A Message from the Director

Spring has arrived and with it brings a variety of fun and exciting moments for Texas students and staff. Everyone has worked hard to get to this point in the year and preparing for spring sports, musical and plays, state assessments, and graduations are just a few of the highlights. Spring break will provide most with a much-needed respite from the grind required to make the second semester a success. I encourage school staff to practice self-care, adult mental health and wellness is critical to a positive school climate and culture. We must be at our best so that our students and communities can thrive.

Restorative Practices & Discipline Team

Dr. Gaye Lang: Restorative Discipline Practices Statewide Director

Mary Scott: Student Discipline Specialist

Victoria Rossi: Supportive Schools Educator Training Specialist

Restorative Discipline Practices

Dr. Gaye Lang has launched a brand-new series, Restorative Practices Made Simple: Families as Partners, a video series dedicated to empowering parents with the tools needed for effective communication and Restorative Practices at home. This series is designed to align home environments with the restorative approaches taught in schools, ensuring a consistent and supportive experience for children. It focuses on providing parents with resources and strategies to foster better understanding and relationships with their children, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between families and educational institutions. Watch episode 2, which dives into "Family Connections" featuring Jennifer McCready, counselor and restorative practices coordinator. Through compelling stories from both the DAEP and the Early Excellence Pre-K Center, Jennifer shares how these practices bridge communication gaps within families, enhance student behavior, and foster community building. The episode showcases real-life examples of how restorative practices empower students and parents alike, making a significant impact on family dynamics and educational environments.

Bring Restorative Discipline Practices (RDP) to your schools. Register for upcoming RDP trainings at RDP Training Information. If the training you plan to attend is FULL, please check back. New training dates are updated monthly.

Please submit all questions regarding Restorative Discipline Practices to rdp@tea.texas.gov.

Student Discipline

• Student Discipline Virtual Professional Development Training: The TEA Student Discipline Training registration is now offered through TEA. The training is intended for administrators and PEIMS personnel covering discipline policy, procedures, and data requirements. This is the original training in which registration was held through the ESCs. You can register by clicking the following link: Student Discipline Professional Development Training for Administrators and PEIMS Personnel.  

• Student Discipline Technical Resources are now located on the Student Discipline webpage: Student Discipline Program Technical Resources and Samples
• Please submit questions regarding student discipline policy and procedure to StudentDisciplineSupport@tea.texas.gov and questions regarding student discipline data reporting requirements via TSDS Incident Management System (TIMS).

Mental Health and Wellness Team

Julie Wayman: Director of Mental and Behavioral Health

Tammy Gendke: Mental Health Program Coordinator

Ashton Millet: AWARE Texas Expansion Consortium State Coordinator

Jerlene Gibbs: Mental Health and Education Program Specialist

Mental Health and Wellness Team Updates

The Texas Education Agency’s Student Supports Division and our Project AWARE Texas partners will be hosting a series of monthly webinars to highlight resources and best practice strategies on timely and relevant safe and supportive schools topics. Topics will include school mental health, substance abuse prevention, school discipline, early mental health interventions, approaches to whole child student support, and building community partnerships to increase capacity.

You can join a webinar every 2^nd Thursday of the month from 11:00 am CST to 12:30 pm CST from December until June.  CPE credits will be made available to those who attend the full live session.

Register Below for the March. 14th Webinar Session on Tier 1 Approaches for Enhancing School Mental Health

Registration: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7yf6Ggn3R6CSaiBo20wfEg

Register Below for Upcoming webinar sessions:

Family & Caregiver Engagement- April 11, 2024

Elevating Mental Health & Wellness- May 9, 2024

Supporting the Mental Health of Special Populations- June 13, 2024

2023-2024 Child Abuse Prevention & Awareness and Human Trafficking Prevention Webinar Series

After the Report: Screening & Investigation

March 1, 2024

10:30 am – 11:30 am CST

Registration Link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Rv-O1diWTCGqcZ9F68bmjw

Would you like to provide feedback about your use of the Texas School Mental Health Toolkit?

