Mental health, well-being priority concerns for Prairie school board

By Steve Van Kooten

“We may have some of the most beautiful facilities around, but our students are struggling,” Brent Seamans told the Prairie du Chien School District Board of Education. “I know you are aware of the four suicides in the last couple years [sic]. We need to make kids a priority; we have students that are just barely hanging on.”

Seamans, who has spent the last 14 years teaching science at Bluff View Middle School and three years before that at Prairie du Chien High School, spoke at length about student mental health and asked the board to “find a way” to bring more mental health professionals and other counseling services to the school. His position garnered support from other staff in the room during the Prairie du Chien Board of Education meeting on March 11.

Present were Vice President Nick Gilberts; Michael Higgins, Jr.; Thomas Peterson, Dustin Brewer; Lacie Anthony and Jim Hackett. Also present were District Administrator Andy Banasik, Vicki Waller and the district’s principals.  President Lonnie Achenbach was absent for the meeting.

During the meeting, high school principal Doug Moris spoke to the board about a number of topics that involved student well-being, both mentally and physically. The first was the school’s Mental Health Day, which took place on Friday, Feb. 16. Moris detailed a number of activities that took place, including presentations, game tournaments and social activities designed to give students an opportunity to interact with their school community in a new way.

“It was a wonderful day. The next day was not,” Moris said.

The next week was National FFA Week, and Moris credited Cole Chapman, the school’s agriculture teacher, for his work to provide support to the student body and coordinate activities through a difficult week. He also stated that school counselor Adrian Udelhoven, along with other counselors, provide support to the student body to address concerns.

Crossing Rivers Health provides grief support counseling to the school district at no cost. Two representatives provide support sessions during flex periods every Wednesday for students. A separate session has also been made available for adults, including faculty, affiliated with the district.

Additionally, Moris and the faculty were going to review a documentary called “Childhood 2.0” about the different experiences children have now versus their parents’ or grandparents’ generations. “We can’t treat them the way we were treated because their concept of reality is different.”

“This community needs to watch [the documentary],” Moris later told the press. “It talks about the difference in these kids’ lives and ours; the statistics of what they deal with.”

On the topic of student mental health, Seamans lauded the Board of Education’s implementation of the cell phone policy, which placed regulations on student use and access to personal electronic devices for non-academic purposes.

“This change has been wonderful,” Seamans said. “I believe this reprieve from social media has been beneficial for our students and provides a much better environment for learning.”

Safety plans

Moris stated that he and officer Max Harrison of the Prairie du Chien Police Department attended the 2024 Wisconsin School Safety Coordinators Association (WSSCA) conference, which was held at the Wisconsin Dells on March 7 and 8. Moris called the experience a “wonderful opportunity” where they listened to a variety of presenters, including a parent of a Sandy Hook shooting victim. Moris stated that the conference brought up pertinent questions about school preparations for emergency situations.

“[The speaker] said [sic], ‘We have individual education plans (IEP), behavior intervention plans, individual health plans; why don’t we have individual safety plans?’” Moris recounted.

Moris said no state, including Wisconsin, required safety plans for students with specific needs, such as disabilities or other barriers, and said the high school would begin to work on plans for students that demonstrated a need for an individual safety plan.

Moris confirmed the school has reached out to case managers to collaborate on the identification of students in need of a safety plan. Plans would not be part of a student’s IEP but would use information from multi-disciplinary planning to help create safety plans.

Anti-Semitism

“We have a problem with anti-Semitism in this high school,” Moris said.

Moris stated there was a small amount of students that had made “inflammatory comments” in proximity to faculty and defaced school property with the saying “Heil Hitler” and Nazi iconography. He also stated that the belief was that there were likely “one or two students” responsible for the incidents. He added that he would not “put this down” or let it go.

Moris speculated the students’ behavior was from ignorance rather than malfeasance, but he still reported the incidents, which are classified as federal hate crimes.

“I’ve made two reports to the Anti-Defamation League, and I hope they do an investigation here,” Moris told the board.

After the first incident of vandalism, the high school closed one of the facility’s bathrooms for a month. Moris confirmed the incidents did not involve any threats of violence.

“It’s unfortunate because it is making a section of our faculty feel unsafe, so we’ve got to find a solution,” Moris told the Press. “We’ve got to find a way to get it stopped.”

Other business

• approved the second reading of Neola Policies 3000/4000 and the first reading of Policies 5000/6000. Banasik stated the district would update the cell phone policy before the second reading.

• approved the job description for an open building maintenance and custodial position.

• approved retirement agreements and waivers for Brenda Moses, Jim Schilling, LeAnn Bollum and Luke Lucas.

• reviewed the AGR report with BA Kennedy Principal Laura Stuckey for grades kindergarten through second grade. The AGR, which considers students’ performances in language arts and math categories, showed the district’s achievement and growth rates between the fall of 2023 and the winter of 2024.

• School board elections will take place on April 2.

• the next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for April 8 at 5:30 p.m.