CSTAG (Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines) is a critical component of our collective responsibility to ensure safe, supportive learning environments. As outlined in our Strategic Plan, every building leader must be CSTAG trained and renew that training every three years.
If you have not yet completed CSTAG training, or if it has been more than three years since your last session, please register for one of the upcoming opportunities via KickUp.
Training Details
All sessions run from 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Locations: District Office
Upcoming Dates:
Monday, September 22 – Room 1016
Wednesday, October 22 – Room P211
Wednesday, January 14 – Room 1055
Wednesday, March 11 – Room 1055
Your timely participation helps us remain aligned with best practices in school safety while supporting our districtwide goals. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need additional information or assistance with registration.
Thank you for your continued commitment to leading safe, welcoming schools for our students, staff, and families.
Each year you should designate one member of your faculty to act as your school's Positive Behavior Specialist. This person will oversee your school's Positive Behavior Plan to address the causes of student use of tobacco, alcohol, electronic cigarette products, and other controlled substances as required by Utah law. This person should be a school counselor or teacher-leader as they qualify for a stipend to compensate them for this work.
On May 6, 2025, the Board approved our new Written Agreement with several changes from the past. Because Student Services Councils (SSCs) are part of the Written Agreement, I wanted to take a moment to highlight the changes as well as remind you of our practices regarding MTSS and student support.
Schools should follow the flow chart below when addressing students with behavioral concerns that do not rise to a district-level safe schools violation:
A student who has been identified as in need of additional supports, should receive classroom level interventions prior to being brought to SSC.
If a teacher needs help developing or collecting data on these interventions, they should reach out to their PLC and/or the Behavior Specialist Office Hours for support.
If the classroom-level interventions tried do not result in improvement, the student should be presented to SSC.
A referral form should be used for all SSC referrals. Schools may develop their own or use a sample found on the Canvas page.
SSC should provide additional guidance for Tier 2 supports and interventions based on the information presented to them.
SSC should regularly follow up on students they have addressed.
If, after 2-4 weeks of intervention, the student has still not made improvements, the SSC should develop next steps which may include a referral to the Behavior Specialist team or Special Education.
If SSC determines that the appropriate next step is a referral to a Behavior Specialist, the SSC chair (principal or assistant principal) should complete the referral form found on the Canvas page or linked here.
15.4.8 Student Services Council.
15.4.8.1 Purpose. A Student Services Council shall be established in each school to collaborate and recommend appropriate services, interventions, and strategies for students whose needs are not being met and to assure that due process rights are protected.
Council Members
Elementary School
Middle/Intermediate School
High School
Principal (chair)Special Education teacherCounselor/Social WorkerGeneral Education teacher
Principal (chair)Assistant Principal(alt chair)Counselor/Social WorkerGeneral Education teacher
15.4.8.5 Additional Participants by Invitation. Additional participants may be invited to provide input and support to best serve students. serve as members of the Student Services Council.
5.4.8.6 Council Determines Procedures. The council shall meet weekly, or more frequently, if business dictates. The chairperson shall be the principal or assistant principal. The operating procedures of the council shall be determined by the council in compliance with the district policies
15.4.8.7 Agenda. Students to be discussed during the council meetings shall be placed on an agenda by the chairperson so council members can be notified in advance. Individual members of the council will provide data/documentation pertaining to the placement and/or services of the student being discussed.
15.4.8.8 Minutes Required. Minutes of decisions made at each council meeting shall be recorded and shared in a secure manner by school administration with those who have a legitimate interest. The chairperson shall maintain copies of all minutes saved on the district electronic network.
SLCSD stakeholders will begin to receive notices of their access to the stakeholder survey. All surveys must be completed by May 2. Please encourage everyone to participate.
In case any questions arise, here is the information you should know:
This survey is OPTIONAL, no one should feel compelled to take it. However, it is incredibly useful feedback, and we strongly encourage all our stakeholders to participate.
This survey is CONFIDENTIAL, and participants should be encouraged to complete it at a time and location where they feel comfortable giving honest feedback.
Survey links will be sent out to adults via EMAIL. If they do not see the link, they should check junk/spam folders or reach out to jeffrey.lutz@slcschools.org.
Students can access the survey through Clever. To increase response rates, we encourage you to work with your teachers to provide time for students to do their surveys while they’re in school.
Students may see more than one survey when the go into Clever. There is the USBE Stakeholder Survey and the Teacher Feedback Survey. Please encourage them to complete BOTH.
Parents/Students
A student must have been enrolled for at least 40 days to receive a survey.
Students and parents will be asked to provide feedback on each individual course/teacher they have as well as the administrators in their building.
They may skip any sections they wish
Parents with multiple children in the district may receive separate survey emails for each child.
