The Major Recommendation of Tenet V: Student Social and Emotional Developmental Health states: “The district needs a comprehensive plan in the area of student social and emotional developmental health that focuses on follow-up support and resources that are in alignment with individual school communities.”

It is interesting that the State should make this recommendation in light of the fact that the district chose to reduce the number of counselors due to budget constraints.

It is also interesting that counseling services for our children is almost non-existent at the early childhood and elementary level of education where it is most needed, recommended, and most effective.

The district’s Goal for this recommendation, “The district will create policy that focuses on proactively working with schools and community organizations in a collaborative approach that ensures professional development topics, opportunities and resources are available to all staff so that an array of social and emotional developmental health needs are met. The district will provide follow-up support (coaching, modeling, subject matter expertise, etc.) that is dynamic and customized to the skill and capacity of the school level staff.”

The concentration of this goal is aimed at educating school staff. There is no mention of providing counseling and support services to students.

The district’s Target:
* “The district will align school, district and community resources to increase utilization efficiencies and target needs through data based problem solving on an annual basis.
* The district will develop interconnected systems framework for social emotional learning with a single point of coordination that involves a cross collaborative approach and student supports (including School Mental health).”

WHAT!

The Activity:
* Align and coordinate ALL interventions so that they become well-matched interventions and monitor/adjust for implementation fidelity
* Establish program evaluation measures that are matched to intended outcomes of the designed interventions to monitor their effectiveness and contextual fit.”

The district’s “Goal”, “Target” and “Activity” of this Tenet do not mention or address “student social and emotional developmental health” but provides for more educational dollars to be spent on professional development for adults.

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