PEORIA MAGAZINE August 2023

COVER STORY

SAFE AND SOUND School safety starts with students’ mental health, say local educators

BY AMY TALCOTT PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

I f you gathered a roundtable of school administrators and teachers to discuss school safety, you might expect the discussions to center around security technologies and enhanced safety protocols. While those measures are vitally important and being addressed in detail by central Illinois school districts, what’s first and foremost on the minds of local educators when it comes to improving school safety is the mental health of their students. According to data compiled from federal surveys and released in 2022 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics, there were significant rises in cyberbullying, student behavioral issues and school violence from 2010 to 2020. But while more schools are evaluating student mental health, fewer can provide assistance due to a lack of adequate funding and availability of mental health providers. Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, super intendent of Peoria Public Schools, said that 20 years ago, the biggest safety issue a school had was an occasional hallway fistfight. Now schools are bat tling much more serious issues. “While the pandemic certainly exacerbated the mental health crisis, we’ve also seen an increase in ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences,” she explained. “These experiences, such as divorce, bullying, anxiety, social media, neglect, incarceration or poverty-related circumstances, can have a profound

Peoria Public Schools works with area non-profit agencies that provide counseling and outreach, child welfare services and alternative settings for at-risk students. The district also works with local law enforcement on the “Handle With Care” initiative, a national program that supports trauma-informed practices for children and families. Peoria Public Schools was the first district to pilot the program through Lifting Up, a local social innovation company that helped automate the national model. “When law enforcement officers are at the scene of crime, violence, and/ or abuse and identify children … who have been exposed to trauma, they can send a confidential notice to the child’s school,” explained Demario Boone, director of school safety for Peoria Public Schools. “No information is shared except for the child’s name and the words, ‘Handle With Care.’ So, if the child acts out or exhibits some concerning behavior, the teacher has a heads-up and can take constructive rather than punitive action.” Each Peoria school has designated Handle With Care “champions,” who can be principals, teachers, counselors or other staff members trained on how to approach and communicate with traumatized students. These individuals try to develop a rapport with students, said Boone, and “know when they receive an alert, they need to follow up with the student, whether that’s in school or at home, to make sure that

Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, superintendent of Peoria Public Schools

Demario Boone, director of school safety for Peoria Public Schools

impact on student mental health and cause behavioral issues in school.” Dunlap Community Unit School District 323 Superintendent Dr. Scott Dearman agrees that student mental health is at a critical level. “Some of the issues students are facing can be traced back to the pandemic, I'm sure, but a lot of it is the evolution of society in general, including some of the more negative effects of social media,” he said. As a member of the Illinois Association of School Administrators, Dearman has had conversations with administrators across the state who are seeing an uptick in student mental health issues. “The result is we're seeing behavioral-related incidents happen more frequently and much more intensely than they did in the past.” HANDLE WITH CARE Tackling these issues is something schools do carefully, and with partners.

54 JULY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE