Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Highlands County schools report fewer office discipline referrals, steady gains on chronic absenteeism
Summary
District staff reported progress on behavior supports and attendance at the May school board meeting, citing new MTSS behavioral tiers, tools for schools and an attendance "nudge" system. Board heard data showing lower office-discipline referrals in elementary schools and higher shares of students attending at least 90% of enrolled days.
Miss Blackman, the district goal lead for "Goal 2: Whole Child," presented the Highlands County School District's third-nine-weeks review on May 20, outlining behavioral-support strategies and steps to reduce chronic absenteeism.
Blackman told the School Board that the district has implemented a tiered approach within a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) for behavior: schoolwide (tier 1), targeted interventions such as check-in/check-out and skill streaming (tier 2), and intensive functional behavior assessment-based plans (tier 3). She said staff built a Power BI dashboard to help schools monitor discipline and attendance data and that district school psychologists and, when necessary, behavior analysts provide support.
The presentation included specific benchmarks the district uses for a "healthy core": roughly 80% of students responding to classroom rules, 5% to 15% needing more support and 1% to 5% requiring intensive services. Blackman said those percentages are drawn from…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
