BDS meeting twin disasters of Hurricane Michael, COVID with innovative steps | Guestview

Mental health support and self-care are terms being bandied around in society now more than ever and we’ve definitely added them to our lexicon, and repertoire of services, at Bay District Schools.

Thanks to an $11.9 million Federal Restart Grant two years ago, our schools have Triad teams composed of social workers, student support care managers and counselors who work collaboratively to provide individual/group counseling programs for students with parental permission. Triad team members also serve as vital de-escalation resources for students in crisis.

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Team members also work with faculty, staff and parents to make Community of Care (CoC) referrals, when appropriate, to enable students to seek additional (sometimes off-campus) mental health and family support. To date, more than 830 care referrals have been made.

We believe this proactive, preventive approach has significantly decreased the number of times law enforcement, or licensed providers, must Baker Act students. Baker Acts, a legal method of last resort, involve placing involuntary holds on those deemed to be at risk of self-harm. Baker Acts can be done only by a very small group of people (such as law enforcement officers) and are not something our schools routinely interact with. In fact, our highly-trained Mobile Response Team is immediately activated anytime a student is perceived to be a danger to himself/herself or to others so those experienced team members can help prevent Baker Acts.

Hurricane Michael, pandemic continue to take toll on students

Families, of course, are a critical piece of any effort on our part to help with mental health and we’re grateful for the continued support of our parents/guardians.

“We know families are still suffering from the hurricane and have faced even more challenges with the pandemic,” explained BDS Superintendent Bill Husfelt. “We know they need help and we’re grateful to provide these additional mental health supports for them.”

Unfortunately, the hurricane and the pandemic continue to take a toll on our students and we are not immune to the various social media-based threats circulating across the country. In the past year we’ve seen an 18% increase in the number of investigations related to school safety threats and an increase in the number of expulsions for safety-related incidents.

“No one likes to expel any student,” explained Husfelt, “but we’re not going to tolerate threats against the safety of our students or staff.”

Proactive intervention, however, is a key resource we continue to employ to try to avoid these situations.

Husfelt, who has more than 40 years of experience in public education, used the recent rise in arson cases as just one example of the current landscape.

“I bet in all my years as a principal and superintendent I can think of maybe one student who was expelled for arson at school and this year alone we’ve had four,” he said.

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Social influence adding to the pressures

Typically, before the hurricane, between 12 and 20 students were expelled. Thus far this year, 26 students are in this situation with several more being processed.

Husfelt blames that increase in part on the influence of social media and the fact that many parents are just too busy to monitor what their children are doing or who they are interacting with on social media.

“I seriously wish that every parent would sit down, daily, to look at their children’s devices and ask questions about the photos, the texts, the posts, the emails, etc.,” he said. “If students were held more accountable at home for their actions on social media, our schools would definitely see a decrease in disruptive behavior.”

With hurricane- and pandemic-prompted school closures in the past couple of years, BDS has seen an increase in the number of students struggling academically. Currently, 21% of secondary students (grades 6-12) have at least one “D” or an “F” for a semester grade. To combat that, BDS has deployed a series of strategies designed to make academic support readily available. In 2021, BDS offered summer school programs at virtually all schools and provided transportation/free meals for students attending. Previously, summer school was limited to a handful of sites and very limited transportation was funded.

In 2022, schools also are offering a plethora of tutoring programs for students and the district is investigating the feasibility of adding peer tutoring online for those unable to attend before or after school.

“We are committed to making sure our students have the support they need and the resources they deserve,” explained Husfelt. “We want all parents/guardians to know that tutoring is available and free.”

Enrollment rises, so does number of homeless students

Another number that is up at this time, albeit a positive sign of what’s to come, is enrollment.

Current student enrollment (including charters) is 26,216 which is 790 students more than before Hurricane Michael. The number of students who identify as homeless, however, also is up by almost 50%.

Husfelt attributes that to several factors.

“We’ve had a lot of families move here from places like Honduras and Guatemala,” he said, “and while they’re not living on the streets per se, they don’t have fixed home addresses of their own so they meet the federal definition of homeless.”

Additionally, he noted, housing prices have yet to stabilize since the storm.

“There’s a tremendous amount of housing being built right now in our community and I’m grateful for that,” he said. “I hope the new units coming on the market reduce the overall prices and help some of our families get back into homes of their own.”

There certainly are challenges related to mental health including COVID, and our continued hurricane recovery efforts. Despite these obvious obstacles, our more than 3,000 BDS employees continue to work passionately every day on behalf of our children and are leading the way toward a brighter future for our community. We’ve been given some fairly insurmountable challenges since October of 2018 and yet our community continues to prove how very #850Strong we are and how determined we are to do what’s best for our students.

Sharon Michalik is the director of communications for Bay District Schools. With more than 20 years of experience as a teacher, assistant principal and district administrator, Sharon has a passion for helping students and connecting families with resources.

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Bay District Schools address mental health after hurricane, pandemic