December 2016 SHAC Meeting

December 7, 2016

AISD Board Room

Present: Laura Gold, Lesa Walker, Hugh Simmons, Julie Cowan, Candace Aylor, Mayra Lopez, Carlos
Urrutia, Ronda Rutledge, Melody Carlton, Maria Graziana, Stephen Pont, Nicole Lee, Zoe Dubin,
Anneliese Tanner, Toni Rayner, Christopher Smith, Becky Morales, Kathy Green, Andrew Wiggins, Eric
Metcalf, Sarah Bentley, Katie Wolfe, Paula Renken, Leslie Smith, Alex Mancevski, Officer Antonio
Champion, Chief Eric Mendez, Tracy Spinner, Elan McMinn, Sally Freeman, Shannon Sandrea, Barri
Rosenbluth.

Minutes: The minutes from November 2016 were voted on and approved.

Student member report: Alex Mancevski reported that the Health through Science initiative promotes
health through Science Fair in 4th and 5th grade to increase awareness of Health among students.
Volunteers from LASA and other schools increase their leadership abilities. More members are welcome.
The initiative started on Nov. 1st. 40 volunteers have visited with 16 elementary schools. HS student
volunteers work in small groups with elementary students to help formulate their projects. Alex is
looking for more schools that would like to participate. A parent visitor reported that the HS student
mentors were well-received. Alex shared that he started last year by presenting at Catch night but then
decided to help younger students with their Science Fair projects this year.

Student Drug and Alcohol Data, Chief Eric Mendez and Officer Antonio Champion of Murchison MS: A
current trend across the district is drug offenses—prescription medication, Zanax, Oxycontin. To date we
are at 148 offenses/individuals, 501 last year. Alcohol-related offenses are at 7 so far this year. Last year
we had 36. This is relatively low. Tobacco offenses to date are 16, there were 36 last year. We have to
start looking at mental health issues. All of our officers are certified mental health counselors but one is
dedicated to following up with students, linking to services, helping them be successful in school. They
are using a three-pronged approach: 1) enforcement, 2) prevention through educational presentations
on campus. 16,000 students received presentations last year. 3) Intervention—outreach to parents at
Murchison which will hopefully become district-wide in the future. Message to students: don’t use any
type of drug, brain development can be disrupted. Grand idea would be for students to access help
easily, receive prevention education.

Officer Champion started in AISD 1.5 years ago. He started in Hartford CT in patrol and prevention as a
community service officer. He worked as a school resource officer. He was assigned to Murchison and
has had to make arrests for drugs and alcohol. We need new approaches that involve collaboration
between parents, law enforcement, schools and community providers. We need to build relationships
and to educate students throughout the district. Drug offenses are prevalent on every campus and
among diverse populations. Chief Mendez reported that students are self-medicating because they are
under a lot of stress, are using substances to socialize, and have under-lying mental health problems.
Tracy announced that 19 school-based mental health clinics will remain open for active clients and any
students in crisis. Discussion addressed the impact of trauma and the appropriate response for trauma-
related issues. Much of substance use is related to trauma and a residential intervention may not be
safe or appropriate. Officers are encouraged to refer students to Expect Respect and other support
services on campus. Questions from members included, How can we promote youth leaders to reach
out to vulnerable youth? What kind of afterschool programs are available to keep students engaged in
education as a way to prevent substance use? Chief Mendez invited everyone to give input by email.
Julie Cowan invited Murchison to present on their work in the future.

Board Report: FABPAC, Facilities and Bond Planning Advisory Committee, is studying the needs of our
facilities to formulate a 25 year Facility Master Plan. Much community input is still to come over the
next several months with the possibility of the Board calling for a Bond in Nov. 2017. The average age of
our buildings is 40 years. Julie asked us to share with our organizations and businesses to provide input.
The Board is listening.

District Reports:

Health Services: Sally reported that she submitted the annual AISD immunization report to the state,
and that we have a 98.5% district-wide immunization compliance rate. Seton is continuing their work on
assessing needs to implement a telehealth project for AISD students in the Spring. Dell Children’s 5K on
April 8th for Kids and Families followed by family fun fair at DCMC. Science fair winners will be honored.
Student health services was notified by state health dept. of a Mumps outbreak near Dallas. School
nurses are on heightened awareness for signs and symptoms.

Employee wellness: Employees are receiving help to make healthy lifestyle changes. 2300 Flu shots
were provided by HEB. Telemedicine partnership has increased membership, saving the district funds.
Marathon Kids including teachers, students and families has been promoted as well as other initiatives
including mindfulness.

Physical/Health Education: Policy committee is looking at what policy to take to city council, four
presentations for the council to consider including Tracy’s presentation on recess. Her ask to the policy
committee was for city council to support recess policy for all local Austin/Travis Co. districts. Recess
policy had majority support and our model will be used to help other districts develop a similar policy.

Food Services: 81K+ meals served per day. This is 5,100 more meals per day than last year. We are
serving 29% of students at breakfast, 53% at lunch, and 5,400 afterschool meals every day. We are
reaching more students, particularly at breakfast. We moved meal prep from Brown to Allen in 3 days.
Barrington started Breakfast in the Classroom. We have 49 salad bars and now 14% of meals on those
campuses are salad. We served over 27K servings of turkey during the week of Thanksgiving. We
received an award and a small grant from Austin Food and Wine Alliance.

Social and Emotional Learning: In Spring we are rolling out SEL 2.0, with an emphasis on restorative
practice. June 16th will be the SEL Symposium. Over 3,000 parents have been engaged through SEL
training and other events. Members asked if there is data to show that SEL is reducing alcohol and drug
use? Pam would have to defer that to the SEL evaluator.

Committee Reports:

Social, Emotional and Behavioral Health: Subcommittee A: Hugh Simmons, ATCIC, announced that a
subcommittee will be reaching out to contiguous districts to create a cohesive message about SEB,
among SHACS, looking for and sharing best practices, and potentially informing the legislative process.
Subcommittee B: Pam described a youth leadership initiative to convene youth leaders throughout the
city to identify youth stressors and needs. Discussion in the group about instability of housing for some
youth. Alex will be invited to participate.

Citizen communications and announcements:

Cross discipline trauma conference featuring Dan Siegel hosted by ACGC, register now for early bird
tuition.

Meeting was adjourned at 8:10 p.m.