Red Deer Public Schools Mental Health Pilot Program now permanently supporting kids and families in crisis

Behaviour Support Team building capacity across Red Deer Public

Red Deer Public’s Behaviour Support Team has continued to make a positive difference throughout the Division as they help develop mental health strategies for students and help support teachers.

In the fall of 2022, the Division received a $706,000 grant through the Mental Health In Schools Pilot Program from Alberta Education. From this grant, a three person Behaviour Support Team was formed, which includes a registered psychiatric nurse, a teacher with additional training in supporting mental health and behaviour, and a social worker. This centralized team travels to schools throughout the Division as needed to help support students, staff and families.

Since December 2022, the team of three has made over 360 school team or teacher visits regarding an individual student, four classroom group consultations, 19 school-based professional development sessions, four Division teacher training sessions, and one Vice Principal training session.

“Once developed, the team was immediately available to classrooms to respond in a timely fashion to a crisis situation in school. They can help de-escalate the situation while maintaining the safety and dignity of the student and allowing the classroom teacher to return to teaching,” said Nicola Golby, Associate Superintendent of Student Services. “This has also led to less disturbance in the classroom and maintains regulation of other students.”

Recently, the Behaviour Support Team has been collaborating with the newly created Red Deer Youth Stabilization Team (CAST – Child and Adolescent Stabilization Team) with Alberta Health Services. CAST has both been a pathway to psychiatry and community resources with the goal of avoiding an emergency room visit.

“The team has met with AHS members and the CAST team to facilitate ease of access for families reaching a crisis point,” said Golby. “This wrap-around approach has been successful for families that were feeling a sense of hopelessness or desperation for high-level supports.”

Meanwhile, the Behaviour Support Team has been building capacity throughout Red Deer Public in two main ways. Firstly, they work with Learning Teams (Teachers, Educational Assistants, Administrators and Principals) with a focus on identifying proactive supports and strategies to build capacity in the school team.

“As a large part of their work, the team will go in a teacher’s classroom to model and trial strategies side-by-side with the teacher,” said Golby. “One piece is to build skills with the teacher and/or school in order to target dysregulation and diminish the resulting anxiety in other students within the class.”

The second way the team has been building capacity is through group professional development.

“Red Deer Public began implementing Student Support Rooms in our elementary and middle schools in fall of 2023. These rooms are part of a strategy to have a place for students to go when they need to regulate their emotions, display big behaviours, or to connect with an adult while maintaining dignity in a more private space,” said Golby. “The Behaviour Support Team has been training the 18 Student Support Room teachers, primarily using Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Education, Gordon Neufeld emotional playgrounds, and Martin Brokenleg’s Circle of Courage. This professional development has been a great way to collaborate and support our teachers.”

Moving forward, the team will continue to provide support where needed throughout Red Deer Public Schools, while building the capacity of staff, students and families.

Related Topics:#AlbertaEducation #BehaviorSupportTeam #MentalHealthInSchools #RDPS #RedDeerPublicSchools feature

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Education

Parents should oppose any plans to replace the ABCs with vague terminology in schools

Published on January 2, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Paige MacPherson

According to a recent poll, the vast majority of parents in Canada easily understand letter grades on report cards but are confused by the nouveau “descriptive” grading adopted in British Columbia. This should serve as a warning to any province or school board thinking about adopting this type of convoluted descriptive grading.

In September 2023, despite overwhelming opposition from British Columbians, the B.C. government replaced letter grades—such as A, B, C, D, etc.—on K-9 report cards with a “proficiency scale,” which includes the descriptive terms “emerging,” “developing,” “proficient” and “extending.” If these four terms seem confusing to you, you’re not alone.

According to the recent poll (conducted by Leger and commissioned by the Fraser Institute), 93 per cent of Canadian parents from coast to coast said the letter grade “A” was “clear and easy” to understand while 83 per cent said the letter grade “C” was “clear and easy” to understand. (For the sake of brevity, the poll only asked respondents about these two letter grades.)

By contrast, 58 per cent of Canadian parents said the descriptive grade “extending” was “unclear and difficult” to understand and only 26 per cent could correctly identify what “extending” means on a report card.

It was a similar story for the descriptive grade “emerging,” as 57 per cent of Canadian parents said the term was “unclear and difficult” to understand and only 28 per cent could correctly identify what “emerging” means on a report card.

It’s also worth noting that the poll simplified the definitions of the four “descriptive” grading terms. The B.C. government’s official definitions, which can be found on the government’s website, speak for themselves. For example: “Extending is not synonymous with perfection. A student is Extending when they demonstrate learning, in relation to learning standards, with increasing depth and complexity. Extending is not a bonus or a reward and does not necessarily require that students do a greater volume of work or work at a higher grade level. Extending is not the goal for all students; Proficient is. Therefore, if a student turns in all their work and demonstrates evidence of learning in all learning standards for an area of learning, they are not automatically assigned Extending.”

