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Spearfish School District outlines threat-assessment and suicide-prevention protocols
Summary
District school psychologist Shelby Hartsey and intern Ashley Kestas briefed the board on the district's threat-assessment procedures and suicide-prevention processes, including use of the Columbia Suicide Screener, safety plans and annual staff training requirements under South Dakota law.
Shelby Hartsey, the district school psychologist, and Ashley Kestas, a school psychology intern, briefed the Spearfish School District 40-2 Board of Education on the district's threat-assessment and self-harm guidelines during the board's Oct. 14 meeting.
Hartsey and Kestas said the district separates “threat assessment,” which addresses threats to others, from “self harm,” which addresses threats to oneself, and that both tracks aim to keep students safe while keeping them in school whenever possible. "The whole point of these is to make sure that our staff, students, and community as a whole are safe," the presenters said.
Nut graf: The presenters described how staff and counselors use screening tools and formalized interviews to gauge risk and set interventions. They noted the district follows a recognized school threat-assessment framework and state training requirements for suicide awareness and prevention.
The district uses the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale as its initial screener when students are identified as possibly at risk; counselors administer the screener and then determine appropriate next steps, which can include safety plans, referrals to outside providers and ongoing school-based interventions. Hartsey and Kestas emphasized documentation and family communication as central parts of the process.
Presenters described a tiered approach to threat assessment modeled on the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG), developed by Dr. Dewey Cornell at the University of Virginia in 2001. Under CSTAG, responses range from monitoring transient remarks to conducting a full safety interview for serious threats. "We interview the students, we interview witnesses, we interview teachers, we interview parents, and we do a safety interview with students if it's a serious threat," Hartsey and Kestas said.
The board was told that staff receive different levels of CSTAG training (level 1 and level 2) and that school resource officers participate when threats are assessed as serious. The presenters noted the district schedules regular professional development and said the South Dakota Department of Education and state law require approved youth suicide awareness and prevention training at least once every five years.
Hartsey and Kestas described the district's emphasis on providing coping skills and positive behavioral supports, especially in middle and high school, and said staff adapt approaches for younger students using social-skills curricula. They also said the district seeks to coordinate ethically with other districts when students or incidents involve peers beyond the local area.
Ending: The board did not take formal action on the presentation; Hartsey and Kestas offered to return for a more in-depth session if the board wanted additional detail.
