As the state of Nevada reviews budgets, one program will remain funded and is deemed to possibly continue to expand in the future. With a specific grant for Safe School professionals, Mineral County School District is reaping the benefit of two specialized individuals who are able to work side-by-side with the school administrators, the district counselor, teachers and parents.
Kathy Trujillo and Julia Viani, the two Safe School Coordinators, presented to local parents, the school board and at a community forum last Thursday as a way of extending information within the program’s format.
The program was initiated to not only address areas of bullying and its role has extended into developing healthy leadership within students, addressing problems prior to incidents occurring and educating everyone involved with students. This involvement, which includes law enforcement officers, Nevada governmental funds, counseling and outside resources, is a student support-driven program.
“There is some confidential data being taken which assists in funding this endeavor, but overall we are basically creating a blue printing as a foundation for a permanent structure within our school districts. By balancing the overall concerns with the correct assistance, our students will learn better while knowing they have a safe place within our schools,” Trujillo said.
Not every portion associated with Safe Schools is about high risk students, as extending education regarding basic conflict resolution, in-service assistance and parental involvement are added components to this endeavor. By exposing specific needs, services can be appropriately rendered while providing a greater understanding toward the goals our community should be concentrating on and striving for.
“We are well beyond putting out fires as things come up. We are there to pull some of the weight off our administrators. As a counseling and educational arm, we can develop better systems so our school can run even more efficiently,” Trujillo shared.
A three tier program has been laid out which basically develops assistance from educational values regarding areas of safety, up to extreme cases of neglect or abuse. The State of Nevada currently has over 200 Safe School directors within the entire school system. These schools that are benefiting from this pioneering program were rewarded Safe School Directors according to grant submissions, which were done in Mineral County by Shelly Lovitt, the grant manager of Mineral County School District.
