Confidential Customized for Lorem Ipsum LLC Version 1.

Combating
Mental Health
David Drucker-
Confidential Customized for Lorem Ipsum LLC Version 1.0

Current Facts

● 1-5 children ages 13-18 suffer from a serious mental illness

● 50% of mental illness students will drop out of high school

● 10% of all youth have a mood or conduct disorder

● Student to Counselor ratios on average are 400:1

● Small percentage of teachers have been properly trained to handle mental illness

● In a 7 hour school day, students are sitting for approximately 5 ½ - 6 hours a day

● Nearly all conversations are content driven because of amount of content

● Counselors see .3% of students in school (Personal building)

Problems to solve
How can we equip our staff with the proper How might we be able to to truly HELP
1 3
skills to support our students who are going these student?
through mental health problems?

What supports need to be put in place to What can we do to promote success in

2 4
better the school experience for ALL these students’ lives outside of schools?
stakeholders?
Overview
In middle school, along with other levels, we do not give students an opportunity to improve their emotional state
due to high pressure for content knowledge. Teachers have so much content to get through that they cannot waste
time making sure the students are okay. The students whom have the outward behaviors are the ones whom are
referred to our counselors. Teachers do not often get a chance to meet with those students whom are struggling in
silence because there is no time in the day to meet with them. ONE in FIVE 13-18 year olds are struggling with a
mental illness, unfortunately school systems are not doing enough to solve these problems.
Plan

- Implement a time during the week to address mental

illness
- Hire more counselors or train more teachers to have
crucial conversations with student (Expensive)
- Create meaningful relationships within the building to
show students that there are people in the buildings who
care (during the school day)
Plan (Achievable)

- Creating a school culture that embraces equity

- Heart, body and mind teaching (Life is not all about

academics)

- “Sharpening the Saw” (Covey) (Once a quarter)

- Outreach to parents for how to talk to teens

Plan (Achievable: Creating Equity and a caring community)

Majority of teachers are not specifically trained to work with mental illness OR
trained on how to build meaningful relationships with students. Studies have shown
that building positive AND meaningful relationships with students increase their
academic abilities and drive to be at school. Teachers need to be able to create and
maintain those relationships throughout the school career of EVERY student. There
are programs out there that help train teachers to listen and care. Capturing Kids
Hearts is one example of a program to help students and teachers create lifelong
bonds. Creating those connections with students give them a sense of belonging, and
their program shows when students belong to a school, their achievement increases.
PRO: Teachers receive training to improve student well-being as well
as look fors for struggling students.
CON(s): Not ALL staff members are onboard and will not have the buy
in. Cost, not all schools can afford this program.
Plan (Achievable: Sharpening the Saw)

Schools focus nearly ALL of their times on the academics and no time on
well-being. Sharpening the Saw means we take a day to focus on non academics. We
would focus on our minds, hearts and bodies. Stephen Covey suggests that you
cannot live a healthy life if you do not take some time to make your heart, mind and
body happy with non-academic activities. These activities would include guest
speaker, art projects, STEM , cooking or anything non academic related. It is meant to
be a stress free day at school. We constantly pressure our students to be at their
highest level or 7 hours every single day. We expect them to make 100% correct
decisions about their behaviors and academics. Schools want students to be perfect
100% of the time and that is not achievable. Sharpening the saw gives students, and
teachers, the chance to R-E-L-A-X.
PRO: A chance for everyone take a deep breath and understand there
is more than curriculum
CON(s): Takes away from curriculum time and it can be challenging
to have everyone on board. Students who struggle with unstructured time
Do (Culture/Caring)
Do (Culture/Caring)

