Chalkbeat

Students, tell us what you think about efforts to ban TikTok

2024-03-15T19:08:39+00:00

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Congress is trying to ban TikTok. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution that gives TikTok owner Byte Dance, a Beijing-based tech company, six months to sell the app or see it banned in the United States. Lawmakers have raised data privacy and national security concerns because of the foreign ownership of such an influential social media app. Opponents of a ban say there is nothing unique about TikTok — that all social media platforms have positive and negative features.

About two-thirds of U.S. teens say they use TikTok, according to Pew Research Center, with 17% saying they are on the app almost constantly. While there are big worries about the mental health impacts of social media use, people also use TikTok as a creative outlet and to stay connected with friends.

We want to hear from students about how a TikTok ban would affect them.

Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey below, and let us know if we can follow up with you. We’ll keep your information confidential, and only publish your answers if you tell us it’s OK.

Not a student but know one who might have something to say? Please send them this survey.

Having trouble viewing the form? Click here.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

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This New York City counselor used to teach math. Now she helps migrant students destress at school

2024-03-15T14:00:08+00:00

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As a middle school math teacher, Lisset Condo Dutan’s days often revolved around fractions and equations. But when the pandemic hit, her virtual classroom became a place where students came to confide in her.

“I would only see them through a screen, and they would share with me: I lost my grandma, I just lost my dad, I just lost my mom,” she said. She tried her best to listen, but she knew they needed more. “They didn’t really have the emotional support that they needed.”

Lisset Condo Dutan works with newcomer students at an elementary school in Queens through the nonprofit Counseling in Schools.

Driven by those conversations, Condo Dutan went back to school to get her master’s in counseling — while she was teaching full-time — and became a school counselor.

Last fall, she took a position with the nonprofit Counseling in Schools, which places school counselors in dozens of schools throughout New York City. Condo Dutan now works at P.S. 149 in Queens, not far from where she grew up. She was among a dozen bilingual or bicultural counselors that the nonprofit hired to meet the needs of a growing number of migrant students who’ve enrolled in the city’s schools.

Now, she spends her days popping into classrooms to see if newcomers need any help and meeting with students in small groups or one-on-one.

“Even though they went through a lot, they’re the strongest people that I’ve ever met,” she said. “I admire that.”

Condo Dutan spoke with Chalkbeat about how art therapy, breathing exercises, and sharing details from her visits to Ecuador have helped her connect with her students.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What are some of the mental health or social-emotional needs that your newcomer students have?

A lot of them have undergone some sort of trauma. Especially when they share their journey coming here to New York, either what they saw on their way here or what they saw at the detention centers at the border. It impacts them a lot.

Thankfully, a lot of the teachers pick up on these little emotions. Maybe they walk in sad one day or they look upset, or there’s a change in behavior. They’ll ask: Can you please just check up on the student? And when you check up on them, you realize that there’s a lot of things that are still bothering them.

They’ll share: You know, I had this nightmare, I’m still thinking about this. I remember when we were crossing the river. Or, honestly speaking, they’ve seen people pass away on their way here. Unfortunately, they’ve seen bodies and stuff like that. And these are third graders, second graders, fifth graders.

That’s still there for them. So, sometimes they do have days where they’re a little off. [It’s important] to provide them with that support and that safe space.

When you’re starting to build a relationship and a rapport with a student who has been through a really tough journey, what are some of the things you do to help establish that you’re a safe person and that they’re in a safe place?

I let them speak about their culture. A lot of these students are very proud of where they come from, so I give them that opportunity and that time to teach me about themselves.

Sometimes, we’ll share memories. But usually, we do a lot of art therapy. For most of them, that’s easier. Markers, crayons, glitter, pens, paints — anything that I have in the office.

They’re drawing their favorite dishes, their favorite places, or their favorite people that they left behind, as well as their pets or any traditional celebrations. For example, for Christmas, they shared that certain countries have a whole festival for like a week. They would draw bumper cars and parties, and certain cultural outfits.

What are some of the acculturation struggles that you’re seeing?

Usually, what they share is that it’s just hard overall. In their countries, they would have more freedom. There would be much more fresh air and free space for them to run around. Coming here and being in an apartment, or being stuck in school, it’s different for them.

They’ve slowly been getting accustomed to school life. It’s been a lot of teaching them how to schedule their time, time management, as well as asking them what other resources they need in order to feel comfortable.

What strategies or coping skills have you taught students that they’ve found helpful?

We’ve done a lot of breathing exercises. Sometimes [their exposure to trauma] does get them a little uneasy. They really like [an exercise called] smell the flower, blow out the birthday cake candle.

I usually ask them: If I had a flower in my hand, how would you smell the flower? And they would inhale and breathe in. And when I ask them to blow out a birthday candle, they blow out through their mouth. It teaches them how to not take quick breaths.

I’ve also done a lot of cooked spaghetti, uncooked spaghetti. I have students basically tense up every part of their body. So they’ll become very stiff, like uncooked spaghetti. And then I allow them to become like cooked spaghetti, very noodly, so they let go of everything.

It’s allowing them to take notice of what part of their body is under stress, and teaching them how to express themselves when they feel that stress.

How does being able to speak Spanish allow you to connect with the students in ways that wouldn’t be possible if you didn’t speak their language?

Instead of having to translate what they’re feeling, they’re able to just express themselves exactly how they feel.

If I don’t understand something, I do ask them: Oh, what do you mean by this? It could be because of cultural differences. I take that time to let them teach me about what they’re trying to say, or what they’re trying to get out.

Do you ever share things about yourself with the students to help make a connection with them?

My parents are Ecuadorian, and I do bring that to the table. When I go to Ecuador, I visit my grandpa, I go to the countryside, I go to the city, and I’m able to share that with them. Even if the child is not from Ecuador, they’re more open to opening up to me because they realize: She’s been outside of New York, she understands what’s going on in other countries.

Lisset Condo Dutan often shares stories about visiting her family in Ecuador as a way to connect with the students she works with.

They ask me: Have you tasted salchipapas? Have you tasted a traditional dish called tripa mishqui? I’m open to sharing that information with them, and they’re usually very happy [to talk about it].

Where my grandpa lives, it’s like a farmland. A lot of them came from farmland. So, me being able to say: You know, when I go to Ecuador, I spend a week with my grandpa, and I help him feed the cows and feed the horses. That usually sparks something in them. They look at me like: You did that? I used to do that! Little things like that have really helped me connect with them.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Many migrant students need mental health support. Here’s why this program is a go-to for schools.

2024-03-11T09:00:00+00:00

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When thousands of Syrian families fleeing violence resettled in Canada several years ago, Ontario’s school mental health agency wanted to give schools tools to help refugee children process their traumatic journeys and adjust to their new lives.

The children didn’t necessarily need intensive support. But kids were bursting into tears and struggling to explain how they felt. Parents, too, noticed their usually social children had become more withdrawn and were struggling to make friends. That was especially common after kids had been in Canada for a few months and the honeymoon period ended.

So a team of experts in child mental health put their heads together and developed a program for newcomers that focuses on their strengths and who they can turn to for support. Known as STRONG, the program is now used across the U.S. in several cities serving lots of newcomers, including Chicago, Boston, Seattle, New York, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Little Rock, Arkansas. Many others are asking for training, as schools struggle to meet the needs of students who’ve been through difficult journeys with limited school mental health staff, and even fewer bilingual ones.

STRONG, which stands for Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups, can’t solve everything. Some kids may still need more intensive mental health support — and finding the time and staff to run these groups can be challenging. But many experts, educators, and students themselves see the intervention as a promising tool to help newcomers forge connections and head off mental health struggles before they turn into a crisis.

“They’ve just really appreciated the opportunity to connect with other kids,” said Lisa Baron, a psychologist who trains schools to use STRONG and directs the Boston-based Center for Trauma Care in Schools. “A lot of them said that they just had not really known that other kids were feeling the same way as they were.”

Why some newcomers struggle with mental health

Newcomer students can be refugees or asylum-seekers or the children of undocumented immigrants. Some arrive with families, some arrive alone. Some have been in the U.S. for just a few days or weeks, while others have been here longer. And while their experiences vary, they’ve often faced various hardships, from hunger to abuse.

Many children did not feel in control during their travels, and now crave stability and predictability.

It can also be difficult for newcomer families to access mental health services in the U.S. — driving home the importance of offering help at school. There’s often stigma around seeking treatment, and some families fear that doing so could put them at risk for deportation.

Here’s how STRONG typically works: The school identifies a group of students who are close in age and relatively new to the U.S. who could benefit from extra support. Then the school makes sure parents are on board, which can mean having careful conversations, especially if families are unfamiliar with schools offering mental health support.

The group meets for 10 sessions, usually during the school day. Early sessions help students understand that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed or stressed sometimes. Kids learn different relaxation techniques, such as curling their toes into the floor as if they were standing in a mud puddle, or visualizing the sights and smells of a favorite place.

In later sessions, they learn coping and problem-solving skills, such as how to map out steps to achieve a goal. Kids who are shy about speaking English could identify people they’d feel safe practicing with.

“The coping skills [are] what will stay with you forever,” one Ontario student told Canadian researchers for a 2019 report. “Whenever you are in a stressful situation, you will always remember what to do.”

In STRONG, students learn various problem-solving and coping skills.

What makes STRONG unique and appealing to many schools, said Colleen Cicchetti, a pediatric psychologist who helped develop the intervention, is that it takes a strengths-based approach.

“There were strengths that were inside you that you had in your home country that are still with you, here, today — how do we build on them?” said Cicchetti, who directs the Center for Childhood Resilience at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and now trains schools on how to use STRONG. “We really want young people and their parents to say: ‘This is a part of who I am and what I’ve experienced, but it shouldn’t define who I am entirely.’”

That’s what attracted the attention of mental health and school staff in the Madison, Wisconsin area. The district tried tweaking another group that addresses student trauma to help newcomers, but realized it wasn’t quite meeting their needs.

Kids need to “talk about good memories and coping strategies, not necessarily the exposure to the traumatic event,” said Carrie Klein, a school mental health coach for Madison Metro schools, which is considering using STRONG.

For Jennifer Moorhouse, a teacher who works with English learners at Brighton Park Elementary School in Chicago, STRONG has been transformative for her and her students.

Related: Amid Chicago’s migrant influx, one school is trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma

Over the last year, Moorhouse has run four STRONG groups — known as “clubs” at her school — alongside school counselor Stephanie Carrillo. The program helped Moorhouse get to know newcomers’ families, and has made students comfortable to seek her out when they need essentials like toothpaste or body wash.

Brighton Park Elementary School threw a quinceañera for newcomer students who were sad they would miss celebrating in their home country.

The group has helped in unexpected ways, too. When kids said they weren’t eating at school because they didn’t like the food, Moorhouse figured out they did like Ritz crackers and Skinny popcorn, so she keeps those on hand. And when she found out some newcomers were crying in the bathroom, upset that they were going to miss their quinceñera back home, the group threw a big party at school, complete with balloons and empanadas.

“The students really have created this bond with Ms. Moorhouse — that’s their person,” said Cecilia Mendoza, the assistant principal. “Every student needs someone. For someone new entering the country, entering a new school, having someone is even more important.”

Brighton Park is one of 83 schools across the district that’s been trained in STRONG, with another 50 schools in line to be trained next school year.

Why talking about their journeys can help newcomers

When experts first developed STRONG, they imagined it would be delivered by social workers, school counselors and other mental health staff, since many newcomers have experienced trauma.

But given that mental health professionals are often stretched or in short supply, more schools are asking for others to be trained, too, said Sharon Hoover, a psychiatry professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine who helped create STRONG.

Now, many schools run STRONG sessions with two adults. A teacher with language or cultural skills can act as the interpreter, while the staffer with mental health training takes on tasks such as screening children for post-traumatic stress.

“We don’t want to be irresponsible with the curriculum and just throw it into the hands of anybody who has no mental health training at all,” Hoover said. “But on the other hand, we don’t want to restrict it in a way that’s going to lead to it not getting to students who might benefit.”

On a recent Tuesday morning, Hoover and Bianca Ramos, a STRONG trainer, showed what a one-on-one session that invites students to share about their journey can look like during a virtual training for two dozen school staffers.

The group, mostly social workers and school counselors from Connecticut, had gathered to learn strategies to help newcomer students from many parts of the world, including Haiti, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Ukraine.

Related: We are facing a migrant mental health crisis. More school social workers could help

In the video demonstration, Hoover sat beside Ramos in the corner of a blue-walled room. Ramos, a Chicago-based social worker, played the role of a 13-year-old girl who’d fled Guatemala without time to say goodbye to family and friends after her father was killed. Hoover explained that talking about something hard can be like stepping into cold water.

“The more we do it, slowly and gradually, usually the more comfortable we get,” Hoover said. “You don’t have to dive right in.”

In early sessions of STRONG, students learn various relaxation techniques and that it's OK to feel stress sometimes.

In the scenario, as the young girl neared the U.S.-Mexico border, robbers threatened to take her family’s few belongings. Hoover asked how she got through that time, using it as an opportunity to draw out the child’s strengths.

“I had this picture of my mom and I just remember looking at it, and trying to stay hopeful that I was going to be able to see her again,” Ramos said. And she had her little sister to watch out for: “I was like a mom to her.”

“That’s amazing,” Hoover replied, pointing out how brave and caring the child had been.

Later, Hoover asked if the girl was having trouble sleeping, reliving any memories, or feeling sad a lot. She wasn’t, but thoughts of her dad did pop into her head in class, making it hard to concentrate. Hoover made sure that wasn’t happening too much, and then kept the door open to talk more in the future if anything changed.

In Chicago, Moorhouse has seen that some kids feel relieved when they share about their journey. But she also cautions that it can be a lot for other students and teachers to take in. After one student shared details that made Moorhouse tear up later, she realized she couldn’t probe too deeply in her conversations with the student, and needed to let the school counselor step in.

“We’re not therapists,” she said. “That’s very important for teachers to realize.”

STRONG can help students, but there are challenges

STRONG is still being rigorously evaluated in the U.S. But research conducted by Western University in Canada, where STRONG was first piloted during the 2017-18 school year, has shown promising results.

Evaluations from across Ontario found the program helped kids build trust, increase their confidence, and develop a sense of belonging at school. Students reported that STRONG helped them feel more welcome and connect with their peers.

STRONG can also shift school culture and help the entire staff become more attuned to newcomers’ needs. When Moorhouse notices certain patterns of behavior, she shares that with other teachers, so they can keep an eye out.

That could be explaining why some kids may not want to take off sweaters or jackets — after border agents took everything they had except for what they were wearing at the time — or that playing certain sounds, like chirping birds or rushing water, could be upsetting to kids whose journey involved swimming or walking through the jungle.

There can be practical challenges. School leaders may be hesitant to pull kids out of class for STRONG when they are struggling academically. Elizabeth Paquette, who’s part of the team that trains school staff in Ontario, said it can be tricky to get enough kids together in smaller schools and rural communities without resorting to virtual groups that can make it harder for students to make friends.

And if groups use more than two languages, the interpretation needs can take away from the group’s conversational flow.

Still, Moorhouse said the group can be a place for kids to talk about those academic struggles, whether they’re lost in class or frustrated because they already know the content, but can’t yet express themselves. This year, especially, kids want to talk about school stress even more than their journeys.

“They were struggling with: ‘Do I give up?’” Moorhouse said. And her message was: “Let’s keep finding other ways to work through this. What are your thoughts?”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

In face of student mental health crisis, City Council wants to expand peer-to-peer support

2024-03-12T23:08:01+00:00

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To help address the city’s ongoing youth mental health crisis, New York City Council members are looking to expand student support groups and tap peer-to-peer connections.

Council Speaker Adrienne Adams will announce three new proposals during her State of the City address on Wednesday, directing the city to increase support for peer mental health programs in schools.

The proposals come as recent years have seen an uptick in students grappling with severe mental health challenges, both locally and across the country. For many students, the pandemic upended day-to-day life, isolating them from their peers, and in many cases causing financial or personal loss within their families. Educators have continued to report lingering behavioral concerns years after students returned to the classroom.

The share of New York City students who reported suicidal ideation had jumped to nearly 16% in 2021, while about 9% of local high school students reported they had attempted suicide that year. That was up from about 12% a decade prior.

If enacted, the new proposals would require the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to work with community-based organizations to develop a toolkit for those seeking to start clubs that promote student mental health, while also mandating the city to develop and offer peer-to-peer mental health training for public schools and students, according to a spokesperson for Adams.

The proposals would also create a pilot program for social work students from CUNY programs to support mental health clubs in schools that need professional or clinical supervision.

Peer-to-peer support models have gained traction at schools both locally and nationwide. Mental health clubs and other peer support programs can help raise awareness of mental health issues at school, while reducing stigma around seeking help, advocates and experts have said.

City and state officials have tried for years to address mental health concerns. In 2023, the city launched a free virtual therapy program for teenagers ages 13-17, and in February, it joined the hundreds of other municipalities and school systems that have filed lawsuits against major social media companies, alleging their practices have fueled the nation’s youth mental health crisis.

City Council members are also considering a bill that would require the city’s Education Department to warn middle and high school students about the dangers of social media each school year.

Still, despite these efforts, the city’s schools could lose hundreds of social workers when federal relief funds dry up later this year.

At a town hall in District 28 in Queens on Monday, schools Chancellor David Banks pointed to mental health as one of the key issues facing students across the five boroughs.

“Our kids went through a lot during the pandemic,” he said. “As they have re-entered school and tried to find a sense of normalcy… It has been a harder transition for some kids than others, and we are constantly faced with those challenges.”

Meanwhile, in Albany, Gov. Kathy Hochul has referred to mental health as “the defining challenge of our time.” Earlier this year, Hochul proposed expanding state funding for youth-driven peer support programs in schools, among other mental health policy initiatives.

In a statement Tuesday, a spokesperson for the city’s Health Department said “the city has made mental health a priority” and the department looked forward to “future discussions about how to continue improving care in the city.”

Officials from the city’s Education Department did not immediately return a request for comment on the proposals.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC families and teachers: How are your schools handling student cell phones?

2024-02-22T22:21:37+00:00

School cell phone policies are under the microscope nationwide. We want to hear what’s happening at your New York City school.

When students returned to in-person classes after learning remotely during the pandemic, some educators noticed that kids were increasingly attached to their phones. Now, more schools are experimenting with systems to keep phones out of students’ hands during the school day.

And in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams has railed against the dangers of social media for children’s mental health, declaring it a public health risk and filing a lawsuit against five leading social media companies.

But efforts to ban or curb cell phone use in schools have also generated significant pushback. Some parents worry they won’t be able to reach their kids in emergencies, while some students and educators say restrictive rules rob them of a critical tool and opportunities to use technology responsibly.

At Chalkbeat New York, we’re hoping to dive deeper into how schools are handling cell phones. We want to learn more about the policies schools are adopting – or avoiding – and the benefits and drawbacks of those approaches. Please fill out the short survey below to help direct our reporting.

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NYC students, advocates call for school-based restorative justice, mental health funding

2024-02-23T20:06:06+00:00

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During a lesson on the Black Lives Matter movement in her first year of high school, Lexi Greenberg was shocked to hear two students in her class making insensitive and offensive remarks.

“I left the lesson feeling angry and alone,” she said, noting she was the only Black student in the class. Lexi approached staff at Millennium Brooklyn High School, where just 14% of students are Black, and asked for the students to be suspended.

Instead, the school counselor and principal urged her to meet with the students before the school pursued any potential disciplinary action.

She was reluctant at first, but Lexi said meeting with her classmates helped her quickly realize they’d spoken from a place of ignorance, rather than harm. They were “extremely apologetic and regretful,” and after the meeting, they became her first friends in high school.

Lexi, now a senior, remains close with those students today, and is a founding member of her school’s Restorative Justice Action Team.

“None of the wonderful things that have happened to me in high school would have happened if I had pushed for suspension,” she said. “I made a choice to listen and see the people on the other side of the problem instead of burying myself in resentment and hate, and that opened me up to a whole new universe of joy and acceptance.”

Lexi is one of the dozens of students urging the city to increase funding for restorative justice — a philosophy rooted in providing students and staff space to talk through conflicts without resorting to more punitive measures. She shared her story Thursday as part of the “Dignity in Schools” coalition, a group of New York City students, families, educators, and advocates that are calling for the city to invest millions of dollars in restorative justice and mental health programs in schools, while diverting funding away from policing.

Roughly 30 students gathered in Manhattan at the YA-YA Network, a non-profit organization that promotes youth advocacy, to launch their new budget campaign. It comes amid broad fiscal concerns surrounding the city’s school system.

Though Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday that a planned third round of budget cuts will no longer be necessary, previous cuts have slashed more than $700 million from the Education Department’s budget for the next fiscal year. Meanwhile, the school system stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars as federal pandemic relief funds will soon expire.

“What is unconscionable is that we’re in the midst of a youth mental health crisis,” said Tina Zeng, a Brooklyn high school senior and YA-YA student organizer. “Having these proposed budget cuts will have devastating impacts on restorative justice, student mental health … and so much more.”

As part of the campaign, the coalition is urging city officials to protect critical programs propped up by the federal funds, and make further investments in restorative justice programs.

In particular, the coalition called on the city to protect $21 million invested in restorative justice programs, $5 million that went toward mental health services, and $77 million that helped hire counselors, social workers, and mental health professionals.

Students also called for $75 million to support hiring school-based restorative justice coordinators at 500 high schools — increasing by an additional $55 million annually for three years — as well as $75 million to hire community members into positions that support schools, such as youth advocates, parent coordinators, paraprofessionals, community outreach coordinators, counselors, and social workers.

Under the investments the campaign is seeking, $10 million would also be put toward restorative justice training, curriculums, and other school-based resources and opportunities.

The coalition wants the city to redirect more than $400 million in school police funding to other school resources — calling for the city to stop all recruiting and training of new school police officers and end funding for new or existing student surveillance and scanning equipment. Students argued that police are ill-equipped to defuse tension and conflicts in schools, and that their presence disproportionately harms students of color and others from marginalized communities.

Tensions between students and school-based police officers can often be fraught, and advocates have long pointed to data showing Black and Latino students can be disproportionately subjected to police interventions in the city’s schools.

One student who spoke at the campaign launch said despite having school safety agents and a robust surveillance system on campus, it still took roughly 15 minutes for an officer to arrive when a fight broke out, and students had to work to defuse the situation in the meantime. When the students involved returned from suspension, the dispute continued.

Some schools have moved toward embracing restorative justice practices in recent years. Still, city data showed suspensions spiked during the last school year, returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department, said in a statement that the department would continue to prioritize restorative justice.

“Education and safety is at the core of all we do,” she said. “We continue to prioritize our restorative justice work, as well as programs like Project Pivot, which puts additional funding in the hands of our schools to engage independently selected community organizations directly, made up of individuals from the very communities they serve and in accordance with participating schools’ needs.”

City Councilmember Rita Joseph, chair of the council’s education committee and an attendee of the Thursday campaign launch, encouraged students to continue their work and help sway her colleagues in City Hall.

“You already got me,” she said. “But we have 50 other people we need to bring on board.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams cancels new round of budget cuts, but fiscal cliff for NYC schools looms

2024-02-21T23:06:13+00:00

New York City’s Education Department won’t see another round of city budget cuts this spring, Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday.

But the school system still stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars of expiring federal aid by this summer unless city and state officials act quickly to replace it, advocates warned.

Adams said he will not move forward with a third round of planned budget cuts to city agencies, citing better-than-anticipated revenue and shrinking spending on migrants. The previous two rounds of cuts slashed a total of more than $700 million from the Education Department’s budget for next fiscal year.

Advocates celebrated Wednesday’s news, but warned it does nothing to reverse the massive cuts already coming through previous reductions in city spending and the approaching fiscal cliff of expiring federal aid.

“We are relieved that there is not going to be another round of cuts to the New York City Department of Education,” said Randi Levine, the policy director of Advocates for Children of New York. “But we are deeply concerned about the cuts that are currently being proposed. We need the city to make a substantial investment … to ensure that we don’t have devastating cuts to education programs come July.”

Among the programs that could be partially or fully eliminated when the federal money runs out: 450 new social workers, whose salaries are covered by the one-time federal aid; the city’s recently expanded free preschool program for 3-year-olds; and more than 100 “community schools” that partner with community organizations to provide extra support to families. Funding that propped up the budgets of schools whose enrollment fell during the pandemic is also drying up.

Advocates for Children is one member of the recently formed Emergency Coalition to Save Education Programs, which is calling on the city and state to come up with more than $1 billion dollars in this year’s budget to replace the expiring federal aid.

One hundred and sixty community groups signed onto a letter last September sounding the alarm about the fiscal cliff. There was some movement in January, when Adams announced $80 million in city funding this summer to help continue Summer Rising, the academic and recreational summer program that began during the pandemic.

But advocates say that’s only the tip of the iceberg – and worry that the urgency of the situation hasn’t yet sunk in for city and state officials.

In fact, at the January briefing announcing the Summer Rising funding, Adams said he “had no clue of the extent of how many programs were being funded by stimulus dollars” until schools Chancellor David Banks had briefed him earlier that month.

Here are some of the biggest programs currently funded by federal aid, and a glimpse at what could happen if the money runs out without a replacement:

Social workers and school psychologists on the chopping block

The salaries of 450 social workers and 60 psychologists were covered by nearly $80 million in relief money this year as part of a pandemic effort to bring mental health support to schools without full-time help.

The influx brought social workers to roughly 194,000 students who previously didn’t have a full-time social worker in their school, advocates estimate. If schools lose the federal money funding these positions, they’ll either have to scrounge up money from elsewhere in their budgets – an unlikely prospect with school budgets poised to shrink next year – or “excess” them, sending them to a central pool where they’d have to wait to get picked up by a new school.

One Brooklyn principal who hired a full-time social worker for the first time with the pandemic aid said it’s made an “enormous” difference to have a staff member who can focus on behavioral issues, freeing up other administrators to focus on academic needs.

“I’m very worried about what will happen if we lose her,” said the principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There is no way I can keep her unless the funds are replaced.”

Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said the agency is “extremely grateful” for the relief money and is “working with the administration to identify new funding sources.” The department will “provide guidance to schools so they can appropriately plan for the upcoming school year,” she added.

$160 million to prop up school budgets amid enrollment losses

During the pandemic, former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration paused the normal process of slashing school budgets when enrollment fell, and instead spent $375 million in federal aid to keep school budgets steady, even as enrollment cratered.

Adams began tapering off that support in 2022, cutting $215 million from the “hold harmless” pot, which left it at $160 million. That $160 million will disappear next year unless city and state officials replace it – and it will come directly out of the budgets schools use to pay for staff and supplies. If a school’s enrollment increases next year, the accompanying budget bump might offset some of that loss. But if their enrollment shrinks or stays steady, they’ll feel the full effects.

An expanded preschool program

De Blasio used federal relief money to advance a long-standing goal of expanding the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds in the same way he built out the city’s heralded universal prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds.

The 3-K expansion has been rockier, with more empty seats – but it’s still brought free preschool to more than 20,000 new 3-year-olds since the start of the pandemic.

If the city’s current proposed budget passes unchanged, spending on the 3-K and pre-K programs will fall by $263 million next year, according to advocates’ budget analysis. About $170 million of those cuts come from the city’s own budget trims, which officials have said will only affect seats that aren’t currently filled.

But there’s also $93 million in federal aid for 3-K that could disappear next year. The city’s cuts alone could reduce the number of 3-K seats by between 9,000 and 15,000, according to projections from the Citizens’ Committee for Children. Even if the seats that get cut were empty, losing so much funding could make it impossible for some providers to keep their lights on at all, said Jennifer March, the Executive Director of the Citizens’ Committee for Children.

“It could have a detrimental impact on the fiscal viability of that provider long term,” she said.

The clock is ticking for other programs

There are many other critical programs paid for with federal aid, including 100 staff members working directly in homeless shelters to help students with transportation and other needs, and more than 100 new community schools that partner with nonprofits to provide social services and extra support to families. A recent effort to reduce the long-standing shortage of preschool special education seats is also in jeopardy.

There’s also precious little time for city and state officials to salvage those programs. The state’s budget deadline is April 1. Advocates say things are moving the wrong direction so far: A revision to the state’s funding formula is leaving the city Education Department with $130 million less than expected.

The city’s budget deadline is further out in June. But there’s a perhaps even steeper climb to reverse some of the $700 million in cuts Adams has proposed in recent months – while also coming up with new money to replace the sunsetting federal aid.

But advocates said the stakes are too high for lawmakers not to act.

“We are talking to everyone at both the city and state levels,” said Levine. “A parent who doesn’t have access to 3-K doesn’t care if they lost the seat because of federal, state, city funding … they care that they’re losing that seat.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC sues TikTok, Instagram, and other social media companies over youth mental health crisis

2024-02-14T22:50:31+00:00

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Mayor Eric Adams ratcheted up New York City’s battle against social media companies on Wednesday, joining hundreds of municipalities and school systems across the country that have filed a wave of lawsuits seeking financial compensation and broader changes to the platforms.

The city contends that social media platforms are designed to be addictive, harming young people’s mental health, and serving as venues for bullying. The lawsuit is calling on the companies to change their practices and pay for youth mental health education prevention and treatment services. Officials said the city spends about $100 million a year on youth mental health programs.

The city’s Education Department and the public hospital system are also part of the suit filed in California state court against the companies operating TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube.

“The feature that keeps young people clicking in these dark corners of social media have fueled an alarming rise in online bullying, depression, eating disorders, and suicidal ideation,” Adams said during a briefing on Wednesday. “There is, of course, a great deal of education and positive content out there too. But there is also a 24/7 digital dystopia that even very young children can easily access without parents or caregivers ever being aware of.”

City officials pointed to a series of worrying statistics about youth mental health, including rising rates of suicide attempts. Additionally, the statistics show that in 2021, nearly 38% of high school students felt so hopeless or sad over the previous year that they stopped participating in their usual activities. Still, there is little conclusive evidence linking social media use to mental health problems, though experts have called for more research on the topic.

The burden, however, has been high on the nation’s largest school system, the lawsuit alleges, including hiring additional counselors and social workers, investigating threats made against schools and students over social media, and increasing community-based services such as outpatient therapy and after-school programs. Social media addiction has adversely affected students’ attention spans, their ability to learn, and their behavior, the lawsuit claims, noting that some students have become violent when a teacher tried to take their phones.

Some school leaders have struggled to manage the impact of social media on their campuses. In response to Instagram accounts that allowed students to post anonymous content, a Queens principal threatened to cancel activities and suspend students who followed those accounts, an episode that raised free speech concerns. (The accounts were ultimately taken down.)

The lawsuit claims that the companies borrow “heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used in slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry” to keep the attention of young people, who are at a “vulnerable” developmental stage, and to drive advertising revenue.

Last year’s lawsuit against social media companies filed by Seattle’s school district unleashed the current wave of litigation. New York City’s lawsuit appeared to be broadly similar to others filed by local school districts, which some observers say could face tough legal odds.

“Most of these [lawsuits] are as much about legal success as they are about shaping issues and winning in the court of public opinion,” Chris Thomas, a professor at the University of Florida, told EdWeek. “That is part of the strategy around the lawsuits, even if they have tough hills to climb legally.”

Adams has signaled for months that his administration planned to take stronger action against social media companies. Last month, he announced the city would begin to treat social media use as a public health threat, deploying an ad campaign equating major social media platforms with tobacco companies. The city also released an advisory encouraging caregivers to delay giving children a smartphone until age 14 to limit continuous access to social media.

The city vowed to take a series of steps outside of the lawsuit as part of a new “framework for action” including guidance to schools for creating “tech-free zones” and launching a youth advisory council.

City officials have also begun offering free online therapy for teenagers, one of Adams’ biggest mental health initiatives, though some students have struggled to persuade their parents to let them participate. More than 2,000 teens have used the online therapy platform so far, according to a health department spokesperson.

In a response to the city’s lawsuit, Snapchat spokesperson Ashley Adams sought to distance the platform from other social media companies. “Snapchat was intentionally designed to be different from traditional social media,” she wrote, noting the platform does not include a traditional feed “and has no traditional public likes or comments.”

“While we will always have more work to do,” she added, “we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence.”

Liza Crenshaw, a spokesperson for Meta, the parent of Instagram and Facebook, said the company has more than 30 tools and features to support teens and their parents. “We want teens to have safe, age-appropriate experiences online,” she said.

Representatives of TikTok and YouTube did not immediately respond for comment.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

This NYC teen wants therapy. Her mom isn’t so sure.

2024-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

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A version of this story is being co-published by the Associated Press.

Derry Oliver was in fifth grade when she first talked to her mom about seeing a therapist.

She was living in Georgia with her uncle and grandparents while her mom was in New York scoping out jobs and apartments ahead of moving the family. It was a rough year apart. Oliver, now 17 and a senior at Cobble Hill School for American Studies in Brooklyn, was feeling depressed. A school staffer raised the idea of a therapist.

Oliver’s mom, also named Derry Oliver, questioned the school’s assessment and didn’t give consent for therapy. “You’re so young,” the mom recalled thinking. “There’s nothing wrong with you. These are growing pains.”

The issue boiled over again during the COVID-19 pandemic when the younger Oliver, struggling with the isolation of remote learning, reached out to her school for help. School-based mental health professionals like social workers can provide some counseling without parent permission. But in New York, referring a student to more intensive therapy almost always requires a parent’s agreement. In Oliver’s case, that led to more conflict.

“It was very emotional for both of us because I understood her frustrations and fears,” the younger Oliver recalled. “But at the same time it’s sometimes best for your child to be able to access this rather than hold it away from them.”

As schools across the country respond to a youth mental health crisis accelerated by the pandemic, many are confronting the thorny legal, ethical, and practical challenges of getting parents on board with treatment. The issue has become politicized, with some states looking to streamline access as conservative politicians elsewhere propose further restrictions, accusing schools of trying to indoctrinate students and cut out parents.

But for families like the Olivers, the decision to start a child in therapy is often deeply personal – bringing up cultural and generational divides, as well as diverging understandings of mental health.

Derry Oliver, 17, believes that therapy could be helpful.

Differing perspectives on mental health aren’t new for parents and kids, but more conflicts are emerging as young people get more comfortable talking openly about mental health and treatment becomes more readily available, especially with the growth of telehealth and online counseling.

“It’s this disconnect,” said Chelsea Trout, a graduate student in social work at NYU doing her training at a charter school in Brooklyn. “The kids are all on TikTok or the internet and understand therapy speak and that this is something that could be helpful for their mental health and are interested in, but don’t have the explicit buy-in from their parents.”

Research suggests that having to obtain parental permission can be a significant barrier to teens accessing treatment.

Access to therapy can be critical, particularly for LGBTQ youth, who are significantly more likely than their peers to attempt suicide, and whose parents may not know about or approve of their sexual orientations or gender identities. Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, a social worker at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan, said she’s seen many cases where mental health issues turn severe in part because teens didn’t get earlier access to therapy.

“A lot of kids would be hospitalized because of suicidal ideations or intent because the preventative work didn’t come into fruition,” she said.

Laws about consent vary widely by state

The question of when young people can consent to mental health treatment is getting increasing attention from policymakers. States like California and Colorado have recently lowered the age of consent for treatment to 12. But in some states like North Carolina, the issue has been swept up into larger political debates about parents’ input on curriculum and the rights of transgender students.

There’s also a huge obstacle outside the law: Therapy is rarely free, and paying for it or submitting insurance claims often requires parental support.

Teens in New York can consent to therapy starting at age 16, and a provision allows doctors to authorize treatment for younger children if they deem it in their best interest. But there are caveats: The consent laws only apply in outpatient settings licensed by the state, and they don’t extend to the prescription of medications.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently announced a partnership with the platform Talkspace to provide free online counseling to all city teens, through a program known as NYC Teenspace. It doesn’t ask for insurance, but parental consent is required, “except in the case of special circumstances,” according to the program’s website.

Apart from the legal and ethical considerations, clinicians noted that mental health treatment for teens is almost always more effective when parents are on board.

“In an ideal world, absolutely I would love more access to therapy for these kids with the hope they can talk to their parents about what’s happening,” said Chock-Goldman. “Because I believe nothing changes unless you change a family system.”

A mom and daughter split on therapy

For the two generations of Oliver women, their divergent views of therapy are rooted in very different upbringings.

The elder Oliver, 36, was raised in Georgia in the 1980s and ‘90s, when people “didn’t speak on mental health a lot.”

As a kid, Oliver knew some people in therapy, but mainly because “they experienced something extremely traumatic.”

Derry Oliver, 36, is wary of her daughter doing therapy.

As she got older, Oliver had her own encounters with therapists. She was diagnosed with depression and prescribed medication that made her feel like a “zombie,” she said.

Oliver has also felt the sting of being labeled as “aggressive” simply for expressing her emotions as a Black woman – a reality that’s made her reluctant to confide in therapists who aren’t themselves Black women.

She’s concerned that allowing her daughter to see a therapist might lead to a diagnosis that brings the same kind of medication she so despised.

“Baby, there’s nothing wrong with you,” Oliver tells her daughter. “You don’t have any mental issues. You don’t need to be put on anyone’s medication.”

The younger Oliver sees things very differently. She grew up with friends who saw therapists without experiencing acute trauma. And she found numerous examples on platforms like TikTok and Instagram of teens with similar stories who had benefited tremendously from therapy.

“You don’t even have to have anxiety or depression and I don’t even know if I do or not,” she said. “But if you feel as if something isn’t right or okay with you, then I think that’s when a person should be able” to access therapy.

For Oliver and her mom, years of conversations have yielded some progress, but not as much access to therapy as the younger Oliver wants.

Several years ago, the Olivers agreed on a compromise. They found a Black female therapist, and the elder Oliver agreed her daughter could start therapy – as long as she sat in on the sessions. But the therapist changed jobs after about a month, and Oliver hasn’t seen another therapist since.

“It has to be someone trustworthy,” the elder Oliver said of a potential therapist for her daughter.

New initiatives are in the works

Trout, the school social worker in training at the Brooklyn charter school, said she’s encountered a number of parents who, like Oliver, don’t trust the school’s recommendations, and wonder why their child would need therapy if they’re succeeding academically and socially.

“If we’re thinking about predominantly Black and brown communities, if your interactions with social workers or mental health services or anything in that realm thus far have not been positive,” she said, “how could you trust them with your kids?”

Derry Oliver, 36, said her own experience has shaped her views on therapy. Her daughter, Derry Oliver, 17, wants more access to therapy.

Statistics do show a racial divide. In 2021, 14% of white children reported seeing a therapist at some point during that year, compared to 9% of Black children, 8% of Hispanic kids, and only 3% of Asian American children, according to a survey from the Centers for Disease Control.

The barriers are often particularly high in immigrant communities, where there can be a strong stigma, or simply a lack of knowledge about “what therapy or counseling looks like or means,” said Cindy Huang, a child psychologist and professor at Columbia University Teachers College. Huang was recently awarded a grant to launch a pilot program to increase access to mental health treatment for youth at risk of suicide in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Advocates and experts are continuing to push policymakers to give young people more freedom to consent to therapy without parental approval.

There’s a bill pending in New York’s state Assembly that would give minors more freedom to consent to their own health care, including therapy.

Without access to therapy, the younger Oliver has sought advice about managing her emotions through friends, school social workers, and the internet. But she’s convinced she could do a lot more with consistent professional help.

Oliver has already gotten into a number of colleges — to her mom’s enormous pride — and is weighing her options for next year.

One thing she’s considering: how much access they offer to therapists.

Correction: A previous version of this story said the younger Derry Oliver was living with her brother in Georgia while her mom was in New York. She was actually living with her uncle and grandparents. The story was also corrected to reflect the fact that Chelsea Trout is a social worker in training at a Brooklyn charter school, but hasn’t yet completed her degree.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

As problem behaviors persist, is state testing making things worse?

2023-05-12T11:00:00+00:00

I could tell from her body language that she was angry. A student I’ll call Talia was standing by the door, tense. I approached her slowly and quietly said, “Hey, you don’t seem like yourself. Is everything okay?” She said she was going to hit another student as soon as she saw him. She wouldn’t tell me why. I knew I had precious little time to de-escalate. I called another teacher for help and asked Talia to take a few deep breaths, reminding her that nothing bad had happened yet, and it didn’t need to.

Ronak Shah

We held it together for three minutes, the rest of the class staring silently in disbelief. But when the other student walked past us, she lunged after him, me holding her back, grasping the door frame for support. She pushed past me and almost reached the student before he got into the other teacher’s room.

What transpired just two months ago is hardly unique to my middle school classroom in Indianapolis. Students, teachers, and families across the country have been grappling with an uptick in troubling student behaviors in schools. The trend is in schools of all types and in all communities, spanning minor behaviors like tardies to more significant incidents of violence and hate-based rhetoric. According to one national survey, “twice as many teachers witness violent classroom incidents today versus pre-pandemic.”

There’s no shortage of guesses as to the cause, among them academic and social skills gaps from online learning, residual trauma, cuts to social-emotional and equity-based education, unaddressed mental health, teacher burnout and shortages — it’s a long list. Although the problem is worse, it is not new. And schools have had a limited toolkit of incentives, consequences, services, and staffing to react to all of these challenges.

So I find myself asking: Is there something about the structure of school, about what we’re asking and requiring students to do, that plays a role?

The answer I keep coming back to is our state tests and what we must teach so students will pass. Too many students are disengaged and unhappy at school because the day is structured around assessments instead of what is relevant to their lives and futures.

During the pandemic, many hoped that the seismic shift would transform this status quo. In 2021, there was no shortage of prophetic think pieces heralding the coming revolution. “Integrate technology!” “Educate the whole student!” “Reimagine the school day!”

Students got a taste of how learning feels when schools prioritize relevant instruction above the test. But it was only possible because states set aside their tests. They held schools “harmless” for the results or canceled testing altogether. Fast forward to now, and we’ve reverted back to the pre-pandemic culture of testing.

Students got a taste of how learning feels when schools prioritize relevant instruction above the test.

Meanwhile, in most schools, you’ll find almost no mention of today’s biggest problems: political division, climate change, income inequality, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity, artificial intelligence, misinformation. But you’ll find plenty of solutions to the problems of yesteryear in textbooks scarcely updated in a generation.

How can we expect students to engage in school if they don’t value what we put in front of them?

One bright spot: Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s proposed the More Teaching Less Testing Act, which would pivot schools away from a teaching culture built around annual testing. Instead, states could test representative samples of students or limit testing to once every three years. Most importantly, the proposal prohibits districts and states from using state assessments for teacher evaluations and school grades, which can have a chilling effect. That’s because poor test scores can lower a school’s letter grade and hurt teacher evaluations (which may be tied to compensation).

I know we need data we can act on, and that means testing at least a representative sample of students. But by limiting the time spent testing and lifting the stakes tied to it, we’ll see more schools like Ehrman Crest in Pennsylvania, which partners with a local children’s museum to make the school feel more like a curated set of experiences. We’ll see history, civics, career and technical education, robotics, physical education, health, music, art, and so many other enriching subjects make a comeback in the bell schedule. We’ll see students spending less time resisting lessons that they can’t connect to. We’ll shrink the disconnect between our teaching and the world in which students live.

For now, most lesson plans are guided by what state tests require. I’ve observed these lessons, and despite great teachers’ best efforts to teach students how to write an argumentative essay, for example, the prompts are often uninspired, and the process rote. Is it any wonder students are bored?

Every year, by contrast, my class holds mock trials about topics such as water pollution near a housing complex or deforestation in a state forest. Students develop an argument, analyze primary sources to compile evidence, and make their case. My students always rank this as one of their favorite activities, and every year, at least one student says, “I kind of want to be a lawyer now!” My real objective, though, is to teach them how to write an argumentative essay in a way that is absorbing and relevant.

But this kind of teaching and learning demands breathing room from the high-stakes testing we’ve relied on for decades. That approach hasn’t worked, and the data it produced didn’t teach us much we didn’t already know.

Talia is one of my brightest students, but like many young people, she couldn’t see herself in the learning, and the seed of frustration grew into something worse. Let’s move forward with what we have learned and free teachers to educate students for tomorrow. We want students to be engaged and excited to come to school, not bored and angry because of it.

Ronak Shah is a seventh grade science teacher in Indianapolis and a Teach Plus Senior Writing Fellow.

I never thought my child would need a school social worker, but I’m so glad she’s in our lives

2023-05-19T12:00:00+00:00

Walking my eldest daughter to school in the mornings is one of my favorite things to do. We use this time to talk about her friends and the subjects that excite her, like art and music. When we reach the school and say our goodbyes, I remind her that I love her. I wait in the schoolyard until I see her pass through the doors; sometimes, she turns back to wave again but usually just heads right in.

Fabiola Mejia

The school shooting in Nashville, on the heels of too many other school tragedies in recent memory, has added a sense of foreboding to our morning routine. I find myself praying for her safety as I watch the kids follow one another into the colorful hallways. Despite how well my daughter does academically, there are times I wish I could wait in her schoolyard until the end of the day just to make sure she’s OK.

Having gone through some difficult events in the past few years — from a student threatening her with a weapon at school, to the pandemic shutdowns, to a tragic fire that broke out in front of our home last November and claimed a little girl’s life — it’s no wonder why my 9-year-old daughter developed anxiety.

I knew something was up after she started complaining of stomachaches. When multiple trips to the doctor showed no physical ailment, I wondered if there was something she wasn’t telling me. Was she being picked on at school? Her father and I did our best to reassure her that she could talk to us about anything. She couldn’t put a name to her feelings, but we could see the worry on her face. There were periods of pensive silence and nights when she struggled to sleep.

Nervous about receiving judgment rather than empathy, I didn’t talk about this situation with family or friends. So I was hesitant when the school social worker, Mrs. D, contacted me just before the holidays last year, asking to have regular meetings with my daughter. Filled with wrongheaded ideas about what a school social worker does, I worried that I had failed my daughter. The possibility filled me with shame.

At the same time, I was relieved to have someone supporting my daughter — and our family. I choked up during our initial phone call as I explained the traumatic events my daughter had experienced, including her twin sisters’ multiple hospitalizations for respiratory issues in the last year. I told Mrs. D that I felt guilty that I could not protect her from things over which I had no control.

Mrs. D listened to me patiently, never once interrupting to tell me she had to go or that she didn’t want to hear our life story. I could hear the empathy and grace in her voice as she told me that I had a lovely daughter who was doing her best in school and just needed a little help coping with her fears. We agreed that Mrs. D would meet weekly with my daughter and would be in touch if she saw any red flags. As our call wrapped up, she made sure to ask me to take care of myself, telling me to call her if we needed anything.

Before working with Mrs. D, I thought school social workers were only for families experiencing homelessness, abuse, or in need of major interventions. Social workers do so much more. For our family, Mrs. D was a lifeline — helping us navigate scary and painful moments.

For a time, my daughter refused to leave the house without a mask, even after the mask mandate had been lifted and her father and I told her she could go to school without one. She became fearful of passing on any germs that might cause her little sisters to get feverish. Mrs. D. worked with her to overcome this fear, informing her that some germs are necessary to strengthen our immune systems. Gradually, my daughter went a few minutes to a few hours without a mask at school. Now, she no longer panics if she forgets to wear one.

I’m grateful that I put aside my notions about what it meant to work with a school social worker. I’ve learned the valuable services that school social workers can offer students and families — those in crisis, yes, but also those like ours who just need a little extra support.

There were periods of pensive silence and nights when she struggled to sleep.

My daughter is slowly starting to enjoy school again and has gotten better at expressing her emotions. She has learned some coping mechanisms for when she feels anxious; they range from simple breathing exercises to writing down her fears and tossing the paper in the trash as a way to release the fears from her mind. It’s reassuring to hear her say that she looks forward to her one-on-one and small group sessions with Mrs. D.

Mrs. D has also identified school activities that might interest my daughter and walked me through getting a referral for counseling services. Most importantly, though, she has reminded me that it’s OK for parents to seek out support. In doing so, we demonstrate to our kids that there’s power, not shame, in asking for the help we need.

Fabiola Mejia is a freelance writer and HR coordinator from Boston who enjoys traveling, reading, and gardening. When she’s not at her desk, she’s either experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen or taking walks with her family.

Community violence is traumatizing my students. Here’s how I help them cope.

2023-08-18T14:15:00+00:00

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Half of Chicagoans will witness a shooting before they turn 40. And the average age of a Chicago resident witnessing gun violence: 14. That’s according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What does this disturbing data say about the collective trauma Chicagoans are experiencing? What does it mean for the long-term well-being of our children? These questions loom large for me since I work with teens and preteens who attend Chicago Public Schools. My goal is to help students stay in school by giving them the tools to cope with trauma, set goals, make progress on their graduation plans, and prepare for life beyond high school.

LaToya Winton

For the past two years, I’ve worked at a K-8 school in Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood, providing one-on-one counseling and other programs through the nonprofit Communities In Schools of Chicago.

West Englewood is made up of sturdy bungalows and two-flats located about a dozen miles southwest of Chicago’s Loop. It also happens to be one of the Chicago neighborhoods where gun violence is most prevalent. As of Aug. 1, 69 people have been shot; that’s about one shooting every three days. Seven of those victims were teens, just like my students.

These are more than grim statistics to me. I grew up in West Englewood, near the school I work in today. One of my extended family members was a victim of gun violence, so I know all too well that every shooting represents a person, a family, and a community devastated.

Despite the neighborhood’s tough reputation, the block I grew up on in the early 1990s was a nurturing place where we watched each other’s back and celebrated graduations and birthdays together. Bad things went on back then, but as a kid, I felt mostly insulated from it because of the strength of my caring family and neighbors.

Things are harder now for kids in West Englewood, despite many families still wanting the best for their children. Many former residents have moved away, leaving old familiar streets frayed. Enrollment has declined in the area’s schools, including the one where I’m based. Poverty and joblessness are a fact of life as well, with almost half the community’s households earning less than $25,000 a year.

Each day, I see young people coming to school with clear signs of distress. Last fall, for example, one of my students lost a brother in a shooting. He tried to keep his emotions under control, but one day a class discussion reminded him of the incident, and he stormed out of the room and punched lockers in the hallway.

Another one of my students who lost an older brother to gun violence broke down in tears in my office. She had come in to speak to me about her loss, and I sat with her, listened, and let her feel those emotions. I also asked her to share with me some of the good times she had with her brother and told her that I was always there to talk if she needed it.

Each day, I see young people coming to school with clear signs of distress.

We don’t keep official records about which of our students have been directly impacted by gun violence, but the numbers are high; by my estimate, at least 20 of the 50 students I provided one-on-one support to last school year either saw a shooting or know a friend or loved one harmed or impacted by gun violence. Gun violence prevention isn’t in my job title, but so much of my work involves me helping young people cope with and curb community violence. I’m lucky to have support from teachers, administrators, and fellow counselors where I work.

How do you teach students to avoid violence? It starts with building trusting relationships with young people and steadily equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to lead safer lives. This is far from a one-size-fits-all strategy, but there are key principles that the work is grounded in:

Building positive relationships is an essential life skill that can be taught. I want my students to know that they can come to me for encouragement and feedback, and I’ll always strive to be transparent and relatable.
Encouraging effective coping strategies — from deep breathing to creating art to reflective journaling — can help young people learn to manage stress and anxiety. During our sessions, I provide a space for students to sit with their emotions. Often, the young men whom I work with think crying is a sign of weakness; on the contrary, showing their emotions is a sign of strength.
Offering more evidence-based approaches like cognitive-behavioral therapy and brief solution-focused interventions for students who need more robust support. This can reduce fight-or-flight responses and help students choose the path of de-escalation.
Building young people’s self-esteem and sense of purpose in life helps them frame interpersonal conflicts within a broader context, increasing the chances they will pursue peaceful solutions. Small discussion groups, such as the one I hold for girls in fifth and sixth grades, have helped some of my students find their voice.

There are no overnight transformations. This work takes time, patience, and consistency to make a difference. I’m also aware that even when my students embrace these principles and make great progress, we are still sending them out into a city where community violence is all too common and anything can happen. We adults have to acknowledge those risks, even as we work tirelessly to empower young people to lead positive and peaceful lives.

LaToya Winton is a student supports manager at Communities In Schools of Chicago, a Chicago nonprofit helping students succeed in school and stay on the path to high school graduation.

Colorado bill to make free youth therapy permanent moves forward

2024-01-24T23:42:41+00:00

A pandemic-era program that provides free therapy sessions to Colorado children and teens moved a little closer Wednesday to becoming permanent, easily clearing its first legislative hurdle.

The bill to make the 2-year-old I Matter program permanent passed 7-2 in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and will now go to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Supporters of the bill say I Matter has made mental health counseling easy to access for thousands of Colorado students who’ve struggled with unprecedented levels of depression and anxiety in the wake of the pandemic.

The program provides six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions to students in elementary through high school. Students 12 and over can sign up for the therapy sessions by filling out a simple online form. Children under 12 can use the service, but need to fill out a form with a parent. Currently, the annual cost of I Matter is $6 million, but state officials expect it could cost $11 million next year as use increases.

If the bill under consideration doesn’t pass, I Matter will expire this summer.

During Wednesday’s hearing, one mother, Laura Love, told the story of her 14-year-old son Sam, who died by suicide last May.

After his death, she went through his phone and discovered he’d recommended I Matter to three friends who’d been facing their own mental health struggles in the month before he died.

“This program even got the attention of a teenage boy who had a hard time sitting still long enough to finish his homework,” she said. “He shared it with friends who were hurting.”

Love urged lawmakers to support I Matter’s continuation.

“While I can’t bring Sam back, I can help give a voice to so many other kids who are just as incredible as our Sam,” she said.

Since I Matter launched in the fall of 2021, nearly 11,000 children and teens have used the program, according to data from Colorado’s Behavioral Health Administration.

Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Commerce City Democrat and a co-sponsor of the original I Matter bill and the bill to make it permanent, rattled off the number of kids who’ve used I Matter in various counties since the program’s inception: 1,386 in Denver, 1,417 in El Paso, 1,250 in Jefferson, 581 in Weld, and 299 in Eagle.

“We’re reaching our people,” she said. “This has proven to help our students and I would like to see it continue.”

Several doctors and mental health advocates testified in favor of the bill, describing it as one user-friendly option that can help youth cope during tough times. A few Colorado residents spoke against the program Wednesday, arguing that allowing children 12 and over to use it on their own damages parent-child relationships.

A 2019 law — not the original I Matter law — lowered the age that adolescents can seek mental health therapy without parental consent from 15 to 12.

Anne Frank, a Denver pediatrician, spoke in support of continuing I Matter, saying it can help teens who might otherwise fall through the cracks because they have no health insurance or face other barriers to mental health care.

She described a teenage patient with depression whose parent works a lot and is mostly on his own from morning till night.

“This teen is really, really hard-working and was seeking treatment that would fit his life,” she said. “I Matter was easy and he put it in his phone the day I saw him.”

He got therapy through the program and felt better when Frank followed up, she said.

Riley Haleen, a recent college graduate and a program associate for the Colorado chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she wished a program like I Matter had been around when she was a teenager. With no money for therapy at the time, she had only her sister to lean on when her stepfather died and her mother battled cancer.

“We were each other’s therapy,” she said. “As sweet as that sounds, we needed professional help.”

She urged lawmakers to keep the program going.

“Students are using it,” she said. “I see the posters in coffee shops and beam with pride when I think about its impact.”

If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact Colorado’s Crisis Line at 1-844-493-8255 or by texting TALK to 38255.

Correction: Due to incorrect information from the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration, an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that more than 14,000 children and teens have used I Matter since its inception. Nearly 11,000 youth have used the program.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

‘Miss, I have anxiety’: Denver school mental health providers fighting to save pandemic-era program

2024-01-25T00:55:42+00:00

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When 50 students at Denver’s George Washington High School were flagged on a survey as having “extremely elevated risk” for mental health struggles, social worker Sarah Hartman was able to check in with all 50 and offer them services.

That’s a rarity given the bulging caseloads of most school social workers and psychologists, Hartman and others said — and it was only possible because Hartman is part of a pilot program launched in 2021 that originally added mental health providers to 10 Denver schools.

The program was aimed at helping the majority of students who don’t regularly see a school psychologist or social worker. Those providers are busy serving students with disabilities who are legally entitled to services, and they often don’t have time to help other students struggling with depression, grief, and the trauma of growing up during COVID.

Out of the 50 students to whom Hartman offered mental health services, only five said no.

“Kids would be like, ‘Miss, I have anxiety,’” Hartman said in an interview. “When you ask them if they want help, they want help.”

But that help could soon go away.

The pilot program is funded with temporary federal pandemic relief dollars known as ESSER. Because of a merger with an existing Denver Public Schools program focused on substance abuse prevention, the program has expanded to 31 schools at a cost of $3.4 million this year.

But the ESSER money is set to expire this fall, though federal officials recently announced a potential extension if districts spend it on certain efforts such as tutoring. Facing a likely funding cliff, the mental health providers are fighting to keep a program they see as fulfilling what had been an empty promise from DPS to do better on mental health.

Meanwhile, the district is evaluating whether it can afford to do so. A spokesperson said in a statement that the district “is examining the benefits / impact of programming for student outcomes, as well as feasibility to sustain programming as is.”

“How fair is it to identify a concern but then not have the resources to address the concern?” Joe Waldon, a social worker in the program at Hill Campus of Arts and Sciences, asked the school board Monday. “This is a huge ethical dilemma for me.”

A cadre of providers in what DPS calls the prevention and therapeutic specialists, or PTS, program pleaded with board members this week to find sustainable funding once ESSER expires. They shared with them a spreadsheet of more than 100 supportive comments they’d solicited from other school psychologists and social workers, teachers, parents, and students.

“She helped me calm down when I was angry,” one second grade student wrote of the provider at their school, according to the spreadsheet, which was also shared with Chalkbeat. “She taught me to let my emotions out whenever I need to by crying it out, and that it is okay.”

A fourth grade student wrote that the provider at their school taught them about “safe touch and who is allowed to see private parts.” A fifth grader wrote that they spoke to the provider about their mom’s abusive boyfriends and addiction to drugs and alcohol. “She helped me work through all of those memories and experiences,” the student wrote.

A student at East High School wrote that if not for the counseling support they received, “I don’t know how much I would (have been) able to attend classes last year because of my anxiety.”

Maria Hite, a PTS social worker at North High School, has a box of fidget toys and a mini Zen garden in her softly lit office, where students can trace a tiny rake through the sand as they talk.

Hite and the PTS team at North “have supported students in a way that our school-based mental health team do not have capacity for,” an educator at the school wrote, adding that the traditional psychologists and social workers “are already drowning as it is.”

District statistics show that in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, the PTS providers did one-on-one therapy with 415 students and group therapy with 783 students. More than 80% of those students were Black or Latino, and 83% came from low-income families — percentages that are higher than the district averages.

The providers also taught suicide prevention lessons to more than 2,400 students, and lessons on dealing with stress and anxiety or the dangers of vaping, drinking, and using drugs, to more than 17,000 students. If a student gets caught with drugs on campus, the PTS providers can provide counseling and intervention as an alternative to out-of-school suspension.

School psychologists and social workers are in high demand in DPS, and the PTS providers are not worried about finding jobs if the program ends. But they are worried that they will once again be pulled into the paperwork-heavy and crisis-heavy work of serving students with high needs and disabilities, and that the students they serve now will fall through the cracks.

Said Waldon: “How do you tell a child, ‘I don’t have time?’”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

‘The language of teenagers’: New grant brings Crisis Text Line to Denver and its schools

2023-12-21T17:09:10+00:00

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In the midst of what experts say is a youth mental health emergency, Denver has a new response: a text line that lets teenagers seek help in a way that’s comfortable for them.

Teens — or anyone who’s struggling with stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, or other issues — can text “Denver” to 741741 and be connected within a few minutes to a trained volunteer counselor through the national Crisis Text Line. The service works much like a traditional crisis hotline but with texting, in both English and Spanish, instead of talking.

“This is the language of teenagers,” said Lucy Roberts, a school nurse at Denver’s Manual High School. “This is meeting them exactly where they need to be.”

As a school nurse, Roberts is trained in skills like how to give medication and manage asthma. But more and more, she said the questions she gets are related to mental – not physical – health.

The other day, she was doing a round of routine vision screenings. In the past, Roberts said students would ask her if she thought they might need glasses or how to get contact lenses.

This year, she said, “there were multiple kids who said to me, ‘What do you know about anxiety, and how do I know if I have it?’ And we weren’t talking about that at all.”

The Crisis Text Line is an international organization founded in 2013. But Roberts said she didn’t know about it until recently, when the Caring for Denver Foundation, which is funded by voter-approved tax dollars, awarded the text line a $326,000 grant to promote its 24/7 services through social media posts and outreach in Denver Public Schools.

Spurred in part by the pandemic, DPS and other Colorado school districts have boosted the number of mental health services available to students, including through the state’s “I Matter” program that offers students six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions.

But although 300-student Manual High has two outside therapists who see students in addition to the psychologist, social worker, and counselor on staff, the therapists’ schedules are completely booked, Roberts said.

Being able to refer students to the Crisis Text Line is a much-needed alternative that Roberts said is quicker, more convenient, and often more comfortable for teens than meeting a therapist face-to-face.

“Otherwise, I give a student and their family the name of a person who’s got a waiting list who says they can take them in six months,” Roberts said. With the Crisis Text Line, “within two minutes, a student is going to get a response. That’s incredible.”

The Crisis Text Line is one of many youth-focused initiatives funded by the Caring for Denver Foundation. Another is a recently announced $1.7 million investment in five additional therapists that will be stationed inside DPS middle and high schools.

Two of the five therapists will specialize in substance abuse and the other three will provide on-demand therapy when students are in crisis so they don’t have to wait for an appointment.

“We want to make sure there are as many pathways for young people to get the help they need in ways that work for them,” said Executive Director Lorez Meinhold.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

I’m a teacher with anxiety. Here’s why I’m honest about it with my students.

2023-12-18T12:00:00+00:00

I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression for as long as I can remember, but I really became aware of it in middle school. Seventh grade was an especially challenging year. I can still remember the worry, stress, tension, and panic attacks. Every little thing felt like a huge deal. I was scared to embarrass myself around my peers. A “D” on a test felt like the end of the world.

Back then, in the mid-2000s, the mental health field wasn’t what it is today, especially in the small, rural town of Berne, Indiana, where I grew up. Most of the adults I talked to about my problems didn’t seem to understand what anxiety and depression were, and neither did I. By every external measure, I had a great life with a loving family that provided for my every need. So why did I feel so sad? What did I have to worry about when there were people out there with “real” problems?

Blake Mellencamp

In my early 20s, I gave therapy a shot, and it really helped me understand what I was feeling. I finally had a diagnosis of anxiety and depression, and just the simple act of being able to put a name to my feelings made them so much more manageable. Through the combined power of many factors — therapy, medication, diet, exercise, mindfulness, and journaling — I finally learned strategies that helped me manage my anxiety and depression in healthy ways.

By the time I received my diagnosis, I was teaching seventh grade. In the classroom, I noticed some all too relatable behaviors in my students. There was the kid in tears because they got a B on an assignment. There was the kid in a full-on panic because they had an essay due … in two weeks. And who could forget the kid who just couldn’t decide what college to attend and what career to pursue, even though he was only 12?

It’s important to remember that these kids are still learning how to manage a locker, keep track of seven classes a day instead of staying in one, and navigate peer relationships. They have sports and other extracurricular activities taking up hours of their time every day. They have homework. They have tests. They have the expectations of their parents and teachers to live up to. They have the specter of college and adulthood looming over them. And that’s all on top of a whole lot of brand new emotions that come with becoming an adolescent.

Thanks to my own mental health journey, I am able to share with my students some of what I’ve learned about managing emotions and self-soothing. Sometimes that looks like taking a lap around the hallway. Other times, it may mean pausing for some deep breathing exercises.

I know what a difference these strategies can make. Because even now, sometimes I’ll sit down at my desk to do some lesson planning, and my anxiety will make itself known. There’s a tightness in my chest, and it feels like the blood is coursing through my veins a little bit faster. Oh man, students have their personal narratives due soon. I also have to get them ready for that vocab test. And after that, I’d better make sure they’re reading their library books so they’re ready for their upcoming project.

By the time I received my diagnosis, I was teaching seventh grade.

How am I supposed to juggle all this? Wait a minute, I remind myself. I’m the adult. I’m the teacher who assigned all this stuff in the first place. If am feeling this overwhelmed, then how must the kids feel right now having to juggle this work, their six other classes, and their lives outside of school?

In beginning-of-the-year professional development meetings, I’ve been told that our job as teachers is to bring 110% to the classroom every day. Regardless of what’s going on in our personal lives, once we enter our classrooms, we should put on a smile and a brave face. But when I hear that advice, I think back to my middle school self, confused by my emotions and not knowing anyone who seemed to be going through the same things.

Children and teens need representation, and that includes the area of mental health.

That’s why I’m transparent with my students about my anxiety and depression. I want my students who are struggling to know that there is an adult in their lives who can relate. I want all of my students to see a positive role model in someone with a mental illness who is successful and cares about them.

Should the topic of mental health come up in class, as a result of a book we’re reading or in a student’s writing, I don’t shy away from it. Sometimes, I encourage them to use their Free Write Fridays to vent about what’s on their minds. Other times, I offer to help them break down overwhelming tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces.

In the same way that we seek to create a more equitable world by ensuring teachers, libraries, and curricula have diverse representation, I think visibility when it comes to mental health also makes a difference. Showing that we can exist with the full range of human emotions and still thrive teaches kids that it’s OK to be human. It teaches them that it’s possible to excel while embracing our whole selves.

Many of my students with anxiety and depression tell me they feel seen when I open up to them about my own challenges. I’ve received heartwarming emails from students who are now in high school, thanking me for making middle school a bit easier to manage. I’m grateful for their candor. And I’m grateful that they live in a world with more mental health resources — and less mental health stigma — than there was when I was their age.

Blake Mellencamp is a language arts educator and freelance writer. He is currently the middle school chair for the Indiana Council for Teachers of English and a teacher-consultant for the Indiana Writing Project.

How many out-of-school, out-of-work youth did Chicago reengage last school year?

2024-01-10T11:00:00+00:00

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About 1 in 5 of roughly 2,300 out-of-school, out-of-work youth contacted to participate in a new reengagement program in Chicago took part during the first year, according to a new policy brief from the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

In Chicago, roughly 45,000 teens and young adults are disconnected from school and work. With $18 million from the state, the city launched Back to Our Future in May 2022 to reach 1,000 young people ages 14 to 21 in 15 neighborhoods on the South and West sides. Data indicates fewer than 500 have participated so far.

The findings released today illustrate how difficult it is to reconnect with these young people — often referred to as “opportunity youth” — once they’ve disengaged.

“If it was easy, somebody would have already done it,” said Jadine Chou, chief safety and security officer at Chicago Public Schools. “We knew going into this that it was going to be really hard.”

The Back to Our Future program is a partnership between the Crime Lab, Chicago Public Schools, and the three community organizations tasked with doing the on-the-ground reengagement: Breakthrough, UCAN, and Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc.

Kim Smith, director of programs for the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab, said the low uptake is not entirely surprising. Back to Our Future is “a very ambitious program” to reach young people that have not been “served well by status quo services,” she said.

“This group of young people are not just going to kind of show up after a phone call,” Smith said. “There is an incredible need to tailor programming, to tailor services, even to tailor outreach strategies.”

The 12-week Back to Our Future program costs roughly $18,000 per young person to run. It includes 20 hours a week of mentoring, mental health services, job training, credit recovery to earn a CPS diploma or GED programming, and a stipend for youth participants.

However, the policy brief found many teens did not engage for the full 20 hours of programming each week. On average, participants attended nearly seven hours each week.

The policy brief analyzed referral and participation data, but was not a full evaluation of the program.

Chou said the district has a database of former students who left school before earning their diploma that they have used and shared with partner organizations in order to track down students. But often phone numbers and home addresses are no longer current or they have left Chicago. A lot of them have also aged out and would not be eligible for Back to Our Future.

“Once you do reach them, you have to really build trust,” Chou added.

She said the district is also learning a lot from the young people in Back to Our Future about how to prevent disconnection before it happens.

“They all have very important information, very important experiences that they are very happy to share,” she said, “which then I bring back to (colleagues at) CPS and say, ‘How can we work on this so that we essentially stem these young people from leaving us in the first place?’”

Chou highlighted school transfers as a signal for a student eventually dropping out.

“Once they do that transfer, that is so disruptive and destabilizing to their experience and to their sense of well-being because now they have to make new friends, now they have to navigate a new path to school,” she said. “And so, if possible, how do we support them in place?”

Smith said prevention is important so the numbers of out-of-school, out-of-work youth do not grow.

