CSD's Catheleen Schlotter receives national award

Cheney School District's Catheleen Schlotter said some of her colleagues have teased her that she should put her recent award on a lanyard and wear it around so all can see it.

That would need to be a large and rugged lanyard for such a solid object - something befitting of the National School Social Worker of the Year for 2017.

Schlotter won the School Social Worker Association of America award earlier this year, and was presented with it at the association's national conference March 24 in San Diego. Schlotter said there were over 600 social workers in attendance, which was a humbling experience.

"To be honored as the one, that's amazing because there were a lot of amazing people in that room," she said in an April 13 interview.

Schlotter, who received her bachelor's degree and master's of social work from Eastern Washington University, has been with the Cheney School District since 2010, coming here from Central Valley School District where she worked for 10 years. She said social work in schools is popular in other parts of the United States, but not practiced as such in the Northwest.

It's on the rise, however, with Mead School District taking up the practice originally. Typically, those who do something similar to social work bear other titles such as counselor or behavior interventionist. Social work, Schlotter said, tends to take a broader community, whole-family, whole-child approach.

"That doesn't mean counselors don't, they just tend to have a more individual student focus," she added. "We still do deal with the family."

Schlotter said Cheney has a very strong, focused program when it comes to this type of work. She works part of her time at the district's administrative offices as the reengagement and intervention specialist, the rest of the time serving as assistant principal at Snowdon Elementary School.

At the district office, it's all social work, engaging with teachers and staff at district schools to engage in programs that help struggling students to learn and practice better social behaviors - all the while with the main goal of keeping them in school. The restorative discipline program has seen positive results, with data from Westwood Middle School indicating that with the practices, students receiving out of school suspensions dropped from 70 in 2014-2015 - before the program was implemented - to 42 students in 2015-2016. The number of days also dropped from 265 to 142.

Schlotter said only about 5 percent of students need this type of intensive behavior service, while another 15 percent are struggling somewhat with socialization skills and need some assistance. That assistance is extended to the families as well.

Some of the subjects covered include preventing bullying and harassment, learning social problem solving and developing social skills. As assistant principal at Snowdon, Schlotter said she still does a lot of these things.

"It's just from a different lens, different perspective," she added.

In addition, Schlotter is doing some teaching in the social work program at EWU. Many of the students are doing their practicum's in local schools - just like she did in Cheney.

"I feel very blessed to work here," Schlotter said. "I feel we have a heart for kids and we care about the whole child in Cheney."

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].