Basehor-Linwood parents -

As a district, we will be administering the CharacterStrong Social Emotional Screener to identify how we can best support your students to reach their full potential academically, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. CharacterStrong provides curriculum to our district with 3 focus outcomes: increasing a sense of belonging for all students, improving skills that support student well-being, and deepening student engagement in their academics, in their school, and in their community. The lessons focus on developing skills and mindsets around building positive habits, understanding our emotions, improving teamwork, and increasing empathy.

Screening is a process of helping us gather data on how to best support student needs. We use this information to plan supports for students to improve their well-being, engagement, and school connectedness, overall leading to enhancing their full potential in the school setting. Screening helps us be more proactive rather than reactive in supporting students’ success. The screening of social, emotional, and behavioral functioning is a brief rating scale completed by the student two times per year; once at the beginning of November and again at the end of January. This information is helpful to us to make effective plans at the whole school, class, and individual levels. Screening is similar to going to the doctor and getting a blood pressure reading to determine if you may have a need for support to improve your cardiovascular health.

This screener is a tool for us to help measure the needs of our students in social and emotional growth, as outlined in the KSDE Social Emotional Character Development standards. Kansas Educators Systems Accreditation (KESA) requires that social-emotional factors be measured locally to be a fully accredited district. We believe this survey is a valuable tool to help us provide support for students who may show a need. The measures are checked two times a year, once at the beginning of November and again at the end of January, to meet research standards of validity and reliability. The measures are checked to meet research standards of validity and reliability. There are also positive correlations between these SEL measures and important student outcomes, including GPA, test scores, behavior, and attendance.

Please review the screener questions below. If you have any questions, please email your child’s School Counselor or call the school. We value the partnership with our families to support all students and help them reach their full potential at our Basehor-Linwood schools.

Sincerely,
Chris Vignery
Superintendent
Basehor-Linwood School District