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South Madison trustees hear report on K–12 mental health supports and community partnerships
Summary
District counselors described expanded staff, classroom programs, crisis training and partnerships with mental-health providers; Securly monitoring flagged several incidents leading to interventions.
Mr. Taylor, director of guidance at Pendleton Heights High School, told the South Madison Community School Corporation board on the April meeting that the district has expanded counseling capacity and formalized partnerships with local mental-health providers to support students K–12.
Taylor said each school in the district now has licensed counselors: four at the elementary level, two at the middle school and three at the high school. “We see the student as our primary client,” he said, describing counselors’ responsibilities as academic, emotional and social supports for students, with parents involved in the process.
The nut graf: the report described a multi-part approach the district uses to identify and respond to student mental-health needs — school-based counselors who provide triage, classroom curricula such as Second Step, advisory lessons at the middle school, “reset” sensory rooms, group counseling for students with shared needs, and Memoranda of Understanding that allow community therapists to provide in-school or virtual services with parental consent.
Taylor said the district has been working to align counseling programming across grade levels and recently completed a two-year process to earn a bronze certification for comprehensive school counseling. That alignment, he said, helps ensure that students moving between schools receive consistent messages and supports. At the elementary level counselors teach social skills in class; middle schools use an advisory period with lessons on bullying and conflict resolution; and high schools run parent-facing events such as “High School 101” to connect families with supports.
On interventions and crisis response, Taylor described PREPaRE-style training the district uses to guide immediate safety and subsequent mental-health follow-up after incidents. He said all counselors have completed the second session of that training and some administrators are completing the first. The district also requires QPR (suicide prevention) training for staff; Taylor said more than 265 staff members have been trained and that Bailey Castillo and Chris Glover are certified to train others.
Taylor described a districtwide monitoring tool, Securly, that scans student activity on district Chromebooks and generates flagged alerts. Staff review those alerts and, when warranted, meet with students or escalate to on-call responses. Taylor said most alerts are benign (for example, a student researching “bombs” for a World War I history assignment), but he said Securly did trigger a law-enforcement call for a midnight message in which a student expressed intent to harm themself; the student received timely help after the system escalated the alert.
The district also uses Memoranda of Understanding with community providers — Centerstone, Bowen Center and Howard Health — to supply behavioral therapists and mental-health clinicians who can meet with students at school or virtually with parental approval. Taylor noted Howard Health’s owner, Keeley Howard, is local and that providers vary in whether they accept Medicaid or private insurance; to prevent cost from blocking care, the district maintains a grant-funded drawdown account to pay for services for students without other coverage.
Taylor said the high school’s reset room — a supervised sensory space used about 40 to 45 times per month — has reduced classroom disruptions and absenteeism when students need a brief break. He emphasized that school counselors provide triage and short-term stabilization, and that longer-term therapy is provided by partner agencies after parent consent.
Board members asked whether staff have access to counseling; Taylor said the district currently refers staff to partner organizations and has had preliminary discussions about an in-house program for employees but no decision yet. Trustees thanked Taylor and his team for the work.
Ending: The board received the report and moved on to routine business; no board motion or formal action on mental-health policy or contracting was recorded during the presentation.
