Retirements shuffle roles in leadership

Clay County Schools announced two key administration promotions on Tuesday on the heels of the board of education's monthly meeting.

Stacey Overlin, the current assistant principal of Hayesville High School, will replace retiring principal Jim Saltz on April 1. Additionally, the position of interim principal of Hayesville Middle School will be filled by current assistant principal Heather Plemmons, a 17-year veteran of Clay County Schools. She will replace retiring principal Tommy Hollingsworth until a new principal is hired in June.

Much of Monday's board meeting focused on partnerships and initiatives designed to address students' mental health. Superintendent Dale Cole told the board to expect to see plenty of the acronym SEL — short for Social and Emotional Learning — in the coming years. SEL is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.

Cole summarized SEL as "a lot of the qualities that allow us to be successful adults" and emphasized the need to be intentional about teaching them to students, especially in light of the challenges within the past year. "Not only are our students going to have achievement gaps specific to academics, after all this time, they also have social-emotional gaps that are going to have to be addressed," Cole said. "These ideas fall in line with our ability to be able to better support the mental health needs of our students. The research shows that socialemotional learning leads to a decline in students' anxiety, behavior problems and substance abuse."

The board approved a partnership with Mountain Area Health Education Center and Dogwood Health Trust for SEL Student Support. The partnership provides funding for the Dessa SEL Assessment — a standardized, strength-based behavior rating scale which is completed in a matter of minutes and used to measure the social emotional competence for children. Dogwood Health Trust will also pay for a mental health employee on campus, targeting students determined to have the most pressing (tier 3) needs.

Cole stressed the importance of the assessment curriculum, as well as the value in having a full-time mental health employee, who would serve a different role than school counselors. "That is a comprehensive universal screener for social emotional needs for each child in Clay County," Cole said. "What we want to be able to do is identify the specific needs that our students have and then direct our resources to that. There's a tremendous amount of anxiety right now amongst our students and a tremendous amount of disengagement from school, from their families, from the world."

The board also approved a partnership with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Western North Carolina, which provides three mentorship programs: community-based, school-based and an after-school program. One element of the program allows select high school students to act as mentors for elementary students. The program has no cost for Clay County Schools. Hayesville Primary School Counselor Shea Rickett presented information about implementation of the suicide risk referral protocol, which is required by the state in grades 6-12 and recommended in K-5. The protocol provides a step-by-step guide for training students and faculty how to respond if a student threatens self-harm.

"In high-stress, emotional situations like suicide ideation, it's important to have a step-by-step guide and some training to follow," Cole said. Hayesville Elementary School Counselor Quincey Rickett presented the board with information about a $15,428 grant awarded by the Clay County ABC Board for drug and alcohol prevention. Cole pointed out that part of those grant funds were already allocated for the Dessa SEL screener. The partnership with Dogwood Health Trust now allows the school system to preserve that portion of the funds within the ABC grant for other needs.

Other items on the agenda during the meeting:

• Cole addressed North Carolina Senate Bill 37, which currently sits on Gov. Roy Cooper's desk. The bill would provide control to local boards of education to determine whether they want to utilize Plan A with minimum social distancing or Plan B with moderate social distancing in grades K-12. Clay County Schools are currently able to operate under Plan A in grades PreK-5, but not in grades 6-12. That could change if the governor signs the bill, but parents would still be allowed a full-remote option. Cole said he wanted to be prepared to present the board with the option of Plan A for grades K-12, which could be voted on in a called session.

• Cole also addressed North Carolina House Bill 82, which would require school systems to use their second round of COVID-19 funding to create a six-week summer learning program for students, prioritizing those at risk for retention. The program would run five days a week for five hours each day. That bill is also on the governor's desk.

• Cayce Bryan was recognized for earning Western Carolina University's Outstanding Exceptional Student Teacher Award for her work in the school system's Exceptional Children Program.

• Cole outlined North Carolina's new K-12 Social Studies Standards, which take effect for incoming ninth graders in August. Four classes will be required to graduate going forward: Founding Principles of the USA and NC: Civic Literacy, Economics and Personal Finance, American History and World History.

• Auditor Alan Thompson presented the 2019-2020 audit report to the board, which he described as "a clean report."

• The board approved budget amendments, the audit contract and the consent agenda.