State insisted Laconia accept early education grant

LACONIA — The School District has tapped veteran early-childhood education administrator Julie Sackett to coordinate the 4-year SAMHSA grant recently conferred on the district by the N.H. Department of Education.

Sackett's first day with the district was Tuesday.

The N.H. Department of Education was awarded an $8.6-million grant from the federally administered Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) program and three schools in New Hampshire, including Laconia, were specifically chosen.

About $550,000 annually over the next four years will come into the Laconia School District. Some of the money will be spent for contracted services with local social service agencies.

SAMHSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"They came to us several times," said Superintendent Terri Forsten last week, saying the DOE looked at a number of school districts and decided Laconia, Concord and Rochester could best benefit from the grant.

"They were insistent we get this," Forsten said.

A N.H. DOE PowerPoint presentation about the program that's posted online says the grant would go to states that had three school districts that qualified.

Those qualifications are based on demographics — Concord and Laconia have the 2nd and 3rd largest political refugee populations in the state according to DOE SAMHSA Administrator Mary Steady. Manchester, she said, has the largest refuge population.

Refugees were not the only criteria that the DOE used to decide which communities received the grant, said Forsten.

In addition, Laconia has a relatively high portion of its students who qualify for the federal "free and reduced-price" lunch program — a standard by which the federal government measures the relative wealth of a community.

According to statistics from the DOE, 57.21-percent of Laconia's students qualify for the lunch program, which is the highest among New Hampshire's cities with the exception of Franklin, that is 60.84-percent.

Other contributing factors to Laconia being solicited for grant participation by the state were its relatively low median household income, the number of people below the federal poverty line, gaps in early childhood education; gaps in promoting mental, emotional and behavioral health, gaps in connecting family, schools and communities, youth risk assessments; school suspension date and bullying and harassment data.

As for hiring an early childhood education coordinator, Forsten said that was not a specific condition of being award the grant, however she said she included it in her proposal because she wanted someone on staff who was already familiar with area social service and mental health agencies and how they interact with the School District.

She also said that the School District's ongoing relationship and access to social services and mental health services was one of the reasons the state felt Laconia was going to use the grant to achieve the stated goals of improving the emotional and social skills for students ages infant to 5 to prepare them for kindergarten.

Another goal of the SAMHSA grant is to substantially improve the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of young children and reduce the amount of violence and bullying within the School District.

According to its own documentation, SAMHSA's goal is to build a safe and supportive school and community by building partnerships among educational, behavioral health, and criminal justice systems.

The program aims to accomplish this by involving parents of children who are pre-school aged and who may be exposed at an early age to violence and or drug and alcohol abuse.

Areas of Sackett's focus will be promoting early social and emotional learning and development, promoting early social and emotional learning, connecting families with schools and curriculum, preventing behavioral health issues including drug and alcohol abuse, and creating safe and violence-free schools.

Sackett's specific goals are to ensure cross-agency and cross disciplines partnerships with local agencies like Genesis, the N.H. partnership for Public Health, the Boys and Girls Club, New Beginnings, and Horizons Behavioral Health.

In addition, Forsten said Sackett would be coordinating her efforts with the state Division of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), Juvenile Justice Systems, the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services, the Office of Minority and Refugee Affairs, N.H. Parent and Family Organizations.

Forsten said the School District hasn't done a student Risk Behavioral Analysis in a few years and one of the goals for this four-year grant is for all students to take the test.

About 40 percent of the $550,000 available to Laconia each year will be spent on the grant administrator and the early childhood education position.

The balance, said Forsten will include subcontracting with Genesis Behavior Health for mental health services for some students, some parent training subcontract services with Lakes Region Community Services, and some training classes for PBIS or a Positive Behavior Intervention and Support program that teachers will take to help students behave in school.

Forsten said the school will hire a student assistant coordinator who will work with students primarily at the high school level with students with substance issues. She said the School District used to have this position but at some point they lost it.

She said this person works to connect individual students with support and substance abuse counseling.

There is also be a bullying component. Forsten said the federal government gives the district a "menu" of choices of programs and with Sackett's being on board now, she will evaluate which programs will do the most good for Laconia's students.