“At the point where a young person has not attended their school for 6, 12, 18 months, something has gone really wrong,” Smith said. “But it’s not ever too late, in our opinion, to try to re-engage young people and get them back on a good track.”

The brief only looked at data through May 2023. According to Chou, 346 young people are currently participating in Back to Our Future and outreach continues every day. She said 103 youth have successfully completed the program and of those, 32 earned their high school diplomas and 71 are re-enrolled in school.

“They would not have been able to do that without this program,” Chou said.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

‘Unsafe, unwelcoming’: LGBTQ students report facing hostility at school

2022-10-25T11:00:00+00:00

Patricia Reeves and her husband have tried to make school safe for their child.

They pushed administrators at one school to stop students from bullying Milo, who is nonbinary, and withdrew Milo from a different school after a teacher refused to use the correct pronouns. Inside their West Texas home, the parents do their best to replenish their child’s self esteem and resilience — to “build up our little soldier,” as Reeves put it.

But try as they might, they can’t completely shield Milo from the difficulty, even the danger, of being different at school.

“As long as you’re a fierce mom, you can get out in front of it,” Reeves said. “But the damage is already done.”

The damage is extensive: Most LGBTQ students feel unsafe at school and struggle with mental health, according to two new reports based on large-scale student surveys.

Reported rates of depression, hopelessness, and suicidal thoughts were far higher among LGBTQ students than their peers last school year, and highest among transgender and nonbinary youth, according to a survey of students in 20 states by the nonprofit YouthTruth. Released Monday, the survey also found that girls’ mental health is worse than boys’.

Another recent report helps explain LGBTQ students’ distress: The vast majority experienced harassment or assault during in-person school, and many heard school employees use homophobic language, according to a national survey of LGBTQ students conducted in 2021 and released this month by GLSEN, a group that promotes safe and inclusive schools.

“Most LGBTQ students are going to schools that are unsafe, unwelcoming, and not affirming,” said Caitlin Clark, a senior research associate at GLSEN who co-authored the report.

The reports highlight how the youth mental health crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, has ravaged marginalized groups more than others. They also suggest that the national campaign to bolster young people’s mental health could fail LGBTQ students if it ignores the sources of their pain, including mistreatment at school and social stigmatization made worse, advocates say, by the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ laws.

In her support group for parents of gender-nonconforming children, Reeves hears about what happens when vulnerable young people are subjected to such hostility.

“Every single one of our little ones has some sort of mental health challenge,” she said, “because of not being fully accepted.”

Worse mental health outcomes for girls and LGBTQ students

Already on the decline for at least a decade, young people’s mental health spiraled downward during the pandemic so rapidly that medical groups declared a “national emergency.”

But warnings of a widespread crisis can obscure a consistent trend in the data: LGBTQ students and girls are struggling more than their peers.

More than 80% of high school students who identify as transgender or nonbinary and nearly 70% of girls cited depression, stress, or anxiety as obstacles to learning last school year, compared with 40% of boys who reported such struggles, according to the YouthTruth survey, which was taken by more than 220,000 students during the 2021-22 school year but is not nationally representative. And from elementary to high school, boys were more likely than girls and nonbinary students to report feeling happy.

The survey also showed that roughly a third of LGBTQ high school students had seriously considered attempting suicide over the past year — four times the share of non-LGBTQ students who said they had considered it.

Similar trends have emerged in surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic and over the preceding decade: High school students who are female or LGBTQ are the most likely to report poor mental health and suicidal thinking.

Those students “all were doing worse prior to the pandemic,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, which conducted a nationally representative student survey in 2021. “What we saw in this data was really a continuation of that.”

LGBTQ students find limited support at school

Tati Martínez Alvarez wishes their school had a club for LGBTQ students, “a place where we could come together without fearing judgment.”

But despite students’ demands for such a club, their small public high school in South Texas does not offer one, said Tati, who is in the 11th grade. Even though many students identify as LGBTQ, Tati said the school does little to acknowledge their community, much less embrace it.

“I don’t see that happening,” they said. “Maybe in like 20 years.”

Tati’s experience is the norm nationwide, according to the GLSEN survey, which polled more than 22,000 students in grades 6-12 who identify as LGBTQ. The students are based in all 50 states, as well as Washington D.C. and several U.S. territories.

Just 35% of respondents said their school had an active Gay Straight Alliance or similar club during the 2020-21 academic year. Less than 30% said their classes include any LGBTQ-related topics, and only 8% said their schools had policies supporting transgender and nonbinary students.

Instead of support, many LGBTQ students face hostility at school, according to the survey.

More than 80% of respondents who attended in-person school at some point in 2020-21 experienced harassment or assault based on personal characteristics, including sexual orientation, gender expression, or race or ethnicity. Nearly 60% of students reported hearing teachers or other school staff make homophobic remarks, and more than 70% heard staff make negative comments about gender expression.

Such intolerance is sadly common in schools, said Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, a pediatrician in Alabama who provides gender-affirming care to transgender young people.

“While some have faced bullying from students (which most don’t report for fear of reprisal or not being taken seriously), many experience intimidation and even straight up bullying from the adults in their school,” she wrote in an email, adding that the constant threat of mistreatment can lead to “anxiety, depression and academic underachievement.”

LGBTQ students who are victimized at school are more likely than their peers to be absent, earn low grades, and suffer from low self-esteem and depression, the GLSEN survey found.

“When you don’t see yourself represented” at school, Tati said, you “can feel very confused, very anxious, very depressed, because there’s nowhere to turn.”

Anti-LGBTQ laws add to anxiety

In many states, LGBTQ students cannot turn to elected officials for support.

Instead, some Republican politicians have sought to restrict the rights of LGBTQ students and prohibit school practices designed to support those students.

At least 18 states have passed laws barring transgender students from sports teams or school bathrooms that match their gender identity. Last month, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration proposed new restrictions on transgender students, including a requirement that teachers use the pronouns associated with students’ sex assigned at birth rather than their preferred pronouns.

Other states have sought to limit classroom discussions about gender and sexuality, which is the focus of a new national bill that Congressional Republicans introduced last week. Meanwhile, some school districts have quietly removed books with LGBTQ content and ordered teachers to take down LGBTQ pride flags.

The new policies are making life harder for many students, advocates say.

In Alabama, which passed several anti-LGBTQ laws this year, Dr. Ladinsky said some of her transgender patients have stopped using the restroom during the school day because of restrictions on which facilities they can use. She also heard from teachers who disbanded their LGBTQ clubs, presumably due to pressure from administrators. (In April, Dr. Ladinsky joined a legal challenge against a new Alabama law that would criminalize gender-affirming medical care for minors. A judge has temporarily stopped the law from taking effect.)

Some students see efforts to restrict LGBTQ rights as a personal attack, said Tati, the Texas high schooler.

“It just spreads the message that they genuinely don’t see you as a person,” they said. “They just see you as something that they need to get rid of.”

Protecting LGBTQ students

The new reports show the urgent need to make schools safer for LGBTQ students, advocates said.

Schools can establish LGBTQ clubs, enforce anti-bullying policies that explicitly protect LGBTQ students, provide staff training on inclusive practices, and give transgender students access to facilities that match their gender identity, experts said, though laws in some states might restrict such policies.

Kathleen Ethier, the CDC official, said policies that make schools more welcoming for LGBTQ students have been shown to also benefit their peers.

“Something about creating an inclusive school” and removing “anti-LGBTQ toxicity,” she said, “makes the school better for everyone.”

There are many ways to make schools safer and improve students’ mental health, said Tati, who has championed the issue as a youth advisor to the Intercultural Development Research Association, a Texas-based nonprofit that promotes educational equity. The challenge is convincing adults to take action.

“People don’t realize that the culture isn’t going to change,” Tati said, “unless everyone makes an effort.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Are efforts to support student mental health working? Help Chalkbeat investigate.

2022-10-05T19:25:52+00:00

A historic campaign is underway to support students’ mental health. But is it working?

As the pandemic has frayed students’ nerves, worsened rates of anxiety and depression, and fueled a rise in behavior issues, schools have raced to offer support. They’ve tried to hire more psychologists and social workers, paid private agencies to provide counseling, assessed students’ social-emotional skills, offered training to students and parents on how to manage difficult emotions, set up rooms where students can relax and meditate, and even brought in therapy dogs.

The rapid expansion of services has been bankrolled by the nearly $190 billion in federal COVID relief money for schools. A new federal law to address gun violence will send even more money to schools, including $280 million in mental health grants.

Most large urban districts say they intend to use some of the COVID aid on social-emotional and mental health support for students, according to a review of 100 district plans by the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

But while it’s clear that schools are ramping up support for students, it’s much less clear how well those efforts are working. Have schools been able to hire enough mental health professionals? Has new training enabled teachers to spot students who need extra help? Are students applying the lessons on emotional regulation? Is anyone using those new wellness rooms?

Chalkbeat is exploring how the campaign to support students’ mental health is playing out in schools — but we need your help. Please take the survey below and tell us what’s happening in your school and how well it seems to be working.

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Vouchers, school safety, retention: Key education issues to watch as Tennessee lawmakers return

2024-01-08T11:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free Tennessee newsletter to keep up with state education policy and the Shelby County public school system.

Five years after a bruising legislative battle opened the door to private school vouchers in parts of Tennessee, lawmakers are preparing to take up a controversial bill to create a similar program statewide.

Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher proposal, which eventually would make all K-12 students eligible to use public funding to attend a private or home school, is expected to dominate debate after the 113th General Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday.

But other issues affecting students and educators are sure to emerge in a state where education reform has been front and center since 2010, when Tennessee won $500 million in the federal Race to the Top competition to jumpstart changes.

And if the last few years are any indication, a few surprises may surface in the months ahead. Politics and tragedy have shaken up the education priorities of several recent sessions, from an 11th-hour Republican drive in 2021 to restrict classroom discussions about racism and bias to last year’s deadly Nashville school shooting that led to new investments in campus safety and dramatic protests over Tennessee’s lax gun laws.

With the GOP supermajority setting the agenda again this year, here’s a look at some big issues to watch as the opening gavel falls.

School vouchers: Lee’s expansion plan renews long-running debate

In November, the governor said he’ll introduce a new Education Freedom Scholarship Act to offer $7,075 in taxpayer money for each of up to 20,000 students statewide next school year to attend a private or home school, with eligibility restrictions for half of them. In 2025, eligibility would open up to all students, regardless of their family’s income.

The proposal would mark a massive expansion of Tennessee’s voucher program, which is now limited to three urban counties and still under-enrolled. But more than a month after Lee’s announcement, few details have been released.

“I have yet to understand where the financing is coming from,” said Sen. Page Walley, a Republican whose district includes eight rural counties in West Tennessee.

“If we jump to statewide vouchers, I don’t see how we fund it without robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he added.

School safety: Renewed discussion, but no gun laws (it’s an election year)

Tennesseans were unnerved when an armed intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27, in the middle of last year’s legislative session. And the growing impact of gun violence on kids across the state is undeniable.

But Republican lawmakers’ response last year was to further harden schools rather than entertain any proposals to restrict gun access — not even for people who are deemed at risk of hurting themselves or others, as the Nashville shooter had been.

“We’ll be back in January,” parents wanting stricter gun laws vowed in August after a special session on public safety yielded little action on guns.

Spectators watch the Tennessee Senate doing business at the State Capitol during a special legislative session on public safety in August 2023. Lawmakers were called back by Gov. Bill Lee after a mass school shooting in Nashville in March.

Some of them have organized news conferences and rallies at the Capitol this week for students, educators, and others to voice their concerns. Meanwhile, a group of parents from The Covenant School in Nashville, where the tragedy took place, say they’ll continue to advocate for changes to “ensure responsible firearm ownership, safe schools, and accessible adequate mental health care for all individuals across Tennessee.”

GOP leaders anticipate the legislature will revisit many of the proposals left on the table.

They include several measures to let certain citizens or school employees carry handguns in schools, and a bill to require all public and private schools to create alarm policies that differentiate emergencies for fire, weather, or an active shooter.

A new bill, from Republican Sen. Mark Pody of Lebanon and Rep. Susan Lynn of Mount Juliet, would let schools purchase lanyards equipped with emergency alert buttons for school staff to wear around their necks.

But don’t expect the legislature to look seriously at bills to restrict gun access in an election year, according to several key Republicans.

“I do not believe there’s an appetite or pathway to success for any legislation that might be introduced that is going to infringe on constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, of Franklin.

With the latest State of the Child report ranking Tennessee near the bottom nationally for access to mental health resources, Johnson sees more room for discussion on that topic.

“I think a big conversation in the coming session will be how we strengthen our mental health safety net,” Johnson said, “as well as general access to mental health treatment in Tennessee.”

Third-grade reading law: Lawmakers may revisit retention provision — again

Last year, the legislature widened the criteria, beginning this school year, for determining which third graders are at risk of being held back if they aren’t deemed proficient readers under a 2021 law targeting pandemic learning lag.

Now under the same law, the state may have to retain thousands of fourth graders who test poorly this spring.

“I think we have to look into it,” said Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who chairs a House education committee. “We’ve probably got a lot of fourth graders who have already done summer school and tutoring but still won’t pass that test. It’s never a bad thing to have off-ramps and waivers.”

He added: “I want us to continue looking closer at kindergarten, first, and second grades so we’re not waiting until the third and fourth grades to address these challenges.”

But Sen. Jon Lundberg, who chairs his chamber’s education panel, is less inclined to make more changes in the 2021 law.

“We’ve set the standard for proficiency and for showing adequate growth, and I don’t want to move those,” he said.

Federal education funding: Talk about rejecting it looks like just talk, for now

House Speaker Cameron Sexton surprised many in his own party last year when he floated the idea of Tennessee rejecting more than a billion dollars in federal funding for students, which he said could be offset with state tax revenues.

In November, a task force appointed by Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally held hearings to explore the possibility. But Lundberg, the panel’s co-chairman, told Chalkbeat afterward that he didn’t expect the state to reject federal funds, even if it can find a way.

Legislative leaders polled by Chalkbeat last week said they haven’t heard of any legislation coming out of the hearings.

“It doesn’t hurt to know where our funding is coming from and how it’s being spent,” said White, the House’s education leader, said of the task force’s discussions, “but I don’t see that conversation going anywhere in the short term.”

Teacher shortages: Vacancies could lead to creative thinking

With Sexton declaring that Tennessee has enough state revenues to cover more than $1 billion in federal funding, plenty of public school advocates asked why the state wouldn’t use that excess instead to accelerate the governor’s plan to raise the minimum salary for teachers to $50,000 by 2027. (This year, the base is $42,000.)

Districts struggled to fill nearly 4,000 vacancies statewide last school year, especially in the middle grades, English as a second language, world languages, and special education, according to one report. And shortages of school bus drivers are a nationwide problem.

Lee told reporters that, while state revenues have flattened in recent months, Tennessee’s economy remains strong.

Gov. Bill Lee speaks with reporters on Thursday after a tour of a Nashville ministry. “We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

“We should probably look at our investments in public school funding and investments in teacher pay every year,” he said when asked about the prospect of accelerating pay increases.

But with the teaching profession facing a post-pandemic crisis in Tennessee and nationally, the legislature could also pursue other avenues to elevate the profession.

Currently, the state covers less than half of health insurance premiums for its teachers, while state employees get 100% of their premiums covered. Moving teachers to the state employee plan could be a boost to both teachers and the local districts that employ them.

Professional Educators of Tennessee has also called on the legislature to develop policies to address child care access and affordability for teachers, more than 80% of whom are female.

“If you want to keep good teachers,” said Executive Director JC Bowman, “ease their burdens so they can focus on their work in school to educate and nurture our future generation.”

To follow this year’s legislative business, visit the General Assembly’s website for calendars, committees, legislation, and livestreams.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Consejería gratuita: las escuelas de Colorado ayudan a los estudiantes a obtener apoyo para la salud mental

2023-02-01T19:53:02+00:00

Read in English.

Roxana Alvarado Martínez, estudiante de décimo grado, solamente le había contado a algunas amistades cercanas que estaba yendo a citas de terapia para que la ayudaran con la ansiedad y el insomnio.

Pero eso cambió la semana pasada en el salón de la clase de educación cívica, donde trabaja como ayudante del maestro. El maestro sacó papelitos de la caja “Sol y Nubes”, donde los alumnos pueden compartir sus dificultades o emociones anónimamente.

Ese día, cuando se tocaron los temas de depresión, acoso escolar y suicidio, Roxana habló.

“No es motivo de vergüenza, ni absolutamente de pena, que ustedes o yo acudamos a terapia”, le dijo a la clase en la Escuela Secundaria Summit en Breckenridge. “Podría ayudarte a conectarte, si es lo que necesitas”

Roxana es parte de una generación que, en los últimos años, ha tenido que enfrentar problemas de salud mental sin precedentes en medio de una pandemia que amplió el estrés, el miedo y el aislamiento en personas jóvenes y mayores. También es una de los miles de jóvenes de Colorado que están aprovechando el aumento en programas cuyo propósito es hacer que el apoyo de salud mental sea más accesible y económico para la juventud.

Estos programas incluyen el programa estatal I Matter (Yo Importo), que ofrece seis sesiones gratuitas de consejería en persona o telesalud (virtuales) para estudiantes de primaria a secundaria. Hasta ahora, el programa ha atendido a más de 5,600 estudiantes en todo el estado.

Además, hay una variedad de programas locales. Roxana, de 16 años, recibió una beca para cubrir el costo de la terapia de Building Hope, un grupo sin fines de lucro en el Condado de Summit. El distrito escolar de Aurora, al este de Denver, empezó a ofrecerles seis sesiones gratuitas de consejería a los estudiantes hace un año, y el vecino distrito de Cherry Creek empezó a ofrecer en diciembre de ocho a 10 sesiones gratuitas para los estudiantes de escuela intermedia y secundaria. Ambos distritos contrataron a Hazel Health, una empresa de telesalud con sede en San Francisco.

Es difícil saber si la juventud de Colorado está recibiendo toda la ayuda que necesita. Durante los primeros nueve meses de 2022, las visitas a la sala de emergencias del sistema Children’s Hospital Colorado relacionadas con salud mental aumentaron un 74% en comparación con el mismo período en 2019, dijo una portavoz del hospital.

Esta es en parte la razón por la que los líderes locales y estatales siguen presionando para que los niños y adolescentes tengan acceso fácil a servicios de salud mental antes de que haya una crisis mayor.

Michelle Weinraub, directora de salud mental de Cherry Creek, dijo que el programa de consejería gratuita del distrito surgió de un grupo de trabajo sobre salud mental puesto en marcha a principios de 2022. Recordó que les preguntó a los estudiantes, en una reunión, si ellos usarían sesiones de consejería gratuitas que estuviesen disponibles en sus teléfonos después de la escuela o el trabajo.

Un par de ellos se emocionaron tanto, que casi saltaron de sus sillas, dijo ella.

“Dijeron: ‘Sí, eso es lo que queremos’”, afirmó ella. Entonces los estudiantes empezaron a hablar: “No podemos conseguir cita a menos que estemos en crisis... Mi amigo intentó llamar y está en lista de espera desde hace seis meses. Quería la cita con alguien que ya estaba atendiendo a un conocido, pero esa persona no acepta seguros médicos.”

Expertos declaran una emergencia de salud mental

En mayo de 2021, poco más de un año después del inicio de la pandemia, los líderes del Children’s Hospital Colorado dieron la voz de alarma sobre el gran aumento de problemas graves de salud mental entre niños y adolescentes, y declararon un “estado de emergencia” de salud mental en la juventud.”

Ellos pidieron más fondos y también más esfuerzos para reducir las trabas burocráticas en el sistema de salud mental para los niños y adolescentes. Seis meses después, el estado lanzó el programa I Matter.

Este programa no es la única “puerta” para encontrar consejería. Es una opción de acceso fácil para cualquier persona joven que necesite alguien con quien hablar, dijo Charlotte Whitney, de la Administración de Salud Conductual, la agencia estatal que maneja el programa I Matter. No se requiere tener ansiedad ni depresión extremas.

Whitney dijo que el modelo puede ayudar a los niños a mejorar su salud mental a largo plazo “porque sabrán dónde obtener los servicios y habrán aprendido las técnicas de manejo para superar esos momentos realmente difíciles”

Los estudiantes de 12 años en adelante pueden inscribirse en las sesiones de terapia llenando un formulario sencillo en línea. Los menores de 12 años pueden utilizar el servicio, pero necesitan que uno de sus padres lo haga. Whitney dijo que, en general, los estudiantes pueden obtener citas de telesalud en cuestión de días.

Ocasionalmente, dijo ella, los estudiantes esperarán más si están buscando algo específico, por ejemplo una cita en persona en una comunidad rural, o un terapeuta que se especialice en asuntos de transgénero.

En Aurora, desde que comenzó el año escolar más o menos 230 estudiantes han sido referidos a consejería a través del programa gratuito de Hazel Health. En Cherry Creek, que puso en marcha su programa el 5 de diciembre, unos 200 estudiantes han sido referidos para recibir ayuda. Los funcionarios del distrito dicen que no hay listas de espera para las citas.

Ya sea que los estudiantes empiecen con I Matter o con otro programa, si necesitan consejería continua, los terapeutas trabajarán con ellos para encontrar esa ayuda ya sea a través del seguro médico o de otra forma.

La pandemia de COVID19 provocó agotamiento mental en los estudiantes

Roxana siempre fue estudiante sobresaliente, incluso antes de mudarse de México a Estados Unidos a los 7 años. Sus padres esperaban buenas calificaciones, y ella las lograba.

Pero sus clases se hicieron más difíciles en la intermedia. Luego, en séptimo grado, llegó la pandemia. Roxana, que antes siempre estaba rodeada de amigos, se encontró pasando largos días sola en su cuarto.

Su papá le decía, “tienes que salir y por lo menos comer algo, beber agua”, dijo Roxana. “Empecé a llegar al punto en que me estaba ahogando en todo mi trabajo”

Se sentía claustrofóbica, agotada y preocupada por su madre, que trabajaba como enfermera en México. Al final, Roxana acudió a consejería, pero no le fue bien. Dice ella que el terapeuta le dijo: “Solo está en tu cabeza. Estás fingiendo”.

A mediados del noveno grado, sus problemas se agravaron. Por primera vez en su vida, estaba faltando a clases y a punto de fracasar en sus clases. Y terminó en el hospital.

Actualmente Roxana está mejor. Está acudiendo a una terapeuta con la que se siente identificada — es latina y su primer idioma es español, como ella — y ha dejado de lado su afán por tener perfectas calificaciones. También está intentando eliminar el estigma de buscar ayuda para la salud mental, algo que ha sentido como parte de la comunidad latina.

“Tenemos una cultura muy, muy arraigada de que lo que ocurre en nuestra familia, se queda en nuestra familia, y no hay por qué estar contando los asuntos familiares por ahí”, dice ella.

Pero Roxana sabe que hay otros estudiantes como ella en la escuela, luchando en silencio contra dolorosas realidades. Por eso decidió decir algo durante la reciente clase de educación cívica, tartamudeando un poco mientras compartía su historia.

“Si yo no hablo, otros tampoco lo harán”, afirmó.

Ann Schimke es reportera senior de Chalkbeat y cubre temas de niñez temprana y alfabetización temprana. Para comunicarte con Ann, escríbele a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Conoce a los que ayudan: cómo una consejera bilingüe de Adams 14 ayuda a los estudiantes y sus familias.

2023-01-19T21:11:38+00:00

Read in English.

Chalkbeat Colorado es un noticiero local sin fines de lucro que informa sobre las escuelas públicas en Denver y otros distritos. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín gratis por email en español para recibir lo último en noticias sobre educación.

A medida que más escuelas ven una necesidad de enfocarse en la salud mental de los estudiantes, los distritos están contratando más profesionales de salud mental para ayudar.

Pero ¿qué papel juegan estas nuevas personas, cómo trabajan juntas, y cómo pueden ayudar a los estudiantes?

Chalkbeat entrevistó a una consejera escolar bilingüe de Adams 14 para aprender más sobre cómo los consejeros escolares trabajan con los estudiantes y cómo ser bilingüe aporta a esa labor.

Brenda Moreno Negrete es la única consejera bilingüe en la única secundaria integral en Adams 14 (un distrito al norte de Denver), donde más o menos la mitad de los más de 6,000 estudiantes están identificados como ELL (estudiantes que están aprendiendo inglés) y la mayoría proviene de hogares que hablan español. Aquí ella habla acerca de su trabajo y de cómo ser bilingüe le ayuda a hablar con más estudiantes y conectarse con las familias.

La entrevista que sigue fue editada para ser más clara y breve.

¿Tienes más preguntas sobre empleos de salud mental en tus escuelas y te gustaría compartirlas con nosotros? Envíanos un email a co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Cuéntanos sobre tu trabajo.

Brenda Moreno Negrete es consejera bilingüe en Adams 14.

Este es mi primer año como consejera escolar aquí en la Escuela Secundaria Adams City. Los consejeros escolares tenemos tres tareas principales en las que nos enfocamos: aspectos académicos, carrera profesional, y aspectos socioemocionales, y en este último es que está la salud mental. Son cosas que van juntas. Muchas veces tenemos chicos que están teniendo dificultades en la casa o problemas de salud mental que afectan su desempeño académico. Nosotros entonces nos fijamos en ellos de manera completa para tratar de ayudarlos.

Muchos programas universitarios, entre ellos el mío, incluyen prácticas en las que solo hacemos salud mental; o sea, es todo lo que hacemos primero y luego incorporamos lo académico.

Yo crecí en la comunidad en que estoy trabajando. Tenemos un programa de práctica bilingüe, pero actualmente soy la única consejera bilingüe con licencia en la escuela, lo cual ha sido de mucha ayuda. Es verdaderamente genial poder conectarme con las familias en su idioma. Yo conozco mi comunidad y sé qué tan importante es para los padres poder conectarse con gente que hable su idioma y que los entiendan. También sé las necesidades que hay aquí, y por eso quise empezar mi carrera profesional en esta comunidad.

¿Qué tipo de trabajo haces con los estudiantes en un día normal?

Eso varía. Si un estudiante está hablando de suicidio o de hacerse daño, nos llaman y hacemos evaluaciones. Si alguien está teniendo un día difícil, viene a nuestras oficinas y hablamos, ya sea sobre ansiedad (que hemos visto bastante), depresión, o hasta problemas en sus relaciones. En esos casos, hablamos con ellos. Sí se toca el tema de lo académico, pero ese no es todo el enfoque.

Si notamos que están teniendo problemas de ausencia, entonces checamos a ver qué está pasando. Muchas de las veces, está relacionado con algo en su vida familiar o porque están batallando con salud mental.

¿Cómo se asignan los estudiantes a uno de los cuatro consejeros?

Depende de la escuela. Ahora mismo en nuestra escuela los tenemos por orden alfabético, o sea, según el apellido.

Aunque algunas familias solamente hablan español, muchos de los chicos son bilingües. Tenemos algunos que quizás acaban de llegar de México o son bastante nuevos. Si no hablan inglés, entonces sí, esos los atiendo yo. Me reúno y hablo con ellos, ya que ahora mismo los demás consejeros no hablan español. Sí hay una practicante que lo habla, y ella habla con algunos también.

¿Qué otros recursos de salud mental hay en tu escuela?

Tenemos una trabajadora social. Ella trabaja con muchos de los estudiantes; usualmente atiende a tantos como nosotros. Muchos de los chicos tienen servicios de educación especial o un IEP (programa individual de educación).

En esta escuela tenemos el programa Kids First, una clínica aquí mismo y en el mismo área de la enfermería. La clínica Kids First también ofrece servicios de terapia para estudiantes que necesitan más tiempo. Por ejemplo, mi total de casos ahora es más o menos 350 estudiantes, lo cual es bastante grande. Tenemos chicos que quizás necesitan citas de terapia más individualizada y más frecuentes, por ejemplo, una vez a la semana o cada dos semanas. Si ese es el caso, los referimos a otra clínica.

Aquí tenemos Kids First y también el Griffith Center, otro centro de salud mental que ofrece muchas cosas, y que ha asignado a alguien a estar aquí en la escuela. Es verdaderamente genial, porque cuando tenemos que referir a un estudiante, se reúne con un terapista aquí mismo en la escuela. La familia no tiene que acudir a otro sitio. Nosotros tratamos de eliminar esa barrera. Usualmente, el/la terapista se reúne con el estudiante durante las horas de escuela, cuando pueden.

¿Cuándo te conectas con las familias?

Eso ocurre de muchas maneras diferentes. A veces los padres vienen a la escuela a pedir ayuda. La escuela los llama para decir que su hijo(a) está faltando a clases, y algunos de los padres vienen. O, por ejemplo, a veces un maestro hace un referido diciendo ‘He notado que este estudiante tiene cortaduras’, o ‘esta estudiante se está sintiendo triste’. Si eso ocurre, entonces los sacamos del salón, y dependiendo de lo que esté pasando, entonces nos comunicamos con el hogar.

Otras veces llamamos a la casa para checar si todo está bien con el estudiante. Les decimos a los padres lo que está pasando, especialmente si se trata de salud mental, para checar qué está ocurriendo en la casa. En cuanto a lo académico, podemos llamar a los papás para avisarles si está todo en marcha para graduarse o no.

¿Los estudiantes pueden esperar confidencialidad al hablar con ustedes, o cuándo se tienen que comunicar con los padres?

Hay confidencialidad entre nosotros y el estudiante. Solo hay tres excepciones en las que no podemos cumplir eso. Si algo le está haciendo daño, por ejemplo, si está hablando de suicidio, o si está en peligro. Si está hablando de hacerle daño a otra persona, o si está amenazando hacerle algo al edificio. Esas son realmente las únicas excepciones, aparte de que nos podemos comunicar con los padres si el estudiante nos da permiso.

Todo esto está publicado en nuestras oficinas, y nosotros también les decimos a los estudiantes. Sí tenemos confidencialidad, y estoy aquí para ayudarte, pero hay excepciones. Yo siempre les digo, y en muchas ocasiones ellos me dan permiso para hablar con la familia. Si la familia está de acuerdo en participar, esto marca una gran diferencia. Pero hay casos en los que no es lo adecuado.

Por ejemplo, si un estudiante se está haciendo daño o tiene pensamientos suicidas, entonces una manera de ayudar es tener esa conversación con los padres de una manera en que el/la estudiante se sienta seguro(a) y sin estigma.

¿Qué te gustaría que la gente sepa acerca de cómo puedes ayudar a los estudiantes?

Nuestra tarea es verdaderamente tratar de ver qué está pasando; dedicar tiempo para ver lo que está ocurriendo. Si un chico o chica está metiéndose en peleas, hablamos con él o ella sobre sus destrezas para manejar situaciones. No nos metemos en disciplina porque estamos tratando de establecer una relación con los estudiantes. Tenemos que convertirnos en alguien a quien pueden acudir.

Ellos tienen que sentirse bien mentalmente y emocionalmente antes de ser estudiantes. Trabajando junto con otros profesionales aquí en la escuela, podemos ser más intencionales en nuestros servicios de salud mental y al determinar qué está pasando.

También empleamos otros recursos de apoyo, como el hogar y la familia. Nuestra comunidad tiene puntos fuertes, y podemos emplearlos de una manera que beneficie al estudiante si es posible. Por ejemplo, normalizando algunos de los temas de los que hablamos al tener conversaciones de salud mental. Dejarles saber que muchos chicos están batallando con esto. La gente lucha con eso, y no significa que hay algo mal con el estudiante. Normalizarlo de tal manera que los padres también sientan apoyo. Decirle que tenemos estos recursos, y que, si son los que están en la escuela, son gratuitos. Hablar con los padres de una manera que puedan entender que la salud mental no es nada de lo que tengan que avergonzarse.

La idea más errónea sobre los consejeros escolares es que solamente nos fijamos en las calificaciones y en los programas de estudio. También tenemos este enorme recurso que no se está aprovechando: la salud mental, la parte socioemocional. Nosotros somos un excelente puente a recursos cuando un estudiante no se siente bien.

Cierto, tenemos que hablar con ellos sobre sus calificaciones, pero también decirles que estamos aquí para ayudarles. Si el estudiante se abre y comparte con nosotros lo que necesita, nosotros podemos ayudarle.

Yesenia Robles es reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado y cubre asuntos relacionados con los distritos escolares K-12 y la educación multilingüe. Para comunicarte con Yesenia, escríbele a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Student absences for mental health would be excused under Michigan bill

2023-12-20T21:10:47+00:00

Karalynn Santiago’s father died on Nov. 28. She has struggled to get through each day since.

Karalynn, a 15-year-old 10th-grader at Western International High School in Detroit, took four days off school to grieve her sudden loss.

When she returned, she felt overwhelmed by the amount of material she missed in class and how much she had to catch up on to make passing grades by the end of the quarter.

“Imagine, four days off,” she said, recalling the struggle this week. “I’m still in the grieving process. I don’t want to do the work, but I know I have to … . On top of everything else I’m going through, it’s hard.”

A bill proposed in January in the Michigan Senate recognizes the challenges faced by children like Karalynn. It would allow K-12 public school students to take up to five excused absences each school year for mental or behavioral health issues, without a note from a doctor or therapist, and would require schools to let students make up any school work they miss.

Additionally, educators would be able to refer students who take two or more mental health days to counselors so they can get help.

Karalynn said she feels the bill would benefit her and many other struggling youth.

“There’s a lot of kids here going through a lot of stuff,” Karalynn said. “And I know that’s one of the main reasons kids skip. I feel like that would be a good thing for us.”

Others caution that it’s only a small step that won’t have much effect unless students who are struggling have wider access to help and resources.

Mental-health challenges are a barrier to learning

The legislation is part of a growing national effort to help schoolchildren dealing with mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Twelve states have enacted similar legislation as of May, according to Verywell Mind, a website that tracks health and wellness bills. Another eight states, including Michigan, have had bills for student mental health days introduced by lawmakers.

“Kids can’t learn if they are struggling or experiencing other issues in their lives,” said state Sen. Sarah Anthony, a Democrat from Lansing who introduced the bill.

Anthony said she was inspired to author the bill after hearing from many constituents who said they wanted their kids to have more flexibility to address their mental health. Her family’s experience also influenced the legislation.

“When I was running for state representative, my older brother passed away and he left behind five kids,” she said. “We needed to have that flexibility when the kids were having a bad day. Whether it’s a death or a loved one being ill, these things can have lasting effects.”

Anthony said that when the Legislature returns for its next session, she will advocate for it to move quickly through the Senate Education Committee and to a vote, and expects it to gain bipartisan support.

“Everyone we’ve talked to — Republican or Democrat — they know that mental health is one of those key pieces that people in their districts care about,” she said.

Support for mental health days is broad

The need for student mental health days has grown in recent years, advocates say, as many adolescents are still dealing with the impact of trauma and isolation brought on by the pandemic. And the idea is becoming more popular.

In a 2022 poll by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 67% of children ages 12 to 17 said they thought schools should offer mental health days. Most also said they wanted their schools to help address their mental health and educate them on where to find resources.

Parents back the idea, too. A 2021 poll conducted for NAMI found 70% of parents supported students taking days off for their mental health. The poll also found 87% of the parents were in favor of mental health education in schools.

“I have done this with my own children when they are in a stressful situation or are feeling down and tired,” said Jennifer Rothman, director of youth and young adult initiatives at the NAMI.

In the decade leading up to the pandemic, the number of teens reporting persistent feelings of sadness and suicidal thoughts increased by around 40%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.

The potential causes of the increase are complex, and research does not point to any singular reason, said Matthew Diemer, professor at the Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan.

According to the most recently compiled data by the National Institutes of Mental Health, an estimated 15% of youth ages 12 to 17 in 2021 in the U.S. had experienced a major depressive episode, or a period of at least two weeks of experiencing symptoms of major depression, such as thoughts of suicide or feelings of hopelessness.

More than 20% of teens have had suicidal ideation, or serious thoughts of suicide, a 2021 report from the CDC said.

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic, March to October 2020, coincided with a spike in mental-health related emergency-room visits for youth ages 12 to 17: a 31% increase compared with 2019, CDC data shows.

How absences can help students get help

Giving students time to address their mental health would likely help them do better in the classroom, supporters of the bill say, citing years of research showing a link between poor academic performance and mental health problems.

Moreover, if a student takes a mental health day, that attendance record could be used to trigger a response from school officials to target resources to that student, said Anthony.

The data could be used to guide changes at the district and state level, too, Rothman said.

“It could get some conversations happening about more funding to address the need for more counselors and what other resources need to be brought in,” she said. “If we see a lot of students are using this, we will recognize we need more time and effort and funding put into mental health education.”

Rothman said she’d like to see the states that already have student mental health days collect more data on how often kids are using those days.

Some skeptics of the bill argue that kids may abuse excused mental health days as a way to skip school. Michigan is already struggling with high rates of chronic absenteeism.

Some administrators argue that the bill isn’t needed because absences are already considered excused when a parent tells the school their child won’t be there.

“If a parent calls a school and says their child is home sick it’s an excused absence, whether it happens to be mental or physical health,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. “Schools usually ask for a doctor’s note in a longer-term situation.”

Still, Rothman said many parents may not be aware that it’s OK for a child to take a day off solely for their mental health.

“Not every parent thinks that that is a reasonable excuse to keep kids home,” she said. “This gives a needed spotlight to the fact that mental health is just as important as physical health and that we need to allow students time to address it.

By allowing excused absences without doctors’ notes, supporters of the bill say, it would benefit students who can’t easily access mental health services in the state, which has a shortage of adolescent psychiatrists, especially in rural communities.

As for the potential for abuse, Rothman said, “The way we look at it, if it helps even one student, it’s worth it.”

Students need resources when they return to school

Some researchers caution that students need more than days off to deal with mental health challenges: They need support when they return to school.

“I think the policy is a step in the right direction,” said Diemer. “But I don’t think giving days off without any other improvements would lead to desired changes.”

Karalynn, the Detroit student, said her school paired her with a therapist earlier in this school year, but she hasn’t gotten support from any mental health professionals since her dad died.

“Not every student shows the same emotions physically,” said Karalynn. “Some can have a straight face, but you don’t know that they’re going through something. You don’t know what’s going on at home. You don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Detroit Public Schools Community officials did not respond to a request for comment about Karalynn’s experience.

Michigan has long had a shortage of student mental-health resources. The state lags behind almost every other state in the ratio of students to counselors.

Anthony, the bill sponsor, said the bill is one of several addressing mental health she’s introduced. Both she and Rothman agree that more needs to be done.

“This is not a fix-all,” said Rothman. “It’s a step in the right direction to get some of those conversations happening. We need more funding to address the need for more counselors and to make mental health programs more accessible to those who don’t typically have access.”

Karalynn said she feels the adults around her don’t believe her or her peers when they ask for help.

“If we ask to go to our therapist or a counselor or even to the bathroom to deal with it ourselves, I feel we should be able to go, because you don’t know what we’re going through,” she said. “I feel like these parents, these faculty members don’t understand that. And I know they’re going through stuff, too.

“I know it’s not easy,” she said, “but we’re people. We’re human.”

Hannah Dellinger covers K-12 education and state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Denver schools are investing in teaching techniques like finger breathing. Here’s what that means.

2023-12-08T00:18:06+00:00

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Wednesday was a big day in Inmaculada Martín Hernández’s class. The students in her college-level conversational Spanish class at Denver’s North High School were conducting a Model United Nations presentation, and their teacher sensed they were nervous.

So after Martín Hernández went over the objective for the day, but before the students paired off to strategize, she led them in an exercise called finger breathing.

Gripping her right thumb with her left hand, she instructed the students to do the same.

“Inhale,” she told the students in Spanish. “Hold. Exhale.”

She repeated the exercise for all 10 fingers.

Quick mindfulness breaks are a staple in Martín Hernández’s class. They are also part of a growing number of strategies, including free virtual and in-person therapy, to address student mental health needs that were amplified by the pandemic. The finger breathing lesson is courtesy of a Denver-based nonprofit organization called Upstream Education that provides bite-sized well-being lessons for middle and high school students.

North High was one of the first schools to use Upstream, which is now in more than 40 Denver public schools, according to Upstream Executive Director Tessa Zimmerman.

After seeing Upstream in action, school district leaders decided to spend just under $60,000 in federal pandemic relief to partly fund that expansion, said Bernard McCune, the executive director of extended learning, athletics, and activities for Denver Public Schools. The Caring for Denver Foundation, funded with voter-approved tax dollars, is also backing the expansion.

“You can’t leave a school that’s doing Upstream and not be impressed,” McCune said.

Zimmerman started Upstream because she herself had anxiety as a child and panic attacks at school. That changed when she got a scholarship to a private high school where the principal led the students in mindfulness activities every day during homeroom.

Those activities changed her life, Zimmerman said. “I changed from a student who hated going to school to a student who loved to go to school,” she said.

When Zimmerman was in college, she realized the inequity of her experience: She had access to mindfulness activities at her private school, but many other students did not.

So Zimmerman came up with an idea for a social and emotional learning curriculum for teenagers, and in 2016, entered a design contest run by the DPS Imaginarium, the district’s former in-house innovation lab, which the district dissolved in 2019 due to budget cuts. Zimmerman won $9,000 from DPS that helped her start Upstream.

For the past seven years, the organization has refined its tools with the help of students, including a 10-student task force that Upstream pays during the summer to review a couple dozen of its lessons with an eye to making them more relevant. Teachers have provided feedback, too.

“We found from teachers that they really wanted to do this work, but if they had a 30-minute lesson, it was not feasible,” Zimmerman said.

So Upstream made all of its lessons 10 minutes or less. The finger breathing lesson clocks in at 4 ½ minutes. Another lesson meant to teach students to show themselves grace is 7 ½ minutes. In it, students briefly write down a challenging moment they had recently and then listen as their teacher reads phrases like “I am not alone” and “I can restart my day over at any time.”

The lesson plan includes a script for what teachers should say next: “You can recite these phrases to yourself in the middle of class or during a performance — whenever you need some reassurance or a moment of self-compassion.”

North High School teacher Brandi Garcia sits behind her laptop, which has an Upstream "box breathing" sticker on the front.

North High teacher Brandi Garcia started using Upstream in 2020 during remote learning and continued using the tools when students came back to her classroom in person. She said she loves that they are “super easy to follow. It’s plug and play.”

After students do an Upstream exercise, Garcia said, “they feel a lot lighter.” She’s noticed that even students who are resistant at first eventually come around.

“There’s some kids that are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do this,’” she said. “Then before you know it, they’re right there with the breathing. Then they’re like, ‘Are we going to breathe today?’”

North High social worker Maria Hite uses Upstream with students in her therapeutic groups and in her one-on-one sessions. Posters with Upstream techniques hang in her office, which features soft lighting, a box of fidget toys, and a mini Zen garden with a rake.

On Wednesday, Zimmerman handed Hite a stack of square stickers. The stickers, which were an idea from Upstream’s student task force, have a bumpy texture and instructions for how to do the “box breathing” exercise, which involves tracing a finger around the edge of the square and breathing in for four seconds on one side and out for four seconds on another.

Hite revealed her own box breathing hack: She has students flip their cell phones screen-down and trace their phones with their finger.

“A lot of my time is spent working with students who are anxious,” Hite said. “If you can show a tool that works really quickly, it’s easier [to get] buy-in.”

Spanish teacher Martín Hernández said she likes that the exercises create “that moment of connection, even when not all the students want to do it.

“But everyone is calm and quiet, and everyone respects it.”

On Wednesday, junior Audrey Gilpin was among the students who took part in the finger breathing exercise. Gilpin said it’s nice to come into Martín Hernández’s classroom from the chaotic hallway of the 1,600-student high school and take a few minutes to pause. It’s a small respite that several students said improves their own mental health and helps them feel more comfortable in class.

“It makes me feel like my teacher cares about how I feel mentally,” Gilpin said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Help us report on youth mental health in NYC

2023-11-28T23:30:10+00:00

Two weeks ago, New York City launched a new effort to address the ongoing youth mental health crisis: free online therapy for city teenagers.

The statistics illustrating the depth of that crisis are sobering. Nationwide, three-quarters of high school students experienced at least one “adverse childhood experience” – traumatic events linked with long-term mental health challenges – during the pandemic. In New York City, 9% of teenagers reported attempting suicide in 2021, according to the city’s Health Department.

As the city’s efforts roll out, we want to better understand the mental health picture for young people, and how it’s affecting schools.

Educators, parents, and especially students: We want to hear directly from you. If you have something to share, please fill out our brief survey – and thank you.

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Denver partnership aims to expand mental health services, address youth violence

2023-07-06T23:09:55+00:00

To address youth violence, eight Denver schools would get an additional staffer focused on student behavior next school year, under a proposed city council ordinance.

The proposed pilot program also would add a mobile team going from school to school, addressing mental health needs, supporting behavioral health and providing referrals.

Denver has seen high rates of youth violence over the last five years.

A plan published in 2020 noted measures that the community could take to reduce violence. But with the onset of the COVID pandemic, no action resulted.

Meanwhile, campus closures eroded many of the routines that helped teenagers stay on track. Educators report that students still are missing more school and are less engaged even when they are in class.

Earlier this year, the city produced a new plan. Among other things, it recommended improving access to mental health support in the community, including in schools.

If the city council passes the ordinance this month, the program would launch next month. The health specialist positions also are intended to serve as a career pathway for people in marginalized communities to enter the behavioral health workforce.

The bill proposes to fund the school positions and mobile services with about $860,000 in federal COVID relief funds. The idea is to shift from responding to violence and instead preventing it, said June Marcel, a Denver Public Schools strategy officer.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we could prevent the tragedies from happening in the first place?” she said.

In designing and offering the program, the city will collaborate with Denver Public Schools and community organizations.

School officials said they chose three campuses with two programs each, one a comprehensive high school and the other focusing on careers or serving older students. They are North High School and the North Engagement Center, Abraham Lincoln High School and Respect Academy, and George Washington High School and DELTA High School. They also chose two middle schools, West and Lake.

The new behavioral staffers, dubbed “community navigators,” are intended to help encourage attendance, assess students’ needs, and connect families with city and community resources. The pandemic compounded many problems like chronic absenteeism, disengagement, academic struggle and financial insecurity.

Navigators may work both on campus and in the community. Officials hope to fill those jobs with people interested in behavioral health who may have a shared cultural experience with students and are bilingual.

Schools already have counselors, and some have attendance specialists, but none have health staff specifically tasked with preventing youth violence, Marcel said.

The pilot project is intended to meet some of the needs identified in the Behavioral Health Needs Assessment that the city conducted last year and this year’s youth violence prevention plan.

Last year’s survey found that many people who need behavioral health services have a hard time finding help, with cost, transportation, and lack of convenient appointments all playing a role. Teenagers reported having an especially hard time getting in-person therapy — one of the problems the new partnership aims to address.

“One of the factors (of an increase in youth violence) is mental health and feelings of wellness related to the students, youth and family. If we can get a better handle on what’s underneath the behavior, what’s driving the behavior, if we can connect with the students in a way that feels right to them, we’re more likely to get a more accurate understanding of what’s going on to help,” said Nachshon Zohari, program manager for community engagement at the city’s department of public health and environment.

The mobile units would provide more mental and behavioral health services and resources at community events and when and where there might be a need. The fleet includes smaller versions of the city’s “Wellness Winnie” housed in a large RV. The so-called Mini Winnies will rotate on a schedule among schools.

With the pilot program, school officials said they will be able to identify the resources and needs of schools if the program is funded beyond the first year.

The pilot program will run from Aug. 1 to July 31, 2024.

Sara Martin is an intern with Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Sara at smartin@chalkbeat.org

Why this award-winning school superintendent donates his bonus back for his students every year

2023-11-02T10:00:00+00:00

If his school community had to choose between himself and its nine therapy dogs, David Snowden jokes that “the director of schools would have to go.”

Now in his 23rd year as leader of Franklin Special School District, south of Nashville, Snowden has championed the canine program since Mattie Grace became the school system’s first trained therapy dog in 2018.

Five years later, each of the district’s eight schools has a canine companion on site, as does its central office, to provide emotional support to students and staff.

Snowden says the program is popular — and needed. Even before the pandemic, faculty and staff were seeing an increase in student anxiety, depression, and mental distress.

But all of the comfort and joy brought by the pups wouldn’t be financially possible if Snowden hadn’t donated his performance bonus back to his home district to help cover the cost. It’s a practice he’s done every year since coming to his suburban district in 2001 — to acknowledge and reward the collective work of the students, teachers, and staff who surround him.

“It takes a team effort to be successful,” he explained.

In all, Snowden has returned about a quarter of a million dollars in bonus money to pay for various needs over the years, whether to hire tutors, buy chargers for Chromebooks, or provide water bottle refilling stations during the pandemic.

His colleagues call him a “true servant leader,” but his peers across the state recently gave him another title: Tennessee Superintendent of the Year. Because of the honor bestowed on him in September by the state’s superintendents organization, Snowden will represent Tennessee in February in San Diego at the national competition sponsored by the American School Superintendents Association.

In a recent interview with Chalkbeat, Snowden talked about why he chose a career in education, how he tries to bring out the greatness in others, his strategy for dealing with negative politics, and what gives him hope for the future.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What led you to a career in education?

Other than my parents, the most influential and inspiring people in my life were teachers and coaches. Any and all successes I may have had, both personally and professionally, are directly related to their support and mentorship. With my own career, I wanted to provide students with those same positive influences to help them become as successful as possible.

Tell us about your own experience as a student and how it affects your work today.

Growing up in rural Mississippi, I was an average student who enjoyed school but struggled with self-confidence. Fortunately, I had teachers who supported and inspired me to achieve higher than what I thought I could. With those influences, I became a fairly good student by high school. But those early struggles still resonate with me as I watch our great teachers positively connect with and encourage students each day. Every child is not going to excel at the very highest levels, but we know every child can be successful with the help and support of great teachers.

Describe an interaction with a student or teacher that made a lasting impression on you.

When I was an assistant high school principal in Pascagoula, Mississippi, my initial interaction with this particular student didn’t make a lasting impression. However, the note I received from her 20 years after she graduated made me realize that we, as educators, can have a positive impact on the lives of students, even when we don’t immediately see the fruits of our labor.

This young woman was constantly late to school and class and seemed to have a terrible attitude in general. I tried to get through her tough exterior but never thought my counsel resonated. When I wrote her a detention note, she routinely wadded it up like trash as she left my office. She managed to graduate from high school, so that end result was positive. Fast forward 20 years. I received a note from her (written on the back of a detention notice, no less) thanking me for all of our interactions through the years and the advice I had given her. She wrote that she never would have graduated, had it not been for those “tough love” conversations and my support. I still have that note!

What’s the best advice you ever received, and how have you put it into action on the job?

“Be yourself.” “Do your very best each and every day.” “Listen more than talk.”

Leaders shouldn’t try to be someone they are not. No matter how hard they may try, most people can see through the facade.

Doing our best means to never accept the status quo and to always be open to new ideas and growth.

I strive to be a good listener and to model one of Stephen R. Covey’s principles of highly effective people: “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” If someone doesn’t understand a person, there is no way they can effectively address their problem, issue, or idea. When we are engaged listeners, we understand better.

Kindergarten students at Moore Elementary School surprise Snowden at a 2023 leadership team meeting to congratulate him for his Tennessee Superintendent of the Year award.

What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

Many years ago, I read “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins, about why some companies become great, while others merely remain good. It made me realize the importance of always striving for continuous improvement. “Good is the enemy of great,” he wrote, so we know if we are not improving, we are regressing. He also said that you have to be willing to “face the brutal facts” of why you are not where you want to be in order to achieve greatness. It is important to create a culture of collaboration and trust in order for continuous improvement to occur.

In education, as we constantly analyze and utilize data, we must do our best to determine the root causes of our successes, as well as what’s at the root of areas that need improving.

What were the biggest challenges for you as a school leader during the most recent school year, and how did you address them?

The negativity we heard from some corners about public schools and public school educators in Tennessee was definitely a challenge. Those comments were not based on fact but came from people who want to disparage public education — in my opinion, for their own benefit. We responded by accentuating the positive aspects of public education at every opportunity and highlighting the work of public school teachers in our district and across the state. Our school board members also spoke out publicly about the unfair and unfounded attacks on public education.

What were the biggest rewards?

One of the biggest rewards centered on the resolve of our teachers and leaders to work together for student success, despite the challenging political environment. Our parents were great partners and supporters as they gave our teachers perks on a regular basis and frequently volunteered their time. And we saw continued local investments in facilities for our students, including a new state-of-the-art performing arts center, a new gymnasium, and a new athletic complex. All of these facilities provide our students with high-quality venues to showcase their gifts and talents.

Many students are facing heightened challenges with mental health. What do you think are the root causes, and how is your team helping to support them?

Schools are a microcosm of society, and we’re seeing the struggles of many people from all walks of life. This was true even before the pandemic.

Snowden checks in with Blake, a therapy dog at Franklin Elementary School, and his handler, art teacher Jennifer Alvarado.

We provide training related to trauma and how best to help individuals and groups of students to overcome the residual effects of adverse events. Being better informed about the effects of trauma is important so we can recognize those signs and provide specific support.

Through a partnership with a local clinic that provides behavioral health counseling services, we now have a mental health therapist at every school in our district, most of them five days a week.

In 2018, we launched a therapy dog program with one canine at Johnson Elementary School. The initial plan was to add a dog each year. But seeing the clear positive impact, we fast-tracked the initiative and now have a therapy dog in each school. We even have a dog at the central office to provide support for both students and adults.

How do you take care of yourself when you’re not at work?

The goal is to stay active, whether it’s walking or working out. I enjoy playing golf, which gives me an opportunity to soak up some Vitamin D while trying to improve a not-so-good golf game. My wife, Kathy, and I like to travel, so we are always thinking about our next adventure.

What gives you hope at this moment?

My hope always lies in people and their human spirit. Even though there is a great deal of divisiveness today in our society, we believe that through perseverance, love, and character, we will return as a society to that place of mutual respect and understanding. Obviously, that doesn’t mean everyone will agree on every issue, but we can disagree without being disagreeable. As educators, we have to model how best to interact and effectively communicate with each other to enhance our community, state, and country.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

After Oxford shooting report, a call for stricter safety training requirements falters

2023-11-14T20:42:23+00:00

Michigan’s State Board of Education on Tuesday dismissed a school safety proposal calling for stricter training requirements for public school staff to help prevent gun violence, along with greater accountability for school employees and administrators for safety lapses.

But members who opposed the resolution signaled that they’re still committed to taking steps to improve school safety and are open to taking up the proposal later.

The proposal came from Republican board member Nikki Snyder in response to the release last month of an independent report on the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School, where a 15-year-old killed four students and injured seven others. The report found multiple failures by school officials to take steps to prevent the killings.

Snyder’s proposed resolution called for state laws requiring all school administrators and educators to receive behavioral threat assessment and management training, with the Michigan Department of Education enforcing compliance. It also called for MDE to check current student codes of conduct to make sure they align with the federal policies on notifying school resource officers of students who may pose a threat of violence.

Snyder’s proposal also called for removing any liability shield for school personnel and administrators who failed to report potential threats.

“We need to lead now in making sure this is what we expect,” Snyder said during the board meeting.

The board voted 5-3 against adding the resolution to its agenda. Republican member Tom McMillan, and board President Pamela Pugh, a Democrat, voted with Snyder.

Other members of the board agreed with Snyder that school safety is an urgent priority for the board but said they believed the proposal needed more research and input from officials before the board could consider it.

“We definitely are not voting this down and saying we don’t want to do anything with it,” said board member Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat. “We are saying we need more time. We need to make sure there is capacity to get the program, as well as MDE’s capacity to audit.”

Tilley said she would also like to work with MDE to pass additional proactive resolutions on school safety.

“There is no question that school safety is extremely important, and you’re absolutely right that this is the time to lead,” Democratic board member Judy Pritchett told Snyder. “I believe this board has been doing that.”

She cited the board’s October 2022 Resolution on Safer School Environments, which urged lawmakers to adopt Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s request for funding to support school safety and children’s mental health, as well as stronger gun safety laws.

That resolution did not recommend any new requirements in state law.

Snyder and McMillan said they voted against that resolution because it fell short of needed action.

The latest resolution “is about the requirement of that training — not the suggestion that it’s a fancy thought or a good idea,” Synder said.

Snyder added she would support amending the previously passed resolution with what she proposed.

She called the board’s choice to not take up the resolution on Tuesday “disgusting.”

“What we could do today is discuss this resolution, we could come to an agreement, and we could make a statement and lead,” she said. “And then we could work together on building the capacity to make sure students are safe and schools are safe. But you’re choosing not to do that.”

Pugh said she agrees there was room for the board to consider the resolution, but disputed the idea that it has not addressed the gun violence issue urgently enough.

“We’ve acted, and we will continue to provide guidance and support through MDE to our schools,” Pugh said.

“There are those of us who, for a long time, have been acting in urgency,” she said. “So, this resolution falls short of that urgency. We had an opportunity to give that input — and have — a year ago and have continued to work for the safety and healthy environment of children.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Amid Chicago’s migrant influx, one school is trying to help newcomer students navigate trauma

2023-10-27T19:24:21+00:00

An hour before dismissal on a recent Friday afternoon, eight Brighton Park Elementary School students huddled in a classroom with Jennifer Moorhouse, a teacher who works with English language learners.

They were there for a voluntary, biweekly support group run by Moorhouse and Stephanie Carrillo, a school counselor, for students grappling with the upheaval of immigration and the adjustment to a new country, new city, and new school.

She asked the children — a mix of sixth through eighth graders who had recently arrived in Chicago as part of an influx of migrant families — to share the best and worst part of their week.

One boy said the best thing was that his family had moved to a new house. Another child looked up, her hair slightly covering her face. She shrugged her shoulders and struggled to come up with a worst moment.

That’s OK, Moorhouse said in Spanish, she doesn’t have to have a low point.

The girl then added, “No mejor,” meaning there was no high point either. After a moment of silence, the whole group burst into laughter.

These students, who arrived in Chicago between last year and this year, are among the more than 20,000 newly arrived migrants in Chicago since last August, with many fleeing from Central, South American and African countries experiencing political and economic turmoil, according to city officials.

Chicago Public Schools does not track immigration status and has not shared how many migrant students have enrolled in schools. But the district has pointed to clues of an increase, including 7,800 more English learners enrolled this school year, compared to an annual average increase of 3,000 such students.

As of mid-September, 2,250 migrant children were housed in the city’s shelters, according to records from the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications that were obtained by Chalkbeat.

Educators have raised concerns that many Chicago schools don’t have the resources, such as staff, to provide new migrants with the right language instruction, recently pleading with the state to send more help.

But there are also questions about whether newcomers have the social-emotional support they need at school. These students have potentially endured dangerous journeys to the United States, on top of the stress of leaving their homes behind for shelters or other temporary living arrangements in a foreign place.

That latter concern led Moorhouse to launch the support group at Brighton Park last year after she met a migrant student who was showing signs of trauma. The student, whom Moorhouse met in January, didn’t want to be in school and sometimes, the student’s body would shake uncontrollably, she said.

At one of the sessions Moorhouse held, the student shared a personal story about his journey to the United States. Afterward, Moorhouse recalled, the student said: “My chest isn’t hurting. I can breathe.” Moorhouse felt it was a sign of healing.

In some ways, Brighton Park is well-positioned to host this support group. As a community school, it partners with a nonprofit organization to provide wraparound services for its students. Carrillo, the school counselor who helps Moorhouse with the support group, works with the school on behalf of its partner nonprofit, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. Brighton Park Elementary’s community schools funding also helped to pay for the training on the model that the support group is based on, according to Cecilia Mendoza, the school’s assistant principal.

The model is known as STRONG, or Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups, which focuses on teaching children how to understand and cope with their stress before they’re invited to share more personal details about their journey to the United States, if they choose.

It’s unclear how many schools have specific support groups for migrant students like the one at Brighton Park. About $35 million of the district’s budget this year was allocated for social-emotional curriculum, behavioral health supports for students, and additional social workers and counselors, according to a district spokesperson.

This year, Moorhouse and Carrillo are starting with the basics.

On that recent Friday afternoon, in the classroom where Moorhouse gathered with eight of her students, bright orange and blue strips of paper on the dry erase board described concepts of melting and freezing in English and Spanish: “Que le pasa al chocolate que se deja al sol?” (What happens to chocolate left in the sun?).

A plastic cupboard sat against the wall, filled with shoes, socks, and clothing donations Moorhouse had collected through her Amazon Wishlist. Sheets of paper taped to the wall have words of affirmation in both languages: “Tus emociones son validas.” (Your feelings are valid.)

A classroom for English learners at Brighton Park Elementary School has brightly colored phrases translated in English and Spanish on the dry erase board.

After their icebreaker, Moorhouse passed around crayons and a worksheet with the outline of a human body. She explained that stress can cause physical pain and asked her students to color in the part of their bodies that hurt when they are stressed.

“Entonces para mi, cuando yo estoy estresado, mi estómago me duele,” she told the students, explaining that her stomach hurts when she’s stressed.

One girl, wearing a pair of sneakers donated through the Amazon wishlist, used a green crayon to fill in the top of the head. She colored the shoulders with a green-yellow.

When Moorhouse asked students to share, one boy said stress gives him a headache, and then he feels like throwing up. A low “hmm” spread through the group, as if others recognized the boy’s feeling.

At 2:35 p.m., about halfway through the session, the students received a new worksheet. This one had a large triangle on it, and each point represented something different: pensamientos, sentimientos, y acciones. Thoughts, emotions, and actions. Moorhouse wanted the students to reflect on how a thought may lead to a feeling, which ultimately leads to an action.

After a couple minutes jotting down their thoughts, the students shared their responses. One boy smiled as he described an example: When he’s talking to other students and they suddenly begin speaking in English, he feels as if he’s been removed from the conversation.

“How does that make you feel?” Moorhouse asked him in Spanish.

“Bad,” he replied.

“What’s your action?” Moorhouse responded.

“I walk away,” he said.

That day, Mendoza, the assistant principal, was peeking in.

“I don’t think students or people in general sometimes realize the effect that has on others who only speak one language,” Mendoza said later. “So that really stuck with me, and I thought about how we could have that conversation, perhaps, with the students … because they might not be aware that they’re doing that.”

Moorhouse then presented a challenge for the students: How can they change their thinking about a situation, in order to elicit better action? One boy gave the example of taking a hard math test that he doesn’t know the answers to, so instead, he asks to go to the bathroom.

He was stumped when Moorhouse asked him to think of a better action. She opened the floor to the group, but no one came up with an answer good enough for Moorhouse. When she pressed them to think harder, they hit on a solution: He could ask the teacher for help — for understanding the exam, or perhaps even asking to take it another day.

With about 15 minutes left, Moorhouse and Carillo passed around stress balls shaped like bee hives. They asked the students to squeeze hard and pretend that they were squeezing out the juice.

A couple of kids laughed as they squeezed their fists and then released pressure.

Around 2:55 p.m. Moorhouse handed out a blank calendar worksheet. For the following week, students would be expected to log how they’ve practiced relaxation strategies, such as grabbing an ice pack from the nurse or using a stress ball, when feeling stressed. One student shared that drawing helps.

It was time for dismissal. The students didn’t run out the door. They stayed back to chat with each other. A few grabbed extra bags of Skinny Pop.

As the weeks go on, Moorhouse and Carrillo will meet individually with each student to assess whether they want to talk more about their personal experiences of coming to the U.S. and what would be appropriate to share with the other students.

In those conversations, students may show signs of needing more individual counseling provided by the school, such as bursting into tears while recounting a story, Carrillo said.

Some students take a while to open up, so it’s unclear how much they’ll participate going forward, Moorhouse said. One of those quieter students is the child who had shared that there was no highlight or lowlight of her week. During the hourlong session, this student gradually opened up a little more.

And when most of the other children left at the end of the day, that student stayed behind. She wanted to talk some more one-on-one with Moorhouse.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan schools have added more than 1,300 mental health professionals since 2018 with more funding

2023-10-12T21:39:19+00:00

Michigan added more than 1,300 mental health professionals to its schools in the last five years, according to state records.

During a national shortage of mental health professionals who serve youth and an ongoing child and adolescent mental health crisis exacerbated by the pandemic, Michigan schools hired an additional 1,316 staff to address student’s mental well-being, including counselors, social workers, and psychologists. The hirings occurred from the 2018-19 school year through 2022-23.

“Providing these services during the school day leads to early identification and intervention, better access to care, better academic outcomes, a more positive school climate and safety, better psychosocial outcomes, and better engagement with students, families, and educators,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement.

Of the additional staff, 772 were social workers, 406 were counselors, 44 were nurses, 43 were school psychologists, and 33 were behavioral analysts and assistants.

The hirings began to address a big shortage of student mental-health resources in Michigan, which lags behind almost every other state in the ratio of students to counselors.

The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per counselor. Nationally, the average ratio was 408 students per counselor in 2021-22.

Michigan had the second-highest student-to-counselor ratio in the nation in 2019-20: 671-to-1. That improved to 615-to-1 in 2021-22, according to an analysis by ASCA, the third-highest in the U.S.

In 2015-16, 41% of Michigan students did not have access to a school counselor, an analysis by Education Trust Midwest found.

In recent years, legislators have aimed to help more students access counselors and other mental health professionals. The Michigan school aid budget allocated $150 million in 2023 to improve mental health and $328 million for 2024.

The 2021 budget provided a one-time investment of $240 million specifically to add more school staff to address student mental health.

“This work is critical for meeting children where they are,” said Rice. “These helping professionals are essential for contributing to the success of Michigan’s children and their future and support our work to build a comprehensive school-based mental health system statewide.”

Jill Ball, assistant superintendent for instructional services at Tuscola Intermediate School District, said in a statement that state funds for mental health services have allowed the district to hire more providers in the past year.

“Our providers have been focused on helping students handle the mental health issues that are prohibiting them from participating in the school community,” she said. “These include gaining coping skills and strategies, as well as the ability to recognize their needs and advocate for them.”

Hannah Dellinger is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 education. Contact Hannah at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Roxborough High remembers Nicolas Elizalde, killed one year ago

2023-09-27T21:47:01+00:00

On a strip of ragged grass adjoining the front steps of Roxborough High School, students planted crocuses.

The bulbs, assistant principal Julian Saavedra explained to them, are perennials, meaning they die out but come back every year, bursting out in vibrant colors on patches of ground still waking up from the cold of winter.

The planting happened Wednesday, on the first anniversary of one of the most devastating events in the history of Roxborough High: a brutal shooting mere steps from the school that took the life of 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde as he walked home from a football scrimmage at the field nearby.

Nicolas was actually a student at nearby Saul High School of Agricultural Science, which shares a football team with Roxborough.

To cope and remember, the 600-student school observed a Day of Peace on the anniversary, seeking to bring additional support to a community that is still traumatized. To start the day, students held a moment of silence. Over the past year, they helped paint a mural on the wall of the school closest to where the shooting occurred. The mural depicts, among other symbols, a football helmet filled with flowers and a large rendering of Nicolas’ jersey number, 62.

“We’re getting through it as a team,” said assistant football coach Marc Skinner. “We stand by each other, we talk to each other. … We put our focus on the field and the game and making sure we do the right thing, and not be a part of any situation that would have us in this type of tragedy again.”

Since the incident, Roxborough has partnered with organizations including Healing Hurt People to work with students and others affected. Police in the 14th District have stepped up patrols. The school has more security guards and many programs addressing students’ emotional needs.

But the pain is still raw.

“We continue to support our children with trauma-informed best practices. We share resources with our teachers, and all of our staff,” said Principal Kristin Williams-Smalley. “And we all have a schoolwide social emotional learning program that we have implemented. … It’s an ongoing issue that our children are dealing with.”

Roxborough High principal Kristin Williams-Smalley speaks to reporters

She said that Roxborough lost another student to gun violence in May.

During the last school year, 199 city students were shot, and 33 of those died, district officials said. Less than three weeks into this school year, five students have been shot, and one died. Philadelphia’s efforts to restrict gun ownership have been blocked by the courts and a state law that bars municipalities from enacting their own gun control measures.

Shortly before the shooting, Mayor Jim Kenney had signed a law that restricted gun possession at public spaces in the city, including parks, recreation centers, and pools, but it was overturned in a court challenge.

When Nicolas was killed, four other teens were wounded by the bullets flying out of an SUV that had been lying in wait near Roxborough High.

Police don’t believe Nicolas was the intended target. One of the shooters jumped out of the car and chased another, older boy down the street, firing at close range before his gun jammed.

Police have arrested four suspects in the killing and are still seeking a fifth person they believe was the main shooter.

This week, Nicolas’ mother, Meredith Elizalde, called on state lawmakers to enact gun reform. Nicolas was her only child, and he died in her arms.

