In cozy offices between the high school and elementary libraries, school counselors are available with a number of social and emotional health offerings. Career and Guidance Counselor Kris Hoffman and School Social Worker Anna Sandstrom—pictured here with funky stress balls, one of the tools used to calm anxious students—gave a report to the school board on the services they offer.
A difficult topic—student social and emotional health— was the first topic on the School District 166 agenda on Thursday, February 19, 2015. Student Success Coordinator Anna Sandstrom and Career and Guidance Center Counselor Kris Hoffman gave a report on the things they are doing to help students be successful in school and beyond.
Seeking student success
Sandstrom, a licensed social worker, shared some disturbing statistics. She said one in 10 youths has mental health problems that are severe enough to impair how they function at home, school or in the community. One out of four children attending school has been exposed to a traumatic event. Approximately 50 percent of students with mental illness age 14 and older drop out of high school.
With that background information, Sandstrom described some of her duties, dividing them into “proactive and intervention.” Sandstrom said she has spent quite a bit of time in the elementary school.
She explained, “I feel it’s important to offer social and emotional education early on. I’m one of the few fortunate faculty members that will be a constant support for students in K through 12.”
Sandstrom said this year she has been “pushing a kindness movement.” There is a wall in the elementary where students can post a message reporting the kind acts they see others doing. She was happy to report that a group of 4th grade girls approached her to create an “ABC Club”—an anti-bullying club.
Sandstrom listed the proactive ways she works with students from being there to talk to students on a walk-in basis to classroom lessons. She said a number of Student Success Center offerings are possible because of collaboration with the broader community.
A 6th grade girls group and the upcoming 7th grade girls group is offered in collaboration with Marybeth Wilkes of the Violence Prevention Center.
Recently the school offered TXT4LIFE, a suicide prevention program for students with additional training for school staff thanks to grant funding. She expressed appreciation to Grace Bushard of Cook County Public Health for help with that.
Sandstrom said she works with Diane Booth of Cook County Extension on the “Backpack” program, which discreetly provides a backpack of healthy food and snacks for students in the free and reduced lunch program. Sandstrom said a number of local organizations and individuals have helped her gather a large supply of hygiene items and winter gear to help meet students’ basic needs.
To share her intervention work, Sandstrom brought a box of “tools”— PlayDoh and stress balls for calming; “fidget items” to help focus; and a pinwheel to help students practice calming, deep breathing. Sandstrom said things like that don’t always work, but sometimes the tools are very effective.
Something she started this year is the “Bug Box,” a locked box in which students can write a note to Sandstrom if something is “bugging” them. She said it has been quite successful. She can connect with the student and see if they’ve worked the problem out or if they need additional support.
Collaboration is important for intervention as well, said Sandstrom. She sees an average of six students each day for intervention and has made 16 mental health referrals. The Human Development Center has four providers serving 35 students and ACCEND has three providers serving nine students.
“We’ve definitely seen an increase in services to our students and I expect to see an even greater increase,” said Sandstrom.
Superintendent Beth Schwarz said with a school population of 451 students, data shows that the school should have 112 kids supported in some way, not necessarily in a therapeutic way, but through the support groups that Sandstrom described.
Board Member Deb White asked, “What did our poor kids do before?”
Schwarz said, “Act out…We just dealt with it. Fortunately, we didn’t have anything really awful happen.”
Summing up her presentation, Sandstrom said the school does have significant mental health needs and she thanked everyone who has supported her, especially in creating a “new space” between the elementary and high school libraries.
College guidance and more
Career and Guidance Counselor Hoffman also brought up a box of visual aids to share with the board, including reams of color-coded paperwork reflecting the work he had been doing with Cindy Everson to align student coursework with the new Minnesota Common Course Catalog, as well as a special Minnesota Department of Education program, Minnesota Early Intervention Response System (MEIRS).
In a typical week, Hoffman said he has 25-30 meetings with individual students to discuss scholarships, careers, college and personal matters. He makes advisory classroom visits on a variety of topics—real world skills for seniors; GPA workshop for 10th graders; career choices with 9th graders; conflict resolution with 6th through 8th and more. He said he spent a lot of his first year just getting to know people and making connections.
He shared some of the activities and events he had been working on—an overnight trip with Native American students to the White Earth Reservation for a leadership group; college visits; collaborating with Cook County Higher Education on a college financial aid training; working with students to earn graduation credits; monitoring online students and much more.
“On any given day I wear five to 12 hats,” said Hoffman, “Going from a kid who doesn’t know what to do with his life to spending time with our ‘high flyers.’ How I spend my time ranges from ‘What college am I going to?’ to talking with someone in crisis.”
In addition to his busy school day schedule, Hoffman, a military veteran, also volunteered to be a new staff “event coordinator” and is co-coordinator for the newly formed wrestling club.
One of his pet projects is collecting pennants or banners to represent the colleges and schools that ISD 166 staffers have attended. To represent the education of ISD 166 staff, Hoffman said he will have to collect items from 114 different colleges in 29 states, five countries and three continents. Out of his box of visual aids, he pulled a stack of items he had collected so far.
Hoffman said he attended Winona State. “I know I busted my backside to get out of there with a degree!”
Hoffman said having space adjacent to Sandstrom was beneficial. He said at a previous school he had been in an isolated office and he felt like he was on an island. He said it is good to be next to the libraries and to Sandstrom to be able to bounce ideas back and forth or to calm down a troubled student together if needed.
The school board and Superintendent Schwarz thanked Sandstrom and Hoffman for their enthusiastic reports and Schwarz said, “Sometimes there are things that are working really, really, really well in a school… It’s one of those areas of the school I would give a gold star to, because we’re moving in the right direction.”
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