It can be hard to go back to school after a long absence—especially after a serious illness or a hospital stay. “The thought of coming back, facing their peers, facing all the academics and all the missed work … it’s extremely overwhelming,” Bromfield School counselor Christine Reale told the School Committee at its Jan. 24 meeting.
Helping students return to school successfully is the mission for a pilot program called STAAR—Student Transitional Assistance and Academic Reengagement—that will get underway at Bromfield later this month. Sara Lamere, head of the School Counseling Department, described the program as “a short-term, intensive support program” for students returning after a hospitalization for either mental or physical health issues.
Lamere said counselors and psychologists at the school have been talking about the need for such a program since she first came to Bromfield 11 years ago. The program organizers visited or contacted schools in Maynard, Southborough, and Concord, where similar programs are in place.
School Superintendent Linda Dwight described the program as providing “a space in Bromfield that helps students that are struggling with mental health to stay in school, … helps the student feel there’s a spot in Bromfield set aside for them.” She noted that COVID-19 has exacerbated problems with students’ mental and emotional health.
“The need is really high now,” agreed school psychologist Christina Petkus.
The STAAR program will offer a single office to help a range of students with mental health needs that are affecting their academic progress. Besides those returning from a hospital stay, the program will also serve students who are in crisis or who are awaiting placement in an intensive therapeutic setting.
Dwight said STAAR will assure that there is someone available all day who is specifically focused on these students. She said the program also takes some of the burden away from the classroom teachers by setting up a smooth transition back to class and helping the student catch up.
Reale will be STAAR’s full-time coordinator. The goal, she said in a brief phone interview, is “to work with students who are struggling and help them keep up academically—help them feel they can participate and be successful, while supporting them in their healing.”
Reale described how mental health problems can make students “school avoidant.” Depression or anxiety, she said, can lead students to begin skipping school. After missing a week or more, they find it harder and harder to come back. Letting them work with a single counselor or tutor, instead of returning to a busy classroom, “lets us at least get [them] in the building,” she explained.
STAAR also includes full-time tutor Samantha Barrett, who will help students make up work they missed, so they can get back into regular classes. The program engages parents as well, communicating with them about student progress and needs.
School Committee Chair SusanMary Redinger asked how many current students are likely to need the STAAR program. Lamere said she had been tracking the numbers for several years. In 2017, she said, there had been three students with hospitalizations long enough to need such a program, but the number has been increasing and she would now expect about a dozen students a year. Petkus estimated there will be 10 by the end of this year, counting several who have returned from hospitalizations since last October.
Planning for an “exit strategy” from the program is an important part of STAAR. Leaving would be a “step-down” process rather than an abrupt one, according to the presentation Lamere, Reale, and Petkus gave to the School Committee. Students would be considered ready to leave when they were attending school regularly and “making solid academic progress” in most of their courses. In response to a question from committee member Sharlene Cronin, Reale said she expected most students would be ready to leave the program after a couple of months, although she said there would be many individual variables.
The program will be funded this year and next using the federal ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds, Dwight said. The funds will allow the school district to add one counselor this year and a half-time counselor next year. Because STAAR is a pilot program, it will be reevaluated in May.
