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District rolls out new mental‑health screeners and shifts to CPI for behavior management
Summary
Marlborough Public Schools told the committee it is rolling out SABERS screeners (grades 3–12), continuing anxiety screening and moving from Safety Care to Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) for de‑escalation and prevention training for staff.
District student‑services leaders told the School Committee April 28 that they are expanding mental‑health screening and shifting behavior‑management training.
Lindsay Castro, supervisor of SEAL, said the district will continue the Penn State Worry Questionnaire for third graders and the GAD‑7 for sixth and ninth graders while adding the SABERS social‑academic‑emotional‑behavioral risk screener and a culture and climate survey for students in grades 3–12. Castro said the new instruments are evidence‑based, take about 15–20 minutes to complete when administered together, and will be used to build MTSS supports and predict concerns such as chronic absenteeism.
"We screened the students twice this year," Castro said, noting roughly 100 students were identified districtwide with elevated anxiety scores and were invited to tier‑2 cognitive behavioral groups; participants showed reductions in symptom severity in the district data presented.
Castro also described the district’s planned transition from Safety Care to the Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI). She said CPI emphasizes prevention, the neuroscience of behavior and trauma‑informed practice, offers multiple customizable training levels, and provides a more sustainable train‑the‑trainer model than the prior program. District BCBAs have been trained in CPI and district leaders said they plan to train staff over the summer so classroom and support staff are certified before the school year begins.
Committee members praised the move to structured screeners and asked about data sharing, historical dashboards and whether the tools would ensure information transfers during key transitions (for example, fifth to sixth grade). Administrators said the district is using a new data dashboard that pulls together Aspen attendance and discipline data, NWEA results, screener outputs and historical data to inform MTSS meetings and teacher planning.
No formal action was required; administrators said they will continue to roll out the screeners and CPI trainings and will return with data and implementation updates.
