State education official reports kindergarten-high share of staff assaults, expands regional behavior supports

Superintendent Blatt told the committee the state is expanding targeted behavioral supports for elementary schools after a review of discipline data showed a concentrated share of serious incidents in early grades.

The Strive initiative creates regional networks that connect counties and schools with state-funded supports, Superintendent Blatt said, and the department has hired behavior specialists assigned to four geographic quadrants to provide training and direct classroom assistance for students who have not responded to local interventions.

The update matters because the department’s discipline data show the highest share of incidents coded as battery against a school employee occurred in kindergarten: 19 percent of 131 students identified in the system, Superintendent Blatt said. The department will send teams that include staff from the Marshall Behavioral Health Technical Assistance Center and the new behavior support specialists to about seven schools that reported multiple battery incidents, she said.

“We’re going to go out there and we’re going to start looking at what’s going on at that school, where are the students that are currently that have had those reports,” Superintendent Blatt said as she described the planned school visits and a deeper data dive that began over the winter holidays.

Blatt described a tiered service model aligned with multi-tiered systems of support. The department has increased staffing at the Marshall center, added an early‑childhood behavior support specialist and an elementary behavior support specialist for each quadrant, and is using a competitive grant process to seed elementary alternative learning centers. She said Raleigh County and Monongalia County received additional state funding because each county already had more comprehensive plans in place; six pilot counties received competitive grants after an application process Blatt said attracted about 12 or 13 applicants. The counties named in the presentation as recipients were Hancock, Berkeley, Roane, Marion, Wyoming and Clay.

Committee members asked about underreporting. “Do you have any idea of how many incidents are really happening out in our schools?” Delegate Statler asked. Blatt acknowledged the department believes some incidents go unreported and said the state’s immediate step is to use the data it has to target supports and confirm local reporting.

Blatt also told the committee the department has been working with counties to clarify how the state’s student discipline policy (Policy 4373) and state code about unlawful personal injury apply. She said the department will continue regional trainings so principals and teachers understand the revised policy and reporting requirements that changed in the past year.

The department noted that although some serious incidents are reported repeatedly for the same child, the concentration of incidents in early grades raises different questions — including trauma, prenatal substance‑exposure and unmet special education needs — than the incidents that occur primarily in middle and high school. Blatt said new elementary alternative education sites and on‑site behavior specialists should help classroom teachers, but county leaders will also need to consider where a child should go “when those supports aren’t enough.”

No committee action was taken; Blatt said the next steps include scheduled visits to identified schools and continued regional training and technical assistance from the Marshall center and state staff.