LARGO, Fla. — A Pinellas County School Board Workshop that will be held on Tuesday will focus on school security and safety plans as well as mental health access for students in the upcoming school year.

Plans for both school security and mental health have already been released online and will be presented to board members at 9:30 a.m.

On the school security front, Pinellas County Schools appears to be putting a big emphasis on campus communications, highlighting its work last year to do communication assessments at every public school.

This year, those assessments will happen monthly, with changes being made at schools that may experience communication issues, or need to speed up communications in the event of an on-campus emergency.

Regarding mental health services for students, a pre-released plan shows the district will increase the amount of face-time counselors and school psychologists will have with students.

The plan includes some administrative duties to be pulled from a counselor's day-to-day responsibilities, freeing him or her up for more time to work directly with students.

It also includes an extra 30 minutes per school day built in for direct student contacts.

New Pinellas Schools Superintendent Kevin Hendrick discussed the importance of mental health in the upcoming school year.

“For students to thrive and excel, they have to be ready to learn. And if they have issues with health, issues from home, issues from social media and other things, they have to get those things out and pass those things behind them in order to learn,” Hendrick said.   

“And so having counselors there to run small group sessions, to meet with students individually, to hold large scale things in the auditorium, to hold assemblies to get students to kind of work through whatever those issues are at whatever grade level, it's really helpful," he continued.

After the plans are presented to school board members on Tuesday, board members will have one week to consider them.

A final vote will be taken next Tuesday.