“I want them to get on the front lines and fight for gun sense, because if you’re not, you’re just part of the problem,” Meredith Elizalde said.

Asked about the chances of gun reform, Williams-Smalley sounded weary.

“I’m tired to go to funerals. I’m tired of visiting my colleagues at their schools when something happens to be a support for them. We are all, my colleagues across the city, we are all tired of the violence that is pervasive.”

As the students dispersed after planting the crocuses, Saavedra called after them.

“We’ll water them later on,” he said.

A mural on one wall of Roxborough High in memory of Nicolas Elizalde features Nicolas’ football jersey number, 62.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Newark schools receive $8.9 million federal grant to implement mental health programs

2023-09-14T16:36:12+00:00

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New Jersey’s largest school district was awarded an $8.9 million federal grant to boost mental health support as the district continues to address the mental and emotional effects of the pandemic on students.

Newark Public Schools is one of two districts in New Jersey to receive the Project AWARE grant funding, awarded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Through the grant, Newark will receive $1,799,924 a year for the next five years to implement programs, practices, and policies that are “recovery-oriented, trauma-informed, and equity-based.”

School districts previously awarded the grant used the funds to hire mental health coordinators, counselors, and social workers. Others used the money to provide professional development training or expand existing school-based social-emotional programs.

Newark plans to create new policies and programs to support student wellness and create healthy learning environments.

“Included in the goals of AWARE is to increase and improve access to culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate, and trauma-informed school and community-based activities and services,” wrote Dani Bennett, spokesperson for SAMHSA.

Mental health problems among young people were on the rise before COVID, but spiked during the pandemic. Teens also reported feeling disconnected as the pandemic disrupted student learning and limited access to their friends, school-based social services, and after-school activities such as sports and clubs.

As a result, the need for mental health and behavioral support intensified after the pandemic. But a study released last year found that Black and Latinx students in New Jersey have less access to school mental health staff today than they did a decade ago. In 2008, public schools across New Jersey had 8.2 mental health staff per 1,000 students on average, which increased to 8.6 staff per 1,000 students in 2020, according to the New Jersey Policy Perspective.

In Newark, where more than 90% of public school students identify as Black or Hispanic, youth and families experience inequities in accessing mental health and behavioral resources, an issue the school district aims to tackle through Project AWARE - Newark. This is the first time the district has received this funding.

Newark plans to boost mental health support

As part of the initiative, Newark will work to meet 18 goals so all students in the district get better access to mental health support and services tailored to their needs, according to the district’s strategy. Newark will work with the New Jersey Department of Education, the state’s mental health agency, and the city’s community mental health agencies to establish a tiered system of mental health support over the next five years.

Among its goals, Newark will develop “a culturally aligned, affirming socio-emotional universal curriculum” for all students, according to the district’s strategy. The district will also develop positive messaging to motivate students and safe spaces in schools such as after-school clubs “that promote affinity spaces for historically marginalized youth.”

The district must also create a suicide awareness training policy, implement prevention programs for suicide and substance use, train staff on mental health awareness, and develop a school safety and violence prevention program, among other goals to promote healthy learning environments for students and staff.

Bennett, the spokesperson for SAMHSA, said Newark must also develop a “Disparity Impact Statement,” a report that identifies racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minority populations at the highest risk for experiencing behavioral health disparities. The district must also track and collect data about its new programs and report to SAMHSA on a quarterly basis.

Since the return to in-person learning, Newark schools have worked to create more mental support for students. In the district’s 2022-23 school year budget, Newark allocated funds to boost social workers and counselors for the district’s 39,000 students. The budget covered salaries for 45 new social worker positions, for a total of 164 social workers, and one new counselor position, for a total of 89 counselors.

In 2022, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also announced extra support for mental health services through a regional model, known as the New Jersey Statewide Student Support Service Network. The model aims to provide mental health services to more students across the state, according to Murphy’s administration last year.

Between 2018 and 2022, 205,874 students across the country have been referred for mental health or related services under Project AWARE. Additionally, 796 policy changes across the country have occurred at the state and local levels to improve mental health-related programs and services as a result of the grant.

The Jersey City Board of Education was also awarded this grant in New Jersey.

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

How the Detroit school district is addressing students’ mental health needs

2023-09-05T21:33:20+00:00

Nearly 49,000 students returned to classrooms in the Detroit Public Schools Community District last week, with their backpacks and notebooks. Some of them are also carrying burdens that affect their mental health and time in school.

In Michigan, nearly 17% of Michigan teens ages 12-17 reported having a serious depressive episode in 2021, according to a recent study by Mental Health America. On top of this, a 2022 report showed that about 3% of children under 18 don’t have health insurance.

About 6% of Michigan children have private health insurance that doesn’t cover behavioral health services. This leaves schools to figure out how to deal with students’ mental health concerns.

Outlier Media spoke with DPSCD Deputy Superintendent Alycia Meriweather about the district’s plans to support students’ mental health needs.

This interview was condensed for length and clarity.

What are some of the most common mental health issues for students?

We assess issues that we’re seeing with students through the universal wellness screener. All of our students in kindergarten through 12th grade take it in the fall. Students who are classified as tier two, that means they would benefit from small group counseling sessions to dig deeper into processing what’s going on. In tier three, (it) really means a more intense intervention is needed, probably individual counseling.

“Over half of our students said that a loved one has died in the last eight months, and almost a third of our students had an overnight hospital stay for themselves or a family member.” — Alycia Meriweather, deputy superintendent, Detroit Public Schools Community District

So interestingly, (in kids being) sad and mad as well as worried, there was actually a slight decrease last year. But you’re still looking at pretty much over half of the students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Feeling scared: That’s about 42% of our young people.

How many of our students in grades six to 12 are experiencing trauma, depression or anxiety? There was a slight drop in both depression and anxiety year-to-year. But still, you’re looking at about a quarter of sixth to 12th graders experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety.

When you’re looking at the national trend and the DPSCD trend, (it) was pretty interesting. From 2019 to 2021, depression symptoms increased by five percentage points nationally, but decreased by 10 percentage points in DPSCD. We think we made a very significant and intentional investment in behavioral health in the district with our COVID-19 funding, and then post-COVID funding. We believe the fact that the district is decreasing in depression is a result of us increasing our support.

Alycia Meriweather is a deputy superintendent in the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

What’s the root of these problems?

When you look at trauma exposure … over half of our students said that a loved one has died in the last eight months, and almost a third of our students had an overnight hospital stay for themselves or a family member.

What is the student-to-counselor ratio? Do you think it’s sufficient for addressing the mental health patterns above?

For kindergarten through eighth grade, it’s one counselor per 500 students. For high school, it’s one counselor per 400 students. If you ask me “Do we have enough resources to address all the needs that young people have?” I’m always going to tell you that we need more.

We often talk about equitable funding versus equal funding. When you give everyone the same amount of money, in per pupil allocation, you’re not really looking at whether certain students may need more, whether that’s for English language learners, students in poverty or students who are experiencing trauma. I’m always going to argue that our students need and deserve additional resources.

What’s the connection between the prevalence of physical violence and mental health in schools? What are the counselors’ roles in mediating these issues?

I cannot say that we’ve seen a direct correlation between students who have been identified (as needing mental-health services) … that refuse and (students who commit) code infractions (fighting, bullying, violence). What I can say is that when students who have untreated behavioral health issues do not receive support and intervention, they find other ways of dealing with those feelings. Some people internalize. Some people lash out.

If a student is bullying, or they were fighting, that would be written up. But the new code of conduct was just adopted by the board a couple of weeks ago. With the new code of conduct, we’ve been much more intentional about including, even on the first instance, (whether) the child is referred for a school social worker or school counselor.

There is a consequence for these actions, but you’re also indicating (they) need some support here.

When does DPSCD start to refer to other entities?

When we get to a point where a student is threatening harm to themselves or others. We do a threat assessment to determine if the threat is feasible: Does the student have the means to carry out the threat? And when a student is threatening harm to themselves, and it’s at a crisis point, it’s determined that they need immediate care. I would say when you get to a point of the threat assessment, proving that additional intervention is needed, that’s where it escalates to additional intervention and support beyond the school.

We actually have a confidential two-way communication system with Children’s Hospital that was developed in the last two years. We have the ability to refer students to the emergency department to let them know that this child is coming. Children’s Hospital has the ability to (tell) us confidentially that the child did come to the emergency room, and that they received treatment there. That did not exist before. We would have a threat assessment, and we would refer the child to additional support or the emergency department, but we never knew what happened unless the child or the parent would tell us.

How long do students have to wait, typically, to meet with counselors?

If a student needs services and their parent has given consent, we, to my knowledge, have not had a case where they could not receive service.

One of the barriers is that if a parent does not consent. Any child under the age 14 must have parental consent for small group counseling or individual counseling. If a parent refuses to sign the consent, we cannot render clinical services. If you’re 14 and up, you can give self-consent for a certain number of sessions. But after, you must have parental consent. I am aware of students who have been referred but do not have parental consent to commence services.

Due to the strain on the system overall — social workers, counselors, they’re in high demand. The school system has school counselor(s) and school social worker(s) also. So we’ve got multiple resources in play. So a student should not go without speaking to someone.

Where can DPSCD’s counseling services be improved, and how is the district working on this?

I think one of the biggest ways is really helping families, students and staff all understand the importance of behavioral health, and the importance of mental health services. One of our biggest barriers is that there’s still somewhat a stigma about getting behavioral health services. We continue to try to make sure that we’re communicating messages to families and students that just like you have to keep your physical body healthy, you need to keep your mental health in good shape also.

That’s not just when you had a traumatic experience, although that can heighten issues. In just living life, you have to know how to regulate your emotions, how to respond when things don’t go your way, and how to resolve conflict. The universal wellness screener is an important piece of our whole process, because we’re identifying (students) and referring them. That connection with the family after the referral happens is one of the places that we need to continue to improve on. That is a critical conversation, where you can convince the family that we want to help support your child.

I pride myself in being a good listener, but I am not a clinician. We have highly qualified clinicians who are being paid to help your child and so “let us help you” is the thing that I think we need to continue to figure out ways to communicate.

SaMya Overall is a reporter for Outlier Media. You can reach her at samya@outliermedia.org.

Tennessee legislature will avoid gun control in special session prompted by mass school shooting

2023-08-22T00:12:11+00:00

As Tennessee lawmakers and lobbyists returned to the state Capitol Monday to discuss guns and public safety, 12-year-old student Juliette Dominguez showed up too, in hopes that her perspective would make a difference.

Fresh from two days of classroom instruction on how to respond if an armed intruder breaks into her school, Juliette was frustrated that Tennessee is focusing on preparing school communities to defend themselves from people with guns — instead of taking action to restrict gun access from people at risk of hurting themselves or others.

“Why is this something that children should have to worry about?” asked Juliette, a seventh grader in Goodlettsville, north of Nashville.

Gov. Bill Lee called the special legislative session in response to a school shooting in Nashville in which three 9-year-old children and three adults were killed. The session is expected to last a week.

But any drive to tighten Tennessee’s gun laws has been squelched by a Republican supermajority in one of the nation’s most gun-friendly states, even as a recent poll of Tennessee voters showed significant bipartisan support for various gun regulations.

More than a hundred bills have been filed based on Lee’s official proclamation identifying 18 potential topics, from school safety to juvenile justice to mental health. But Lee’s proclamation never uses the word “gun,” and it mentions “firearms” only in relation to measures that would encourage safe storage of weapons, but with no new penalties allowed.

The House also passed new rules Monday in response to the body’s dramatic expulsion in April of two Democratic members for the way they protested the body’s failure to pursue significant gun reforms this spring. Under the changes, Speaker Cameron Sexton can suspend recognition of members for escalating amounts of time if he determines they are disrupting legislative business, speaking off topic, or impugning another member. The rules also limit the number of people allowed in the chamber’s galleries, as well as the nearby rotunda.

“The rules that are being put forward now are to limit freedom of speech,” said Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis, who was expelled and then reelected in a special election this month. “With these rules, you are silencing our constituency.”

Lee called lawmakers back after acknowledging that the March 27 attack on The Covenant School confounded many elements of Tennessee’s school safety policies, including a sweeping plan that Lee had proposed just weeks earlier to require all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, among other things.

Eventually, the legislature increased funding to further fortify both public and private schools but rejected the governor’s late proposal for a law allowing authorities to temporarily remove guns from people having a mental health emergency.

Gun control advocates, who held mass demonstrations after the tragedy and while lawmakers were in their regular session, returned to the Capitol as lawmakers prepared to start the special session, even as Nashville police recommended that people avoid the downtown area this week if possible.

At the invitation of a coalition of Christian groups, hundreds of people, including Juliette and her family, encircled the stone building in the morning to pray for passage of meaningful gun restrictions.

“I’m tired of people saying there’s nothing we can do, because we seem to be able to do things about everything else,” said Juliette’s mother, Jen. “We’re quick to yank books off of library shelves, or limit how students can dress. Why are guns impossible?”

Jen Dominguez stands outside of the state Capitol with her children Juliette, Alice, and Celia, after participating in a prayer circle for gun control on Aug. 21, 2023.

Meanwhile, a group of parents of surviving students at The Covenant School endorsed 10 bills that they said offer a start. They praised proposals to beef up school safety plans but said there’s an urgent need for new laws to keep guns out of the hands of people having a mental health crisis and for the state to provide more mental health care. They also criticized several bills that could allow teachers to be armed in school.

“As the spouse of an educator and the child of a retired educator, I am acutely aware, especially this time of year as we head back to school, of the heavy demands and lack of margins many of our teachers currently have,” said David Teague, the parent of two children at The Covenant School. “We should not add armed security guard to their list of extracurriculars.”

The Covenant School serves about 200 students in preschool to sixth grade. The six people killed there were students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9; and three school staff members: custodian Mike Hill and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, both 61, and Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of the school.

Authorities said the 28-year-old shooter was seeing a doctor for an “emotional disorder” and had legally obtained multiple weapons.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

‘I am here, I care:’ How this Colorado school social worker heads off mistrust

2023-08-16T23:29:52+00:00

Leah Williamson, a middle school social worker in the southern Colorado city of Pueblo, says some of her students have gone through more by age 14 than most adults do in a lifetime. They come from the city’s east side, where poverty and crime rates are high.

They don’t “come from white picket fences, unicorns and glitter, and do not want to be treated as [if] they do,” she said. “They want love and attention.”

But since many of her students have a hard time trusting people, Williamson, who works at Risley International Academy of Innovation, tries to meet them where they are and get to know them as individuals.

“Most are extremely proud to be ‘East-siders’ and need people to see them for who they are and where they come from,” she said.

Williamson, who was named 2023 Trailblazer of the Year by the Colorado School Social Work Association, talked to Chalkbeat about her own school struggles, the effects of the pandemic on students, and her advice for parents who want to help their children with mental health issues.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a school social worker?

I actually had no intention of being a school social worker or working with kids. While I was completing my master’s degree internship with the counseling agency State of Grace, they placed me in the Pueblo 60 district. I loved it and realized I was able to connect with the kids.

The district created a school social worker position and hired me to not only take on Risley but to show the need and establish what we can do. I knew then I had an important mission that would have a ripple effect and help every student and family in the district. Showing our worth ultimately led the district to hire nine more school social workers.

How did your own school experiences impact you and shape your approach to your job?

I was not passionate about school and did not see the value. I was (and still am) horrible at math. It was not something that came easily to me, and I lost confidence in myself. My perspective was If I didn’t do it, I would not fail at it.

This seems to be the case with a lot of kids. They do not believe in themselves. If I can be that one person that believes in them and gets them to at least try, they generally surprise themselves and realize they can do it. Then they get excited and want more of the feelings of pride and accomplishment. And yes, I do share my story of middle through high school — almost not graduating high school to graduating early, then earning a master’s degree.

As we emerge from the pandemic, what kinds of struggles do you see students facing? How do you help them?

The struggles are far deeper than being behind academically. Students have lost social and emotional skills, with communities like mine seeing extreme poverty, gang violence, and abuse. These kids need more than a teacher upset with them over a math assignment they didn’t complete. They need adults to understand and care why assignments aren’t complete.

I work hard to see and hear my students as well as be the connection between them and other adults in the building. I do not pretend students are someone they are not. They are all on the “rough side of town.” They also have goals, dreams, likes, and dislikes.

I work hard to remove the stigma of mental health l. I encourage students to seek help, whether from me or an outside resource without worrying about what others think or how it looks. I let them know I am here, I care, and seeking support is OK.

Do you have suggestions for parents whose children may be facing struggles with mental health?

Talk about it. Do not be ashamed if you, as a parent, have mental health struggles or if your child struggles. Be direct, open, and listen to what they say.

I encourage parents to get the resources they need, whether it is substance abuse support, mental health support, resources to help with finances, or parenting support. I use the “it takes a village” motto when it comes to raising kids and surviving this world.

Tell us about a time when you managed to connect with a challenging student or a student facing a difficult situation. How did you do it?

Last school year, I had a student who came from a significantly broken and abusive home. She was angry at everything and everyone. She did not trust anyone. It took time, but I kept showing up. When she would lash out and push me away, I came back — softer and with more compassion. I showed her I was not walking away or giving up on her.

She still comes to visit me. She now believes she can not only graduate high school but has plans for college. She tells me when she is faced with a decision, she hears my voice.

What’s the biggest misconception you’ve encountered about your role in schools?

The same misconception that all social workers generally face: We are here to destroy your family and take your kids. This is especially hard if you are working with a family involved with the courts or the Department of Human Services. Showing families that you are an ally is one of the biggest obstacles.

Sometimes helping staff understand exactly what you do and why can be challenging as well. Many think we are too soft and do not hold kids accountable when in reality, we do more than anyone. It just looks different.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

Last year I also serviced an elementary school. I received a referral for a student who was on the autism spectrum and was extremely selective in who he communicated with. I was warned about his mother and told she was hostile and difficult. After working with her, I came to realize that staying neutral was key. I did not go into it with a bad attitude or assuming the worst. Instead, I offered all the love, support, and resources I could and was able to meet her needs, the needs of the school, and do what was best for the kiddo.

What are you reading or listening to for enjoyment?

I am currently finishing “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Half of Indiana high schoolers feel hopeless. So why is mental health care controversial?

2023-08-09T11:00:00+00:00

This article was originally published by WFYI.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Wendy Dodds is pretty sure she was anxious in eighth grade. But the pandemic made her anxiety and depression a lot worse.

Suddenly, she had to join dance classes and 4-H camp by video from her bedroom. She started high school in Indianapolis remotely.

“I tried to, like, convince myself that these feelings are normal and everybody is, like, feeling these feelings right now,” Dodds said. “It’s fine. It’ll subside at some point.”

But her feelings didn’t subside. That winter, Dodds told her parents she couldn’t take it anymore. She felt suicidal.

Mental health needs are at a peak among U.S. children and teens. A 2021 national survey found that nearly half of Indiana high schoolers felt persistently sad or hopeless — the highest rate in two decades of surveys. The same survey found that three out of every 10 Indiana students said they had considered suicide.

Dodds found help at her high school, where she started to meet with a counselor to talk about her anxiety.

Wendy Dodds went to see a counselor at her school when she was feeling depressed and anxious.

“It brought me back into reality, basically, instead of keeping me locked into my own mind,” said Dodds, who graduated high school this year.

Yet despite the growing need, the kind of mental health support Dodds found at school is facing an onslaught of criticism from conservative parent activists. They say schools should focus on academic instruction. And they caution that mental health care and social and emotional learning may promote ideas that conflict with parents’ values.

“A small but loud and politically savvy group of — and it’s not just of parents, it’s really of political activists — are hijacking and spreading a lot of misinformation about mental health and social emotional learning in schools and really leveraging people’s fear,” said Sharon Hoover, co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health.

Hoover said district and state education officials are under attack. She worries outside pressure is pushing them to make decisions that will set back student mental health support “at a time where we know that young people are suffering more than ever.”

Student mental health in national spotlight

President Joe Biden has called for more mental health support in schools. National legislation aimed at preventing gun violence included $1 billion in funding over five years for schools to support student mental health.

By contrast, the controversial Florida-based group Moms for Liberty recently proclaimed mental health support has no place in public schools. The group is influential, with chapters in Indiana and most states. Five candidates running for the GOP presidential nomination, including former President Donald Trump, spoke at the national meeting.

Mental health support often goes hand-in-hand with social and emotional learning, an approach that aims to help students with skills such as managing their emotions and feeling empathy for others. Social and emotional learning is a target of right-wing politicians across the country.

In Indiana, Republican legislators passed a law this year that restricts districts’ ability to survey students about their mental and emotional well-being. And Indiana’s Attorney General Todd Rokita criticized social and emotional learning in the latest version of a document he calls the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.”

Rokita argued those programs “represent a fundamental shift in the role of teachers from educators to therapists and expand the reach of government into domains of the family.”

The Indiana Department of Education, meanwhile, quietly moved resources from a page about social, emotional and behavioral wellness off its public website — including the state’s Social Emotional Learning Toolkit. The toolkit and other materials are now posted on a portal for educators that requires users to login and enter an enrollment key.

Spokeswoman Christina Molinari said the education department overhauled the website and moved it to the state’s web host when Secretary of Education Katie Jenner took office in 2021. Molinari said the department uses other tools, such as the portal for educators, to provide resources.

“We had received feedback that finding information on the website could be challenging,” said Molinari, who added that the old website contained thousands of web pages, documents, and links.

“We sought to build a more user-friendly website while also aligning the site’s format to that of our executive branch partners’ websites and focusing on the department’s strategic priorities,” she added.

Education topics that are less polarized, such as literacy, have robust, publicly accessible pages on the current site.

Some advocates say the removal of social and emotional learning is a response to right wing attacks.

“The DOE website was full of these resources and lots of people had access to them,” said Sandy Washburn, a research scholar at Indiana University. “When the politicization of these issues started coming up, the department removed everything.”

Avon Community Schools uses social and emotional learning games to help students.

District nearly turns down mental health grant

The kind of mental health support Indiana schools offer is primarily up to local districts, where it has faced some scrutiny.

In suburban Indianapolis, the political controversy came to a head last winter after conservative candidates took control of the Hamilton Southeastern School Board.

The district won a $5.8 million federal grant to pay for counselors, social workers and psychologists. But some residents and conservative board members weren’t sure the schools should take the money.

At a February meeting, speaker Shannon Fields told the board she supports counseling and mental health care in schools. But, she said, it should not be embedded in classrooms.

“I urge the board to resist mission creep expanding the schools into areas beyond the core focus on education,” Fields said.

Conservative board members picked apart the grant application.

“I think a lot of people have reservations with what they’ve seen in the past as far as a school overstepping its boundaries,” said Ben Orr, who won a seat last year after campaigning on parental involvement and academic excellence.

“What kind of guardrails do we have where this thing keeps it close to counseling, therapy, mental health screenings for an academic standpoint as it relates directly to school?” Orr asked.

Most of the speakers who filled the room, however, supported mental health care. Lyndee Kennett, and others, were there to tell the board about why students need help.

Kennett’s daughter is a student in Hamilton Southeastern with anxiety. Last school year, Kennett asked the school for help, she told WFYI, and her daughter started meeting with a social worker.

“I think the school and parents are kind of in it together, because that’s where our children are most days,” said Kennett, who was surprised at the fight over the federal grant money.

“When I was told about what was happening — that the school board was thinking about turning down the money — that just broke my heart,” she said.

Hamilton Southeastern took the federal aid. The board put out a statement in “strong support” of the grant, and Orr posted a Facebook note about his support.

A month later, however, the Hamilton Southeastern board abruptly ended its contract for a student survey the district used to assess wellness. Board members had pressed the administration about who had access to survey responses from individual students. The same company — Panorama Education — was also mentioned when legislators passed a law to curtail student surveys this year.

How schools aim to help students

Many Indiana school systems have invested in mental health support in recent years, hiring more counselors and social workers as well as developing districtwide plans for social and emotional learning. Between 2017 and 2021, the number of school social workers in Indiana rose by over 20%, according to data from the Indiana Department of Education.

In part, those investments were driven by federal grants, such as the Project AWARE mental health initiative, and local philanthropic funding for counseling from the Lilly Endowment.

Avon Community Schools, another suburban Indianapolis district, got funding from both those sources. Avon students can get therapy at school through Cummins Behavioral Health Systems. And the district has social workers on staff who lead small groups and meet with children one-on-one.

Before students get those services, though, a parent or guardian needs to give consent, said Krista Fay, the district’s School Counseling and Mental Wellness Coordinator.

Staff talk to parents about what is going on with their children and the services the school offers. “Families and kids are always in the driver’s seat,” Fay said.

Avon educators met Tuesday, May 30, 2023, at Cedar Elementary School to prepare for the school year.

In practice, a lot of social emotional learning is uncontroversial. Like the calming technique “star breathing.” It has a simple rhythm. Students breath in and out slowly as they trace the shape of a star.

“The power is in the out breath,” Fay said. “That’s where that change in your heart rate and your blood pressure comes, is in that out breath.”

Fay’s heard from parents who are upset about the school’s wellness and mental support. She knows some of what they do is at the center of political attacks. But she thinks it’s essential for students to thrive.

“If you’re coming in and your anxiety is overwhelming you, if your chest is so tight that you can’t breathe, if your thoughts are racing, how are you going to be available to hear that instruction?” Fay asked. “If you are not regulated, how are you going to learn?”

Contact WFYI education reporter Dylan Peers McCoy at dmccoy@wfyi.org.

Five key issues facing Memphis-Shelby County Schools as the new year begins

2023-08-07T02:00:00+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools students return to class Monday for the 2023-24 school year.

This one could be less turbulent than recent years, but no less consequential, as the district confronts key decisions about its next leader, the future of its school buildings, its strategy for improving student academic performance and wellness, and its budget for the post-pandemic era.

Here’s a closer look at five key issues that the district will face this school year:

Search for a superintendent is on — again

MSCS is still seeking applicants for its superintendent job, nearly a year after Joris Ray resigned amid a scandal.

The first attempt to find a leader unraveled, exposing disagreements on the board, fueling public doubts about whether the body could execute a search successfully, and forcing a hard reset.

The board remains committed to the national search it promised Memphians last year. Interim Superintendent Toni Williams, who had once been a finalist for the permanent job, won’t be a candidate. She agreed to drop out of the search under the terms of a new contract she signed to continue as interim leader through another school year.

So far, Take 2 of the search has been consistent with the parameters and the that timeline board members set out in their discussions: The new job posting, which went up at the start of August, reflects the leadership qualities board members collectively decided on, and all applicants will be evaluated against the board’s policy on minimum qualifications.

If the second attempt goes according to plan, applications will close by November, and a new superintendent will be selected by February, with a start date of July 1, 2024. By that schedule, the new superintendent would have a chance to ease into the leadership role during a transition period with Williams, who by that point will have led the district for close to two years.

School building projects will keep students moving

District officials will introduce a new facilities plan this school year that will propose ways to address a backlog of costly maintenance issues. A mix of construction projects, closures, and consolidations will likely affect thousands of students, requiring that some move out of their school buildings and into others.

MSCS is working with More for Memphis, a consortium spearheaded by nonprofit Seeding Success, to develop the plans and establish funding sources.

The plan will describe 110 school investments over the next decade, and officials say they are seeking millions of dollars in private funds for the first five years of facility upgrades and academic improvements. In addition to schools, the district may also consolidate administrative offices, reviving efforts started years ago with the purchase of the old Bayer Building.

Some school communities are already preparing for changes, separate from the new districtwide plan. Under agreements between MSCS and neighboring districts to comply with a new state law, Germantown High School is due to be replaced by a new building in Cordova, mostly paid for through local tax increases. Germantown Elementary and Middle schools will also close in coming years, as will Lucy Elementary School in Millington.

Meanwhile, LaRose Elementary will continue to accommodate students from Cummings K-8, where falling ceiling tiles forced the building to close for repairs just weeks into the 2022-23 school year.

And in Frayser, students at Trezevant High and at MLK College Prep High, which is part of the state’s Achievement School District for low-performing schools, can expect a new high school building in the coming years. Hanley, a K-8 school that was also in the ASD, is returning to MSCS.

The district’s broader plan is likely to address other Memphis schools that are currently in the ASD or expected to exit in coming years.

Academic needs will get a closer look

MSCS will remain focused on improving academic performance for individual students, but changes are also happening at the school and district levels to improve accountability for academics.

While MSCS students are making progress in their recovery from learning losses during the pandemic, math scores still lag, especially for middle schoolers.

And in reading, scores on state standardized tests have rebounded, but proficiency rates for the district have historically been among the lowest in the state. The reading test scores are particularly consequential for third graders, who face the risk of being held back if they don’t successfully complete certain intervention programs.

Interim Superintendent Williams has supported a review of district academic departments and initiatives with a focus on literacy. The review would look at where the district is spending funds for academic programming and assess how effective those programs have been. That assessment would inform the development of an academic plan that board members would monitor each month for progress.

At the school level, the district has expanded its own turnaround program, called the Innovation Zone, or iZone, to include several more schools, including four schools that have returned from the ASD. Schools in the iZone have a longer school day to provide more instruction for students and help the schools perform better overall.

The iZone expansion comes as new accountability measures take effect in Tennessee. The Tennessee Department of Education is expected to begin assigning letter grades to public schools this fall, after years of delays.

District will have to adapt to end of some federal funding

MSCS bolstered its budget over the last several years with some $775 million in one-time federal funds to help schools deal with the pandemic and support their recovery efforts. The dollars come from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund and are commonly referred to as ESSER funds.

Districts have until September 2024 to spend their funds, so officials have to wrap up the spending this school year.

MSCS has already budgeted funds for academic recovery programs, salaries for educational assistants in early grades, and improvements to schools’ heating and air systems. Early rounds of funding were used to buy computers and tablets so students could learn from home online. (Actual spending in the district has been difficult for the public to track.)

As the federal funds run out, Memphis and other districts across the country will have to decide which programs they can sustain with other funding sources, and which ones they will cut.

But the adjustment will be less harsh for Tennessee school districts, thanks to the state’s new school funding formula, which came alongside a $1 billion increase in education spending. Memphis was projected to receive about $114 million more in recurring funds through the new formula, which takes effect this school year.

City’s crises challenge student health, academic success

MSCS has spent more on social emotional learning and support for students, including new wellness centers as some schools. Mental health employees will get the salary schedule they sought last school year.

Factors outside of the district, though, continue to create obstacles. Youth homelessness in MSCS, for instance, has climbed to its highest measured count in four years, to 2,880 students at the end of the last school year.

Support services for Memphis students and families outside of the classroom have grown in importance since the start of the pandemic.

How Memphis and Shelby County tackle persistent social issues such as violence, policing, justice, and poverty will be a critical factor for student wellness and academic success in the district. Candidates in October’s crowded mayoral election have offered many ideas, including some that mirror existing MSCS programs.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

PODCAST: When cell phones are locked up at school

2023-08-04T21:09:54+00:00

This originally aired on The Bell’s Miseducation podcast on June 12.

When I was in seventh grade, something changed in my school. The administration at the Bronx Academy of Letters was implementing a strange new policy called “Yondr.” Haven’t heard of it? Neither had I.

Yondr is a company that makes lockable pouches for smartphones to create “phone-free spaces for artists, educators, organizations, and individuals.” The idea is that it helps with student learning by removing distractions from the classroom.

“We had found that students having cell phones was interfering with student learning.” — Amy Schless, principal of Bronx Academy of Letters

As you might expect, students had some questions about the new policy, many of which I was wondering myself: Is the Yondr phone policy underestimating student maturity? How is the policy affecting student-teacher relationships?

To get some answers, I talk to teachers, my principal, students who have experience with Yondr and even representatives from the company. Listen to this episode to for an inside look at the impact of restrictive cell phone policies on schools like mine.

Zainab Kuta reported this story for The Bell’s Miseducation podcast as a junior at the Bronx Academy of Letters.

These NYC teens overcame school refusal and made it to graduation

2023-08-02T10:00:00+00:00

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Catherine had watched for years as her once high-achieving son’s relationship with school deteriorated.

Michael’s depression, anxiety, and ADHD made the transition to high school painful. Then the pandemic hit, and he spent his sophomore year at home in pajamas.

When schools fully reopened his junior year, Michael refused to return, and he was later hospitalized for attempting suicide. After that alarming episode, a psychiatrist gave Catherine pointed advice: drive your son to his Queens school every day, even just to see the building, or he may never go back.

“It scared me,” said Catherine.

Despite her son’s resistance, she made Michael get into their beat-up Hyundai Sonata and drive the 2.5 miles past the campus nearly every day for weeks. Eventually, he was able to step inside the school building and attend for longer stretches during summer school, with its less demanding schedule.

Then, remarkably, he returned full time for senior year.

Michael played chess with new friends. He went on the senior trip to a camp in Connecticut. He went to prom. While his attendance wasn’t perfect, he was a full-fledged member of the senior class, a development his mom credits to sticking with therapy and medications and eventually getting the accommodations he needed from his school.

In a moment that once felt next to impossible, Michael got his diploma last month and will head to community college in the fall. (Names in this story have been changed to middle names or pseudonyms to protect students’ privacy.)

Several families like Michael’s who overcame serious aversions to attending class — often referred to as school refusal — and made it to graduation told Chalkbeat they had to be determined and vigilant, navigating school mental health systems that are struggling to address worsening student needs since the pandemic without enough resources or updated guidance to meet this unprecedented moment.

Even before the pandemic, about 2 to 5% of children nationwide avoided school. Now, several social workers told Chalkbeat they are dealing with more extreme cases of school refusal than ever before, fueled in part by an alarming rise in suicidal ideation among city teens and contributing to a chronic absenteeism rate in New York City that hit 41% in the 2021-22 school year.

The consequences of missing so much school can be devastating. One longitudinal study estimated that a quarter of students who were chronically absent — defined as missing at least 10% of days — ultimately dropped out.

Meanwhile, the youth mental health system is bending under the pressure, with a shortage of hospital beds for youth in crisis and waitlists for therapists, especially for Medicaid patients, that are monthslong.

This means families rely on schools even more. But New York City’s school social workers and guidance counselors are often strained, with an average of one social worker per 456 students and one guidance counselor per 277 students, according to an analysis. National guidance recommends one school counselor and one social worker for every 250 students. For children with more extreme needs, the recommended ratio is one social worker to 50 students.

Balancing high caseloads and sometimes multiple schools make it hard to follow time-consuming best practices to treat school refusal, such as individualized transition plans with gradual exposure to school. And schools may miss early warning signs altogether.

Several social workers also told Chalkbeat that they do not have dedicated supervisors to regularly advise them on difficult cases, a common practice in clinical settings that could help prevent burnout, especially for newly minted staffers.

“I always go to a trusted colleague to run through a case during a time of crisis, just to bounce ideas off of,” said Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, a social worker at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan and adjunct professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. “If students who are newly out of their masters program, and do not have the training and background in how to properly assess a child for suicidal ideation or any high risk cases, how can we put full trust in this clinician?”

Myka, 17, returned to their Queens home for senior year after spending junior year at a residential therapeutic program in Utah.

Education Department officials confirmed that social workers have no direct supervisors, but said they have access to teams outside of their school in the superintendent and central offices for additional support. Central staffers host office hours with small groups and case conferencing sessions to discuss best practices and challenging cases, officials said, but they declined to provide how often these are held.

Officials also point out that every school has access to a mental health professional — though the fate of 500 social workers hired with federal relief dollars remains a question after that money dries up next year. Schools are focusing on breathing and mindfulness, and the health department plans to roll out teletherapy for high school students this year.

“We’re also working to improve attendance across our school system and ensure that every single student feels safe, seen, and welcomed every day in their school buildings and communities, and engaged in their classroom learning,” education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said in an email.

In more than a decade working in schools, Chock-Goldman said she’s never seen the level of student need that she has in the past two years, and she’s worried schools are unprepared. “Kids spend more waking hours at school than any other place,” she said. “We’re the ones doing the work.”

Schools lack training to work with intense needs, some say

Michael’s freshman year guidance counselor was “well-intentioned,” but had little training or experience with school refusal, said his mom, a social worker herself. He started to avoid school that first year of high school, months before the pandemic, and exhibited signs that went unnoticed in elementary school.

His family transferred him in the middle of freshman year to a smaller Queens high school with a strong advisory program. Soon after, classes went remote, and Michael’s mental health spiraled. During his junior year, after Michael spent about a week in the hospital, the school social worker tried to connect the family with a day treatment program. Waitlists were too long.

His family considered various out-of-school learning options, such as a hybrid online and in-person model called Fusion and therapeutic boarding school. They also considered Mount Sinai’s Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service, known as CARES, which is a therapy-based school serving teens with severe emotional challenges. Because that program is an alternative school in the city’s District 79, kids earn class credits.

But the number of applicants to CARES, which serves about 50 teens, is often nearly as big as the program itself, said Dr. Kelly Mule, a psychologist at CARES and assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine.

Michael didn’t want to attend any of these programs. He wanted to return to his Queens high school, but he didn’t know how.

By May of his junior year, as he took classes at home as part of the city’s program for students with medical conditions, Michael was able to walk inside the school building. He could sit with the social worker and work on Google classroom assignments, but he couldn’t make himself walk into the classrooms. He felt too awkward when people asked where he had been, Catherine said.

“Some of the teachers made comments, ‘I don’t even know this kid. Who is this kid?’” she recounted.

At CARES, for instance, teachers are trained on how to respond to kids after prolonged absences and follow their lead on workload, often in partnership with a child’s therapist, Mule said. While time-consuming and not foolproof, these strategies can shorten future absences.

But these best practices are often passed down by more experienced colleagues, she explained. That’s why in clinical settings, staffers with a licensed master of social work, have supervisors they meet with weekly to discuss cases — a resource missing for school social workers. To Mule’s surprise, she has met veteran school social workers who weren’t aware of city-funded programs for youth, such as Children’s Single Point of Access, a centralized system for finding mental health services.

“You can’t expect social workers to sustain their work with no supervision,” Mule said. “They need a seasoned supervisor who can connect them to resources that they have vetted and know work for a specific set of symptoms or needs.”

Mental health approaches can be uneven, even within schools

This past year at Manhattan’s High School for Environmental Studies, 17-year-old Myka was required to attend a guidance counselor’s lecture about suicide prevention and awareness. Myka, who was hospitalized for suicidal ideation in December 2020, the middle of sophomore year, thought making the lecture mandatory was “hilarious” and found the counselor’s delivery cringe-worthy.

Myka, 17, holds a fidget device called an infinity cube in their Queens backyard.

When schools went remote for the pandemic, Myka, who identifies as nonbinary, stopped attending classes online and barely left their room because “it didn’t make sense in my brain to do school at home,” they said. Instead of going back to their Queens high school, they spent several months at a wilderness program in Georgia, and then completed junior year in a residential therapeutic program in Utah.

But come senior year, they felt ready to return to New York City. Though they still suffered from social anxiety, depression, and ADHD symptoms, they had more coping skills and a stronger sense of self-advocacy through therapy and self work. That’s why the counselor’s lecture came as a shock.

“She said that telling someone ‘You’re being selfish’ when they tell you they’ve thought of hurting or seriously harming themselves was an okay way to respond,” Myka said. “It just wasn’t the message that should have been sent, and was a bit of a red flag in my book.”

The school social worker, on the other hand, was a source of comfort, helping figure out which accommodations on their special education plan were needed — and which weren’t. (The school’s principal declined to comment, directing questions to the Education Department.)

Myka didn’t, for instance, need classes with two teachers, a requirement that would have prevented them from taking most of their courses, including their favorite course: AP psychology.

Other accommodations were lifesavers. Myka took breaks during class to walk around or go to the social worker’s office. They were also allowed fidget toys in class, extensions on some assignments, extra time on tests, and specific instructions breaking down big projects into more manageable tasks. And their social worker brokered a meeting with Myka’s English teacher to allow headphones to cancel out class noise, as long as no music was playing.

“I do feel as though I am able to advocate for myself and feel heard, which is something I have received a lot of positive feedback about,” Myka said.

Myka will soon head to a dorm four hours away at SUNY Oneonta, where they plan to study psychology in hopes of becoming a therapist or social worker — inspired by their own experience in mental health treatment centers.

Krystal Folk, 31, a middle school social worker, poses for a portrait in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn.

Myka’s success story illustrates the difference a great school professional can make, what KIPP charter school social worker Krystal Folk tries to accomplish with her Bronx students.

As a young Black girl growing up in Brooklyn, Folk herself felt like it wasn’t culturally acceptable to get therapy, a mindset she’s trying to change through her own work.

“In our community it’s taken a long time to accept that we need mental health services,” she said. That’s why she considers it extra important that she disclose to her students her own depression and anxiety.

“They say, ‘No Ms. Folk, you’re fine.’ I tell them, ‘I’m clinically diagnosed,’” she said. “I think normalizing that we have feelings and anxieties is important. As corny and cheesy as it sounds, I try to be the person I wish I had at their age.”

Services beyond schools are still needed

For some students, school doesn’t offer the services they need. But after getting help elsewhere, they are driven to return by a passion for learning.

That was the case with Emma, whose mother, Beth, turned to a private therapist for her daughter’s ADHD, extreme anxiety, and suicidal ideation that led to school refusal. Emma attended the famed LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where there is one social worker for about 900 students, and one counselor for every 200 kids, according to an analysis. The school’s on-site mental health clinic closed during the pandemic, families said. (The school’s acting principal did not respond for comment.)

Beth credits her daughter’s return to school to dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, which helps patients learn to confront and change unhealthy behaviors. Emma first had access to the “life changing” therapy in her after-care program following hospitalization when she was a sophomore.

But another factor in her recovery was her drive to succeed at LaGuardia and her love of the school’s drama classes, which drew her to school even as dark times returned junior year, when fights with friends on social media followed her into the classroom.

“She considered pulling out of school,” Beth said. “But she didn’t want to give up on LaGuardia. She just put one foot in front of the other.” Being in the drama program remained a big pull: “To be able to spend half of your day working on your art, whatever your art is, the joy of that never diminished,” her mom said.

Emma is now planning to attend college in upstate New York and hopes to become a director or art designer, said Beth.

Echoing other parents of students who suffered from school refusal, Beth said, “We are cautiously optimistic.”

If you or someone you know is considering self-harm, please dial 988 for the National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Black students find allies in quest for better mental health: each other

2023-07-27T11:30:00+00:00

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When a friend asked Yanie to speak at a forum on youth mental health last summer, she politely declined.

The 17-year-old didn’t doubt the urgency of the issue, especially for her peer group. More than half of Black teen girls reported feeling sad or hopeless in 2021, and nearly 1 in 5 attempted suicide — more than most other racial groups. Among Black boys and girls, the suicide rate rose every year from 2003 to 2017.

The sticking point for Yanie, whose last name Chalkbeat is withholding to protect her privacy, was discussing the issue publicly. Not only is there still stigma attached to mental illness, but also it’s often seen as a white-people problem. As Yanie saw it, Black youth are expected to “suck it up” or “fight their way out of trauma” — not talk about their problems.

Experts say many Black teenagers like Yanie are expected to simply overcome or fight through their trauma, instead of being given the space to talk about them in a healthy and safe environment.

But efforts are underway to promote a different message: that it’s healthy and liberating for Black young people to open up about their struggles.

In East Orange, New Jersey, the predominantly Black city where Yanie lives, city officials made mental health the focus of a summer youth-employment program, which resulted in the student-led forum. The school district has embraced social-emotional learning to help students explore their inner lives. And last school year it piloted a peer-mentoring program where high schoolers talked to middle school students about understanding their anger and finding joy.

Such efforts are partly a pragmatic response to mental health staff shortages hobbling high-needs school districts like East Orange, where 83% of students are Black and just over half come from low-income households. But officials also want to establish new norms so that Black students, who are about half as likely as their white peers to receive mental health care, feel empowered to speak up and seek help.

“In our community, it’s a stigma that comes with that,” said Jamila Davis, an activist and educator based at Seton Hall University who helps facilitate the youth mental health programs in East Orange. “But if you see everybody around you is feeling similar things, you feel like you’re not alone and it’s OK.”

Eventually, the friend asked again, and Yanie reluctantly agreed to join an on-stage discussion at the mental health forum last August.

In an auditorium filled mostly with Black teens, her peers spoke about the psychic strain of watching videos of police brutalizing Black people, of losing loved ones to gun violence, of being mocked by classmates or brushed off by parents after sharing their struggles. Some recalled cutting themselves, binge eating, and staying in psychiatric hospitals.

One young woman explained how, for Black and Brown students, racism compounds the pain of adolescence.

“If people see that they’re not accepted in society,” she said, “how can you accept yourself?”

Yanie listened silently, debating whether to speak.

Black youth face unique challenges

Young people’s ailing mental health is “the defining public health crisis of our time,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently declared. But too often the crisis’ causes and solutions are treated as universal, with race either ignored or white children’s experiences presented as the norm, said Amanda Calhoun, a psychiatry resident at Yale University.

“You’re reading about this youth mental health crisis,” she said, “and racism isn’t mentioned, the particular experiences of Black children aren’t mentioned.”

Black youth endure unique hardships in addition to the larger forces, such as social media and the pandemic, eroding young people’s mental health. They are likely to face direct discrimination as well as “vicarious racism,” which stems from seeing other Black people subjected to racial abuse. And institutional racism, such as housing discrimination and neighborhood disinvestment, puts Black youth at greater risk of poverty and violence.

Those overlapping stressors chip away at Black children’s mental health, yet many don’t receive the mental health support they need. The cost of care and social stigma can be barriers to treatment, along with mistrust of the mental health care system, in which the vast majority of providers are white and often untrained in addressing racism’s steep toll.

Given that racism is “such a huge part of Black Americans’ experience,” Calhoun said, “Why would you remain in therapy if the person has no training in racism?”

Initially, Yanie did not want to talk to her peers about the trauma in her life. But eventually, at a youth forum, she discussed how she often felt sadness and rage and often “did not want to see myself on this earth.”

Many educators also are ill-equipped to respond to mental health challenges. When Black students display common symptoms of adolescent anxiety and depression, which can include anger and hostility, they’re often perceived as “bad kids” and punished instead of supported, Calhoun said.

“These are struggling kids,” she said. “They don’t need discipline, they need help.”

One way to help is to encourage students to explore the painful emotions that can trigger unwelcome behaviors, experts say. Fellow students can support that process just by listening.

“It’s like you want somebody to hear you,” Yanie said, “to know that you’re not alone.”

A student finds power in sharing her story

Hearing her peers speak candidly about their mental health struggles at the forum inspired Yanie to defy her own reticence and speak.

“Good morning, guys,” she said into a microphone. “My name is Yanie, and this is a trauma story that I have never talked to anyone about.”

She was often unhappy as a child, she said, and by age nine was engaging in self-harm and considering suicide.

“It was very hard for me,” she told the audience, “to the point where I did not want to see myself on this earth.”

She explained how she used to alternate between sadness and rage, which she attributed to being a “hothead.” No one told her that depression often manifests as anger.

“If you are struggling with something on the inside, that anger, that being a ‘hothead,’ gives you an opportunity to express it and call attention to it,” said Michael A. Lindsey, dean of New York University’s social work program.

Yanie, second from right, navigated the isolation and frustration she felt during the pandemic with the help of friends. Eventually, she participated in a program where she met Jamila Davis, an instructor with the program who grew to understand how trauma had shaped Yanie’s approach to life.

In sixth grade, Yanie’s anger boiled over. She fought another student and was sent to an alternative school, Fresh Start Academy, for students with academic and behavioral challenges. She entered a traditional high school in ninth grade, but got into another altercation and was sent back to Fresh Start in early 2020.

Pandemic shutdowns began soon after. Yanie’s campus remained closed for more than a year, well after more affluent schools reopened. While her mother continued going to work at a nursing home, Yanie looked after her two younger brothers.

School had been her escape from home; now she was trapped there. She descended into a deep depression, barely eating or leaving her room. Yanie’s two best friends helped pull her through, calling constantly to check in and cheer her up.

“Without them,” she said, “I would be nothing.”

Yanie also found some relief from the boredom and isolation through a virtual summer and after-school program. Run by the city of East Orange, in partnership with the school district and Seton Hall University, it paid students stipends to learn life skills: how to run a small business, advocate for social causes, meditate, and process their emotions.

One of the instructors was Jamila Davis. She was previously incarcerated, and drew on the experience to teach about healing from trauma. When she first met Yanie, she sensed that her toughness was a survival strategy born of a painful past. Now she watched with awe as Yanie removed that emotional armor during the mental health forum, sharing how hopeless and resentful she once felt.

Jamila Davis, an educator at Seton Hall University, helps facilitate a peer-mentoring program that the East Orange, New Jersey school district piloted last year to help students improve their mental health and deal with trauma.

“This is real,” Davis told the audience after Yanie spoke. “This is something that folks in Black and Brown communities go through on a regular basis.”

She asked if any of the students in the audience could relate to Yanie’s experience, and a sea of hands shot up. In that moment Yanie understood the power of sharing her story with peers — the validation, connection, and healing it can beget.

“I have never felt the way that I did when I was on that stage,” she said a few days later. “It filled me with so much energy and confidence.”

Students help one another improve their mental health

A few months after the forum, the school district piloted a peer-mentoring program.

The idea for it sprang from high schoolers in Davis’ life-skills class who said they wanted to pass on what they had learned. So Davis and Juan Rios, a Seton Hall social work professor, developed a course that trained students how to talk to their peers about mental health.

East Orange School District Superintendent AbdulSaleem Hasan and Kelly Williams, director of student support services, made the mental health peer-coaching course available to high schoolers. Later, after school social worker Lita King-Morton suggested having the peer coaches mentor her students, the district ran with the idea: A small group of high schoolers from Fresh Start Academy was recruited to mentor middle school students at Sheila Y. Oliver Academy who had fallen off track.

Yanie was selected as one of seven mentors. After a chaotic start to high school, she had found her footing and by senior year was thriving — she led the student council, played volleyball and softball, and was headed to college.

The officials hoped the younger students would be inspired by Yanie and the other mentors, who in turn would feel motivated to keep working on themselves.

“Becoming a better person and then teaching that, it makes you accountable,” said Davis, whom the district tapped to lead the program. “You can’t tell somebody to do something that you’re not doing.”

The program kicked off on a frigid January morning at the Oliver school library. A few seventh- and eighth-graders huddled together at a back table while the Fresh Start students spread out up front.

Davis told the group how her personal transformation began when she confronted the trauma that had led her to prison. She challenged the students to undertake their own self-discovery.

Next, the mentors explained how rage and frequent fights had led them to Fresh Start. Davis then pushed the group to consider the source of their anger, asking who had experienced trauma. Every hand shot up.

A ninth grader said he started acting out after his grandmother died. “I was angry all the time,” he said. “I used to fight a lot, and I used to curse people out a lot.”

“That’s why I tell people never judge a book by its cover,” Davis told the students. “Somebody may judge you, they may put a label on you, but they don’t know that you’re hurting inside.”

Eventually the high schoolers paired up with mentees. Yanie found an eighth grader who was sitting alone. The girl had a surly demeanor, but that didn’t deter Yanie, who was reminded of how she once hid her own hurt behind a hostile exterior. “She’s literally a mini-me,” Yanie thought.

Yanie began looking forward to Mondays, when a yellow school bus shuttled the high schoolers to Oliver Academy. She found that her past struggles helped her understand and advise her mentee, whose own quick temper sometimes got her into trouble.

When the younger girl began bickering with a classmate during one session, Yanie stepped in. “Let’s practice kindness,” she said gently.

Another day, Yanie shared ways she finds joy — listening to hip hop and soul music, reading scary books. Then she asked what makes her mentee happy.

“Not being here,” the girl said.

“Do you hate school?” Yanie asked.

“I like school, but I don’t like the people in school,” the girl replied.

Yanie kept drawing her out until the girl revealed that her mother had died some time ago. As with Yanie, her anger drew from a deep well of pain.

In the past school year, Yanie served as a mentor to an eighth grade student with a quick temper who disliked people in her school. Over time, through various activities like painting, Yanie helped the mentee discuss her mental health and think about how she could change her behavior.

With their mentors’ encouragement, the middle schoolers began opening up about their mental health and rethinking old patterns of behavior.

One morning in February, after a freshman boy kept interrupting Yanie’s conversation with her mentee, the girl snapped at him. “Can you shut up so she can speak!”

But then she looked at Yanie and tried again. “I mean, excuse me,” she said to the boy, considering each word. “Can you please be quiet?” Yanie smiled and gave her a high five.

The mentoring ended in April, but the district plans to continue the program this school year with a new crop of students. One of the program’s objectives had been to bolster the mentors’ sense of purpose and self-worth, and Yanie had felt that change in herself. She imagined visiting her childhood self, who had seen only darkness on the horizon, to show her the person she’d become.

“Nine-year-old me would be looking at me right now,” Yanie said, “and I could really say she’d be proud of me.”

At the final mentoring session, the students painted portraits of their partners along with words describing them. Yanie’s mentee almost never spoke to the full group, but that day she stood at the front of the school library next to Yanie and read the words she’d painted for her mentor: kind, outgoing, smart, brave.

“And what does she mean to you?” Davis asked.

The girl reached out and put her hand on Yanie’s shoulder. “A lot,” she said.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or visit 988lifeline.org to find more resources.

How these Manhattan educators are trying to reduce the stigma around summer school

2023-07-24T22:29:38+00:00

Manhattan high school Principal Jeffrey Chetirko recently asked a group of his summer school students to pose for a photo for social media. But they didn’t want anyone to know they were in summer school.

“It kind of broke my heart,” said Chetirko, the principal of the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School on Governors Island, which hosts an annual summer school program for its own students and those from three other small Manhattan high schools.

Stigma surrounding summer school is nothing new. For many students, ending up there can feel like a personal failure, and the name still conjures the image of dejected kids plodding through dull packets of makeup work. For younger kids, the city has poured considerable resources into retooling traditional summer school by launching the heralded Summer Rising program, which combines academic recovery with recreational activities.

For teenagers, the city has focused its efforts on expanding summer employment options, but hasn’t made big changes to its academic summer school offerings.

Summer classes can serve a critical purpose for teens. They can be a fresh start for those who disengaged during the school year and a lifeline for kids at risk of dropping out — missions that have taken on increased urgency as rates of chronic absenteeism and mental health challenges continue to soar among teens.

That’s why educators at the Harbor School are working hard to turn summer school into something students can feel proud of and even look forward to.

Instead of viewing summer school as a source of shame and failure, Chetirko tries to get his students to see it as a mark of resilience — a sign they’re not letting the often formidable challenges that bogged down their school years throw them off track for good.

“I just wish that we lived in a society where we would celebrate [that],” he said.

In some cases, the format of summer school can even offer advantages over the school year in luring back struggling students, educators say.

Scheduling is more flexible, so students can attend school part of the day and still have time to work paying jobs or take care of younger siblings during their off hours.

The change of scenery — not every school offers summer classes, so many students wind up in new buildings — can also be helpful for kids who had negative experiences during the school year.

And the academic work is often more targeted: Students are taking a smaller number of classes at once, and are often in rooms with far lower student-to-teacher ratios.

“It’s like another chance, and it’s not as hard [as the school year],” said 17-year-old Gia Johannesen, a student at Manhattan Early College School for Advertising, who’s taking two classes this summer at the Harbor School. “You just come here, take the classes you need, and there’s no pressure of extreme testing or anything like that.”

Summer plays a central role in COVID recovery efforts

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, city education officials have turned to summer programming as a central piece of efforts to help young people recover academically.

In 2020, former Mayor Bill de Blasio banked on online summer school to help scores of students who’d fallen behind that spring during school closures. But the program quickly spiraled into disappointment for many teenagers, who complained about dense, difficult coursework, and unfamiliar and unavailable teachers.

In fact, high school summer school enrollment fell from over 95,000 in 2019 to just 66,000 on the last day of the program in 2020, according to an education department spokesperson, who acknowledged that methods for tracking enrollment were less reliable for 2020, when students were fully online. Enrollment has steadily bounced back since then, climbing to nearly 92,000 in 2022. Officials didn’t provide enrollment numbers for this summer.

It’s largely up to the high schools hosting academic summer school to design their own programs. Schools have the option to conduct summer courses fully or partly online, though it’s not clear how many schools are currently exercising that option. At the Harbor School, summer school instructors use remote learning only to offer extra practice, not for direct instruction, Chetirko said.

Chetirko says the curricular flexibility has worked to his advantage.

Since the Harbor School hosts summer classes for three other small Manhattan high schools, they can pool resources, while keeping the program small enough that students see familiar faces. If disciplinary issues crop up, designated staffers from the schools of the students involved will step in.

Students have to complete 45 hours of coursework, but teachers have wide latitude to plan their curriculum.

History teacher Frank Schwall said that having fewer students and fewer competing demands from other courses means he can spend more time on basics like making sure all students know how to log into their education department email addresses.

“I don’t have 30 other kids… you definitely have a lot more time to work with the kids, and there’s not as much pressure,” he said.

Schwall also takes advantage of the Harbor School’s unique location on Governors Island, launching a unit on the Statue of Liberty, which is visible from his classroom window, and asking students to rewrite Emma Lazarus’s iconic poem in their own words.

For Johannesen, the high school junior, the slower pace has been a welcome change.

During the school year, it often felt like she was trying to “prove to the state that I’m doing good,” she said. But in summer school, “it’s just proving to myself that I can actually pass algebra.”

Summer school offers a much-needed second chance

Last school year, Johannesen, like an increasing number of teens across the city and country, began feeling overwhelmed by anxiety and depression.

“It was just really, really difficult to just get out of bed and go to class,” she said. By the time Johannesen met with a therapist at a clinic in her school and began connecting the dots between her mental health and school attendance and seeking treatment, she’d already missed too much class to pass several of her courses.

Prince Allen, 16, is attending summer school while completing an internship through the Summer Youth Employment Program.

Stories like Johannesen’s have become more common in the wake of the pandemic. In the 2017-2018 school year, 31% of New York City high school juniors ended the school year marked “chronically absent,” or having missed more than 10% of the school year. By 2021-2022, the most recent year for which data was available, 43% of high school juniors ended the year chronically absent, according to education department data.

Prince Allen, 16, conceded that he spent more time than he should have “goofing off” during the school year. Allen, a rising junior at The Urban Assembly Maker Academy, said he’s struggled to readjust to being back in school after extended stretches of virtual learning during the pandemic.

“I feel like that’s the reason I’m not so much on task,” he said. “It’s just you felt separated and I felt like we learned nothing. You just feel like you don’t want to be in that space.”

Coming to summer school has allowed him to make up credit without sacrificing other summer plans. He still works every day from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. helping run a basketball tournament through the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program.

Chetirko acknowledges that many of the advantages of summer school are difficult to transfer over into the school year: scheduling doesn’t come with the same flexibility and the low teacher-to-student ratios are impossible to maintain. Some of the kids who flourished during summer school will likely struggle again during the school year and return to summer school next year. But Chetirko doesn’t see that as a failure, or a waste of time.

While some students are embarrassed to be repeat summer school attendees, Chetirko sees it differently. “If you weren’t successful in that first summer, you may not have been here” for a second summer, he reasons. “You may have already dropped out.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

PODCAST: Wake up call on school start times

2023-07-10T21:05:04+00:00

This originally aired on The Bell’s Miseducation podcast on June 5.

My classmates are not happy with my school’s 8:20 a.m. start time, and honestly, neither am I. I’ve missed that first bell so many times. I had 12 tardies and 4 detentions in the past quarter alone, just from being late. And I’m not just late, I’m tired. When I get home, I’m physically exhausted, my bones hurt, and I just want to go to bed straight away.

But as a junior, each month is very important. College applications, SATs, and the course work keeps getting harder. I just have too many responsibilities: homework, the internships I need for college applications, and the side jobs to support my family.

School start times are a policy choice.

Who’s calling the shots when it comes to school start times? Is student health and well-being even on the agenda? To get some answers, I chatted with sleep experts, fellow students and even the head of my school.

Join me as I navigate through the maze of early mornings, shedding light on the detrimental impact of sleep deprivation on our lives. Will we ever see efforts to start school later? What needs to be done? Trust me, this is one podcast episode you don’t want to hit the snooze button on.

Jose Santana reported this story for The Bell’s Miseducation podcast as a high school junior. He lives in the Bronx.

More school-based health centers are on the way in the Detroit school district

2023-07-05T11:00:00+00:00

The Detroit school district is set to launch new school-based health centers in the next three years to provide students and families medical resources and services they need to attend school regularly.

District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti shared details about the “health hubs” during a recent virtual public meeting on mental health and public safety.

“We want to try to address as many of the challenges that get in the way of students attending school every day, and just generally better support our parents who are facing extreme levels of poverty,” Vitti said at the June 21 meeting.

An intake person at each health hub will field questions and direct patients to dental, medical, and mental health services.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will receive $2.76 million from the Ballmer Group to help launch 12 health hubs in high schools. The philanthropic corporation was established by former Microsoft CEO, current NBA team owner, and metro Detroit native Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie.

Vitti has said a dedicated hub in school buildings would help address chronic absenteeism — when students miss 10% or more of the school year. In the 2021-22 school year, Detroit’s chronic absenteeism rate was 79%.

The health hubs will differ from the school-based health centers that are already in place at 16 DPSCD schools, according to Vitti. In addition to providing physical and behavioral health services, health hubs also will provide dental services, vision and hearing screenings, and other health-related services.

They will be open to students at that school, family and community members, and K-12 students from surrounding schools.

Soon the health hubs also will include “parent resource centers” that provide legal services, eviction help, energy bill assistance, and access to winter coats, toiletries, and transportation to families in need, Vitti said.

At a school board committee meeting in January, Vitti cited health hubs as “our greatest need outside of the [school] budget, and the best use of philanthropic dollars.”

Ballmer’s charity previously has given to Michigan’s largest school district. In 2019, it donated $5.9 million to DPSCD to help launch its student data portal.

School health clinics envisioned as ‘hub of the community’

School-based health centers have been in Michigan since the 1980s, but the outbreak of COVID and increasing concerns around student mental health have increased their relevance across the state.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services funds over 230 school-based or school-linked health care programs. In the $21.5 billion K-12 budget for the fiscal year 2024, Michigan lawmakers allocated $33 million for school-based health centers, as well as an extra $45 million for facility upgrades of current centers.

But there has been pushback in some Michigan communities. The Grosse Pointe Public School System board in January tabled plans to create a school based health center, citing concern over potential legal and financial problems tied to the project. And a proposal to place a health clinic inside Oxford High School was canceled when a health care provider learned that a majority of community members did not support the proposal, noting a lack of trust with school officials and concerns about the cost of funding a clinic.

Typically, school-based health centers involve an agreement between local health care providers, such as a hospital system, a school district, and the state. All three parties share the costs.

Ascension, Henry Ford Health, and Institute for Population Health will be among the local health care providers running the health hubs, Vitti said. Those organizations will completely staff the physical and behavioral health services provided at each location.

Providing health care at neighborhood schools could be an invaluable resource, some Detroiters said.

Franklin Hugle, a junior at Cody High School, said he believes health hubs could be more convenient for students required to take physicals to participate in sports. Under the district’s plan, Cody would become a health hub for families and students in the northwestern part of the city.

Parent Shante Tyus, whose kids attend Cody, said she thinks a health hub would be helpful for children suffering from minor illnesses or those in need of early screenings for major diseases. As a teenager, Tyus’s older sister discovered she had Crohn’s disease, which caused her to miss multiple days of school. Early testing may help families and school officials in determining how to accommodate students with chronic health conditions.

Cody “is the hub of the community,” Principal Jason Solomon said. The school conducted eye exams earlier this year and provided glasses to about 125 students. Expanding those opportunities for medical care, Solomon said, would give kids and their families more reasons to come to school.

The first five health clinics are set to launch in the next school year, including the School at Marygrove, which will operate a health hub through the school’s P-20 partnership. The remaining seven schools are targeted for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.

In selecting the 12 schools, Vitti said, the district ensured that every student would be within 3 miles of a hub.

The 12 health hub are proposed for:

Central High School/Durfee Elementary-Middle School
East English Village Preparatory Academy at Finney
Southeastern High School
Western International High School/Maybury Elementary School
The School At Marygrove*
Cody High School
Denby High School
Henry Ford High School
Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School
Mumford High School
Northwestern High School
Osborn High School
Pershing High School

* Marygrove will run its health hub in partnership with an outside organization and is not included in the 12-school total.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s budget deal restores some education programs

2023-06-30T19:16:58+00:00

This story has been updated to reflect new information.

A tentative New York City budget agreement announced Thursday restores funding to a handful of initiatives that Mayor Eric Adams initially nixed, including one focused on student mental health and another that provides child care subsidies to undocumented families.

The final agreement, which is being voted on Friday, holds the education department’s budget roughly steady at $31.5 billion. That’s a significant shift from the mayor’s April budget proposal, which called for a $30.6 billion budget for the city’s schools, nearly a $1 billion cut.

Officials said the final budget reflects several sources of funding that were not accounted for in the mayor’s April proposal, including $416 million in additional money from the state and $246 million in federal stimulus money that was initially set to be spent in a subsequent year. The budget deal also added $275 million for holding initial school budgets steady even if their enrollment drops and to pay for a slew of other “new needs.”

City officials did not immediately provide a full explanation of what the funding shifts will cover and official budget documents were not yet available.

Still, officials touted a number of programs that were spared from the chopping block. After an unusually chilly “handshake” agreement Thursday, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams expressed frustration that negotiations centered on saving various initiatives.

“The council’s focus this year was to restore cuts to essential services,” she said, calling the mayor’s approach counterproductive and the result bittersweet.

The mayor downplayed the tension, saying negotiations are often contentious and the resulting budget is a “win for working-class New Yorkers.” The city’s overall spending has grown in recent years, with the latest agreement reaching about $107 billion.

Negotiators agreed to maintain funding to a few education-related programs, including one that connects students to mental health support and another that subsidizes child care for undocumented families. City officials credited higher-than-expected revenue, but cautioned that they believe tax growth may slow in the coming years.

The City Council must pass the budget by Saturday, the first day of the new fiscal year.

Here’s what to know:

Still unclear how individual school budgets will be affected

Although the education department’s overall budget is dipping, city officials pledged to keep individual school budgets steady — at least at first. Typically, funding depends on campus enrollment, which has been declining systemwide. But in recent years city officials have plugged school budget holes with federal funding.

Still, some schools’ budgets may shrink or grow, as the city takes back or adds money to campuses in the middle of the school year if their actual enrollment differs from projections. City officials have not made midyear cuts since the onset of the pandemic but have declined to say what they will do in the upcoming school year.

In response to a question Thursday, Mayor Adams said there is “no desire” to surprise school communities with midyear cuts but added, “there’s no guarantees in life.”

That uncertainty may lead some school leaders to tighten their belts if they anticipate anemic enrollment. Overall, the city is projecting a relatively small enrollment drop of 0.6%, suggesting deep cuts are unlikely on most campuses.

Funding restored to child care for undocumented families

The budget will include $16 million for Promise NYC, which covers up to $700 a week in child care for hundreds of low-income undocumented immigrant families. Adams had proposed cutting Promise NYC despite touting it in December when it launched.

The program used $10 million in six months to fully cover child care for about 600 children. Hundreds of more families are on waitlists, according to organizations running the program. Some newly arrived mothers told Chalkbeat that Promise NYC has allowed them to work and pursue education.

The $16 million included in the budget deal falls $4 million short of what immigration advocates and elected officials had sought. But it’s expected to continue covering the 600 children currently enrolled, city officials said.

Mental health support program saved at last moment

The budget includes $5 million for partnerships between schools and mental health clinics, creating a streamlined process for referring students to counseling. The money was initially left out of the mayor’s budget proposal.

The program, known as the Mental Health Continuum, includes just 50 schools. But amid growing concern about a slide in student mental health, advocates had pressed to save it and pointed out that the mayor’s own mental health plan highlighted the initiative.

The Mental Health Continuum is also meant to reduce 911 calls from school staff by training them to address students experiencing emotional crises. Those calls disproportionately affect Black students, and can result in handcuffing or unwarranted trips to the emergency room for psychiatric evaluation.

City to pilot extended hours for pre-kindergarten

The budget will include $15 million to change 1,800 to 1,900 seats for 3-year-olds so that they offer extended hours.

Many working parents need child care beyond 3 p.m. A survey by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, found one-third of more than 1,000 respondents said they were looking for child care from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. However, there were 11,000 unfilled pre-K seats that had longer hours year-round, education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer told Chalkbeat in May.

The pilot program will also extend beyond the school year, according to Speaker Adams’ office.

Caregivers “need preschool programs that align with their work days,” Mayor Adams said.

No plans to expand pre-K for 3-year-olds

The final budget reflects the mayor’s decision to halt a two-year $568 million expansion of preschool seats for 3-year-olds, instead opting to move seats to places with more demand, city officials confirmed.

