Dr. Jenny Spears named Director of Social-Emotional Learning

Dr. Jenny Sears was appointed as the Director of P-H-M Social-Emotional Learning in December of 2018 and assumed the duties January 1, 2019.
 

Dr. Sears was charged with leading P-H-M’s renewed, concentrated focus on student mental health to help initiate additional ways that we can help all students succeed and self-actualize in an environment of excellence here at Penn-Harris-Madison.

 

Under Dr. Sears’ leadership, a multi-year plan of action to increase social-emotional learning in the classroom was developed. The plan includes various resources and support for P-H-M staff to in turn be able to assist our students and families. Dr. Sears will be working with community stakeholders and agencies to increase trauma-informed care training for P-H-M staff. This will increase our ability to offer mental health support to our students and families within a school setting.

 

We have also expanded our partnership with Youth Service Bureau of St. Joseph County for the remainder of this school year to add dedicated YSB personnel to all of our K-8 buildings.

 

In the coming days, Dr. Sears will send more information to our buildings about the district’s upcoming SEL and mental health initiatives that will be starting soon. The focus on social emotional learning and mental health is crucial to helping students reach their fullest potential and help remove any barriers to student success. This sustained effort will only strengthen our triangle of success between students, teachers and parents.

 

Dr. Sears, a Penn grad, came back to P-H-M in 2015 as the P-H-M Exceptional Education Program Supervisor. Dr. Sears is a psychologist and has a Ph.D. in Educational and Psychological Services from Indiana State University. In her previous role, she supervised special education programming for Penn High School, all three middle schools, and 11 elementary schools in the Penn-Harris-Madison school district. In addition, Dr. Sears supervised P-H-M staff speech and language pathologists, speech and language assistants, psychologists, occupational therapists, and the young adult program. 

 

Since coming onboard at P-H-M in 2015, Dr. Sears has been dedicated to improving transitional programming and raising awareness of available student mental health services. As an Exceptional Education leader, she's worked with staff helping to make invaluable contributions to the services we provide not only to our exceptional education students, but to all P-H-M students. She’s currently partnering with Logan Industries and Corvilla for an opportunity to work grant which will provide our students additional community work experiences.

 

Dr. Sears has served as an adjunct professor at both Saint Mary’s and Bethel Colleges. She has presented at several national conferences on child psychology and is also a member of a number of professional organizations: National Association of School Psychologists, Indiana Council of Special Education Administrators, Indiana Special Education Administrators Northeast Roundtable, Psi Chi, and the American Psychological Association. She was named a member of the 2017 Michiana "Forty under 40" class, by the South Bend Regional Chamber of Commerce.