Glynn County Schools has seen an increase in student behavioral challenges since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a new screening initiative is intended to be a proactive approach to the problem.
The Glynn County Board of Education heard during its work session Thursday a report on discipline incidents over the past several years, as well as an overview of the behavior screener that will be implemented later this month.
From the first day of school through Sept. 30, 2019, 1,272 students were reported for disciplinary incidents. This fall, during that same period, 1,412 students were reported.
Types of incidents reported include fighting, bullying, drug use, theft, dress code violations and student incivility.
“We’ve seen some increase in physical, responsive, aggressive behavior,” said Senetra Haywood, director of student services. “You’ll see that is slightly above what we were pre-COVID, but I know our schools are working really hard to make sure that those things are mitigated.”
Some schools have implemented changes during class transition periods to decrease opportunities for incidents, she said.
“Our schools are being very responsive with regard to their discipline,” Haywood said.
The behavior screener will be a new intervention.
“As you all know, we typically utilize universal screenings for academics, but we have not been doing that for behavior,” Haywood said. “And the intent of this is to intervene early, to be more preventative in how we can respond to behavior early on.”
The screener, completed by answering questions that assess a variety of behavior challenges and strengths, is given electronically and takes about five minutes to complete. It will be given to students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
School board member Mike Hulsey asked if the district plans to rework its PBIS (positive behavioral interventions and supports) programs or other approaches to decreasing bad behaviors in schools. He said he doesn’t feel discipline in schools is handled with the kind of consistency that’s needed.
Scott Spence, superintendent, said these challenges are not unique to the school system.
“Understand that schools are a microcosm of the community we live in, and we’re seeing this in our community,” he said. “People expect schools to raise their children, and that’s hard to do. It’s not something we can do.”
The district hopes to be as proactive as possible, he said, including with this new screener.
“We have a way of screening students academically, and we’re getting pretty good at that,” Spence said. “We need to find a way to screen students behaviorally.”
In other business, the school board heard from Brian Weese, the new CEO of the Golden Isles College and Career Academy and workforce strategy leader for the school district. Weese shared his vision for GICCA and for his new role.
He described the career academy as a gem in the community that needs to be more well known.
“We’ve got really great faculty out there who care, and a lot of them are tradesmen who could make a lot of money elsewhere doing a lot of different things,” Weese said. “But they’re there teaching those kids, and they’ve got a lot of great knowledge to pass on to the kids.”
He said he plans to spend the first month or so in the role listening, and then he hopes to go out and tell the story of GICCA in the community.
“It’s not a trade school,” he said. “I think people don’t really know sometimes what GICCA is. It’s a skills school or a workforce development institution. We’re here to create the next group of workers for this community.”