So, what are the consequences of this confusing gobbledygook? Well, we already have some anecdotes.

Before the B.C. government made the changes provincewide, the Surrey School District participated in a pilot program to gauge the effectiveness of descriptive grading. According to Elenore Sturko, a Conservative MLA in Surrey and mother of three, for three years her daughter’s report cards said she was “emerging” rather than clearly stating she was failing. Sturko was unaware there was a problem until the child’s Third Grade teacher called to tell Sturko that her daughter was reading at a Kindergarten level.

Former B.C. education minister Rachna Singh tried to justify the change saying descriptive grading would help students become “better prepared for the outside world” where you “don’t get feedback in letters.” But parents in B.C. clearly aren’t happy.

Of course, other provinces also use terms in their grading systems (meeting expectations, exceeding expectations, satisfactory, needs improvement, etc.) in addition to letter grades. But based on this polling data, the descriptive grading now used in B.C.—which again, has completely replaced letter grades—makes it much harder for B.C. parents to understand how their children are doing in school. The B.C. government should take a red pen to this confusing new policy before it does any more damage. And parents across the country should keep a watchful eye on their local school boards for any plans to replace the ABCs with vague terminology open to interpretation.

Alberta

Parents in every province—not just Alberta—deserve as much school choice as possible

Published on December 3, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Michael Zwaagstra

Not only does Alberta have a fully funded separate (Catholic) school system, it also provides between 60 and 70 per cent operational funding to accredited independent schools. In addition, Alberta is the only province in Canada to allow fully funded charter schools. And Alberta subsidizes homeschooling parents.

This week, the Smith government in Alberta will likely pass Bill 27, which requires schools to get signed permission from parents or guardians prior to any lessons on human sexuality, gender identity or sexual orientation.

It’s a sensible move. The government is proactively ensuring that students are in these classes because their parents want them there. Given the sensitive nature of these topics, for everyone’s sake it makes sense to ensure parental buy-in at the outset.

Unfortunately, many school trustees don’t agree. A recent resolution passed by the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) calls on the Smith government to maintain the status quo where parents are assumed to have opted in to these lessons unless they contact the school and opt their children out. Apparently, the ASBA thinks parents can’t be trusted to make the right decisions for their children on this issue.

This ASBA resolution is, in fact, a good example of the reflexive opposition by government school trustees to parental rights. They don’t want parents to take control of their children’s education, especially in sensitive areas. Fortunately, the Alberta government rebuffed ASBA’s demands and this attempt to abolish Bill 27 will likely fall on deaf ears.

However, there’s an even better safeguard available to Alberta parents—school choice. Out of all Canadian provinces, Alberta offers the most school choice. Not only does Alberta have a fully funded separate (Catholic) school system, it also provides between 60 and 70 per cent operational funding to accredited independent schools. In addition, Alberta is the only province in Canada to allow fully funded charter schools. And Alberta subsidizes homeschooling parents. Simply put, parents who are dissatisfied with the government school system have plenty of options—more than parents in any other province. This means Alberta parents can vote with their feet.

Things are quite different in other parts of the country. For example, Ontario and the four Atlantic provinces do not allow any provincial funding to follow students to independent schools. In other words, parents in these provinces who choose an independent school must pay the full cost themselves—while still paying taxes that fund government schools. And no province other than Alberta allows charter schools.

This is why it’s important to give parents as much school choice as possible. Given the tendency of government school boards to remove choices from parents, it’s important that all parents, including those with limited means, have other options available for their children.

Imagine if the owners of a large grocery store tried to impose their dietary preferences by removing all meat products and telling customers that the only way they could purchase meat is to make a special order. What would happen in that scenario? It depends on what other options are available. If this was the only grocery store in the community, customers would have no choice but to comply. However, if there were other stores, customers could simply shop elsewhere. Choice empowers people and limits the ability of one company to limit the choices of people who live in the community.

Think of government school boards as a monopolistic service provider like a grocery store. They often do everything possible to prevent parents from going anywhere else for their children’s education. Trusting them to do what’s best for parents and children is like assuming that the owners of a grocery store would always put the interests of their customers first and not their own self-interest. Monopolies are bad in the private sector and they’re bad in the education sector, too.

Clearly, it makes sense to require schools to get proactive consent from parents. This ensures maximum buy-in from parents for whatever courses their children take. It’s also important that Alberta remains a bastion of school choice. By making it easier for parents to choose from a variety of education options, Alberta puts power in the hands of parents, exactly where it belongs. Parents in other provinces should want that same power, too.