News Category: WESTPORT JOURNAL

A program adopted three years ago by Westport public schools to address student mental-health issues is still paying off, the Board of Education was told last week. Effective School Solutions, an in-school program that is providing therapeutic interventions at Staples High School and now the district’s two middle schools, has so far helped bring four students back to the district from outside placements, while an estimated nine others did not have to be placed in programs outside town.

The program now costs the district about $600,000 a year, according to Elio Longo, the district’s chief financial officer. That compares to an estimated cost savings of more than $1 million, according to data supplied to the board.

Four Westport students previously serviced outside the local school district, at an estimated cost of $80,000 a clip, are now being educated at Staples High School. Three other students whom educators agree likely would have been placed out of district this year, have stayed put, attending school regularly and receiving the therapeutic services they need in house