Project AWARE partners with technical support from the Westat at the Region 14 Comprehensive Center would like to learn more about your use of the Texas School Mental Health Toolkit by completing the user feedback form. Click here to complete the user feedback form. To access the Texas School Mental Health Toolkit visit: https://schoolmentalhealthtx.org/school-mental-health-toolkit/ .

TEA’s Mental Health Resources

General School Mental Health Resources:  https://schoolmentalhealthtx.org/

Mental Health Resources Database: https://schoolmentalhealthtxdatabase.org/

Mental Health Best Practice Repository: https://schoolmentalhealthtx.org/best-practices/

Contact the Mental Health and Wellness Team:  mentalandbehavioralheatlh@tea.texas.gov

Student Supports Team

Hank Weikert: Director of Student Supports Implementation

Carroll Sadler: Community Partnerships Specialist

Sarah McCaslin: Stronger Connections Grant Specialist

Student Supports Team Updates

Community Partnerships

The community partnership spotlight district for the month of March is Pharr-San Juan-Alamo (PSJA) ISD which is a large district in South Texas with over 32,000 students who are educated in 26 elementary schools, nine middle schools, seven high schools, and one non-traditional career and technology school geared toward students who were not successful in traditional schools.

PSJA ISD has adopted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and has integrated them into the classroom curriculum inspiring students to become global thinkers and eventually compete on a global level. The focus for the community partnerships grant in PSJA has been early childhood education. They started with focusing on five elementaries and have since expanded. They now partner with 16 local childcares providing curriculum and licensed teachers to the local childcares. They have also opened Building Blocks Academy which serves Pre-K and Kinder. The academy has two model classrooms and an observation room where college students and current teachers can observe high-quality teaching in action and receive training in best practices.

At the start of the grant, PSJA completed a SWOT and Root Cause analysis to assist them with identifying strategies for support and cooperation between various initiatives throughout the district. District administrators attribute the success of uniting supports available in many initiatives with the guidance they received from the community partnerships grant.

PSJA is recognized for engaging families providing parent training and services, parent meetings, and a directory of wrap-around services available in the tri-city area. They have also developed partnerships with over 30 organizations and local businesses that support their efforts.

PSJA ISD: Ready. Connected. Complete

Safe and Supportive School Program

The overarching goal of the Safe and Supportive School Program (SSSP) is to provide students with safe and supportive learning environments by improving school climate, supporting the behavioral, emotional, and mental health needs of students through a multitiered system of supports, and through the behavioral threat assessment process. School systems should develop strategies to ensure that staff are trained in these elements of the SSSP. SSSP teams are required to report their activities annually for each of the campuses they serve. The data reporting window for the 2023-2024 school year is June 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024. SSSP teams can prepare for data reporting by reviewing the data reporting questions for the 2023-2024 school year. The TEA has also provided a data collection instrument that will assist SSSP team in collecting the required data. Questions regarding the Safe and Supportive School Program and SSSP data reporting can be addressed to safeandsupportiveschoolprogram@tea.texas.gov.

Stronger Connections

98 districts are hard at work completing their program negotiations for the Stronger Connections grant. In the meantime, the Texas Center for Student Supports, in conjunction with TEA, is busy preparing guidance, resources and next steps for these districts as they begin to form local advisory committees, implement student support and family engagement frameworks, train staff, and contract with additional vendors that align to their various identified needs. Furthermore, in the fall of 2025, SCG districts will have access to a student case management system to enhance their program implementation efforts. The goal of this case management system is aimed at integrating district data (e.g. SIS) with academic and non-academic student support interventions. TEA and TCSS are undergoing market research to explore procurement and customization options for this new system. Upon implementation, districts and campuses will have a more robust and streamlined tool to track, manage, and support student needs. For more information on this work, please reach out to our Stronger Connections Grant Specialist and visit Texas Center for Student Supports (texascss.net).

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Visit our webpage: Safe and Supportive Schools | Texas Education Agency