PC School Board seeks to address emotional needs

Nov. 5—Since the dawn of education, school's main function has been to pass down information gathered by scientists, artists, mathematicians, etc. However, due to the strain the COVID Pandemic placed on students' social and emotional health, many students are having severe issues in adjusting back from at-home learning to in-person learning.

In a special-called meeting, the Pulaski County School Board convened Thursday evening to be briefed on the incorporation of Social-Emotional Learning and its adoption into education.

"Things that they might not know the intricate details about," said Pulaski County Superintendent Pat Richardson in an interview following the meeting. "So it was really just a working session for my board."

In the meeting, they covered "Tiered Instruction." There are three tiers in how these emotional needs are satisfied.

1. Basic Instruction: What students are already taught in typical instructions.

2. Individual Needs: Intervening with students who are having trouble emotionally performing.

3. Highly Focused Interventions: Addressing particular student needs for students who need greater help.

The details of the new program are a bit intricate; however, they were broken down in an interview with Shelly Hargis.

Hargis formerly served as the principal for Northern Middle School but now serves as the Multi-Tiered System of Support Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports/Social-Emotional Learning Coordinator or MTSS PBIS/SEL Coordinator for short.

"It's a bunch of letters," said Hargis and laughed. "But Multi-Tiered System of Support is the umbrella that my job falls under."

As for the MTSS acronym, that describes the framework that schools use to target struggling students and help them better meet expected behavior. However, what the rest of the acronym addresses is a difference of language, says Hargis.

"MTSS is really about prevention rather than reaction," said Hargis.

It focuses on interpreting data and ensuring students don't "fall through the cracks."

As far what that looks like in action, Hargis said that it involved teachers defining "expected behaviors" and how well students approach satisfying those expectations.

"A.R.R.O.W.," for example, is the acronym used by Southwestern High School to outline what is expected of its students. A.R.R.O.W. stands for Accountability, Resect, Responsibility, Obeying authority, and a Winning attitude. Students and faculty will evaluate how students do following these expectations.

"Each school develops their own expectations, and they also develop their own teaching models and methods," explained Hargis. "They have the opportunity to teach the expected behaviors with their students, and this is front-loaded in the beginning of the school year and then throughout the school year as well."

Following the teaching of these lessons, there is a reinforcement system that ensures students are grasping the expected behaviors. Each school that uses these methods will give students things like tickets or stickers that show the school's approval in their behavior and their ability to stick within the established framework.

"It's very positive in nature," said Hargis.

That's where the acronym "PBIS" comes in as the designers of the system hope to guide students through rewards to motivate them to continue to excel and meet expectations.

"It is motivating for students to be recognized for doing great things whether it's academic or behavioral," said Hargis.

MTSS and PBIS frameworks were already implemented, however there is a "renewed focus" on them, according to Superintendent Richardson.

Richardson and Hargis alike focused on the importance of gathering data this year and seeing how students themselves follow along with the new curriculum. This leads into the final part of the program which is "SEL" or Social-Emotional Learning.

"[We measure] students' consecutiveness, self-efficacy, and motivational within the school setting," said Hargis. "They self-report and self-evaluate. This is not from a teacher's perspective, or an administrative perspective, this is purely from a student's perspective. It asks them general questions of their feelings about school... That's what we're measuring. It's about their attitude about themselves and the school setting."

The surveys will be done twice a year and will be done using the student's Chromebooks.

For Superintendent Richardson, the program's main goals are "removing barriers."

"It's putting resources in the hands of teachers," said Richardson. "It's using data through screeners to let us know how students are feeling. It's even working with our staff. Our staff socially/emotionally struggling... It's resources that teachers are going to have at their fingertips to be able to inter-mingle with their normal Tier 1 instruction (basic needs)."

To explain the purpose of this, Richardson referenced Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This framework itself has been around for a while, and it teaches that people must satisfy more basic needs before achieving "self-actualization."

"Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs... the very first bottom level of that has to be met before learning can take place," said Richardson. "If those physical and emotional needs are not met, then that makes learning more difficult. That's what we're trying to do is remove those barriers with our social and emotional learning issues."