Columbia County GA Board of Education Meeting August 9, 2022 (Katie Allen speaking)

Remarks-09AUG2022
I would like to start out with a big thank you to our police officers in our schools and for CPT Owens’ remarks last meeting about keeping our kids safe. We appreciate y’all so very much. And also want to say thank you to our department of education. When y’all say “we get out of our desks and go drive buses” I think that’s just amazing to get the job done. So I just wanted to say some quick thank yous to people working hard.

I recently reviewed documents about a Teen Mental Health First Aid program during a high school literature class. I’m curious about this and had a few questions about the mental health programs being offered outside of the state regulated health requirements. Particularly of interest to me was that $180,000 of materials were potentially ordered for this program, and counselors were required to be present to help students deal with sensitive content in the class, if need be. Additionally, this class was coordinated by the same administrator who attempted to hold an LGBT support course, also during literature class.

As you know, the school board last month voted to raise property taxes by keeping the millage rate well above the rollback rate. In light of this, I wanted to do a business analysis on how my taxes were being spent, particularly with mental health being such a focus in our school district. To be clear, I’m not referring to linking students and families with county resources for food, shelter, etc. I understand students don’t learn optimally when they are hungry or homeless. What I am referring to are programs that use academic time to teach emotions and social norms as defined by various entities outside the student’s home. The standard of success I am measuring these programs by is whether or not they improve the percentage of students operating at or above grade level in academic skills.

With that said, here are the questions I would like to have answered, and don’t worry-I’ll email them to you because I know there are a lot of them.

- Which policy details how mental health or Social Emotional Learning will be conducted in the classroom? Please provide me this policy. Please provide me the policy.
- How much class time is allowed to be spent on mental health/SEL lessons? Please provide a chart by grade level.
- Are these lessons always provided during literature class or also during math, science, etc?
- What are all the mental health/SEL programs provided throughout the CCSD? Please provide me a list of programs and which schools they are provided.
- Are parents offered the opportunity to opt their children out of each lesson?
- Are children whose parents have opted out removed from class in front of their peers?
- Where are lesson materials posted for parents and taxpayers to review?
- If a student was affected by sensitive content and wanted to speak with a counselor, would the parent be notified in advance of the conversation?
- How much money does each program or collection of lessons cost? Please provide a detailed list of all costs per program, to include the cost of materials and faculty hired for facilitation.
- Are contracts procured to facilitate these trainings or materials? If so, please provide a copy of the contracts.
- What are the published criteria that each program uses to measure success in a standardized, quantifiable way?