Increasing mental health support for students most affected by the Marshall Fire

Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a pediatric mental health state of emergency in May of 2021, citing skyrocketing demand for mental health services among Colorado’s youth. In addition to the well-documented impact of the pandemic on mental health, our community also experienced a mass shooting and Colorado’s most destructive wildfire in 2021. In the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), referrals of students to Mental Health Advocates have risen by 86% this school year compared to the same period during the 2020-21 school year. 

What are mental health advocates?

Within BVSD, Mental Health Advocates provide prevention and intervention services for students, supporting their social-emotional and behavioral development, student achievement, and crisis intervention.

Mental Health Advocates can also provide both group and individual counseling support and work directly with students, parents, and staff members. For more acute counseling needs, they help families access external resources for mental health. As a direct result of the Marshall Fire and the mental health impacts this is having on our community, we are working to immediately increase the mental health services available to BVSD students.

Raising funds to expand BVSD’s team of mental health advocates

Impact on Education is actively seeking funding to facilitate hiring four additional Mental Health Advocates to be deployed in BVSD’s most impacted schools. The additional staff would be assigned to the 7 schools most directly impacted by the Marshall Fire, serving 6,061 students, 687 of whom lost their homes or remain displaced. With more than one in every ten students losing their homes and nearly all students at these schools impacted by the evacuation orders and trauma of temporary displacement, these are the schools with our most pressing mental health needs right now.

“We are seeing a significant increase when it comes to the social-emotional support our students need at this critical moment, those impacted by the fire are working to process everything that happened. It was a deeply traumatic experience and it will take some time for these students to cope with the tremendous amount of loss and PTSD that everyone impacted by the fires are struggling through.”

Tammy Lawrence, Student Support Services Director

The additional support will ensure all of the impacted schools have the intensive layer of mental health support needed, and expand BVSDs capacity to respond to mental health referrals. The intensity of mental health concerns and the time required to provide support and intervention varies dramatically from case to case, but BVSD’s leadership is confident that adding these clinicians to the School District team is the most critical immediate step.

Nearly half of the necessary funding was secured from a donation from the Community Foundation’s Boulder County Wildfire Fund and we are actively working with other funding partners to secure the balance of the required funding.

The importance of mental health support right now

Increasing mental health support to the students most affected by the Marshall Fire will benefit approximately 6,061 students in 7 of the 32 schools home to students impacted by the fire. BVSD’s Mental Health Advocates collaborate and make appropriate referrals to partners including Mental Health Partners and Jewish Family Services.

Mental Health Advocates supplement what BVSD’s school counselors can provide since their focus is exclusively on mental and behavioral health. They work directly with the administration in each school building to determine the needs, and then collaborate on what curriculum to use to meet individual students’ needs. This includes working in collaboration with school counselors to ensure there is a direct impact for each student, and extends into providing services to the teachers and staff who always play a key role in supporting the social-emotional health of the students.

District seeking additional mental health grants

Beyond their funding request to Impact on Education, BVSD is requesting two emergency grants, one state and one federal, to provide additional mental health staffing and support to schools most impacted by the Marshall Fire.

“We are tremendously grateful for the support of Impact on Education and our entire community, as we work to provide support for those impacted. This is not a situation that will be resolved in days or weeks. We must be ready to help our fellow neighbors for the many months and years it will take to not only rebuild, to once again feel safe and to return to normalcy.”

Dr. Rob Anderson, BVSD Superintendent

Read more about BVSD’s plans to hire school counselors, nurses, and outreach positions in this story from the Daily Camera.

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YOU CAN HELP …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We are still actively raising funds to support the mental health needs of Boulder Valley students and staff. You can help by making a gift to support this work. On the donation form, where it says “My donation is for” please select “Critical Needs Fund – Marshall Fire.”

Click here to read a story about this investment in the Daily Camera (paywall).

In September, we opened our Academic Opportunity Fund to provide grants to Boulder Valley School District educators and administrators to meet student needs on an individual, school or district-wide basis. We are proud to share that we have invested over $100,000 this fall to support BVSD students and schools.  

Who applied for funding

Over 60 applications were submitted to the Academic Opportunity Fund from 30 different schools and departments. Geographically, the schools ranged from Nederland and Gold Hill to Broomfield, and everywhere in between. Applicants included school principals and administrators, classroom teachers, and specialists, with an even mix of requests from elementary, middle and high schools.

How applications were reviewed

We engaged the community in this work by bringing in 15 volunteers to examine and evaluate the anonymized application requests and provide feedback on funding decisions. That data was then reviewed by Impact on Education (IOE) staff and final decisions were made.

• The average amount of each funding request was under $2000, though requests ranged from $100 to $20,000.
• 50 applications were funded directly by IOE, and we were able to connect six additional applicants to BVSD internal resources to meet the identified need.