- Training will be most effective if taking two days at the beginning of the year for PD
- Only 40 people allowed per session
- Gauge interest of staff and take volunteers to see how many WANT the training for year one
- If successful, train the remainder of staff
- $450 per staff member ($18,000 for 40 staff)
- Within this training, staff will learn specific strategies that are proven to work with forms of mental
illness such as depression and behaviors
- Capturing Kids Hearts is a relationship building program which gives teachers a chance to get some counseling
background
- This is important because our teachers are the frontline for students, they make the most meaningful relationships,
so why would we not train them to help students
 Do (Sharpening the saw)

- Implement one day, or half a day every quarter to

sharpen the saw
- Use this as an opportunity for community engagement
- Studies show this relaxes students and gives them a
sense of being in schools
- Cost can be minimal if planned efficiently and have
strong community partnerships
- Teacher buy in is key for students to be excited
- If done for students, create a staff sharpening the saw
day
Study (Behavioral Data)

As a school, we have meeting to prepare for the year based on our top 5% of high
flyers. Let’s use that data to measure see for effective our programs are. We currently
track behavior referrals along with counselor visits, so we can compare that data
throughout the students time at our school. Even more so, talk to the students to see
how they are doing at our current school. For mental health, we can interview
students, as well as comparing the survey data from our school. We collect so much
data on each student, but we never take time to compare data from year to year,
except academically. Let’s take our behavior data and use it to track how well
students are moving through our system. A CON with using behavior data may be the
maturity of a student. That is a variable that is out of our control, but at this point, we
do not know about this data. Lastly, right now we have zero trend data suggesting
how well students adapt to our system. If we have a student who struggles in third
grade, how long do they struggle with behaviors or mental illness? Do they struggle
through graduation, or at what point do they “turn it around”?
Study (Measuring effectiveness of Sharpening the Saw)
- How many community partners were involved
- How many TOTAL participants
- Student interview data
- Staff interview data
- Community partner interview data
- Student-well being data
- Behavior trend data as it relates to timing of sharpening the saw
Act
Capturing Kids Hearts:
- Based on the data discovers, the district now needs to make a decision on if the program was
effective enough for ALL staff to be trained.
- It is also possible for the trained staff members to do a breakout session
- Connections to ALL students should be made a top priority, no matter the grade level
- Confirm Data by reaching out to other districts whom have implemented the program

Sharpening the Saw:

- Continual improvement
- Plan ahead for 2020 school year to sharpen the saw
- GRR model where you can eventually have students set up the day
- Take time during the school day for kids to understand WHY sharpening the saw is important to
a healthy life
- Do NOT leave staff behind, sharpen their saw
- Everyone should be included
 Vision

Capturing Kids Hearts Data Implementation

Sending 40 teachers to the training of Capturing Kids Admin team to review data agreed upon to reveal Come up with a date for training for the upcoming
Hearts and to implement during the 2019-2020 effectiveness of program. Make a decision on if ALL school year. Move forward and continue
school year staff needs to move forward with training implementation while tracking trend data.

October 2019 May 2020

August February 2020 August 2020

2019 Refresh The Decision

Have a refresh day with the trainees to see how
effective the program is going in this school year. Use
this time to see what supports are needed for these
staff to make sure implementation is with fidelity.
Reveal data to all staff and “Sell” how this program
works. This IS what is best for kids so it is something
our district is committed to. Share with staff how we
will move forward with implementation into the
20/21 school year
 Vision

Sharpening the Saw Implement ONE Repeat

Pick a volunteer grade level OR team to dabble in the Have team implement at least one Sharpen the Saw Have teams train the rest of the school the
idea of Sharpening the saw day by April, so there is time for reflection. importance of Sharpening the Saw. Model a day at a
PD and provide examples of how it benefits
EVERYONE

2019 2020

2019 2020 August 2020

Observation Review

Make time for team to study or observe a sharpening
the saw day at a different district.
Allow team to share their data with the Admin team
to discuss the pros/cons and observations viewed
from the Sharpening the Saw day. This will also give
the admin team an estimation of how much time will
need to be given to each team in order to implement
with fidelity.
Thank you.