Education officials have pointed to vacant seats: nearly 23,500 3-K seats are so far unfilled for next school year, according to department figures. The mayor’s decision has drawn backlash from City Council members and advocates, who say the city is not effectively recruiting families or funding early childhood education programs.

Questions remain about the mayor’s savings plan

As broad reductions to city agencies, the mayor required the education department to find hundreds of millions in cuts. It found $305 million, one of the largest savings, by recalculating spending on fringe benefits, such as health insurance for teachers. City officials have said those cuts would not reduce benefits to educators but reflected lower-than-expected growth in those costs.

But advocates worry that the city had already been using those savings to pay for other things, such as transportation, special education services, and charter school costs.

“We are concerned about where the DOE will find funding to pay for these expenses in the coming year and the impact on other programs and services that students need,” Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, wrote in an email.

City officials did not say whether other programs will face cuts.

Looking ahead: Concerns loom as federal dollars dry up

Future budget cycles are likely to be even more contentious, as federal relief funding dries up and city officials have to make difficult decisions about whether and how to continue programs that depend on those dollars.

Perhaps the most contentious decision will be whether to slash school budgets on campuses that have seen enrollment plunge but have been kept steady by temporary relief money. Mayor Adams had previously argued that school budgets need to be incrementally reduced to be brought in line with their current enrollment, but after instituting one round of cuts he faced intense criticism and has since backed away from making further reductions — for now.

The federal money supports a slew of other efforts including hiring more social workers and psychologists; expanding summer school programs; adding preschool seats for students with disabilities, a chronic shortage area; and increasing the number of schools that host wraparound services such as food pantries and health clinics. It’s not certain how these programs will be funded after this year.

Correction (Friday, June 30): A previous version of this story said the education department’s budget would likely decline by roughly $1 billion, a cut that was included in the mayor’s budget proposal in April. A City Hall spokesperson initially indicated that there were no major changes in the final budget deal. But after this story was published, officials said the final budget includes several funding streams that were not initially accounted for in the mayor’s earlier proposal, meaning the overall education budget will hold steady rather than face a cut. The headline has also been changed to reflect that.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering NYC public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Adams touts deep breathing as advocates press to restore school counseling program

2023-06-27T20:11:55+00:00

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As students face severe mental health challenges in the wake of the pandemic, New York City officials touted a new effort on Tuesday to help students regulate themselves: two to five minutes of breathing exercises every day beginning next school year.

But the last-day-of-school announcement left some advocates scratching their heads, arguing the mayor has neglected some other elements of his own broader mental health plan and has offered few details about others.

City officials previously floated the breathing exercises in January and Mayor Eric Adams framed them as just one piece of “low-hanging fruit” in a larger mental health push. “It is going to give them a tool that they can use for the rest of their lives,” the mayor said on Tuesday at P.S. 5 in Brooklyn, before participating in a student-led breathing exercise.

Student mental health concerns have grown since the coronavirus pandemic upended nearly all aspects of students’ lives. Many children lost access to the social circles and sense of community that schools offer. Thousands experienced the deaths of loved ones. A growing number of students have struggled to make it to school at all, leading to a spike in chronic absenteeism. And some educators have seen a rise in behavioral issues, including getting high during the school day.

But as the city heads into the summer it has yet to reveal much about a major effort to connect high school students to teletherapy, despite announcing it six months ago. And the mayor’s budget does not include funding for a $5 million program that establishes partnerships between schools and mental health clinics and offers a streamlined process for referring students to counseling.

Adams touted the program, known as the Mental Health Continuum, in his own mental health blueprint. But it is now the subject of a battle with the City Council, whose leaders have pledged to fight to restore the money in the city budget due this month.

“Five million will evaporate at the end of this week if the city doesn’t restore it in the final budget,” said Dawn Yuster, director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children. “They have already hired clinicians,” she added. “To rip them away from students and schools would be really devastating.”

Though the Mental Health Continuum has started small with about 50 schools in Brooklyn and the Bronx, advocates say the approach is promising. Participating schools receive training to help staff calm students who are in crisis and connect them to mobile crisis teams and mental health clinics, a partnership between the health and education departments as well as the city’s public hospital system.

One goal is to reduce schools’ reliance on dialing 911 when students are struggling to regulate their emotions, a practice that can be traumatic and counterproductive.

Under a legal settlement, schools are only supposed to use 911 as a last resort when students are in imminent danger, though a recent investigation by ProPublica and THE CITY found schools continue to call safety agents and police thousands of times a year to deal with students in distress, often tangling students up with law enforcement and needless emergency room visits. Those incidents disproportionately involve Black students, who are also more likely to be handcuffed.

Nelson Mar, an attorney at Bronx Legal Services who supports the Mental Health Continuum, said it has previously been subject to budget uncertainty and hopes the money is ultimately restored.

“The Mental Health Continuum has been funded largely by City Council putting it back in the budget in the last two years,” he said, adding he was puzzled by the omission from the mayor’s budget.

A City Hall spokesperson said the mental health program has been funded one year at a time but didn’t say if the city plans to restore it.

Mar and others said deep-breathing exercises could be a useful part of the city’s approach to student well-being. And some educators previously told Chalkbeat they can help students regulate their mood, decrease anxiety, and help them feel ready to learn — though experts said there is little evidence about how the routines affect student achievement.

But more broadly, Mar said, “we need a more systematic approach toward improving emotional health, behavioral health, and mental health within the school setting. It is going to take more than just deep-breathing exercises.”

Some advocates are also still waiting for more details about the mayor’s plan to connect high schools students to teletherapy services, something Adams described in January as “the biggest student mental health program in the country.”

Schools Chancellor David Banks said on Tuesday that high school students will have access to an app that allows them to “be in touch with mental health counselors in real time from their phones.” But city officials have not said how the platform will work, what type of mental health services will be available, who will be eligible, and how it will be monitored.

Dr. Elisa English, the chief program officer at Counseling in Schools, said she is eager for more information about what those services will look like, including how frequently students will have access to counselors.

“How that will roll out — it remains to be seen,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

School clinics bolster students’ mental health. So why aren’t there more?

2023-06-08T11:00:00+00:00

Her daughter’s anxiety was spiraling out of control and Jaquetta Johnson couldn’t find help.

Last fall, as the Delaware fourth grader’s acute anxiety kept her from concentrating in class, a doctor gave Johnson a list of children’s therapists. But all were fully booked, some with wait times of six months to a year.

Then Johnson heard about a new health clinic inside a school in her daughter’s school district south of Wilmington. Johnson enrolled her daughter, and soon she was receiving counseling.

“When nobody else would see her,” Johnson said, “she was able to get help at school.”

Nationwide, nearly 2,600 health centers operated out of schools in 2017, the most recent year with available data — more than twice the number that existed two decades earlier. Some 6.3 million students in more than 10,000 schools had access to the centers, according to the School-Based Health Alliance.

School-based health centers offer free services — from flu shots and physicals to contraceptive care and talk therapy — that students can access without need of insurance or a trip to the doctor’s office. The vast majority offer behavioral health care, which is increasingly in demand as students’ mental health challenges mount.

“The mental health needs: It’s across districts, it’s across states, it’s across the country,” said Cheri Woodall, health and wellness supervisor in the Colonial School District, where Johnson’s daughter attends school.

Now, as many schools buckle under the weight of those needs and some community providers cannot meet demand, on-campus health clinics are attracting new attention.

Health clinics have operated out of schools for decades. At last count, there were nearly 2,600 school health clinics nationwide.

Last month, Minnesota became the 21st state to fund school clinics, according to the alliance. Many governors, including those in Ohio and Georgia, used COVID recovery money to launch school health centers, and some federal lawmakers want to boost their funding.

But despite the renewed interest in school clinics and the explosion of student needs, they remain under-funded and hard to keep afloat. Many clinics operate at a loss and must be subsidized by hospitals. Financial challenges are a major reason why just 1 in 10 public schools have access to health clinics, even as decades of research show they improve student health and academic outcomes.

“While there’s a lot of research supporting how beneficial it can be to bring this model into schools, there’s still not enough of them across the country,” said Samira Soleimanpour, a senior researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies school clinics.

School clinics spread, bolstered by evidence they work

Delaware established its first school health clinic nearly 40 years ago, partly as a way to curb teen pregnancies. Today, it is the only state to require a health center in every traditional public high school.

But when David Distler became principal of Eisenberg Elementary School in the Colonial School District about a decade ago, none of the state’s elementary schools had a health clinic. Distler believed that students’ untreated medical conditions and trauma contributed to the school’s attendance and discipline problems. So when the district superintendent proposed opening a clinic at Eisenberg, Distler jumped at the idea.

It launched in 2016, becoming Delaware’s first health clinic in a traditional elementary school. Housed in a converted classroom, it features an exam room, a counseling office, and a lab that can run urine, blood, and saliva tests. Nemours Children’s Health, a nonprofit that operates pediatric hospitals and clinics, staffs it with nurse practitioners, social workers, and a psychologist.

The medical assistant at Eisenberg Elementary School’s health clinic checks a student’s blood pressure. The clinic offers physicals, vaccinations, counseling, and other free services to students.

Some team members rotate among the district’s seven other elementary schools, so that students at every campus can access care. Parents simply need to enroll their children in the clinic — no insurance, copays, transportation, or time off work required.

School staffers also refer students. They can recommend counseling sessions for a child who lost a loved one, ask a clinician to intervene when a student’s unmanaged illness is causing frequent absences, or send a student with a sore throat to be tested for strep throat and, if positive, prescribed medication.

“It’s just so nice to have that support here,” said Michelle Rosseel, Eisenberg’s school nurse. “It works beautifully.”

Lorena Sandoval, the clinic’s medical assistant, recalled a student whose family had recently moved to the U.S. The boy needed a physical and immunization shots to start school, but his family lacked insurance and most doctor’s offices were booked solid. The school wellness center was able to see him within days, and soon he was taking classes.

Distler watched attendance and behavior at his 400-student school improve as more children received medical care and counseling. The number of “discipline referrals” for serious misbehavior plummeted from 1,000 annually when he arrived at Eisenberg to around 100 per year now, Distler said, which he attributes partly to the center.

“You’re getting those high-needs kids the help they need,” he said.

Principal David Distler credits the health clinic at Eisenberg Elementary School with helping improve student behavior and attendance.

Researchers have found that school health clinics boost vaccination rates, reduce emergency room and hospital visits, and can lower rates of teen pregnancy and depression. They also appear to improve student grades and attendance, and reduce disparities by making health care more accessible to Black, Hispanic, and students from low-income backgrounds.

In addition to primary care, such as check-ups and asthma management, about 1 in 5 school clinics provide dental care and half offer reproductive health services to teens, including pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections tests, according to a 2021 survey.

Behavioral health is a major focus: 80% of clinics offer support for students struggling with anxiety, substance use, suicidal thoughts, and other mental health challenges.

“For our most vulnerable students, that might be their only care,” said Katy Stinchfield, director of behavioral health programs at the School-Based Health Alliance. “If they don’t get it at school, they don’t get it.”

Many school health clinics operate at a loss and must rely on sponsor organizations to keep them afloat.

Despite support, school clinics struggle to stay afloat

Today, health clinics are as commonplace in Delaware’s public high schools as libraries and cafeterias. Yet funding remains a perennial challenge.

State aid covers about half of the clinics’ annual operating costs, according to a 2021 state task force report. The clinics also bill Medicaid and private insurers, but some students aren’t insured, certain services aren’t covered, and clinics don’t bill for confidential services, such as sexual health care. Also, only about 1 in 5 eligible Delaware students enroll in the clinics, according to a state analysis, limiting the number of billable services provided.

The result is a net loss of $22,000 per year for the average high school clinic and a gaping $300,000 annual deficit for elementary school clinics, which until recently did not receive state aid. The nonprofit hospitals that manage the clinics must make up the difference.

The same scenario plays out in other states, including New York, whose latest budget allocates about $21 million for the state’s more than 250 school-based health centers. The state grants and insurance reimbursements rarely cover a center’s full operating costs, said Dr. Viju Jacob, medical director at Urban Health Plan, a nonprofit that runs 12 school clinics in New York City.

“In my 19-plus years of being in the school-based health center world, I think one year we hit even,” he said. “But the organization believes in the mission, so we continue.”

Congress budgeted $50 million for school health clinics this fiscal year, but only about half are eligible. Advocates have urged Congress to quadruple that amount to $200 million in next fiscal year’s budget, which is currently being negotiated, and extend eligibility to all clinics.

More than 90 members of Congress have joined the call for more funding. Among them is Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat and former governor of Delaware who has long championed school clinics.

“We’ve been a model, and actually showed that this is not just a good idea, but one that works,” said Carper, who accompanied U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on a visit to Eisenberg’s health center last fall.

Tina Kline is raising her grandson, John, a second grader in the Colonial School District in Delaware. A social worker from the school health clinic provided the family with food and clothes.

But the likelihood of a federal funding boost dwindled last month, when leaders of both parties agreed to a debt-ceiling deal that would freeze most domestic spending — meaning schools can’t count on Washington to keep their clinics open.

Delaware officials say they remain committed to school health centers. In 2020, the legislature began funding clinics in elementary schools with the greatest needs.

“It is a key component of public health,” said Leah Jones Woodall, who oversees school clinics for the state’s health and social services department.

The Colonial School District spends $675,000 annually to maintain its elementary school clinics, and recently it secured a $200,000 grant from the county to open its first middle school clinic later this year. Eventually, students will be able to attend schools from kindergarten to graduation where health care is just down the hallway.

The clinics have also expanded their offerings. Last fall, Nemours Children’s Health hired a social worker, Dwane Budheah, who assists families with everything from food to housing — non-medical needs that play a big role in children’s health.

A few months ago, he contacted Tina Kline, who last year began raising her grandson John, a second grader, and his older sister. Kline was struggling to make ends meet on her fixed income, so Budheah accompanied her to the school pantry to load up on food and household items. Later, he brought John a new winter coat, a jacket, jeans, and socks.

“It made me feel good,” Kline said, “that somebody cared enough to help.”

Patrick Wall is a former senior reporter at Chalkbeat.

Indiana isn’t holding schools accountable for forcibly isolating and restraining students

2023-06-06T16:48:45+00:00

This story was originally published by WFYI. It is the first installment of “Uncounted,” a two-part series on the use and reporting of seclusion and restraint in Indiana schools. The second installment publishes Wednesday, June 7, 2023.

An 11-year-old boy was isolated inside a room inside his school for roughly 12 hours over the course of two days early last fall. The boy is on the autism spectrum. And it wasn’t the first time he was removed from his class and forced into seclusion.

The boy was secluded for roughly 15 hours over the course of about 13 school days between mid-September and early October of last year, according to records from his Indiana elementary school. His mother, Suzi Swinehart, said the total amount of time her son was isolated is likely closer to 26 hours.

While in seclusion, he completed a standardized test, fell asleep multiple times and, in one seclusion incident in March 2022, school staff wrote that they believe he may have had an absence seizure — a brief seizure that causes a lapse in awareness — according to school records. The boy is diagnosed with epilepsy, but Swinehart said school employees never notified her about the suspected seizure.

“It’s heartbreaking. I feel like I’m failing him,” Swinehart said while fighting back tears during a recent interview. Swinehart learned of the suspected seizure months later and only after getting school records. “You’re supposed to be able to trust that your school is a safe place to be.”

Swinehart’s son attends Warsaw Community Schools, a district in north central Indiana. WFYI is not publishing his name because he is a minor.

Swinehart said her son loves to learn — he’s especially interested in math and science — and had done well with a former teacher. But when that teacher left, his behavior deteriorated and school district officials transferred him to a special education program at Claypool Elementary School.

After repeated bouts of seclusion and physical restraint by Claypool staff, he now dreads going to school.

“He would cry and just say over and over again how much he hated school,” Swinehart said. “[The seclusions and restraints] had a horrible effect on him. He’s traumatized. He can’t sleep in his own bed. I don’t think he’ll ever like school again.”

Swinehart’s son isn’t the only student in Indiana traumatized through the experience of seclusion and restraint in schools.

Students across the state are secluded and restrained thousands of times each year, according to data provided by the Indiana Department of Education.

The state defines seclusion as the confinement of a student alone in a room or an area from which they’re physically prevented from leaving. Physical restraint is defined as physical contact between a school employee and student that involves the use of a manual hold to restrict freedom of movement of all or part of a student’s body.

Indiana lawmakers approved legislation a decade ago that was intended to regulate and curb the use of restraint and seclusion in schools.

The law states that these interventions should be used rarely, and only as a last resort in situations where the safety of students or others is threatened.

But a lack of oversight from the Indiana Department of Education (DOE) means it’s unclear whether the law has had its intended effect.

The DOE collects district-reported data on the number of incidents of seclusion and restraint in schools.

But a WFYI investigation — based on public records, court documents, internal school logs, audio recordings of state-level meetings, and parent interviews — found that some schools do not accurately report incidents of restraint and seclusion to the state.

The DOE is also required to conduct an annual audit of seclusion and restraint data reported to the agency by school districts, according to a rule that took effect in 2018.

But the department has no record of an audit ever being done for the previous four school years, according to a spokesperson for the agency, Christina Molinari.

“Personnel changes over the last year led to a shift in responsibilities over the commission, which has delayed an audit,” Molinari wrote in an email. In response to WFYI’s inquiries, Molinari wrote that the DOE is now conducting audits for the last two school years and will conduct an audit for the current school year.

State has requirements, but no enforcement

School districts, charter schools and accredited private schools are required by state law to adopt a restraint and seclusion plan.

Interviews with parents across the state also show that schools are not always following their own policies. Children have been injured during seclusion and restraint incidents, leading some to remove them from school out of a concern for their safety.

Every school’s restraint and seclusion plan must stipulate that:

Restraint and seclusion must only be used as a last resort and in situations where there is an imminent risk of injury to the student or others.
It should only be used for a short period of time, and be discontinued as soon as the risk of imminent injury has passed.
Every incident must be documented and reported to a student’s parent or guardian before the end of the school day or as soon as practical.

Some districts — including Warsaw Community Schools where Swinehart’s son is enrolled — have adopted plans that go beyond what’s required, by including a statement that seclusion and restraint shall never be used as a form of punishment or as a matter of convenience.

But Swinehart’s son was secluded for not following directions. And, on one occasion, he was secluded for roughly six hours because he threw a piece of paper on the floor, stabbed a water bottle with a pencil, tapped his pencil on a desk, and attempted to leave the seclusion room, according to school records.

A WFYI investigation has found that the DOE hasn’t held schools accountable for violating their restraint and seclusion plans.

Molinari wrote in an email that the DOE does not have the power to make schools follow these plans.

Special education advocates have long been concerned about the use of restraint and seclusion in schools. Nationally, students with disabilities are disproportionately subjected to these practices: 77% of students secluded and 80% of students restrained during the 2017-18 school were receiving special education services, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.

While these interventions are used tens of thousands of times per year in schools across the country, they carry the risk of injury and, in rare instances, death.

The federal government doesn’t track deaths or injuries related to seclusion and restraint, and there is no federal law governing their use in schools.

State commission tasked rule-making is ‘stagnant’

The Indiana Commission on Seclusion and Restraint, established by the 2013 law, was tasked with drafting rules and creating a model plan that details how schools should report and use these interventions.

But now, two commission members say the body has lost focus. Commission members debated their purpose and intended role during meetings between 2019 and last year.

The DOE did not respond to multiple requests for an interview with Stephen Balko, an employee at the department and chairman of the Commission on Seclusion and Restraint. Six current members of the commission declined to comment or did not respond to an interview request.

Kim Dodson, CEO of the Arc of Indiana — an advocacy organization for people with disabilities — has served on the commission since its inception, and she was one of the advocates who pushed legislators to pass the 2013 law. Dodson said she routinely received calls from parents who were upset about their children being restrained and secluded in school. Since the law took effect, she said the volume of calls has decreased.

“But that doesn’t necessarily make me feel good and make me believe that it’s not happening,” Dodson said. “I just think that parents don’t know that it’s happening. And I still think that schools are utilizing it far too much to take care of what they think are disruptive students.”

The commission drafted rules on how these interventions should be used — with an emphasis on decreasing the use of seclusion and restraint in schools — including the requirement that schools report the number of incidents of restraint and seclusion by both employees and school resource officers in their annual performance report.

Dodson said the commission “put forth some very strict guidelines.”

John Elcesser, a founding commission member, said “they took seclusion and restraint to the front burner for many schools.”

But Elcesser, executive director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association, said the commission has struggled to find its objective in recent years.

“I do think that the commission served a really good purpose at the front end in creating templates for how to create a seclusion and restraint plan,” Elcesser said. “I think we probably have not been as good in terms of the data issue.”

Elcesser and Dodson point to staff and administration turnover, as well as a lack of ownership of the commission by the DOE, to explain why problems in data reporting and a lack of accountability for seclusion and restraint at the district-level continue to exist.

The commission has existed during the elected terms of two former Superintendents of Public Instruction, Glenda Ritz and Jennifer McCormick, and now under Gov. Eric Holcomb’s appointed Secretary of Education Katie Jenner.

“The commission right now is just stagnant and not getting utilized the way that we want and should be getting utilized,” Dodson said.

WFYI requested comment from the DOE regarding Dodson’s characterization of the commission. They did not respond.

The commission has no enforcement power to ensure districts are accurately reporting incidents and following their restraint and seclusion plans.

Schools inaccurately report seclusion time

Just a few days into the August 2018 school year, Emme got a call from her son’s school nurse. She was told her kindergartner had fallen and hurt himself after being placed in a room alone.

WFYI is withholding Emme’s full name to protect her family’s privacy and because she fears retaliation from her son’s school district.

Emme’s son attended George L. Myers Elementary School — part of the Portage Township School system in northwestern Indiana. Her son is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD, among other conditions. Emme said he was placed in a classroom at the elementary school with children who had a variety of behavioral issues and needs.

Emme said her son has impaired language and memory skills, and will sometimes experience episodes of screaming outbursts.

“But he wasn’t a fighter, like that’s never been him,” Emme said.

Emme said she was told that school staff had removed her son from his classroom and put him in a separate room by himself because he was pacing. She said school staff didn’t clearly explain how her son injured himself while alone in a room.

“They said he paced and slammed his face against a wall,” she said. “It just made no sense.”

Emme took her son to a hospital because his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. He was diagnosed with a nasal fracture, according to medical records reviewed by WFYI.

Due to concerns for his safety, Emme pulled him from the school and enrolled him in a virtual school.

Superintendent of Portage Township Schools Amanda Alaniz said in an email that she is unable to comment on “individual cases of student discipline.” She wrote that seclusion is not a common practice in PTS, and that staff have been advised to only use it in the “most extreme cases to preserve student and staff safety.”

Alaniz wrote that school employees are “instructed to follow a process of reporting to their building principals for input into our district’s student information system,” and that information is reported to the state.

Emme eventually enrolled her son in another school within the same district.

“I’m always dreading and terrified that something’s going to happen, that he’s going to end up put in there, like put into a seclusion room again,” she said. “It’s sad. It scares me.”

Schools with no incident reports cause worry

Portage Township Schools — a district that serves roughly 1,200 students with disabilities — reported zero incidents of seclusion to the DOE for the last five school years, including for the 2018-19 school year when Emme’s son broke his nose after being placed in a room by himself.

Emme believes that PTS failed to report her son’s seclusion to the DOE.

It’s a worry that’s shared by multiple members of the state commission. Since at least 2019, commission members have expressed concerns to DOE staff that schools are not accurately reporting seclusion and restraint incidents, according to recordings of commission meetings provided by the DOE.

“We really wanted the Department of Education to take a strong interest in this and to really be the people policing the data,” Dodson of the Arc of Indiana said in an interview. “Our intent was: let’s look at trends, do we see high incidents of seclusion or restraint in a certain school, and then can we get more training to that specific school.”

But Dodson and other commission members believe there is significant underreporting of seclusion and restraint by schools. She said the data collection is “clearly not working, and I think we need to revisit that. And perhaps that needs to be revisited legislatively.”

Roughly 69% of school corporations and charter schools reported zero incidents of seclusion and about 46% reported zero incidents of restraint last school year. The share of schools reporting zero incidents of seclusion and restraint have remained relatively steady since the 2017-18 school year.

During a recorded meeting of the Commission in March 2022, chairman Balko presented seclusion and restraint data for the school years 2017-18 through 2020-21.

“When you guys get that information, is there anything that you guys do once you look at the data,” Dodson asked.

“Not really,” responded a DOE staff member. “Because I don’t have the time to actually sift through and go through that.”

Nicole Hicks, a member of the commission and IN*SOURCE employee — an advocacy organization for families of children with disabilities that is affiliated with the state — also expressed concern about the data.

“I’m more worried about the zeros. Because I know there’s an uptick [in seclusion and restraint incidents]. And I know, I mean, I’m hearing, you know, on the ground, and there’s a lot of challenges going on,” Hicks said.

Hicks said she was concerned that schools might not understand what constitutes a seclusion or restraint and that’s why the numbers are so low.

The meeting concluded with no clear resolution.

Dodson said in an interview that it’s been difficult to keep the DOE focused on seclusion and restraint.

“And it’s concerning, specifically when we know that the data that is being reported is incorrect,” she said. “And schools are not following the law the way that they need to be following the law.”

Molinari, a spokesperson for the DOE, wrote in a statement that the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act gives the department the authority to investigate seclusion and restraint incidents, but only if a parent files a special education complaint that alleges that the student was denied a free, appropriate public education.

Parents and guardians can submit general complaints to the department by filling out a form titled “Reports Related to the Use of Seclusion & Restraint.”

But Molinari wrote that the DOE has no power to investigate general complaints from parents regarding seclusion and restraint, because they fall outside the department’s authority.

A seclusion room at an Indiana elementary school.

Data issues on seclusion are national problem

Underreporting and misreporting of seclusion and restraint data is not unique to Indiana. Federal government watchdogs, advocates for children with disabilities and researchers agree it’s a nationwide problem. But there are solutions.

Schools are required to report incidents of seclusion and restraint as part of the Civil Rights Data Collection, a program administered by the Office for Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Education.

But an analysis of the 2015-16 CRDC seclusion and restraint data concluded that “it is impossible to accurately determine the frequency and prevalence of restraint and seclusion among K-12 public school students” due to “significant data quality problems,” according to a 2020 report from the Government Accountability Office.

That’s a problem, because when federal data is misreported, it’s not a reliable source of information to inform policy decisions or determine if use of these measures is discriminatory, excessive or both, according to the GAO report.

School districts were entering zero incidents of seclusion and restraint “when they didn’t actually have zero incidents,” said Jackie Nowicki, director of K-12 education at the GAO. Nationwide, 70% of school districts reported having zero incidents of seclusion and restraint during that academic year.

The GAO found that the CRDC did not have data quality controls to flag potentially erroneous zeros; the office had a rule that required verification of zeros, but it only applied to 30 of the nation’s roughly 17,000 school districts.

The GAO issued six recommendations to the OCR to fix the data reporting issues. Five of these recommendations have been implemented by the U.S. Department of Education, while one — identifying factors that cause underreporting and misreporting of the data — is still in process.

“[The Office for Civil Rights] really had no clear understanding of why so many school districts were under-reporting and misreporting. And so we felt, you know, that without understanding that more fully, that they really wouldn’t be able to help districts improve the accuracy and utility of their data,” Nowicki said.

As a federal watchdog agency that provides nonpartisan, fact-based information to Congress, the GAO does not have the power to make recommendations to state agencies. But many of the recommendations included in their report could be used to improve data collection at the state level as well.

The Indiana DOE did not respond to questions about whether the department will make changes to its seclusion and restraint data collection practices.

Parents forced to hold schools accountable

In Indiana, Tom Blessing said it’s up to parents to try to hold schools accountable for violations of restraint and seclusion policies, because the state won’t.

Blessing, a special education attorney for 13 years, said school districts routinely violate their own seclusion and restraint plans.

“It has been happening the whole time I’ve practiced special education law,” Blessing said. “And it continues to this day.”

Blessing is representing Swinehart in a lawsuit against Warsaw Community Schools. The suit alleges that school employees discriminated against her son on the basis of his disability, and that they used the seclusion room as a form of punishment or as a convenient way to address his disruptive behavior.

Warsaw Community Schools issued a statement to WFYI that said the district’s policies governing the use of restraint and seclusion are designed to protect students from harm, and the district is confident it “followed the proper laws and protocols in handling this disruption.” WSC addressed a specific incident in their statement, but provided few details.

“Due to the privacy interest of all students impacted, WCS cannot comment further on the pending litigation except to commit that it will continue to ensure all students will be provided with a safe and educational environment,” the statement reads.

Blessing said schools will often use euphemisms for seclusion rooms, like “the break room, the calming area, the time out room.”

School records indicate that Claypool staff — the elementary school where Swinehart’s son is enrolled — called it “the calming room.” But school records indicate that her son would sometimes hyperventilate, bang his head against the wall, hit himself, scream, and curl up in a fetal position while in seclusion.

Blessing said often the only way for parents to get these practices to stop is to sue.

He said it’s up to parents to demand documentation and maintain communication with teachers.

“These parents are forced to become sort of a private attorney general, to enforce the laws which the state of Indiana should be enforcing,” Blessing said.

Swinehart said she’s made a point to spread awareness about the issue. She shares her family’s story with parents of children with disabilities, and recommends they ask school employees about behavior interventions and about seclusion and restraint practices.

But Swinehart is frustrated the state hasn’t done more to hold schools accountable.

“That’s upsetting, extremely upsetting,” Swinehart said. “What good is this policy if no one’s following it, and if there is no accountability?”

Eric Weddle edited this story for broadcast and digital.

Contact WFYI education reporter Lee V. Gaines at lgaines@wfyi.org. Follow on Twitter: @LeeVGaines.

Tennessee school district sues social media companies over student mental health ‘crisis’

2023-05-26T16:22:07+00:00

A Tennessee school district has joined a growing list of school systems across the nation that are suing major social media companies like TikTok and YouTube over a crisis in student mental health.

Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools filed its lawsuit earlier this month through California-based Frantz Law Group and Tennessee-based law offices of Lewis Thomason.

Chris McCarty, a Knoxville attorney who is helping to coordinate litigants, said other Tennessee districts are interested in joining the suit.

The case’s arrival in Tennessee comes as the nation’s top health official issued a warning this week about the risks of social media to young people.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said that while social media can be beneficial, its effects on adolescent mental health are not fully understood and it “can also have a profound risk of harm.”

His 19-page advisory could strengthen the case of school systems complaining that they’ve been left to deal with the fallout of apps that they contend are harmful to the social and emotional health of children and adolescents.

In Clarksville-Montgomery County, school officials say they’ve fought an “uphill battle” in recent years against cyberbullying, mental health disorders, classroom disruptions, threats of school violence, and young people’s access to inappropriate content. Located along the Kentucky border and near a U.S. Army base, the district operates 45 schools for its 38,000 students and is Tennessee’s seventh largest school system.

“It is time for social media companies to be held accountable for the lack of monitors, controls, and cooperation to protect children and our society,” the district wrote in a May 11 email notifying parents, employees, and other stakeholders about the lawsuit.

Among other things, the district is seeking changes to the companies’ products, funding to pay for education and treatment programs on excessive use of social media, and an unspecified award for damages.

“This is an effort to bring about real change,” McCarty told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

Problems tied to social media are ‘a daily thing’ in school

The school system’s 109-page complaint charges that social media giants like the owners of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube are causing harm to students who use their products via algorithms that are designed to cause addiction.

The lawsuit also contends that the companies have caused a mental and emotional health “crisis” among students that is marked by an increase in anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm, and exploitative content that encourages disorderly behavior, unhealthy social comparison, and cyberbullying.

“If you ask any principal or teacher how often they deal with problems related to social media, it’s not a monthly or weekly thing. It’s a daily thing,” McCarty said.

A spokeswoman for Google, which owns YouTube, called the complaint’s allegations “simply not true.”

“Protecting kids across our platforms has always been core to our work,” said Ivy Choi. “In collaboration with child development specialists, we have built age-appropriate experiences for kids and families on YouTube, and provide parents with robust controls,”

A Snapchat spokesman said the safety and well-being of the app’s users is a top priority and that Snapchat is not designed to encourage passive scrolling.

“We aren’t an app that encourages perfection or popularity, and we vet all content before it can reach a large audience, which helps protect against the promotion and discovery of potentially harmful material,” the company said in a statement. “While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping friends feel connected, informed, happy, and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence.”

The other companies named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Suit follows school district cases against Juul Labs

In January, when Seattle public schools became the first district to sue tech giants over student mental health, legal experts were split on the potential impact.

One expert told Chalkbeat the suit could lead to sweeping changes in the industry. But others said it could fizzle out.

In the months since, dozens of other school systems have filed similar lawsuits charging that social media companies are maximizing profit at the expense of the mental health of young audiences. Those audiences spend significant amounts of time on the platforms and report associating them with stress and anxiety, according to plaintiffs.

An attorney for Frantz Law Group, which specializes in class-action and mass-action lawsuits, said Thursday that about 500 school systems in 32 states have retained the firm to pursue similar litigation.

The firm represented more than a thousand school districts in earlier lawsuits against Juul Labs Inc., which makes nicotine vaping devices, over claims about the company’s marketing to adolescents. A series of settlements in recent months have funneled billions of dollars in payouts to individuals, states, cities, and school systems.

Many of those same school systems, including Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools, are now working with the same lawyers to pursue legal action against social media companies.

“When we mentioned social media was the next fight, the district was the first one to jump out of the gate,” said McCarty about Clarksville-based school system.

Proving a mental-health link could be difficult

William Shinoff, the attorney leading the litigation for the Frantz Law Group, said this week’s U.S. surgeon general advisory backs up many of his firm’s claims.

“It’s extremely helpful,” Shinoff said, “as it restates what we are alleging in our lawsuit.”

But while there’s significant frustration with social media companies in the court of public opinion, drawing a direct connection between their products and student mental health isn’t necessarily straightforward. For instance, what about the pandemic’s emotional effect on children and teens, as well other stressors and the role of parent supervision?

“We’re having a mental health crisis in general and everybody wants to point the finger at social media,” said Pamela Wisniewski, a social media expert and Vanderbilt University associate professor of human-computer interaction.

She noted that a severe shortage of therapists and affordable treatment options contributes to a public health threat spanning racial and ethnic groups, urban and rural areas, and the socioeconomic divide.

“We should look at reform holistically,” Wisniewski said, “to better support schools, provide more mental health training, and create stronger communities to create a network of social support.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a response from Google.

What happened to the social-emotional screening tool that NYC schools began using last year?

2023-05-25T18:00:00+00:00

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New York City’s education department plans to ditch a controversial social skills assessment for the coming school year, Chalkbeat has learned.

The tool’s proponents believe it’s a missed opportunity to help shift school culture to become more responsive to children’s social-emotional wellbeing, particularly at a time when needs are high.

In many ways, however, the tool’s rollout was doomed from the start.

Officials knew that students would have increased mental health demands when they returned to classrooms last year. They promised to be ready.

It was December 2020, long before the start of the new school year, when officials released a “mental health and wellbeing plan,” highlighting how schools would use a five-minute assessment to quickly identify significant emotional issues. The results would help flag individuals who needed more intensive interventions and support.

About eight months after that announcement, the city approved a 3-year $18 million contract to Aperture, an education technology company that created a platform to administer what’s known as the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment, or DESSA.

A few months later, in October 2021, education department officials shared the assessment tool with teachers, giving them a short runway to figure out how to utilize it.

The backlash against the DESSA was swift. Teachers feared they didn’t know their students well enough and that their responses could be biased. Many revolted against the directive to administer it, asking parents to opt out. Parents from various ends of the political spectrum refused to have their kids assessed. Some had concerns about privacy and data security, others worried about the questions’ overreach and the time it would take teachers away from building relationships with their children.

Many questioned the cost of the tool — though broken down by school, it came to roughly $3,300 a year for each school.

This year, the education department quietly backed off the initiative, making it optional for schools to administer the DESSA. Many educators told Chalkbeat that their schools ditched it. Education department officials declined to disclose how many schools continue to use it, but confirmed that the citywide DESSA program is expected to be discontinued in the coming school year.

“Broad implementation of the screener was only a temporary initiative,” education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said in an email. “While the screener will no longer be administered city-wide, the practice has helped schools to understand the importance of identifying students who may be in need of additional support and prioritizing wellness among the entire school community.”

Schools can continue to implement social-emotional screening assessments, if they choose to, and the department is available to assist with that process, she said.

For David Adams, the CEO of Urban Assembly, a network of about two dozen schools across the city that have long incorporated the DESSA, the assessment tool is critical, especially at a time when many kids don’t feel like they have a trusted adult on campus.

Of the sixth through 12th graders across the city who responded to last year’s school survey, more than 1 in 5 did not have at least one adult in the school they could confide in.

The criticism from teachers about not knowing their students well enough to fill out the assessments is precisely the reason that it’s needed, Adams said.

“The tool becomes the intervention,” he said. “A teacher who is paying attention to student interactions will be able to fill it out. A teacher who doesn’t know their students, isn’t collaborative with them… that’s where you’re seeing the opportunity.”

Problems with DESSA rollout

The messaging around the initial announcement of the mental health plan laid some of the groundwork for pushback. Educators and parents worried about overstepping boundaries when it came to evaluating kids’ mental health.

The DESSA, however, is not about identifying mental health issues. It aims to gauge social skills such as decision-making, self-awareness, and taking personal responsibility. Among the 40 questions: During the past four weeks, how often did the child keep trying when unsuccessful? Get things done within a timely fashion? Show good judgment? Offer to help somebody?

It also often took more than five minutes for a teacher to fill out the questions for each student. Teachers were expected to fill it out in the fall and spring to track a student’s social-emotional arc over the year. It often felt like one more burden, teachers said.

Moreover, several educators told Chalkbeat they didn’t know how the results were used and didn’t think that schools got more support for counselors if they ended up flagging students who needed more help.

“Vague promises were made about school-level support that might materialize depending on the results of the DESSA screeners,” said Brittany Kaiser, an art teacher at the Earth School, an elementary school in Manhattan’s East Village. “We were, and are, in desperate need of more guidance counselors and social workers, more funding for other support positions, and trainings on trauma-informed teaching, de-escalation strategies, restorative justice implementation, and conflict resolution strategies.”

That support, however, never materialized, she said.

When the tool was made optional this year, Kaiser’s school dropped it.

Overall, fewer Manhattan schools filled out the DESSA than their counterparts in other boroughs, according to fall 2022 data obtained by Chalkbeat. Roughly 67% of Manhattan schools used the tool in the fall, while about 75% in Brooklyn and Queens did. Schools in Staten Island and the Bronx had the highest rates at 84% and 80%, respectively.

New York City schools are trying to focus more on social-emotional learning. The DESSA was supposed to help.

The education department tried to make it easier to administer the DESSA, giving high schools the option of having students fill out the questionnaire themselves, while elementary and middle schools could allow parents to fill out the questions, according to updated guidance sent to principals earlier this year. Officials also told schools they could tap federal relief funding to pay teachers extra for filling out the tool beyond the school day.

Allowing students and parents to fill out the form dilutes the intent, Adams said. He sees the tool as a way to get teachers to pay closer attention to their students through a “strength-based” framework and give educators a common language on how to discuss those skills.

Adams compared the assessment to an approach that a coach uses for athletes, observing and giving suggestions based on those observations. Rather than a screener, Adams views the DESSA as a “feedback tool.”

“The goal is not ultimately about having people rate kids,” he said. “It’s about every kid having social emotional competence and teachers learning to see and give feedback on that. Feedback drives learning.”

Teachers are often giving feedback on social-emotional skills that’s tied up in grades, Adams said. They might, for instance, conflate mastery of a topic with things like deadlines. The tool provides a way to tease that apart and enable a teacher to discuss the importance of responsibility and turning assignments in on time. Rather than simply taking 10 points off on an assignment, for example, it gives the teacher “the language and the clarity” to talk about certain skills a student needs to be successful.

According to Adams, about 47% of a student’s grade is linked to social-emotional competency scores, and the DESSA, he believes, can help schools address issues, such as goal-setting, which affect academic performance.

Using the tool to change teaching and learning

The Urban Assembly network began incorporating the DESSA years ago, after seeing how nonprofit youth development organizations, such as the Children’s Aid Society, were using it to focus on social-emotional outcomes. The network employs 14 social-emotional learning specialists that fan out to schools to assist them with how to use the DESSA. (Meisha Porter, who was chancellor at the time the city selected the DESSA, had been a principal of an Urban Assembly school — after taking over from current Chancellor David Banks.) But the intensive assistance from the Urban Assembly was never scaled across the system, leaving many schools adrift when it came to incorporating the tool.

“If it feels like an add on…it’s not going to be useful,” said Delia Veve, principal of Manhattan’s Urban Assembly Media High School. “If people are doing it out of compliance and begrudgingly, then it’s about checking a box. What does that accomplish?”

The school goes all in on the tool. Before they administer it for their students, the adults at Veve’s school study the skills on the DESSA, to help them reflect on what they mean and how they might show up, the principal explained. Then, each of the roughly 350 students are assessed twice a year by at least two different adults, including the teacher from advisory, to help address possible biases in responses.

“I recognize that’s a heavy lift,” Veve said, “but it does make that data that much more reliable.”

Her school uses results from the DESSA less for identifying individuals who need more dedicated support and more for identifying trends across the grades to change teaching practices.

The school noticed last year that relationship skills were a bigger area of weakness than previously, which was unsurprising given the prolonged isolation during the pandemic and the continued COVID mitigations last year that prevented a lot of group work. So this year, the school bolstered opportunities for kids to work collaboratively.

Rather than view the responses as an issue where students aren’t demonstrating certain competencies, it reveals where the school might not be creating the space to meet their needs.

It helps her see, Veve said, “Is it a reflection of the kid or is it a reflection of the school?”

Need for a holistic approach to help kids

Without a lot of support, however, many schools floundered with the DESSA. One Bronx administrator explained that her school dropped the DESSA because it felt redundant to what they already had in place. The school prides itself on having a robust team for social-emotional support: It has three guidance counselors and two social workers who help lead weekly advisory groups and small group counseling for its roughly 600 students.

The advisory groups, in particular, focus on social-emotional learning and peer relationships, and they provide insights to the counseling team when issues might arise, said the administrator, who requested anonymity. Whether a school offers an advisory period often comes down to carving out space in the schedule and making tradeoffs, the administrator explained. For them, it meant giving up other electives, like robotics.

If her school’s team didn’t have such a strong counseling infrastructure in place, she might have found the DESSA more helpful, she said. She thought it was worthwhile to figure out a way to measure social-emotional learning metrics, she said.

The ways schools have incorporated the DESSA was uneven, with some schools more focused than others on how to use the tool to identify students who need help, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, which provides counseling services at roughly 70 schools across the city.

Yet, while the tool might not give a parent a definitive answer about how their child is doing, Dahill-Fuchel didn’t think it seemed harmful. But there’s not always a clear plan on what should happen next with the data.

“There’s not a robust accountability system,” Dahill-Fuchel said.

Having such a system is important to shift a school’s culture toward a more supportive environment, he said.

“Where we need to get to ultimately,” Dahill-Fuchel said, “is that schools get held accountable for social skill development and emotional wellbeing in the same way they do for academic progress.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Open Newsroom: Accessing mental health resources in NYC public schools

2023-05-23T20:34:53+00:00

This article was originally published on May 23 by THE CITY.

THE CITY’s reporters and editors, along with Chalkbeat New York, connected with students, parents, policy makers and family healing ambassadors last week shortly after publishing an investigation on what happens to students in distress when public school staff call 911 on them.

THE CITY also published a guide in partnership with Chalkbeat on how to get appropriate mental health support through public schools, and a lookup tool that lets readers look up any public school’s track record on mental health support and related data points.

The event was hosted in partnership with Chalkbeat and ProPublica.

The conversation was moderated by THE CITY reporter Abigail Kramer, and Brooklyn Tech student journalist Yan Zhen Zhu.The panelists were:

Nelson Mar, a senior staff attorney in the Education Law Unit at Bronx Legal Services
Rasheedah Brown-Harris, a Healing Centered Schools Working Group member who supports family healing ambassadors in city public schools, and a parent who regularly navigates mental health services and resources through the school system
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, the executive director of Counseling in Schools, a nonprofit organization that works with about 70 public schools around the city, and
Nicole Manning, a senior at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, student-journalist and the author of A Guide to Post-Pandemic Teen Mental Health that was published in the Yale Daily News.

If you’d like to ask a question related to the event or mental health resources in city public schools, send it to ask@thecity.nyc with the subject line “Mental Health.”

How Colorado is filling gaps for its ‘most vulnerable’ children as last-resort schools dwindle

2023-05-14T11:00:00+00:00

Help is finally coming to Colorado’s facility schools, which often serve as a last resort for some of the state’s most vulnerable students.

A new state law will cut red tape and boost funding for the collapsing system, which serves children with intense behavioral, mental health or special education needs. The law also aims to train local teachers and staff, especially in rural areas, to serve such students closer to home.

While experts are hopeful, they acknowledged it won’t entirely fix the problems that led 50 privately run facility schools to close in the past 20 years, leaving just 30 open today.

“It’s a huge, complex system, and it’d be naive to think one piece of legislation is going to fix everything,” said Paul Foster, the executive director of exceptional student services for the Colorado Department of Education. “But the legislation is trying to take that into account.”

Lawmakers hope to see 12 new schools open in the next three years. But some of the likeliest candidates to become facility schools — small private programs that already serve students with disabilities — have said they’re not interested.

Meanwhile, public school districts have been starting programs of their own. But the new legislation does little to support these “missing middle” programs. The leader of one regional consortium said the state should be funneling money to them instead.

In a state that has long underfunded both education and behavioral health, there are gaps everywhere and no shortage of work to be done. However, there are also models, here and elsewhere, that point toward a better way to serve what can be a forgotten population.

New rules make it easier to form facility schools

The Learning Zone is a small specialized school in Littleton for nonverbal students. It’s in the process of becoming a facility school. It’s also a case study in how an irrelevant layer of bureaucracy can slow down that process — something the new law aims to fix.

Until now, specialized private programs had to become licensed day treatment facilities through the state Department of Human Services before the Colorado Department of Education could approve them as facility schools. The new law eliminates that first hurdle.

The Learning Zone teaches students who have rare genetic disorders and other disabilities to use devices that allow them to communicate by pushing buttons that convey words or phrases. It’s been a game changer for students who are often left behind in public schools.

“Some went from not reading to first-grade reading levels within nine months of being here,” said Amanda Attreau, executive director of Real Life Colorado, the nonprofit that runs The Learning Zone. “They actually get invited to birthday parties that are for their actual friends.”

But when The Learning Zone sought licensing as a day treatment center, it was subjected to a checklist of safety requirements and psychological goals geared toward an entirely different population: students with mental health issues and trauma.

“We had to become a day treatment even though all of the requirements of a day treatment don’t apply to our school or our population of learners at all,” Attreau said.

“You’re needing to check a thousand boxes for part one just to get to part two, even though the second box is the one that makes sense for you.”

Getting approval is important because school districts are more likely to pay for state-approved programs. However, the process was onerous enough that advisers suggested The Learning Zone wait for the new law to take effect. But Attreu feared losing students and money.

Districts that had been willing to pay part of The Learning Zone’s $60,000 tuition when it started as an alternative to remote school in 2020 had become “antsy,” Attreau said, and given The Learning Zone an ultimatum: become a legitimate school or we’ll take our students back.

“We don’t want the services we are offering to be limited to the people who are wealthy and elite and capable of paying for this,” Attreau said.

Third Way Center’s Joan Farley Academy, a facility school in Denver, tries to create a supportive environment for teens coming out of youth corrections and the foster system.

Not all private programs want to become facility schools

While state approval can be a powerful incentive, not all private programs say they want or need it.

School districts that once balked at the $96,000 annual cost for Firefly Autism in Lakewood are now more likely to pay, even though it’s not a facility school, said President and CEO Amanda Kelly. That could be due to a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The high court found the Douglas County School District, which was refusing to pay for a student to attend Firefly, violated that student’s right to an education. It could also be due to Firefly’s 20-year track record.

“We have such a brilliant relationship with our districts,” Kelly said, adding that Firefly has students from 14 different districts. “I think that’s trust built over time.”

And Firefly doesn’t want to become a facility school, in part because it doesn’t see itself as a school. It doesn’t have teachers or students. Instead, the 42 children and young adults who spend their days there — who range in age from 3 to 21 and have a combination of autism and intellectual disabilities — are called “learners.”

They work one-on-one with certified behavior experts to learn life skills, chief among them how to communicate and advocate for their needs. Firefly is a day treatment program, but to become a facility school, it would have to hire teachers and a special education director and follow a curriculum aligned to state academic standards.

“To make such a massive change, we just don’t know if that’s what Firefly should do,” Kelly said.

Humanex Academy, a private middle and high school in Englewood, has another reason for not wanting to become a facility school. The leaders at Humanex, which serves neurodiverse students with autism, ADHD, and other disabilities, disagree with the goal of facility schools, which is to teach students the skills they need to return to public school.

“We didn’t want districts to say, ‘How soon can you fix them and give them back to us?’” Principal Kati Cahill said. “I always was a proponent of public education. But unfortunately the existing system isn’t set up to meet the needs of these kids.”

Students attend class at Third Way Center’s Joan Farley Academy in Denver.

School districts filling the gaps with their own programs

Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, are regional associations of school districts that pool resources to provide a service they would not be able to alone.

Sandy Malouff is the executive director and special education director for the Santa Fe Trail BOCES, which serves six rural school districts in southeastern Colorado. Malouff started a day treatment program years ago because metro Denver facility schools were too far away, and students who did attend those schools often struggled to transition when they returned home.

The Southeast Alternative Learning Academy in La Junta serves students as far as 70 miles away. Over the past five years, about 30% of students have gone back to their local schools.

Malouff based her program on the Pikes Peak BOCES School of Excellence, which serves students who would likely need a facility school from more than a dozen districts around Colorado Springs.

Executive Director Pat Bershinsky said most districts would rather send their students to the School of Excellence “because they still have a connection to that kid. The kid’s not just put in a facility somewhere and forgotten about.”

In addition to the main location in Colorado Springs, a satellite location in the tiny town of Calhan puts services within reach for rural families. One student, Bershinsky said, had previously spent about four hours in a car every day going from Limon to a facility school in Denver. Calhan is less than an hour from Limon.

Bershinsky said lawmakers should have directed money to rural BOCES so they can “stand up their own programs like I have.”

Many metro area districts also have separate schools for students who struggle with behavior. In the Cherry Creek School District in suburban Denver, the Joliet Learning Center is often students’ last stop before going to a facility school or their first stop when they transition back, said Tony Poole, the district’s assistant superintendent of special populations.

But Cherry Creek is going further. Using $14 million in voter-approved bonds and $1.5 million of federal funding, the district is building its own treatment program that officials say is unlike any other.

Traverse Academy is set to open this fall.

Traverse Academy will serve 60 students in fourth through 12th grade in three separate wings: one for kids in mental health crises that will be heavy on therapy and light on academics, another for students with moderate needs that will balance the two, and yet another for students getting ready to transition back to their home schools.

Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry will provide clinicians to work alongside the educators.

Opening Traverse Academy this fall won’t eliminate the need for facility schools, Poole said, but he hopes it will alleviate some of the pressure, especially for students who are suicidal.

“With the closure of these facilities, we just have more kids in crisis who are left with no option,” Poole said. “It means we have kids in significant crisis walking our hallways every day.”

A student writes answers on a worksheet during science class at the Hilltop Day Treatment, a facility school in Grand Junction. Facility schools seek to balance academics and therapy.

Advocates want more inclusion, not just more institutions

Some advocates say the real solution lies with helping public schools support students in traditional classrooms, not in creating more separate programs.

“When you build it, they will come,” said Diane Smith Howard, an attorney with the National Disability Rights Network. “What we have learned is: Anytime you create a program, the slots get filled. And they don’t necessarily get filled with kids who want to be there.”

In California, the CHIME Institute’s Schwarzenegger Community School in the Los Angeles area has been so successful at educating students with disabilities alongside peers without disabilities that CHIME staff provide technical assistance to schools and districts across the state.

If Executive Director Erin Studer could give advice to Colorado, it would be to fund model schools, “those bright spots of practice” that other educators can visit and observe, alongside a technical assistance center.

When students do go to specialized settings, supporting transitions back to their home school is critical. Teachers at Brook Valley South in Nebraska show teachers at students’ home schools how to carefully track behavior through the day and watch for patterns.

Teacher Carrie Fairbairn recalled one student who would run up and down the aisle of the bus badgering other students until they assigned him a seat behind the talkative driver who chatted the whole way to school.

“Lo and behold,” Fairbairn said. “Zero bus issues.”

“Sometimes folks are so quick to see that label on a kid: [emotional disability] or behavior disorder,” she added. “And you’re like, ‘move his seat.’”

Artwork decorates the walls at Skyline Academy, a facility school in Denver. The school tries to help children build social and emotional skills.

‘There’s nothing wrong with kids’

The story of Jack, a fourth-grader with autism, shows how short staffing in public schools can set off a spiral that requires more significant intervention. It also shows how tenuous progress can be and how critical it is to have a range of options.

Not long before Denver Public Schools recommended a facility school for Jack, his special education team thought he was doing so well in a separate classroom they wanted him to start going to the traditional classroom for math, his mother said.

But Jack’s elementary school didn’t have a one-on-one aide to shadow him, and the plan never happened. Disappointed, Jack returned to behaviors he’d mostly overcome: running away from school or refusing to go inside at all.

His mother, Heidi Laursen, lost her job — and her family’s health insurance — because she spent so much time trying to coax him through the schoolhouse door. The school called the police when Jack pulled a paper towel dispenser off the wall.

All last summer, Jack’s family thought he was on a waitlist for a facility school.

Instead, the Friday afternoon before school was supposed to start, Laursen said she got a call saying Jack would have to go back to the separate classroom at his old elementary school — the place that was short-staffed, that had called the police on him, and where Jack spent most of his time with the patient art teacher instead of learning.

“I couldn’t send him back to the school he had been running away from,” Laursen said.

So the family transferred Jack to Boulder, where his father lives. He was placed at Halcyon School run by the Boulder Valley School District.

Principal Matt Dudek describes Halcyon as a small, safe space for students who might otherwise turn their frustrations outward or bottle them up to learn skills to manage overwhelming settings — like a traditional public school with hundreds of peers.

“We don’t fix kids,” Dudek said. “There’s nothing wrong with kids.”

The average stay at Halcyon is about a year. In 15 years, Dudek said he’s only referred one student to a facility school.

Jack’s fourth grade year has gone well, his mother said. Now 10, Jack has earned Matchbox cars and tiny Tech Deck finger skateboards for good behavior. When he’s overwhelmed, he has a “safe tree” outside where he can go, shadowed by a watchful staff member, until he’s ready to return to class.

Jack was doing so well that his team began talking about transitioning him back to a larger public school. Perhaps remembering the disappointment last time, Jack began acting out again, his mother said, running away or refusing to go into the building.

“In the end, we decided that maybe he wasn’t ready to transition, because of the behavior he was showing,” Laursen said. “Maybe he needs more time to feel safe.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Rae Ellen Bichell is a reporter with KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN). Contact Rae at RaeB@kff.org.

Colorado is pouring more money into schools for kids with behavioral health issues and disabilities, but are they helping?

2023-05-13T11:00:00+00:00

Colorado is doubling the funding next year for schools that enroll students whose mental health or medical needs are too intense for regular schools to handle, calling for 12 new schools to open within the next three years.

The number of these specialized schools, which operate as day centers or are part of residential treatment facilities or hospitals, has fallen over the past two decades to 30 from 80. They offer a combination of therapy and academics in an effort to stabilize thousands of students a year so they can return to their home schools.

But even as the state attempts to shore up a system that’s been sapped by staff shortages, inadequate state funding and other challenges, it is nearly impossible for parents and other members of the public to get answers to a fundamental question: Are students enrolled in the schools safe and learning?

Facility schools are intended to act as temporary programs of last resort to stabilize students so they can successfully return to their home schools. Yet, the state does not keep track of how many students return to regular school or how many eventually graduate.

The state requires facility school students to take its standardized tests, but does not provide individual school results, citing student privacy because the classes are so small.

The schools exist at the intersection of the educational, mental health, and juvenile justice systems. Multiple state agencies are responsible for monitoring the schools, but those visits in some cases happen only every two years and reports from the state education and human services departments aren’t readily available to the public. The Colorado Sun and Chalkbeat Colorado filed multiple requests under public records laws to receive reports, some of which were redacted, that offer a glimpse into the facility school environment.

Maintaining separate schools for children who act out aggressively, frequently run from school, or have severe medical or intellectual needs is controversial, with some parents and disability rights advocates questioning whether they are holding centers for kids with behavior problems. It’s clear Colorado needs more facility schools to accommodate the growing number of children with behavioral health struggles, but advocates also want enough information to ensure kids are safe and learning.

Facility schools offer a mix of academics and therapy. The goal is for children to stabilize enough to return to traditional classrooms.

‘We don’t really have a choice but to make them better’

The prime sponsor of the new law that will pour an additional $18 million into facility schools next year, increasing their funding by 2.6 times what’s in current law, agrees that Colorado needs more data about whether facility schools are working.

Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and chair of the Joint Budget Committee, hopes her legislation will force the various state agencies that oversee the schools to cooperate and report better data on outcomes within a few years. It also requires that schools earn accreditation in order to receive state funding through the new law.

“There are some facilities where we do question whether they are simply warehousing kids and whether they offer good programming,” said Pamela Bisceglia, executive director of Advocacy Denver, which speaks up for Denver Public Schools children with special needs. She has visited several facility schools over the years with parents who are deciding where to place their children. Some are clean, calm, and excelling at teaching children, she said. And some are not.

Bisceglia recalled visiting one Denver school where children ages 5-17 were all in the same room, some lying on the floor, no one interacting with each other, while several staff members in the room were scrolling on their phones.

“They were simply trying to keep them from hurting themselves or others,” she said. “There wasn’t any learning going on. There wasn’t any individualized therapy.”

“Sometimes it’s a moving target for them to try to meet to get back into that neighborhood school. Sometimes they just never learn the skills that the school feels that they need.”

The Arc Pikes Peak Region believes all children should attend their neighborhood schools rather than facility schools where they end up cut off from their peers, said Connie McKenzie, an advocate for children with disabilities. If children do end up in a facility school, their time there should be temporary, with the goal that they will gain skills so they can return to their neighborhood school.

“In actuality, I don’t think that happens as often as anyone would like,” McKenzie said. “In my experience, a lot of times when kids are sent to facility schools, they never return to their neighborhood schools. Sometimes it’s a moving target for them to try to meet to get back into that neighborhood school. Sometimes they just never learn the skills that the school feels that they need.”

Maureen Welch, a member of a task force that studied facility schools for the past year and whose son attended one, said Colorado needs “a lot of light and sunshine” to illuminate the process of approving facility schools in the next few years. She wants to make sure the state is bringing in quality programs ranging from small, neighborhood startups that serve a handful of students with related issues, to large, national operations.

“We need to actually have them learn and move forward,” Welch said. “Yes, it’s expensive, but we don’t really have a choice but to make them better. What are we going to do? Put these kids in the correctional system? There is no place to put them because there are not institutions anymore. We will always have a population of kids that can’t be served in a public school district situation.”

Under the new law, schools must receive accreditation based on recommendations from the state facility school board, a panel created in 2008. Board chairperson Steven Ramirez did not return multiple requests for comment from The Colorado Sun and its partners.

The Office of Facility Schools, within the Colorado Department of Education, pushed back on the characterization that facility schools are just a place to keep kids that school districts don’t want to deal with anymore.

“Are there facilities somewhere out there that exist that maybe aren’t being as effective as they need to be or warehousing kids? I don’t think we can eliminate that as a possibility,” said Paul Foster, the executive director of exceptional student services for the education department. “I think we can pretty safely say if they’re in our facility school system, that that’s not the case.”

If it were the case, he said, monitoring visits by the department would have turned up “serious or even egregious” violations instead of the more pedestrian problems that they more commonly find.

Skyline Academy is operating under capacity because some children have needs beyond what the Denver facility school can manage.

Facility schools are not rated based on their test scores in the same way that traditional public schools are, Foster said. While students at facility schools are required to take state standardized tests, state officials take into account that students have “unique and pretty significant needs — and that’s why they’re in a facility school setting,” Foster said.

Callan Ware, the executive director of student services for Englewood Schools, a small district south of Denver, said that when she sends a student to a facility school, it’s because their behavior is so dysregulated — they’re skipping class, getting kicked out, or harming themselves — that they struggle to concentrate and learn.

“While we do absolutely have academic expectations of facility schools, the No. 1 goal is, let’s learn the skills you need to be successful in a public setting,” Ware said.

She recalled one student who struggled with boundaries and impulsiveness and who routinely got sent home from public school for touching other students in class. After less than a year of daily therapy in a facility school, the student “totally turned it around,” she said. His engagement in academic tasks skyrocketed and when he returned to public school, “we could see the kind of student he could be because he wasn’t getting kicked out of class all the time.”

Human services reports reveal safety issues involving cleaning chemicals, restraints

The job of ensuring students are safe and getting a quality education in facility schools falls to multiple state agencies.

The Colorado Department of Education is charged with making sure the schools are following curriculum guidelines and the components of students’ individualized special education plans. The state Department of Human Services, which includes the child protection division, monitors schools to make sure students are safe. Human Services licenses schools in day-treatment or residential centers, while the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment licenses those in hospitals.

When Colorado lawmakers implemented the Office of Facility Schools at the state education department in 2008, they ordered the office to create curriculum standards, graduation guidelines, and an accountability system for the schools. While those standards were written, some of the performance data isn’t tracked or is not easily accessible to the public.

In response to a records request, the Colorado Department of Education provided average standardized test scores across all facility schools — they are lower than the state average, which state officials attributed to their intense behavioral health needs. Colorado’s strict student privacy law requires redacting data about small student groups, and the state wouldn’t provide any test data for individual schools.

Teacher Timi Meyer goes over a worksheet during science class at the Hilltop Day Treatment facility in Grand Junction.

The Colorado Sun and its partners gleaned what data we could by seeking documents under state open records laws. The state doesn’t track graduation rates or keep a count of how many students return to their home districts after attending a facility school. The Department of Human Services charged $90 for redacted reports on child safety. One police department said it would cost $4,700 for copies of reports that could shed light on why police were called so frequently to a facility school and the residential center where it’s housed in Colorado Springs.

The state human services department conducts regular inspections of schools in day-treatment and residential centers, focusing on whether children’s rights are protected. When the division receives a complaint about the way a child was restrained or injured, a state monitor investigates to determine if the school violated state regulations regarding child abuse or neglect. The Colorado Sun reviewed a year’s worth of school monitoring documents after receiving redacted reports through state open records laws.

The reports shed light on the often chaotic, and at times unsafe, environment at schools for students with a history of behavior problems deemed too much for regular schools to manage.

The Tennyson Center in Denver has operated as a home for children since 1904. It’s currently a day treatment facility school.

Mount Saint Vincent, a Denver day treatment center with a school, was cited last summer after a child was able to get ahold of cleaning chemicals and spray them at staff, sending a worker to the emergency room with possible eye and inhalation injuries.

The school was cited again in September after a father of one of the students complained about a red mark on his child that he said was from being held down by staff members on a “hot sidewalk.” A state report says the child threw a water bottle and began hitting two workers after being told to complete math before playing. The staff members restrained the child in a supine hold, face up on a paved courtyard, as the child screamed “Let my arm go” and “The concrete hurts.”

Tennyson Center, another Denver day treatment center, was cited in January for failing to supervise a child who had a known history of cutting herself. The girl hurt herself in a bathroom after staff failed to check on her, according to one Colorado Department of Human Services report.

Devereux Cleo Wallace, which has a day treatment school in Westminster that is closing at the end of this school year, was investigated after a worker chased after and collided with a child running toward a maintenance shed containing tools.

12 schools cited by education department in past five years

In the past five years, the Colorado Department of Education has ordered 12 facility schools to take corrective action for violations ranging from not uploading individualized special education plan documents, using curriculum not aligned to state standards, and cutting into academic time by pulling students out of class for therapy, according to monitoring and corrective action reports reviewed by Chalkbeat Colorado

Five of those 12 schools are closed now. That means seven of the 30 facility schools currently operating — or about 23% — have had violations in the past five years. Most were addressed by the next time state monitors visited.

Poplar Way Academy, inside a behavioral health hospital in Littleton, was cited for cluttered and dirty learning areas, “minimal structure,” and lots of downtime for the 17 students who were there when the monitors visited last June.

“Students had control over the radio and music was playing loudly as they worked,” said the report, which was by far the most egregious of 88 monitoring reports reviewed for this story. “There were no redirections for inappropriate language or behaviors, and students were often left unsupervised or allowed to walk out of the classroom with no redirection. Inappropriate boundaries were noted among students,” who were male and female.

The school is different from most in that it’s for teenagers who have been admitted to a hospital on mental health holds, meaning they were deemed a danger to themselves or others. The average length of stay is just four to five days, the report says.

The school’s director of special education, Deon Roberts, said that since state officials’ last visit, the school has hired more teachers, increased staff training and expanded the curriculum. The school is “committed to continuous improvement while providing much-needed educational services to a challenging population of students,” she said in an email.

Skyline Academy’s “chill space” provides a separate room where students can find a darker, quieter environment to decompress.

The majority of the violations, however, are for “quick fixes” that schools can address with more training or resources, said Judy Stirman, director of facility schools at the state education department.

State education officials try to help schools with a background in mental health treatment understand their educational obligations, said Foster, with the state education department. “If I’m a therapist or someone at a facility school, I’m looking at the whole package, and so I may not understand that the school side of it has committed to a certain plan for this child in addition to the treatment plan you’re doing.

“Special education is pretty technical, so you can have technical violations,” he said. “Don’t hear me say that technical violations don’t need to be treated seriously. But a technical violation that is quickly remedied is not usually harmful to the student.”

Facility schools with violations get a visit each year from a pair of state monitors. Schools without violations get a visit every other year from monitors who use a 98-item checklist. In addition to whether schools are complying with the mounds of federal requirements related to special education, the monitors determine whether teachers are properly licensed and staff are using positive behavior interventions with students and not punitive ones, for example.

The reports provide a window into what the schools look and feel like. Many describe bright classrooms with student artwork on display. They note that most schools use a reward system where students with good behavior earn tickets that they can redeem for prizes. Some schools hold events like talent shows and carnivals. One has a basketball team. Another has a student choir. A few have therapy dogs, gardens, or culinary arts programs.

Juvenile records laws shield information about safety

Several of Colorado’s facility schools include a mix of students who live at home with their parents and students who are in foster care and live in the residential treatment center that contains the school.

This clouds transparency about the safety of the schools, since police regularly visit residential centers for young people who might have lived in multiple foster homes and juvenile justice centers.

Public records requests from The Sun to police departments in Colorado Springs and Denver revealed a constant drumbeat of emergency calls to facility schools or programs housed in the same complexes.

Between April 2021 and the end of March, for example, Colorado Springs police responded hundreds of times to the J. Wilkins Opportunity School, 10 Farragut Ave., and the residential program across the street, 17 Farragut Ave., police records show.

More than 100 emergencies were reported at the school, including 18 assaults as well as sexual assaults, threats, harassment, 911 hangups, and suicide attempts. The residential facility, where some of the students live, accounted for more than 470 police calls during that period, with dozens more reports of assaults, threats, indecent exposure, missing children, and sexual offenses, the records show.

No details were provided beyond the time, date, and nature of each call. Police said a request for more records of those calls would require an estimated $4,700 payment for research and redaction fees.

“We’re less likely to press charges than a school would. If they’re here, we’re not suspending them, either.”

Managing outbursts and aggressive behavior is nothing new at the J. Wilkins Opportunity School, said Lauren Campbell, the chief operating officer of the Griffith Centers, which runs the school and residential program.

“Some of that behavior is why these kids — a good portion of them — are here,” Campbell said. “It’s not an ideal piece of learning, clearly, but unfortunately it’s the safest place for most of these students to be in general.”

When police are called, the children involved in the emergency are separated from other students, so officers aren’t entering classrooms, Campbell said. That minimizes disruptions and allows staff to restore order and return to teaching, she said.

A threat that might get a child suspended or even kicked out of another school often results in a safety plan involving special accommodations, such as a temporary transfer to a different classroom.

Campbell said calls to police had increased in the past two years, citing a staffing shortage that made it harder for workers to defuse conflicts on their own.

Skyline Academy’s peace room is one place students can get some time apart from their classmates.

