NEWPORT — Newport Public Schools plans to add two new mental health professionals to serve Thompson Middle School after the state noticed the district was disproportionately identifying Black students as “Other Health Impaired.”

There are 24 students in the district that have been identified as “Other Health Impaired,” under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This is one of 13 learning impairments listed under the act and is an umbrella term that can mean the student has anything from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD/ADD), Depression and Anxiety to other impairments like epilepsy and lead poisoning.

Eight of these OHI students are Black, a proportion of 32%, which is out of line with the total proportion of Black students attending NPS schools, which is about 20%. 

Each year, the school district sends an application to the state that includes data on student demographics and academic outcomes to apply for grants funded through the federal Consolidated Resource Plan for education.

The amount of money allotted to the district is managed by the state and split into two main categories: funding for improvements in equity and innovation through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and funding specifically to help disabled students through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

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The disparity was discovered through this process and, as a result, the federal government requires the school district to set aside 15% of the IDEA grant money it has been allotted specifically to address this issue. Since Newport was allotted $822,534 in IDEA funds for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, it is required to set aside $123,380.

This is the first time Newport Public Schools has been identified as disproportionate in its identification of Black students as “Other Health Impaired” since Director of Student Services Candace Andrade began working with the school district, she told the School Committee on Tuesday.

Later, Andrade told The Daily News that while the numbers are disproportionate, the school district requires a medical diagnosis to identify students with mental illnesses under the OHI umbrella, which means they are not necessarily misidentifying students either.

“To me, I’m like, OK, that (statistical sample) size is too small,” Andrade said. “That seems crazy, that you’re going to say we need to spend $123,000, because if I had five kids instead of eight, I wouldn’t be disproportionate.”

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The process to identify disabled students begins with a referral from a parent, teacher or other adult who interacts regularly with the student, Andrade said. But most of the referrals in NPS have come from teachers, and often it's because the child is displaying more obvious behavioral issues.

After a student is referred, the school has a legal obligation to inform the child’s guardian and have the student evaluated for a possible disability.

“A parent may elect to go through their own pediatrician or, if they’re already working with an outside therapist, they may elect to do that,” Andrade told the School Committee on Tuesday evening. “If they don’t have that, we have a legal obligation to evaluate a suspected disability and if we don’t contract out with a neuropsychologist or clinical psychologist to do a clinical evaluation, then we do so on the school budget.”

Not every student with behavioral issues is identified as OHI, however, as it is only one of 13 disabilities covered under IDEA. Students who display more severe symptoms might be identified under “Emotional Disturbance,” which covers bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, though it also can encompass depression and anxiety disorders as well.

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School administration presented the School Committee with a three-step plan to address the disproportionality, two of which are to hire licensed mental health personnel, a registered behavior technician and a board-certified behavior analyst, to serve at Thompson Middle School.

Andrade said the focus on Thompson was because middle school is about the age range where students start showing the most behavioral and mental health issues.

“I think in any district you walk into and ask where you see the most intense behaviors are and the most impact from COVID, it’s in the middle schools,” Andrade said. “They missed out on a lot of that maturity coming up from elementary school and figuring out how to be a middle schooler.

"They missed a lot of that instruction time, and I think just in general if you went to any school district and asked which school, it would be the middle school. It’s always the hardest place, kids can’t figure out — I’m still a little kid, I’m trying to get to high school, who am I? — they’re trying to figure it out. They’re always dealing with more.” 

The third part of the administration’s plan is to utilize a worksheet, created by the school district, to help evaluate referrals. This four-step checklist asks the team tasked with evaluating the child’s health if the student has a physical health problem, if the problem is chronic, if the problem results in limited strength vitality or alertness, and if the student’s educational performance is affected.

When questioned by School Committee member Stephanie Winslow as to how much outside factors, such as food insecurity or home-life stress, are taken into account during these evaluations before they’re referred to get a diagnosis, Andrade said they try to take a holistic view.

“If we know its a student whose family is struggling around food insecurity or something along those lines, they’re probably connected already with a school social worker,” Andrade said. “I can definitely say teachers and the support staff in this district know their kids, so we know it when they’re struggling with those things.

"They can actually be factors that can contribute to a disability, so while we don’t want to over-identify a student as being disabled because of those environmental factors, we can’t rule them out as not a contributing factor. It’s a tightrope to walk for sure.”