Putnam County Schools implementing a new social skills and life-readiness program called QuaverReady to help students develop essential interpersonal and emotional regulation skills.
Social Emotional Wellness Coordinator Sheila Barker said the district identified a growing need for students to learn basic communication and relationship-building skills to handle conflict and build self-awareness. Barker said the program was selected after several counselors piloted the curriculum and found it beneficial.
“Kids who are not regulated and who do not have good peer relationships tend to struggle with behavior,” Barker said, “And ultimately academically because they do not have the confidence they need to do those things.”
Barker said the district plans to collect data on the program’s effectiveness and will receive training from Quaver on how to use the platform’s data tools. Barker said the investment is expected to be cost-effective in the long run by potentially reducing the need for behavioral interventions and suspensions.
“I think the biggest thing for me too is for kids to have to see their strengths in themselves and have resilience,” Barker said. “We have a lot of kids that are dealing with some pretty heavy stuff in their lives and so to try to increase their mental, mental wellness so that they can be prepared to learn and grow in their, you know, in their skills and ultimately that’s going to help them in life.”
Barker said the district is paying approximately $2,000 per school for the curriculum, totaling $20,790 for the elementary level. Barker said the curriculum is specifically tied to American School Counseling Association standards, which streamlines the workload for counselors.
“And I will say too, it’s hard sometimes to find things that kids will respond to and even our principals have said when they’ve observed these lessons like it, because of the interactiveness of the curriculum, I think the kids get excited and then you know they’re, they’re building these skills and they’re not even realizing it sometimes,” Barker said.
Baxter Primary School Counselor Jamie Hull said the curriculum provides a standardized resource for counselors across the county who previously lacked a central place to pull curriculum from. Hull said the program uses interactive screens, songs, and games to engage students in lessons covering emotional regulation, friendship, and how to be a “star student.”
“So Quaver does several things with emotional regulation, teaching kids how to handle those emotions, frustrations, disagreements, conflict,” Hull said. “It has lessons on how to be a star student, some of those are ones that are really good.”
Hull said the program addresses bullying prevention and conflict resolution by teaching students specific steps to take when a problem is too large to solve on their own. Hull said the early introduction of these skills in kindergarten and first grade is vital because students are building foundational habits they will use for the rest of their lives.
“So I feel like Quaver kind of comes in the middle of that and really helps to like bridge the gap as far as helping with the social emotional, helping them be regulated so that they can pay better attention in the classroom and it will help them academically as well,” Hull said. “Absolutely. So I was going to just touch on something that Sheila said earlier. So like she said we can’t really, you know, put everything on COVID as far as like is that why these kids are dysregulated? But I am with her when she said the screen time I think has definitely affected these kiddos, and so you can see in the classroom that the students are just, it is so hard for them to regulate their emotions and to be able to sit still and pay attention to their teacher for those long periods of time when they’ve just been used to that constant feedback of a screen.”
Hull said each school can have up to five users on the platform, allowing teachers to incorporate QuaverReady resources into morning meetings and “brain breaks” throughout the school day.
The system will deploy the program across its 11 elementary schools.