The campus used to operate five residential centers, housing up to 40 children. But they closed all but one after the passage of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act, which pushed states to send fewer children to residential care.

The closures reduced the campus staff by roughly 50%, and the only remaining residential center was reserved for the kids with the severest needs, leading to more frequent calls for help, Campbell said.

Still, the emphasis remains on keeping children safe, and on campus.

“They end up in less troublesome situations than in a school setting,” she said. “We’re less likely to press charges than a school would. If they’re here, we’re not suspending them, either.”

In Denver, police similarly logged thousands of calls per year to facility schools or the complexes housing them, also for reports of assaults, missing children and various disturbances, records show. But Denver police declined to provide incident or arrest reports that would disclose more detail, citing a state law meant to protect juveniles’ privacy.

McKenzie, with The Arc Pikes Peak Region, worries Colorado isn’t doing enough to make sure kids at facility schools are safe.

“There isn’t that oversight,” said McKenzie, who advocates for a handful of families each year whose kids end up attending facility schools, noting some students are terrified of returning to one.

“They were afraid,” she said. “They were legitimately afraid of what was going to happen to them if they went back to a place where they felt they had been abused.”

Lawmakers are hoping to see better coordination between the agencies that oversee facility schools.

Becky Miller Updike, director of the Colorado Association of Family and Children’s Agencies, which represents some of the largest youth treatment facilities in Colorado, is hopeful that this year’s legislation will set facility schools on a trajectory of better funding and more accountability.

“With this new investment from the legislature, facility schools will now track data and access technical assistance more robustly than ever before,” she said. “We will have new ways to measure what’s working and what’s not.”

Zenzinger’s legislation requires multiple state agencies to work together to help current schools function better and new ones open.

“Facility schools don’t neatly live under one department. That’s why they are such a challenge,” she said. “We are definitely mandating a new level of cooperation between these different departments so that they are each doing their part.”

“We want to make sure that children in facility schools are able to graduate and go on to college and have productive lives.”

As part of the new accreditation requirements, schools will have to report additional data showing student outcomes, and the new law provides funding for data collection because “we absolutely would like to track things a little bit better,” Zenzinger said. A task force that has studied facility schools for the last year and made recommendations ahead of Zenzinger’s legislation will continue to meet and help determine what data the schools are required to report.

“We want them to be accredited and deliver good quality public education,” she said. “Obviously they aren’t traditional schools. You are not going to have passing periods and a full schedule every day. But we want to make sure that children in facility schools are able to graduate and go on to college and have productive lives.”

One child out of 11 returned to a regular school

On a recent day at Skyline Academy in Denver, elementary school children read quietly at their desks as a flat-screen television at the front of their classroom played soothing music and showed a trickling waterfall.

The desks at Skyline, which is run by Denver’s community mental health center WellPower, have bungee rubber bands that stretch from one chair leg to the other so kids can put their feet on them and bounce as they study fractions or read aloud. Each child gets a plastic rainbow wiggle slug they silently twist and curl in their palm, helping them relieve anxiety. Children can use standing desks or “wobbly” stools inside of regular chairs. There is a “chill room” and a “peace room” containing bean bags and swings where students can hang out if the classroom gets too stressful.

Classrooms at Skyline Academy are decorated with student artwork.

The classrooms, decorated with cheerful colors and maps, are on one side of the building of the Dahlia Campus for Health and Well-Being. On the other side are the mental health center’s counseling offices where children get individual and family therapy.

The school has a capacity for 24, yet only 14 desks are full — even as school districts across Colorado are scrambling to find spaces for children whose needs are beyond what they can handle.

Program manager Erica Edewaard said that’s because many of the children who’ve been referred to Skyline in recent months have behavioral issues more intense than even Skyline can accommodate. Some of the kids referred by school districts, she said, need residential treatment.

Skyline, not far from busy Martin Luther King and Colorado boulevards, won’t accept children who repeatedly run away because they could get hit by cars. Under state law, schools like Skyline are not allowed to lock their doors and staff are prohibited from physically restraining students unless there is imminent risk of danger to themselves or others. Skyline also won’t typically take kids with a history of destroying property or assaulting teachers or other students, especially if they are nearly the same size as Edewaard’s staff.

“I also have to take into consideration the size of the student relative to the size of my staff,” Edewaard said. “If I’m always relying on just my two tallest staff members, that’s going to burn them out really quickly.”

The goal at Skyline is that students learn to cope with their anxiety, depression or attention disorder so they are able to function and learn in a regular classroom. For most, however, a direct transition to regular school is not that easy.

Eleven students have left Skyline in the past year, according to data provided by the school. Three students left for hospitalization or a residential treatment program, one “aged out” and a handful of others went to other step-down or specialized school programs.

Only one returned to a regular classroom.

Jennifer Brown is a co-founder and reporter at The Sun, where she writes about mental health, child welfare and social justice issues. Contact Jen at jennifer@coloradosun.com.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Students in rural Colorado left without options as specialized schools close

2023-05-12T11:00:00+00:00

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — At first glance, nothing seems particularly unusual about the four-room school in this western Colorado city. Inside, six students are learning about radioactivity. The walls of their classroom are plastered with motivational messages like “Determination” and “Courage” scribbled onto paper cutouts of stars and moons.

A closer look reveals that Hilltop Day Treatment is no ordinary school. There are no backpacks or lockers. Students are escorted to the restroom. Hugs aren’t allowed, a precaution against inappropriate touching by students who do not yet understand physical boundaries. And before lunch, the students break from their regular lessons for group therapy.

Hilltop is a facility school, Colorado’s term for specialized institutions that serve students with severe behavioral, mental health, or special education needs when their public schools can’t. And this school, with 12 students, is the last of its kind on the Western Slope, the vast territory west of the Continental Divide home to 10% of the state’s population. The other 29 facility schools are in the more heavily populated Front Range corridor.

“It breaks our heart to have a waitlist,” said Hollie VanRoosendaal, director of community programs at Hilltop Community Resources, the organization that runs the Hilltop Day Treatment school. “We really want to get those kids in and seen and getting their education towards their graduation as well as some really great therapeutic services.”

Disability rights and mental health advocates say facility schools are overused and can become dumping grounds for students with disabilities. But in rural Colorado, when the local school district can’t meet a student’s needs, the lack of spots in facility schools can mean students end up at home learning online, languishing in mental health facilities, or attending a residential school far from home.

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law this spring that provides funds to prop up facility schools and strengthen services for students with severe needs in rural districts. But the sparse population and vast distances of the Western Slope and Eastern Plains mean serving these vulnerable students will likely remain a challenge.

“There are no services there. And so you get one student with autism that comes into this little tiny district, what’s going to happen? That child is not going to get what he or she needs, and they’re too far away from the Front Range,” said Barb Taylor, an educator turned consultant who serves as special education director for several Colorado facility schools.

According to a report submitted to lawmakers, among the main reasons students could not be placed at a facility school were lack of openings and, in rural areas, “prohibitive geographic location.”

A few rural patches of the state have figured out alternatives to serve students closer to home. For example, the Santa Fe Trail Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, started the Southeast Alternative Learning Academy in La Junta for students in the eastern plains with emotional and behavioral problems.

But few other BOCES, regional associations of school districts that pool resources to provide services they would not be able to alone, have managed to start such programs.

Instead, across much of rural Colorado, “we have people that are trying to work with these kids that are not qualified or that are not trained, that don’t have the skills that they need to be able to do that in the district,” said Sandy Malouff, executive director and special education director of the Santa Fe Trail BOCES.

Sonjia Hunt, director of education at the Hilltop Day Treatment school, describes the services the school offers to children in sixth through 12th grade.

In the western half of the state, Sonjia Hunt, director of Hilltop Day Treatment school, said she has watched facility schools scale down or close: first in Rifle, then in Whitewater, Delta, Durango, and, last year, one inside a Glenwood Springs hospital.

After operating in the red for years, Hilltop had to scale back as well, shutting down its 16-bed residential facility in October 2020. Now, students on the Western Slope who require residential treatment must travel across the Rockies, if not out of state, Hunt said.

The new state law will allow Hilltop to hire another teacher, case manager, and therapist, and take on 12 more students, Hunt said. But Hilltop doesn’t plan to reopen its residential side.

When the residential facility closed, surrounding communities struggled to make up the loss, said Tammy Johnson, executive director of the Uncompahgre BOCES, which serves five rural western districts.

“There’s a big difference between being an educational entity and a therapeutic entity. We just don’t have the training that we need to meet these kids’ needs,” said Johnson.

The Hilltop Day Treatment school in Grand Junction is the only remaining school of its kind on Colorado’s Western Slope. It currently serves 12 girls and boys and always has a waiting list.

‘I just needed help’

Riley George, a 12-year-old with autism and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, has had to cross a mountain range to get an education. After enrolling in and leaving multiple schools, Riley now lives in a residential facility in Colorado Springs, more than three hours from his home in Del Norte.

The slight preteen, whose tufty hair sticks up in the wind like a thistle, is an avid reader who tears through 400-page science fiction books.

He loves his dog and Baby Yoda, a character from the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian. He goes for walks with one of his little sisters and plays action figures with his little brother. On a good day, said his mother, Kelly George, he’s “a good, respectful kid” who has no trouble getting himself ready for school.

But Riley’s brain works faster than his hands, which can make tasks like writing or tying shoelaces feel frustratingly insurmountable. He is only now learning how to play make-believe with others cooperatively, something other children tend to learn at a much younger age. And seemingly small things, like an itchy tag on his clothes, or loud noises, like his sister’s happy shrieks, can send him to a bad place.

“When he was younger, he would cover his ears and just immediately hit the floor and start screaming like he was in pain,” said George.

Now that he’s older, overload leads to aggression: hitting, cursing, kicking. “We had to design a code word for the other kids,” said George, to signal to her three younger children to barricade themselves in a room while the parents try to calm the eldest.

From preschool through second grade, Riley attended Bill Metz Elementary School in Monte Vista, one town over from where his family lives. Riley remembered how his teachers there gave him space when he was upset, as on the day his dog ran away. His special education teacher, Kellyn Ross, remembered him complimenting the cafeteria staff for a “divine” lunch.

On a good day, Riley George is “a good, respectful kid” who has no trouble getting himself ready for school, his mother said.

Riley was in the Pokémon Club and could earn points for good behavior that he could redeem for prizes. Riley and Ross developed a system to help him identify his feelings and others’, and to take a break when needed.

Monte Vista School District Superintendent Scott Wiedeman said the school takes a proactive approach to encouraging positive behavior in all students.

But when Ross got a promotion, the school couldn’t find someone with enough experience to fill her spot, and they were at capacity with special education students. In the decade since Ross had started as a special education teacher, her caseload had doubled. So, they had to send out-of-district students, including Riley, back to their neighborhood schools.

“The kicker is just having the resources,” Wiedeman said. “We need more people to deal with the mental health of students. That’s a big factor.”

After that, Riley started lashing out at others. The calls home ratcheted up, as did the use of force at school to restrain him.

When Riley was in third grade at Del Norte Elementary, he was on an individualized education program for serious emotional disability. Despite that, school officials frequently suspended him and whittled his classroom time down to one hour a day, the Georges said. When school districts in Oregon shortened their special education students’ school days due to behavior, experts determined it was as counterproductive as limiting reading time for students who are struggling to read well.

Aaron Horrocks, superintendent of the Upper Rio Grande School District, declined to comment on Riley specifically but said challenging behaviors are on the rise and schools need more support services and options — funding to hire paraprofessionals or a day treatment center within driving range.

One day, Riley slapped the side of the school bus and cursed, his mother said, and school staffers held him on the ground for an hour — Riley said one sat on him. The Georges filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education that alleged school officials had discriminated against Riley because of his disability. The department acknowledged that IEP documents show Riley was physically restrained three times over the course of a month.

A student cuts out a waving hand as she and her classmates create Fourth of July posters for seniors during their group therapy session at the Hilltop Day Treatment facility in Grand Junction.

Before an investigation got underway, the school district settled the complaint by adopting new protocols and training staff members on shortened school days and physical restraints. The Georges eventually chose to take Riley out of that school and enroll him in an online school.

That worked for about a year, with his father, Matthew George, staying home to help with schooling while Kelly George became the sole breadwinner.

But when Riley gave his mother a bruise the size of two softballs — and threatened to kill her while she slept — they were stuck: He had to go somewhere that could meet his needs, for his family’s safety. They contacted several residential facilities and even a few hospitals but ran into a string of denials: Some didn’t accept his insurance; others rejected him because he wasn’t yet a teenager, because of his aggressive behavior or his autism, or because they just had no beds left.

Schools in Utah, Arkansas, and Texas didn’t respond, and there was no room in Wyoming. By that point, Hilltop had closed its residential program, and driving more than four hours each way for a day program was out of the question.

In the meantime, Riley was in and out of short-term treatment facilities on multiple emergency mental health holds between September and January. Under Colorado law, emergency holds allow people to be kept for 72 hours for treatment and evaluation if they appear to be an imminent danger to themselves or others.

When Kelly George called her county’s social services department, she said, the response was that “unless he basically puts me in the hospital or is really aggressive towards one of his siblings and actually hurts them, there was nothing they could do, because it’s not an abuse or neglect case.”

So, they pressed assault charges against their own child.

“I just needed help, and it was the last card I could play,” said Kelly George.

Breaking the cycle of anger

Critics of facility schools condemn their segregated nature, but Riley wound up in even more segregated places over the next four months while his family tried to secure a bed at a residential school. After being criminally charged, Riley first went to Pueblo Youth Services Center, a detention facility. That was followed by a stint in a mental health hospital. His belongings moved with him in a garbage bag — the “essentials,” said Riley, plus 10 books about the military sci-fi franchise Halo.

Then, in late March, the Georges drove him to a Colorado Springs facility school called the J. Wilkins Opportunity School.

“I want to learn to control my anger better,” Riley said on his first day there. He missed his dog. He said he’d be ready to go home when anger no longer feels like “clenched fists.”

The Georges wish there were a place closer to home. “We can’t be the only family in our 200 square miles dealing with this,” said Kelly. A dream scenario, she said, would be to have a school that kids like her son could attend, with transportation to and from school, and therapeutic support at home.

Some provisions in the new Colorado law are intended specifically to help rural areas, such as establishing a statewide technical assistance center to help meet rural students’ needs.

Riley George stands beside his mother, Kelly, and father, Matthew, before he is dropped off at the J. Wilkins Opportunity School, a facility school in Colorado Springs.

It could provide anything from in-person training for school staffers to a behavior analyst available to coach people over the phone in a pinch, said Malouff, the Santa Fe Trail BOCES executive director, who participated in a stakeholder group that came up with the idea. The details have not yet been determined.

Malouff hopes the center will help rural districts gain the skills they need to keep students at home, and free up facility school spots for others with more severe needs.

Michelle Murphy, executive director of the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance, and others in rural education are skeptical that a single statewide technical assistance center can provide the support districts need when so much of the need is for boots on the ground.

“We have workforce challenges in virtually every aspect of our special education programs, from teachers to our special service providers to our paraprofessionals,” said Murphy. “It’s close to, if not an actual, crisis at this point.”

Pat Bershinsky, executive director of the Pikes Peak BOCES in Colorado Springs, said rural needs would be more effectively met if the money instead went directly to BOCES to create their own programs.

The Georges would have kept Riley at or close to home had they been able to get the right training, services, and support. In states like Minnesota, for example, it’s possible to get personal care assistance at home under certain circumstances, including for help with frequent aggressive behaviors for a home-schooled student with an individualized education program.

Such services were created to keep people in their communities and avoid institutional placement. Colorado does not appear to offer such services specifically geared toward aggressive behavior.

On move-in day in Colorado Springs, the Georges toured the campus with Riley and carried his belongings into his new room. Matthew George excitedly pointed out that Riley will be living mere blocks from a U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center.

“I can’t believe that, finally, after all this time — eight months — it’s finally happening and my family’s needs are finally, finally being met,” said Matthew George. But he was also apprehensive. He, too, was institutionalized as a child, bouncing for five years between foster care and the same mental health hospital and facility school organization as his son.

“I never thought I would be in a position where I would be an adult and witness my son going through the same things that I went through,” he said. “Something really needs to be done, because I don’t want to be going and visiting my grandkids in a facility like this.”

Riley’s move has the Georges’ other children worried, too. Kelly George recalled their 5-year-old daughter throwing a temper tantrum over ice cream, then wailing in fright: “I’m gonna get sent away! I don’t wanna get sent away.” But Kelly, too, is optimistic about Riley’s new chapter.

“It’s sad that we’re leaving him here, but at the same time I’m really hopeful that this is going to be what he needs to get him to where he can be OK and be at home with us,” she said.

When it was time to say goodbye, Matthew George hugged his son close. “You can do this,” he told him. And then the family drove away, back through the mountains, back home.

Chalkbeat Colorado senior reporter Melanie Asmar contributed to this report

KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

Matthew and Kelly George walk with their son Riley into the J. Wilkins Opportunity School, a facility school in Colorado Springs.

Michigan schools would get funding boost under House and Senate budget proposals

2023-05-10T22:08:15+00:00

Michigan school districts would receive funding increases of between $366 and $550 per student, school breakfasts would be free for all, at-risk students would receive record funding, and the state would help cover some school transportation costs.

Those are some of the school funding proposals currently making their way through the Democratic-controlled Michigan Legislature.

The Michigan House on Wednesday approved a spending plan for public schools that would increase the per-pupil foundation amount to $9,516. That’s up 4% from the current amount of $9,150. The vote was 56-52, along party lines.

The Michigan Senate version of the school aid budget, likely to get a vote Thursday, would increase the per-pupil foundation amount to $9,700.

In the House, Democrats lauded its version of the budget, with some calling it “transformational.”

“This budget proposal does amazing things for every student in our state,” said Rep. Matt Koleszar, a Democrat from Plymouth who leads the House Education Committee.

Once both chambers have approved their respective budgets, a conference committee will iron out the differences, which are wide in some cases.

For example, they are far apart on how much to increase spending for students who are considered at risk. Students are identified as at risk based on a number of factors, including if they come from low-income families, are English language learners, are chronically absent, or are a victim of child abuse or neglect.

Currently, a district’s per-pupil amount is increased by 11.5% for each at-risk student.

Under the Senate plan, schools would continue to receive the additional 11.5%, but for those with the largest concentrations of children from low-income homes, the added payment would be as much as 15.3%.

The House proposal would give districts an increase of 35% for at-risk students.

Rep. Regina Weiss, a Democrat from Oak Park, said the House proposal would be the most the state has invested in the state’s neediest students.

Republican Rep. Brad Paquette, from Niles, voted no on the spending plan. He said that while there are some positive spending proposals, such as the foundation amount and increased spending on mental health, he is concerned about the increased spending on at-risk students, among other issues.

“The increase in at risk sounds like a noble increase. Ultimately these dollars become a slush fund for districts, where dollars do not track with the actual student that is in need,” Paquette said. “How can we ensure that these dollars actually follow those students who are deemed at risk?”

Paquette spoke against several other provisions of the budget, but he was cut off by the House member who was presiding over the chamber at the time while detailing his concerns over funding implicit-bias training after being told he was veering too far off the topic of the budget.

Democrats praised a proposal that would have the state spend $160 million to reimburse school districts for the cost of providing free breakfasts and lunches to all students. During the first two years of the pandemic, federal funding helped pay for free meals, but that funding ended.

“No one deserves to go hungry while they are attending school,” Koleszar said. “Students should focus on what they’re learning, not worry about where their next meal will come from.”

The Senate plan also allocates $160 million for meals.

The budget proposals also include $300 million for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Kids Back on Track program, which is aimed at helping students recover academically after pandemic-era declines in achievement; $94.4 million for the Detroit Public Schools Community District for the settlement of a literacy lawsuit; and $75 million to expand the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s free preschool program for 4-year-olds.

Some other features of the budget proposals:

The House proposal includes $150 million in new funding for school transportation.
The House would keep funding for Michigan’s online charter schools to current per-pupil levels, while the Senate would cut their funding to $7,760 per pupil.
The House proposal includes one-time funding of $300 million over two years to provide public schools with per-pupil grants to improve mental health. The Senate plan includes $310 million for public schools and $17.5 million for private schools.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief of Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools handcuff and haul away kids in emotional crisis

2023-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with THE CITY. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

It was almost time for school pickup when Paul’s mom saw the text on the classroom messaging app: Paul — her 7-year-old — “ended up running out of class today and it escalated rather quickly.” Someone at the school had called 911. Paul’s parents could contact the main office for more information, the message read.

Paul’s mom remembers the physical feeling of dread, like ice under her skin. Paul — that’s his middle name — has a neurological disorder. He loves to cuddle with his mom and help take care of his baby sister, and he’s wild about Greek mythology. Like a lot of kids with developmental disabilities, he also has very big tantrums, hitting, spitting and throwing things when he gets upset. Since the end of first grade, he’s been in a special public school classroom in Brooklyn that integrates disabled and nondisabled kids.

The day of the message, in early December, Paul’s mom was so panicked that she couldn’t fully make sense of what it said. Why had the school called 911 instead of calling her? Was her child hurt? Had something gone terribly wrong? She wanted to run the last few blocks to the school, but her legs felt frozen. It was hard just to walk.

When she made it into the school building, she found Paul lying facedown on the floor of a computer room, his whole body heaving with sobs. She touched his back, and he screamed and tried to scramble away. Then he recognized his mother’s voice and jumped into her arms. “Mommy, don’t let them handcuff me,” he begged.

“I said, ‘What are you talking about? No one is going to handcuff you.’”

But that’s when she found out: Someone already had.

That afternoon, Paul had had a meltdown that started in his classroom and spilled into a hallway. When he didn’t calm down, someone called a school safety agent — an officer of the New York Police Department who is stationed full-time in the building. Paul knocked off the agent’s face mask and glasses, and that’s when it happened. The agent pulled out a pair of Velcro restraints and forced them over Paul’s hands.

Looking now, Paul’s mom could see red marks where the handcuffs had rubbed Paul’s wrists raw. But she felt more bewildered than ever. She must be misunderstanding, she thought. Who would handcuff a 7-year-old?

New York City officials have promised for years to stop relying on police to respond to students in emotional crisis. Under the terms of a 2014 legal settlement, schools are only supposed to call 911 in the most extreme situations, when kids pose an “imminent and substantial risk of serious injury” to themselves or others.

And yet an investigation by THE CITY and ProPublica found that city schools continue to call on safety agents and other police officers to manage students in distress thousands of times each year — incidents the NYPD calls “child in crisis” interventions. Unless a parent arrives in time to intercede, cops hand kids off to EMTs, who take students to hospital emergency rooms for psychiatric evaluations. In close to 1,370 incidents since 2017, students ended up in handcuffs while they waited for an ambulance to arrive, according to NYPD data. In several incidents, those kids were 5 or 6 years old.

Note: 2017 is the first year that the New York Police Department released data on all incidents where a school employee called 911 over a student in emotional distress, known as child-in-crisis incidents. Data Source: NYPD quarterly School Safety Act report. Credit: Lucas Waldron, ProPublica

Ten years ago, in the runup to the 2014 settlement, a group of parents sued the city’s Department of Education, claiming that schools violated their children’s constitutional rights and broke federal law by sending them to hospitals when they weren’t experiencing medical emergencies — in many cases in response to behavior that resulted directly from a student’s disability.

The experience was traumatic and humiliating for the kids, the plaintiffs claimed. Students were terrified to return to school; 6- and 7-year-olds thought they were being arrested. Two schools filed child welfare reports on parents who didn’t allow EMTs to put their children in ambulances.

Meanwhile, the hospital visits served no useful purpose, plaintiffs claimed. Students missed crucial class time only to wait for hours in emergency rooms — sometimes with seriously mentally ill adults — and then be sent home. At least one parent lost her job because she was repeatedly forced to leave work to rush to the hospital, and then she was stuck with bills for ambulance trips and ER services her child didn’t need.

As part of the 2014 settlement, the department issued a regulation that requires schools to make every effort to safely manage students in distress without involving police — including by deploying trained crisis response teams and allowing parents to speak to their children by phone if possible. Schools are never allowed to use 911 calls as a punishment for misbehavior. When cops do get involved, they must use the “minimum level of restraint necessary.”

Despite the promises and regulations, New York City public schools call 911 on students in emotional distress as often as ever, an analysis by THE CITY and ProPublica of NYPD data shows. Prior to the lawsuit, city-run and charter schools saw an average of 3,000 child-in-crisis incidents per year from 2005 to 2010 and an average of 3,300 incidents in the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years, according to court documents. Since 2017 — the first post-lawsuit year for which the NYPD reported complete data — schools have seen an average of 3,200 incidents per year. (The analysis excludes 911 calls made in 2020 and 2021, when schools operated on a remote or hybrid schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Schools are far more likely to call 911 on Black students, who make up less than a quarter of the student body but account for nearly half of child-in-crisis incidents and 59% of instances in which students were handcuffed since 2017, the analysis shows. And schools continue to call police to respond to young children: Last year, more than 560 child-in-crisis incidents involved students aged 10 or younger. In five cases, the kids were 4 years old.

Note: Data for all New York City child-in-crisis and handcuffing incidents covers 2017 to 2022. Data for student population demographics includes school years 2017-18 to 2021-22. Data Sources: New York City annual student enrollment snapshot and New York Police Department quarterly School Safety Act report.

“The things that needed to change did not change,” said Nelson Mar, an education attorney at Legal Services NYC who represented the plaintiffs in the 2013 lawsuit.

That’s partly because the Department of Education fails to hold schools accountable for not following its own regulations, Mar and other advocates said. Schools are required to file occurrence reports after calling 911 on students, but they don’t have to show that they took the mandatory steps to manage a crisis first. Unless parents have a lawyer or a paid advocate, they rarely know the reports exist, much less get the opportunity to contest a school’s account of an incident or to object if they believe school staff called 911 to punish a student they were fed up with.

In an emailed statement, Department of Education spokesperson Nathaniel Styer wrote that, if parents believe a school called 911 in violation of city rules, they should contact their school district’s superintendent, who oversees school leaders and can provide additional training. “Situations where young children are in crisis and/or are at risk of harming themselves or others are among the most difficult for our educators and school staff,” Styer wrote.

“Nevertheless,” Styer continued, “whenever there is evidence the policy hasn’t been followed, it will be reported and investigated, and we review every case where 911 is called to ensure that it was necessary and complied with our policy.”

But thousands of children are still being forcibly removed from schools each year, which means the oversight clearly isn’t working, said Amber Decker, a public school parent who was a plaintiff in the 2013 lawsuit and now works as an advocate for parents of kids with disabilities.

If schools were being held accountable for unnecessary 911 calls, “the numbers would have gone down,” Decker said. As it is, “there’s no consequences other than the ones you push for until you’re blue in the face or banging your head against the wall.”

To understand why police are so involved in New York City schools, you have to look back to the late 1990s. Rudy Giuliani was mayor, and schools were at the junction of two of his biggest campaign promises: to slash crime and to fix the education system. For students, that meant a “zero tolerance” approach to school misconduct.

In 1998, the city created a new division of the NYPD, transferring school safety operations — which had previously been managed by the Board of Education — to the police department. Agents were allowed to arrest students for all kinds of misbehavior, including spitting, talking back to teachers and cutting class.

Eighteen years and two administrations later, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio presided over a city that approached young people and police very differently. According to a 2016 mayoral task force that included the commanding officer of the NYPD’s School Safety Division, overly punitive practices weren’t making students safer; they were pushing vulnerable kids out of schools and into the juvenile justice system.

The task force pointed to child-in-crisis incidents as part of the problem. “With little mental health experience or training, and scant access to mental health professionals, ER overuse is the norm,” the task force wrote.

De Blasio promised to transform the city’s approach to school discipline by reducing the role of police and dramatically increasing the mental health resources available to students and teachers. “We’re revolutionizing our school system,” he said in 2019.

The revolution never materialized. In 2021, after New York City students experienced some of the longest school shutdowns in the country, the city hired 500 new school-based social workers to help respond to trauma connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. De Blasio’s was “one of the first administrations to recognize that schools are where kids with mental health problems land,” said Peter Ragone, a longtime de Blasio adviser.

But while the hiring push put the city ahead of many other jurisdictions, New York City schools still have just one social worker for every 475 students — close to double the National Association of Social Workers’ recommended ratio of 250 students per social worker.

The city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, announced a sweeping mental health plan in March that includes a “Mental Health Continuum,” a project that was conceived under de Blasio and rolled out last year to connect schools directly to mental health clinics and mobile crisis teams. But Adams’s proposed city budget, released a month later, included no funding for the project.

“It’s mind-boggling,” said Dawn Yuster, who directs the School Justice Project at the group Advocates for Children. “This would expedite care for young people with the most significant needs. If you’re going to say it, fund it.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to questions about the Mental Health Continuum, but Patrick Gallahue, press secretary for the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, wrote in an emailed statement that a new teletherapy program for high schoolers will “connect even more young people with services by reaching them where they are.”

Meanwhile, in 2022, City Council members acknowledged the need for more oversight of child-in-crisis incidents, introducing a bill that would have required school safety agents to document that school staff tried to de-escalate a crisis before involving police. But the bill never made it out of committee. (Neither Councilmember Diana Ayala nor Councilmember Rita Joseph, both of whom sponsored the bill, responded to requests for comment.)

When school staff don’t get the support they need from mental health experts, they often resort to punishing kids for behaviors they can’t control, Yuster said. It might start with “calling parents every day about a student’s behavior. Then they up the ante, calling to say, ‘We’re suspending for five days, and next time we’re going to call EMS if this behavior continues.’”

Not only do the escalating punishments violate city rules but they also destroy trust between students and schools, said Crystal Baker-Burr, an attorney who directs the Education Project at The Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit public defense agency.

“Even if a school is at their wit’s end,” Baker-Burr said, “sending a student to the ER is not going to help the situation. Getting police involved, handcuffing them, it doesn’t make anything better at school the next day.”

Three years ago, Baker-Burr saw the impact of 911 calls up close — on her 7-year-old nephew, Ethan. (Ethan’s family asked us to identify him by just his first name.)

In 2019, Ethan was a second grader at P.S. 157 in the Bronx. He was a gentle and sweet kid at home, but he got overwhelmed and acted out at school, said his mom, Jacqueline De Jesus. He’d hit other kids or run out of the classroom. Sometimes he’d bite himself. This was before he was diagnosed with autism, and his parents were still trying to figure out what to do. De Jesus asked the school for help, she said, but teachers told her that Ethan didn’t need to be evaluated for educational services because his schoolwork was at grade level.

Instead, De Jesus said, Ethan, who’s Black and Latino, got punished. Teachers yelled at him and sent him out of the classroom. He wasn’t allowed to join music or sports clubs or sign up for the after-school program. The school constantly called his parents to pick him up early.

De Jesus felt like the message was clear. “They didn’t want to deal with him,” she said. It seemed like the school was making it as difficult as possible for Ethan to stay.

When Jacqueline De Jesus’ second grader, Ethan, threw tantrums at school, staffers repeatedly called 911.

P.S. 157’s principal did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Education declined to comment on Ethan’s experience, even though De Jesus signed a release allowing it to share information with THE CITY and ProPublica.

In April 2019, De Jesus got a phone call that shocked her. It was the school secretary, saying that an ambulance was on its way to take Ethan to the hospital. De Jesus was at work in Manhattan — a 40-minute cab ride away — so she called Baker-Burr, who went straight to the school. When she got there, Ethan was curled up in a ball underneath a desk, rocking back and forth and sobbing. His face was swollen and red from crying for so long.

Two uniformed police officers were “standing over my very small nephew,” Baker-Burr said. “They were saying things like, ‘Don’t lie to us, Ethan. When you’re older, we could arrest you for things like this.’”

Baker-Burr asked the officers to leave the room, then got down on the floor and convinced Ethan to come out from under the desk, promising that she wouldn’t let anyone hurt him. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was calm, talking to Baker-Burr about his new Five Nights at Freddy’s backpack. Baker-Burr rode with him to Lincoln Medical Center, a public hospital in the South Bronx, where a doctor interviewed him and sent him home with a note saying he was fine to return to school.

Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx

“They were like, ‘Why is this child even here?’ It was a colossal waste of time,” Baker-Burr said.

That didn’t stop the school from calling 911 on Ethan two more times in the next month, De Jesus and Baker-Burr said. Nor did it prevent De Jesus from being billed hundreds of dollars for ambulance rides and ER visits.

Eventually, De Jesus gave up and petitioned the city to move Ethan to a different school. “I didn’t want to send him somewhere he wasn’t wanted,” she said.

Calling 911 on kids “is the last thing any teacher wants to do,” said Kristen GoldMansour, a former teacher and coach who works with dozens of New York City schools to support inclusive programming for students with disabilities.

“The question is, how did we get there?” GoldMansour said. “There’s probably a thousand million things we could have done to avoid getting to that point.”

In fact, when students’ behavior or mental health needs get in the way of learning, federal law requires schools to intervene, proactively offering them evaluations and services like occupational therapy or a functional behavioral assessment — a detailed analysis of what triggers kids’ behaviors and the best strategies to prevent an emergency.

But getting the right services can be difficult or impossible — especially for parents who can’t pay attorneys to help them navigate the city’s convoluted system for students with disabilities. Instead, as THE CITY and ProPublica reported last year, kids who are disruptive or aggressive often get pushed out of mainstream schools and into failing special education schools that are packed with other students who have behavioral and mental health challenges. Even if they are capable academically, their chances of graduating with a diploma plummet.

Meanwhile, their odds of encountering police go way up: Special education schools, which disproportionately serve low-income and Black students, call 911 on kids in distress at four times the per-student rate of general education schools, according to a data analysis by Advocates for Children.

In Brooklyn, Paul’s parents are doing everything they can to keep him in a school with general education students. This is his chance to be integrated into mainstream life, his mom said.

On the day after Paul’s school called 911, his parents asked for a meeting with school staff and officials from the Department of Education — something they only knew to do because they were working with paid education advocates, they said. Paul’s dad went to the meeting, which was recorded on Zoom, with a list of questions: What kinds of restraints were used on his son? Could he see a picture of them? Would the school share its plan for responding to students in crisis or its policies on handcuffing kids? What if Paul had another incident — would staff call his parents before calling 911?

School staff said that they had tried to calm Paul down, but no one explained why the NYPD safety agent had become involved or why the school hadn’t called Paul’s parents first. The principal would only say that the school had done nothing wrong. “Protocols were followed,” she said. Everything was “by the book.” Meanwhile, she repeated a list of Paul’s transgressions: He had “assaulted” teachers, his behavior was “egregious.” (Paul’s parents asked us not to use their names or identify his school, in part to protect Paul’s privacy but also for fear of alienating education officials who hold power over Paul’s future school placements.)

After an hour, Paul’s dad was reduced to pleading: “Promise me, if this happens again, you have to call us,” he said. “I’m begging you. This is my son.”

Two weeks after the meeting, the Department of Education transferred Paul to a school that has more experience teaching disabled and nondisabled kids together. It’s a better outcome than many families get, Paul’s mom said. “We’re white, and we have a lot of resources to put toward our son. I have no idea how you would manage this situation without the resources to pay for help.”

So far, things at the new school are going well. Paul’s tantrums have not been quite so explosive, and his teachers seem comfortable managing them, his mom said. “They don’t shame him or drag him through the mud.”

Still, it’s impossible for her not to worry. If Paul was handcuffed at 7, what happens as he gets bigger and older?

She finds herself shutting away the memory of what happened in December. “It’s like this other, alternative reality,” she said. “I’m with my joyful, wonderful child, and I’m like, ‘How could this happen?’”

Sophie Chou contributed data analysis.

How to get mental health help in NYC public schools

2023-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

This is part of an ongoing collaborative series between Chalkbeat, THE CITY, and ProPublica investigating learning differences, special education, and other education challenges in city schools.

As the pandemic upended our understanding of education’s role in society, one point became remarkably clear: schools are the first line of defense for student mental health support.

But what isn’t always apparent is what help is available to the city’s nearly 900,000 public school students — and how outcomes can vary depending on the resources schools provide.

Chalkbeat and THE CITY, along with ProPublica, have been examining how public schools are a de facto mental health system for many families. To help explain what services are available school-by-school, we tracked dozens of data points related to mental health resources, and talked to families, educators, and experts about navigating the system.

All of New York City’s roughly 1,600 public schools, at a minimum, have access to a social worker or school-based mental health clinic, officials say, and the city will soon offer teletherapy for high school students.

But many families say getting services can be a battle, especially as mental health needs mount. One in five New York City children ages 3 to 13 had one or more mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral problems in 2021, according to unpublished data from a city health department survey.

“It’s a crisis,” said Brittany Kaiser, an art teacher at Manhattan’s Earth School, who says she and her colleagues need more support as they’ve noticed their pre-K through fifth-graders’ behavioral issues worsening.

That picture seems consistent throughout New York City. More than 1 in 200 New York City children lost a caregiver to COVID, an analysis from the COVID Collaborative found. Many young people are still reeling from prolonged isolation and lost schooling. The threat of gun violence, climate change, racism, and poverty weigh heavily on many kids. On top of that, thousands of children from asylum-seeking families are arriving at city schools with significant needs.

These challenges affect what happens in the classroom — and whether kids show up at all. Chronic absenteeism, when students miss at least 10% of school, remains much higher than pre-pandemic levels. Crippling anxiety leading to school refusal — when kids have an extreme aversion to attending class — seems to be on the upswing, parents say.

“We’re really looking for resources and support,” said Rasheedah Brown-Harris, a leader with the Bronx’s New Settlement Apartments Parent Action Committee whose Healing-Centered Schools Working Group is pushing for school-wide trauma-informed approaches. “We’re all trying to figure it out.”

Here’s what to know about getting your child school-based mental health support.

If you’re looking for school-based counseling, where do you begin?

Start with the people who know your child best, whether that’s a classroom teacher or other trusted adult in the school. Parents can also reach out to a counselor or social worker at the school, an assistant principal or principal, or the parent coordinator. Every school has a counseling plan with contact information on its education department homepage under the “reports” tab.

School staff may also flag children with significant emotional needs — just as when children have academic needs — but it can take time. In such cases, a school might deem a child “at risk” and provide short-term counseling as part of a process called “response to intervention,” or RTI.

Schools, though, don’t get extra funding for at-risk students, and they triage based on need. So getting services can feel like an uphill battle, parents say.

“The process can look very different for different students, and can require significant time, individual attention, and resources, and the fair student funding formula doesn’t take this into account,” said Kaiser.

Often it can come down to whether a counselor or social worker has openings — and many have been working through their lunch periods to meet the increased demand, educators said.

Fourth grade teacher Miriam Sicherman, at the Manhattan’s Children’s Workshop School, was able to get counseling earlier this school year for one of her students who witnessed neighborhood violence. But Sicherman isn’t sure the process would have been as easy a few months later, after her school received nearly 60 children, largely from asylum-seeking families who experienced some form of trauma.

What if a student needs ongoing support?

Receiving temporary, at-risk services could be a first step while a family begins the evaluation process for an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, mandating services, such as counseling.

Children with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges could be eligible for an IEP under the “emotional disability” classification. The state recently changed the label of that classification from “emotional disturbance” to reduce the stigma of the classification, which overwhelmingly is assigned to boys of color. Three-quarters of those with the label were boys; nearly half (47%) were Black even though Black students make up less than a quarter of students citywide, according to city data from November 2022.

Anxiety or other mental health issues might also qualify a student for a 504 plan, which under the Americans with Disabilities Act provides accommodations for children with disabilities or impairments that substantially limits a major life activity.

For example, a child with major depression who has trouble getting out of bed might not need an IEP for a special education teacher, but could benefit from a 504 plan with accommodations such as counseling, partial credit, reduced workloads, or movement breaks, explained civil rights attorney Miriam Nunberg.

However, schools don’t get extra funding for students with 504 plans, so they might make families jump through hoops to get them. They often put the onus on families to get outside evaluations to qualify rather than do school-based ones, and they often make families renew 504 plans on an annual basis.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” Nunberg said.

What’s the difference between a guidance counselor and a social worker?

Social workers are trained to provide more intensive student support from a clinical perspective in terms of prevention and treatment than counselors. But at some schools, social workers don’t work directly with children, and instead work on initial IEP evaluations by conducting social histories and classroom observations.

Some guidance counselors support at-risk and students with IEPs in one-on-one or small groups, but they also focus on students’ academic progress, including helping on applications for middle school, high school and college.

“Their objective, fairly universally, is to see that a child progresses through the school,” said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, which provides counseling services at roughly 70 schools across the city.

National guidance recommends one counselor and one social worker for every 250 students in a school. When students have more intensive needs, the preferred ratio is 1 to 50.

Systemwide, there are roughly 5,000 social workers and guidance counselors, an increase of 1,000 since 2014, education department officials said. Still, the citywide average is 277 students to one counselor and 456 students to one social worker, according to an analysis of public data.

The role of counselors and social workers can look different school to school, and some of these staffers are part-time, traveling to different schools. That means they might not be around on the day a child has a crisis.

Some social workers say their schools pull them away from counseling.

“I am ordered to fill in the gaps, from wake-up calls to data entry to disciplining students for dress code violations,” one social worker wrote in a Chalkbeat essay. “I’ve had to cancel counseling sessions to stand by metal detectors that children are required to go through, to monitor the hallways, or to ‘watch’ a group of suspended students.”

Are there other school-based resources for mental health services?

Nearly 390 schools have on-site health clinics that often include mental health services that are more robust than schools typically provide.

Another 330 schools have on-site mental health clinics, and the city is developing a $9 million telehealth program for high school students, a model becoming more common across the nation. (The school-based mental health clinics charge fees, but they take health insurance, Medicaid or offer a sliding scale for billing.)

There are also 421 “community schools” that partner with community-based organizations that often offer free counseling or connect students to services. (These counselors don’t factor into the student-to-counselor ratios.)

Very few schools, however, are able to provide long-term therapy, said Dr. Kelly Fradin, a pediatrician who worked in school health in the South Bronx and author of “Advanced Parenting: Advice for Helping Kids Through Diagnoses, Differences, and Mental Health Challenges.”

“What the schools are able to, or what I’d like them to be able to reliably provide, is to triage and bridge children to support…. To help families as partners, and say to the parents, ‘Is your child struggling with their mental health? Would they benefit from more resources?’”

School counselors play crucial roles responding to children in crisis, but also connect them to the right people outside of school, especially if a child is feeling suicidal, having restricted eating or possible anorexia, or experienced a trauma such as the loss of a parent.

But quickly getting outside services is not always feasible, as parents report long waitlists for therapists.

How to figure out if school supports student mental health

Other data points that could indicate how supportive a school environment might include “child in crisis” incidents (when schools call on police officers and EMTs to respond to students in emotional distress), as well as suspensions, which can be found in annual education department reports. In both of these cases, Black students and children with disabilities are disproportionately affected.

Changes to the discipline code during the de Blasio administration have curtailed the use of suspensions. But some educators say they need more training in alternative approaches, like restorative justice, which gives students space to talk through conflicts instead of more punitive discipline.

Some schools have restorative justice coordinators to help shift their culture toward this model. More recently, the city has looked to partnering schools with violence interrupters and mentors through its “project pivot” initiative.

Other factors can affect kids’ emotional wellbeing, like class size, school start times, access to outdoor space and gym, and whether a child is in an appropriate classroom setting, experts say.

“We know that when a child is not in the right learning environment, whether they’re too gifted for the class or struggling to keep up, they have more problems with self regulation and emotional regulation,” said Fradin.

What if you’re not getting the support your child needs?

If a school is refusing to give services mandated on an IEP or making it difficult to get or implement a 504 plan, parents can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, Nunberg said. Though, she acknowledged that can be a slow process.

Parents can call their district superintendent’s office for help and speak with a student services manager, advised Jenn Choi, who channeled her parent advocacy into Special Support Services, a consulting firm for families of students with disabilities. These staffers help with student registration and transfers as well as act as liaisons between schools and students in hospital, homeschool, or other special situations, among other duties.

Some families have transferred out of schools to find more supportive environments, but the Office of Enrollment does not necessarily make it easy to do that, Choi said.

The education department lists something called a “guidance transfer” for families with concerns that their children are not “progressing or achieving academically or socially.” Parents have to contact the Family Welcome Center for such requests.

Families can also apply to new schools during the regular application season. For example, there might be openings for rising 10th graders at certain high schools as enrollment is often in flux. Additionally, the city runs nearly 60 alternative high schools, known as transfer schools, which focus on students who struggled to succeed at traditional high schools and are at risk of dropping out. They often offer individual support, small classes, and wraparound services to push students to graduation.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

How well does your child’s school support student mental health?

2023-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

Poorer NJ school districts to get more mental health funding

2023-05-01T13:00:00+00:00

School districts with high levels of poverty that lack counselors, social workers, and psychologists will now be able to recruit and hire more mental health professionals under a grant program offered by the state.

The push by state officials to address the shortage of mental health professionals in schools, and to increase the diversity among those professionals, is part of the latest effort to fund solutions to the ongoing youth mental health crisis. Some of those potential solutions, and the state funds to pay for them, are included in Gov. Phil Murphy’s $53.1 billion proposed budget that lawmakers are now reviewing.

The grant program is being run by the state Department of Education and is separate from the state’s proposed regional “hub-and-spoke” model that is currently being developed by the Department of Children and Families, according to Jason Butkowski, a spokesman for that department.

The regional model, known as the New Jersey Statewide Student Support Service Network, aims to provide mental health services to more students throughout the state and is intended to connect students to mental health services statewide, according to Butkowski. The grant program from the Department of Education and the regional model being developed by the Department of Children and Families will likely be complementary to each other, Butkowski said, and will be operating at the same time.

In October, the state announced its plan for the regional mental health services model, which will create 15 “hubs” or centers, in the state. The original proposal was designed to replace the current school-based youth services programs by June 30. The current service model has existed in 90 schools throughout the state since the late 1980s. After pushback from advocates, school officials, and state lawmakers, state officials said in November that they would continue to fund the school-based youth services program while building out the “hub-and-spoke” model.

Last month, the state announced the health care organizations that will staff and run the 15 regional hubs. The state has proposed staffing the hubs with three to 10 licensed clinicians per region.

“This is an administration that was going to destroy the school-based youth services program … at the same time they were trying to set up this other program,” Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth), a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, said. “So that right there screams incompetent to me. So I just don’t have a lot of faith that the folks in charge really know what they’re doing.”

200-plus NJ districts lack mental health professionals

The new grant program for school-based mental health services will span five years with more than $14 million going out to schools.

Efforts to create and maintain more robust systems of mental health support arrive as a youth mental health crisis continues to impact students across the state and country. 

In 2021, 14% of surveyed Black high school students attempted suicide nationally, while 11% of Hispanic students, 9% of white students, and 6% of Asian American students also attempted suicide, according to a report released in February by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“Any impediments to a student’s ability to rectify emotional stresses he, she, or they may experience can provide an undue burden to the focus on educational progress,” Dr. Angelica Allen-McMillan, the acting commissioner of the Department of Education, said during a hearing in front of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee in April.

The new grant program is open to 203 boards of education the state Department of Education has identified as lacking in mental health professionals and where more than 20% of the student population receives free or reduced-cost lunches. The program also aims to increase the racial diversity of school counselors, psychologists, and social workers who are hired by the school districts.

Diversifying school counselors, social workers

“If we want to combat stigma and increase service usage in a really authentic way, then we really need to have service providers that not only care about the experiences of many young people, but also understand the communities from which they come,” said Kalisha Smith, a licensed clinical social worker and a clinical consultant with The Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide.

It’s also important for young people to see service providers who may look, sound like, or believe like them, Smith said.

O’Scanlon said that the grant program is “a step in the right direction.”

The program comes at a time when there have been fewer mental health staff for Black students in New Jersey public schools and more for white students, according to a 2022 report from the New Jersey Policy Perspective think tank. In 2008, all public schools in New Jersey had, on average, 8.2 mental health staff per 1,000 students, according to the report. This number rose to 8.6 staff per 1,000 in 2020. During the same time, mental health staff per 1,000 white students rose from 7.4 to 8.5, the report noted.

In contrast, the numbers of mental health staff per 1,000 Black students decreased from 10.3 to 8.5 and from 9.0 to 8.4 per 1,000 for Hispanic students during the same time. 

One of the school districts eligible to receive funding from the grant is Greater Egg Harbor Regional High School District in Atlantic County. The district, which includes Absegami, Cedar Creek, and Oakcrest high schools, has a diverse student population from urban, suburban, and rural communities, according to Jennifer Rushton, the director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the district.

From 2021 to 2022, the district enrolled 3,083 students, according to the Education Law Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates for equal educational opportunity. Of this number, 45% were white, 23% were Black, 22% were Latino, and 7% were Asian American. Additionally, 47% of students in the district were eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch. 

“We definitely need the diversity, but it spans across every area of education,” said Rushton, who noted there is a need for diversity in every area of education, including among teachers in the classroom, guidance counselors at schools, and social workers and psychologists.

Access to mental health care for students in Atlantic County is “few and far between,” Rushton said. More funding to provide more resources “can make a world of difference,” she said. 

Bobby Brier is a multimedia mental health reporter at NJ Spotlight News, where this story was first published. He focuses on underserved and rural communities throughout New Jersey via a partnership with Report for America. NJ Spotlight News is a content partner of Chalkbeat Newark.

Event: Want to know more about mental health resources in NYC public schools?

2023-04-24T19:53:53+00:00

THE CITY’s Open Newsroom is partnering with Chalkbeat, ProPublica and Brooklyn Public Library to host this event. Reporter Abigail Kramer and student journalist Yan Zhen Zhu will co-moderate a conversation between parents, students and policymakers, followed by a Q&A session.

The event is on May 11, from 6 - 7:30 p.m., at Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library in Prospect Heights.

If you’d like to ask a question ahead of time and have it answered via email, send it to ask@thecity.nyc with the subject line “Mental Health.”

The event is free with an RSVP.

Student access to teletherapy skyrockets as schools combat youth mental health crisis

2023-04-19T09:00:00+00:00

This story was co-published with USA Today.

Kirstin Smith was worried after her 5-year-old had a traumatic interaction with another student at school this past fall.

Her daughter’s behavior had changed — she was hiding under desks at school and waking up scared from her nightmares. Smith wanted to get her some help.

A couple months later, the kindergartner was sitting cross-legged on her mother’s bed, chatting with “her lady” on a laptop screen while Smith stirred macaroni in the kitchen. Every so often, Smith pressed her ear to the bedroom door or cracked it open to check in.

The virtual therapist met weekly with Smith’s daughter for the next three months, teaching her how to breathe deeply to stay calm and when to seek help from a trusted adult.

“I am happy that she was able to build that relationship with her therapist remotely,” Smith said. “When she gets overwhelmed, she knows that she’s overwhelmed, versus her feeling like she did something wrong or something is wrong with her.”

The number of U.S. students with access to virtual mental health support has skyrocketed over the last year. Thirteen of the nation’s 20 largest districts have added teletherapy since the pandemic began, expanding access to hundreds of thousands of students, a Chalkbeat review found. That includes Clark County schools in Nevada, where Smith’s daughter attends school. Two more big districts plan to add the service later this year.

The rise of teletherapy is a reflection of the intense pressure schools are under to address a youth mental health crisis that shows no sign of waning. The services offer a way to reach more students without bringing on full-time staff that are often difficult and expensive to recruit. And while some educators and parents have been skeptical of the virtual setup, many say they’ve since been won over.

“This does eliminate barriers,” said Nirmita Panchal, who’s written about the growth of tele-mental health in schools for the nonprofit KFF, which conducts health policy research. “There are definitely some challenges, but big picture, we do see the advantages in linking students who otherwise wouldn’t have care into care.”

Schools see benefits to teletherapy

School leaders say the wait time to see a therapist virtually is often days, instead of weeks or months. Teletherapy can get help to more kids with moderate needs, who often don’t get seen at school because staffers are focused on kids in crisis. It can also bring some relief to kids with bigger challenges while they wait for more intensive in-person care.

And it’s often easier to match a student with someone who speaks their family’s language or is of a particular race, gender, or cultural background when schools have access to a larger national pool of therapists.

That helped persuade Ellen Wingard, who oversees student support services for the schools in Salem, Massachusetts. Her district started offering teletherapy through a local mental health center and the company Cartwheel in January. Initially, she worried it would be “a waste of time.”

“I was very hesitant,” she said. “I was like: ‘Our kids do not want to do that.’”

But she’s been impressed by how the teletherapy has reached students who never got past a referral from their school counselor to seek help outside their school before. School staff have come to her in surprise, saying: “Wait, they what? They found a male counselor?” Wingard said.

Another upside is that schools can offer teletherapy to students at home or on campus. Some families like that they can easily supervise their child and check in with them after a session at home. At school, students typically go to a private space where they can slip on headphones and talk with a therapist on an iPad while a nurse or counselor supervises nearby. Then they can return to class without much disruption to their day.

“It’s not for everybody, but for those students and parents who want that, it’s been fantastic,” said JaMaiia Bond, who oversees student mental health services for Compton’s schools in California, which started offering teletherapy through Hazel Health this school year.

At Compton Unified schools, students can meet virtually with a therapist in a private room in their school’s wellness center.

The San Francisco-based company has become the top player in providing teletherapy to the nation’s largest school systems. By this fall, Hazel will be working with half of the country’s 20 biggest districts.

Nationally, since Hazel launched its tele-mental health service last school year, the number of students who can access teletherapy through the company has shot up from just under a million students at 20 districts to more than 2 million students at 70 districts, according to a Hazel spokesperson — a figure that does not yet include a new $24 million teletherapy initiative for students across Los Angeles County.

Schools spend millions on virtual mental health support

Among Hazel’s clients are Clark County schools in the Las Vegas area, which spent $2.6 million on teletherapy over the last two school years, records obtained by Chalkbeat show. Hawaii is spending $3.8 million on Hazel’s virtual therapy over three years, while the Houston school district set aside $5 million for teletherapy and virtual primary care services over the next five years. Fairfax County schools in Virginia are expected to spend nearly $700,000 on Hazel’s teletherapy. And Hillsborough County schools in Florida are launching a two-year $2 million teletherapy initiative through Hazel this fall.

Others have stayed local. Some Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools offer teletherapy through a local hospital funded by a $10 million donation. And Mississippi is offering teletherapy statewide through the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The initiative is funded by $17.6 million in federal COVID relief dollars.

That money helps cover equipment, training for school staff, fees, and in some cases, the therapy. Mississippi, for example, is covering the full cost of students’ sessions to avoid insurance headaches for families.

There are some drawbacks and limitations. Younger children and some students with disabilities may find the technology difficult to use, educators say. In Mississippi, some districts decided not to offer teletherapy because they were worried about overburdening their few school nurses. And some districts prefer to connect students to local mental health professionals.

“They understand the community,” said BJ Wilson, the interim special services director for Grandview School District in Washington, which is weighing whether it wants to hire Hazel to offer teletherapy. “That’s really important to say: ‘I live three blocks from you, I know exactly what you’re talking about.’”

Some also worry that expanded access to teletherapy could reduce the urgency to offer students in-person care, which many kids need or prefer. That’s especially true for families that lack a stable internet connection at home, or don’t have a quiet, private space for kids to meet virtually with a mental health professional.

Getting families on board can also take work. Generally, schools must obtain consent from a legal guardian to offer teletherapy to students, though in some states students can consent to mental health treatment themselves.

In Houston, Diego Linares has been hosting “coffee with the principal” events so he can show families how to sign up for his high school’s new teletherapy offering through Hazel. He makes sure parents know the teletherapy is always free to their children and that immigration officials won’t see anything they share.

“When your immigration status is important for you and you worry about it, you don’t want to put your name on things that may get you in trouble,” Linares said. “This is important for them to understand that this is really for the benefit of the students.”

Will teletherapy disappear when COVID funds run out?

Whether schools will offer teletherapy long term remains an open question. Some in Congress want to create more permanent funding, but right now many school districts are relying on temporary COVID relief funds.

Student usage will likely be a determining factor. Right now, numbers tend to be small as many programs are just getting started.

Hawaii’s schools referred almost 1,000 students for virtual mental health support between last August and mid-March, said Fern Yoshida, who oversees the teletherapy initiative for the state education department. That’s less than 1% of Hawaii’s students, but Yoshida said they’re comfortable with that number for now, since it represents students who otherwise may not have gotten help.

“We’re going to evaluate to see how this goes,” Yoshida said. “But we’ve been finding that this has really fit.”

Some students who’ve turned to teletherapy see promise in the service.

Eighteen-year-old Fatima Magallon found out that her Las Vegas high school was offering teletherapy when Hazel paid students there a small stipend for their ideas on how to improve the company’s service.

Not long after, Magallon’s grandmother died. Magallon’s grades started dropping, and when a school counselor told the senior she may not graduate on time, she decided to give the teletherapy a try.

The initial sessions were awkward, Magallon said, but eventually she felt like she could open up. It was especially helpful when the therapist tried to make it feel like they were together in person.

“She would open her blinds and I would open mine,” said Magallon, who graduated last June. “Seeing light through the Zoom, it actually helped a lot.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado bill would add protections for students facing expulsion

2023-04-13T23:38:32+00:00

Some Democratic lawmakers want more protections for Colorado students facing expulsion — including training for administrators and a guarantee that families will get at least two days to review the case against their child.

The bill is a scaled-back version of legislation that was killed earlier this month after widespread opposition from school district administrators who feared that limiting expulsions would make schools less safe. That bill would have made it harder to expel students for things they did outside of school and would have given students more due process rights.

The effort to limit expulsions comes amid debate about school safety and discipline. Educators have reported more student behavior problems in the wake of pandemic closures, while rising community violence has shown up repeatedly at the schoolhouse door. Advocates for youth, though, worry that removing students from school cuts them off from positive influences, derails their education, and makes it more likely they’ll end up in the criminal justice system.

Democratic state Rep. Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez of Denver and state Rep. Junie Joseph of Boulder are sponsoring the legislation. Gonzales-Gutierrez has spent her career in the child welfare and juvenile justice system in various capacities.

“I’ve seen firsthand what happens to kids who are not afforded due process in the school system and then put on a trajectory toward more system involvement,” she said.

House Bill 1291 would clarify that school districts have the burden of proving by a preponderance of evidence that a student violated state law and school district policy, that alternative remedies aren’t appropriate, and that keeping the student out of school is the only way to preserve the school’s learning environment.

Schools would have to show that it’s more likely than not that the student committed the offenses of which they are accused. It’s the same burden of proof that’s used in most civil lawsuits.

The bill also would require that school districts provide all the evidence they plan to use in an expulsion hearing to a student’s parent or guardian at least two business days before the hearing.

And it would require that hearing officers complete a training that covers topics such as child and adolescent brain development, trauma-informed practices, restorative justice, bias in disciplinary practices, and applicable state and federal law.

Over hours of testimony in support of the earlier bill, current and former students described being kicked out for behavior that stemmed from abuse and neglect. Others described being expelled for fights that happened over the summer or for being a member of a group chat in which someone else made a threat.

Barbara Garza, now a social worker at AUL charter school in Denver, described being expelled as a student. She later went on to earn her master’s degree at the University of Denver so she could help kids like herself.

“Adults always made me feel like school was not for me,” she said. “I always heard, ‘She just doesn’t try hard enough.’ During that time, I was trying hard.

“I had a lot of responsibilities. I was experiencing abuse. But adults had already made up their mind about who I was going to be and what box I fit into. I felt like people were using my behavior as a child to define what kind of adult I would be.”

State data from the 2021-22 school year shows that about a third of expulsions were for assault, weapons offenses, or felonies. The other two-thirds were for violations related to drugs and alcohol, defiance and disobedience, or destruction of school property. The single largest category — 214 out of 794 expulsions — was “detrimental behavior.”

Gonzales-Gutierrez had originally hoped to make it much harder to expel students for nonviolent offenses or for behavior that occurred off school property, such as a fight at the mall, unless administrators could show a “substantial nexus” with the school setting. She also wanted to allow students to cross-examine witnesses and have other rights they would have in a court setting.

That bill already faced a difficult path forward, with strong opposition led by the Colorado Association of School Executives, which represents superintendents, principals, and other administrators. They said expulsion is already a last resort, and they carry a heavy responsibility to keep an entire community safe. State law leaves school districts legally liable if they overlook known threats, and someone is harmed.

Then on March 22, a student who was on probation for a weapons charge and who had previously been removed from the Cherry Creek School District shot and wounded two administrators at Denver’s East High School. The student later died by suicide.

Two weeks later, Gonzales-Gutierrez withdrew her original bill, asking that the House Education Committee postpone it indefinitely, but pledged to bring back some protections for students facing disciplinary action.

She said her bill would not have changed anything about what happened at East High School. The bill still would have allowed expulsions for violent offenses and weapons-related offenses. And Denver Public Schools never sought to remove the student, who was on a safety plan that required daily searches.

She said the focus needs to be on providing more mental health services and other support.

“We are failing our students,” she said. “We failed that young man who took his own life and caused harm to others.”

She hopes this bill is a “fresh start” to the conversation.

CASE Executive Director Bret Miles said he appreciates the change in approach, though his group still has concerns about the most recent legislation. He’s not opposed to training or guaranteeing families time to review evidence, he said, but in general he thinks the current system is working.

Anything that would make it harder to expel students puts administrators in a difficult position, he said.

“What has become incredibly clear over the last few weeks is the impossible job principals have to work with all their families to balance the educational needs of all students,” he said. “Principals care about the most disenfranchised kid in their school. They want that kid to get what they need. And then they have other parents saying, ‘Why is my student put at risk or suffering or in harm’s way or afraid?’”

While administrators aren’t on board yet, the approach of Colorado’s Democratic legislature stands in contrast to other states where lawmakers are making it easier to kick disruptive students out of school. No such bills have been introduced in Colorado.

The expulsions bill is scheduled for a hearing before the House Education Committee April 20.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

‘Hard to get sober young’: Inside one of the country’s few recovery high schools

2023-04-06T16:18:00+00:00

This story first appeared on KHN (Kaiser Health News) and is republished with permission.

Every weekday at 5280 High School in Denver starts the same way.

Students in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction gather on the steps of the school’s indoor auditorium to discuss a topic chosen by staff members. One recent morning, they talked about mental health and sobriety. A teenage boy dressed in tan corduroys, a black hoodie, and sneakers went first.

“I didn’t want to have, like, any emotion,” he said. “So I thought, like, the best way to, like, put it down would be to do more and more and more drugs.”

A classmate said she started doing drugs for fun and then got hooked. Another student said his addiction negatively impacts his mental health. A third announced an upcoming milestone.

“In, like, two days, I’ll be six months sober,” she said, as her classmates cheered.

The students attend Colorado’s only recovery high school — one of 43 nationwide. These secondary schools are designed for students who are recovering from substance use disorder and might also be dealing with related mental health disorders. The Denver school opened in 2018 as a public charter school that today enrolls more than 100 students annually.

One of those cheering classmates was sophomore Alexis Castillo, 16, who listened supportively during that recent morning meeting. She is in recovery for alcohol and fentanyl addictions. Several of her friends attended the school when she enrolled during her freshman year and initially loved it. But after a while some of Castillo’s friends left and she grew disillusioned. She stopped going to class and wasn’t motivated to work her recovery steps.

“They give you a lot of accountability,” she said. “That was not something I wanted.”

Castillo relapsed and school staffers helped her get into rehab. Three months later she was back at the school, sober and ready to do the work.

The school’s mission is to help kids learn to live a substance-free life while receiving an education.

“They can go on to college or a career and really handle anything that life throws at them,” said 5280’s founder and executive director, Dr. Melissa Mouton.

In 2022, nearly a third of 12th graders and 1 in 5 10th graders reported using an illicit drug in the previous year, according to a national survey from the Monitoring the Future project conducted by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center. Those numbers have steadily decreased over the past 25 years. However, data from UCLA shows overdose deaths among teens doubled in the first year of the pandemic, mainly attributed to the increased prevalence of fentanyl-laced drugs.

The first recovery high school opened in Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1979 and similar programs now operate in 21 states. Compared with their peers at regular schools who have gone through treatment, recovery high school students have better attendance and are more likely to stay sober, and their graduation rate is at least 21% higher, according to one study.

“For this particular group of young people who have these disorders, this can be a lifesaver,” said John Kelly, director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It can help them create a social norm of recovery.”

A mosaic in the computer lab at 5280 High School in Denver.

There are three components to effective drug and alcohol treatment, according to Dr. Sharon Levy, a pediatrician and addiction medicine specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital. The first part is medical, which includes seeing a doctor, drug testing, and using medications like buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction. The second is emotional support from counseling to address co-occurring mental health disorders. And there is a behavioral health component that, for kids, can include recovery schools.

“Recovery schools offer an opportunity really for peer support and mutual aid in a kind of a supervised and structured way,” Levy said.

Recovery high schools often weave components of treatment into the school day — activities like 5280’s daily recovery program meeting. In the afternoon, the school offers wellness electives such as basketball and journaling.

Recovery schools do face challenges. Most are publicly funded charter or alternative schools that carry a higher cost of educating students than traditional schools do. This is due to a smaller enrollment, the need for mental health and recovery personnel, higher faculty-to-student ratios, and other factors.

The Denver school enrolls about 100 students annually, making it one of the biggest recovery high schools in the nation. This year, the per-pupil cost is about $25,000 per student but the school receives only about $15,000 from federal, state, and local funding, according to Mouton. The remaining money comes from donors.

Given the complex needs of the students, “recovery schools will always be small,” she said.

Pooling such students together may also raise a concern that students will trigger one another to use drugs and alcohol and relapse, but, Levy said, that’s a risk with any social interaction.

“So, if you’re in an environment where the recovery is kind of front and center and people are watching and monitoring and supervising,” she said, “I think that’s helpful for a lot of kids.”

The school in Denver purposely keeps enrollment under capacity so additional teens can enroll anytime during the school year. A student won’t get kicked out if they relapse, but there are two requirements: They must want to be sober and attend an outside recovery program.

“The No. 1 step is just letting them know out of the gate, no matter what’s going on, that we love them,” said Brittany Kitchens, the school’s recovery coach. “We are here for them.”

Kitchens teaches students how to navigate recovery and regulate their emotions. She likens herself to a hall monitor, constantly checking in with students and looking for changes in behavior.

“I tend to be the first kind of line that the kids will come to when they’re experiencing something that is just a little bit too big for them to process,” she said.

Some of these difficulties stem from traumas students have experienced, including sex and drug trafficking, and abandonment. Students also deal with traumas they have caused, Kitchens said, actions that landed them in jail or on probation. Kitchens, who is in recovery herself, shares coping mechanisms with the students.

“A lot of times it just starts with, ‘Hey, take a breath, breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth,’” she said.

Alexis has been sober for nearly a year, she said. The morning meetings where she and her classmates talk about mental health, sobriety, and other topics are an opportunity to build a community of friends who support one another, something she said she didn’t have when she was using drugs.

“It’s really hard to get sober young,” she said.

This story is part of a partnership that includes KUNC, NPR and KHN.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

With Nashville school shooting fresh, Tennessee Senate panel defers gun bills until 2024

2023-04-04T23:10:21+00:00

A day after thousands of Nashville students marched on the Tennessee State Capitol demanding urgent action to restrict guns, a key legislative committee voted instead to defer action on any gun-related legislation until next year.

The move in the Senate Judiciary Committee came eight days after a 28-year-old shooter killed six people, including three children, at a small private Christian school in Nashville.

The 7-2 vote, spearheaded by Chairman Todd Gardenhire of Chattanooga, came along party lines in the Republican-controlled panel.

The delay was anticipated after Gardenhire told Tennessee Lookout recently that he planned to move for an extended delay and would not allow the committee to be “turned into a circus by people with other agendas.”

“The agenda on the table now is respecting the privacy of the victims’ families that were gunned down and (to) let that healing process start,” Gardenhire told the news organization.

Gun control advocates, however, suggested that any delay would be an affront to the memories of the six victims of the March 27 shooting: 9-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney, and Hallie Scruggs; and school staff members Mike Hill, Katherine Koonce, and Cynthia Peak.

“We don’t need a day to mourn. We need a day of action,” said retired teacher Linda McFadyen-Ketchum, who leads the local chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, at one of several demonstrations near the Capitol since the shooting.

Nashville students and others favoring stricter gun laws protest outside the Tennessee State Capitol on April 3, 2023, during a demonstration against gun violence, mobilized by the youth group March for Our Lives.

The Judiciary Committee already had passed a bill that would drop Tennessee’s legal age to carry a gun from 21 to 18. The Senate panel removed a provision, which is still in the House’s version, to apply the legislation to rifles as well as handguns.

Among the deferred bills are several opposed by gun control advocates, as well as some legislation they support.

