DESSA Passive Consent Letter Fall 22
Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s),
We wanted to make you aware of an upcoming assessment that will be administered to all freshmen students during the week of September 19, 2022. Over two decades of research has helped us understand the important roles that social and emotional skills play in each child’s success in school, in the community, and, eventually, in higher education and the workplace. Skills such as demonstrating self-control, persisting at challenging tasks, making good decisions, and working well in groups are all necessary to being successful students and adults.
As part of our instructional planning for freshmen, BHS will be using a tool called the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment, or DESSA, to understand students’ perceptions of their own social and emotional skills. Students will be asked to rate their own performance in the past month on items such as:
- How often did the student recognize how their emotions were influencing their behavior?
- How often did the student take steps to reach a goal?
- How often did the student get things done in a timely fashion?
- How often did the student stay focused despite a problem or distraction?
- How often did the student get along well with different types of people?
The purpose of the DESSA is to identify which social and emotional skills your student has already learned and what skills they might feel that they still need to develop. Once students complete their self assessment, staff will work together to teach those skills both in conjunction and in isolation from academic skills. Our goal is to ensure that your student is continuously developing the social and emotional skills that they need for lifelong success.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call Marta Maschman, Assistant Principal of Student Services/Special Education at Batavia High School.
Sincerely,
Marta Maschman
630-937-8668
**Here is a printable version of the letter.