Cleveland Public School is not alone in its uptake in student mental health concerns. Across the country, according to the 2022 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, nearly 20 percent of children and young people ages 3-17 in the United States have a mental, emotional, developmental, or behavioral disorder.
To meet the needs of all our students across the building, we are implementing and strengthening programs to educate both students and staff in a variety of ways. Mental health struggles do not discriminate. We see struggles in all income levels, household makeup, skin colors, genders, age, religions, etc. Professional development this year will include social emotional learning topics to continue to educate staff on the prevalence and seriousness of the topic.
“Sometimes we act like this is something new,” said Tony Dittrich, high school science teacher. “Mental health issues have always been around; however, we are now more aware. In the past we dismissed students struggling with mental health issues as showing poor behavior. Now with more awareness, we have more consideration and look at the reason behind the behavior they are showing us.”
At the elementary level, Quaver SEL is an online curriculum that teachers will be using in the classrooms as a way to start the conversations surrounding friendship, responsibility, emotional regulation and many more topics. This curriculum was previously taught in classrooms by K-eighth-grade school counselor, Shanna Roloff (above). Although with the increase in unique student needs, her focus is shifting to higher levels of intervention for students and families currently struggling.
“As a teacher, I have had to change the strategies I implement while teaching to avoid triggers for students as well as pause my teaching to address behavioral issues related to mental health,” said fourth-grade teacher Cassidy Block. “Mental health may not personally affect every student, but it certainly has an effect on everyone.”
Clara Wieser, second-grade teacher said it like this: “So much of my job is worrying more about my students’ mental health than their academics. Because if their mental health needs aren't met, if they are thinking about home or not coping with a big feeling, they will not be ready to learn.”
Students have had to adjust to their changing classroom environment and accommodate distractions, both big and small, from their peers .
Earlier this school year the Duck Cup Memorial Foundation was brought in to speak to students in fifth-12th grade about coping skills, mental health awareness, substance abuse and suicide prevention.
We plan to continue to bring this organization in every year and hope to get more and more community involvement as well. Our teaching staff indicated the need to put relationships first and not waiting to pull a student aside to check on how they are doing.
“I am giving more work time, slowing down lessons to allow time in class to work on assignments. Whether it’s lack of time or motivation, homework is just another unnecessary stress on these kids,” said Tracy Yule, high school English teacher.
We have also seen an uptick building wide in students needing special accommodations such as a 504 plan or an IEP. Many are directly related to a mental health need.
We continue to partner with Counseling Services of Southern Minnesota. Working with them we gained the services of Emily Sheetz, a therapist. She sees students in our building two days a week, The need for her services has been constant.
“We could never have enough support staff in this building; there is always a need,” said Megan Peterson, nine-12th-grade school counselor.
Our school counselors work with more individual students on their caseloads than in years past and often spend much of their day supporting parents as well. A focus this year is building even more partnerships with outside agencies such as Youth Mental Health Navigators. Another focus is to strengthen our partnership with the local county workers to improve attendance and address family concerns outside of the school building.
Attendance has been an overall strength in our district, both at the elementary and high school levels. Last year, 90.8 percent of Cleveland students attended school regularly. That’s the second highest percentage the school has had. Our focus is on the 10 percent of our students who are struggling to get in the building, many with mental health related reasons.
When students are habitually not in school, they miss content, adding stress to their lives and in turn putting more work on teachers. We also know that the drop-out risk significantly increases with students who have missed more than 15 days of school. It is a problem we are focusing on this year by reaching out for county support for early intervention and partnering with families to meet their individual needs.