One bill would arm public school teachers and staff with a concealed handgun if they are willing, have a state-issued permit, and complete firearms training. Staff at Tennessee’s private schools already have that option if their administrators approve.

Gun control advocates support a so-called safe storage bill requiring people to secure any weapons they leave in vehicles and boats as a way to keep them from falling into the hands of criminals. That measure was deferred, too.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, the bill’s sponsor, had planned Tuesday to introduce new legislation to the Senate panel to create a so-called red flag law, similar to the one that passed in Florida after a 2018 shooting killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Such laws create a process to petition the courts so police can step in and temporarily take away firearms from a person who threatens to commit suicide or kill others.

“Pathetic,” Yarbro tweeted after the committee’s vote to defer all the bills.

The Nashville Democrat added: “We’re not going to give up. We’ll do what we can to bring SB1029 or some other bill to the floor to move this legislation forward.”

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who leads the Senate and said last week that he would support a red flag law, left an open door.

“Chairman Gardenhire and the Judiciary Committee elected to roll a handful of bills to the beginning of next year, as is their prerogative,” McNally said in a statement. “While the committee will likely close today, this does not mean the committee cannot reopen at the call of the chair.”

The committee’s vote came after little discussion. Two Memphis Democrats, Sens. Sara Kyle and London Lamar, were the sole votes against a delay in hearing Yarbro’s bill.

“Every member has a right to be heard,” Lamar said. “This was a bad move, and I’m disappointed.”

Vanderbilt University student Helena Spigner was also mostly disappointed in Tuesday’s developments. A local leader of Students Demand Action, which helped organize Monday’s student walkout in Nashville, the 19–year-old does not favor arming teachers. But she had hoped lawmakers would show a sense of urgency to reevaluate Tennessee’s lax gun laws because of last week’s mass shooting.

“These deaths could have been prevented by better laws,” said Spigner, who is studying to be an elementary school teacher. “By taking a year off, we’re waiting for the next tragedy, when we should be preventing the next tragedy.”

Interest in a red flag law rose in Tennessee after police reported that the Covenant shooter, who was fatally shot by police 14 minutes after entering the school, had been under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed “emotional disorder.”

While the Senate’s speaker was supportive of the policy, House Speaker Cameron Sexton has been less interested. He initially said “everything” was on the table in the wake of the tragedy but told reporters Monday that red flag laws are just a way “to take away guns” and have “nothing to do with (mental health) treatment.”

As he brought forth his new proposals Monday that include further fortifying school campuses, Gov. Bill Lee also stopped short of supporting a red flag law. He invited lawmakers to bring him legislation that would prevent people who are in the midst of a mental health crisis from having access to weapons, as long as the measure would not impede Second Amendment rights.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

After a traumatic event, how can teachers best help students?

2023-04-04T11:00:00+00:00

Community violence, racial injustice, school shootings. Students across America are faced with these realities every day, leaving educators to respond by adapting lesson plans or offer emergency support.

Some schools have added social workers, counselors, and other mental health resources to grapple with the toll community trauma is taking on students’ mental health. And in some districts, teachers and school leaders have created new student-focused programs in the wake of increases in gun violence and other traumatic incidents.

But educators say they remain overwhelmed and need more resources to support their students, especially following disrupted learning at the height of the COVID pandemic. Students have shared their own hopes for how adults might approach these conversations. If you are an educator or parent looking for resources on how to talk to students, we hope you find the below articles as a good starting place.

Expert advice for talking to children after a traumatic event

How to speak with kids after a violent event

Chalkbeat spoke with social worker Katie Peinovich about how to talk to children about traumatic events, what signs of distress to look for in children, and how to help those who might be fearful of future violence.

Peinovich tells parents, caregivers, and teachers:

Pay attention to kids’ actions following traumatic events: Kids may startle more easily, seem more irritable, and be reluctant to be apart from parents or caregivers.
Reassure children that they are now safe: Acknowledge and validate their feelings that what happened was very, very scary. Ongoing news coverage can give preschoolers and early elementary kids the impression that this is an ongoing situation. Parents and schools should limit media coverage and to reassure children that the event is over and they are safe.
Maintain routines: Both caregivers and educators should strive to keep schedules similar, whether it’s what children eat for breakfast or when they go to recess. Changing up schedules suddenly can heighten anxiety.
Understand recovery timelines: In about four weeks, most kids will return to their previous level of functioning. If kids are still struggling after a month, they may need extra support.

A student’s personal essay sits on a table in a classroom at the Philadelphia.

Trauma can make it hard for kids to learn. Here’s how teachers can help.

A child psychologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s medical school, Colleen Cicchetti helps lead the hospital’s efforts to improve how local schools handle trauma. Chalkbeat interviewed Cicchetti about the cost of childhood trauma in communities and what teachers can do to promote healing.

Her tips for teachers include:

Establish a predictable and “safe” classroom: This helps students understand the expectations and what they need to do to be successful. Taking breaks helps them focus.
Ask for help, even if you have to look outside your school: A teacher may not feel like they can tell someone they’re struggling with a student or feel isolated. That can lead to burnout.

This principal had a student killed just days before the year began. Here’s how he and his school found a way forward.

After one of his 6-year-old students was killed two weeks before the school year began, a California principal wrote that the experience taught him a lot about what it means to authentically communicate with young children about death.

“I desperately hope that no one else will ever need to use the lessons I learned,” wrote Danny Etcheverry, principal of Rocketship Spark Academy. “But I know they will, so here are a few ideas that helped guide us — and that might ease the burden a little bit for educators who find themselves with such a task.”

Among his advice:

Communicate honestly: “My staff members, alongside our school’s mental health professionals, determined that our students would need explanations of the event from those they trust and the space to process those explanations.”
Provide different kinds of support: “I spent a lot of time in classrooms those first few days, and I was struck by how these moments are initially much more emotional for adults to process than they are for young children … With our youngest students, we spent a lot of time talking about the concept of death and tragedy.”
Treat compounded trauma: “Over the weeks following the shooting, it became clear that this tragedy layered on top of prior wounds for some students … Healing is a long journey, and we’re just getting started.”

Educators shouldn’t always feel the need to talk to students after witnessing or watching a violent event, but should provide space to listen, said one expert from the nonprofit group Facing History & Ourselves. File photo from 2022.

How anti-bigotry lessons help students comprehend violence, push for change

The nonprofit group Facing History & Ourselves provides educators with resources to help students understand the lessons of history to combat bigotry and hate. Following the death of Tyre Nichols — the 29-year-old skateboarder and photographer who died days after being brutalized by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop — a local leader spoke with Chalkbeat about helping Memphis students grapple with Nichols’ death.

Among her advice for educators:

Don’t always feel the need to talk to students after witnessing or watching a violent event: “We listen to them. We really let them sit with that, because the last thing we want to do is minimize their pain. Our teachers are really skilled at listening, and letting the students talk. We don’t want to say that it’ll be all right, because it may not be all right.”
Focus on lessons that humanize the students, so they can reflect and have conversations: “In August, when we had the situation with the shooter [19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly was charged with killing three people in a citywide shooting spree], I went to Central High School and listened to Mary McIntosh’s Facing History & Ourselves class, and sat there and listened to her unpack the fear those kids had around that shooting that happened in August. She slowed it down, and got them to free-write it in a journal, just dump it all out, and gave them agency to be able to talk to each other.”

Schools nationwide are struggling to address the mental health needs of students. Some Detroit high school students, part of a city youth organization called Local Circles, wanted to know two things about their peers: How they practice self-love, and how they find peace in a world in which they constantly feel judged. File photo from 2019 at Southeastern High School in Detroit.

Students share what they need after crisis and reflect on what must change

Teens say it takes self-love to navigate times of crisis

A group of about 20 Detroit teens set out to learn two things about their peers: How they practice self-love, and how they find peace in a world in which they constantly feel judged.

These are relevant questions as schools struggle to address student mental health needs. Those troubles existed before the pandemic, but the isolation, lingering effects of remote learning, and challenges coping in the midst of a global health crisis have deepened them. The Detroit teens detailed their findings and, in some cases, expressed their worries in pieces that seek solutions.

Not every upsetting event needs to become a lesson

Black trauma doesn’t have to be channeled into some inspiring lesson, wrote one high schooler in New York, who was haunted by the experience of a teacher making her watch the video of Tamir Rice’s killing.

He helped his school develop a class about mental health

One Newark high schooler went to 19 funerals during the first year of COVID. When he wasn’t saying goodbye to people he cared about, he wrote, he was in front of a screen that was his connection to school and friends for a year and a half.

“I was already in the process of starting a wellness council, a club where students could share their struggles and hear about what others are going through. If we could start this club, why not a class about mental health built into the school day? ... The result of all this planning is a real-life class called Health and Wellness.”

‘Peace warriors’ at Chicago schools spread messages of nonviolence

The Peace Warriors program, a central part of some schools’ efforts to confront gun violence by centering students’ needs, trains students to mediate conflicts, support grieving classmates, and bring peace and happiness to school by greeting peers at the front door and leaving celebratory birthday notes on lockers.

“Our biggest goal is to end violence — any and everywhere and to do that — we have to end violence inside of ourselves first because violence starts internally with the thought,” said DeMarcus Thompson, a then 17-year-old Peace Warrior at North Lawndale College Prep. “In order to get to our goal, we have to work together.”

Student protests, teacher concerns follow proposed restructure at Brooklyn charter school network

2023-03-31T20:22:46+00:00

A Brooklyn charter school network’s plans to eliminate its team handling student behavioral and mental health challenges has riled its community, prompting a walkout by high schoolers earlier this week and a flurry of emails from the administration trying to dampen concerns.

By midweek, network administrators at Brooklyn Prospect Charter School began visiting its schools and reassuring employees that a majority of the impacted staff would be offered a transfer into new roles within the network.

For some students and teachers, the uncertainty introduced by the restructure comes at a difficult time, as students grapple with heightened behavioral challenges and mental health crises tied to the effects of the pandemic. But at the core of their concern also lies a fear that the network might drift away from its founding tenets: racial, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity and equity. Teachers and students noted that most of the positions slated for elimination are held by people of color.

The network, meanwhile, contends that the changes come for just the opposite reason — to make their staffing model more equitable.

The administration charged that “an artificial divide between culture and instruction” had resulted in “predominantly Black and Brown staff members in roles without a clear pathway of growth and career progression,” according to an email to staff obtained by Chalkbeat. These staffers have borne the brunt of disciplining students rather than teachers, who are overwhelmingly white, the network said.

Tresha Ward, CEO of the charter network, said that the structural shift will improve hiring practices, creating a stronger pipeline and retention of teachers of color.

“Historically, these responsibilities have been divided in our organization, with student management falling disproportionately on Black and Brown culture staff and instruction falling to a majority white teaching staff,” Ward said in a statement. “In practice, this change opens new opportunities that were not previously available to many of our colleagues and creates transfer opportunities for the majority of staff who are impacted by these changes.”

While a “small number” of staffers will be let go due to funding issues related to enrollment drops, others are expected to transition into new roles, Brooklyn Prospect officials said. A spokesperson for the network said it expected to have roughly 27 fewer positions in the coming school year, but a majority would be phased out through natural attrition.

It’s not an issue that’s unique to Brooklyn Prospect — schools across the city and the country have experienced enrollment declines in recent years, and the impending expiration of some COVID relief funds poses the threat of a widespread fiscal cliff. Public schools throughout the city will continue to face difficult decisions about staffing and spending, with at least one charter school forced to shutter its doors. Still, Brooklyn Prospect’s equity mission and initial communication stumbles have spurred a particularly passionate response.

News that some staff positions will be eliminated fueled critiques over the network’s spending, with teachers and students questioning the opening of a new middle school in Sunset Park as well as building construction and renovation elsewhere.

The friction isn’t necessarily bad, but the next steps are critical, said Halley Potter, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation who has studied educational policy and school equity, particularly examining the role charter schools can play in school integration.

“The hallmark of a good diverse-by-design school, or any school that is serving a diverse community well, isn’t avoiding conflict, but how that conflict is navigated and what the conflict produces,” she said. “The real test will be if the commitment to some of the shared values can create a really positive dialogue and some opportunities for reflection.”

Student protests, concerns among staff

Teachers said discussions last week began with a rocky start. Several expressed frustration with central leadership — referred to within the network as “treehouse” — alleging officials had weaponized inclusive language to justify the elimination of positions held predominantly by staff members of color in their initial email.

When teachers responded to news of the restructuring with questions, they say the email listserv was shut down, restricting their ability to communicate with staff across the network. Carolyn Mshooshian, a ninth-grade English teacher at Brooklyn Prospect High School, said the response was “disappointing.”

The network declined to comment when asked about the listserv.

As frustrations mounted, students at the high school hastily organized a walkout on Tuesday, with plans to continue their protest throughout the week.

“We’re just trying to make a difference — this is our future,” said Zaviahn Scott, a ninth grader and one of several students who organized the walkout. “We’re a family, we’re a community, and we have to stick together.”

Campbell Dietz, a junior, called the Youth Development and School Culture, or YDSC, team “the disciplinary parent” of the family, adding “they’re never harsh with us.” Teachers and students say the staff members help navigate disciplinary issues and establish a positive school environment. If a student went to the bathroom during class and didn’t return for 15 minutes, one of the staff members might help find them, one teacher said.

One network teacher said they felt more at ease after Ward spoke to staff about the changes, noting the administration had apologized for unclear initial communications and assured them that most staff members in eliminated positions would remain employed within the network if they expressed interest in the new roles.

But some others still remain skeptical.

“There’s definitely been a loss of trust for all of us,” the teacher acknowledged. “With some people, that is going to take them longer to regain.”

Response demonstrates ‘democracy in action’

Potter noted there’s a longstanding equity debate over whether certain education issues should be handled by designated teams or positions. She drew a parallel to discussions over whether a chief integration officer should be instituted at the city’s department of education.

“One of the first things that comes up is that we don’t want this work to be siloed, we need this to be everyone’s work,” she said. “Now the frustration ends up being … well, sometimes we end up with neither. There’s not a team that is owning this and there’s not a culture that’s making this everyone’s work.”

Potter noted there’s merit to both arguments, adding it hinged on open communication and execution.

Still, students and teachers feared the pending shakeup could mean functionally losing people they’ve come to rely on. And for students who have developed close relationships to YDSC staff, even if they transition into new roles, it’s unclear whether they’ll remain at their school.

A spokesperson for the network said schools will look to limit how many staff are transferred to other schools within the network, but added the specifics depended on how the transfer process played out.

The spokesperson also noted the network’s new middle school in Sunset Park would help funnel more enrollment into the high school, where numbers had lagged recently. It would also create new positions to allow affected staff to transition into, the spokesperson said.

In some ways, Potter said, the passionate response from students might represent the success of the network’s model.

“Although a difference of vision with leadership is certainly there,” she said, “that might be proof of Prospect Schools having created the type of school environment where students are empowered and critical thinkers, and pushing on these very questions of diversity and equity.”

At some other schools, if a similar change were proposed, the conversation might play out differently, she added.

“It sounds to me like diversity and democracy in action, in what could be a really good way.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed reporting.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

My students and I talk about gun violence. This week, I was out of words.

2023-03-30T21:15:00+00:00

After a weekend of violence in our rural Illinois town and nationally, I sat down with the students in my creative writing college class and tried to create a space for us to discuss where we’re at.

I am struggling, perhaps more than I’ve struggled before. I want to talk without breaking down crying about how on Friday, a man walked into a house party in our town, killing one person and injuring 10 others while dozens of college students and their friends ran for their lives. I mourn the traumas these students carry. I mourn the lives lost or broken. I mourn that this shooting happened a block from my house.

Freesia McKee

When my partner and I first moved to town two years ago, colleagues warned us not to move into this neighborhood. Too many students, they said. Too many loud parties. But being in community with students is one of the things I love about serving as a professor. I love being able to walk to work, seeing a former student waving to me out their car window, and showing up, my partner and I, as a visibly queer couple in this small town whenever we walk the dog. We’ve loved this neighborhood.

My partner and I spent this past weekend at home, listening to sirens with unusual frequency, gleaning scraps of information from city press conferences. I logged onto an app where people can post anonymous messages for others in their geographic area, though I realized quickly that the app served as a rumor mill, and the messages on it were often racist.

About 12 hours after the shooting, I sent an email to my students encouraging them to lean on their loved ones and reach out to those who support them, echoing the messages the school had sent everyone with links to the campus counseling center. Then, the school week started, and a person walked into an elementary school in Nashville and killed six people, including three 9-year-olds. I was out of words.

On Tuesday evening, after devoting the first few minutes of class to silent journaling, I invited students to share their reactions to the events of the past few days. I will admit that my wish was for hope, for solutions, and for a way forward.

Many of the students in the class are English education majors, meaning that they will start teaching their own classes at middle schools and high schools in just a couple of years. During our discussion, multiple students brought up the idea of a special class within the major devoted to dealing with active shooter situations. Students said that the risk of this happening to them as teachers “is not zero.” Maybe training would help.

Can we, in good conscience, train college students to become future English teachers, knowing that they may be subjected to murderous violence at work?

Students said the vibe on our campus was different right now. Friend groups who were at the party were still processing how this could happen. Students connected the epidemic of gun violence with racism and climate change, and they complained that Congress is more focused on banning TikTok than on stopping the accumulating body counts in front of us.

The English education majors brought up that someday, they may have to make the decision whether to live or die for their students. I sat in front of them, my students, my beloved students, right in front of me, and I could not get my brain to register this question. Would I die for my students? I still can’t comprehend it, won’t allow myself to think it. I do not want to die for anyone. I want to live.

The question I was able to ask myself: Can we, in good conscience, train college students to become future English teachers, knowing that they may be subjected to murderous violence at work? And though I asked myself the question, I also know that there’s no realistic alternative to training teachers. Our society needs public education. Students deserve to be in classrooms taught by humans, not robots or AI. And yet, we shouldn’t be forced to love teaching so much that we are willing to die for it. This shouldn’t be the bar for who decides to remain in teaching and who decides to take cover somewhere else.

The reason the shooting in Macomb, Illinois, where I live and work, made only local news is that it was not on campus but in a neighborhood, even though it affected current and former students. The Covenant School shooting in Nashville made national news because it happened inside a school and involved the execution of 9-year-olds. Tragedies cannot be compared, but what I do think we need to remember is this: for every mass shooting we hear about, there are countless other acts of violence that make only the local news.

I am teaching members of a generation who look towards the future and see violence. This reality has felt so heavy for the last few days that I have not known how to do my job. I am worried especially about students who have shared their mental health challenges and fears of showing up in public spaces. What do I say to them? How do I support them?

When I take my daily walks in the neighborhood, I think about the conversations I have with students about their mental health, about their worries for the world, about who they wish to become. The past few days, my worries for my students have all but drowned me.

I do not want to care less. But to survive as a teacher, I may have to.

Freesia McKee (she/her) works as an instructor of English at Western Illinois University. In the fall of 2022, she served as the poet in residence at Ripon College.

As Nashville reels from school shooting, Tenn. lawmakers consider loosening gun restrictions

2023-03-29T02:42:19+00:00

Nashville teacher Charlene Culbertson arrived at work early Tuesday morning. But she hesitated to walk into the building, a public elementary school not far from the church school where a shooter had killed three children and three adults a day earlier.

“I sat in my car until I felt like I had a good enough mask on to be who my kids expect to see,” said Culbertson, who teaches 20 preschoolers at Shwab Elementary School.

“My little students seem fine today, but I am not,” she said. “This has been a hard day.”

Teachers and students returned to class at Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools after police released chilling video footage overnight showing how a 28-year-old intruder, armed with two rifles and a pistol, shot through a glass door to The Covenant School in Nashville’s affluent Green Hills community.

The shooter, who had legally purchased multiple firearms from five Nashville-area gun stores, entered the school and began firing at students and staff before being killed by a police SWAT team.

Monday’s attack brings the U.S. count to 15 mass school shootings — resulting in the deaths of four or more people — since 1999’s Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, according to The Associated Press.

“Hearing all of this is heartbreaking. We’re scared,” said 16-year-old Jennie Li, who decided to come to a rally at the Capitol with her younger sister, Mary, instead of going to class at the magnet school they attend in downtown Nashville. They wanted their student voices heard.

Tennessee has one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, including murders, suicides and accidental shootings. It also has some of the most permissive gun laws.

In 2021, it enacted a law that lets most Tennesseans 21 and older carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety. “Guns are essentially ubiquitous” in the state, a part of the culture, said Nashville Mayor John Cooper.

And state lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature are considering numerous pieces of gun legislation to make firearms even more prevalent.

One bill, sponsored by Sen. John Stevens of Huntingdon and Rep. Rusty Grills of Newbern, would drop that age from 21 to 18. The House version would let people carry rifles and shotguns in public without a permit.

Another bill, sponsored by Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville, would allow faculty or school staff members to carry a concealed handgun on school grounds with a permit.

Both measures were scheduled for votes Tuesday in various committees but, after Monday’s deadly shooting, legislative leaders delayed taking up any contentious gun-related legislation until next week.

“Yesterday was a tragic event in this country and this state and in Nashville, and we need to be respectful of those victims and the families of those victims,” said Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican who chairs his chamber’s judiciary committee.

Gov. Bill Lee agreed. He signed the controversial law to loosen restrictions for gun ownership and has questioned the effectiveness of red flag laws that would restrict gun access for people who are most likely to misuse them.

“There will come a time to discuss and debate policy,” but not immediately, Lee said in a video message released late Tuesday. He called on Tennesseans first to pray for the families of the victims and the shooter, the school, police, and others “who are hurting and angry and confused.”

Among the hurting is Becca Dryden, a Nashville parent who spoke at a rally outside of legislative offices in downtown Nashville. About a hundred people showed up to the Tuesday event, sponsored by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which has a chapter in Tennessee.

“This is a really scary time to be a parent,” Dryden said through tears, “and I just want my kids to live a full life. I want them to live. I want to pick them up from school every day — alive.”

Becca Dryden, a Nashville mother of two children, speaks Tuesday at a rally against gun violence, held outside of the Nashville offices of state legislators who are considering gun legislation. The rally was sponsored by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Amanda Rosenberger, a college professor in Cookeville, said she survived a 1992 school shooting while attending Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts — and still carries the trauma with her every day.

“I’m tired of seeing people crying on the television. I’m tired of it,” Rosenberger said. “I don’t want to be one of those people any more. We need to stand up for our kids.”

Linda McFadyen-Ketchum, a retired teacher who leads the advocacy group’s Tennessee chapter, criticized GOP leaders for delaying business on gun legislation. The time to act, she said, is now, while the slayings of 9-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney and school staff members Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill, and Cynthia Peak were fresh on everyone’s minds.

“I don’t have any more tears, y’all,” McFadyen-Ketchum told the crowd. “We’ve been crying since Sandy Hook. We’re cried out. We don’t need a day to mourn. We need a day of action.”

On the other side of Nashville, eighth-grade teacher Kelly Ann Graff had lots of tears. She cried on the way to work on Tuesday. To get through the school day, she put her emotions on the back burner and tried to support her students by answering their questions honestly in an age-appropriate way.

But she’s also worried about the well-being of her co-workers at Thurgood Marshall Middle School, as well as educators across the nation who are overworked, underpaid, undersupported, and grappling with the growing threat of gun violence.

The teachers are not OK, she said.

“I’m very afraid of us moving on too quickly from this event,” Graff said. “I’m afraid that prioritizing normalcy will enable this new normal of mass school shootings. This shooting hit close to home, and that’s a fact that we need to sit with.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Suicide prevention training proposed for more New Jersey school personnel

2023-03-23T17:23:28+00:00

Public school teachers already receive training in suicide prevention as part of their professional development under current law.

Now lawmakers are working to have principals, librarians, and faculty who interact with children daily in schools required to complete a one-time training program in suicide prevention.

A bill that cleared the Assembly Education Committee last week would bolster the number of school personnel who would be trained in suicide prevention to spot the signs of a crisis before it occurs.

The impetus to address youth suicide by state lawmakers is part of a renewed focus on the issue after a teenager in Ocean County died by suicide last month. Caregivers, educators, and policymakers are working on solutions as young people nationwide navigate a mental health crisis magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Data released last month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the percentage of surveyed high school students who had made a suicide plan and attempted suicide increased between 2011 and 2021.

“Any way that we can educate and train people to sharpen their skills as to what to look for and how to have that conversation without judgment and really giving kids spaces and places to talk, I think that we’re going to make a difference,” Susan Tellone, the clinical director for the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide, said of the legislation.

‘Duty to warn and protect’

Under this new bill, the state would be responsible for identifying suicide prevention training programs for local school officials. The legislation specifies that a person who completes the training has “a duty to warn and protect” when a student has told them of an intent to hurt themselves. School personnel trained in suicide prevention would not be held liable if they take steps to protect the student from self-harm and warn others about the incident.

Some advocates like Tellone said they see a correlation between this bill and legislation Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law last year requiring the board of education in each school district to develop a threat assessment team at every school. The purpose of the teams is to assist teachers and staff in identifying students whose behavior could pose a risk to the school community or to themselves. These teams should include school administrators, counselors, and mental health and law enforcement professionals.

If there is a child in school showing signs of threatening behavior, “you want to get to them early on and find out what’s going on,” said Tellone. “And hopefully de-escalate that behavior and really get that child the supports that they need … before they make a decision that could really be detrimental for their lives and other people’s lives,” she said.

Attempted suicide among Black young people and suicidal ideation among LGBTQ+ youth has been concerning. In 2021, 45% of surveyed LGBTQ+ high school students said they considered attempting suicide, according to recent data from the CDC. Black high school students were more likely than Asian American, Hispanic, and white students to attempt suicide, the CDC noted.

Mental health professionals statewide are trying to address youth suicide among all children, and especially youth of color, but recognize the challenges that exist.

‘We have to come together’

“There’s a long history, and some of it is not good, for people of color to engage with (mental health) systems,” said Kalisha Smith, a licensed clinical social worker and clinical consultant with the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide.

“A lot of the work that I do, specifically as a woman who is a person of color, is coming in and taking some accountability and saying, ‘Yeah, those systems were not welcoming to folks that may have looked like me. The worry that people feel about interacting with them could be warranted. But at this point, we’re in dire straits. We have to come together to save the lives of our young people,” said Smith.

This also means that people who represent mental health systems must be willing to have hard conversations and “cultural humility,” Smith noted.

“You’ve got to be willing to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this very useful information, but I also recognize I may or may not be a part of your community system. Tell me how your community system works and where we can get this information to the people who need it most,” she said.

In addition to addressing these mental health issues, mental health advocates and school professionals have noted the shortcomings of the bill that advanced last week to train more school staff on suicide prevention and the ways it can be improved.

“It’s not really going to address resources and capacity for school to be able to put protective factors all around kids (and) whether or not parents are in a good position to be partners on all this,” said Jeffrey Moore, the superintendent of Hunterdon Central Regional High School District. “There’s a lot that training can do, but there’s an awful lot that it can’t do that’s necessary in this situation as well.”

School personnel should also be trained more than once, Tellone noted in her testimony before the Assembly committee. Teachers are required to have two hours of training every five years on suicide prevention, she noted, and suggested that the bill require 60 minutes of training every five years for other school personnel.

“I think this bill is giving a message that it’s not just the counselors job, it’s a competent community that we want to build around suicide prevention,” Tellone said. “That it’s everyone’s responsibility on some level to know what to look for and how to help a child.”

Pandemic stress, gangs, and utter fear fueled a rise in teen shootings

2023-03-14T20:41:11+00:00

Diego never imagined he’d carry a gun.

Not as a child, when shots were fired outside his Chicago-area home. Not at age 12, when one of his friends was gunned down.

Diego’s mind changed at 14, when he and his friends were getting ready to walk to midnight Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But instead of hymns, Diego heard gunfire, and then screaming. A gang member shot two people, including one of Diego’s friends, who was hit nine times.

“My friend was bleeding out,” said Diego, who asked KHN not to use his last name to protect his safety and privacy. As his friend lay on the ground, “he was choking on his own blood.”

The attack left Diego’s friend paralyzed from the waist down. And it left Diego, one of a growing number of teens who witness gun violence, traumatized and afraid to go outside without a gun.

Research shows that adolescents exposed to gun violence are twice as likely as others to perpetrate a serious violent crime within two years, perpetuating a cycle that can be hard to interrupt.

Diego asked his friends for help finding a handgun, and — in a country supersaturated with firearms — they had no trouble procuring one, which they gave him free.

“I felt safer with the gun,” said Diego, now 21. “I hoped I wouldn’t use it.”

For two years, Diego kept the gun only as a deterrent. When he finally pulled the trigger, it changed his life forever.

Disturbing trends

The news media focuses heavily on mass shootings and the mental state of the people who commit them. But there is a far larger epidemic of gun violence — particularly among Black, Hispanic, and Native American youth — ensnaring some kids not even old enough to get a driver’s license.

Research shows that chronic exposure to trauma can change the way a child’s brain develops. Trauma also can play a central role in explaining why some young people look to guns for protection and wind up using them against their peers.

The number of children under 18 who killed someone with a firearm jumped from 836 in 2019 to 1,150 in 2020.

In New York City, the number of young people who killed someone with a gun more than doubled, rising from 48 juvenile offenders in 2019 to 124 in 2022, according to data from the city’s police department.

Youth gun violence increased more modestly in other cities; in many places, the number of teen gun homicides rose in 2020 but has since fallen closer to pre-pandemic levels.

Researchers who analyze crime statistics stress that teens are not driving the overall rise in gun violence, which has increased across all ages. In 2020, 7.5% of homicide arrests involved children under 18, a slightly smaller share than in previous years.

Local leaders have struggled with the best way to respond to teen shootings.

A handful of communities — including Pittsburgh; Fulton County, Georgia; and Prince George’s County, Maryland — have debated or implemented youth curfews to curb teen violence. What’s not in dispute: More people ages 1 to 19 die by gun violence than by any other cause.

A lifetime of limits

The devastating toll of gun violence shows up in emergency rooms every day.

At the UChicago Medicine trauma center, the number of gunshot wounds in children under 16 has doubled in the past six years, said Dr. Selwyn Rogers, the center’s founding director. The youngest victim was 2. “You hear the mother wail, or the brother say, ‘It’s not true,’” said Rogers, who works with local youth as the hospital’s executive vice president for community health engagement. “You have to be present in that moment, but then walk out the door and deal with it all over again.”

In recent years, the justice system has struggled to balance the need for public safety with compassion for kids, based on research that shows a young person’s brain doesn’t fully mature until age 25. Most young offenders “age out” of criminal or violent behavior around the same time, as they develop more self-control and long-range thinking skills.

Yet teens accused of shootings are often charged as adults, which means they face harsher punishments than kids charged as juveniles, said Josh Rovner, director of youth justice at the Sentencing Project, which advocates for justice system reform.

About 53,000 juveniles in 2019 were charged as adults, which can have serious health repercussions. These teens are more likely to be victimized while incarcerated, Rovner said, and to be arrested again after release.

Young people can spend much of their lives in a poverty-imposed lockdown, never venturing far beyond their neighborhoods, learning little about opportunities that exist in the wider world, Rogers said. Millions of American children — particularly Black, Hispanic, and Native American kids — live in environments plagued by poverty, violence, and drug use.

The COVID-19 pandemic amplified all those problems, from unemployment to food and housing insecurity.

Although no one can say with certainty what spurred the surge in shootings in 2020, research has long linked hopelessness and lack of trust in police — which increased after the murder of George Floyd that year — to an increased risk of community violence. Gun sales soared 64% from 2019 to 2020, while many violence prevention programs shut down.

One of the most serious losses children faced during the pandemic was the closure of schools — institutions that might provide the only stabilizing force in their young lives — for a year or more in many places.

“The pandemic just turned up the fire under the pot,” said Elise White, deputy director of research at the nonprofit Center for Justice Innovation, which works with communities and justice systems. “Looking back, it’s easy to underplay now just how uncertain that time [during the pandemic] felt. The more that people feel uncertain, the more they feel there’s no safety around them, the more likely they are to carry weapons.”

Of course, most children who experience hardship never break the law. Multiple studies have found that most gun violence is perpetrated by a relatively small number of people.

The presence of even one supportive adult can protect children from becoming involved with crime, said Dr. Abdullah Pratt, a UChicago Medicine emergency physician who lost his brother to gun violence.

Pratt also lost four friends to gun violence during the pandemic. All four died in his emergency room; one was the son of a hospital nurse.

Although Pratt grew up in a part of Chicago where street gangs were common, he benefited from the support of loving parents and strong role models, such as teachers and football coaches. Pratt was also protected by his older brother, who looked out for him and made sure gangs left the future doctor alone.

“Everything I’ve been able to accomplish,” Pratt said, “is because someone helped me.”

Growing up in a ‘war zone’

Diego had no adults at home to help him feel safe.

His parents were often violent. Once, in a drunken rage, Diego’s father grabbed him by the leg and swung him around the room, Diego said, and his mother once threw a toaster at his father.

At age 12, Diego’s efforts to help the family pay overdue bills — by selling marijuana and stealing from unlocked cars and apartments — led his father to throw him out of the house.

At 13, Diego joined a gang made up of neighborhood kids. Gang members — who recounted similar stories about leaving the house to escape abuse — gave him food and a place to stay. “We were like a family,” Diego said. When the kids were hungry, and there was no food at home, “we’d go to a gas station together to steal some breakfast.”

But Diego, who was smaller than most of the others, lived in fear. At 16, Diego weighed only 100 pounds. Bigger boys bullied and beat him up. And his successful hustle — selling stolen merchandise on the street for cash — got the attention of rival gang members, who threatened to rob him.

Children who experience chronic violence can develop a “war zone mentality,” becoming hypervigilant to threats, sometimes sensing danger where it doesn’t exist, said James Garbarino, an emeritus professor of psychology at Cornell University and Loyola University-Chicago. Kids who live with constant fear are more likely to look to firearms or gangs for protection. They can be triggered to take preemptive action — such as firing a gun without thinking — against a perceived threat.

“Their bodies are constantly ready for a fight,” said Gianna Tran, deputy executive director of the East Bay Asian Youth Center in Oakland, California, which works with young people living in poverty, trauma, and neglect.

Unlike mass shooters, who buy guns and ammunition because they’re intent on murder, most teen violence is not premeditated, Garbarino said.

In surveys, most young people who carry guns — including gang members — say they do so out of fear or to deter attacks, rather than perpetrate them. But fear of community violence, both from rivals and the police, can stoke an urban arms race, in which kids feel that only the foolish walk around without a weapon.

“Fundamentally, violence is a contagious disease,” said Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder of Cure Violence Global, which works to prevent community violence.

Although a small number of teens become hardened and remorseless, Pratt said, he sees far more shootings caused by “poor conflict resolution” and teenage impulsivity rather than a desire to kill.

Indeed, firearms and an immature teenage brain are a dangerous mix, Garbarino said. Alcohol and drugs can magnify the risk. When confronted with a potentially life-or-death situation, kids may act without thinking.

When Diego was 16, he was walking a girl to school and they were approached by three boys, including a gang member who, using obscene and threatening language, asked if Diego was also in a gang. Diego said he tried to walk past the boys, one of whom appeared to have a gun.

“I didn’t know how to fire a gun,” Diego said. “I just wanted them to get away.”

In news accounts of the shooting, witnesses said they heard five gunshots. “The only thing I remember is the sound of the shots,” Diego said. “Everything else was going in slow motion.”

Diego had shot two of the boys in the legs. The girl ran one way, and he ran another. Police arrested Diego at home a few hours later. He was tried as an adult, convicted of two counts of attempted homicide, and sentenced to 12 years.

A second chance

In the past two decades, the justice system has made major changes in the way it treats children.

Youth arrests for violent crime plummeted 67% from 2006 to 2020, and 40 states have made it harder to charge minors as adults. States also are adopting alternatives to incarceration, such as group homes that allow teens to remain in their communities, while providing treatment to help them change their behavior.

Because Diego was 17 when he was sentenced, he was sent to a juvenile facility, where he received therapy for the first time.

Diego finished high school while behind bars and went on to earn an associate’s degree from a community college. He and other young inmates went on field trips to theaters and the aquarium — places he had never been. The detention center director asked Diego to accompany her to events about juvenile justice reform, where he was invited to tell his story.

Those were eye-opening experiences for Diego, who realized he had seen very little of Chicago, even though he had spent his life there.

“Growing up, the only thing you see is your community,” said Diego, who was released after four years in detention, when the governor commuted his sentence. “You assume that is what the whole world is like.”

KHN data editor Holly K. Hacker and researcher Megan Kalata contributed to this report.

As mental health toll on NYC educators mounts, schools scramble to offer support

2023-03-13T10:00:00+00:00

The dire mental health conditions for staff and a wave of teacher resignations at one Brooklyn charter school prompted administrators to create a new position this year: a social worker responsible for supporting educators.

The staffer tapped for the role, Marcelle Davies-Lashley, a former city education department social worker, was skeptical at first. But she quickly discovered that many of her coworkers needed someone to talk to.

“We get to shoot the breeze and talk about whatever their stress of the day is,” Davies-Lashley said. “Sometimes it has to do with their own personal life, or with getting back to school, or scholars who are disrupting their class on a regular basis, or they’ve had a family loss. It could be anything.”

The experiment at Brooklyn Lab is part of a growing acknowledgment that many teachers are still struggling with mental health challenges three years into the pandemic and need more support. Many are dealing with unresolved trauma and grief in their personal lives while trying to regain their rhythm teaching in person and manage the mounting emotional and behavioral challenges of their students.

“Teaching has always been hard, that’s part of why I like it. But the past couple of years, it has really felt nearly impossible to do my job well,” said Brittany Kaiser, an elementary school art teacher in Manhattan. “I think the cumulative effect is what’s most hard … We can handle really big challenges, but the fact that it is one crisis after another, and repeatedly no support is available, you just hit a breaking point.”

The extent of educators’ trauma, and how it’s manifesting three years into the pandemic, is still coming into focus. A recent study found that during the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, teachers reported higher levels of anxiety than any other profession, including healthcare workers.

A member assistance program through the city teachers union that offers short-term counseling to educators more than quadrupled in size, from serving roughly 4,500 educators in the 2018-19 school year to around 20,000 last school year, a rise first reported by The 74.

And now the union program is going even further: partnering with the healthcare company HelloHero to match 2,500 educators with long-term therapists covered by their insurance.

Tina Puccio, the director of the United Federation of Teachers’ member assistance program, said she’s not surprised that mental health concerns have persisted, or even escalated, for some educators three years after the arrival of COVID-19.

“I remember thinking back when COVID was at its height, like God, this is going to linger. The mental anguish this is going to put on people is going to be here for a long time,” Puccio said. “And that’s still showing up.”

Educator mental health concerns have been building

When COVID hit New York City in March 2020, and schools shut down, Puccio’s program didn’t have the capacity to handle the wave of acute mental health challenges that hit educators, forcing her to put out a call for volunteers.

“I went from a staff of eight to a staff of about 300 overnight,” Puccio said. “They ran groups for me day and night, Monday through Sunday. They were talking to people at nine o’clock at night. They were calling me crying because they needed help with debriefing.”

As the acute challenges of the early pandemic faded and schools returned to in-person learning, a new set of mental health issues emerged.

Some educators confronted crippling anxiety at the thought of returning to school. Puccio recalled one member who lost her mother to COVID early in the pandemic and broke down in tears when she arrived back at school to see the empty seat of a student who had also died from COVID.

Other educators struggled to absorb a spike in behavior issues among their students after in-person school resumed while still dealing with their own lingering challenges.

“The behavior was so extreme,” said Peter, a middle school art teacher in Manhattan, who asked to use only his first name so as not to identify his school. “They [students] were traumatized, and they were acting as students with extreme levels of trauma do, and we were not prepared by any means.”

In some cases, the challenges have pushed some educators to leave the profession altogether.

At Brooklyn Lab, CEO Garland Thomas-McDavid, who started her position in July, quickly realized “people are not okay. We’re experiencing people resigning like crazy. We’ve had to do a lot to think about how do we create a workspace and structure the team to support adults so that we don’t lose all of our teachers. We need them.”

Peter left the city education department in January after his mental and physical health deteriorated.

“I struggled with depression … and all the things that come with that,” he said. “I became much less physically active. My weight, my self-esteem, my self-image declined, my relationships with friends suffered.”

Even excluding teachers who left because of the vaccine mandate, teacher turnover between fall 2022 and fall 2023 increased slightly compared to the years before the pandemic, from around 6% to 7% before the pandemic to 8% this year, an education department spokesperson said.

That echoes new data from eight states suggesting that an unusual number of teachers left the classroom after last school year.

Education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer pointed to the agency’s Employee Assistance program and said the department has “leaned into creating emotionally supportive school environments for both students and staff, which is part of the reason we have not seen a significant drop in the retention of staff.”

Schools scramble to shore up supports

Brooklyn Lab’s experiment in providing mental health services to its staff in-house has not been without its bumps.

It took some time for word to spread and colleagues to feel comfortable opening up, Davies-Lashley conceded. But she pointed to advantages to the model as well, including having a mental health provider who’s intimately familiar with the conditions teachers are facing, and maybe even specific students.

All in all, “I think you would get a better quality educator if they knew they had this resource in the building,” she said.

Puccio, the UFT member assistance program administrator, echoed the importance — and difficulty — of building trust with educators.

“Taking care of people is their first go-to,” she said. “They’re not the first and foremost to really take care of themselves.” Puccio added many educators working in the city education department are wary of confiding in administrators, worried their disclosures could be used against them.

But after several years of steady growth, Puccio had to look outside the union to meet the burgeoning demand for mental health support, initiating the partnership with HelloHero.

Still, for some educators, help hasn’t yet arrived. Kaiser is still waiting to be matched with a mental health provider through HelloHero, and has had no luck finding a private therapist covered by her insurance.

In the meantime, she feels largely alone to confront both her own mental health challenges and those of the kids she sees each day at work.

“It creates an impossible situation,” she said. “We’re having to deal with our own issues and their issues in a society where there’s no way to address those things adequately.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor’s safety bill threatens penalties for schools if they don’t lock entrances

2023-03-08T22:42:41+00:00

Gov. Bill Lee is proposing sweeping changes to enhance school safety across Tennessee, requiring all K-12 public schools to keep their exterior doors locked, or risk losing escalating amounts of state funding with each violation.

Legislation from the Republican governor, introduced this week in several legislative committees, also mandates several new safety-related drills when students aren’t present; tweaks training requirements for armed and unarmed campus officers; and requires new security features for school buildings constructed or remodeled after this July 1.

In addition, Lee wants more top law enforcement officials on the state’s school safety team and proposes to transfer its oversight from the Department of Education to the Department of Safety, the agency responsible for homeland security and state troopers.

The governor’s proposal comes after the state fire marshal’s office identified 527 unlocked exterior doors during inspections of about 1,500 Tennessee public schools this school year, according to state officials.

Last June, Lee signed an executive order directing Tennessee school leaders and law enforcement to work together to double down on existing school safety protocols after a deadly shooting in Texas, where a gunman entered an elementary school through an unlocked door and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Lee also promised Tennesseans that state troopers and local police would conduct more unannounced security inspections of schools to make sure entrances are locked to prevent unauthorized access. More than 20,000 doors have been checked so far, state officials said.

Lee plans no new limits on firearms

Lee’s plan would continue Tennessee’s emphasis on fortifying its school campuses rather than reducing its number of firearms.

Despite having one of the nation’s highest rates of gun deaths, the state has enacted numerous laws under Lee’s leadership to loosen requirements for gun ownership. In 2021, he signed a law allowing most Tennesseans 21 and older to carry handguns without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety.

This year, however, the governor’s administration is opposing several new bills from Republican lawmakers who want to loosen those regulations even further.

The new safety legislation fulfills a promise Lee made at his state address last month. “We’ve done a lot to make schools safer,” he said, “but I don’t want to look up months from now and think we should’ve done more.”

His proposal, outlined in a 14-page amendment, would require schools to keep all external doors locked when students are present and to limit access through one secure, primary entrance.

The legislation authorizes state and local law enforcement officers to inspect doors — and requires immediate actions to address any infractions. Written notifications describing violations must be sent within 24 hours to the school’s administrators, district leaders, the parent-teacher organization, and state officials in the departments of education and safety.

Tennessee schools are required to limit access to one secure, primary entrance.

If a campus does not have a law enforcement officer on site and violates the locked door requirements two or more times in a school year, local school officials would have to post a full-time officer there within 30 days of receiving notice and undertake a corrective action plan. If they do not comply, the legislation directs Tennessee’s education commissioner to withhold 2% of its annual state funds, escalating by 2% for each subsequent violation, up to 10%.

A campus that has a full-time officer faces similar financial penalties for its district or charter organization if it violates the locked door requirements.

“To be clear, the purpose of this proposal is to help schools resolve any security flaws and ensure students and teachers are safe,” said Jade Byers, the governor’s press secretary, in a statement to Chalkbeat on Wednesday. “School funding will only be temporarily withheld while the (district) takes corrective action to resolve the issue.”

School officials want a less punitive approach

Tennessee school leaders have lauded the governor’s prioritization of school safety and, in recent years, taken advantage of millions of dollars in state grants to upgrade building security and hire law enforcement for their campuses. For instance, a grant program championed by the governor in 2019 placed more than 200 SROs in schools.

But they say that more money is needed to hire more officers — and that the governor’s proposal doesn’t address their staffing challenges.

According to the state’s most recent school safety report, for the 2021-22 school year, fewer than 1,300 of the state’s 1,800-plus schools had a trained school resource officer, or SRO, on site.

“The attention and focus on keeping our schools safe is appreciated, but financial penalties will not help add the security measures needed,” said Dale Lynch, executive director of the state superintendents organization, which has lobbied for enough funding so every Tennessee school has an SRO.

Money isn’t the only challenge that districts face, according to Mike Winstead, director of Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville.

“One of the punishments under this bill is that you might have to hire an SRO within 30 days, but that’s easier said than done,” he said. “Many districts across our state have tried to secure SROs from their local police departments, but there’s a shortage of personnel. Police are losing a lot of officers to the federal government, where they can triple their salary.”

Lee also proposes to add annual drills — without students present — for emergency bus safety, and also to prepare school staff and law enforcement agencies on what to expect in an emergency situation at a school.

State law already requires schools to conduct periodic fire drills and annual armed-intruder drills, plus three additional annual drills to prepare for potential emergencies such as an earthquake or tornado.

Altogether, the legislation serves as “an additional meaningful step to secure schools and further enhance school safety,” said Byers, the governor’s spokeswoman.

But striking the right balance between school safety and educational climate is also a concern, says Winstead, a 2018 finalist for national superintendent of the year.

“We want our schools to be friendly and welcoming to students and their families,” said Winstead, “and we don’t want to make our kids feel like they’re going to school in a prison.”

He says collaborative working relationships between school officials and law enforcement are more productive than punitive ones. He’d also like to see more state investments to support student mental health beyond the governor’s $250 million student mental health trust fund, established in 2021 as an endowment to pay for future services.

“Drills are important, SROs are important,” said Winstead, “but the most important thing we can do is foster strong relationships between students and adults.”

You can track the bill’s progress on the legislature’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Mental health safety net for youth: Adams outlines vision to catch kids in crisis

2023-03-02T22:07:21+00:00

If you or someone you know is considering self-harm, please dial 988 for the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

As New York City continues to grapple with youth mental health challenges, Mayor Eric Adams laid out a sweeping vision on Thursday to help schools better recognize student mental health needs and create a safety net for kids in crisis.

The needs are high: About a fifth of children ages 3 to 13 had one or more mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral problems in 2021, according to health department data provided in the mayor’s new plan, called Care, Community, Action: A Mental Health Plan for New York City.

Rates of suicidal ideation jumped to nearly 16% from about 12% over the past decade, with more than 9% of the city’s high school students reporting they attempted suicide over the course of 2021.

“We’ve all seen the isolation and trauma that children have experienced over the past several years, along with the results: disappearing into screens, behavioral issues, and even suicide,” Adams said while revealing the plan.

Addressing the mental health needs of young people and their families was one of the three major focal points of Adams’ blueprint. The plan calls for several things, including opening more school-based mental health clinics, creating suicide prevention trainings for educators, and assessing the impacts of social media as possible “toxic exposure.”

Though most of the ideas lacked details in terms of timeline and cost, the mayor did add a price tag of $12 million for a previously announced telehealth hotline for high school students, which the city says will be the largest of its kind in the nation.

City officials said they will track certain data points to determine whether the plan is working, including the number of contacts made by or on behalf of youth through NYC Well (the city’s free, confidential support, crisis intervention, and information and referral service), and the percent of young people reporting feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

Here are four highlights from the plan that relates to youth and schools:

City taps telehealth to fill treatment gaps

The mayor initially announced in January that the city would launch a telehealth program for high schoolers, though has not said when the program will launch and how students can access it.

Officials said Thursday they are still working out details.

“Telehealth can improve access to care for young people and their families who cannot easily get around or meet the strict time or expenses of traveling to in-person appointments, especially when mental health provider locations might be far away from the child’s home,” the mayor’s plan stated. “In addition, many youth feel more comfortable using technology to connect, and technology offers new ways to stay connected outside of traditional therapy sessions.”

Other cities are leaning on telehealth for young people, as well, including Los Angeles.

Experts previously shared cautious optimism with Chalkbeat about the plan when Adams first announced it, while also raising questions about how it would work, including whether school staff will be monitoring sessions and get involved if a student’s needs are more serious.

School-based mental health clinics to expand

As of the 2020-21 school year, 162 schools had on-site mental health clinics, while another 238 had health clinics that offered some mental health services, according to a 2022 report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The mayor’s plan calls on expanding mental health clinics that exist inside of school buildings through a partnership with the city’s education department, health department, the state’s Office of Mental Health and community providers.

Asked how many more clinics the city wants to open and an estimated cost, a health department spokesperson said these “are active and ongoing discussions.”

Creating school-based mental health clinics, however, can be complicated, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, which partners with schools to offer counseling services. It involves getting approvals from the state, finding space inside of schools that would be eligible for such clinics, and setting up a financial structure to get reimbursed by Medicaid for the services, he said.

An easier lift, he suggested, might be to get more community organizations like his to offer services in schools. Those groups often operate with grants, thus cutting out complicated funding issues.

A push to train school staffers on suicide prevention

Adams wants schools staff to be trained on suicide prevention so that they can “respond appropriately to the needs of students,” the plan said.

Dahill-Fuchel praised such training, noting they could potentially help more students realize they need help.

“I think one of the things that is really gonna be useful is this idea of a public health approach to suicide prevention, which at its core really means demystifying it,” Dahill-Fuchel said. “It tends to be a word that, around children, people don’t like to use and that becomes part of the problem.”

City officials also plan to launch a program, called “Caring Transitions,” that would focus on preventing youth ages 5-17 in the Queens and Bronx who have been to the hospital for a suicide attempt from re-entering. Teams would be responsible for connecting these young people to follow-up services in their neighborhoods as well as “additional supports” for up to three months after they leave the hospital.

The plan also says it will launch a suicide prevention pilot program for young people of color ages 5 to 24. The goal is to bolster interventions that more effectively meet the needs of Black, Asian American, and Latino youth who face suicide-related risk “that includes or is intensified by racial inequities,” the plan said. The plan did not specify what those interventions might look like.

An attempt to address cyberbullying

Concerned with social media’s impact on youth mental health, the Adams administration plans to create a task force to study the issue and develop a public health approach to reduce exposure to harmful online content.

The plan noted that “there are few rules or regulations” on how social media companies interact with young people.

“We’re also going to examine the potential risks of social media to our children’s mental health and work to make sure tech companies are required to keep online spaces safe for our kids,” Adams said during his speech.

The group would include youth and families, according to the plan. It didn’t specify when the group would launch.

Federal officials have called for more rigorous research on how social media impacts youth mental health. In a 2021 advisory released by the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, officials note that while several studies have linked worsening mental health to online platforms, other researchers have argued that there is no clear relation between the two.

Seattle Public Schools recently filed a lawsuit against leading social media companies, alleging that students and schools were harmed by worsened mental health that stemmed from social media.

The surgeon general’s advisory also called for technology companies to make sure they were fostering “safe digital environments” for their youngest users.

Some of the pressure seems to be working: Tik Tok announced earlier this week it will set the default screen time limit to 60 minutes for users under 18, though kids can continue using the app with a passcode.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Tackling Michigan youth mental health crisis: Detroit teens say it takes self-love, inner peace

2023-03-02T16:45:48+00:00

About 20 Detroit teens last summer set out to answer some important questions about how their peers are dealing with mental health struggles.

These high school students, part of a city youth organization called Local Circles, wanted to know two things about their peers: How they practice self-love, and how they find peace in a world in which they constantly feel judged.

They are relevant questions. Schools across Michigan are struggling to address the mental health needs of students. Those troubles existed before the pandemic, but the isolation, lingering effects of remote learning, and challenges coping in the midst of a global health crisis have deepened them.

The Detroit teens detailed their findings, and in some cases confronted their own mental health worries, in written pieces. Chalkbeat is publishing excerpts of those pieces today.

Local Circles is an organization that employs young people to research issues that are important to them. Nicole Jurek, the executive director of the organization, wrote in her own piece that adults too often think of young people in terms of what they can do in the future. But they have a voice today, she said.

“Young people have value (intrinsically, as we all do) for what they can do now, in their youth,” she wrote.

Read the pieces below from high school students TaMyra Smith, Torrance Johnson, Amaya Nard, Drew Smith Jr., and Stephanie Haney.

When depression takes control

TaMyra Smith is a sophomore at the DPSCD Virtual Academy in Detroit.

There was a time in my life where the bad days outweighed the good days. Depression took control over my emotions, school became more depressing by the minute, I faced personal problems at home, and, worst of all, COVID had just come out. I could see that I wasn’t the only kid dealing with these issues, yet since 2020, our tears have been hidden in the crowd, and there are fake smiles everywhere.

I’ve heard people say, “Life isn’t all that bad,” and that might be right. But if that were true, we would have more mentally stable teens in this world. Unfortunately, it is the other way around. It has gotten to the point where we’ve all become distant from one another, with no one to talk to, so that pain is just sitting within. A friend of mine once said, “The world feels like a ton of bricks have just landed on my chest, and the load won’t get any lighter.” Why should we have to live like this if we’re the future? What are we supposed to do in order to make life a bit easier for us?

“The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me.” — TaMyra Smith

About six months ago, a few of my old friends from middle school and I got back in touch via Instagram. Man, oh man, did it feel like we were getting to know one another all over again, and the energy wasn’t the same at all. By the way they talked, I could feel and hear the sadness in their voices while trying to hide what was deep down. I’m not the smartest, but I can tell when something is wrong.

The pandemic has done a number on me. I don’t and can’t go anywhere, can’t sleep some nights, always see the negative before the positive, and I doubt almost everything and everyone around me. Just recently, I had five assignments from four different classes that had to be completed the same day. I convinced myself that all of it wouldn’t get done, and I was right. And then I received a C in three of those classes since the work was turned in late. See what I mean?

Just the thought of school makes you wish it was already Friday again. More work, more engaging with your classmates, sometimes I don’t even want to talk. Many of my peers say that they’re being overworked, as if this is college, and I agree.

There is only so much teens can take before we begin to not care and want to give up. You never know what goes on in our heads. It could be built up stress and anger that will soon be released. Us teens need to come together, build our own safe environment and stop going against one another.

TaMyra Smith is a sophomore at the DPSCD Virtual Academy in Detroit.

Music as love and therapy

Torrance Johnson is a junior at Clarenceville High School in Livonia.

What makes me feel the most like myself? If you were to look at me, the first thing you would see is the bulky power chair I’m in. For me, my power chair, or rather my disability, is a key part of my being, as the chair and I operate as one. The chair is the first thing most people notice, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I feel it’s one of my defining characteristics.

Beyond seeing it, whenever I move you can hear the whirring of my chair as my wheels go around. Once someone gets to know me, the chair will become what I use to go from one place to the next. However, this can cause me to struggle to view myself as an individual separate from my chair. I have found a way to remedy this, and I’ve found it in music.

“You don’t have to play like Bach or Beethoven to make something beautiful or something that allows you to let feelings out.” — Torrance Johnson

When I’m creating music there’s no wheelchair, no disability, there’s just me and a piano keyboard where I’m free to let my heart and soul create. Music is my love, my therapist, my peace, my freedom. To explain why I feel such relief and freedom in making music to express myself, I asked music therapist Matthew Bessette. “When you’re creating music, you connect with your emotions and express them on a different level of understanding and connection,” he said.

When using music to express yourself, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. You don’t have to play like Bach or Beethoven to make something beautiful or something that allows you to let feelings out. Since I started playing the piano in February, it has become a passion of mine and something I love to do.

While crafting the survey, my peers and I would meet once a week at a facility in Detroit. I couldn’t wait to go there and was typically the first to arrive. In the facility, there was a piano I would play while I anxiously awaited the arrival of my cohort.

I’d begin by playing a single note which can sometimes be the beginning step in describing how you feel. I’d glide my fingers across key by key, letting the anxiety flow from me into the piano, and what came to exist was beauty and freedom. The piano from left to right goes from low to high. As you might guess, a person who is sad would play slow, somber notes compared to a happy person playing upbeat lively notes. I typically experiment with different notes and chords that I don’t always know will reflect the emotion of my heart, brain and soul.

For however long I play, I feel safe and unjudged. I simply feel peace! And that is more than okay with me. Playing allowed me to give my burdens away and be able to enjoy being there in the moment with my cohort.

Torrance Johnson is a junior at Clarenceville High School in Livonia.

Families must practice and model self-love

Amaya Nard is a senior at My Virtual Academy.

One of the findings that stood out to me from the students we surveyed last summer was that people who said they had a positive view on self-love also had someone older in their life who told them the importance of self-love.

My experience with self-love was different. The importance of self-love was a foreign concept for me growing up. Things like rest and relaxation were not allowed for children in my environment. I often saw adults using unhealthy forms of coping, like substances, instead of practicing self-love. I didn’t follow their example. But I can’t say the same for other children in my family. That’s not to say I wasn’t affected. Self image issues are something that I struggle with a lot. According to our survey, the older people got, their view on self-love became more positive. This makes me think that your environment as well as the people around you growing up can affect your view on self-love.

“Everyone should understand that children needing rest isn’t laziness and parents taking care of themselves is not selfishness.” - Amaya Nard

As children we follow the adults in our lives. Learning the importance of self-love in your most formative years will have an effect on how you view yourself then and in the future. Having positive influences in your family can reduce stress and conflict, according to a 2022 study in the journal Wellbeing, Space and Society. Besides family, your environment also plays a role in your well-being. Things like stable housing, food security and overall safety can affect if you practice self-care. That being said, while family and your environment can play a role in how you care for yourself, the main thing is really how you feel about yourself.

Everyone should understand that children needing rest isn’t laziness, and parents taking care of themselves is not selfishness. Learning how to love yourself can be challenging, but having supportive people in your life can help a lot. Even if you don’t have people in your life like that, you can be that person for yourself.

Amaya Nard is a senior at My Virtual Academy.

‘Alarming’ data on youth depression

Drew Smith Jr. is a junior at Metropolitan Junior Academy in Plymouth.

Teens go through a lot, and have been especially impacted by COVID. Sometimes adults might brush off what teens say and feel, and think that we don’t know better. We have the same feelings they do, and we wanted teens to know that they are heard and important.

A 2022 report from Mental Health America found that in Michigan, nearly 17% of youth ages 12-17 had a major depressive episode in the previous year. That’s higher than the national average, which was around 15%, or 3.7 million youths.

The data are alarming.

Here’s what we found after surveying our peers:

A lot of teens practice self-care by relaxing, there were a lot more people who had good relationships with self-love than people who didn’t, and more younger kids had negative relationships with self-love than the older ones. We concluded that as people grow older, they learn to love themselves more.

When practicing self-love, females will say motivating quotes about their beauty and looks, while males did not really have anything motivating to say other than, “You got this.” Female teens had deeper responses to the open-ended questions. Ultimately, we learned self-love impacts what you do in a day, how you react to people, and how much confidence you have.

“Respondents said things like, “I am loved,” “I am worthy” and “I am beautiful/handsome.” Ever since then, I’ve tried to implement “I am” statements into my everyday life to let myself know what I am.” — Drew Smith Jr.

These findings really made me think about myself and how I practice self-love. What I do to calm down and relax is lay down in my bed and watch a TV show that I enjoy. I never really thought about that being self-love until then. Spending time with my friends and family is also a way I practice self-love.

I started to ask myself, “What can I do to improve love for myself?” Then I remembered one of the questions we asked in the survey: “What are some motivational things you say to yourself?” Respondents said things like, “I am loved,” “I am worthy” and “I am beautiful/handsome.” Ever since then, I’ve tried to implement “I am” statements into my everyday life to let myself know what I am.

I’m so grateful for this experience, memories and knowledge learned this summer. And if any teens are reading this in the Detroit area, I want you to know that you are loved and you are heard and that Local Circles cares about you.

Drew Smith Jr. is a junior at Metropolitan Junior Academy in Plymouth.

Seek help when you need it

At times you may not have the best mental health or you won’t love yourself as much as you would like to, but that doesn’t have to stop you from being you.

“If there is no bright side, make one.” — Stephanie Haney

Over time you will go on a self discovery to understand yourself better and what makes you happy. Keep negative things out of your life, and if they keep coming back, take a different route to keep them away. There are going to be SO many ups and downs in your life. Try to look at the bright side of things and see how it will make you better. If there is no bright side, make one. Think of a positive situation and stick with it.

If you need help, call or text the mental health hotline at the number 988 (Michigan’s access line to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline).

Stephanie Haney is a junior at Cass Technical High School in Detroit.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker releases roadmap for Illinois agencies to better address youth mental health

2023-02-24T23:57:42+00:00

Illinois should respond more quickly and broadly to its youth mental health crisis, according to a report that Gov. J.B. Pritzker, mental health care advocates, and researchers released Friday highlighting how the state can better assist young children and teens.

Pritzker pledged to follow its recommendations.

“I refuse to let our youth fall through the cracks,” he said at a press conference on Friday.

Mental health crises among youth spiked during the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 40% of all young people in Illinois who experienced major depressive episodes were not able to receive mental health services last year, the report said.

The report provides a roadmap to provide better and accessible care for young people. Currently, families have to navigate mental health services from six different state departments which makes it harder for families to get services quickly. Recognizing the roadblocks, Pritzker created the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative last year to evaluate solutions for families in need.

The initiative’s report, “Blueprint for Transformation,” makes 12 recommendations for the state to follow. These include creating a central resource for families, improving coordination between departments, increasing capacity to serve more children and families, offering universal screening in schools and doctors’ offices, and offering incentives to mental health support staff to earn professional credentials.

Incoming state schools Superintendent Tony Sanders applauded the recommendations.

“Any student in need of behavioral health treatment deserves access to quality care, and it is essential that parents, educators, and school districts know how to help them receive that care,” Sanders said in a statement.

For more than a year, the coronavirus pandemic isolated children from their peers and schools. Even after schools reopened in fall 2021, students still had to worry about catching COVID-19. Many lost loved ones and family security, and endured gun violence, food insecurity, and homelessness.

While Illinois ranked 13th among states in providing mental health services to youth according to the Mental Health America, nearly 40% of its young people who have experienced major depressive episodes were not able to receive mental health care. The U.S. surgeon general reported that it takes an average of 11 years for a young person with an identified mental health condition to receive treatment across the nation.

Illinois spreads its mental health services across several state departments, including Human Services, Healthcare and Family Services, Children and Family Services, Juvenile Justice, Public Health and the Illinois State Board of Education. The state suffers from a worker shortage and does not provide services in certain areas. As a result, patients experience significant wait times in emergency rooms and for psychiatric inpatient units.

Recently the state took steps to improve mental health services for youth. The Department of Healthcare and Family services introduced its Pathways to Success initiative in December to help guide families through new services for mental health. Pritzker’s recently released budget proposal included $10 million toward comprehensive community-based youth services for youth ages 11 to 17 who are at risk of being directed to the child welfare system or the juvenile justice system.

In the initiative’s next step, the state will produce a plan in October to guide work on statewide mental health services for children and adolescents.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

NY’s budget has $100M for academic and mental health programs. Schools still don’t have the money.

2023-02-24T23:07:54+00:00

With growing concerns over youth mental health and academic recovery, New York’s state lawmakers included $100 million in the state budget last year for schools to spend on mental health resources or after-school programs.

But, with the majority of the school year now over, school districts haven’t been able to apply for the money.

“It is very disappointing that the money that was allocated for desperately needed services by children and adolescents is not getting to them,” said Dawn Yuster, director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children. “There is a lot of trauma, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideations that we continue to hear about from family after family.”

The idea was to let school districts apply for a chunk of the money, which would match whatever other dollars they planned to spend on such programs. Half of the money was to be used during this school year and the other half for the 2023-24 school year. Lawmakers envisioned the funds going toward hiring mental health professionals, expanding school-based mental health services, and creating summer, after-school and extended day and year programs.

State education officials, who are charged with planning the grant program, have blamed the delay on a lengthy process that involves getting approvals from the state’s budget division — which has not yet given its final sign off.

Justin Mason, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, said the process has been complex because it involves both mental health and education components. They now expect the money to be available for next school year, but declined to answer whether schools will get to use the money for any additional school years.

Asked whether Hochul finds the delay acceptable, Mason said it’s the result of a longstanding process that exists to “ensure state funding is allocated in a fair and transparent manner.”

Hochul proposes grant funds to bolster pandemic recovery

As calls grew nationally to address a youth mental health crisis fueled by widespread loss and grief from the pandemic, Hochul proposed last January to add $100 million to the state budget for this fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2022 to this upcoming March 31, and touted the money in a press release when it made it into the final budget.

At the time of Hochul’s proposal, students had returned to campuses full time for the first time since the pandemic. Many educators had reported students struggling with behavioral, social, and mental health issues. Social workers and counselors reported being inundated with student referrals.

In New York City, one in every 200 children has lost a caregiver to COVID. More than 40% of students nationally reported feeling persistent sadness in 2021, compared to about 25% ten years before that, according to a recently released survey.

Bob Lowry, deputy director for advocacy and communication at the state’s Council of School Superintendents, said his organization has seen a need for more dedicated mental health resources in New York’s schools since at least 2017, based on an annual survey of superintendents across New York.

They were thrilled when Hochul highlighted it as a priority. He said that they are “surprised” and “disappointed” that this $100 million has still failed to reach schools.

It’s possible many districts are still busy spending billions of dollars in federal coronavirus relief aid, potentially making this grant less of a need at the moment, advocates said.

Still, districts likely would have jumped at the money had it been available, Lowry said. Those matching funds could have helped districts launch or expand initiatives that they’d already been working on, such as New York City’s pilot effort to pour more mental health resources into 50 high-need schools in order to minimize the use of police intervention, Yuster said.

Getting grant money to school districts can take almost a year

Education officials said it usually takes nine to 10 months to issue a request for proposals, or RFP, which lays out the parameters of the funds and is what districts must respond to when applying for grant money.

For grant programs, education officials are typically tasked with creating the RFP, which other agencies, such as the state’s budget division, must then approve. That can lead to monthslong delays from when the money is available to when schools can use it, advocates said.

“I think mental health was something that was underinvested in prior to the pandemic [and] the pandemic exposed this is actually a high-need area,” said Jasmine Gripper, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy group that has pushed for more school funding. “We needed to double down, and the delay in that process just kinda signals how we don’t take our children’s mental health needs as a priority.”

A timeline provided by the education department shows how the process played out with this $100 million pot of funds: Education officials first sent a summary of a possible RFP last June to the budget office. They spent July reworking their proposal in response to feedback from the budget and governor’s offices, but by August budget officials asked the education department to create an RFP based on what they had originally proposed.

In November, two months after the school year had started in New York City, education officials sent over a completed draft of the RFP. They received more feedback right before winter break, which required “substantial” changes, according to education officials, who sent another revised version back to budget officials earlier this month.

As of Friday, the education department was awaiting final approval to release the RFP to school districts.

“The field is looking at us and saying, ‘We desperately need this,’” State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said during a legislative budget hearing earlier this month, where she was asked about the delay in distributing the funding.

“We have to streamline it,” Rosa said of the RFP approval process. “We have to get to a point that… we do it and make sure that if they have 27-30 questions, let’s sit at the table, let’s get the questions done, let’s get this money into the hands of our school districts and our schools and our agencies, where it’s needed,” Rosa said.

