The norwich city school district (ncsd) is located in norwich, new york, in chenango county, and serves approximately 1,750 students in grades prek-12

The proposed project will address a number of risk factors for violence in the schools. These include violence in the community, low levels of social emotional skills, an insufficient number of providers of mental health services, and a high rate of disciplinary referrals. The project will consist of five components: character strong social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum for every student in grades prek-12 therapeutic crisis intervention for schools training for 60 staff members, in order to build the skills to DE-escalate crises and help children learn constructive ways to handle crises as well as coping strategies to deal with frustration, failure, anger, rejection, hurt, and depression adaptive seating for children with sensory challenges that can result in disruptive behavior classroom connect anonymous reporting system for students, staff, parents, and community members to be able to report threats of violence, including bullying a behavior specialist, through a contract with chenango county behavioral health services, who will provide mental health services for students in grades prek-5 as a result of this project, the district expects that the number of students with SEL scores on the bimas-2 SEL assessment that are in the typical or strength range will increase by at least two percentage points per year, from a baseline to be measured at the beginning of the project year. In addition, the district expects that the number of disciplinary incidents will be decreased by at least 10% per year, from the baseline of 973 incidents in the 2020-2021 school year.