District reports high scores on anti-bullying self-assessment; staff cite mental-health demand
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Summary
The district—s anti-bullying coordinator said school-by-school self-assessments exceeded the state's 75% benchmark, and mental-health staff reported a large number of risk screenings and PES referrals last year.
Tanya McDonald, director of special services and the district—s anti-bullying coordinator, presented the district—s required annual self-assessment under New Jersey—s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights and reported strong compliance scores across buildings.
McDonald said the self-assessment rates wording as "not compliant," "compliant," or "exceeding" and that a score of about 75% represents full compliance with the law. Based on last year—s data, Vander Veer Elementary scored 93.4%, the Somerville Middle School 98%, and Somerville High School 97%.
McDonald and building specialists said the district—s approach centers on universal prevention (schoolwide social-emotional learning and climate surveys), tiered interventions (small-group targeted supports) and tier 3 individualized supports (risk assessments, safety planning, crisis counseling and behavior intervention planning). The presentation emphasized prevention through mental-health and social-emotional programming.
McDonald provided operational data for last year: the district documented 204 at-risk psychiatric screenings (99 at Vander Veer, 32 at the middle school, 74 at the high school). Among about 40 PES (psychiatric emergency screening) referrals, 15 students were hospitalized following the screenings. McDonald described these numbers as evidence of a national mental-health trend reflected locally and thanked the district—s mental-health staff for their daily work.
Board members asked about parent representation on school safety and climate teams (each building has at least one parent representative) and about a newly launched policy to limit student cell-phone use; McDonald said the phone policy is newly implemented and early signs suggest decreased distraction and better student focus, but fuller analysis will come as the year progresses.
McDonald and the anti-bullying team asked the board to support ongoing training and community engagement as the district continues prevention and response efforts.