By Michael Howell
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau visited Stevensville last week where she spoke at Stevensville School’s “Graduation Matters” assembly. She also met with the director and staff of the Bitterroot Valley Education Cooperative.
Juneau told the school assembly that there are 821 schools in the state, 145,000 students and 12,000 teachers. She said 53 of those communities are involved in the Graduation Matters movement.
She noted the statewide graduation rate is 86%, but Stevensville’s graduation rate has been above 90% for the last two years. She said there are not many schools in the state that can boast of that high a graduation rate. Stevensville also has 25 businesses participating in the program.
“That speaks to the strength of the school, the strength of the Stevensville community and to the strength of Graduation Matters Stevensville,” said Juneau.
Juneau recalled that Stevensville was the 2015 recipient of the Raising Aspirations Award. She said a big part of that was the student voices and the student-led conversations about leadership.
“I’m so proud to be the top advocate for public education in the state,” said Juneau. “There can be very few better jobs than doing that.” She said Montana’s students are smart, creative and ready to lead. “I can’t speak highly enough about Graduation Matters Stevensville and the work of the administration, the work of the teachers, the work of the students, and, of course, the community and parents.”
Juneau also had lunch with Tim Miller, Director of the Bitterroot Valley Education Cooperative (BVEC), Program Manager Chris Hughes and School Behavior Health Specialist Steve Zieglowsky.
According to Miller, the BVEC is an educational cooperative but it is also a state licensed mental health center.
“We wear two hats and are unique in that respect and serve as a bridge between education counseling and mental health counseling,” said Miller.
Miller said that data collected in the 2015 state and local Youth Risk Behavior Survey indicates that 18% of students contemplate suicide. BVEC was asked if they would agree, with some funding, to be a demonstration site for establishing protocols and procedures for suicide prevention in the schools as well as protocols for response to suicide.
Just as the project got underway last year, on the first day of school, a student did commit suicide. It highlighted the need for the program in a tragic but motivating way.
“We worked hard with the schools, with health and physical education teachers and outside agencies to try and prevent another occurrence,” said Miller.
Although suicide rates are not high amongst kindergarten students, it does happen. The rate increases as the students enter middle school and keep rising through high school and into college.
“The earlier we can identify needs, the better chance of success,” said Hughes.
Montana has a high rate of suicide. According to Zieglowsky, the national average is 12 out of every 100,000 people who will commit suicide. In Montana it is 24 out of every 100,000. He said that, while Montana has a lot of veterans and there is a high rate of suicides among veterans, 75% of the suicides in the state are non-veterans.
Zieglowsky has been collecting data from the students in the Bitterroot Valley and using it to help develop protocols for assessing risk factors and for responding once an at-risk student has been identified. According to Zieglowsky, the approach being developed is specific to students and is different than the approach used in the general community.
It involves working so closely with school administration and teachers that the BVEC staff is hardly distinguishable from the school staff. Zieglowsky said that this tight relationship helps avoid the stigma sometimes attached to mental health problems.
Zieglowsky is developing a risk assessment questionnaire that can be used by counselors, teachers, and students to identify students that are at risk. Helping someone at risk is not an easy thing to do. Zieglowsky advises a two-prong approach. He said that a student’s peers may try to befriend the student, get personally involved and provide emotional support.
But this is not enough. “It’s great to be a good friend,” he said, “but it is not enough. They need an adult they can trust who is in a position to get them the kind of professional help that is needed.”
BVEC is applying a three-tiered approach to education on the subject. The first tier is called Universal Intervention and applies to all students. Information about how to respond appropriately to each other regarding the issues of depression and suicide is disseminated to all students across the board. Once a person has been identified as being at risk Targeted Intervention may occur in which the student gets additional teaching and coaching tailored to the individual. A high risk student may receive Intensive Intervention which could involve the whole family and intensive counseling from a trained mental health expert.
Deborah Halliday, policy advisor to Juneau, said suicide and depression are scary topics in small rural communities and can go unrecognized. She said that the Montana Office of Public Instruction, under Juneau’s leadership, is sponsoring a lot of innovative work in rural areas in this regard.
“Our agency has an interest in mental health,” said Halliday. “Students need to be well in their mind to do well at school.”