What students and schools need

From school-based tutoring to RTD bus passes to an online math software, our Academic Opportunity Fund supported a variety of student and school needs including funding to:

• run a before and after school high school tutoring center specifically targeted to getting under-represented students enrolled and engaged in advanced courses. 
• purchase IXL Math to help BVSD middle schoolers catch up on the math concepts they may have missed. 
• repair instruments for BVSD for students in financial need 
• provide after school tutoring for students identified as needing additional support
• purchase Spanish language picture books for the classroom library.
• purchase 10,000 RTD bus passes to help ensure transportation is not a barrier to class attendance.

Future rounds of the Academic Opportunity Fund 

The positive response from schools reinforces the need for us to work closely with BVSD and provide supplemental funding to meet student needs. Our community volunteer grant readers were equally encouraged by their experiences learning about the needs of schools and educators across the district. We’ll continue to provide direct funding for school-based tutoring programs and plan to reopen the Academic Opportunity Fund for other needs early next year.

If your school is in need of funding for a tutoring program, please email allison@impactoneducation.org.

Student After Care (SAC) Supervisors and Assistant Supervisors serve a diverse group of students daily at 32 sites throughout Boulder Valley School District (BVSD). From grade levels to academic ability levels to emotional and behavioral health levels, SAC staff must manage each student’s needs and create a safe environment outside of school hours for students and staff.

To help SAC staff manage student needs and their own, we’ve partnered with the City of Boulder’s Housing and Human Services Department to invest $25,000 so two employees from each site can obtain 6 hours of professional development in Calming Kids Mindfulness and Yoga.

What is Calming Kids?

The Calming Kids training will introduce balancing the physical body, calming the energetic body and becoming mindful of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Easy exercises to loosen the body, breathing practices, and relaxation techniques will be presented for staff to instruct students, as well as, how these tools can support the adult teacher.

Yoga and mindfulness education for the classroom setting provides strategies to support social-emotional wellness and brain integration. Participants will learn a curriculum for elementary age students enabling them to teach and model techniques for students, to assist with academic performance and cultivate a greater capacity for a compassionate community.

Benefits of mental health training

These training sessions will teach SAC supervisory staff how to regulate their own emotions amidst challenging situations and how to teach strategies for students to self-regulate within these same challenging situations.

What happens before and after school impacts the learning and experiences during the school day and at home.

Providing professional development in this area of mindfulness and social-emotional health also signals to SAC staff how much they are valued and appreciated. Our goal is to empower SAC staff with tools they need to succeed and build confidence in their abilities to do their job of taking care of our students outside of the school day.

Future investments

We are committed to meeting the social-emotional needs of BVSD students and educators and continue to seek out ways we can support this integral part of education in Boulder Valley’s schools.

When the pandemic first shut down BVSD schools back in March of 2020, we knew school closures would present a significant hardship for students, especially for those who rely on schools for more than just their education. We responded swiftly, providing an array of immediate support for students and families. However, we also knew the disruption to student learning would be disproportionate and could have a profound impact on the long-term success of students, especially those who are economically disadvantaged. 

As we all now know, the pandemic was not a short-lived interference in our lives; we are now in the third year of interrupted learning for students in our community. Now that we’re a few months into the 2021-22 school year and students are mostly back in person, our focus shifted from providing emergency relief to addressing the potential gaps in student learning.

Making up ground

We are committed to ensuring all students can learn and that those who’ve fallen behind can make up ground this year. We are also committed to helping students learn coping skills and build the resilience challenged by long periods of social isolation. 

In partnership with BVSD, we are funding a variety of school and student needs across the District. Because the needs vary widely, so do our investments. One of the tools we are using to fund these situations facing students and schools this year is our Academic Opportunity Fund. Both educators and school administrators can apply for funding to support students, classes, or schools.

A successful first round of funding 

The first funding round for the 2021-22 Academic Opportunity Fund closed in early October with over 30 applications submitted that were then reviewed by a team of community volunteers. We are proud to announce that we are able to meet the needs of 24 applicants: four applicants were connected to other district resources to meet their needs and 20 applicants received funding directly from Impact on Education.

Funding requests came from across the district, from mountain schools like Gold Hill to Broomfield schools, with over $30,000 awarded just in this first round. Requests ranged from technology licenses to classroom curriculum and supplies to health needs to musical instruments. Student populations being served by this funding span K-12 grade levels with students in ILC classrooms, AP classrooms, and elective classrooms all being impacted by these fulfilled requests.

The Academic Opportunity Fund is currently open for its second round of funding with a third round planned this fall as well. We anticipate we’ll continue to meet the varied needs of schools, relying on dedicated community volunteers to read and evaluate the grant requests we receive. 

While the Academic Opportunity Fund addresses immediate student needs beyond what BVSD is able to provide, our other program dollars continue to support large-scale district initiatives.

