Carson Middle School
Eagles don't just survive. We THRIVE!
Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Health -Comprehensive Programming
Comprehensive programming ensures all students learn the social, behavioral, and affective skills that promote well-being.
Social, emotional, and behavioral health are integrated into professional development, curriculum, assessment practices, and school activities.
Student, staff, and family interactions within the school are positive, supportive, and enrich student learning and well-being.
What does this look like at Carson Middle School?
Multi Tiered Systems of Support
In 2020 when schools shut down to combat the spread of COVID, it was unknown at the time how this time away from school would impact students the social, emotional, and behavioral factors for our school. Needless to say, it has had a tremendous impact and "relearning" school has become the norm across the nation. At Carson Middle School systems have been designed to address all students needs based on this unique dynamic created by the pandemic. This page is a walkthrough of that system from Tier One (lower) to Tier Three interventions (higher) that will help all students succeed at Carson Middle School.
The first step in the process is aligning our work with data based decision making. Two major areas of concerns that we identified through student surveys and observations include belonging and acceptance (see charts below). As we know that middle school is already a very challenging stage of youth development in relation to "fitting in" this data has become more concerning as it is indicative of the impact on student confidence after the pandemic.
The second step in the process is to begin to build Tiered intervention that allow to build cofidence, student goal setting, progress monitoring and integratiion into school culture.
The final step is to collect more data/evidence after implementation to build upon systems that are working- this can only be done by student voice and growth data.
The following programs are ways CMS is addressing specific groups of students identified as priomary focus points to build confidence, leadership, and student advocacy into the school culture.
FLIGHT Crew- Tier One Intervention- Behavior Support
This PBIS system has existed at CMS for a decade. Previous reflections from staff indicated that the scope and approach to this program had become one of “status” rather than behavioral support. In short, it has become a transparent student government consisting of students who have demonstrated positive behavior and leadership capabilities. Thus, staff presented a new Flight Crew model that would grandfather current 6th and 7th grade Flight Crew students into our restructured Student Government Leadership elective course, and use the FLIGHT concept to bolster all students through potential recognition of positive behaviors. The progressive FLIGHT program will crosswalk Colorado Essential Skills as the markers of the academic and behavioral indicators for success. The FLIGHT acronym represents the following essential skills that students will continue to explore and develop:
F: Feedback
L: Leadership
I: Inclusion
G: Growth
H: Health and Wellness
T: Teamwork
Sources of Strength- Tier One/ Social Emotional Support
Sources of Strength is a nation-wide program utilizing business networking models to empower a wide-range of student leadership to launch campaigns that are proactive measures to embed positive messages into the school and beyond. The concept of upstreaming helps students move from victim to victor! Sources of strength empowers students to design these campaigns and events, which allow Carson Eagles to be catalysts of hope and joy while developing essential skills and citizen efficacy. This was most evident during a Trusted Adult campaign during the 2021/22 school year. Students presented a Trusted Adult activity recognizing and validating significant adults students identified in the building. This program was led and designed by approximately 100 students and it had a tremendous impact on staff morale.
Success Conversations in ACCESS- Tier One/ Social Emotional Support
Every ACCESS teacher at Carson Middle School becomes an expert on their students. Success Conversations are the strategic and systematic intake of those interactions and discussions that take place in every student's ACCESS class. These one-on-one conversations occur every month beginning in August and ending in May. The focus of these conversations is student self-assessment of skills, goal setting, reflection, and next steps for growth. In addition, during these conversations teachers discuss and identify any concerns with the students on attendance, behavior, anxiety, and/or relevant needed support. This data is gathered in grade-level teams for decision-making and discussion, as well as serve as a Tier I support for all students, and is especially important if students are demonstrating a higher need of intervention and support.
Leadership Academy- Tier Two/ Behavior Support
Leadership Academy was designed in the fall of 2021 to address the students that were demonstrating repeated behaviors resulting in out of school consequences. Collectively, it was agreed by grade level teams that an out of school consequence was resulting in repeat behaviors and was not addressing the root cause of the skill deficiencies. A team of teachers and our school psychologist designed the Leadership Academy as a twelve week course built into a student's schedule using evidence based interventions to help students build skills, engage in self-reflection, and management of behavior. In addition, students used restorative and peer modeling as they worked with our Center Based students on skill development and support through community service projects. This Tier two intervention was implemented for twelve students and was highly successful. A 75% decrease in repeat behaviors for these students was observed, and one of our students was recognized at a District Board Meeting and shared his experience at our end of the year 8th grade celebration. He stated:
“I am not perfect, and I probably will never be… but I now know why I do the things I do and have ways of dealing with it. I am very sorry to those that I may have hurt or offended, but I know I am getting better and can do things now that I was never able to do before.”
This program will be expanded for the 203-24 school year and will be a quarter-long elective, a referral tier 2 process for our MTSS team, and we will add a monthly Check In/Check out system once the student has completed the program to sustain the work and growth of the student.
SPARK PROGRAM- Tier Two/ Social Emotional Support
SPARK is a social empowerment program that seeks for its participants to acquire the necessary skills to face conflict situations in daily life. Through workshops, each participant is expected to adopt positive ways to make better decisions that lead to a successful future. It is designed to last 8 weeks and one workshop per week will be offered. The workshops are directed to aimed at empowering students in different aspects of life taking into consideration the stage of development where the participants are. The presence of community resources is expected to carry out these workshops. Below is a brief and detailed description of the components of this program.
Restorative Justice & Teen Court- Tier Two/ Behavioral Support
Using the same growth mindset and analysis of “root cause” and repeat behaviors, staff indicated that a restorative system is essential to our student growth. In 2021-2022 we reintroduced the process of our Restorative Justice System with the premise of a student led restorative system. A panel of students built this model with the mentorship of our administrative team and teachers. Five trials took place this year that aligned student feedback, parental participation, and a restorative outcome. For example, one student had to give back to the school through the lens of tutoring students. We will be expanding this program and aligning it with Flight Crew, Essential Skills and Student Leadership opportunities. Students will develop, track, and build restorative practices which will be archived as exemplars- similar to our current state/local judicial systems. This will allow specific essential skills tied to critical thinking, research analysis, social justice, and equity to be addressed in our own behavioral systems.
CMS ERJ Student Volunteer Manual.docxPositive and Supportive Staff, Student, and Family Interactions- Parent/Teacher/Student Voice
