Carson City School Board discusses wellness policies, suicide prevention
With summer break now in full swing, the Carson City School Board of Trustees met Tuesday, June 10, holding discussions on health and wellness policies, suicide prevention and other matters that may be up for changes in the near future.
Superintendent report
Carson City School District Superintendent Andrew Feuling said the final days of the school year came with a “nice bow-tie on it.” He said the last couple weeks brought fun events for students and staff. He offered a heartfelt thank you to all Carson City School District staff for a successful school year.
Feuling noted Eagle Valley Middle School had made the transition from eighth grade promotion to a celebration at the end of year. The school has sent out a survey for parents to get their thoughts on it, he said.
Feuling attended the celebration at Eagle Valley Middle School and noted the Carson High Marching band was there for the send-off from middle school to high school, honoring and welcoming students to Carson High School as they exited Eagle Valley, which “was a really nice touch.”
For CHS graduation, Feuling said the turnout was wonderful, the ceremony memorable and brought thousands of people to watch. There were 490 graduates, up a bit from last year, he said.
Finally, the district has worked on a recommendation by Trustee Molly Walt who had made request at a prior board meeting for upgrades to notification of events at individual schools. Feuling said the district has been working with IT so that each school will help with posting events on the district’s website allowing students, parents and families to see upcoming events. The district hopes to present it in the near future, said Feuling.
Health and Wellness
Carson City School District Director of Nutrition Services Elizabeth Martinez discussed changes the district will be making to its wellness policy to comply with recent Nevada Department of Agriculture regulations. Those changes include:
Fundraising will now be allowed for school culinary arts programs.
Before school districts were not allowed fundraising for their culinary arts programs. NDA has revised its policy, which now allows for curriculum-based fundraising for culinary arts.
The district will likely start this at some point in the next year or so, said Martinez, noting that culinary arts teachers are excited about the change.
Also discussed was NDA policy revisions allowing for certain beverages that would be allowed to be made available for sale. Due to the emergence of popular zero sweetener and low or no-calories beverages, the state will allow for some drinks to be authorized.
Caffeine beverages are not allowed at the elementary and middle school level, but but some are being allowed at the high school level. Caffeine beverages, not sodas, are now allowed at the high school level only. Also, now allowed are some carbonated beverages such as certain seltzers.
In the school wellness policy updates, which are not related to the NDA policy revisions, School Board Trustee Molly Walt asked for changes regarding the district’s promotion of establishing healthy sleeping routines, in a section that encourages students to “say no” to late night TV and computer use. Walt asked to replace the wording “technology use” instead of “computer use.”
There was also discussion by School Board members Mike Walker and Rebecca Roberts regarding considering changes to policy regarding recess and student behavior. Suggested changes may be addressed at some point with any changes to made to the district’s discipline policy.
Suicide prevention and intervention
The School Board also heard a presentation regarding updating language for its Regulation 270 — Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Postvention. The presentation was by Christine Perkins, director of MTSS and Student Wellness along with Christina Sapien, a licensed clinical social worker.
The presentation included proposed changes to the hiring of mental health professionals that are consistent with the district’s hiring practices and training. Also noteworthy are changes that will continue with suicide prevention screenings of 7th and 9th graders. The changes would bring in more people to be trained such as school counselors, nursing staff, school resources officers (SROs), essentially incorporating a whole team in being part of the suicide prevention screening process. The school district does prevention screenings a couple times a year with all 7th and 9th graders.
Perkins discussed proposed changes regarding suicidal behavior of students when it comes to addressing attempts, self injuries and students who have suggested they have a plan or are gathering means for a plan — basically any actions that indicate intent.
She noted they are looking at making changes in the area of addressing “suicide contagion” which is regarded by many in the mental health community as a myth. It is the idea that mental health professionals talking to students about suicide makes some kids want to do it. Instead, the idea is to get the children talking about it with trained staff, which is seen as preventative.
“We need to make sure we are talking about these things,” said Perkins.
In other areas of suicide prevention, the district does its prevention work with social workers, counseling team and the entire school community. There’s also anti-bullying weeks at the schools, plus stepped up communications through the schools.
Regarding parental notification and involvement, she said the district feels it is absolutely the responsibility of the school’s mental health teams to involve parents when there is any kind of sign, or anything that could demonstrate signs of suicidal ideations. If students are demonstrating any signs or if they have disclosed information, the parent is notified immediately of these risk factors and that they would be part of the process, said Perkins. Provisions can be made if there are safety issues involving the parent.
Steps can be taken with parents to be part of creating a safety plan for the student, discussions, or having more time with social workers or if they are already involved in outside therapy with mental health providers in the community.
“It is very important to us that the parental notification involvement is a part of this process all the way along. When we do our screenings in the fall for 7th grade students, a notification goes out to all parents that the screening is coming up and if you don’t want your child to be a part of that you can opt out. Otherwise any results that come from that screening are shared with the family immediately,” she said.
School Board Trustee Roberts asked if there are resources for a student who wanted to report a friend with suicidal ideations or a community member who has a concern about a suicidal student. She asked if there are ways to anonymously make it easier for people to alert someone regarding students with suicidal ideations.
Perkins said there are resources, including the SafeVoice in Carson City (see the link here) and 1-833-216-7233, which is available 24/7 allowing anyone a safe place to submit a tip concerning their own safety or that of others. A fully trained profession team of experts respond to calls.
In other presentations, trustees also listened to a presentation from the Carson City School District’s Artificial Intelligence Learning Ambassadors (AILA) Cohort on the use of Artificial Intelligence in the district. The discussion is at the 2 hour and 10 minute mark in the YouTube video below.
In action items:
— Trustees pulled the agenda item where it will be discussed at a later date, an agreement between Chartwells, Food Service Management Consultant, and the Carson City School District. The district is still working on the contract.
— The board took action, moving its Nov. 11 School Board meeting to Nov. 17 due to Veterans Day and canceling the Nov. 25 school board meeting.
View the meeting in the YouTube video below:
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