Salem Hills Elementary Meeting Notes: January 16, 2014 Attendees: Mary Garrison Tina Willette Bert Straussberg

Kris Hillesheim 7 Parents Director of Special Services Salem Hills Elementary Associate Principal Director of Elementary Education Special Education Intern

Purpose: Listen to parent concerns regarding behaviors at Salem Hills and answer questions Parameters addressed regarding data privacy and identifying information. 1. Safety in general for their children and others Behaviors they are hearing about with other children include: swearing teachers carrying children kicking children told to F off by other children son grabbed and pushed out of the way when dealing with another student

2. Change in own child's behavior when anxious/stressed aggression (pushing) other kids child sees others with this 3. One parent is mental health worker at U of M Hospital setting Described problems they have had and what they have done at hospital setting Behavioral program adjustments and training occurred at hospital Sees change in general society behavior Lack of socialization 4. Concern with the integrity for the school Parents talking about leaving Involved/higher functioning families leave 5. What is the plan? Seems reactive - no plan Staff don't know what to do with behaviors and keeping kids safe Kids don't feel safe 6. Parent concerned with lack of communication Brought own child to therapist - recent ADHD diagnosis Tying to adapt

Anxiety about safety - his and lockermate 7. Recess not fun - looking out for other kids 8. Concerns about staff physically removing students Kids are concerned with safety of kids in aggressive situations and being physically removed themselves Don't want kids physically removed in front of other kids Scary for kids to see 9. Concerns regarding training of staff with restraints See kids being herded down the hall with gym mats What training have teachers had? Is it continual? 10.Not sure what conversations to have with their kids Will kids become more aggressive because of what they see 11. Want more conversation about how we look at new population What is the big picture and how do other schools/county deal with this? Are families of these children involved? 12. What instruction is being lost by continued disturbance in these classes? 13. Concern is with all grades, not just K-1 Whole school feels it 14. Lockdowns Even practices are scary What is a medical lockdown? What is the code for an intruder? If behavior (major) occurs in the hall - what is that called and students have to stay in their room? Tina: Sometimes it is called medical lockdown for mental health isseus 15. Is there a coordinated effort? Who is involved? What are you looking at? Are there tips for our kids to deal with this? 16. Do the other elementary schools have similar mental health issues? Mary: Yes, however the physical structure in other buildings doesn't lend itself to not knowing if something is going on Physical size of school is different at other buildings More staff at Hilltop Bert - Discussions have been occurring about what to do with mental health

needs in schools Mary - County supports are being pursued School Linked Mental Health grant Just starting with Associated Clinic of Psychology Family service workers help families to navigate this County had budget cuts NAMI is pushing changes School is not a mental health agency Many students we see are not already diagnosed Some come from trauma situations Takes time to work through the system 17. Criteria for being in a different level of school? Mary Explained different levels of sp ed services and state criteria for sp ed Students are first serve in least restrictive environment When can't meet needs in district school - refer to 917 Day treatment is county/insurance driven 18. How long to they have to be here before they can move? Mary This is child specific 19. Why are the kindergarteners with behavior not in other programs? Mary - we have no kindergarteners in setting 3 that meet criteria Lots of data to be collected over a long time 20. Whose responsibility is it to keep track of this process? Why are they not in an existing supportive room? Mary - every child with a behavior is not an EBD student We work with them to see if we can change the behavior Events happen in a child's life happen that can affect behavior that is not a disability 21. Students all over the districts access mental health from outside providers sometimes student's insurance runs out 22. Who in the building does the process to get children into special education? Mary - teacher refers Tina - PBIS - Tier 1 Tier 2 Plan Tier 3 More individualized Meredith New Family and Child Therapist hired Has worked only 11 days so far Tier 2 and 3 working oh PhD at the U worked in Mpls public schools just at Salem Hills

happening in Tier 1

has met with all teachers advisor from the U wants to come see what is

95% of the students Tier 1 works Benchmarking behavior data Check in/check out will start work on student individual goals have done at HT with good success Most do not receive sp ed restructuring problem solving process 23. What training has occurred for staff on physical removals? Tina - all admin, fed setting 3, sp ed teachers, sp ed paras Have been trained in CPI 24. Is it ok to drag a child by the arm down the hall? Seeing kids being pulled by their arms Mary - restrictive procedures clarification Tina - sp ed team consistently meet with paras to coach/problem solve No safe regulating place for kids and adults can go to regulate Parent shared U of M grant at hospital setting new behavioral program quiet room with music and bean bags kids can ask to go there has decreased seclusion need staff know about cues from kids Mary - looking at this issue in the school remodeling plans some use the swing in the OT room have toured buildings to see what works elsewhere calming cave limited resources no seclusion rooms 25. Is there a plan in place to educate other kids in the classroom? ex. person came to talk about kid with cancer want kids to be able to support their peers make sure kids aren't afraid of the staff who do the restraints Mary - MS looking at CLIMB theater Tina - thinking about how she could meet with classrooms with family support worker and Meredith Give kids ideas on what to say 26. Parent has seen change in three years from child's perspective that staff didn't know what to do and now they do 27. Parent's concern with what they didn't know was going on in kdg so they knew say to their kids

28. Parents needs as accurate information as they can get ex. medical situation vs. flipping out want more communication that is accurate and timely want to have the same language Mary - trying to send something home every time it is used additional communication is alarming - not used to it think it's something really bad 29. What other things is the district looking towards? Mary - school linked mental health locate in the schools not sure where still tied to insurance PBIS in every building frustrating to try to help families with accessing county asst 3o. With the new Early Childhood wing at Hilltop - will there be something there for early intervention? Kdg screening - tool for trauma screening Mary - not currently having mental health component ECFE training can't require parent training If we would implement something for EC we would need to have a firm plan in place 31. We all as a community need to work together Mary - small number of students but very high profile Tina - referendum will allow us to make a space to deal with this 32. For the rest of this year - is there sufficient space to take care of these kids? Mary - new space was created for the younger learners Tina - table for staff in library and computer Bert - Title 1 in most schools is in the classroom we are transitioning to that in the district 33. Title 1 instruction - questions on how this works Seems like he has it for a couple weeks then no services Tina - bands of study on math/rdg supports will check on this for the particular student Mary - research shows if 2 teachers in the classroom you can make more progress and develop flexible grouping work within the classroom works better for most kids Tina - working on changing to school wide Title 1 don't have to qualify individual students, specific grades would be more flexible playing with staffing more collaborative model

Parents expressed appreciation for meeting and are happy with what they heard is already being addressed that they werent aware of. Concerned that this isnt being shared with all parents. Mary - Much of this is very new so plans are in place to share some information on resources