Great Falls Schools officials discussed student safety and well-being during an Oct. 2 board meeting.

The board heard the annual school resource officer report from the Great Falls Police Department and the student wellness report from Andrea Savage, GFPS’ student wellness coordinator.

Capt. Rob Moccasin of GFPD said that during the 2022-2023 school year, the four SROs handled 647 total incidents, up from the previous year’s total of 432 incidents and 440 the year before.

Moccasin said he wasn’t sure what had caused the spike, but believed it was at least in part due to issues at Great Falls High and was tied to some incidents occurring off campus that were gang related.

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The total number of incidents was the highest since the 2018-2019 school year, which spiked at 660.

Last school year, there were 235 incidents at elementary schools, also the highest since the 2018-2019 school year.

Last year’s total was up from the 2021-2022 school year, which was 151 incidents, down from 190 the previous year.

The total complaints included an increased number of disturbances and assaults, which included student fights, as well as acts of violence and intimidation directed toward facilities, students and SROs.

Bill Bronson, a school board member, asked Moccasin to let the board and district officials know when they figure out what caused the jump in total incidents during the last school year.

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Moccasin said his instinct was that it was tied to issued at Great Falls High. He said the GFPD had 400 hours of overtime for the SRO and added police presence during the school year.

For about two months, GFPD had another officer at GFH to address the issues there, according to Det. Sgt. Katie Cunningham, who oversees the SROs.

Moccasin said they also saw some spikes at C.M. Russell High.

School Board Member Kim Skornogoski asked if GFPD tracks the number of threats to schools and they had an idea on how last school year compared to previous years.

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Cunningham said that they’re labeled the same in their software as a “threat,” which could be a range of things.

She said that they could work on breaking that data out for next year’s report.

Cunningham said that from experience, last year felt like a record number of threats against schools and it seemed as if they were vetting a threat at least once a week, which is a time consuming process.

She said they had one over the weekend that came through Reddit from Italy.

She said “it’s getting hard to keep up.”

Skornogoski asked if the increase in calls for elementary schools was at specific schools or district wide.

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Cunningham said some schools have their own issues and some staff just call more often. She said that also asked SROs to track their time more carefully during the last school year to have a better idea of what’s being asked of SROs, which she said could be attributing to the spike.

Officials said that in many cases, it’s small groups of students causing the majority of problems and they’re trying to manage that so those students still have an opportunity to get an education.

Heather Hoyer, assistant superintendent for secondary education, said that often those students who are repeat offenders at school have larger issues going on in their lives and they try to figure out what’s going on and how to address those underlying causes.

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Moccasin said that the SROs spend as much time as possible talking to students for informal mentoring with students who seek out advice for how to handle situations to avoid escalation or just general communication.

He said the SROs provided 26 classroom presentations during the last school year on various topics, including cyber bullying, substance abuse and sexual assault awareness.

The SROs also manage the juvenile diversion program, which is designed for minor infractions and first time offenders to try keeping them from getting a citation and entering the juvenile justice system.

Moccasin said that in the last school year, 35 students participated. Five didn’t complete the program and received a citation.

He said he thinks the diversion has had a positive impact.

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SROs also work with the Department of Public Health and Human Services, conduct welfare checks on students and parents, oversee protocols for crisis intervention, review custody paperwork, work with the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, provide security at school related events and routinely respond to inquiries after duty hours.

The SROs are part of the administration team at their schools and when necessary increase an officer presence.

He said the four SROs, who are all detectives, are task saturated and also work to monitor social media.

Moccasin said the department could use five more detectives just to monitor social media.

“We really have to pay attention to that,” he said.

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Of working with the GFPS administration, he said “sometimes we butt heads,” but work together for school security updates, grant applications, the SRO selection process and any incident at a school.

The result, Moccasin said, is that “schools are safer with our program.”

Amanda Savage, the district’s student wellness coordinator, walked the board through several reports on student wellbeing.

She said the district has nine licensed therapists and each are assigned three schools.

During the 2022-2023 school year, she said that 527 student were seen by those therapists.

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She said her office has worked with the Benefis behavioral health unit to coordinate through the district’s suicide screening program, sending those students to the hospital and, with parental consent, sharing information to know what needs to be in place when the student transitions back to school.

She said that during the last school year, 122 students presented to the ER for suicide ideations. Of those, 18 were in sixth grade, 18 were in ninth grade, 25 were in tenth grade and 16 were in eleventh grade.

She said the numbers for the younger grades dropped from last year and now the issues seem more focused in the tenth grade. Savage said that so far this year, nine students have already presented to the ER through the district’s suicide screening assessment and most of them were in tenth grade.

The data from the screenings has showed them that the number of students experiencing depression and anxiety are concerning.

“We’ve got kids that are sad and that are really, really worried about the future,” Savage said.

Based on their data, that showed high numbers of students showing high numbers for depression, anxiety and suicidal ideations amongst sixth graders, her team met with middle schools to develop strategies that included groups, teacher connections and other programs to address those areas.

Savage presented data from the 2022 Montana Prevention Needs Assessment, which focuses on eighth, tenth and twelfth grade students to survey health risk behaviors such as alcohol, tobacco, dropouts, delinquency and violence.

The survey also includes questions on risk and protective factors, including attitudes and opinions that research has shown to predict involvement in these negative health risk behaviors, according to Savage’s presentation.

Among 484 eighth grade students surveyed, 29 percent believed there is no risk to using marijuana; 49.4 percent believed life is not worth it; and 34.4 percent were inclined to believe they are a failure.

Among 528 tenth grade students surveyed, 37.8 percent believed there is no risk to using marijuana; 43.7 percent believed life isn’t worth living; and 36.3 percent were inclined to believe they are a failure.

Among the 296 twelfth grade students surveyed, 50.5 percent believed their is no risk to using marijuana; 38 percent believed life isn’t worth living; and 29.8 percent were inclined to think they are a failure.

She said the data tells her they need more education on the risk to youth development from marijuana and making intentional connections for students.

Savage said that with the data collected through several assessments and surveys, her team has been working on responses by updating the suicide screener, threat assessments and crisis team.

She said they’ve created a teen mentoring program that has grown over the last three years. When they started it three years ago, it focused on high schoolers with seven students at Great Falls High. Then it grew to 32 students at GFH and is now a collaboration with the United Way of Cascade County and Alliance for youth with 92 active students across all high and middle schools.

They’ve added student led mental health projects including the creation of hygiene stations in the middle and high schools, a mental health awareness week facilitated by youth mentors, a mental health awareness walk, an art show and community presentation, among others.