to talk to adults,” he said. 

   Stewart made the recommendation that the district work to provide more counseling support by hiring more staff. Currently, Benicia High has three counselors- Justin Keppel, Megan Guenther and Kathleen Wallace- to serve the needs of 1,700 students, which does not meet the California Department of Education’s recommended ratio.

   “I think you will be pleased with the recommendations coming forward in the LCAP,” Patton said. 

   In other business, the board voted to set the retention for Benicia High’s stadium renovation project at 10 percent because the project is substantially complex, and Young formally introduced Damian Scott as the new principal of Benicia Middle School. 

   

School board hears discussion on mental health

(originally published in the 12/13/15 edition)

   The Governing Board of the Benicia Unified School District heard a discussion on the need for more counseling and mental health support in the district at a busy Thursday night meeting.

   Carolyn Patton, the district’s special services director, led the discussion through a Power Point presentation. She cited one of Superintendent Charles Young’s goals for the district, which was “to promote safe and welcoming schools, and building empathetic, responsive, student-centered networks of support.” She then mentioned two practices that would allow schools to reach this goal: Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports- which looks at data to see if students understand what school behavior is like- and the American School Counselor Association’s national model. 

   The data for the first practice is determined by the California Healthy Kids Survey, which has already been completed by students and is currently underway for staff and parents. 

   The American School Counselor Association’s national model looks at what direct services counselors provide to students. According to Patton, one-third of their time should be spent on core instruction, another third should be spent on helping students plan their schedules and the last third should be spent on responsive services like resolving conflicts between students and teachers. Patton will delve into this data at a later date.

   Patton also brought up the student-counselor gap at Benicia High School. The California Department of Education recommends a student-counselor ratio of 361-to-1, while ASCA recommends a ratio of 250-to-1. Benicia High has a ratio of 550-to-1, which is well above the recommended ratios. Currently, the school has three counselors plus a career counselor and administrative assistant to serve the needs of around 1,700 students.

   “We would need more counselors at the high school to beat that ratio,” Patton said.

   On a more positive note, Patton noted that Mental Health Coordinator Jessica Garcia has been able to implement a number of services, including weekly meeting with Benicia High and Benicia Middle School’s counselors and psychologists, a mentoring program at Benicia Middle, a Stress Less Week to take place before Benicia High’s finals week and a suicide prevention handbook as well as suicide awareness training. 

   Patton says the district wants to implement the Sources of Strength suicide prevention program to train staff involved with the Safe School Ambassadors program. it also is looking to enact a social emotional learning curriculum that deals with how to handle stress and depression.

   “We do not teach this on a regular basis,” Patton said. “We introduce it a little bit in the middle school, and we hit suicide prevention and some emotional development in ninth-grade health, but it’s not taught systematically. We’ve heard from parents, students and staff that we need to be more diligent about that.” 

   Additionally, a “Stress Less Holidays for Families” event will be held 7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 15 at Benicia Middle School. Mental wellness experts and psychologists will be on hand to talk about the causes of stress and provide tips on how to overcome it.

   Patton called upon the community to continue to provide feedback.

   “I want to thank the board for holding us accountable on helping us to get a suicide prevention policy,” she said. “I want to ask you to continue to hold us accountable and look at that second goal and help us to work towards that.” 

   Trustee Andre Stewart highlighted the need for specificity in the plan.

   “I would ask that we do consider putting target dates into when we’re going to archive these goals,” he said. 

   Stewart also asked if there was a number as to how many students were helped by counselors. Patton said the tracking form indicated how many cases were closed and which students and how many students were referred on to other services. 

   Additionally, Stewart also underlined the importance of the high school bringing in more counselors.

   “I hope that we really are more aggressive in 2016 in hiring more counselors,” he said.

   A public comment was given by Barbara Gervase, the mother of Kyle Hyland, a Benicia High student who died by suicide last year. Gervase thanked Patton for presenting her plans but agreed with Stewart that specific dates were needed.

   “We all hope for the best, but we really need a thorough, laid-out plan so we can reach those targets and make sure that the board knows what needs to be funded,” she said. 

   After her son’s death, Gervase set up the Kyle Hyland Foundation with the goal of raising awareness of suicide rates among teens. The foundation has been working to establish a teen center in Benicia with activities geared toward teenagers and counselors and mentors to provide support. Patton announced at the meeting that a space has been found for the center. According to the foundation’s Facebook page, the center will be operating within the Gateway Church, located at 1315 Military West, just down the street from Benicia High. An open house is planned for January.

   In other business, the board re-elected Gary Wing as president and elected Diane Ferrucci to fill late Trustee Rosie Switzer’s role as clerk. The board also observed a moment of silence for Switzer after short speeches by each trustee, and it determined that an appointment would be made by Jan. 28 to fill the vacancy on the board.