emotional screening – A Newark prep school’s emotional intake forms and group counseling approach is reshaping how educators support students before academics suffer.
A small Newark school is making a case that students don’t just struggle with coursework; they struggle with what’s happening inside them.
Schools commonly rely on academic assessments to understand what new students know and how to help them learn more.. But in an approach developed at St.. Benedict’s Prep—run by Benedictine monks in the heart of Newark—the first step is to look at emotional health with the same seriousness educators reserve for test results.. The core idea is simple: if adults can identify what students are carrying. they can respond earlier. before distress turns into attendance problems. behavioral crises. or damaged academic records.
At St.. Benedict’s, every entering student receives a customized emotional intake assessment.. The method was originally modeled after the Western Psychological Services’ “Problem Experiences Checklist” for adolescents. a tool that is no longer in print.. The school continues to update its own form as new issues emerge. including adding a question related to isolation linked to pandemic shutdowns.
The form presents students with a wide range of potential problems—more than 200 items—and asks them to indicate which ones trouble them.. The list spans experiences that can be social. familial. or deeply personal. including concerns like being teased by other students. parents disliking a student’s friendships. or learning that a family member is incarcerated.. In practice, the assessment is designed to capture real stressors students may not otherwise reveal in traditional classroom settings.
Ivan Lamourt. the school’s associate headmaster and a certified school psychologist. argues that the emotional assessments cost little more than the price of the original checklist itself.. He describes the process as a way to gather real-time information about the students directly in front of educators. and to push adults to grow in how they meet students’ needs.. The school’s guiding mantra is that trying to reach a student’s mind doesn’t work if the heart hasn’t been tended first.
St.. Benedict’s Prep was founded in 1868 and once served as a long-time anchor for a poverty-stricken community.. But as Newark’s racial makeup changed. enrollment fell. and in 1972 a majority of monks voted to shut down the school.. That closure decision didn’t end the story. however: a few leaders refused to give up and instead set out to rethink what a prep school could look like in a changing city.
When St.. Benedict’s reopened a year later with only 89 students, the transformation was not limited to maintaining academics.. The monks extended the school year to 11 months and introduced a strict honor code. while elevating brotherhood and empathy as priorities.. They also kept academic standards high and gradually added experiential learning. including a mandatory week-long hike on the Appalachian Trail for freshmen.
Crucially, the school also chose to shift the center of gravity away from standardized testing and toward emotional counseling.. That decision shaped how the school staffed support and how it measured student progress—less by squeezing students through exams and more by understanding what they needed to be able to learn.
Over time, St.. Benedict’s expanded from its small restart.. It now includes elementary and middle school divisions, and since 2020 it has a girls’ prep school division.. Total enrollment is about 1,000, and the report indicates that most students across divisions are Black or Latino.. The school’s daily attendance hovers around 95 percent, and nearly every graduate goes on to college.
For many students, the emotional load comes from disadvantaged or dysfunctional home environments.. To meet that reality, the school added a counseling center on its property.. The report describes the center as staffed by two qualified psychologists. a handful of psychiatrists. and licensed school counselors supported by interns from nearby colleges.
The intake forms function for administrators the way academic evaluations do—helping determine which students need immediate attention and which students should remain on a continually updated watch list.. The school also provides pathways for students who show signs of emotional distress during the school year. including referrals to one-on-one therapy or to group counseling sessions.
Because St.. Benedict’s is a private school, students can attend group counseling sessions without prior parental consent.. The report describes multiple group offerings throughout the year, with different weekday groups tied to distinct themes.. Examples include groups labeled “Blue Man Group. ” which addresses depression. “Women of Wisdom. ” which focuses on coming-of-age issues for girls. and “Unknown Sons. ” which centers on families where parents are physically or emotionally absent.
In a practice designed to keep support both accessible and efficient. the report says up to two dozen youths may attend one of the 30-minute sessions on a given day.. Younger students can mix with upperclassmen during these sessions. learning how to talk about intensely personal issues—especially boys in city environments. where such conversations may rarely happen outside structured settings.
The report includes an account of attending an “Unknown Sons” session where students discussed how they felt when compared to someone else.. Students’ responses were described as deep and emotional, including anger, resentment, and jealousy.. One senior student led peers through a moment in which a young man realized that hearing his mother say he is “just like” his father could feel like a put-down. because he understood his mother’s resentment toward the father’s absence.
That exchange resonated with multiple students. and the report describes how hearing those perspectives hurt in ways that shaped how students saw themselves.. For the school. these group moments are part of the counseling model’s payoff: students begin to recognize patterns in their own experiences and to speak about them before those feelings harden into silence. isolation. or disengagement.
In many public school districts. the report notes that administrators and parents often rely heavily on academic metrics. and that a fully staffed counseling center like St.. Benedict’s is beyond most school budgets.. Yet the core elements of emotional screening and targeted group support are presented as more feasible than they might appear—particularly if schools start with limited adoption.
The report argues that public districts’ “guardrails” could make it difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce the St.. Benedict’s approach in full.. But smaller experiments are still possible. such as adding an abbreviated emotional checklist to freshman screening or trying a group session like “Unknown Sons.” The broader lesson. as the report frames it. is that getting ahead of emotional issues in adolescence can produce large gains in how students function and persist.
The approach also carries a practical advantage: emotional assessments and structured groups can expand counseling reach while reducing stigma.. Even when a district cannot build a dedicated counseling center at the same scale. the report suggests that earlier identification and well-designed group discussion can help more students access support.
St.. Benedict’s story ultimately stands out as an education shift that begins with how adults listen.. When schools treat emotional health intake with the same urgency as academic screening. students are more likely to receive guidance while issues are still manageable—before the pressures of learning and life collide.
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