Page 72 - Wellness Promotion Policy Annual Report FY19 & FY20

STUDENTS STUDENTS
Physical Education Physical Education
& Physical Activity Environment & Involvement & Physical Activity Environment &
Nutrition
Social & Emotional Climate EMPLOYEES Engagement COORDINATING POLICY, PROCESS, AND PRACTICE Counseling, Social Services Social & Emotional & FAMILIES Social & Emotional Climate EMPLOYEES Engagement Family Physical COORDINATING POLICY, PROCESS, AND PRACTICE Counseling, Social & FAMILIES
Nutrition
Community
Community
Services
Services
Involvement
Psychological
Family
Psychological
Services
HEALTHY SAFE
HEALTHY SAFE
CHALLENGED SUPPORTED ENGAGED
CHALLENGED SUPPORTED ENGAGED
Physical
Social &
Environment
Emotional
Environment
Employee IMPROVING LEARNING AND HEALTH Health Climate Employee IMPROVING LEARNING AND HEALTH Health Climate
Wellness Education Wellness Education
Health Health
Services Services
COMMUNITY COMMUNITY
Social-Emotional Learning
The Teaching and Learning Department’s Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is associated with increased
academic achievement, improved social skills, and improved behavior. Teaching students SEL skills is a tier
one intervention for all students within the Responsive of Intervention (RtI) framework. 28 schools in the
District participated in the SEL (Cohort 1) during FY19. Continuous Professional Development on SEL practices,
implementing strategies, and curriculum was provided for representatives from each school site.
The practice of Morning Meetings and curriculum was offered at every grade level for every student in the
cohort schools. Approximately 24,000 students (Cohort 1) benefited daily in year-one and 18,000 students
(Cohort 2) in year two.
Safe School Ambassadors (SSA) School Effectiveness Questionnaire Executive Summary Report: (Climate)
The Safe School Ambassadors (SSA) program recruits and enlists student, opinion leaders, from formal and
informal groups on school campuses to serve as allies with adults in preserving positive campus climates.
It was predicated on the premise that students see, hear, and know things about campus interpersonal
dynamics that adults do not know, and that they can intervene as influence agents in ways that adults
cannot. Safe School Ambassadors intervene with specific diplomatic communication skills in non-classroom
settings to defuse conflicts, provide support to targets, distract or reason with aggressors, and neutralize cruel
humor, harmful gossip, rumors and intergroup prejudice. Following initial training provided onsite by the
Department of Safe Schools’ trainers, school site advisors meet with SSAs regularly to supervise, de-brief, and
encourage them.

Community Matters, a non-profit organization housed in Santa Rosa, California, own this expanding
international program. Because of early District contributions to the model, the District has an exclusive
agreement to present the program free of charge to schools in Palm Beach County.

This program directly supports Objective 1 by building a cadre of skilled students who model, utilize, and
extend high level social and emotional learning skills on elementary and secondary campuses. The program
not only helps keep the peace on campuses, it maximizes the social and emotional learning skills of the Safe
School Ambassadors and advisors so they can utilize positive approaches to problem solving in classrooms,
at home, and in the community. Action Logs of SSAs reveal that the average member intervenes in two
incidents per week. Using that average, it could be estimated that District SSAs have intervened over 20,000
times in FY19.

While participation in this program is voluntary and participation ebbs and flows based on leadership
priorities and the presence of motivated advisors, over 60 District schools have undertaken the program since
its inception. During FY19, 16 schools had active programs, with one new school requesting initial training in
August 2019 (FY20).

72 FY19 and FY20 Wellness Promotion Policy (WPP) Annual Report BACK to Menu 73