April 1: Susan Stone, School of Social Welfare

School-level psycho-social supports and achievement: Evidence from the San Francisco Unified School District

The aims of Prof. Stone's talk are threefold. First she will discuss scholarly concerns, emerging from both social work and psychology literatures, raised about the nature and quality of psycho-social service provision in schools. She will argue that these concerns dovetail with findings generated from educational research on essential school reform processes and "improved" school finance (see Grubb, 2008). Second, Prof. Stone will characterize the mismatch between the accumulating body of school based "empirically supported treatments" and actual practices. Finally, she will present on data generated from San Francisco Unified School District's "Learning Support Professional" program, which was initially implemented in the 2001-2002 school year. This program was unique in that it encouraged "school reform minded" psycho-social service provision. Given that the program was rolled into schools over several years and that data on services were collected over time, these data provide an opportunity to explore the association between the school-based psycho-social service provision and overall performance trends. Findings suggest that the presence of this program is positively (albeit modestly) associated with school achievement, controlling for plausible confounds. There is also evidence that particular combinations of service strategies show additional, positive relationships with school achievement.