|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
For some students in Mountain View’s high schools, just getting out of bed and going to class seems like an insurmountable challenge. The stressful academic environment, with the pressure to take a full load of tough classes, is pushing some teens to the point where they start avoiding school altogether.
School avoidance isn’t new, but with a little extra cash in the budget, the Mountain View-Los Altos High School District can finally put some money into addressing the problem. At a Feb. 27 study session, board members mulled the possibility of allocating quite a bit of the district’s discretionary spending for the year — $500,000 — on a school avoidance program, described as an on-campus clinical program with academics for teens who are struggling with anxiety.
The school avoidance program is one of two high-cost proposals aimed at small groups of high-need students. District staff also proposed a $500,000 behavioral program for special needs students struggling to learn in a mainstream academic environment, and whose behavior is so disruptive that school staff have to spend an inordinate amount of time managing individual students. Both programs would help between 12 and 15 students each year.
Teens are definitely under more pressure to compete with one another and get into a high-ranking college than in previous years, said Associate Superintendent Brigitte Sarraf. That competition often means students feel the need to overload their schedule with five or six Advanced Placement and honors classes, on top of extracurricular activities and after-school jobs. Such a heavy load of classwork is more than students can handle, and some kids react by just “shutting down.”
“There’s definitely an uptick in depression and anxiety, and that anxiety is often fueled by these unrealistic expectations that they put upon themselves,” she said. “It’s like a pressure cooker for some students.”
School avoidance is distinctly different from normal truancy, said Susan Flatmo, the district’s clinical services director. Students are missing out on class time because of “emotional strain,” and there’s usually a clear pattern of absences and tardies as students get overwhelmed. She said students will often tell her that anxiety about their academic achievement, and concerns about what other people think about them, are why they started avoiding school.
Flatmo has been hosting training classes to teach parents about what school avoidance is, and what’s going on in their child biologically and psychologically when they struggle with emotional stress at school. Kids will say they have a stomach-ache or a headache and parents will think they’re sick, Flatmo said, and while the physical symptoms of anxiety are real, parents need to rule out that there isn’t something else going on.
The hope is that through working with parents, the district can minimize the amount of class time students miss, and ensure that teens have access to counseling and therapy on and off campus to manage academic pressure. The longer students stay away from school, Flatmo said, the more difficult it is for them to come back.
Therapists at the Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC), which provides mental health services for the district, have also noticed the increase in school avoidance due to academic pressure, said Marsha Deslauriers, executive director of CHAC. Students, many of them high-achievers, are overwhelmed by depression and anxiety “so significant that they cannot or will not attend school,” she said. Parents overwhelmed by their own workload will often just let their kids stay home, and after a few days, the problem starts to compound.
“The kids get so far behind in school work it’s very hard to catch up,” Deslauriers said. “This leads to more days missed — sometimes even weeks — as the student becomes further and further behind in their school work.”
Flatmo said it would make a big difference to have an intervention program specifically tailored for the dozen or so students in the district who haven’t been able to return to school, or can only take a few classes, and their anxiety appears to be getting worse.
“We want to support those students so they can come in and get back into the routine and feel better again,” she said.
Behavioral problems on campus
Also up for consideration next year is the adoption of a behavioral program that would put high-maintenance special education students in a therapeutic program, rather at one of the two comprehensive high school campuses. The program would serve a small number of students — 12 to 15 kids in total — but it would be a boon for school staff trying to manage classroom disruptions.
At the Feb. 27 meeting, Sarraf said handling high-needs students with behavioral problems has been increasingly challenging, and that school staff are spending much of their time “managing them and protecting other students’ opportunity to learn.” Los Altos High School Principal Wynne Satterwhite added that there’s one student who spends fifth and sixth period in her office every day.
Sarraf told the Voice Monday that when students at either of the district’s comprehensive high schools are disengaged, out of control or despondent, there’s no program or “circle of care” in place for them. The result is that they end up in various school offices, and their behavior often detracts from other students’ ability to learn.
