Cartwheel spoke with Dr. Sandra Wilson, who retired from her role as Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Instruction but still supports the district, Peoria’s Assistant Superintendent of Student Services/Director of Special Education, Dr. Ann Bond, and Dr. Annette Coleman, Director of Community-Based Social-Emotional Learning, about the district’s data-driven, community-led approach to improving mental health for students and staff.

‍Peoria’s People-First Approach

Embedding SEL into all learning and work experiences to address student and staff wellbeing is a key pillar of Peoria’s 2021–26 Strategic Plan, “Re-imagining Education.” In action, Dr. Wilson says, this involves an expert team of administrators, teachers and community stakeholders working together to ensure the district’s support programs evolve as they need to. “It's pretty powerful,” she said. 

Proactive, people-first programming is a key component of the district’s SEL-forward approach. “We utilize our grants very creatively. We do not have the typical spending patterns of other districts [when it comes to MTSS],” Dr. Wilson shared. “I would say, three-fourths of [funding] is spent on people—counselors, social workers, family court, children's home therapists—those kinds of things.” 

However, Dr. Wilson calls out the importance of continuing to leverage and prioritize funding for partnerships as well. Peoria partners with Cartwheel to provide 1:1 virtual therapy for students, psychiatry and medication management, parent guidance, and virtual family therapy. Initially, the district used ESSER III funding for this partnership, but community partnerships and grants keep this and other mental health-focused programs sustainable. “We have most of the ‘things’ we need,” Dr. Wilson said. “We need services. And we honestly need people. We need to spend time with students.” 

Utilizing Data for Individual and Systematic Solutions

Because meeting everyone's needs requires constant adjustment, Peoria continuously collects data that informs its multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS). 

The team incorporates data from Cartwheel, via an interactive dashboard, to track student referrals, progress through care, trends across student populations and schools, and more.  “When we have our quarterly meetings, I bring that information to the meeting,” Dr. Coleman shared. “And we are very fortunate to have a lot of data points when we are meeting about a [particular] student.”

“We've really been able to tease things out, see things by grade, level, by school. We can filter and do a lot of information gathering through that,” Dr. Bond shared. “As an SEL discipline team, we also look at our attendance data. We look at chronic absenteeism. We're looking at community data such as crime data.” 

Tackling Chronic Absenteeism with a Restorative Approach

Like many districts in urban areas, chronic absenteeism and high mobility rates present an ongoing challenge. Getting kids to school is the biggest step, Dr Wilson and her team attest. From there, “we already have the tools to do all the rest, whether it's academics or SEL.”

Since partnering with Cartwheel, the district has observed a noticeable shift away from externalizing behaviors. “We have seen in the last year and a half or so a decrease in referrals, period, and in physical, aggressive types of referrals. From a more general standpoint, aggression against staff and those kinds of things have decreased,” Dr. Bond said. 

The use of restorative practices that address the cause of student misbehavior has reduced the need for suspensions overall, Dr Wilson added. The school’s Wraparound Center, a one-stop-shop that connects students with services or provides essentials like food and clothing, has helped address some of the common problems that can keep kids from classrooms. 

“We want to work with families. We want to provide them with what they need, so their students can get to school,” Dr. Coleman shared. 

The Importance of Community Engagement 

With 27 school buildings and an ever-evolving support offering, keeping parents informed starts on campus. “Our schools do an outstanding job communicating with parents and letting them know what services are available in our district,” Dr. Coleman shared. 

Every school has its own SEL team, a strategy intended to foster grassroots connections. Regular attendance walks, where staff visit students' homes to welcome them for the new year, also help fight absenteeism. “If we don't see students [in school], we have the data to keep track of them very precisely. I mean, whatever it takes. We find out what's going on with them, and then we scour the community to find them,” Dr. Wilson said. 

Through nationwide program Handle With Care, staff are discreetly notified if police need to visit a student’s home for potentially traumatic reasons. This helps identify which kids may need extra support while respecting the family’s privacy. “They may be explosive that day. They may be sad that day. There might be things that are going on in the classroom. It's about really kind of checking in on that child, making sure that they're handled with care,” Dr. Coleman said. 

“In Peoria Public Schools, it is all hands on deck. Everyone is involved. Anytime you go to a school, or even any of our meetings. It is about all of us figuring this out to help our kids,” Dr. Wilson shared.