Preventing Fires: Moving Away from Wait-to-Fail Behavioral Approaches

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Houston County School District

First Presenter’s Email Address

tangela.brice@hcbe.net

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Tangela Brice, LCSW- Tangela Brice is currently the Project AWARE Coordinator for Houston County School District. She is a licensed clinical social worker and has worked for many years in both inpatient and outpatient social service settings. Tangela is intentional about mental wellness advocacy and reduction of mental health stigma.

Second Presenter's Institution

Houston County School District

Second Presenter’s Email Address

monica.smith@hcbe.net

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Monica Smith- Monica Smith has been in education for 25 years. She began her career as a high school counselor. Currently, she is the Student Services Coordinator responsible for school psychologists, school counselors, and social emotional services in the Houston County School District. Monica is focused on addressing the social- emotional needs of youth.

Third Presenter's Institution

Houston County School District

Third Presenter’s Email Address

steven.hornyak@hcbe.net

Third Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Steven Hornyak- Dr. Steven Hornyak has been a public educator for 15 years. He has served as high school math teacher, school-level intervention specialist, system-level intervention specialist, and currently serves as the Director of District and School Effectiveness in the Houston County School District. Dr. Hornyak is passionate about student success and using data to provide critical insights into student learning.

Fourth Presenter's Institution

Houston County School District

Fourth Presenter’s Email Address

alicia.campbell@hcbe.net

Fourth Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Alicia Campbell- Dr. Alicia Campbell has been a public educator for 30 years. She began her career as a special education teacher. Over the course of her career, she has taught all grade levels and exceptionalities. Currently, she serves as a Student Services Coordinator overseeing school social workers and is the administrator of the Houston County Transition Academy. Dr. Campbell feels strongly that all students can thrive in a supportive and engaging environment.

Location

Session two Breakout (Scarbrough 3)

Strand #1

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Strand #2

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Relevance

Health- Universal behavioral screening is a preventative tool used to promote behavioral health in all children and youth.

Brief Program Description

Explore how the Houston County School District is taking a proactive approach to behavioral interventions using the Student Risk Screening Scale- Internalizing/Externalizing. The school setting has become a primary screening source for the overall well-being of children. Schools screen for various health conditions, hearing and vision concerns, and academic needs. Behavioral screening offers the same early intervention resources and foundations for the behavioral needs of our children.

Summary

Journey through the decision-making process to implement Universal Behavioral Screenings in the Houston County School District. While the district had been implementing academic screeners and using this data to drive instructional interventions, behavior screening was completely absent. The district was left to rely on data collected after students had already exhibited disruptive behaviors. Furthermore, there was no means of data collection for students with more internalized negative behaviors. The screening allowed the district to take a more proactive approach to addressing behaviors and provided introspective data to evaluate social emotional learning programs employed in the district. This presentation includes a description of how the district partnered with a tech company to digitize the screener in order to streamline the process of data collection, aggregation, and analysis. In September of 2022, the district rolled out screening to all elementary students and had 12,000 screenings completed the first day of implementation. The digitized screening was so successful, plans have been developed to deploy behavior screening district-wide by 2025. Innovating the screening process resulted in higher adoption, easier access to the data, and more effective use of the results to deliver support to students in need. Additionally, the data was used to accurately support high risk students but also used to identify preventative interventions for students that were low or moderate risk.

Evidence

Research-based: The behavior screening tool, Student Risk Screening Scale - Internalizing/Externalizing (SRSS-IE), detailed in this presentation has demonstrated strong technical adequacy and has been shown to predict other student outcomes such as attendance, discipline referrals, GPA, and reading scores (Lane et al., 2015; Lane et al., 2016). Research on the SRSS-IE is ongoing and the body of evidence continues to grow with respect to the technical and practical applications of the SRSS-IE

Learning Objective 1

Using behavioral screening to support prevention efforts

Learning Objective 2

Early detection of students potentially at risk and connecting students with appropriate resources when needed

Learning Objective 3

How one district adopted behavioral screening and digitized the screener to aid in data collection, aggregation, reporting, and analysis

Keyword Descriptors

Keyword: behavioral screening, universal screening, early detection, student support, social emotional learning

Presentation Year

2023

Start Date

3-6-2023 1:00 PM

End Date

3-6-2023 2:15 PM

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Mar 6th, 1:00 PM Mar 6th, 2:15 PM

Preventing Fires: Moving Away from Wait-to-Fail Behavioral Approaches

Session two Breakout (Scarbrough 3)

Explore how the Houston County School District is taking a proactive approach to behavioral interventions using the Student Risk Screening Scale- Internalizing/Externalizing. The school setting has become a primary screening source for the overall well-being of children. Schools screen for various health conditions, hearing and vision concerns, and academic needs. Behavioral screening offers the same early intervention resources and foundations for the behavioral needs of our children.