Hochul is still interested in these issues: Her budget proposal this year calls for making mental health services more accessible for students and directing a chunk of Foundation Aid, the state’s main formula for school funding, toward high-dosage tutoring.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

To help address NYC’s youth mental health crisis, school psychologists want to practice outside school

2023-02-23T21:23:46+00:00

With a pressing need for more youth mental health services, New York’s state legislature is eyeing one way to plug the gap: allowing school psychologists to provide services in private practice without having to go through a lengthy licensing process.

Under current rules, school psychologists must obtain a doctorate in order to practice outside of school. But some school psychologists and legislators say that process is overly cumbersome and limits school psychologists’ ability to chip in to address a crisis in youth mental health.

“We need all hands on deck,” said Manhattan Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, the bill’s lead sponsor. “We’re wasting talent during such a need for mental health services.”

The idea makes sense to Brooklyn school psychologist Carleta Joseph. She often ends her work days feeling like she’s barely scratched the surface of the deep mental health needs in her teenage caseload.

Counseling sessions during school hours feel too short, the volume of students is too great, and administrative responsibilities cut into her time working directly with kids. Referring students with the greatest needs to outside providers rarely feels satisfying either.

A 2021 report from the American Psychological Association estimated that half of youth nationwide with mental health issues don’t get the treatment they need. Even in New York City, which has a high concentration of mental health professionals, many providers don’t see kids, school psychologists said.

“What we’re finding is when we’re referring families out to these community organizations and clinics, they’re waiting months and months for appointments,” said Joseph, who works at a large Brooklyn public high school. “So then we get stuck in this hole of how do we provide support to students?”

Joseph wants to do more to address what she sees as crisis levels of mental health needs among teens in during the pandemic.

“It can be frustrating because you have a skillset that’s not being utilized,” she said.

New York’s Association of School Psychologists, the member organization for 4,000 school psychologists across the state, has been pushing for licensure for years, said the organization’s legislative chair John Kelly, a veteran school psychologist on Long Island.

“The school defines our area of expertise and specialty but not necessarily our setting,” Kelly said.

School psychologists in New York are already required to have a master’s degree and two years of experience in schools to get a permanent certificate from the state education department.

The bill currently awaiting a hearing in the state assembly would grant school psychologists licenses to offer a limited range of education-related services outside of school, including psychoeducational evaluations and education-related counseling. That could mean working with students on strategies to manage anxiety that interferes with their ability to focus in class, Kelly said.

School psychologists would still be barred from offering mental health treatment outside of those categories or prescribing medication. Kelly noted that school psychologists who set up private practices would not be able to treat students from the schools where they work to avoid conflicts of interest.

Proponents say the benefit of licensing school psychologists comes not just from adding the new bodies, but also from leveraging the unique skills they possess. School psychologists are often more familiar with the nuances and politics of schools and districts than other mental health professionals, Kelly said. And when they do make recommendations about services or educational programs that could help students during the school day, they do it with a realistic understanding of how those recommendations would play out on the ground, he added.

“Where I see my colleagues in the community sometimes struggling is not understanding that culture [of schools] and how to manage and negotiate the system,” said Kelly. “I think that that’s a really unique aspect, school psychologists understand that culture of a district.”

Licensure could also be a boon for school psychologists, who would stand to earn more from private practice, and could add variety to the sometimes monotonous and paperwork-heavy rhythm of their day jobs, proponents said.

“The field in general is prone to burnout. You sort of get into this rut sometimes,” Joseph said. Having the option to practice outside of school “could break up your day and provide you the satisfaction you need to stay in the field you love.”

That’s not to say it would be easy. School psychologists work full-time jobs, and would have to set up private practices largely during evening hours, something not everyone would want to take on.

“It certainly is a lot,” said Kelly, the Long Island school psychologist, who operated his own practice for years after getting his doctorate degree.

Kelly argued that the current path for school psychologists to get licensure can disproportionately shut out people of color.

Joseph, the Brooklyn school psychologist, said she’s thought about going for her doctorate in order to get a license, but is unsure she can devote the time and sacrifice the income she’d otherwise make by working.

“It takes a significant amount of time and finances,” she said. “That’s a huge commitment.”

School social workers, by contrast, often have an easier time setting up private practices outside of school because their licenses allow it.

Rosenthal acknowledged that licensure can be a “thorny issue” and that there’s always a “push and pull” between expanding access and keeping standards high. The shift could also require additional staffing at the state education department, she noted.

A state education department spokesperson declined to comment on the pending legislation, but said the agency worked “closely with the legislature” on 2022 amendments to state law in an effort to “help increase qualified mental health professionals into the field.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

‘A growing wave of sadness’: Data shows worsening mental health crisis for teen girls

2023-02-14T17:41:20+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to keep up with how public education is changing.

Nearly 60% of teenage girls reported feeling persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2021, compared to just under 30% of their male counterparts, according to new high school survey data.

The disparities come as the share of students reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness leapt from just over a quarter a decade ago to more than 40% in 2021. Mental health experts have warned of a crisis brewing among young people, as schools struggle to respond to a wave of new challenges spurred by the personal, academic, and economic losses of the pandemic.

“These data show a distressing picture,” said Debra Houry, chief medical officer at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey. “America’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence, and trauma.”

Female high school students were nearly twice as likely to struggle, according to the data. More than 40% of girls said they had experienced poor mental health in the past month, though just 18% of boys felt similarly.

Those disparities are consistent with mental health trends among men and women more broadly, with women about twice as likely to experience depression, said Tamar Mendelson, director of the Center for Adolescent Health at John Hopkins University.

While there’s no definitive consensus on the cause of the gap between female and male students, researchers have speculated that social media use and higher rates of bullying and sexual pressures and violence may contribute to greater struggles among girls, Mendelson said. The CDC findings showed teenage girls experienced bullying and sexual violence at higher rates than their male counterparts.

Mental health concerns were especially prominent among LGBQ+ students, with nearly 70% reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness compared to just 35% of students who identified as heterosexual. (The national survey did not include questions about gender identity, but will in the future, officials said.)

“We need to be looking structurally at what is happening in society that is creating these kinds of traumas and pressures on young people,” Mendelson said. “That ranges from structural racism, to economic oppression, to just the pressures that come with a society with so many inequities.”

Across all racial and ethnic groups, more students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021 than in prior years.

These trends aren’t new. Similar gender and sexuality based mental health disparities were documented in CDC data released last year, and many of the trends in the report are a continuation of consistent declines in mental health over the past decade. And recent years have seen LGBTQ+ students reporting increasing hostility at school.

The new report also showed that nearly 40% of high school students do not feel connected to anyone at their schools — a factor which research has shown is linked to lower risks of substance abuse, mental health concerns, and other potential issues.

Female and LGBQ+ students were also less likely to feel connected to those at their schools than their male or straight counterparts, according to the data.

Feeling excluded or disconnected from peers can be “enormously stressful” for high school students, said Mark Van Ryzin, an education researcher at the University of Oregon who studies youth development and peer relations. It can both dampen student learning and exacerbate mental health challenges, he said.

“I would consider it to be a five-alarm fire if a school had 20% of students that felt that way,” Van Ryzin said. “But 40%, my goodness. It’s a testament to the times.”

In an effort to address the growing challenges, some schools across the country have added social workers, counselors, and other mental health resources, though many have struggled to overcome staffing shortages among mental health professionals. Schools have also taken steps to support students in the wake of gun violence and other traumatic incidents.

Collected in the fall of 2021, the data represents a snapshot of trends that may have shifted in the time since. Still, Mendelson said the findings point to the critical need for more mental health support for all students in schools.

“The findings really underscore the notion that we cannot ignore the mental health of young people — this is a critical issue,” she said. “And we’re ignoring it at our own peril.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering national issues. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Biden calls for greater mental health care access in schools, limitations on social media companies

2023-02-08T03:40:52+00:00

Calling for increased mental health care access in schools, President Joe Biden pointed to social media companies as one factor contributing to the nation’s mental health challenges during Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

“When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at their schools,” he said. “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experimenting they’re running on children for profit.”

His comments come as some of the largest school districts in the nation have struggled to hire enough counselors and psychologists during the pandemic. Health officials have warned of a brewing mental health crisis, and schools across the country have sought to bolster access to telehealth and other resources.

Biden’s focus on social media companies follows a pair of lawsuits last month by two Washington school districts, which alleged such companies have fueled a mental health crisis among their students. The schools named giants of the tech industry — like Meta, Google, Snapchat, and ByteDance, the company behind TikTok — in the lawsuits.

Biden called for lawmakers to pass legislation limiting how tech companies can collect data from kids and prohibit advertising to minors.

He also touted other education measures — advocating Tuesday for higher teacher pay and expanded pre-K and higher education access.

Biden has attempted to increase funding for pre-K programs in prior legislation, but those proposals failed to gain traction among Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

Research has found some positive signs associated with pre-K programs, with one study noting those enrolled were more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college. Tuesday, Biden said “children who go to preschool are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- or four-year degree, no matter their background.”

“When we made public education — 12 years of it — universal in the last century, we became the best-educated, best-paid nation in the world,” he said. “If you want to have the best-educated workforce, let’s finish the job by providing access to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering national issues. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

In a Chicago choir class, Grammy-nominated teacher creates ‘daily magic’

2023-01-27T19:34:23+00:00

Spencer Bagley feels at home inside room 325, surrounded by an assortment of acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, and what some might argue the most melodic instrument: the voice.

The 16-year-old Senn High School junior spent most of elementary school playing the clarinet in band, but found his way into Trevor Nicholas’ choir room when classes re-opened in the fall of 2021.

The environment was welcoming, the conversations candid, and the community supportive — just the steady ground Spencer needed as he struggled with his mental health and gender identity.

Nicholas’ empathetic approach guiding students through their own musical journey has made a difference for Spencer and other Senn students who are finding their voice after a tumultuous few years.

Like many educators, Nicholas believes in creating opportunities for his students beyond the four walls of his classroom. Whether it’s having his students perform at venues such as the Lyric Opera of Chicago or bringing in grants to launch new music programs on campus, he’s committed to his students.

But he isn’t your typical choir teacher. Nicholas is nominated for 2023 Grammy Music Educator Award — his second year in a row as a finalist for the honor. The winner will be announced ahead of the 65th Grammy Award ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 5.

The 37-year-old recalled being floored by the back-to-back nominations, describing the moment as “unreal.” He’s humbled and grateful for the recognition and credits his current and former students who “committed themselves to the music and the project of making art.”

The nomination is “amazing,” Nicholas said. But even more amazing has been “watching the brilliance of these young humans as they cared for and kept moving forward, in what, I understand some of the hardest times in recent memory.”

For Spencer, the latest Grammy nomination just affirms Nicholas’ dedication to his students and his commitment to using music to change the world.

“This just really shows how amazing he is and how hard he works for us and how much he dedicates to us,” Spencer said.

How a Chicago educator uses music for healing

For more than a decade as a Chicago Public Schools teacher, Nicholas has used music as a conduit for healing — something that has become even more vital as students confront the mental health impacts of the pandemic and Chicago’s pervasive gun violence, which claimed the life of a Senn student in December.

Nicholas learned about the power of music from personal experience, at a very young age. He was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and was confined to a wheelchair in the fifth grade. He found a companion in his piano — spending hours writing and composing in his room.

When students switched to remote learning in 2020, Nicholas again found himself at his piano — composing songs to help his students navigate the overall uncertainty of the pandemic. Through a computer screen, he shared with his students his composition and some lyrics for “Who Will Carry Me?” — an original song responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Blackness, and trying to process the trauma while in isolation that would later become a music video featuring his students.

“I found so much healing and peace at the piano, expressing myself through music,” Nicholas told Chalkbeat last year. “As a music teacher, it’s something I try to bring to my students, the healing power of music.”

Senior Lilah Soyster recalls connecting to the lyrics when Nicholas first played an early draft for his class over Zoom as they sat separately in their homes.

“Who will carry me

While I am alone

Who will hold me close and keep me bright”

In the next few months, the song evolved as the Chicago music teacher and his students collaborated virtually. The full weight of the project hit Lilah as she processed the turbulent period.

“We were all kind of misty-eyed watching it premiere,” the 17-year-old said, recalling watching it online. “It was emotional.”

Nicholas and his students followed up with another song titled “The Cave” last spring.

Choir classes and Lilah’s involvement in the two song projects have helped her grow as an artist and a songwriter, she said.

The program has not only taught her that there are many avenues she could pursue after high school, but also about building connections.

“I learned a lot about what it means to be like a friend through being in an ensemble,” Lilah said.

Spencer recalled being in awe at the artistry as he worked alongside his teacher, peers, and collaborators to complete “The Cave.”

“It was so wonderful to watch,” he said. “We’re all having trauma at this time and we were all able to communicate with each other and sing together and grow together.”

Senn’s music program has allowed Spencer to grow artistically with the help of Nicholas and private voice lessons through the school’s partnership with ArtsSmart — a mentorship program that offers professional one-on-one voice lessons to students.

“I always want to come to school to experience this class,” Spencer said. “It’s my favorite part of the day, and I really feel so grateful to be able to have this because a lot of people just don’t.”

The program also provided much more than music lessons. For years, Spencer has struggled with his gender identity, but found support from his father and Nicholas.

“He’s my favorite teacher ever,” Spencer said. “He gives 1,000% of everything to us every single day.”

Teacher says Grammy nod is a testament to students

Grammy-nominated music teacher Trevor Nicholas guides his students through a recent rehearsal at Senn High School on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, Nicholas stood at the front of room 325 and guided students through rehearsal, occasionally stopping to offer tips. The voices swelled in harmony, filling the choir room’s tall ceilings and cascading into a wall of sound.

“You’re doing great everyone,” he told his students, using the keyboard to mark pitch as he sang in a falsetto.

Students sang the refrain from the Pentatonix song “Take Me Home”: “Oh, take me there. Won’t you take me there? Won’t you take me home?”

“Did you like your last vowel, everyone? I saw some theatrics out there,” Nicholas observed before steering them through the final note.

They made another attempt. Harmonies melded together – smooth and effortless.

“Oh, that’s gorgeous!” he said excitedly. “You’re doing great. You sound really incredible.”

Trevor Nicholas’ choir class rehearses the Pentatonix song “Take Me Home” at Senn High School on Chicago’s North Side.

After last year’s Grammy nomination, Nicholas saw many more doors open for his students: more performance invitations, partnerships, and donations.

This is not just his Grammy journey. It’s his students’ journey, too. They were “central” to these nominations — he only hopes they are also riding the same wave of excitement, he said.

“There’s untapped potential all around us,” Nicholas said. “So I hope that the school takes some chances on various dreams. It’s not like that there’s this magic thing that made this happen. There’s a lot of daily magic that we chose to enter in together.”

Win or lose, Nicholas’ message of music as a tool to get through life is already a victory.

“If this is as far as we go with the Grammy nomination,” Nicholas said, “it’s enough.”

His students agree. He’s already given them the best lesson any teacher could give: the confidence to believe in their dreams.

Trevor Nicholas raises his hands triumphantly after students finish rehearsing the 2015 Pentatonix song “Take Me Home.”

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Eric Adams promises mental telehealth support for all NYC high school students

2023-01-26T22:20:22+00:00

All New York City high school students will have access to mental health support through telehealth programs, Mayor Eric Adams announced Thursday, his first major effort to address growing concerns about student wellbeing.

“This year we’re rolling out the biggest student mental health program in the country,” Adams said during his annual State of the City speech at the Queens Theatre. “We will provide our high school students with everything from telehealth care to community-based counseling depending on their individual needs.”

Many students experienced trauma during the pandemic, including the loss of loved ones and frayed social bonds during long periods of isolation. Mental health professionals have seen increases in anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and behavior challenges, trends that have raised alarms.

School districts across the country are increasingly leaning on telehealth, which may help ease some barriers to mental health care and could make students or families more likely to attend sessions. Still, telehealth requires access to devices, internet, and private space, which may be difficult to guarantee depending on whether students will be expected to access services from home.

City officials did not immediately provide details about how the program will work, but some experts said they were cautiously optimistic about the announcement.

“I appreciate that the city is responding to really apparent needs of children and teenagers,” said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, the executive director of Counseling in Schools, an organization that partners with about 70 schools across the city to provide mental health services. The schools his organization works with typically have more students in need of mental health support than Counseling in Schools can provide in a given year.

Dahill-Fuchel said there are a number of details that need to be filled in to properly understand how the telehealth program will work. Will the telehealth sessions operate as virtual drop-in centers where students can share their feelings or more traditional counseling sessions? What is the mechanism for students to access those programs, and will students participate from school? Will school staff be involved in monitoring it and potentially get involved if students have more serious needs?

“It raises lots of procedural questions which maybe they will fill in later, but it’s hard for me not to focus on those right away,” Dahill-Fuchel said.

The city is still exploring how to deliver telehealth services, a spokesperson for the city’s health department wrote in an email, offering no further comment about how the program will work.

The mayor’s mental health push included a few other components as well, including “daily breathing and mindfulness exercises.”

Jelena Obradović, a researcher at Stanford University who has studied breathing exercises, said those techniques can help students regulate their physiology, but little research has been conducted on whether those exercises improve learning outcomes.

“Teachers and students need effective strategies for responding to stressful lived experiences,” Obradović wrote in an email. “Deep breathing exercises could be incorporated in schools alongside a full [social emotional learning] curriculum, but shouldn’t be used as a replacement for it.”

City officials have not responded to questions about whether the breathing exercises will be tied to a formal curriculum.

Here are other education initiatives Adams highlighted during his speech:

Adams touted some of his early literacy efforts, including a move to require elementary schools use a phonics program. He also vowed to expand screening for dyslexia to all campuses and open a school specifically dedicated for dyslexic students. That commitment has previously garnered mixed reactions from experts who argue all schools should be able to educate students with reading challenges.
Up to 35,000 middle school students in the city’s summer school program will get “career exposure” and access to college visits. (Under the previous administration, the city’s College Access for All program aimed to give all middle school students access to college visits.)
Adams said about 90 schools and 7,000 students will participate in a program called FutureReadyNYC, which is designed to expose students to possible career interests in high school, earn college credit, or receive industry credentials. Previously, 30 high schools and 5,000 students were expected to participate.
The mayor said he plans to “expand nutrition education standards and plant-powered menus in our schools.” The city has already begun transitioning to vegan lunches in school cafeterias on Fridays, though some students have been reluctant to eat them. “Our children may hate me today but they will love me tomorrow,” Adams said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Thousands of NYC students lost parents to COVID. Many aren’t getting the help they need.

2023-01-26T19:50:04+00:00

This story was produced in collaboration with THE CITY, Columbia Journalism Investigations, Type Investigations and City Limits as part of “MISSING THEM,” THE CITY’s COVID memorial and journalism project. Do you know a child who has lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19? Tell us more here. If you know someone who died due to COVID, share their story here or email us at memorial@thecity.nyc.

This story was originally published on Jan. 16 by THE CITY.

In April 2020, as the death toll from COVID mounted across New York City, an elementary school teacher at the Children’s Lab School, in Sunnyside, Queens, organized a virtual dance party to give her second-grade class some levity. One student, 8-year-old Yarely, had trouble signing on to the remote classroom.

“My dad is the one who is good with computers,” she told her teacher, “but he’s sick in bed.”

The student’s father, 32-year-old Diego Vintimilla, was a fixture at parent-teacher conferences and often helped Yarely with her classwork. That day, Vintimilla, an immigrant from Ecuador, managed to fix his daughter’s computer connection from his bed. He was hospitalized with COVID the next day.

Vintimilla died two weeks later.

Yarely returned to school the day after she was told of her father’s death, confused by what had happened to him. She asked her teacher where her father was.

Wanting to support her student, Yarely’s teacher met on video calls with the school social worker, parent coordinator and principal, but no one knew what to do, she recalls. She searched online, using phrases like “how to help grieving students” and cobbled together handouts. But she found herself struggling to help.

The Queens school building that houses P.S. 343.

Yarely is one of more than 8,700 children in New York City who have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020, nearly double the national rate.

These losses, like the coronavirus itself, have disproportionately struck families of color and immigrants. Black, Hispanic and Asian children in the city were roughly three times more likely to lose a caregiver in the home to COVID compared to white children, according to an analysis done in May by the COVID Collaborative, a public health effort to address the pandemic.

THE CITY, Columbia Journalism Investigations, Type Investigations and City Limits have spent a year documenting the NYC Department of Education’s response to COVID-bereaved children in public schools. We discovered that decades of underfunding mental health care left schools unprepared to handle the spike in needs during the pandemic. Amid that crisis, grieving students were largely overlooked and often didn’t get the help they needed.

Grief at school

We contacted dozens of immigrant families with children who lost parents or caregivers to COVID, using THE CITY’s Missing Them project and the GoFundMe pages that friends and families set up for funeral expenses. Of the 10 families we interviewed, roughly half said they had little to no grief-related support from their schools. Some sought help and didn’t receive it. Others were provided with counseling through their school, only to lose it a few months later.

Still others said they did not inform their schools of the loss because they doubted that they would get any support. Children who did find support, including Yarely, relied on individual teachers and school staff who used their own resources and personal time to tend to their grieving students.

A parent’s death is a monumental event in a child’s life. Research shows that most children can cope if they have support from their family and community. But for some children, losing a caregiver will have long-term consequences. They may struggle to stay in school, or face depression and anxiety as adults.

Experts say that schools can help mitigate such harms by providing immediate care and access to clinical assistance. Noting that schools are a “nearly universal touchpoint for school-aged children,” a December 2021 report from the COVID Collaborative recommends that schools be part of a “coordinated strategy” to identify and support COVID-grieving students.

New York City schools have yet to do that. In a recent interview with THE CITY and its partners, former mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged that the Department of Education didn’t try to distinguish these students’ mental health needs from those of their peers at first.

“The situation was so profoundly troubling across the board,” de Blasio said. “The idea was that the need was so great: set up a system for everyone, and then individualize the solutions.”

But it’s not clear that an individualized response ever materialized. In interviews and survey responses, more than a dozen public school teachers, social workers and administrators described inadequate staffing for mental health support, limited training and a lack of clear guidance from the department. Many said the problems persist even now, nearly three years later.

Still lacking social workers

The dearth of care for grieving students partly stems from an overall shortage of mental health support in New York City schools. Before the pandemic, the DOE employed only one full-time social worker for every 648 students attending public schools, a ratio more than twice as high as what is recommended by the National Association of Social Workers.

When the pandemic hit, zip codes with high concentrations of people of color and immigrants bore the brunt, seeing more cases of COVID illness ending in death than elsewhere, our analysis of city health and demographic data shows. And many schools in these areas were among those with inadequate staffing.

Western Queens, where the Children’s Lab School is located, had one of the highest COVID death rates in the city, and the worst ratio of school social workers to students in the city, before the pandemic. Across the city, 40% of traditional public schools had no full-time social worker, city data shows.

De Blasio said he knew about these deficiencies. As COVID-19 continued to spread, it became even more apparent to him and DOE officials. “Everyone was already perfectly [aware] that we were sitting on top of a huge problem,” he said.

In April 2021, a full year into the pandemic, he announced measures to tackle this shortfall. His administration budgeted approximately $300 million in COVID-relief federal funding over four years for school-based mental health services that could help all pandemic-impacted children. The DOE promised to hire 500 additional social workers and conduct social-emotional screenings of students.

Despite hiring hundreds of social workers in the fall of 2021, however, the ratio is still significantly higher than recommended. The number of bilingual-licensed social workers employed by the DOE has actually declined slightly during the pandemic even as the number of English language learners increased.

Recent reports reinforce our findings. An August 2022 audit by the New York state comptroller’s office found DOE officials haven’t hired enough mental health professionals or provided adequate training to school staff to address New York City students’ mental health issues.

Bereaved but unknown

Tamara Mair, a senior director with the department, said DOE officials worked to tailor mental health support for grieving children to address what she calls “the tremendous amount of loss that was happening through the pandemic.” In an interview, the department highlighted the presence of crisis teams and voluntary teacher and staff trainings on grief sensitivity.

But crisis teams and other school staff can’t respond to grieving children if they aren’t identified. Crucially, the DOE did not implement universal screenings to identify bereaved students.

“I know that the Department of Education cares deeply about figuring out how to identify and serve these children,” said Catherine Jaynes, a senior director with the COVID Collaborative. “But they have to know about them to serve them.”

For some families we interviewed, children fell through the cracks due to this lack of screening. These families said they were reluctant to confide in school staff and received little encouragement to do so.

One mother from Queens, whose family is from Mexico, said her 17-year-old son floundered in his studies after his grandfather and two great-uncles died from the coronavirus over a span of months in 2020. She noticed her son growing more aloof and withdrawn at home; he had trouble concentrating on school work and his grades dropped. Yet she avoided telling his teachers about the deaths, she said, partly because she felt that educators at the Richmond Hill high school were overwhelmed by the challenges of remote learning and gave no indication of offering any resources to COVID-bereaved students.

“The schools did not give any emotional support to the children who lost family members,” she said. “They didn’t send emails or anything. There was no communication.”

Grasping for support

In cases where the schools did know about the students’ losses, some families said staff failed to respond in a sensitive way.

Eleven-year-old Ibrahim started acting out in school after his mother, Fatma Atia, died of COVID in April 2020. He became loud and disruptive in class and got into arguments with other kids. At times, he felt the need to get out of his chair. “I would just think of my mom and just have a little mental breakdown,” said Ibrahim, who was born in the U.S. to parents who immigrated from Egypt.

The staff at his South Bronx middle school often complained about his behavior, said his father, Ashraf. A guidance counselor suggested counseling off-site, but the recommended psychologist had a wait list.

Ibrahim, who lives in the South Bronx, struggled to cope after his mother died of COVID in 2020.

Ibrahim began counseling four months later and was prescribed medication. Since then, he has had fewer behavioral issues at school, Ashraf said, but the family is still struggling. “We try to live, we try to keep up with schoolwork,” he said, “but deep inside we’re all destroyed.”

Other families who did receive mental health support at school had trouble maintaining it.

Fourteen-year-old Carol had trouble sleeping for almost two months after her stepfather died from COVID in April 2020. She spent her days and nights watching TV with her mother, an immigrant from Ecuador, making sure that her mother ate. “I don’t remember cooking for a long time,” said Margarita Rivas, Carol’s mother. “She was the one giving me spaghetti. And she told me: ‘Eat. I prepared this for you.’”

Carol saw a counselor through her high school in Fresh Meadows, Queens, Rivas said. But the arrangement only lasted a few months. When the sessions ended, Rivas struggled to find a private therapist that took her insurance. Carol saw a string of different therapists but gave up, Rivas said, because she was tired of “repeating the same thing every single time.”

Thirteen-year-old Joshua had been visiting a guidance counselor at his Washington Heights middle school every week to help him adjust to seventh grade. But Joshua lost his regular sessions when his counselor took a leave of absence — just before his stepfather died of COVID in April 2020. “He was distant,” said his mother, Charlene Budreau Simon. Joshua often skipped out on remote learning or refused to turn on his web camera when his teachers asked. “He was just like, ‘I can’t function like this right now.’”

The school’s only other counselor reached out to Joshua a few times, Budreau Simon said. But Joshua found it hard to communicate with her, and the school had no social workers on staff. Neither his school nor the others referenced above responded to requests for comment.

After Joshua finished eighth grade, the family moved to New Jersey where Budreau Simon said Joshua has access to a guidance counselor, a social worker, and a caseworker. “It’s so different from New York.”

Training educators

The last time New York City schools faced widespread grief among students was after 9/11, when about 3,000 children, many of whom lived in the city, experienced the death of a parent.

The city moved quickly. In Staten Island, for instance, schools were told to report the names of children who lost someone close, according to Dominick Nigro, former director of the Office of Student Services for Staten Island Public Schools, who managed the borough’s response after the attacks. Those families were then offered individual and group grief counseling at school or within the DOE, Nigro said.

DOE also commissioned Dr. David Schonfeld, a pediatric bereavement specialist, to hold more than 50 full-day crisis response trainings for superintendents and other DOE staff members over the next two and a half years.

“I remember somebody came up to me and said, ‘We really should give this training for all the educators in the school system,’” Schonfeld said.

For a moment, given the sheer scale of 9/11, it seemed like that might come to pass, but DOE didn’t offer widespread grief-sensitivity training until more than a decade later.

In 2018, some city schools began to participate in the “Grief-Sensitive Schools Initiative,” a national program to train educators to recognize signs of grief and potential triggers, and improve access to relevant services. In 2019, it tapped Schonfeld and the New York Life Foundation to offer that training to all city schools.

Then in early 2020, New York City quickly became the epicenter of the COVID pandemic. With DOE’s blessing, Schonfeld adjusted the trainings to focus on pandemic-related stress and grief. He said his work was particularly challenging at a time when children were attending school remotely, and when people dying of COVID or other conditions were isolated from their family members, putting traditional mourning rituals on hold.

More than 6,500 DOE staff members participated in the trainings between March 2020 and June 2022, according to the department. The DOE also has offered professional development seminars for school staff on how to support students coping with grief and loss, a spokesperson said. The agency estimates that approximately 75,000 staff and community members participated in those sessions from 2021-2022. (It declined to specify how many of those were school staff.)

Yet trainings like these are optional — a problem highlighted in the comptroller’s report, which recommended mandatory mental health training for all school staff members who interact with students daily.

Even Schonfeld’s initiative has failed to reach most staff, a disappointing coda to a bold plan. The organizers reported that just over 1,000 city schools underwent the training between April 2020 and June 2021, but only 20% of participating schools managed to train five or more employees.

‘Our kids are all in crisis’

Many school staff members say their struggles to help COVID-grieving students were compounded by the education department’s failure to supply clear guidelines. No one we spoke with expected to see such standards handed down during the pandemic’s early days. But as it dragged on, the continued lack of guidance felt more surprising, they said.

DOE confirmed that it has avoided what it calls a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Instead, it noted that crisis teams, composed of school social workers, counselors and administrators, often are a “first line of defense” for grieving students.

In interviews and survey responses, more than a dozen public school teachers, social workers and administrators described inadequate staffing for mental health support, limited training, and a lack of clear guidance from the Department of Education.

Emily George, a former school social worker, remembers school social workers turning to the professional listserv that she moderates to find help during the pandemic. Many sought to fulfill urgent requests from their students’ families for food, housing and funeral assistance. Some wanted advice on legal services for immigrants; others on grief counseling for teens.

“Once the pandemic hit, everyone was like ‘Oh, mental health, what are we going to do?’” George said. “Our kids are all in crisis.”

Among the families we interviewed, 8-year-old Alejandro’s experience represented a rare example of a student who got adequate and consistent support at school. Alejandro lost his uncle, Victor Humberto Heras, to COVID-19 in April 2020. They were close: Humberto dropped him off at school every day and would make meals for him.

Alejandro has been receiving counseling through his elementary school in Washington Heights — individual sessions two times a week at first, and now group sessions. The sessions have helped him manage his grief and anger and come to terms with his uncle’s death, he said.

Alejandro visits his late uncle’s home in Washington Heights, Dec. 6, 2022.

Most families who had a positive experience, however, attributed it to a teacher or social worker who extended themselves personally, often outside of regular working hours.

At the Children’s Lab School, Yarely’s teacher said she tried her best to help. After her father’s death, Yarely often showed up early to her online classes, clutching a stuffed animal. Frequently, she asked her teacher to stay behind after lessons had ended.

“Usually we would talk about my dad and how I felt about all that,” said Yarely.

Yarely took her teacher on virtual tours of her home, pointing the camera toward candles and photos in memory of her dad. She worried about how her mother would manage family finances, including payments for her father’s truck. “She was clearly just soaking up all kinds of fears and worries and concerns from everyone around her,” said Yarely’s teacher.

Yarely was obviously suffering. With her father gone and her mother working full time, she struggled to understand her schoolwork and stay motivated, said her mother, Adriana Culcay. The situation became dire in the summer of 2020, when a relative told her mother that Yarely had threatened to jump out the window to be with her father.

“She was just crying, crying, crying,” Culcay said.

Speaking your language

Not long after that incident, Culcay arranged virtual counseling sessions for Yarely through school. At the time, our analysis shows, the Children’s Lab School had one full-time social worker on staff — relatively uncommon among its west Queens counterparts. In the 2020-21 school year, DOE data shows that more than a quarter of traditional public schools did not have full-time or part-time social workers; another 11% of schools only had access to a part-time social worker.

In March 2021, de Blasio appointed Meisha Porter — a former Bronx teacher, principal and administrator — as education chancellor. In an interview, Porter said she had seen how COVID losses overwhelmed schools in her district and felt strongly about incorporating mental health support into DOE’s reopening plan.

Under Porter’s guidance, the department rolled out a plan to hire the 500 social workers, targeting schools hardest-hit by the pandemic.

By December 2021, eight months into the plan, around a third of public schools in neighborhoods hit hardest by COVID still did not have a full-time social worker, according to our analysis of DOE data.

Others had social workers but struggled to meet the needs of non-English speaking families. Studies show counseling is twice as effective if it’s in the language of the person seeking it.

DOE offers comprehensive translation services by phone that allowed social worker Jessica Chock-Goldman, who worked at Stuyvesant High School until July 2021, to communicate with non-English speaking parents about getting support for their children. But speaking through a translator makes it harder to talk about sensitive topics, like grief. “I remember in the beginning, we had so many kids who lost parents” to COVID, Chock-Goldman said, but she found it difficult to help them.

Typically, she arranges for clinicians with a shared ethnicity to talk with parent groups about ways their kids can work through stigmas related to mental health.

“A lot of these families, in their country of origin for the parents, therapy is not the norm,” she said.

Carolina Nudo, the former social worker at Yarely’s school, has seen the benefits of language-specific counseling firsthand. At Children’s Lab School, more than half of the nearly 450 students are Latino and around a quarter are learning English. Nudo speaks Spanish and was able to communicate with Yarely’s family directly, including her mother Culcay, whose primary language is Spanish.

Yarely remembers learning breathing exercises during counseling sessions and being encouraged to do something that she loved as a way to feel better. She enjoys painting, so she recreated a beach sunset that she once watched with her father.

But Yarely missed some counseling sessions and her grades dropped while her mother worked at a new job for nearly 12 hours a day to make up for her late husband’s income. “I hardly paid attention,” Culcay said.

For grieving children from undocumented families, it can be harder to get help, said Jeanette Rodriguez, a counselor through a partner organization at I.S. 145 in Jackson Heights, where more than 90 percent of students are Hispanic. At least five of her students lost a parent or caregiver to COVID, she said. Undocumented parents may not know how to access health insurance, for instance, and can be too afraid to enroll their children in public services, for fear that the information might be shared with authorities.

“We tell them, ‘When you come here, you’re protected,’” Rodriguez said of undocumented parents. “We want them to feel safe.”

‘Grief is not a behavioral problem’

Though some families we spoke with had positive encounters with their schools, others say they encountered obstacles that left them feeling stigmatized for seeking grief support.

Veronica Fletcher lost her husband, Joseph Trevor Fletcher, an MTA worker and immigrant from Grenada, to COVID in April 2020. When her three children returned to their Brooklyn public schools for in-person learning more than a year later, they each demonstrated signs of trouble.

Veronica Fletcher holds a portrait of her late husband, Joseph Trevor Fletcher.

Her oldest, Joshua, then 16, became hyper-focused on his studies, determined to graduate high school early. His brother, Ziggy, then 13, had nearly failed a class soon after their father’s death, and continued to be sad and distracted in school. And Maddie, then 9, seemed increasingly lonely. Frequently, she visited the schoolyard’s “buddy bench” to signal that she wanted company.

In October 2021, just weeks into the new academic year, Fletcher received a phone call from her younger children’s school, P.S. 207 in southeast Brooklyn, where COVID deaths have ranked among the highest in the city. She learned that Maddie had started crying during recess and, hours later, was still inconsolable. The teacher advised her to wait until pick-up to see her daughter, which struck Fletcher as insensitive. “When she came in the car, I just held her,” said Fletcher. “Her body was just racking with sobs.”

The school counselor referred Fletcher to a nonprofit that offers bereavement support and held a virtual meeting with Maddie in fall 2020. But for the sessions to continue, Fletcher said she was asked to submit a letter stating that her children needed “at-risk” support. Concerned that could harm her children’s school records, Fletcher said she was reluctant to do it.

In April 2022, she wrote to P.S. 207 Principal Neil McNeill, again asking about bereavement support. “Please, let me know what programs are in place at either the school or with DOE for my grieving children,” she wrote in the April 14 email. “If full grown adults often have difficulty with grieving a lost parent, imagine how much more traumatic it is for children to do so in a pandemic.”

In response, McNeill reminded Fletcher that she had effectively declined “at-risk grief counseling.” He invited her to tell him if the children wanted to speak with the school counselor or needed to walk out of their classrooms for a break. “We are here to support the kids in any way that we can,” he wrote. (The DOE declined to make McNeill available for an interview or respond to questions about the policy.)

But Fletcher’s position wouldn’t change. “Grief is not a behavioral problem,” she said, explaining why she objected to submitting an official request. “It’s not a mental illness.”

Fletcher had similar concerns when she heard about a new multimillion-dollar screening tool being used to evaluate children for mental health needs, known as the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment or DESSA.

Launched in 2021, the social-emotional assessment consisted of teachers filling out an online questionnaire using a five-measure scale from “never” to “very frequently” to rate a child’s behavior in roughly 40 scenarios. The questions include things like: “During the last four weeks, how often did the child carry himself/herself with confidence?” and “How often did the child show good judgment?”

But teachers and parents say these types of questions can fail to identify students who are experiencing the unique struggle of grieving a family loss. Instead, the COVID Collaborative recommends screenings designed specifically to find children who are bereaved.

De Blasio noted that the DESSA screener was always meant to be only one step in the process. “There was not an assumption that a single universal screener would answer all questions, but it would be the beginning of identifying who needed further evaluation,” he said.

Former schools Chancellor Porter defends the DESSA, noting that she chose it, in part, because it emphasized positive traits like confidence and self-esteem rather than negative behaviors. But she said that schools could have used more support in implementing it. “It was a lot that had to happen,” she said.

New administration slashes school budgets

Since Eric Adams took over as mayor in January 2022 and appointed David Banks as education chancellor, the two have said little about how the new administration will address the city’s COVID-grieving schoolchildren. The Department of Education declined to make Banks available for an interview for this story.

In September, Adams and Banks announced that 110 social workers would be reassigned from the early childhood division to the city’s public schools, a DOE spokesperson said. It is unclear what, if any, impact the move will have on schools in the neighborhoods hit hardest by COVID-19.

Last fall, Yarely started fifth grade. She enjoys math, she said — it reminds her of how her father used to help her with homework.

Culcay said her daughter’s academic performance is still not at the level it was at before her husband died. And since social worker Nudo has retired, Yarely stopped receiving any counseling in school. “I only tell her the stuff,” Yarely said.

But she has grown to accept her father’s death — something Culcay credits the school with helping her realize.

In February 2021, Yarely and one of her father’s cousins traveled back to Ecuador with her father’s ashes. Recently, Yarely has learned to cook rice with sausage and eggs and fold her laundry while her mother is at work. People comment on how mature she’s become, Culcay said. “I say, ‘Yes because [her] father is no longer there and it’s just me.’”

Veronica Fletcher says her children are beginning to adjust to life without their father. She moved to Georgia in August. When the new school learned that their father had died, the counselor recommended a weekend-long grief camp, which her kids all attended in October. “I had to move to another state for someone to offer my children an opportunity that I asked for in New York.”

Fletcher still feels disappointed by the lack of support she received from the city’s school system. “They are children who have suffered loss. They get through it with support,” she said, “and the support should not be absent in a place where they spend most of their day.”

Liz Donovan and Fazil Khan produced this story as reporters, respectively, for City Limits and Columbia Journalism Investigations, an investigative reporting unit at the Columbia Journalism School. It was produced in partnership with THE CITY and Type Investigations, two nonprofit newsrooms that provided reporting, editing, fact-checking and other support.

Type Investigations freelance reporter Muriel Alarcón and CJI reporting fellow Chris Riotta contributed reporting. Research by Columbia Journalism School’s Shannon Rose Geary, Shelby Jouppi, Amanda Torres and Jessica Vadillo and THE CITY’s intern Emi Tuyetnhi Tran. Translation by freelance journalist Lila Hassan and City Limits reporter Daniel Parra. Fact-checking by Paco Alvarez and Ethan Corey for Type Investigations.

THE CITY’s MISSING THEM project is supported, in part, by the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia Journalism School.

Tell us: How has your relationship to school changed since the pandemic started?

2023-01-25T21:45:59+00:00

To say it’s been a long three years feels like an understatement. Much has changed for many New Yorkers since the COVID pandemic started, particularly when it comes to their relationship to school and education.

Where does that leave parents, students, and educators? What kind of support do families and schools need?

It’s still a trying time for many New York City schools.

The nation’s largest school system continues to lose students, resulting in budget cuts. But in many cases, having fewer teachers meant they had to do more with less, often with class sizes ballooning. Compared to the year before, elementary and middle school classes increased this year, according to city data. And the privately run but publicly funded prekindergarten centers that are the backbone of the city’s free pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds has been rife with funding and other problems.

Meanwhile students are still healing from prolonged isolation, but are once again going on field trips and are back in their classrooms — except when they don’t show up, as chronic absenteeism rates remain high, and educators have seen an increasing number of students who feel like school is optional, in a way.

Some children are trying to self-medicate with marijuana, experts have said, and schools are reporting an uptick in student marijuana use, particularly in younger grades. On top of social emotional needs, many students still need academic help. The city has also been grappling with how to better serve a rising number of homeless students, particularly from migrant families sent here on buses from Texas.

Please fill out our brief survey to let us know how things have changed for you:

Deep breaths: NYC to roll out breathing exercises for all students, Banks says

2023-01-21T00:11:04+00:00

As schools across the city grapple with the mental health fallout of the pandemic, Chancellor David Banks indicated this week that the education department is in the process of introducing breathing exercises for all students.

“We are looking at rolling out two to three minutes of breathing technique[s] for every student in New York City schools as we go into next school year,” Banks said during a panel discussion this week hosted by Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group.

“The pandemic was not the first challenge that a lot of our kids are gonna face and it won’t be the last,” Banks added, responding to a teacher’s question about his vision for social-emotional learning. “We have to teach them the life skills that they need, to know that in the face of trauma and challenge, how to center yourself.”

Education officials did not respond to questions about how the breathing program would be implemented, if it would involve using a specific curriculum, and how much the effort will cost. Banks noted that he’s hoping to build on techniques that are already in place at some schools and suggested the breathing lessons will begin “mid year.”

Addressing student mental health is a growing concern, as many students experienced trauma during the pandemic including the loss of loved ones. Social bonds frayed during long periods of remote instruction and students were more disconnected from their peers and teachers. Changes in behavior have been clear since students returned to school buildings full time, some educators said, including age-appropriate behaviors, struggling to make it to school at all, or even getting high during the school day to cope with anxiety.

Teachers offered mixed reactions to Banks’ suggestion that the city will institute breathing exercises across the school system.

Eli Levine, who teaches gym, health, and wellness at P.S. 91 in the Bronx, said he regularly incorporates breathing exercises in his instruction. It can help make students feel ready to learn, decrease anxiety, or even help educators figure out what’s going on with a student who has erupted in tears.

“I’ve done it so many times over the years when kids are crying or really upset and you’re trying to figure out why,” Levine said. “I have them do deep breathing until they are able to verbalize what’s bothering them.”

Still, Levine said he also sees possible downsides to rolling it out across the city, especially if teachers see it as an intrusive mandate into their already busy schedules and don’t explain to students why it might be helpful.

“If it’s sort of a Pledge of Allegiance where they get on the intercom and say, ‘we’re going to do two minutes of breathing’ — I’m not sure it’s the best way to do it for kids,” he said.

Other teachers said they were frustrated that Banks hasn’t sketched out a more detailed vision of what he thinks social-emotional learning should look like.

Liz Haela, a middle school teacher at the Urban Institute of Mathematics in the Bronx who attended the panel discussion, said she didn’t have a problem with breathing exercises, but wanted to hear more about how the city plans to address students’ emotional needs, especially those who come from low-income families or are homeless.

Breathing exercises are a “lackluster, inefficient way to really address social-emotional needs,” she said, noting that she wished for a more comprehensive approach to student wellbeing. She said her school has struggled, for instance, with an uptick in bullying this year around students’ sexuality, appearance, and family background.

Banks has not yet offered a detailed set of proposals for tackling student wellbeing and has instead largely focused on efforts to improve early literacy instruction and expanding students’ exposure to career paths before they graduate. And some of the education department’s previous efforts to measure and address student mental health have earned mixed reviews from educators, including a required social-emotional screener that officials later made optional.

Still, city officials have taken some steps in recent years to address student mental health, guaranteeing every school access to a social worker or on-site mental health clinic, and expanding the number of schools that partner with nonprofits to provide a range of social services. (A substantial chunk of those programs are funded with one-time federal relief dollars, raising questions about their long-term sustainability.)

Banks seemed to anticipate that some educators might want a deeper vision about how he plans to approach student mental health and wellbeing beyond breathing exercises.

“We just got one year under our belt as a new administration,” he said. “There’s so many more things that we are working on that will be coming out and that’s just one.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado experts declared a youth mental health emergency. Here’s what happened next.

2023-01-19T22:50:33+00:00

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Roxana Alvarado Martinéz, a high school sophomore, had told only close friends she was seeing a therapist to help her with anxiety and insomnia.

But that changed last week in the civics classroom where she serves as a teacher’s assistant. The teacher plucked slips of paper from the “Sol y Nubes” — sun and clouds — box, where students can anonymously share struggles or excitement.

That day, as the discussion touched on depression, bullying, and suicide, Roxana spoke up.

“There is no shame, absolutely no shame in you having a therapist or me having a therapist,” she told the class at Summit High School in Breckenridge. “I could help you get connected if that’s what you need.”

Roxana is part of a generation that has grappled with unprecedented mental health struggles over the last few years amid a pandemic that stoked stress, fear, and isolation for people young and old. She’s also one of thousands of Colorado youth taking advantage of a growing number of programs that aim to make mental health support more accessible and affordable for young people.

These programs include the state’s “I Matter” program, which provides six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions to students in elementary through high school. So far, the program has served more than 5,600 students statewide.

There are a variety of local programs, too. Roxana, 16, received a scholarship to cover the cost of therapy from Building Hope Summit County, a mental health nonprofit. The Aurora school district east of Denver began offering students six free counseling sessions a year ago and the neighboring Cherry Creek district began offering eight to 10 free sessions to middle and high schoolers in December. Both districts contract with Hazel Health, a telehealth company based in San Francisco.

It’s hard to know if Colorado youth are getting all the help they need. During the first nine months of 2022, mental health-related visits to emergency departments in the Children’s Hospital Colorado system were up 74% compared with the same period in 2019, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

That’s part of the reason why local and state leaders continue to push for easy-access mental health support for children and teens before a full-blown crisis hits.

Michelle Weinraub, Cherry Creek’s chief health officer, said the district’s free counseling program grew out of a mental health task force launched in early 2022. She recalled asking students at one meeting if they’d use free counseling sessions they could access on their phones after school or work.

A couple of them were so excited, they jumped out of their chairs, she said.

“They were like, ‘Yes, that’s what we want,’” she said. Then the students started talking: “We can’t get an appointment unless we’re in crisis … My friend tried to call and they’re on a waitlist for six months. My friend wanted to see this person that they knew somebody else was seeing, but it doesn’t accept insurance.”

Experts declare a mental health emergency

In May 2021, just over a year into the pandemic, leaders at Children’s Hospital Colorado sounded the alarm about the spike in serious mental health problems among children and teens, declaring a youth mental health “state of emergency.”

They pleaded for more funding as well as efforts to reduce bureaucratic constraints in the youth mental health system. Six months later the state launched I Matter.

The program isn’t meant to be the only “front door” to counseling, but rather to serve as one low-barrier option for any young person who needs someone to talk to, said Charlotte Whitney of the state’s Behavioral Health Administration, which runs I Matter. There’s no requirement to be extremely anxious or depressed.

Whitney said the model can help set kids up for improved mental health long term “because they know where to access services and they know the coping skills to get them through those really hard times.”

Students 12 and over can sign up for the therapy sessions by filling out a simple online form. Children under 12 can use the service, but need a parent to do so. Whitney said generally students can get telehealth appointments within days.

Occasionally, she said, students wait longer if they’re looking for something specific — for example an in-person appointment in a rural community or a therapist that specializes in transgender issues.

In Aurora, about 230 students have been referred for counseling through the free Hazel Health program since the start of the school year. In Cherry Creek, which launched its program Dec. 5, about 200 students have been referred for help, often by their parents. Officials in both districts say there are no waiting lists for appointments.

Puppy therapy helps students open up

Timothy Swanson, a social worker in Colorado Springs, is one of about 200 I Matter therapists statewide. He sees up to three students a week, mostly in person, through the program. Often, his clients open up first to his dog Smoke, a gentle pitbull mix who accompanies him to the office.

Tim Swanson’s dog Smoke is a comforting presence for clients.

“They just love him. They just grab him and start talking to him,” said Swanson. “It really helps these kids because a lot of times they come in, they’re withdrawn, a little nervous, not sure what therapy’s about.”

Swanson, 63, said many young clients, whether they’ve come through I Matter or other avenues, struggle with anxiety, anger, or depression. Sometimes, it’s because of pandemic-related disruptions at school, the trickle-down effect of parent stress, or cruel behavior from classmates.

Some of his clients have been told by fellow students, “Well, if you feel that way, why don’t you just kill yourself?”

“It’s really damaging,” Swanson said. “I encourage them to talk to counselors, to me, to their parents, to teachers or whoever, to help them develop a support system ... a healthy one where they can get good answers.”

As with other free therapy programs, I Matter aims to connect youth to continued counseling if they want or need it after the free sessions. Swanson said 30% to 40% of his I Matter clients continue seeing him after the first six sessions, paying through health insurance or other means.

Weinraub, of the Cherry Creek district, said if needed, Hazel Health therapists work with students and families to connect them to a local therapist after the free telehealth sessions end.

The COVID19 pandemic led to student burnout

Even before Roxana moved to the United State from Mexico at age 7, she was a top student. Her parents expected good grades and she delivered.

But her classes got harder in middle school. Then, in seventh grade, the pandemic hit. Roxana, once surrounded by friends, found herself spending long days alone in her bedroom.

Her father would say, “You have to come out and at least eat something, drink some water,” Roxana said. “I started getting to the point where I was drowning myself in all my work.”

She felt claustrophobic, exhausted, and worried about her mother, who worked as a nurse in Mexico. Eventually, Roxana tried counseling but it didn’t go well. She said the therapist told her, “It’s only in your head. You’re just pretending.”

By the middle of her freshman year in high school, her struggles spiraled. She was skipping classes and nearly failing courses for the first time in her life. She ended up in the hospital.

Today, Roxana is doing better. She’s seeing a therapist she relates to — one who is Latina and a native Spanish-speaker like herself — and she’s let go of her drive for perfect grades. She’s also trying to tackle the stigma around seeking mental health help, something she’s felt as part of the Latino community.

“We have this big, big culture of what happens in our family stays in our family and you’re not going to tell our family business around,” she said.

But Roxana knows there are other students like her at school, silently struggling with their painful realities. That’s why she decided to say something during the recent civics class, stuttering a bit as she shared her story.

“If I don’t speak out, other people won’t either,” she said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC is using one-time COVID money for a lot of education programs. What happens when it dries up?

2023-01-19T10:00:00+00:00

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, New York City’s education department received a massive windfall: more than $7 billion in federal relief funding to help reopen school buildings and address lost instruction.

But city officials have used a significant chunk of that one-time relief on initiatives that have recurring costs. What happens to those efforts when the spigot of federal dollars dries up in 2024? That’s the question posed by a report released Thursday by Advocates for Children, which highlights hundreds of millions worth of programs that are currently being supported by federal funds.

The report is a “call to action” to draw attention to initiatives that could face cuts if the city doesn’t find a way to replace federal dollars, said Randi Levine, the policy director at Advocates for Children. “We want to make sure policymakers are aware of the wide range of important education initiatives that are currently being funded by expiring federal COVID-19 relief funding.”

A range of programs are receiving one-time federal money, including expanded summer school ($236 million), hundreds of new prekindergarten seats for students with disabilities ($88 million), screening for students with dyslexia and other literacy programs ($7.4 million), and a raft of hiring including new social workers and nurses (roughly $135 million).

City officials declined to say whether they plan to slash any of those programs or, if not, where the funding will come from.

“We are working closely with City Hall and our agency partners to find ways to sustain and build on the work we have done to lift up our students and schools,” education department spokesperson Jenna Lyle wrote in an email.

The programs are not necessarily at immediate risk, since the federal funding runs until the 2024-25 school year, though advocates argue the city should make plans to address the looming fiscal cliff now. Once the federal funding runs out, the city will have to either cut or find other money to replace about $881 million in annual spending on recurring programs that are currently receiving federal dollars, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office.

“I don’t think the intent [of the federal funding] was to support ongoing costs — these funds were clearly one-time,” said Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. “The city, the City Council, and the advocacy community is going to have to address [that] and make hard choices.”

The report does not document every example of the education department’s use of one-time relief money on recurring programs. But it highlights several high-profile examples. Here are five of them:

Preschool for 3-year-olds: $100 million

Mayor Eric Adams made waves when his administration rolled back plans to make 3-K universal, a major goal of his predecessor who intended to use more than half a billion dollars of federal money for that purpose. Officials redirected much of that funding to “central costs.” But even without the planned expansion, city officials will still need to find about $100 million each year to keep the program going at its current size, according to the Advocates for Children report.

Expanding 3-K was “built on recovery dollars that are running out,” schools Chancellor David Banks said at an event hosted by Educators for Excellence Wednesday evening. “We’ve got major issues that we’re going to have to deal with financially in terms of paying for that as well as other programs.”

More social workers, nurses, and staff to help homeless students: about $135 million

The education department hired a slew of people for non-teaching positions, including enough nurses to ensure every school had access to one, 500 social workers, and psychologists to speed up evaluations and the creation of individualized education programs for students with disabilities. The city also used the funding for 75 coordinators to help homeless families navigate the education system, though the hiring process has been slow.

Preschool for students with disabilities: $88 million

Many students with disabilities who are legally entitled to preschool seats have instead been forced to stay home because the city doesn’t have enough seats to meet demand. The problem was long considered a stain on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s promise of universal pre-K and the current administration has vowed to create enough seats for every child with a disability who is entitled to one. But that promise is being delivered with one-time relief money, raising questions about how the city will follow through on that goal after this school year.

Community schools: $60 million

Under de Blasio, there was steady growth in the number of schools that embedded wraparound services into school buildings through partnerships with nonprofit providers — including dental clinics, mental health services, and food pantries. The city has dedicated about $70 million over the last two years to increase the number of those schools from 266 to over 400 and reverse cuts that had been planned to those schools, according to the report.

Keeping school budgets steady: $160 million

City officials have kept school budgets higher than they would have been based on enrollment declines, a policy meant to stave off dramatic budget cuts while schools are trying to catch students up from pandemic disruptions.

Although Adams began the process of cutting school budgets this school year, a move that drew intense criticism, he reversed plans to make another round of cuts next school year – using relief funding to plug the gap. That move means that schools may face even more dramatic cuts down the line, as officials contend that school budgets will eventually need to be brought back in line with enrollment, though city officials have not released detailed plans.

“That’s a looming problem and it will be a bigger problem than it was last year,” Champeny said. “When those funds run out, how are we going to fund the schools and at what level?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As Seattle schools sue social media companies, legal experts split on potential impact

2023-01-17T11:00:00+00:00

A notable new lawsuit against social media industry leaders by the Seattle school district has left legal experts divided on how the case will unfold.

The complaint — which alleges that the school district and its students have been harmed by social media’s negative effects on youth mental health — could lead to sweeping changes in the industry, one expert said. Or, as others expect, it could fizzle out with little chance of winning in court.

Seattle Public Schools alleges that the companies — which include Meta, Google, Snapchat, and ByteDance, the company behind TikTok — designed their platforms intentionally to grow their user bases and “exploit the psychology and neurophysiology of their users into spending more and more time on their platforms,” according to a complaint filed earlier this month.

Kent School District in Washington filed a similar complaint within days.

If the evidence and argument put forward by the districts are sound, a win could usher in a wave of similar litigation by school districts across the nation, said Derek W. Black, an education law professor at the University of South Carolina.

“What’s on the line here is not the money,” he said. “What’s on the line is the court saying these groups are responsible and therefore they must stop this behavior. That’s what’s on the line: the mental health of the current generation and those that follow.”

Others aren’t so sure.

“It is not a winning lawsuit, and it shouldn’t be,” said Aaron Saiger, an education law professor at Fordham University.

Here’s a look at where the case stands and what legal experts anticipate the future may hold:

What the school district and social media companies are saying

Seattle’s school district has argued that social media companies are maximizing profit at the expense of the mental health of young audiences, who spend significant amounts of time on the platforms and report associating them with stress and anxiety, according to the complaint.

Meanwhile, the social media companies named in the lawsuit emphasized their own commitments to teen and child safety.

“We want teens to be safe online,” said Antigone Davis, global head of safety at Meta, noting the company has developed parental supervision tools and other privacy and safety measures on teen accounts. “We don’t allow content that promotes suicide, self-harm or eating disorders, and of the content we remove or take action on, we identify over 99% of it before it’s reported to us.”

Spokespeople for Google and Snapchat highlighted similar steps they’ve taken to enhance safety for teenagers and children, like allowing parents to impose screen time limits or monitor whom their kids are connecting with on the platform. ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit seeks a court order labeling the actions of the company a public nuisance under Washington law, a term that applies to actions that endanger a considerable number of people. It asks the court to tell the companies halt the practices noted in the suit and provide financial compensation to the district.

How likely the case is to succeed

To Black, a school district is an unexpected plaintiff, but one he believes could have higher odds of success than individual families.

He drew comparisons to cases against the tobacco industry, which grew more successful as governments pursued lawsuits based on the harmful impact of the product on state healthcare systems. An individual might struggle to prove their negative experiences were clearly caused by the product but with broader trend data to refer to, the argument becomes more compelling, he said.

The focus on product design, rather than content on the platform, adds viability to the case, Black added.

“This isn’t just about holding the internet in general liable,” he said. “This is about specific affirmative actions that Google, YouTube, Facebook and others are taking.”

But others believe that it points to a common marketing strategy and doesn’t make a compelling case for legal liability.

“A lot of product marketers would love to addict their customers and do everything in their power to do so — that’s called product marketing,” said Eric Goldman, a technology and marketing law professor at Santa Clara University. “We don’t hold many services or products liable for addicting customers.”

Casinos, for example, aren’t held liable for gambling addictions, he said.

Saiger questioned whether the district had standing. Rather than tobacco cases, he felt it was more comparable to a school district suing a sugary food manufacturer for making children ill in their district.

“It’s a very long causation chain, and I don’t think the courts will be inclined to let the school district pursue it,” he said. “To say, ‘We’re service providers to children whose mental health is affected by thousands of things, and we picked you,’ strikes me as a very attenuated way to understand liability under the nuisance law.”

Goldman also questioned the timing of the case, noting that an ongoing lawsuit by dozens of families against social media companies has made similar arguments. That case, as well as the pending U.S. Supreme Court case Gonzalez v. Google, could have dramatic implications for the school district lawsuits, he said.

“I would assume the [school district] case is going to fail,” he said. “But the battle is taking place in the legislatures as well.”

What the case could mean — win or lose

Regardless of outcome, the case will attract additional media attention and public scrutiny, experts said. A win could spark other lawsuits and bring changes to social media companies, while a loss might spur litigators to shift tactics in future cases.

“If the evidence that’s in the complaint is true, it is one of, if not, the most important lawsuits to be filed during my lifetime,” Black said. “Because it stretches across so many states … This case, though it would have to be replicated elsewhere, is potentially a huge turning point that is equally significant for the entire nation.”

It’s complicated to think about what remedies are possible in the case, Saiger said. He believes social media offers a public good, unlike tobacco or asbestos, for example.

“A plausible remedy in the opioid case was to take the pills off the market,” he said. “That’s not a plausible remedy, in my opinion, for social media, because it has social value.”

Though the court could intervene and seek changes to social media companies’ business practices, such as insisting against certain marketing strategies or requiring stronger age verification, Saiger said such changes seemed more likely to come from a state legislative body.

Goldman added the court is unlikely to consider the benefits of social media.

“It’s not really the court’s job to try to balance that kind of evidence, particularly because the proponents of the benefits of social media might not be in the courtroom,” he said. “That’s what legislators are supposed to do.”

Some state legislatures have already taken steps in that direction. California lawmakers, for example, passed the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, which imposes more stringent requirements that online services identify and protect minors on their sites.

Signed into law last fall, it faces a legal challenge from the tech trade group NetChoice, which includes major industry players like Google, TikTok, and Meta.

Still, if the school district case is able to proceed, the stakes could be enormous.

“If the plaintiffs tell their story to the judge and are successful, the consequences could be a radical reshaping of the internet,” Goldman said. “That’s a good reason for us to both be concerned about the lawsuit and to question whether or not this is the right way to solve the problem.”

What the science says about social media’s effects

As legal experts disagree about the viability of the case, the science, too, isn’t completely clear.

While research has drawn links between, say, social media use and anxiety or certain types of content and maladaptive behavior, it has not established a clear causal relationship between social media and worsening trends in youth mental health and depression, said Mitch Prinstein, the chief science officer at the American Psychological Association.

“Is social media, by itself, and just kids’ normal use of it, solely responsible for the national trend we’re seeing in youth mental health? Probably not,” he said, adding he wasn’t commenting on the legal arguments. “From a scientific perspective we can’t say that, nor do I know that we could ever say that.”

The claim becomes murkier when accounting for other variables, like economic stress, increased divisiveness across the country, and changing depictions of mental health in media and popular culture. Further muddying the waters are potential upsides associated with social media use.

“On the flipside, kids are now using tech to have their primary interaction with other peers — and we do know there’s very deep research that shows that our interpersonal relationships have a very profound effect on our risk for mental health difficulties and even our physical health,” Prinstein added. “And we are seeing that kids are reporting pretty directly that their social media experiences are making them feel more isolated and lonely.”

So is social media fueling national trends in youth mental health?

“It’s just very hard to answer scientifically,” he said.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering national issues. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Meet the Helpers: How a bilingual school counselor in Adams 14 helps students and families

2023-01-11T22:39:18+00:00

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As more schools see a need to focus on student mental health, districts are hiring new mental health professionals to help.

But what do these various positions involve, how do they work together, and how can they help students?

Chalkbeat talked to a bilingual school counselor in Adams 14 to learn more about how school counselors work with students and how being bilingual contributes to the job.

Brenda Moreno Negrete is the only bilingual counselor in the only comprehensive high school in Adams 14, a district north of Denver, where about half of the more than 6,000 students are identified as English language learners and most come from Spanish-speaking homes. Here she talks about her job and how being bilingual helps her talk to more students and connect with families.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Do you have more questions about mental health positions at your schools you’d like to share with us? Send us an email at co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Tell us about your job.

Brenda Moreno Negrete is a bilingual counselor in Adams 14.

It is my first year as a school counselor here at Adams City High School. School counselors, we have three main domains that we focus on: academics, career, and then social-emotional, which is where the mental health part comes in. They go hand-in-hand. A lot of times we have kiddos struggling at home or with mental health that affects their academics. Being able to look at kiddos in that holistic way is where we try to help.

A lot of college programs including mine we do internships and practicums where we do just mental health — that’s all we do we do, and then later we incorporate the academics part of it.

I grew up in the community I’m serving. We do have an intern that is bilingual, but I am currently the only bilingual licensed counselor at the school which has been of huge help. It’s just really nice to be able to connect with families in their language. I know my community and I know how important it is for parents to connect with people who speak their language and who can connect with them. I also know the needs here so I wanted to come here and I wanted to start my career here.

What kind of work do you do with students on a typical day?

It varies. If a kid is talking about suicide or self-harming, we get called in and we do screeners. If a kiddo is having a tough day they come to us and meet with us, whether it be about anything from anxiety, which we have seen a lot, to depression, to maybe even just relationship problems. We go ahead and talk to them. We do talk about academics but that is not all the focus.

If we see they’re having attendance issues then we go ahead and check in and see what’s going on. A lot of the time it has something to do with their life at home or they are struggling with mental health.

How are students assigned to one of the four counselors?

It depends on the school. Right now at our school we have them by alphabetical order, so it’s by last name.

When it comes to kiddos, their families might only speak Spanish, but a lot of kiddos are bilingual. We do have kiddos who maybe they just got here from Mexico or they’re fairly new. If they don’t speak English, then yes, that would be me. I go ahead and meet with them and talk to them just because right now our other counselors do not speak Spanish. We do have the intern who does and she does talk to some also.

What are the other mental health resources you work with at your school?

We have a social worker. She works with a lot of kiddos, she usually has a case load just like us. A lot of her kiddos have special education services or are on IEPs (Individual Education Program).

In this school we have Kids First, which is a clinic and they’re stationed here at the school, right in the same area as our nurse. Kids First also offers a therapist. If there are kiddos who need more time, for example my caseload right now is about 350 students, so that’s a lot of students. We do have kiddos who need maybe more individualized meetings with a therapist more often, like once a week or every other week. Then we do refer out.

We have Kids First and we have Griffith Center here at the school. Griffith Center is also a mental health place where they do all sorts of things, but they have someone who is actually here at the school. It’s really neat because when we refer students they meet with a therapist who is here at the school. The family does not have to go out. We try to eliminate that barrier. They usually try to pull them or meet with them during the school time, where they’re able to.

When do you connect with families?

It comes in a lot of different ways. Sometimes the parents do come in asking for help. They get phone calls saying that their kid is missing class and so some of them do come in. Or for example if we have a teacher who refers them and says, “Hey, I know this kid who maybe has cuts” or “I know this kid is feeling down,” then we go ahead and pull them and depending on what’s going on that’s when we make the connection at home.

Or we call as we’re checking in on students. We let them know what’s going on, especially for example with mental health, if we notice we need to check on what’s going on at home. If it comes to academics, we might call to let them know this is how they are looking for graduation.

Can students expect confidentiality, or when do you have to reach out to parents?

There is confidentiality with us and the student. There are only three exceptions where we need to break that. That is if they are being harmed, so if they’re talking about suicide, if they’re in danger. If they’re talking about hurting someone else or they want to hurt someone else or themselves, or if there’s an immediate danger to the building. It’s really only those exceptions, unless they give us permission.

When we meet with students we have signs and we do tell them. We do keep confidentiality. I am here for you, but there are exceptions to that. I always tell them and they do give me permission a lot of times to talk to the families. If the families are on board it makes all the difference, but sometimes it’s not safe.

For example if a kiddo is hurting themselves or having suicidal ideations, then having that conversation with parents in a way where the chid can feel safe and where it’s not so much stigmatized is one way we can help.

What do you want people to know about how you’re able to help students in this job?

Where we come in is we really try to see what’s going on, try to take the time to see what’s going on. If a kiddo is getting into fights, talking to them about anger and their coping skills. We really do not go into discipline because of the relationships we’re building with the students. We have to be the people they can go to.

Students have to be feeling good mentally and emotionally before they can even be students. In working with other professionals here at the school, we are able to be more intentional about mental health and what’s going on.

Bringing in other support like home and family. There are strengths in our community. Looping them in in a way where it can benefit the student if it’s possible that also helps. For example normalizing some of the things when we talk about mental health. Letting them know, a lot of kiddos are struggling with this. People struggle with it and it doesn’t have to be something that’s wrong with the kiddo. Normalizing that in a way where parents also feel support. Telling them we have these resources. If it’s here at the school, for example, it’s free. Talking to parents in a way they can understand it’s not this shameful thing.

The biggest misconception about school counselors is that we just look at grades or do scheduling. There’s this huge other resource that’s not being tapped into which is the mental health, the social-emotional part. We’re a great bridge to resources when it comes to how a student is feeling.

We have to meet with them about their grades, but it’s also about just letting them know we’re here because if the kiddo does open up, we can go ahead and get on that.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Hochul’s 2023 education agenda: high-dosage tutoring, college access, student mental health

2023-01-10T18:14:53+00:00

Improving access to student mental health services, boosting school funding, and creating high-dosage tutoring programs figure prominently in New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s education agenda, according to her annual State of the State address on Tuesday.

Hochul’s speech — which governors use to signal their priorities for the coming year — outlined issues she’s shown interest in before, such as improving college access.

Her proposals, which come two months after significant drops on national reading and math exams, also show a deeper commitment to addressing how the pandemic impacted students both academically and mentally.

Still, her proposals don’t include some items that advocates were hoping to address this year in Albany, including hiring shortages, which Hochul prioritized last year.

