Student-services director outlines mental-health plan, staffing and new partnerships for 2025–26

Courtney Owen, Transylvania County Schools' director of student services, presented the district's required five-year school mental-health plan and described staffing, partnerships and program priorities for the 2025–26 school year.

Owen said the district will open the year with 11 school counselors, four school social workers, one school-based therapist employed by Transylvania County Schools, four therapists from Blue Ridge Health, one school resource officer assigned to each school, three school nurses and one dropout prevention coordinator. She described work to align the mental-health plan with the district strategic plan and to increase data reporting to the state.

Why it matters: Owen said several initiatives are intended to reduce out-of-school disciplinary responses, expand access to clinical resources, and provide prevention and early-intervention services for students identified as at risk.

New partnerships and programs Owen described a partnership with the North Carolina Center for Resiliency to review discipline and classroom strategies that keep more students in class, and a collaboration with a Duke-based team (referred to in the presentation as NCPALS) to staff complex cases and provide consultation. She said those partners bring access to clinical experience and diagnostic resources that are otherwise scarce in the county.

The district plans to roll out the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in November using a Center for Safe Schools grant, training one or two staff per school in 2025–26; Blue Ridge Health is adding at least one therapist who will be placed at Pisgah Forest Elementary in September. Owen said a new therapist will also be assigned to Brevard High School to focus on students identified as most at risk.

Data, professional development and targeted supports Owen said the district will submit a new, more detailed annual data report to the state (DPI) and will track academic benchmarks and other indicators on a public dashboard under development. She said some indicators (for example, internship counts) update twice a year while academic benchmarks will be updated quarterly. The director also described a freshman mentoring program at Brevard High School and increased professional development for staff, including a full PD day Oct. 3 with outside presenters on mental-health topics.

Owen summarized trends in school-based suicide assessments and substance-abuse incidents, saying assessments were trending down in several categories but that reported suicide attempts had increased; she attributed that in part to greater student and staff willingness to report and to follow-up planning when students return after an attempt.

Owen closed by inviting questions about program rollout and data reporting.