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Updated: December 13, 2024 @ 1:15 am
Kira Frisby
Christina Bibbs
Kira Frisby
Christina Bibbs
Stillwater Public Schools continues to help its students receive more mental health support and substance abuse prevention.
Every two years, the state requires that the Oklahoma Prevention Needs Assessment Survey be completed for students in sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades. SPS Wellness and Trauma Response Coordinator Kira Frisby presented the survey results at the Dec. 12 SPS Board of Education meeting.
Frisby said the survey is fully tied to a Multi-Tiered System of Support grant, with funds provided by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.
The MTSS grant, which is supported by federal funding paid out over three years, focuses on providing options for good mental health and substance abuse prevention in the district.
SPS will receive $300,000 every year for three years, with a total grant funding of $900,000.
Over the past year, Frisby said SPS Prevention Grant Coordinator Christina Bibbs worked closely with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and the Oklahoma Center for Family Resiliency to implement strategies.
Grant objectives included not only developing a comprehensive district-wide framework for support and prevention, but also student-focused prevention, family engagement, staff training and more.
“When we received our school-based prevention grant, they looked at our previous years of OPNA data, and helped us come up with some goals and some things to focus on,” Frisby said.
Those areas included alcohol use, tetrahydrocannabinol substance abuse, psychological distress and school climate.
The multi-tiered approach
At the Board meeting Frisby shared a slide presentation that showcased the MTSS approach.
Tier 1 prevention strategies, which are universal, involve school-wide efforts that are designed to reach all students, and they focus on education, awareness and skill building.
Tier 2 prevention strategies, which is a more targeted approach, include focusing on at-risk groups who begin to exhibit early warning signs of substance abuse.
Tier 3 prevention strategies are intense interventions, and students are referred to school psychologists or mental health counselors.
The grant funding will cover Tier 1 and Tier 2 levels, Frisby said.
Frisby began working in the district in 2006, so the work she does in wellness and trauma response has always been absorbing.
“The work that this grant has allowed us to finally do … we’ve been working as a district over the course of many years,” Frisby said. “But we’ve gotten to this point where we’re actually doing a lot of things that we dreamed of.”
Frisby said, since 2012, she’s seen a rise in mental health issues in adolescents within the district, and it’s uncertain which factors may have contributed. She said the pandemic also caused more mental health issues for students, and her staff has been pulled from prevention work to crisis response work.
Recent findings
Based on OPNA survey results, Frisby shared key concerns and key shifts from the 2021-22 academic year to the 2023-24 academic year.
Suicide consideration among students at Stillwater Junior High School rose from 12.2% in 2019-20 and 18.1% in 2021-22, to 22% in 2023-24.
“Looking back, starting in 2017, those rates have steadily increased every year at the junior high,” Frisby said.
On the other hand, Stillwater Middle School saw a positive decline in suicide consideration, with rates dropping from 12% to 9%. Stillwater High School “remained stable” at 18% between 2019 and 2022, with rates dropping to 14% this year.
The data also showed that some students consider cyberbullying to be a problem. At SJHS, rates of perceived cyberbullying rose from 38% to 53%.
Frisby pointed out that it’s more about the age group than the school – in other words, it’s not just about the junior high school itself, but the students’ ages that contributes to perceived cyberbullying.
Although the data showed a decrease in depressive symptoms, nearly half, or 45% of students, remain at high risk this year, SPS said.
“The persistently high levels of depressive symptoms suggest that many students continue to struggle with mental health challenges, indicating an ongoing need for accessible counseling and emotional support resources,” according to the data Frisby shared.
At SJHS, the rates of high levels of depressive symptoms reached 50%, the highest among all of the schools in the latest survey results.
At SMS, the rates for high depressive symptoms dropped from 47% in 2021-22 to 36% in 2023-24.
SHS saw a fluctuation in its results for high depressive symptoms – from 33% in 2019-20 to 49% in 2021-22, then reducing to 42% in 2023-24.
SPS also found that students with moderate or high psychological distress was 47% at SMS, 59% at SJHS and 59% at SHS.
“Again, more of a realization as a district that these are things we need to continue to focus on,” Frisby said. “There are evidence-based programs that really target these things, and we really want to focus from … empowerment, resiliency (and) protective factors to try to get these numbers to decrease at our next OPNA (survey).”
Frisby pointed out that high-risk factors in the community that may have contributed to the findings include low neighborhood attachment and perceived availability of drugs and guns. Risk factors at school included a low commitment to school and academic failure.
The district saw positive decreases in all grades for alcohol, vaping use and marijuana use.
Kira Frisby
Christina Bibbs
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