Rising up: The view from Central Office

2022 | Written by Faith Schantz, Report Editor

Within district administration, the Office of Student Support Services is a department with an exceptionally broad scope, responsible for everything from monitoring student attendance to evaluating school nurses.

Student Support Services oversees student discipline, including the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) framework, which lays out expectations for behavior and interventions, and restorative practices, which involve shifting the focus from punishment to addressing the harm and repairing relationships. Staff from that office also are responsible for the Student Assistance Program (SAP), a state-mandated process within schools to identify and address nonacademic issues that negatively affect students’ well-being and achievement. They also work with staff from the Office of Curriculum and Instruction to help teachers regularly include Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills and practices. “Multi-Tiered Systems of Support” (MTSS) is another decision-making framework, intended to help teachers identify students who need more academic help, and to provide that help more quickly and intentionally. MTSS falls under the purview of Curriculum and Instruction. When the MTSS process leads to a referral for special education, a third department, the Program for Students with Exceptionalities (PSE) becomes accountable for how that student is supported.

The district’s goal is for these core processes and interventions to work together seamlessly in schools. “When it goes well,” Superintendent Wayne Walters says, “we see unified language, we see unified practices, we see unified behaviors, we see unified mindsets and understanding about how it works, not only [among] those who are implementing the system, but those who are receiving the services from that system.”

Both Walters and Rodney Necciai, assistant superintendent for Student Support Services, acknowledge they do not see that happening system-wide. To some extent, this is simply because of differences among schools. The district depends on outside agencies to provide many of the services students need, and schools’ access to them varies. Walters points out that it’s easier for schools in the East End, where four of the city’s universities are located, to recruit college students who are willing to serve as in-person tutors or mentors, compared to schools in other regions. Some schools are “community schools” that partner more intentionally with community providers to offer integrated services. Others haven’t adopted that model. Some have “SAP liaisons”—staff from partnering agencies who help find services for students. Others don’t. Changes in the workforce have made it difficult to fill some vital support positions, such as school nurses, or even to find services outside the district, such as therapy for students who need it, Necciai says. Then there are budget challenges. “We know what we have to do academically—and what a huge lift that is,” he says, “but we also know that if we don’t situate ourselves better culturally, and with our students’ mental health and well-being in general, that we may never get to the academic side of things with certain kids.” Sometimes “those resources aren’t there,” meaning principals have to make choices.

This year, Walters hopes to strengthen core support processes by taking a systems approach, and by making the purpose of interventions explicit for those charged with carrying them out. For example, the summer academy for school leaders and Central Office teams included a restorative practices “re-set.” Though the district did a lot of work to begin restorative practices, he says, some still questioned, “Does this mean that students don’t get disciplined?” “Does it mean that they just get to do whatever they want?” The session, and the ongoing professional learning activities that followed, involved “really digging into the ‘why’ to inform the ‘what,’” he says, as well as more specificity around the “how.”

While Central Office provides support and guidance, the what and the how play out in schools. What do these processes look like in school offices and classrooms, and how do they make a difference for students?

Return to ourschoolspittsburgh.org/2022-rising-up to read more.

A+ Schools staff can coach parents/guardians through conversations with school staff about a child’s academic progress, a disciplinary action, a Student Assistance Program referral, a special education referral, and other issues. Contact us by emailing info@aplusschools.org or calling the PLC Family Hotline at 412-256-8536 if you need help supporting your child.