District-wide investments

In addition to the funding we disperse with our Academic Opportunity Fund, several large-scale district-wide issues have come to light as well this academic year. We are working with our partners at BVSD to address some of these needs, including mental health, transportation, supplemental instructional time, early childhood education, and career readiness. 

Throughout the pandemic, we learned that one of Impact on Education’s greatest strengths is   our ability to adapt to the changing and evolving needs of students. While we feel confident that our investments this academic year are vital to the success of all students, we are also prepared to pivot and change as the landscape shifts. 

We are excited to announce a new funding source, the Academic Opportunity Fund, to support students and educators in the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) during the 2021-22 school year.

Building on previous successes

During the 2020-21 school year we piloted the Student Academic Support Fund to meet individual student needs on a case by case basis. This pilot catalyzed our movement to support BVSD throughout the pandemic and provided over $25,000 to fund 20 separate grant requests. To expand this successful program to encompass educators looking to innovate within their classrooms and fulfill student needs, we consolidated the Student Academic Support Fund with our longstanding Classroom Innovation Grant funding program. 

Consolidating the Student Academic Support Fund and Classroom Innovation Grants into a single funding source for the 2021-22 school year allows us to meet both student and educator needs on a case-by-case basis.

“As the pandemic continues to disrupt education, we continue to assess the needs of our students and educators. The Academic Opportunity Fund allows Impact on Education to address immediate needs for academic support that supplement district initiatives.”

Allison Billings – Executive Director, Impact on Education

While other program dollars continue to support large-scale district initiatives including assisting with supplemental instruction across grade levels in math and reading, we know we know students sometimes face immediate needs for academic support beyond what BVSD is able to provide.

Needs we anticipate funding

The Academic Opportunity Fund is highly flexible and may support targeted tutoring, software licenses, transportation expenses, class fees, educator curriculum, materials for classroom use or other needs that stretch beyond what BVSD is able to provide.

“From my own classroom teaching experience, I’ve seen how even the most effective district initiative cannot possibly impact every single student. I value how this Fund singles out and meets unique individual and small groups of students’ academic needs.”

Jen Biegen – Program Coordinator, Impact on Education

The application form asks applicants to make sure their need is aligned with the most appropriate resource, whether it be Impact on Education or another BVSD or community organization.

How to request funding

The first application round is open now and will close on October 3. We anticipate opening subsequent rounds this fall and encourage those looking for funding to keep an eye on our website.

Alenka Žnidaršič started volunteering with Impact on Education over two years ago after volunteering with her son’s school. She first helped review grant applications before becoming more involved with our fundraising and events. 

Originally from Slovenia, Alenka received a Masters in Information Technology before obtaining her PhD in electro-technical engineering from the University of Ljubljana. She started working with artificial intelligence (AI) technology and became fascinated by the connection between people and technology.

Through her education and travels, Alenka learned four languages and is quadrilingual, speaking Dutch, English, German and Slovenian. She moved to Colorado 10 years ago alongside her husband and son. Her son was 5 when they moved which gave Alenka the opportunity to volunteer in his classroom during his early education.

Why she values education

During her own early education in Slovenia, Alenka’s school placed great emphasis on developing critical thinking skills and an appreciation for others’ differences. The latter was not something she saw being valued in the U.S. education system and one of the reasons she is so passionate about early childhood education. She would like to bring some of the values from her home country to help improve education in the U.S., particularly the awareness and acceptance of differences and diverse identities. 

Alenka’s family was another element that drove her commitment to education. Coming from a family of educators, she started helping out in her mother’s classroom as a child. She says, “technology has my heart, but teaching is a close second.” After obtaining her degrees, she taught computer science to elementary school students. She also mentored children through the Scouts of Slovenia, helping to foster a curious learning environment.

“Technology has my heart, but teaching is a close second.”

Alenka Žnidaršič

Her work with Impact on Education

Alenka first started volunteering with us two years ago, helping review applications for our Classroom Innovation Grants. These awards go to BVSD teachers focusing on instructional innovation to enhance student learning in the classroom. She loves watching these applications turn into classroom innovations. 

In addition to the grant reviews, she now supports our Fundraising & Special Events Committee, helping our staff plan and orchestrate events. Alenka’s educational and career focus of bringing people together through technology is especially helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic, where we’ve seen a heightened need for virtual events and interactions.

A love for adventure

Outside of her work as a leadership development coach and volunteering, Alenka is passionate about spending time outside. She particularly enjoys skiing, hiking, climbing and kayaking. Alenka and her family love traveling and have an appreciation for meeting people from and experiencing different cultures and perspectives. With the pandemic making traveling more difficult, they’re enjoying playing strategic and collaborative family games, such as Settlers of Catan.

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