Beaufort County presenters cite sharp rises in self‑reported student health and mental‑health needs; district outlines monitoring and training

Beaufort County School District Student Services staff told a committee on June 28 that the district has seen steep increases in self‑reported student health and mental‑health conditions and is expanding training, monitoring and documentation to respond.

The Student Services presenter (speaker listed as "Student Services presenter") opened an executive summary of OE‑14 (learning environment), saying the district is following MTSS and related administrative regulations while working to protect student confidentiality. "If you don't remember anything from this presentation today, this is what I want you to remember," the presenter told board members, summarizing the district's tracking of health indicators across schools.

Why it matters: the presenter framed the figures as family‑reported enrollment data that have driven changes in practice. She cited self‑reported counts comparing school years: asthma (171 in 2021–22 to 1,402 in 2024–25), diabetes (12 to 77), allergies (175 to 1,540) and self‑reported mental‑health disorders (137 to 1,160). She cautioned that some counts can overlap (a single student may be counted in multiple categories) and that small‑cell protections limit public display of individual school numbers.

How the district is responding: staff said the district has expanded staff training and threat‑assessment capacity, including a train‑the‑trainer model and PREPaRE‑style crisis training delivered by certified trainers (the presenter named Andrea Murray as a certified trainer). The presenter said 267 staff were trained in the 2024–25 school year and that the district has both initial and refresher threat‑assessment trainings.

Monitoring tools and confidentiality: the presenter described a set of data systems — Vector (training screenshots), PowerSchool (student information system), Educators Handbook (referral management), plus two monitoring platforms, Gaggle and StopIt. "Both Gaggle and StopIt have an automated law‑enforcement notification when thresholds are hit," the presenter said, noting the district uses screenshots rather than individual employee records in the packet to avoid FERPA violations. The presenter added that Gaggle Reach Out, a newer crisis‑reach service added to ClassLink, operates 24/7 but has limited historical data because the service is new.

Costs and procurement: the presenter reported Gaggle expenditures last year totaled $18,591 and indicated that budget breakdowns were included in supporting materials.

Assessment and suicide risk management: staff described behavioral threat assessments and suicide‑risk assessment protocols and said those flows are captured in district dashboards that disaggregate by grade level and risk level. The presenter emphasized sensitivity in reporting and said some flagged reports are not tied to real students (for example, test submissions about fictional characters) and must be triaged.

Data quality and state corrections: the presenter said district analysts found a state database error that duplicated 2023–24 and 2024–25 chronic‑absence figures; the district reported the issue and the state is currently correcting the public report card numbers.

Next steps: the presenter said many OE‑14 supporting documents and revised administrative regulations will go forward to the board as clean and redline versions; committee members discussed timing for presenting some ARs to the full board in future meetings.

All quotes and attributions in this story are taken from the committee's transcript and are attributed to the speaker label given in the record.