NW BOCES offers update on status of program to school board

Carolyn Conner, administrative director of the Northeast Wyoming Board of Cooperative Educational Services based in Thermopolis, addressed the Hot Springs County School District  Board of Directors on May 18 to provide an update on NW BOCES, which marks 53 years this year.

“We provide a safe and trusting environment for our children,” Conner said, adding that NW BOCES serves kindergarten through eighth-grade students. “When the youth come to us, they’re usually angry, impulsive and reactionary. They have more issues than can be taken care of in a school district or a foster home.”

In response, NW BOCES provides each child with an individualized education plan, which also allows them to learn social and life skills, while the program works to reintegrate them into their homes.

“But we don’t just stay in our little institution,” Conner said. “We get out into the community.”

Conner explained that NW BOCES was created to promote learning and growth among emotionally disturbed children, by meeting their behavioral and academic needs alike.

“They have suffered from trauma, abuse and mental health issues, and other intensive treatments have not been successful,” Conner said.

NW BOCES offers daily and residential programs for students from not only Thermopolis, but also Worland and Shoshoni, although Conner admits “anything further than that is difficult” for the program to provide transportation, even though it serves the entire state of Wyoming.

Conner elaborated that the program conducts “a lot of assessments,” and provides recreational therapy, “so kids can learn some leisure skills, and have things to do when they get home, to hopefully keep them out of trouble.”

Aside from “unstable funding,” staffing remains a pressing concern for NW BOCES, as Conner credited 24-hour supervision with helping to address sleep issues during night shifts, and praised both the “excellent” psychiatric nurse practitioner and “our psychologist (who) comes from Winchester” with conducting evaluations.

Conner pointed out that “we never know when we might get a call, or two calls,” which will result in NW BOCES receiving more students.

According to Conner NW BOCES imparts self-control to young people who have been diagnosed with multiple disorders and are “terribly traumatized,” and she reported the program has experienced “great success with the autism spectrum,” even as she acknowledged that “those kids need some specialized care.”

Conner noted that NW BOCES uses positive reinforcements precisely because so many students arrive “really scared,” because “they’re known as bad kids, and are used to getting in trouble.”

Students start with close supervision, which gradually decreases over time, because as Conner observed, “These kids have been unsafe, and we want to make sure, before we take them out into the community, that they can be safe.”

Conner deemed community activities as “very important for our program,” given NW BOCES students’ degree of participation in regular school district activities, and in spite of some of those students coping with significant cognitive issues, there was “a lot of academic achievement this year.”

Indeed, since 1998, 83% of the students who have completed the program “did not have to go to any future residential treatment facility for at least three years,” Conner said.

NW BOCES also works extensively with the students’ parents, a number of whom Conner reported have told her, “I learned as much as my child did.”

NW BOCES staff, who currently number around 40, are required to be certified, just like school district staff, while parents are kept in the loop through weekly Zoom calls that started during COVID.

Not only does NW BOCES gradually reintegrate the students with their school districts, but Conner credited 10 of the program’s 18 member school districts with contributing meal funds, just as she singled out the Hot Springs County School District for allowing the program to buy fuel “at a lower cost (than) the local pumps,” as well as buy breakfast and lunch from the district.

Conner cited the parent of a former student, who stopped by NW BOCES to report that he’s now graduating from high school, seventh in his class “at a school district that’s larger than this one.”

He was a student of the month a few months ago, and was described as on task, listening well and turning his assignments in on time, which are criteria on the NW BOCES daily behavior rating score.

“He’ll be going to college for computer science,” Conner said.

When asked how long students tend to stay at NW BOCES, Conner placed the range between “a little less than a year” to “about 16 months” for students who “have more problems,” and whose issues are “more severe.”

Conner offered the caveat that, “after they stay nine months, sometimes they get too used to us and self-sabotage, because they know nobody’s going to hurt them.”