The Penfield Central School District is delving deeper into social emotional learning this school year.
After a years-long social emotional learning initiative, the district will now use a data-driven approach to develop targeted supports for students.
The initiative began in 2018. It currently uses a platform called Panorama Education to collect information about student wellbeing based on survey answers, a tool district staff said is being used with consistency.
“I think that is enlightening when we think about the importance of having and staying with Panorama,” school board president Emily Roberts said. “I think it's so important because we're able to look at the data and see where the needs of our students are so that we can meet those needs.”
Survey questions screen for key elements of emotional wellness — things like emotional regulation, social awareness, self-management, and supportive relationships.
“Some of those questions were like: ‘Do you have a teacher or adult that you can count on to help you?’ ... ‘Do you have a family member or a friend that you can count on?’” Scott Drechsler said during a recent school board meeting. “I know that that's one of the main components is having a person — a relationship with one person — that can be proven ... to help your success throughout your educational career.”
The next step, Drechsler said, is to build up intervention strategies for students whose survey responses show possible vulnerabilities using the Panorama platform's ‘playbook’ for social emotional skill-building lessons. The more intensive or focused approaches will concentrate on smaller groups of students who may be answering in certain ways that indicate an unmet need, Drechsler said
“There are direct lessons that are aligned to identified areas of need within that universal screener (survey),” he said. “So if you were in emotional regulation, and you were scoring unfavorably at the group level or about the class level, they have playbook and lessons that are aligned to that area of need, that help build those skills."
Through Panorama, districts also have the option to include information like academic scores, grade level and gender. That matters in part because it could show a full picture of how a student’s emotional health could be connected to low class scores.
According to a study published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology in 2020, mental health struggles in early childhood and adolescence increase the risk of poor academic performance. The scholars who authored the study concluded that awareness and treatment are needed to “provide fair opportunities to education.”
“If an association between mental health and academic performance can be found already during childhood and adolescence, early recognition and interventions are warranted,” the authors state.
Drechsler said next steps for Penfield schools include more visits to school buildings, and more professional training for staff and teachers to boost data-driven social-emotional support for students.