“As a district, we need to come up with an organized system to rehabilitate these students in an efficient way,” Sarraf said.
Over the years, Sarraf said the district has adopted several alternate options to traditional high school in order to meet the needs of as many students as possible, whether it be the district’s own continuation high school — Alta Vista — or the Middle College program on the Foothill College campus. Even then, she said there are still probably about 100 students who require some kind of support program for their “unique aspirations and needs.”
Superintendent Jeff Harding told board members that the behavioral program, and its associated $500,000 price tag, is part of the district’s effort to help all students succeed instead of sending the most challenging teens to a county continuation program and chalking them up as dropouts.
“We have a dropout rate as low as it is, but there’s still that population of students that needs something that we’re not offering,” Harding said. “This (behavioral) program right here would not exist in most of California.”
I applaud MVLA for, again, being at the forefront of developing programs to address the needs of all its students. The U.S. Supreme Court recently delivered a landmark special education ruling in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-827_0pm1.pdf ) in finding that courts should expect “(school) authorities to be able to offer a cogent and responsive explanation for their decisions that shows the IEP is reasonably calculated to enable the child to make progress appropriate in light of his circumstances” because “(w)hen all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing ‘merely more than de minimis’ progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all.” I am certain many districts will not be proactive in building programs which comply with this new standard. MVLA will lead the way. I could also see these proposed programs helping students like my son who need transition time when returning to school after missing an extended period while experiencing a major depressive episode.
Good effort, but leaves out teacher education. Most are understanding after an absence, but there are some that need training around how to work with students who are returning from illness. It’s not hard to trigger anxiety in a student who is behind.
With all this new money, there is no need for measure B.
Vote no on measure B .
I believe measure B is for Mountain View-Whisman, which is an elementary school district, not MVLA, which is the high school district. MV-W definitely needs more money. The funding structure is different.
Please tell me I just read that too quickly.
I think, as the above poster said, staff education is KEY.
Also, could the district pay for additional CHAC counselors on site? Some are really wonderful, at least on the elementary school level, and provide that 1:1 attention these kids need to get them what they need at school.
I can totally relate to this, I hated the workload. Most classes were crap that didn’t help prep me for college or career guidance. It was a chore to get through it all.
I think the pressure is coming from parents as well. Program should include education for parents as to balance between healthy encouragement vs unrealistic expectations for the child. Many times, it comes down to knowing who your child is. Not every child is going to to a CEO or even college bound.
Finally they found that the kids are so behind academy because in the mountain view district the academic level is so poor and compared from Los altos and also from buds and huff so went the kids arrived a high school they are so behind and they are not going to accept they are behind and written reading even math I am happy to hear that but I thing the question why the mountain view wishman district don’t have high expectations from they kids they kids got 1 and the report card and the past for another grade really that is very difficult for the kids to challenge next year because he doesn’t have the skills and strong base plus parent don’t have the tools for support o they don’t know how the school sistem work
It’s a complicated issue. I believe it takes a strong administration to tackle this complex issue – one that has everyone’s interests in mind. If they are only thinking about crossing “T”s and doting “I”s save the money. If there’s going to be balance in the administration of the programs / funds they must truly address the student’s needs, the teacher’s skill set and the government and school policies. All stakehokders need to be represented and equipped. On another note … thank goodness Mtn View Whisman hired a new person to head up their Special Ed program – hoping they bring balance couple with compassion for struggling students and families navigating new waters.
Sigh. Proper SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER TIME IS NEEDED! They have the proper training needed to work with the needs a ” Special Ed ” student has. I know, my parent started out as a ” Special Ed ” teacher. The rising through the ranks to an Assistant Administrator just shows how well the ” Special Ed ” training served.
PAUSD has it’s debacle over improper training of it’s ” Special Ed ” Staff and teachers, that is why the OCR filed charges. Unfortunately, they have not learned the lesson, even when I posted what they needed to do!
Learn from the PAUSD problem and hire the correct Special Education teachers; That will save the TAXPAYER’S MONEY in the long run….