Schools

Board recognizes school crisis units

Social workers, nurses and counselors volunteered during a year filled with tragedies and grieving students.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published May 4, 2005

LAND O'LAKES - The crises began almost as soon as school started in August.

A former River Ridge High student died in an auto accident. An Anclote Elementary teacher was murdered. A Stewart Middle School eighth-grader suffered a traumatic head injury after a four-wheeler accident. An east Pasco teacher committed suicide. Two Weightman Middle seventh-graders died days apart over spring break.

Only October and November went by without a major tragedy affecting one of Pasco County's 60 schools. And by April's end, teams of volunteer school counselors and psychologists had responded to 22 crises - an unprecedented number for a district that typically averages about half that, according to student services supervisor Cathy Rapp.

"This has been a tough year," said Susan Girardi, a Gulf High School nurse who was among 30 social workers, school nurses and guidance counselors who voluntarily served on the crisis teams.

The School Board on Tuesday recognized the teams for their extraordinary work this year. As members of the crisis intervention teams, they left their regular work duties when tragedy struck, conducting group and one-on-one counseling sessions whenever the district called. They do not get paid for the extra work.

Sometimes the situations called for creative strategies.

Lucy Cooper, a guidance counselor at River Ridge Middle, worked on a team charged with helping prekindergarten students cope with the death of an Anclote Elementary teacher's aide.

"Some understand what's happening, some don't," Cooper said. So, the team members gave students an age-appropriate way to express their feelings through coloring and play.

Until the mid 1980s, there was no plan in place to help schools deal with such painful events. In fact, Rapp said that when the district created formal crisis intervention teams in 1988, there was some resistance from camps who felt intervention was more disruptive than helpful.

Now, she said, "I can't think of a single death or loss where a principal didn't call and say, "I had this loss, how can I help my school?"

Today, even a student grieving the loss of a pet might be given the opportunity to plant a flower in a campus memory garden.

"I think that's part of what we try to teach kids - that loss is a part of life and it does change your life in some ways forever," Rapp said. But the teams also strive to give students and employees healthy strategies for coping with grief in order to stave off the isolating experience of mourning alone and of feeling, as Rapp said, "invisible."

School Board members thanked the employees, whom Rapp lauded as "a very altruistic group of people."

Also during Tuesday's meeting, the School Board:

Approved a new pricing plan for school meals, increasing costs of most meals by 10 to 25 cents. Free and reduced-price lunches for financially disadvantaged students will remain unchanged, as will the price of adult breakfasts.

Gave a first reading to a student code of conduct that would relax a rule requiring students to wear their identification badges. Under the proposed change, students would only have to carry the badges with them. School Board members were divided on whether the change was necessary. They vowed to research the matter before the next meeting at 6 p.m. May 18.

Rebecca Catalanello covers education in Pasco County. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6241 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6241. Her e-mail address is rcatalanello@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 4, 2005, 01:19:55]