Student Support Center
Mission
The Student Support Center is a structured, supervised, systemic resource where students are sent or who may self-refer. Its primary mission is to assist in providing for the school a safe and proactive environment by de-escalating, processing and redirecting students whose behavior choices challenge classroom capacity and/or violate school community standards.
Rationale
There are students within a school building who present at-risk behavior pertaining to school safety and instructional integrity. Systemic programs to better manage these problems will create a positive climate, relieve the school office, ensure confidentiality, enhance public relations and potentially change behaviors.
Objectives
Primary
A. Receive students sent from class/building areas
B. De-escalate
C. Process – process the particular incident as well as teach to skill deficits as they naturally occur in the student’s daily functioning; guide the student’s practice in problem solving and conflict resolution. (The interactive interventions that take place in the Student Support Center are based on cognitive theory.)
D. Prepare students for consequences (No consequences are imposed in the Student Support Center. (Consequences are given by classroom teachers or the principal based on the severity of the infraction.)
E. Facilitate the student’s re-entry to the instructional environment
F. Data catch
a. Weekly referrals
b. Students
c. Behaviors
d. Staff-time-place
G. May facilitate process between student and staff
Secondary
A. Serve on the Core Team
B. Provide strategies/scripts/common language to staff
C. Serve on the Crisis Team
D. Deliver social skills instruction to pre-determined population
E. Provide gate-keeping for identified students
*Also, at Maple Street School, The Student Support Center will house students who have been given In-School Suspensions and support students who return from prolonged absences, hospitalizations, etc.
Program Management
This program is staffed by a Student Support Center Supervisor, two half-time paraprofessionals and is managed by a Core Team.
Core Team
1) Principal Mr. Michael Bessette
2) Program Supervisor Mrs. Fran Burdette
3) Guidance Counselor Mrs. Mary-Chris Duncan
4) School Nurse Mrs. Jeanne Gearing
5) School Psychologist Dr. Alvin Caldwell
Core Team Role
A. Meet weekly for approximately 30 minutes
B. Review data (weekly referrals, students, behaviors)
C. Develop potential strategies for managing specific students
D. Assess resource needs for specific teacher
E. Make program recommendations
F. Sort out supervision issues
Program Population
The Student Support Center is an integrated model, serving both regular and special education students.
Program Orientation
Student Support Center service is student-centered, individualized and adaptable.
Who Gets Referred To The Student Support Center?
It is expected that students will be referred from the classroom or other area of the building to the Student Support Center if they are engaging in severe-intensity behaviors and some moderate-intensity behaviors, as defined by school protocol.
Mild-intensity behaviors can and should be handled right in the classroom using the teacher’s management plan. These are behaviors that are inappropriate to the learning situation but do not constitute a major interference with instruction or a potential threat of danger. Examples are: silly comments, off-task comments, chatting, note passing, inattention, wandering, rudeness, and noncompliance to minor directives of the teacher.
Moderate-intensity behaviors are those that interrupt and/or seriously compromise instruction. If these behaviors occur, the teacher might handle them in the instructional environment, or following a period of increasingly more severe consequencing, refer the student to the Student Support Center. Examples are: name-calling, put-downs, destruction of property, failure to comply with a teacher directive, use of profanity or gestures that are not directed toward a person.
Severe-intensity behaviors are behaviors that halt instruction, compromise safety or are blatantly insubordinate or disrespectful. These behaviors require immediate removal from the classroom or other area of the school property. These students should be immediately sent/escorted to the Student Support Center. Student Support Center staff would immediately notify the principal. Examples are: hitting, kicking, running away, spitting, throwing objects, knocking over furniture, use of intensely profane or provocative language, threatening assault, refusing to comply, any behaviors that endanger self or others, behaviors that constitute violations of law, such as possession of cigarettes, alcohol, weapons or illegal drugs.
For questions related to the Student Support Center, please contact Mrs. Burdette at 746-4195 x 263 or via email at this link.