Class information is pulled from PowerSchool so if a student is in an afterschool program or a class that they know by a different name than what is in PowerSchool, please help them determine which class that is (i.e. After School might be Chess Club).
Alli Martin, Ed.D. (she/her/hers)
Director of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and Prevention Services
In order to support the Board priority of Social Emotional Learning, we offer SEL curriculum to each school who wants to use it to teach SEL skills to their students. As a school leader, you may choose to use other methods to teach these skills. Please think through your options and decide what will work best for your staff and your students then complete this form by April 22 to communicate how your school will support SEL instruction in the 25-26 school year.
Teaching SEL to every student is not optional! Regardless of the method, it is an expectation that every student in our district will receive direct instruction in SEL skills and that they will experience our Signature Practices every day. Please work with your Area Director if you need support making this happen.
Before continuing to the form, familiarize yourself with the three programs available through district funding:
Inner Explorer - Inner Explorer programs are audio-guided and require no training or preparation from school staff. The “press play” format allows school communities to easily implement and maintain a daily mindfulness practice on any device. Our practices build on traditional Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) framework, utilizing daily mindfulness as the foundation and creates foundational support across all aspects of a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS). Additionally, Inner Explorer programs are approved by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and recommended as one of the top ten programs for increasing executive function by Brain Futures.
Move This World - This platform is designed to ignite a powerful transformation in students, teachers, and families, empowering them to embrace and implement essential social emotional skills that transcend the boundaries of traditional education. Their dynamic, participatory approach to Student and Educator wellness, merges the esteemed CASEL core competencies with evidence-based research and the visionary expertise of a team of educators, innovators, and mental health experts.
Second Step - Committee for Children’s research-based Second Step® programs give teachers an easy-to-implement, engaging way to teach social-emotional skills and concepts. Second Step programs are designed to help children thrive and be more successful in school—ultimately setting them up to be thoughtful and productive adults.
Discover Second Step, an evidence-based social-emotional learning curriculum that fosters students' emotional intelligence, empathy, and problem-solving skills.
We are excited to share our SLS Summer Learning Series with you! Throughout this summer, we want to support you with learning opportunities addressing the needs we are seeing in our schools. Each session is optional, but we would love to get an idea of how many folks to expect, so please register via Kickup asap.
SLS Summer Learning Series
Time: 2:00PM – 4:00PM Location: District office, room 1016
Date
Title
Description
Facilitator
June 19
Supporting students with habitual disruptive behaviors
This session will focus on understanding the process to support students with habitual disruptive behaviors including using your SSC, creating/evaluating behavior plans, and accessing district supports.
Alli Martin
June 25
Addressing bullying
Learn how state law has changed the way we document and address allegations of bullying. This session will focus on developing practical SEL skills and tools to improve school climate.
Alli Martin
July 9
S-3/discipline processes
New admin are highly encouraged to attend! We will review guidance for log entries vs incidents and practices around S-3 violations.
Alli Martin
July 16
De-escalation and trauma-informed discipline
This session will focus on how trauma impacts student behavior and how to develop restorative disciplinary practices that lead to positive behavioral change.
The USBE School Climate survey provides valuable information regarding how our schools are perceived by those who interact with them. We are asking all schools to participate in this survey. Please make note of the following important dates related to this survey:
March 10: Sam Quantz will send out additional information to parents so that they have the option to opt out of participating. That information includes access to the questions that will be asked.
March 17: The survey will be sent to all adults who should take it. This includes your building admin, teachers, staff, and SROs as well as parents of your students.
March 21: The survey window opens for students to take the survey. They will access it through the Student Survey app in Clever. Students whose parents opted out will not be able to access the survey in their Clever account so please make sure there is something else for them to do while their classmates take the survey.
May 2: The survey window closes. Please make sure everyone is able to take the survey before then.
Please note that there are 3 different surveys we're asking schools to distribute this year:
SHARP
School Climate
Stakeholder
State-sponsoredAssesses a student's overall health and wellbeingGiven to students in 6, 8, 10, and 12 grades who opt-inMore information can be found here
State-sponsoredAssesses how our schools are perceived by those who work with and in themGiven to all stakeholders including students (who opt-in), staff, parents, and SROsSurvey questions can be found here
District-sponsoredAssesses how our schools are perceived by their stakeholders and includes open-ended questionsWork with your Area Director to get this survey set up for your school
CSTAG (Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines) is a critical component of school safety. Every school has at least one trained administrator, but we encourage everyone to get trained. If you have not yet been to CSTAG training or if it's been more than 3 years since you attended a training, please consider joining our next training session on February 21. For more information or to register, please use this link: https://forms.office.com/r/0ZxQfKMMQX
