http://www.yankton.net/articles/2012/10/09/community/doc50739afee8ef3489804262.txt

School Board Hears Report On YSD Counselor Impact

By Andrew Atwal
andrew.atwal@yankton.net

The Yankton School District (YSD) school board heard a report Monday night on the Lewis and Clark and YSD drug and alcohol counselor and the effects that is having on students in YSD.

School board officials also approved a change to the open enrollment policy of YSD to comply with a new state law.

Tiffany Kashas, who is employed by Lewis and Clark Behavioral Health, has been working full-time at Yankton High School (YHS) and Yankton Middle School (YMS) as a drug and alcohol counselor.

When officials were discussing changing the curriculum and hiring a counselor for the district, they realized they needed to address three areas: having a partnership between community members and YSD, having the funding in place to hire a counselor and implementing evidence-based practices in the district.

“We have made substantial progress in each of those three areas,” said Dr. Tom Stanage, CEO of Lewis and Clark Behavioral Health.

Funding for the counselor was provided through a grant. As the program continues to evolve, officials from YSD and Lewis and Clark will hold weekly meetings.

“The counselor has been working at YHS and YMS with the current drug and alcohol policies in place at the schools,” Stanage said. “This has been a very positive process for Lewis and Clark and YSD. We need to see more of these kinds of things in the community.”

Stanage added that a majority of the funding from the grant is contingent on tracking students’ outcomes who go through the program.

“We’re focusing on prevention with the education series,” Kashas said.

The education series includes components on coping skills, being an adolescent, and drug and alcohol prevention, among others. Currently, the program is in place for sixth graders and freshmen at YHS.

The program includes a number of worksheets, activities and discussion items for students.

“So far we’ve gotten a very positive response from parents,” Kashas noted.

YHS principal Dr. Wayne Kindle added that Kashas has been beneficial to the district.

“Tiffany is not a teacher by nature, and it’s hard to just get up in front of kids and talk,” he said. “She’s been great to have for YSD.”

Kindle added that last year there were 12 drug or alcohol incidents on campus. So far this year that number is already at six, but he is hoping the rate will level off with the help from Kashas.

He also said that the drug and alcohol policy has changed at YHS.

Previously a student with an incident would have a suspension of up to a semester. Now there is an automatic 10-day out-of-school suspension. With that, there is a recommendation of a 35-day suspension. However, officials will give the student a memorandum, and if he/she agrees to the terms, the suspension will be curbed to 25 days. But with the 10 days served, the total suspension will be at an additional 15 days.

This new policy also allows students a rotation option that allows the suspension to be served every other week, allowing students to get caught up on work. Students would work with the counselor upon their return to school.

In other business the board heard from Warren Brenner, who works with technology at YSD, provided an update on the long-range technology plan of the district and talked about how much progress has been made with technology in the district.

Some of the goals of the technology plan at YSD going forward, Brenner said, include continuing to update the phone system in the district, preparing for the new generation of technology available to students and staff, and continuing to update infrastructure to keep up with current needs and demands.

• The school board also approved Kathy Greeneway as the official YSD delegate to the annual Associated School Boards of South Dakota (ASBSD) meeting in Pierre in November and vowed to support her effort to win the election to the ASBSD executive committee.

• Officials were also briefed on ballot issues for the election by Rep. Bernie Hunhoff that could have implications on education in the state.

• Also on the agenda officials approved moving the Nov. 12 board meeting to Nov. 19 because of the Veteran’s Day holiday.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal