School Discipline and Shenandoah County
With the almost constant mention of student discipline and behavioral issues within our county's schools, I decided to take a look at overall situation. School Districts around the Commonwealth of Virginia as well as nationally are being tasked with much more than just education via a curriculum or classroom. They are so often required to help children outside of the schools and are either actively seeking to hire, hiring, or employing licensed social workers to fulfill the needs of their students. Here in Shenandoah County this is absolutely the case. Superintendent Melody Sheppard has been attempting to fill Social Worker positions within the School Division for the last 2 years. She said that “although the positions remain open, that they will keep trying to fill them in order to do what’s best for our students.”
It makes perfect sense that if counselors, principals, and support staff are taking care of assisting students getting needed services and care outside of the schools, that those staff members might not have the time they need to focus on discipline and behavior of students within the schools. For instance, when an assistant principal who normally would be able to interact with students is doing things line finding a student food or a source for eyeglasses, it most likely will detract from proper attention to other tasks. If schools are needed to do Social Work, it leads to questions about what the County Department of Social Services is accomplishing?
I asked Director of Shenandoah County Department of Social Services Beth DeLullo about what her organization is dealing with and is accomplishing. She said that her staff is “dealing with a higher and higher caseload each month and year and that the turnover rate for DSS employees in Shenandoah County is around 70%.” In other words, the County Department of Social Services employees are being overworked and overwhelmed by the increasing caseloads. There has been a 41% increase in cases over the last two fiscal years. I asked her what could be done to help improve her department’s successes and she replied “To increase staffing to sufficiently meet the rise in cases. This will also alleviate the overloaded work force and enable them to provide quality service to a manageable caseload consistent with state policy guidelines.
Retention and recruitment of qualified individuals through competitive salaries and manageable caseloads.” Funding as always seems to be a major hurdle for success in hiring and maintaining staff to adequately serve the community. The Department of Social Services budget for Shenandoah County is decided upon at the state level, not locally, so our County Board of Supervisors can’t increase or decrease like they can the amount they provide to the schools.
The Shenandoah County Department of Social Services provides assistance to citizens including:
Medicaid
Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP)
Energy Assistance
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
Virginia Initiative for education and work (VIEW)
Child Care
Child Protective Services (CPS)
Adult Protective Services (APS)
Adult Services Guardianships
Nursing home/Assisted Living Screenings
Foster Care
Adoption
Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP)
Children’s Services Act (CSA)
In FY 2021, these programs combined served approximately 15,109 citizens of Shenandoah County.
I also asked Delullo about the relationship between DSS and Shenandoah County Public Schools in regards to the aforementioned disciplinary issues and she answered that “it would be good for the community to have a better understanding of the work we do.The situation is becoming more and more widespread across nation and schools are seeing more and more disciplinary issues overall.” Both she and Superintendent Melody Sheppard were positive in attitude regarding the communication between SCPS and DSS and that they continue to do what they can to make things better for the people they serve. One comment by Delullo that stood out to me was “It’s a good day when we close a case, because it’s a success”. I realized then how tough it must be to work in social services.
It certainly seems that due to the overwhelming amount of work required and lack of staff and funding that employees of both schools and social services departments are being asked to do more and more. It’s not a winning formula for success and our citizens are often not aware of what a difficult position many teachers, principals and social workers are in. To me, it’s clear that the students who aren’t being adequately cared for outside of the schools are likely ones who may be disruptive inside the classroom and when teachers and administrators are distracted by other things, that the school discipline issue isn’t going to go away very quickly or easily. The real question is, what can we all do about it?
Submitted by:
Mike Scheibe
New Market, VA
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