Schools piloting system to provide behavioral screening

Three schools in Pitt County are scheduled to begin a new effort this spring to identify and prevent problems with student behavior and attendance.

The Board of Education March 4 agreed to purchase a universal screening tool to assess social and emotional competencies. Following a pilot program at A.G. Cox Middle School, G.R. Whitfield School and North Pitt High School, Ashley Wheeler, director of integrated academics and behavior systems, said the goal is to implement the assessment across the district as early as next school year.

“We have universal screening for academics,” Wheeler told school board members at a work session meeting last month. “But what we are missing are those behavior/social and emotional screening tools.”

The school system has selected the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment, a nationally standardized tool designed to measure students’ abilities related to such areas as self-control, persistence, decision making and working in groups.

DESSA, which is used in thousands of schools nationwide, compares students with those of their peers and seeks to identify and address deficits in life skills before they result in chronic absences or problem behaviors.

“(Students) are not always fully equipped with the skills that they need to be able to function in the classroom,” Wheeler said. “We see them falling behind on assignments, and (they) often have some behavior office/disciplinary referrals. What we’d like to do is look at a system that allows us to prevent some of that, be proactive with what we’re offering our kids to ensure that they’re ready for post-secondary work.

“They’re all strength-based (questions),” she said. “They’re not focused on any negativity. We’re identifying their strengths and seeing what areas we can improve on.”

DESSA is generally conducted three times a year, fall, winter and spring, with elementary teachers answering eight questions about their students. (See related list.) Middle school and high school students complete a longer list of questions themselves.

In preliminary discussions about implementing DESSA, District 7 representative Kelly Weaver asked if answering questions for each student might be a burden for teachers. But Wheeler said the assessments are brief and that schools in the pilot program expressed an interest in participating.

“For the most part, people are recognizing that behaviors are impeding academics,” Wheeler said. “If there’s something that we can do to help with that, it’s worth another minute of time.”

She said the eight competencies that DESSA addresses — self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, relationship skills, goal-directed behavior, personal responsibility, decision making and optimistic thinking — align with the profile of a learner that is part of the school district’s strategic plan.

Wheeler said research indicates students the DESSA assessment identified as having a need for social and emotional learning instruction are 4.5 times more likely to have serious behavioral infractions. But students who receive support based on their screening results have a 39% reduction in disciplinary referrals and in-school suspension and a 79% reduction in out-of-school suspension, she said, adding that there also was a 44% increase in course completion.

“Having students feel positive about school and wanting to be there, that’s a big part of attendance,” Wheeler said. “When a student doesn’t want to be there is it because they’re not feeling welcomed or part of the group?”

Wheeler said parents at schools that are piloting the system will receive letters to inform them that their students will be included in the assessments.

Some board members recalled that student surveys have prompted concerns from parents in the past. In 2021, some parents complained about surveys for students in grades three-12 that asked questions about students’ emotional well-being, including feelings about school and relationships.

“We’ve been burned by surveys,” District 9 representative Benjie Forrest said. “Who gets these surveys besides our system?”

Wheeler said data will not be shared outside the school district. She added that the assessment is in keeping with the requirement of the state’s Parents’ Bill of Rights and that parents do not need to give consent for their children to participate.

The Parents’ Bill of Rights requires parental consent before children can be surveyed about protected information, including religious or political affiliations or beliefs; mental or psychological issues; sexual behavior or attitudes; illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating or demeaning behavior; critical appraisals of close relationships; and income (except for income information required to determine eligibility for assistance programs).

Assistant Superintendent of Educational Programs and Services Steve Lassiter said the district had made efforts to avoid some of the issues it experienced a few years ago and that leaders have reviewed the questions.

“We have to in some way address the social/emotional part,” he said. “The teachers want it; they need it. We’ve got to figure out how to keep our kids in school and keep them motivated, engaged and learning.”

Total cost to pilot the assessment in the three schools is $10,719.

Early college calendars

Also at Monday’s meeting, the board approved 2024-25 calendars for the school district’s two early college high schools. Early colleges are not subject to a state law that requires public schools to start no earlier than the Monday closest to Aug. 26 and end no later than the Friday closest to June 11.

Pitt County Early College High School, which is on the campus of Pitt Community College, will begin classes on Aug. 6 and end final exams on May 22. Innovation Early College High School, which is on the campus of East Carolina University, will begin classes on Aug. 6 and end final exams on May 22.

In other business, the board approved the following spending requests:

Approximately $560,00 for boiler replacements at Bethel and Stokes schools

$200,000 for asbestos flooring abatement at E.B. Aycock Middle, Farmville Middle, Grifton and Wellcome

$238,000 for painting projects at Ayden Middle, Eastern, North Pitt and Sam D. Bundy

$520,000 for classroom flooring replacements at Aycock, Farmville Middle, Grifton, Ridgewood Sugg and Wellcome

$96,830 for kitchen sewer upgrades at Ayden Elementary

$322,000 for LED replacement lighting for softball fields at Ayden-Grifton, North Pitt, D.H. Conley and J.H. Rose high schools.