This designation is awarded to districts that demonstrate exceptional commitment to the Learning 2025 principles and effective implementation of the Learning 2025 Network’s goals. They recognize and amplify the successful work of these districts, inspiring other systems in the network.
The District first earned this designation for its partnership with Wesley Family Services’ Child & Adolescent Partial Hospital Program to provide day treatment services for students grades K - 12 at Deer Lakes High School. The program serves children from various school districts throughout Western Pennsylvania with intense mental health and psychological challenges with the goal of transitioning them back into traditional educational placement. The program provides comprehensive mental health treatment including individual, family, and group therapies as well as weekly psychiatric monitoring. Students are referred through their home school district and/or local mental health providers. Students also receive academic instruction and support provided by Deer Lakes School District’s educational staff.
The District again earned this designation for its efforts toward Total Wellness.
Deer Lakes Total Wellness includes all grade levels providing strong mental health programs which include appropriate staffing such as school counselors in each building, social workers, behavior therapists, and mental health professionals.
At the elementary and middle schools, students are learning social, emotional, and coping skills through the Second Step SEL curriculum. The program is designed to reduce impulsive, high-risk, and aggressive behaviors and increase children’s social competence. The entire staff supports the lessons and the themes within their classrooms. Second Step helps students build social and emotional skills-like nurturing positive relationships, managing emotions, and setting goals so they can thrive in school and life.
Curtisville Primary has also worked to develop, implement, and earn the Alliance for Healthier Generation Recognition. Curtisville Primary was one of 13 school districts recognized nationwide for their healthy work building-wide. The school was recognized for Increasing Family and Community Engagement, Improving Nutrition and Food Access, Implementing Local School Wellness Policies, Enriching Health Education, Bolstering Physical Education, and Activity, Strengthening social-emotion health and Learning, cultivating staff well-being, Promoting Tobacco Free Schools, and Supporting School Health Services. Students and staff begin their days with physical activity and also take mindfulness brain breaks throughout the day as part of their wellness plan.
Curtisville Primary and East Union Intermediate staff have been trained to implement Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS), an evidence-based tiered framework for supporting students’ behavior, and academic, social, emotional, and mental health. Both schools met the criteria for implementing School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Support with fidelity for over two years. The schools were recognized at the PAPBIS Implementers Forum for their efforts in social and emotional growth. PBIS is a systematic way of teaching, modeling, and acknowledging students for meeting school behavioral expectations. All students are able to achieve success and learn the necessary social and emotional skills that will allow them to be successful in and out of school. The Kind, Courageous, and Healthy expectations are taught, and positive behavior is celebrated individually and school-wide.
The Middle School has also incorporated PBIS as part of their total wellness. They are working through implementation and are seeing positive results. In addition, they have created a calming room for students to visit when they need a break from the stresses in their day. They have added personalized recess options for students to participate in outdoor/indoor recess activities without electronic devices or visit a Quiet Room space for needed stress-free downtime.
As part of total wellness, the Middle School wanted to focus on building positive relationships with families. The staff partnered with Parents as Allies to create a team of parents, teachers, and administrators to learn about the ongoing research from the Brooking Institution that explores the impact and role of family-school engagement around the world. The work from this team along with the mini-grant from Parents as Allies helped reimagine the back-to-school open house. Students and parents visited teachers for the traditional presentation then moved as a group to social time by visiting food trucks and sitting together to form connections and build relationships beyond academics and playing games.
The Middle School was also recognized as a Don Eichhorn School to Watch. The mission of the Schools to Watch program is to “assist Pennsylvania middle grades schools build capacity.” The program recognizes schools that achieve academic excellence based on the rigorous criteria established by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform. A key area of focus for the recognition is schools that provide access to comprehensive services to foster healthy physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development.
Team Upstanders, an anti-bullying initiative launched by actor and producer Trevor Donovan, has been established at the Deer Lakes Middle School as another way to support total wellness. Team Upstanders’ mission is to assist students and school communities in creating cultures of belonging, kindness, acceptance, and tolerance. The vision of Team Upstanders is to support the creation of positive and inclusive school environments. The role of an Upstander is to support fellow classmates, share their positive influence, and access support for those who need it by reaching out to a teacher or staff member.
The high school has also been focused on a variety of redesigned programming focusing on total wellness. The staff has been trained on PBIS and staff and students are welcoming the positive changes in student behavior as a result of the program.
Stand Together, a social change, peer-to-peer model to stop stigma by promoting positive change in schools was added at the high school and middle schools. School advisors lead the program and have been trained along with the students in ways to promote programs and activities to decrease mental health stigma and encourage students to seek help and help others. The goals of Stand Together are to increase education and awareness, promote inclusion between adolescents and their peers with behavioral health challenges, and encourage adolescents to reach out to trusted adults.
A Mental Toughness Course was added as an elective course option as another way to support students' total wellness. To help students cope with the pressures of high school the students discover a variety of healthy and impactful techniques to strive for optimal mental health. Units/lessons include stress management, time management, physical activity/exercise, communications skills, S.M.A.R.T goals, sleep, hygiene, relaxation techniques, nutrition information, and Fitness Apps to explore their interests.
The high school staff recognized the increase in the mental health needs of our school community and searched for ways to help support students in a more impactful manner. The Renew Room was introduced as a quiet and calm space with sensory items focused on the reduction of stress and emotional regulation. Individuals seeking out support within the Renew Room have access to one-to-one counseling, support groups, school-based outpatient services, and social/emotional-based curriculum consultations. This space also provides opportunities for skill building, allowing students to learn about their emotions, and how to regulate them as well as coping strategies to handle stress and anxiety in a healthy manner. The goal of the Renew Room was to decrease the number of behavioral health referrals and incidents such as disruptive behavior, feelings of hopelessness, and absenteeism.
Through the support of the Grable Foundation and the Little Tugboat grants the District was able to partner with the Learner Centered Collaborative to develop a Portrait of a Learner.
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