Here are highlights from Hochul’s education policy proposals:

Hochul keeps pledge to fully fund Foundation Aid

As part of her budget proposal, Hochul confirmed that she will include a $2.7 billion increase in school funding for districts across New York under the Foundation Aid formula, which sends more money to high-needs districts.

Last year, state lawmakers had promised to spend billions of more dollars over three years to fully fund the long-debated formula, which accounts for most of the dollars that schools receive from the state.

This upcoming budget will represent the final phase-in of that money, and Hochul’s commitment to spend an additional $2.7 billion matches the funding request from the state’s Board of Regents, as well as a coalition of education-focused organizations called the Educational Conference Board.

High inflation rates ballooned the cost for this year from a $1.9 billion increase to $2.7 billion — raising concerns among some advocates about whether Hochul would stick to her word as the country is at risk for a recession.

“This historic level of financial support for New York public schools will reverberate for generations to come, broadening access to opportunity and enabling New York to build the education system of the future,” said Hochul’s book of policy proposals.

Several education organizations applauded Hochul’s plan. In a statement, Alliance for Quality Education, a school funding advocacy group, called it a “historic milestone for New York State’s public schools.”

Plans to make student mental health needs more accessible

As part of a broader effort to address mental health needs, Hochul has proposed to make school-based services more accessible to students and less expensive to open and run such programs in the first place.

Student mental health needs have been a large focus for educators and advocates since the onset of the pandemic. While many New York City schools offer some level of help to those with behavioral or mental health needs, educators and families report that the needs outpace what’s available, and many students are unable to access those resources.

More than one-third of New York City public schools have none of the six mental health programs that the education department touts on its website, according to an audit conducted last year by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Hochul wants to increase the rate at which school-based clinics and other wraparound services are reimbursed by Medicaid, hoping that this will encourage providers to open more such clinics. She would also create annual grants that would help cover the costs of creating school-based services. Her proposal did not include more specific details, including how much money would be available for the grants.

Hochul also wants to introduce legislation that would require private insurance to pay the Medicaid rate for school-based services that students receive, since those insurance companies typically pay below the Medicaid rate, according to a spokesperson for the governor.

Charles Dedrick, executive director of the state Council of School Superintendents, applauded the proposal and described it as a “comprehensive plan” to expand and provide coverage for these services.

Hochul wants to invest in high-dosage tutoring

In order to address the academic effects of the pandemic, Hochul plans to invest $250 million of Foundation Aid money for districts to create high-impact tutoring programs, where students are tutored multiple times a week.

Mirroring national trends, New York saw steep drops in fourth grade math and reading scores, as well as eighth grade math, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams, given for the first time last year since 2019.

Districts would use the money to establish the programs on their own or in partnership with an outside provider. These programs would specifically tutor students in grades 3-8 on reading and math.

Officials did not immediately respond to say how the money would be distributed or how much New York City would receive.

Researchers have found that students can do better in school when they’re tutored frequently in small groups. The endeavor is expensive, but an investment from the state could inject a boost to create such programs in New York City and elsewhere. Hochul’s policy book says that such programs “deliver increased instructional time and customized student learning, and establish meaningful relationships between tutors and students.”

One possible model in New York City is a CUNY-run tutoring program, where 800 of the school’s students studying to become teachers are working with struggling readers in first and second grade.

Creating a pipeline to higher education and the workforce

Hochul pitched a slew of proposals aimed to get more students into college and the workforce.

Under her plan, New York’s graduating high school seniors would receive admission to their local SUNY community college. Additionally, students who aren’t admitted to their SUNY school of choice would automatically be considered for admission at another SUNY campus.

She’s proposing to spend $20 million in grants for districts to create college-level courses in high school, through which students can earn college credit. The money would also go toward technology-focused programs – both in school districts and colleges – with the goal of preparing more students for such careers after graduation.

Priority for the grant money will be given to programs in high-needs school districts, as well as districts that plan to create programs focused on computer science and computer and software engineering pathways “with an eye toward the technology jobs of the present and future,” according to the proposal book.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

New data shows fewer students per counselor at nation’s schools, but caseloads remain high

2023-01-09T12:00:00+00:00

The ratio of students to counselors in the nation’s public schools has reached its lowest point in at least 36 years, spurred both by an influx of new counselors and a nationwide decline in student enrollment, according to new data.

The dual trends left schools with an average of 408 students for every counselor last school year, according to the American School Counselor Association’s analysis of federal data. That’s lower than the 424 to 1 ratio pre-pandemic, but still significantly higher than the 250 to 1 recommended by the counselors group.

“While not the optimal ratio, it’s still good news,” said Jill Cook, executive director of ASCA.

Lower average caseloads can mean counselors have more time to spend with each student, fulfilling an especially important role as students struggle mentally and academically in the wake of the pandemic. But experts caution that the pattern remains uneven across states and that focusing too heavily on national or statewide statistics can obscure stark disparities between districts and the true accessibility of counselors at individual schools.

The national data comes even as efforts to hire school psychologists and counselors have stumbled across the country, with many large school districts failing to add new counselors. As of last fall, many counseling positions remained unfilled.

Still, between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years, the nation’s public schools saw the number of counselors jump by more than 1,200, while student populations dropped by nearly 1.4 million. Research has shown that a smaller ratio can help boost some students’ academic performance while reducing disciplinary infractions.

Cook attributed the increased number of school counselors to a heightened awareness of their importance during the pandemic and a flood of federal relief funds that helped bolster mental health support.

She pointed to several states that have made significant strides in recent years, like California and Illinois. In the past year, Illinois saw its total number of counselors increase by more than 700 — offsetting an initial loss of around 400 counselors in the first full pandemic school year.

But with relief funds set to expire in the coming years and future enrollment trends uncertain, Cook said it’s unclear whether the decreased ratios can be sustained.

“At some point the federal funding won’t be there,” Cook said. Counselors hired during the pandemic are saying, “‘Will this position still be here in three, or four, or five years?’”

Mandy Savitz-Romer, who researches school counseling at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, cautioned against reading too much into the state and national figures.

“When we talk to the states about these caseloads, they’re frustrated by the fact that people tend to use them to make policy decisions, when they are not accurately representing student access to counselors,” she said. “That’s the key issue — having a low caseload does not mean students have access to counselors. Those counselors in a state with a low caseload could spend the majority of their time proctoring tests.”

Understanding students’ access to counselors requires looking at how much time school counselors spend engaging with students and the level of support and commitment for counseling from each school, Savitz-Romer said, among other factors.

Still, there’s some information that can be gleaned from the numbers.

“These caseloads are beginning to tell us that if a student is fighting with 600 other students for time with a counselor, they’re not going to have their needs met — and quite honestly, that’s true with 400, too,” she said. “The real question is: What are we committed to providing to our students at this moment when there is such a crisis going on? These caseloads don’t suggest that we’re really committed to addressing it.”

As the nation sees some progress on the overall ratio, for some states, the needle is moving in the opposite direction.

Between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years, Tennessee saw its ratio rise from 301 to 1 to 458 to 1, as the state lost more than 1,100 counselors and 18,000 students, the federal figures show. New York lost nearly 2,000 counselors as well as more than 144,000 students, raising the average number of students per counselor from 361 to 460.

Meanwhile, Indiana had the nation’s highest ratio of students to counselors at 694 to 1, after losing nearly 700 counselors during the pandemic.

A spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Education declined to comment on the loss of counselors. Spokespeople for the New York State Education Department and the Tennessee Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.

Losses in those states and others may be prompted by nationwide staffing shortages, more social workers being hired by schools, budget cuts, as well as school counselors who choose to leave due to the immense pressure that comes with the position, Savitz-Romer said. School counselors are also forced to juggle additional administrative duties, adding stress when already stretched thin.

“They’re realizing that their job is impossible, and when someone’s job is impossible, it leads to higher levels of burnout,” Savitz-Romer said.

In Tennessee, Amy Baltimore, advocacy director for the Tennessee School Counselors Association, blamed a myriad of issues, including fewer students pursuing training to become a school counselor.

“But it’s also because our role is just not protected in Tennessee,” she said. “School counselors get pulled into all kinds of other roles than what aligns with their training, whether it’s truancy or master scheduling or many other needs. These are helping professionals whose general nature is to help others — they’re ‘yes’ people. But eventually they get burned out and move on to other things.”

Counselors must also act as “stewards of student trauma,” a role made exponentially more difficult amid the pandemic’s toll on student mental health, Savitz-Romer said.

“We’re seeing counselors leaving roles because their own mental health is being compromised,” she said.

That was the case for Anna Sutter, a former school counselor at a public school district in Indianapolis, Indiana.

During her five years in the field, she routinely skipped lunches, lost sleep, and worked upwards of 12-hour days. One morning, she woke up “an anxious mess” at 3:30 a.m. and immediately headed to her office to get an early start — because once the students arrived on campus, it was “crisis central.”

“The boat was sinking and on fire,” she said, adding that many of the more than 600 students in her caseload were grappling with mental health crises, fights, failing grades, pandemic losses, and more. With so many urgent concerns, students with other needs — like post-secondary guidance or raising a C to a B — had a harder time finding support, Sutter added.

“I wish I could have helped students who weren’t in crisis, but still needed me,” she said.

Marta Aldrich contributed reporting.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering national issues. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Education issues to watch in Albany: School funding, mental health, future of mayoral control

2023-01-03T16:30:16+00:00

As districts continue to recover from the academic and social-emotional impacts of the pandemic, New York state lawmakers will be pressed to address several issues facing schools during the new legislative session.

Inflation has driven up the cost of finishing the long-awaited process of fully funding Foundation Aid, the state’s main school aid formula. As the country faces the risk of a recession, advocates worry about whether lawmakers will fulfill their promise to finish funding the formula.

Advocates also say they will push for solutions to issues that have become more pressing during the pandemic, including hiring challenges and student mental health, while others will continue a yearslong push for the state to raise the charter school cap.

Here are some of the education issues that may come up in the new legislative session, which is set to start Wednesday:

Inflation adds pressure to cost of funding schools

Last year, state lawmakers promised to spend billions of more dollars to fully fund Foundation Aid, which accounts for the bulk of financial support that school districts receive from the state. They agreed to fund the formula over three years, with the final phase-in scheduled for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

However, high inflation rates have pushed the projected cost for the final phase-in of the money from a $1.9 billion increase to about $2.7 billion.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who agreed to fulfill the formula last year as part of a legal settlement, has declined to say whether she will include this final, larger payment in next year’s budget. Both advocates and lawmakers say they’re concerned, but they haven’t yet heard any reneging on Hochul’s promise.

“There is a very high level of commitment on the part of my fellow legislators to see that this Foundation Aid promise is completely followed through on and fulfilled,” said Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who oversees the Senate’s New York City education committee. “It should be the governor’s self-imposed mandate as well.”

Separately, state policymakers are also asking for $1 million to hire researchers who will review and create models to update the 15-year-old Foundation Aid formula. State officials and advocates contend the formula needs an update because it has outdated measures, such as for calculating student poverty, which is currently based in part on 2000 Census data.

“Let’s get recommendations from experts to make it more equitable,” said Jasmine Gripper, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education.

Will Hochul try to lift the cap on charter schools?

One question is whether the governor will actively seek to lift the cap on how many charter schools can open in New York. After silence on the issue on the campaign trail, Hochul said she supported lifting the cap when asked about it during a gubernatorial debate with Republican opponent Lee Zeldin.

Under the cap, 460 charter schools are allowed to operate in New York, including 290 in New York City, which was reached in 2019. Overall, enrollment has grown in New York City’s charter sector while enrollment has dropped in traditional public schools. But the picture is more complicated: Nearly 60% of individual charter schools have enrolled fewer students during the pandemic.

Hochul’s office declined to say whether she will push to lift the cap this year. Some charter advocates, who have pushed for it for years, are hoping she does.

In a statement after the election, James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter Center, said the organization was looking forward to “supporting her efforts to lift the cap.”

Hochul’s campaign received at least $70,000 in campaign donations across two pro-charter political action committees. However, she also received more than $186,000 across the city, state, and national teachers unions, which generally oppose the expansion of charter schools.

Liu said he doesn’t expect her to touch the issue, noting that she simply replied “yes,” to the debate question of whether she supports lifting the cap, which is different from actively pursuing the issue.

Even if she does, it’s not likely she’ll find considerable support in the legislature, as the issue has not gained traction in recent years.

Schools continue to struggle with hiring and student mental health

Some advocates are hoping for solutions to the hiring challenges that many schools are facing.

Bob Lowry, deputy director for advocacy and communication at the state’s Council of School Superintendents, said it has been one of the biggest issues that school leaders have reported to his organization during the pandemic. The issue came up during a recent state Assembly hearing and has plagued districts nationally, too.

“We hear from districts, ‘We’d like to hire more mental health professionals to help, but we can’t find people,’” Lowry said.

Lawmakers have floated a tax incentive for school employees as one way to attract people to school districts, NY1 reported. Lowry pointed to “useful steps” that have already taken place, such as the state education department ending the controversial edTPA certification exam that was previously required of teaching candidates in New York. Separately, Hochul successfully proposed lifting the cap on how much retired school staffers could earn without losing their pensions if they returned to schools, but Lowry noted that law is only in effect for this school year.

“It’s a huge issue — [we’re] not completely sure what to do about it, but continuing the exemption for retirees to work without losing pension benefits is kind of a simple straightforward step to take,” Lowry said.

School leaders also continue to report big challenges in dealing with student mental health, Lowry said, and they’re hoping for more targeted funding to address those concerns.

Federal relief money likely helped districts address some of these issues, but these funds will sunset next year. It’s possible that increases in Foundation Aid can also help. Last year’s budget included $100 million over two years that would be available to school districts as grants to address mental health issues in schools. State officials plan to award those funds through a competitive process they will launch this year, according to a spokesperson for the state education department.

“We don’t see the mental health issues diminishing any time soon,” Lowry said. “We think there will be a need for continuing, targeted funding for schools to help with mental health concerns.”

State looks to compare NYC’s mayoral control to other districts

Last legislative session, lawmakers extended New York City’s mayoral control system of schools — where the mayor effectively has control over policy decisions instead of a school board — by another two years.

This year, Liu said lawmakers will begin looking at how other school governance systems across the nation operate and compare that to “20 years of [mayoral] control experience in New York City and see how to best bring schools forward.”

Liu declined to share more details, including whether there would be public hearings or some sort of formal review. But his comments indicate that lawmakers are interested in potential changes to the city’s governance system when they must again decide in 2024 whether to extend mayoral control.

Their decision this year to extend mayoral control by two years — half of what Mayor Eric Adams and Hochul requested – came with tweaks meant to add more parent representation to the system.

“This year, we have a little bit more breathing space,” Liu said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

13 Chalkbeat stories that defined 2022

2022-12-21T19:15:00+00:00

This was the year when many of the pandemic-era challenges facing America’s schools went from acute to chronic.

Classrooms fully reopened, but attendance and enrollment have yet to fully rebound. Tutoring and mental health programs got off the ground, but staffers remained in short supply. Students began making academic progress, but new national data underscored how far they’d fallen behind. Each step toward recovery, moment of joy, and successful lesson came with a reminder of the pandemic’s ongoing fallout.

Meanwhile, the nation’s conflicts continued to envelop schools. Republican lawmakers and local activists redoubled their efforts to restrict what students can learn about racism and LGBTQ issues. And shootings erupted on and off school grounds, cementing gun violence’s new status as the leading cause of death for America’s young people.

Below are 13 stories from Chalkbeat reporters across the country that documented those forces in action and explained what it all meant for America’s schools:

February 3: Schools got $190 billion in COVID relief from the feds. What’s happened to it?

This year, schools were figuring out how exactly they were going to use the biggest chunk of their billions in federal COVID relief. Tutors? Building renovations? Both? Matt Barnum explained the state of play — and how to find your district’s plans for yourself.

“The idea that schools aren’t spending it quickly partly reflects a monthslong lag in the data, not local officials dragging their feet. And the best evidence available suggests that schools are making seemingly reasonable purchases: buying masks, computers, and air filters, while adding summer school programs, tutoring, counselors, and teachers. But district plans vary widely in quality, and there are more than 13,000 school districts across the country. Zoom out further, and, so far, information at the state and national levels is limited, incomplete, or nonexistent, making it difficult to closely monitor this unprecedented infusion of federal cash.”

March 11: Iowa scrapped teacher training on equity. Students of color felt the sting of that decision.

Volta Adovor was one of several high school students asked to help shape a conference for Iowa’s teachers focused on racial equity in 2021 put on by the state education department. Once Iowa’s legislature began considering a bill that would restrict how teachers talk about racism, it all ground to a halt, as Kalyn Belsha reported.

“The deferred conference stands as just one illustration of the nation’s about-face on centering race and equity in teachers’ work over the last year. For the students, though, the fallout has been both local and personal. After state officials asked them to share their time and experiences as students of color, the apparently open-ended postponement has left some feeling doubly dismissed. ‘We wanted to give solutions,’ Adovor said. ‘It was just us talking about things that we cared about.’”

March 19: As schools try to recover, COVID’s toll lingers: ‘We haven’t seen fine, ever’

This story, by Kalyn Belsha, Melanie Asmar, and Lori Higgins reporting from Tulsa, Denver, and Detroit, captured the exhaustion of last spring, when schools were inching toward “normal” but nothing came easily.

“When the virus seemed like it was under control, the omicron wave of cases brought half-empty classrooms or temporary returns to virtual learning. It’s been a year of survival and triage for teachers, school leaders, students, and their families. Now a shift is underway. Mask mandates have largely lifted, and more Americans say they are ready to leave the pandemic in the rearview mirror. But teachers like [Ana] Barros are still grappling daily with issues that COVID has left in its wake, most of which defy easy solutions. ‘I really feel scared to say that we’ve turned a corner,’ she said. ‘The things that we were struggling with, even outside of COVID, are just still there.’”

April 12: ‘Am I not allowed to mention myself?’ Schools grapple with new restrictions on teaching about gender and sexuality

As laws restricting how teachers can talk about gender and LGBTQ issues took effect, Kalyn Belsha chronicled the effects on classrooms in Tennessee and beyond.

“A history teacher skipped over PowerPoint slides about the fight for gay rights during a lesson on the civil rights movement. Another English teacher hinted that Oscar Wilde was, ‘you know,’ instead of saying he was gay while teaching ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’ Queer symbolism throughout the text went unmentioned. To 17-year-old Aneshka, who asked that their last name be withheld, these were all indications that a new law requiring teachers to notify parents about lessons on gender and sexuality had had an effect at their eastern Tennessee high school.”

June 7: Student voices on Uvalde: Our leaders ‘are just not going to protect us’

After 19 children and two adults were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, we turned space over to students to reflect. Meleena Salgado, then a junior at John Hancock College Preparatory High School in Chicago, wrote about the moment she heard what had happened.

I was feeding my dogs, and my dad rushed in and said a school had been shot up. My heart just sank. I was frustrated that there was another one. I hate to use that term because there were people who were lost. But I was just like, come on. No matter how many are hurt, [politicians] are just going to say, ‘Oh wow, what a tragedy,’ and then we’ll find out about the next one. I’ve been worried about a school shooting since I was little. The oldest fear I have about being shot up at school is when I was, maybe, in third grade. I was in the bathroom alone and heard this really loud bang, and I thought, ‘Oh, God, maybe this is it.’ (That bang turned out to be someone dropping a textbook in the hallway.)

Aug. 1: As fewer kids enroll, big cities face a small schools crisis

Mila Koumpilova, Matt Barnum, and the Associated Press’ Collin Binkley looked at one consequence of the enrollment declines many cities experienced during the pandemic — more tiny schools — and the pain ahead for communities that will be forced to reckon with their cost.

Chalmers [School of Excellence] lost almost a third of its enrollment during the pandemic, shrinking to 215 students. In Chicago, COVID-19 worsened declines that preceded the virus: Predominantly Black neighborhoods like Chalmers’ North Lawndale, long plagued by disinvestment, have seen an exodus of families over the past decade. The number of small schools like Chalmers is growing in many American cities as public school enrollment declines. More than 1 in 5 New York City elementary schools had fewer than 300 students last school year. In Los Angeles, that figure was over 1 in 4. In Chicago it has grown to nearly 1 in 3, and in Boston it’s approaching 1 in 2, according to a Chalkbeat/AP analysis.

Oct. 24: Nation’s report card: Massive drop in math scores, slide in reading linked to COVID disruption

Matt Barnum dove into one of the biggest stories of the year: scores on national exams that offered the most authoritative accounting yet of learning lost because of the pandemic.

Students in fourth and eighth grade saw unprecedented declines in math and significant dips in reading achievement between 2019 and 2022, according to the results of national exams given last school year and released Monday. The declines were broad-based — affecting students in every state and every region of the country. ‘The results point out and confirm that this is a pretty massive hit to student achievement in our country,’ said Scott Marion, a testing expert and member of the board that oversees the tests.

Nov. 2: A look inside Colorado’s yearslong push to change how schools teach reading

This year saw more schools, school districts, and entire states take a hard look at their reading curriculums and push for changes aligned with the “science of reading.” Colorado was among the most forceful in requiring districts to make changes, and Ann Schimke has followed the story closely.

Peter and his classmates were learning a rule about the English language that they applied over and over that day — when reading and writing ‘hope,’ ‘cute,’ ‘tape,’ and ‘slide.’ Such lessons reflect both a districtwide and statewide shift in how children are taught to read in Colorado. Gone by the wayside are reading programs that encourage children to figure out what a jumble of letters says by looking at the picture or using other clues to guess the word — a debunked strategy still used in some popular reading curriculums. Now, there’s a greater emphasis on teaching the relationships between sounds and letters in a direct and carefully sequenced way.

Nov. 7: Not ‘present,’ and paying a steep cost: How pandemic recovery in Detroit and across Michigan hinges on getting kids to class

Districts across the U.S saw chronic absenteeism spike last school year, and the numbers have prompted a variety of campaigns to boost attendance. Detroit’s challenge is especially acute: Two-thirds of the city’s students missed at least 10% of last school year. The issue extends beyond education, as Koby Levin, Ethan Bakuli, and Kae Petrin explain.

Absences seldom boil down to a decision to skip school, experts say. Interviews with parents and researchers show that families generally understand the importance of regular attendance and do their best to get their children to class. Instead, absences often result from painful but rational choices between a family’s basic well-being and attending school. Problems with housing, health, work, or transportation can quickly spiral into a crisis for a family that lacks money or a social support system.

Nov. 9: Hope, healing, and the return of an annual camping trip for Brooklyn high-schoolers

A multi-day hike outside New York City this fall was much more than a field trip for one group of high-schoolers, as Michael Elsen-Rooney wrote. It was a return to tradition and a chance for students to grow as leaders after several trauma-heavy years.

Surrounded by her classmates on a bright October morning in the woods of Fishkill, New York, Diana Ramirez had no trouble making herself heard. The 14-year-old enthusiastically initiated chants and cheerfully shouted instructions to her peers during team-building activities on a multi-day camping trip organized by their Brooklyn public high school. Speaking up hasn’t always been so easy for the high school freshman — especially during the past several years overshadowed by the pandemic.

Nov. 17: Schools across the U.S. have turned to Paper’s online tutoring. Some worry it’s falling short.

Virtual tutoring has grown in popularity as schools look for ways to help students catch up and struggle to staff up in-person programs. Kalyn Belsha took a look at one popular program, Paper, and found low usage rates and concerns it wasn’t helping the students who needed it most.

The district spent $913,000 in COVID relief funds for Paper to provide its middle and high school students with access to 24/7, on-demand tutoring. But Columbus quietly cut ties with the company in September because too few students were using the tool. District records obtained by Chalkbeat show that less than 8% of students with access logged on last school year. Half of those students used it just once. In some schools, not a single student logged on.

Nov. 18: School psychologist, counselor hiring lags nationwide even as student mental health needs soar

As students struggle, many schools have talked about the ways they are adding mental health support for students. But this fall, many still hadn’t managed to add counselors or psychologists, despite an influx of federal relief money, Patrick Wall, Kalyn Belsha, and the Associated Press’ Annie Ma documented.

Among 18 of the country’s largest school districts, 12 started this school year with fewer counselors or psychologists than they had in fall 2019, according to an analysis by Chalkbeat. As a result, many school mental health professionals have caseloads that far exceed recommended limits, according to experts and advocates, and students must wait for urgently needed help. ‘They have so many students that they’re dealing with,’ said Mira Ugwuadu, 17. ‘I personally don’t want to blame them. But I also deserve care and support, too.’

Dec. 9: How one Chicago school social worker is grappling with COVID’s toll on students

Chicago has doubled the number of social workers in schools. But each of them is still juggling hundreds of students’ needs, as Mauricio Peña documented, at a moment when students are struggling with academics and behavior.

In the bathroom, [Mary] Difino took another deep breath, then headed back to her office. There she tidied up and fixed her desk. She grabbed her soccer bag from that morning’s Piccolo girls soccer team practice and a binder full of drills and activities. Her role as coach for second, third, and fourth grade students is a reprieve from her frenetic duties during school hours. She thought about what was needed to calm the fights and help her students: a restorative justice coordinator, smaller class sizes, perhaps another social worker. But as Difino left for home that night, that wish list seemed far away — and she just felt exhausted.

Here’s how to help Chicago students after shooting outside Juarez High School

2022-12-20T00:05:04+00:00

Chicago Public Schools sent crisis teams to Benito Juarez Community Academy High School Monday to provide grief counseling after a shooting outside the school Friday left two students dead and two hospitalized.

District officials said they are offering an adjusted schedule — with an early release each day this week — to give students and staff time to process what happened and get help. In a letter sent to families Saturday, Juarez Principal Juan Carlos Ocon said the school would provide “counseling, healing circles, and other resources designed to help students and staff to process and begin the healing process.”

Outside the Pilsen high school on Monday, additional security and police were present. In the afternoon, students gathered to release white, red, and black balloons to honor their classmates.

The trauma of gun violence is all too common in Chicago and can ripple through other school communities. In this case, the four victims attended three different schools — Juarez, Chicago Bulls College Prep, and UIC College Prep. Chicago Bulls College Prep and UIC College Prep are both campuses of the Noble Network of Charter Schools.

Chalkbeat has put together a list of resources where parents, students, and school staff can find mental health support and heal from the trauma surrounding this incident and broader gun violence in Chicago.

How to support the victims and their families

Both families of the boys who were killed have launched GoFundMe pages to raise money to support memorial and funeral costs. The Cook County Medical Examiner identified the two victims as 14-year-old Nathan Billegas and 15-year-old Brandon Perez.

A GoFundMe page for Nathan had raised nearly $9,000 as of Monday afternoon. Nathan attended Noble’s Chicago Bulls College Prep, his sister wrote. She described him as a “very intelligent, outgoing, and a kindhearted young boy.”

A GoFundMe page for Brandon had raised more than $10,000 as of Monday afternoon.

According to his family, Brandon attended Juarez and “aspired to become a tradesman in general construction and electricity and hoped to one day become a business owner with multiple trade certificates.” Juarez has seen a revival of its trade programs in recent years.

Help hotlines available to Chicago students

Chicago Public Schools has a crisis hotline for students at 773-553-1792 and a Student Safety Center where people can report an emergency by calling 773-553-3335.

Numerous national helplines also help youth connect with crisis counselors 24/7. The National Youth Crisis Hotline is at 1-800-448-3000. Students can also text HOME to 741741.

The school district also lists the following numbers on its website for students to use to get help:

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Chicago: 1-833-626-4244
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: 1-800-662-4357
The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ Support): 1-866-488-7386
The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

Students can now take mental health days

All students are allowed to take up to five mental health days under a new Illinois law. A medical note is not required and the absence is considered excused, according to district policy.

That policy — adopted earlier this year in March — requires all schools to have a team of people to address student mental health. According to the district’s staffing data, Juarez has seven school counselors and two school social workers for more than 1,500 students. That’s up from 2019, when there were six and one, respectively.

Juarez also has a school-based health center run by Alivio Medical Center that offers some behavioral health services. A district spokesperson said telehealth is also available through Alivio and other community partners to all Juarez students who may be staying home this week to process Friday’s events.

Dozens of other schools have similar health centers to provide medical and other health services to students, families, and, in some cases, the broader community.

How to talk to young people in the wake of trauma

It can be difficult to know what to say to a child or teen after a shooting. The National Association of School Psychologists has helpful guidance for how to talk with children about gun violence. They say it’s important to take time to talk and listen and keep an eye on how a child is responding — looking out for unusual behaviors such as loss of appetite or disrupted sleep patterns.

The organization also says it’s important to keep conversations age-appropriate and reassure children they are safe. Listening to and allowing young people to ask questions can be powerful too. If your child does not want to talk, being present is enough. Be open to other forms of expression, such as music and art, as well.

Limit media consumption and unplug

There can be a barrage of news and a rush of information and activism in the wake of a shooting. But it’s also important to unplug and limit media consumption to reduce anxiety and confusion, according to the National Association of School Psychologists. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network also recommends parents and other guardians take time to rest and encourage their children to do the same.

Tips for healing and processing trauma

After a shooting killed Chicago-born, Memphis-raised rapper Young Dolph on Nov. 17, 2021, school psychologist Dr. Kay Streeter talked to Chalkbeat Tennessee and offered strategies for helping students process trauma from gun violence. Streeter’s “Five Ks of Being OK” are:

Keep talking: You have to keep getting those feelings out of your head, out of your mouth, and into the atmosphere so you can get some of what you’re thinking outside of your body.
Keep thanking: That’s having an attitude of gratitude, being grateful for things that are happening around you, that ground you in the here and the now. That takes away the anxiety of thinking about the future and the depression of thinking about the past.
Keep planning: That gives you hope. That gives you a strategy to move forward if you keep planning for tomorrow and keep planning for when things are going to be better.
Keep forgiving: Forgiving yourself, forgiving other people. A little bit of kindness goes a long way.
Keep breathing: I like to teach little breathing exercises because breathing deeply, studies have shown, decreases stress and anxiety for both adults and children.

Look up Chicago Public Schools’ safety plans

Until two years ago, most Chicago high schools had police officers stationed inside. In 2020, local school councils began voting to remove the officers in favor of alternative approaches to discipline and safety. Juarez was one of the schools that removed school-based officers.

Now, several schools have something called a Whole School Safety Plan that replaces police with alternative support staff, such as climate and culture coordinators, restorative justice coordinators, social workers, and security guards. Not all schools have them, but you can search if yours does here.

Chicago Public Schools also operates a program to help students walk to and from school safely. Many schools have these Safe Passage routes, which place trained adults in yellow vests along routes around a school during arrival and dismissal. You can look up whether your school has a route here.

City money available to families of gun violence victims

On Monday morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the city’s health department announced nearly $275,000 emergency fund for families who have lost loved ones to gun violence.

Under the pilot program, victims with physical injuries can get $1,000 in financial assistance, families can get $1,500 to help offset funeral and burial costs, and families can also get $1,000 in relocation costs.

A press release from the mayor’s office said those funds will be distributed through four community organizations: Centers for New Horizons, Breakthrough Urban Ministries, Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, and Universal Family Connection, Inc. A city spokesperson said the money is only available to victims of gun violence living in West Garfield Park, East Garfield Park, Englewood, West Englewood, and New City on or after October 1, 2022.

Samantha Smylie contributed reporting.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

A Detroit youth activist carries the torch for better student mental health services

2022-12-19T15:54:24+00:00

As a voice for Detroit students, Perriel Pace has been unafraid to call attention to important issues facing her peers — whether or not adults want to hear about them.

An 11th-grader at Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School, Pace just completed a nearly one-year term as a student representative to the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s school board, where she pressed the district to address concerns such as student mental health, transportation challenges, and more.

Perriel got her introduction to activism through an art project, but she now works on behalf of a dozen youth-led organizations, including Detroit Heals Detroit, 482Forward, Young Voices Action Collective, and MIStudentsDream, and she advocates for causes including youth empowerment, immigration rights and restorative justice.

With her school board role complete, she spoke with Chalkbeat about how young people can get more involved in advocacy, as well as how she responds to criticism, and what the district can do to help students.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What or who got you into organizing and activism?

It is so random, but my art teacher, Ms. Loomis, who is also my godmother, we painted a mural one day, and a group of kids we were working with said (they’re) with an organization which focuses on transforming trauma into power. I decided to join them, and my career kind of took off from that, because they introduced me to all these other kinds of organizations doing great work. And the next thing I know I sit on 13 organizations.

Does it feel unique for you to be a student organizer or a youth advocate?

When I first started, I thought that I was literally the first … youth leader that I knew. So I kind of carried my title with so much pride. And then I got into these other organizations, these other spaces, and I’m like, “OK, there’s a lot more of us. So everything doesn’t have to be a burden on me.” In the past couple of years, I came across a lot of youth who are excellent leaders. And you know, it’s kind of nice that I don’t have to stand alone. But I do wish that more youth would get involved and be more aware of what’s going on.

What do you think would encourage more youth to get involved in causes?

I would say probably to get them to actually understand what’s happening. I feel like that will motivate more people to do something, especially youth.

What made you decide to join the school board as a student representative?

It was literally so random. We were in a DEYC (meeting), which is the District Executive Youth Council. And a lot of the adults there were just telling me like, “You’d make a good member on that team. You could represent for the district. You do so much in the community.” And I was just like “No, no, politics and stuff like that is not really my cup of tea.”

We had an election process and nobody really stepped up to the plate. So I said I’ll give it a shot. And surprisingly, I did win, but I won as an alternate (representative). So if the other original reps were absent, then I could come into play.

I was watching the student reps on the board, and I noticed they were kind of shy. And I told them, “You’re a student rep. It’s OK to be new to things, but you’re not just here for you. You’re not just representing yourself. You have to speak for everybody.” People saw that, and they bumped me up to one of the main student representatives.

What was that experience like on the school board?

I’m not gonna lie … school board meetings were kind of boring. I was there from 5:30 to 8 p.m. and just listened to (agenda item) numbers and numbers and numbers. It’s like, “Oh my goodness, I’m in school once again.”

Most of the time, I kind of zoned out. I felt like I was kind of there just so they could say we have a student rep on the board.

But then once I started telling them that I need to at least speak, to at least do something … (that) I don’t feel like just sitting there, then they started letting me talk on the mic.

Over time, I got a little bit more comfortable. But then the next thing I know, people started gunning for me in the public comment section.

What was it like when you spoke out at times during the school board meetings and received some criticism from community members?

I wasn’t fazed by it, honestly, because I’m used to being in this space where kids are not being seen or heard. The district staff was very supportive, but as (the public commenters) were talking and responding to me, I was writing down responses, and (the district staff) told me you can’t respond to those comments. That kind of made me frustrated, because I wanted to defend myself. I’m used to giving comebacks. It made me realize a little bit how to let things roll off my back.

But it got to the point where people started coming for me on social media. It was definitely a slightly traumatizing experience, and then to know that it’s grown adults doing it. To have an issue with there not being enough students’ voices being heard is one thing, but when you hear a student’s voice and you immediately antagonize them when they’re saying something you don’t want to hear, that doesn’t make any sense.

What were some of the issues that you brought directly to board members?

My very first concern I brought was about the student representatives, how they were not allowing us to speak really.

My second one was about mental health. How we need more SEL — social emotional learning — between students and teachers in order to better their relationship.

And my third concern was about transportation for students. What are y’all gonna do about the way that transportation is set up? Because for me personally, I get up at 5 in the morning just to get to school on time, and I still get to school late, and the city buses are disgusting. There are creepy men on there. It’s honestly scary, especially for me because I’ve been taking the bus since I was 12.

I talked to them about that, but they didn’t provide me with the answer I was looking for, that they will do something about it, such as contacting DDOT (Detroit Department of Transportation). They just left me on the cliff with that one. So I definitely want to follow up probably later on this school year.

Do you think students have enough of a voice in the district? What do you think would improve that?

I feel like we don’t have enough of a voice. I mean yes, we have the District Executive Youth Council, which meets once a month, but we have issues going on every day. I wish that it could be changed to at least biweekly meetings, where we can actively engage and work on these issues as they are happening.

The district is focused on issues like chronic absenteeism, enrollment, and academic achievement. What are students passionate about?

I don’t care what anybody else says. Our top priority should be student mental health. My attendance is low not because of my bus situation but just because I get up and I’m just like “I don’t want to come to school anymore.” Literally the third day of school, as I walked into the building, I said, “I should drop out,” because I literally didn’t feel motivated anymore to come to school.

I spoke to a few students yesterday who told me that they don’t want to do this anymore. School is mentally draining. It’s not engaging. It doesn’t feel like we’re happy anymore. It’s just work, work, work. We kind of had a crying moment there, because everything we shared was understandable. This is why our attendance is the way it is, because we mentally don’t want to be there. Mentally, we cannot have the capability of doing this work right now. We need a break. A mental break. We barely came out of this pandemic, and we’re barely out of it still.

To my knowledge, King (High School) does have SEL mental health stuff, but I don’t think a lot of people are made aware of it. Or it’s just not appealing in a way to students. I am planning a mental health week for King in January or February to make sure students are aware of what tools are available to them already.

It’s important to build one-on-one relationships with teachers, because even then if you don’t want to say something during class, you can speak with them after. You have someone to confide in.

What do you think would better support students struggling right now?

At my old school (Legacy Academy), we started each school year with SEL — social emotional learning. We did that for about two weeks, just so we could build that relationship with teachers. So we have that one-on-one relationship where at any moment, you can stop and go talk to them if you’re ever feeling down or anything like that.

But now I’m at King and you can’t do that. But it would be nice if we tried to get some of those things happening. We could really use this.

Why do you think students in Detroit feel so drained?

Everybody is going through something different. You’ve got to battle your work, and you’ve got to battle your personal life, and then just even with being in Detroit itself, you’re constantly watching over your shoulder because, again, every day is not promised, and Detroit is chaotic.

You’ve got a lot on your plate. How do you take care of yourself when you’re not constantly studying or organizing?

One thing that I love to do currently is ice skating. I usually just randomly tell folks, “You know what, I’m going to be unavailable for this week.” And I cancel everybody. Turn the phone off, turn off my emails, etc. And I’ll probably go hang out with my best friend, or go ice skating, or go to the movies. Or I love to crochet, so I will just binge watch a show on Hulu or Netflix and I will crochet.

Or I’ll just sleep my day away.

Correction: Dec. 20, 2022: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Ms. Loomis, the art teacher and godmother to Perriel Pace whose art project led to Perriel’s student activism.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

The anti-social network: These teens are ditching Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok

2022-12-15T21:26:27+00:00

This story originally appeared on Dec. 13 in the NYCity News Service, run by the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Logan Lane was 11 when she got her first smartphone. Like many kids, she started using Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

When she was 14, the pandemic hit. School went virtual. Her social media usage skyrocketed.

Lane felt overwhelmed as she found herself online for too many hours each day.

“I was fed up with the over-saturation of my life and the social aspects of it being connected to my online presence,” she said. “And I saw that most primarily with social media.”

She deleted her accounts and said goodbye to her smartphone.

Now 17, the Edward R. Murrow High School senior is the founding member of the Luddite Club—a group of teenagers who feel technology is consuming too much of their lives. They took their name from the 19th-century English textile workers who destroyed the machines they saw as threatening their livelihoods. The word has endured as way to refer to people who oppose the relentless creep of technology.

The club has 16 members. Like Lane, some of them have opted for flip phones to scale back their screen use.

Into the unknown

Today’s teens—part of Generation Z, roughly people born after 1997—have never known a life without smartphones and social media. Logging up to eight hours of screen time every day, they are the driving force on TikTok, which has more than a billion global users.

When Lane first went offline, she didn’t know what to do.

“I could feel my brain chemistry changing,” Lane said. “I was so bored. It’s really not so common for people to be bored and be alone with themselves, because smartphones keep us connected to other people.”

But she persisted—and discovered her time could be used creatively.

Lane is now early to bed, early to rise. She always has a book with her for her subway commutes. She is more engaged in school. She’s journaling, running and making clothing.

A year ago, Lane met Jameson Butler, 16, at a party where they bonded over not having smartphone. They started hanging out, and the Luddite Club was born.

Sewing and strumming

On a recent cold Sunday afternoon, the group gathered at the Central Library on Grand Army Plaza for their weekly meeting.

Biruk Watling, arrived with Odille Zexter, both 17, and a guitar. As they waited for everyone to show up, Lane sewed together the ripped handle of her backpack. Next to her, Watling, who attends Beacon High School in Hell’s Kitchen, journaled. Zexter sketched, while her Murrow classmate Max Frackmanm, 17, paged through a magazine.

“Technology for me has always been an escape,” Watling said.

She used to get upset when her parents told her to log off at bedtime after spending hours online. She became interested in stepping away from social media when she read the Don DeLillo novel “White Noise,” which she interpreted as a criticism of how technology detaches users from reality.

She quit Instagram and got rid of her smartphone at the beginning of this year.

After the seven club members walked from the library into nearby Prospect Park, Frackman set up his hammock and started reading “A Quaker Book of Wisdom.” Lane played guitar while Zexter set up a blanket and began a watercolor painting.

Members who still have smartphones attend meetings as a way of reducing their time online by a few hours.

They hope more people will reflect on the addictive nature of technology and give stepping back a try. The biggest thing the club stands for is using your day more wisely, said Watling, who joined in February.

“The best part about being a Luddite is my self-awareness. I have time to reflect about my day and my life.”

The members are working on how to keep the club afloat when most of the current members go off to college next year.

“Even if people want to spend a couple of hours off of social media a week,” Butler said, “they would be welcome in the club.”

After a gun scare, our school district is reeling from the trauma — and the financial toll

2022-12-13T20:35:00+00:00

Months after a threat locked down the school district I work in, students and staff are still reeling.

On June 3, we received a report of a gunman at one of our middle schools. While multiple police agencies searched the building, the rest of our district was on lockdown, unsure of what was happening.

Eventually, we learned a student had called in a false report. But the fallout was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. As prepared as we were to protect our students, the crisis left a lasting impact on every member of our school family. Some of our children no longer see school as their safe place. Some teachers struggle, too.

After the incident in June, we spent hours debriefing. We worked with law enforcement agencies. We shifted professional development time away from reading and math instruction so we could run safety drills with teachers instead. We went above and beyond the state-mandated hours of training on physical security. And all of that took resources that hadn’t been budgeted for school safety.

Likewise, we found ourselves revisiting recent renovations to our elementary school because of a small detail with potentially huge impact. The doors were designed to lock with keys – which means a person needs to run over and manually turn them – rather than flip locks. We’re spending more than $40,000 to fix this so that teachers can more easily protect students from a potential shooter.

Was it worth it? Of course. It also meant we were unable to update our outdated learning spaces. Likewise, local residents would like us to add a school resource officer. But at budget time, we will have to make a choice between that officer and a teacher.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

Our district is not alone when struggling under the rising cost of security. In 2021, schools and colleges spent $3.1 billion on safety precautions. Yet, as The New York Times reported, researchers at John Hopkins University found little evidence that major infrastructure modifications have stopped violent school events. An article in The Washington Post went so far as to say, “Experts call it ‘school security theater’ – the idea that if a school system buys enough technology or infrastructure, it can keep its children safe from the horrors of a gunman.”

Even so, what is so tough about these decisions is that students and teachers’ feelings of physical safety make a big impact on our schools. As administrators, teachers, and parents continue to see how school violence is threatening our kids’ emotional health and their education, I hope legislators can lessen the financial burden on districts that are making every sacrifice possible to defend our students.

The U.S. Department of Education has announced $1 billion in grant funds will be available through the Bipartisan Safety Communities Act, one step in that direction. Now, legislators must monitor where spending is most effective. Lawmakers should be under the microscope to determine if their decisions to allocate funding to school safety is the best way to defend our most vulnerable, just as schools and teachers must defend their spending and curriculum decisions.

In my district, we work hard to create a welcoming environment for all students every day. We also have to pause throughout the day to remind students what to do in case of a threat. What to do in the classroom. The cafeteria. The playground.

The reality is that, in most cases, every dollar allocated to advance safety is money taken from teaching and learning.

We want to continue to prioritize social-emotional support – not only for the trauma students and educators experienced in June, but for what they may continue to experience as we practice lockdown drills. And that’s before we even get to working on social-emotional skills to cope with the normal situations they encounter in their day-to-day lives.

Schools everywhere are weighing these costs. Since 1999, more than 300,000 kids have been on campus during an act of gun violence, according to a Washington Post estimate. Unfortunately, districts nationwide have been left to fortify their schools while also trying to address other overwhelming issues.

During COVID, we picked up the banner of mental health, made sure our kids are fed, and stepped up in so many other ways. But protecting our kids from guns with limited funding, too? It’s too much.

It takes tremendous courage for school leadership to weigh these competing priorities and make difficult decisions. I feel called to help others understand how hard it is for us to eliminate safety threats and still accomplish all of our other educational goals, too.

Kelly Carpenter-VanLaeken is the chief academic officer of the Gananda Central School District in New York. She began her career in education as a social studies teacher and then became a principal. Kelly is a member of the Institute for Education Innovation and a board member of the GVASCD.

Republicans agree on youth mental health crisis, but are split on solutions

2022-12-09T12:00:00+00:00

Republicans generally agree that the pandemic left students’ mental health in tatters. But when it comes to addressing the crisis, the accord crumbles.

In Congress, some Republican lawmakers are working on a bipartisan youth mental health bill and a few voted for a major school safety and mental health act. But the vast majority voted against the act and another recent mental health bill. At the state level, some Republican legislators and governors have quietly supported school mental health services. But others have loudly called for bans on social-emotional learning and new restrictions on school counselors.

The party’s ambivalence owes partly to wariness about government spending, but it also reflects how students’ mental health has become embroiled in recent political debates around gun control, pandemic school closures, and parents’ rights. To conservatives who accuse teachers and librarians of imposing liberal views on students, school counselors are suspect too.

Some critics say schools should focus on academics and, as one Texas group put it, “Leave mental health and parenting to parents.” Many in the GOP appear to share that view: Just 44% of Republicans who voted in the midterms said it was very important for schools to provide more mental health services, compared with 82% of Democrats, according to a November survey.

The fissures cast doubt on whether Republicans, who in the midterms won control of the House of Representatives but not the Senate, will prioritize student mental health — especially as the sense of urgency created by the pandemic and the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas begins to fade. With many on the right already opposed to the amount of federal aid that schools received during the pandemic, some advocates worry the recent surge of funding for school mental health services will slow to a trickle.

“We’re less likely to see that type of continued investment,” said Anne Hyslop, director of policy development at the advocacy group All4Ed and a former Education Department official during the Obama administration. “Especially with the House now being controlled by Republicans, it’s going to be harder.”

GOP ties mental health to school reopening, shootings

As young people’s mental health deteriorated during the pandemic, both parties seized on the issue.

To Democrats and their union allies, the crisis confirmed their long-held view that schools need more resources. President Biden called for doubling the number of school psychologists and counselors, while Democratic governors from California to Wisconsin unveiled plans to ramp up mental health spending.

By contrast, Republicans saw students’ mental distress mainly as evidence of the harm caused by school closures. In March 2021, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said remote learning had caused rates of anxiety and depression to soar.

“The immediate solution,” he said, “is to work together to reopen every school in America now.”

As schools reopened, Republicans became less outspoken about student mental health. Few GOP candidates mentioned the issue during this year’s gubernatorial races, and the House Republicans’ recently unveiled policy agenda makes no mention of it.

When Republicans did sound the alarm this year about mental health, many did so in the context of mass shootings, despite research challenging that linkage.

Ahead of the midterm elections, Republican candidates for governor in Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Nebraska all touted mental health support as a way to make schools safer without restricting access to guns. After a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school this May, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blamed mental illness even as he acknowledged the shooter had no known diagnoses.

In June, just weeks after the Uvalde massacre, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which includes some gun-control measures and $1 billion to help schools hire more mental health staffers. While the majority of Republicans opposed the bill, 14 GOP members in the House and 15 in the Senate voted yes, as did every Democrat.

Jennifer Snow, policy and advocacy director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said even that limited cooperation was significant.

“We have so few bipartisan issues nowadays,” she said. “Of course that’s not going to fix everything, but we know that those resources are so desperately needed.”

Mental health gets pulled into culture wars

If mental health has occasionally united the parties, it’s just as often served as culture war fodder.

Conservative critics say educators sneak in lessons on racial justice under the guise of social-emotional learning, or SEL, which is meant to teach students how to manage their emotions and interact with others. Critics also oppose school counselors talking to students about their gender identity or sexuality without informing parents.

“Modern school counselors are zealous social justice meddlers bent on replacing parents,” said a recent post on a website run by The Charlemagne Institute, an influential conservative think tank. The parent group No Left Turn in Education includes school counselor and psychologist associations on its list of organizations “poisoning” children’s minds.

The critiques have had real consequences. In a recent survey, nearly 40% of high school principals said parents or community members have challenged SEL programs. Lawmakers in Oklahoma moved to ban SEL, and the Florida education department rejected dozens of math textbooks that officials said featured SEL or other “divisive concepts.”

Alabama passed a law forcing counselors to tell parents when students discuss their gender or sexuality, while a new Arizona law gives parents access to their children’s school counseling records. In Connecticut a local school board blocked a state-funded mental health clinic from opening inside a high school this year due to concerns that it could undermine parents’ authority.

Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said much of the recent controversy centers around transgender and nonbinary students. Most mental health experts and advocacy groups, including the American School Counselor Association, say schools should affirm students’ gender identity and allow them to use the corresponding pronouns and bathrooms.

“The social-affirmation model” is “different than the concept of mental health held by a lot of people on the right,” Eden said, adding that his “tentative prediction” is “the gender identity debate will blow up the consensus around mental health.”

Republicans in Congress also have taken up the issue. Last year they introduced a Parents Bill of Rights that says families must agree before students are screened for mental health issues. In September, more than 200 House Republicans voted against a bill that would fund school mental health services. Some cited Democrats’ refusal to add an amendment requiring parental consent for any school services.

“At every turn, the Left is attempting to undermine the rights of parents,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, in a press release.

Some on the right have also raised privacy concerns about school counseling and surveys, while others say the focus on mental health and social-emotional learning distracts from schools’ core academic mission.

“We need to return to more traditional foundational education,” wrote two leaders of a county Republican party in Alabama, “based on the teaching of facts, not feelings and attitudes.”

States search for middle ground

Some states have sought a middle ground that appeases conservative critics and promotes student wellness.

During the pandemic, 38 states enacted more than 90 laws meant to strengthen mental health services in schools, according to an analysis by the National Academy for State Health Policy. Several of the states also passed restrictions on counseling or social-emotional learning.

Alabama now funds mental health coordinators in nearly every school district, while also requiring schools to get parents’ consent for counseling. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis expanded school mental health funding while also trying to purge SEL from textbooks.

In Utah, two Republican state lawmakers — Sen. Daniel Thatcher and Rep. Steve Eliason — have championed the issue of student mental health, sponsoring bills to fund school counseling and create a mental health curriculum. Thatcher also proposed a three-digit crisis hotline, which former Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Chris Stewart brought to Congress, resulting in the country’s new 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

A slide from a presentation titled “Sinister SEL” presented by Utah parent-activist Lisa Logan.

Yet some mental health efforts still have faced opposition. Last year, members of the group Utah Parents United denounced a school district’s SEL program, leading officials to scrap it. In a presentation titled “Sinister SEL,” group member Lisa Logan said the goal of such programs is to indoctrinate children, which she compared to the Nazis’ Hitler Youth program.

“We see this now, this Marxist-Leninist ideology being pumped into the soft heads of our kids through social-emotional learning,” she said, in a video of the presentation.

In an interview, the group’s cofounder and public relations director, Corinne Johnson, said Logan is an adviser who is not on the group’s board. Johnson called the Nazi reference “shocking” and said she would not make that comparison.

SEL programs can teach children interpersonal skills but should not promote specific ideologies, Johnson said. She added that the group isn’t against schools providing some mental health services, as long as they include parents.

“We know our children best,” she said, “and we have the innate right to be involved in any decisions that are made.”

In Park City, Superintendent Jill Gildea said her school district hasn’t gotten much pushback against their SEL work, though a few people have raised concerns about schools “overstepping” into parents’ territory. But the lessons are never political, and the only goal is to make students feel safe and supported, Gildea said.

“That’s kind of what we all want for all the kids,” she said.

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

How one Chicago school social worker is grappling with COVID’s toll on students

2022-12-09T12:00:00+00:00

Inside a staff bathroom at Piccolo Elementary School on Chicago’s West Side, Mary Difino wiped away tears and tried to catch her breath. It had been a long day in another stressful week.

A spate of fights and a string of cyberbullying incidents among students two months into the school year had taken a toll on Difino — the school’s only social worker.

In the last six years, she has juggled caseloads across two separate schools, participated in an 11-day teachers strike, and navigated a pandemic that upended schools for 18 months.

Still, Difino had harbored hopes that COVID-related disruptions had passed, and things might be getting back to normal. After all, this was supposed to be the year Chicago Public Schools — and its 322,000 students and 39,300 staff — recovered from the upheaval of the pandemic. This would be “one of the strongest years ever” in the district’s history, CEO Pedro Martinez said on the first day of school this fall.

At first, Difino felt that might be the case. Even her students described school as “more chill” with “less drama.”

But she soon realized her students’ trauma was deep-rooted.

Students were behind academically. Behavior problems were going up. Staff shortages at the school that serves Latino and Black students continued to stretch an already depleted workforce.

It felt, Difino said, “just as hard as last year.”

She was maneuvering between crises and helping the behavior team come up with school-wide plans to address some of the fighting and bullying. Plus, she still had to keep up with her regular caseload and small group counseling sessions.

Difino’s job as a school social worker is like “four jobs combined into one,” she says. She’s also responsible for supporting students with disabilities — and managing the paperwork that goes with their Individualized Education Programs or 504 plans — which includes doing diagnostic assessments and meeting with parents and other school staff.

In the bathroom, Difino took another deep breath, then headed back to her office. There she tidied up and fixed her desk. She grabbed her soccer bag from that morning’s Piccolo girls soccer team practice and a binder full of drills and activities. Her role as coach for second, third, and fourth grade students is a reprieve from her frenetic duties during school hours.

She thought about what was needed to calm the fights and help her students: a restorative justice coordinator, smaller class sizes, perhaps another social worker.

But as Difino left for home that night, that wish list seemed far away — and she just felt exhausted.

Chicago doubles number of school social workers

The week before students returned to Piccolo in August, Difino recruited her boyfriend to help set up her office.

They adjusted furniture, arranged plants, and decorated the walls with posters plastered with encouraging phrases such as “We rise by lifting others” and “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

It would be Difino’s second year full-time at Piccolo, rather than bouncing between two separate schools. It is something she and other social workers in the district have long wanted: to be able to settle in and focus on one group of students in one community.

Mary Difino has advocated for smaller classes sizes, more staff, more programming, and affordable housing for student in Chicago Public Schools.

Difino often felt misunderstood as a young person, and gravitated to social work after years of working with at-risk students. She wanted to help kids who might not have the words to say what they’re feeling or what they need. Kids having a rough time at home. Kids needing a little extra support.

“I just thought it was purely wonderful there is a job that existed purely for those students,” she said.

When Difinio started her career in 2018, Chicago Public Schools had 337 social workers. Now, there are 618.

Until 2019-20, Difino juggled a caseload of about 100 students across two West Side elementary schools — Piccolo and Chalmers. It was, she says, a nearly impossible task.

That, in part, motivated Difinio to become more involved with the Chicago Teachers Union.

In her second year with the district, teachers went on strike for 11 days — and ended up winning provisions to increase the number of social workers and other key school staff. Under the contract between the district and the teachers union, every school must have a social worker by 2024.

Difino remembers the 2019 strike as a huge win, but it came at the cost of being villainized by some media and members of the public.

Federal COVID relief funds have since helped the district bolster its social and emotional staffing. Nationally, some school districts have struggled to hire these positions. In Chicago, 28 social worker positions remained unfilled district wide as of last month, according to the district staffing data.

The doubling of social workers in the district means there’s now one for roughly every 520 students — a huge improvement, but still short of what’s recommended by the National Association of Social Workers.

That organization says schools should staff one social worker for every 250 students. At schools where students are experiencing high levels of trauma, the recommended ratio falls to one social worker for every 50 students.

Even though Difino’s caseload has gone down, she still feels stretched — many days having to quickly pivot from one-on-one meetings with a student or small group sessions to deal with the fallout of a fight or another crisis. It often disrupts a consistent schedule for students in her caseload, she said.

Amid the pandemic that exacerbated pre-existing traumas and disparities, she questioned the district’s way of allocating funds for school social worker staffing positions, especially on the South and West sides — communities that were hard hit by COVID and experience higher levels of gun violence and disinvestment.

Social workers are assigned to schools based on the number of students with special education needs, population, and size. The district said it prioritized schools with the greatest needs.

Currently, every school has a social worker assigned to it. But they’re not all full-time. Only 392 schools have at least one full-time social worker, according to the district.

Federal funds also helped hire additional support, including counselors. According to Chicago Public Schools, 117 schools now have two counselors.

The district said in an emailed statement that it also aims to meet the social-emotional learning needs of students through additional crisis support, programs with wraparound services such as Choose to Change and Back to Our Future, and partnerships for supplemental mental health support with community groups and hospitals such as Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital.

But Difino wasn’t thinking about abstracts and funding philosophies when she set up her classroom.

School social worker Mary Difino spent the week leading up to the new academic year decorating her room to create a calm, welcoming space for students.

She recalled students disoriented by unpredictable quarantines, countless fights, and behavioral problems. And she remembered accompanying a few students to the hospital and frequently staying long after dismissal to manage family crises.

“The lack of consistency was really hard” for students, their families and school staff, Difino said. “Last year, we had to learn all over how to be in school, with new routines, and precautions.”

The previous 18 months of remote and hybrid instruction presented other challenges for social workers trying to address very specific goals for students with Individualized Education Programs.

Instead of focusing on school work or academic and social goals, students often preferred to talk about the impacts of quarantines and remote learning. They just wanted someone to listen, she remembered.

On the first school day in late August, Difino arrived 40 minutes before the bell to put the final touches to her room. She greeted students in the halls and walked some kids to class while others stopped by her room to check whether they would be meeting this year.

She left campus that day feeling that this would be a more manageable year than the two years that preceded it.

That sense of optimism would not last long.

Student mental health needs multiply

The return to school has been shaping up as another challenging year across the nation, said Christy McCoy, the president of the School Social Work Association of America.

“The residual impact of the last couple of years with the pandemic, all the disruptions in schools, the increase of racialized violence — and community violence,” left lingering trauma that has sparked behavioral issues among students, McCoy said.

Some students are exhibiting more aggressive external behavior including bullying and fighting in middle schools and high schools, and internal behaviors with some children struggling to focus and pay attention in class, she added.

“We have youth that are really struggling with engaging and knowing how to do school again,” McCoy said. “When you think of all the gaps of learning that have happened in the last couple of years, youth are really struggling.”

In a statement, Chicago Public Schools said it had prioritized mental health, social-emotional learning, and support services amid the pandemic that “had a disproportionate impact on our communities of color.”

“We recognize that our students continue to struggle with the impact of the pandemic as well as ongoing trauma in their lives,” the district said in an email.

Jackie King-Papadopoulos, another social worker with the district, put it more simply: At this moment, every school has high needs.

“I think that every student that is in Chicago Public Schools, every teacher, every adult that is in Chicago Public Schools is adjusting to life in this pseudo-post-pandemic world,” said King-Papadopoulos, who works at Morton School of Excellence in East Garfield Park.

Last year, King-Papadopoulos started the year at an elementary school in Austin before she was transferred to another school in Uptown. Amid higher expectations, teachers were trying to help students catch up academically while also dealing with challenging behavioral concerns, she recalled.

“Whenever you have that much of a struggle with academics, the social and emotional part is going to really be impacted as well,” King-Papadopoulos noted.

The pandemic has had a varied impact on students. The youngest children are learning to be around other kids, while middle school children are relearning how to be in a classroom, she said. Others are just not coming to school at all, adding to the social worker’s concerns about chronic absenteeism.

At Morton, King-Papadopoulos noted there is still some carryover of fighting among middle school students, but she has heard from teachers and staff that the students who struggled the most with disruptive behavior last year are doing much better this year.

“I think that everybody has made some positive strides in terms of how they’re coping with things,” King-Papadopoulos said. “I do think that everybody’s kind of breathing a sigh of relief that’s so far this year, feels about as normal as they think that it possibly can.”

King-Papadopoulos has been able to meet her caseload, handle new referrals, hold small group interventions, visit classrooms, support teachers, and is part of the behavioral health team.

But it is sometimes a juggling act, she acknowledged. “I also feel like everybody feels like the situation is very tenuous.”

Social workers confront fights, bullying, paperwork

At Piccolo Elementary, the honeymoon phase of the new school year quickly ended.

Difino scrambled to respond to big fights and bullying. She zagged between mediating conflict resolution and connecting parents with resources. She accompanied a student experiencing a mental health crisis to the emergency room.

And the physical fights didn’t let up — some even involved family members during school dismissal. In mid-September, there were four brawls in one day, involving about 16 students, she recalled.

It took an “all-hands-on-deck” approach — by Difino, the principal, school counselor, and other Piccolo staff — to untangle which students were involved, come up with potential restorative approaches and consequences, work out a safety plan, and fill out paperwork to document the fights.

“I don’t think any of us will really understand the effect that quarantine and COVID had on us,” she said later, “but I think that behaviors become habits really quick.”

On days like that, Difino said, school social workers are forced to make tough decisions of whether to scrap some responsibilities to handle a crisis or not respond to a crisis within 24 hours as required.

Piccolo Elementary school leaders, students, and community leaders gathered in mid-October to cut the ribbon on a new playground for students at the Humboldt Park campus.

In Difino’s five years at Piccolo, she has seen the school add more programming for students before, during, and after school. She credited the principal with bringing in six community partners to do art therapy, sports programs, and providing supplemental counseling, as well as implementing initiatives that center the voice of students.

On paper, Difino’s school is considered adequately staffed by district standards. According to district staffing data, Piccolo has a dean of students, a school counselor, at-risk student coordinator, and a few security staff. It also partners with Becoming a Man, or BAM, to offer counseling and social emotional services to Latino and Black boys.

Still, Difino said it still doesn’t feel like enough to address the persistent behavioral concerns.

“There’s just not enough manpower in the building to do all of that when there is such a high frequency of fights and police-involved incidents — on top of your regular responsibilities,” she said. She advocates for smaller class sizes, more staff to help mediate conflicts, and more affordable housing for students and their families.

“It’s like every school is seen as a spreadsheet,” she said, “not as humans with unique needs, or communities with unique needs.”

On one early December day, as the school year trundled to winter break, Difino pivoted from helping a student in crisis for a few hours to meeting with a mother and her child for an annual IEP assessment. For about an hour, they discussed the previous year’s goals and made new objectives for the rest of the year.

Difino spent the next few hours in her office, filling out forms and writing up paperwork.

Piccolo students are grappling with so much outside of the school walls — too many guns, not enough food, no stable places to call home, said Difino. Those pressures often translate into classroom disruptions or academic struggles.

“When kids have big behaviors, it’s really easy to not see them as a kid anymore,” Difino said. “Usually when they have difficult behaviors, they don’t have the words to say what they’re feeling or going through.”

After the holidays, she hopes to get back to a consistent schedule for her small groups and build on the progress she is seeing in her students.

She envisions tailoring activities around their specific needs and interests. Maybe talking about basketball. Or incorporating play-based learning with Legos.

She still believes in what she does and, she says, no matter the obstacles — the lack of support from the district, the cascading responsibilities — she will find a way to do her job.

Purely for the students.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey school counselors say student mental health needs have ‘increased tremendously’

2022-11-22T21:00:33+00:00

An expectation to “return to normal” this school year has exacerbated student anxiety, depression, and other mental health needs that were already on the rise after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, school counselors said during a virtual panel organized by the Latino Mental Health Association of New Jersey.

Counselors and other mental health professionals who are part of the state’s school-based youth services program — which contracts nonprofits to provide those services in host schools — gathered virtually on Thursday to discuss their efforts and struggles to re-engage students two years after the pandemic began.

Though anxiety and depression have spiked among their students, counselors are finding hope in being in-person with their students, less stigma in school around seeking help, and sharing resources and tips with their colleagues.

Many students, they say, are finding it challenging this school year to follow basic rules and expectations, such as wearing a uniform all day, showing up to class on time, and completing assignments. Behind those behaviors are students grappling with anxiety, chronic stress, and depression.

In 2020 and 2021, students experienced “fight or flight mode” as schools switched to remote learning for 18 months, said Giselle Fontalvo, a school counselor in Passaic Public Schools who led the virtual meeting. Then, the 2021-22 school year became “all about survival” as in-person learning returned with masks and COVID testing in the face of an ongoing pandemic, she added.

But this school year, with limited accommodations and no remote learning option, students are experiencing a shock as they face yet another transition – a “return to normal” – and it’s affecting their mental well-being, Fontalvo said.

“You need to be in school on time every day and you can’t get up five minutes before school starts to log on to a computer,” Fontalvo said. “There’s this sense of shock when students face consequences for consistently showing up late, like, ‘What do you mean I have detention? I didn’t get detention last year.’”

Student mental health needs ‘rapidly increasing’

The pressure for students to perform well academically and socially in school this year has intensified their mental health needs more than at any point during the pandemic, said Nivioska Bruce, the associate vice president of clinical interventions in schools for Care Plus NJ, during the virtual meeting.

Her clinical intervention teams lead “school clearance assessments” on students to evaluate their level of risk to themselves or others before they’re sent to emergency psychiatric services at a hospital, she said.

In the first three months of school, her team has already “seen so many students” go to emergency rooms for having high-risk levels, Bruce said.

“We’re just realizing the level of intensity that they’re presenting with has been something that we haven’t seen,” she said. “Their mental health needs have increased tremendously. All of the stress from the last two years turned into chronic stress, creating this inability to regulate and utilize healthy coping skills. And now, these levels of anxiety and depression are just rapidly increasing.”

Jennesis Quintana, a school-based youth services counselor with the Mental Health Clinic of Passaic, has seen her students struggling with keeping on their uniforms and lanyards that hold student identification cards and completing assignments.

“A lot of them say it’s hard for them to go to sleep at night, and when they wake up they’re drained and can’t get out of bed or make it in on time,” Quintana said at the virtual meeting.

She said she can recognize when her students are going through depression as it often shows up in their appearance, something she would have missed in a virtual setting. They’ll come to school with poor hygiene and a lack of appetite, on top of the sleep deprivation, she said.

“Those factors then impact how they overall perform, how they function throughout the day, and how they interact with one another,” Quintana said.

But, the counselors said, there’s room for hope.

“The students are opening up more and more,” Quintana said. “You can see what they’re not saying through their body language and interactions and you have direct access when they’re having a breakdown.”

In a phone call on Monday, Fontalvo told Chalkbeat that she feels lucky to work in a district that’s predominantly Latinx and Hispanic, where students can see themselves reflected in her.

“When my English language learners come to see me, they say, ‘Oh, thank God, you speak Spanish,’” she said. “The rest of the day, they’re working on acclimating to the school environment and speaking in English, but with that one conversation in Spanish, they get to have a little relief and feel comfortable.”

There’s also “power in being in the moment” with a student when they’re having trouble regulating intense emotions, Fontalvo said.

“You can help them navigate those feelings of anxiety by simply validating their experience and guiding them with helpful steps to take,” she said. “We can say, ‘OK, you’re right, it is a lot. But we still have to work on this and the goal is still to be a great student. How about we take these two minutes to freak out, and then we’ll work on our to-do list together.’”

In the last two years, an open dialogue about mental health in schools has reduced the stigma of visiting a school counselor or psychologist for help, the counselors said.

“The access to immediate, consistent support and care is the best part of being in schools,” Bruce said at the virtual meeting. “We know that school-based mental health for many of the students and families that come through, this may be the first time they have access to this type of service, but it’s in a place that’s familiar and safe and free of stigma.”

When talking with her students about their needs and what would help them address the pressure they feel, Quintana said she learned that they would like to start their day with a “mental health break.”

“When they haven’t had a good night’s rest, or they just had a fight with a parent, to come in and have a test or project or presentation waiting for them can be overwhelming,” Quintana said to her fellow school-based counselors at the virtual meeting.“Maybe we can incorporate the first 15-20 minutes of the day as a break for them to catch their breath and then start the day.”

Azara Santiago Rivera, president of the Latino Mental Health Association of New Jersey, said in a phone call with Chalkbeat on Friday that she aims to continue holding these meetings for school counselors to share their experiences and resources, especially those that work in predominantly Latinx communities and communities of color.

“At a time when we’re seeing a rise in serious mental health needs for students, we’re also seeing a shortage of mental health professionals,” Santiago Rivera said. “This is the time to share ideas, resources, and strategies with each other and create a safe space for our professionals.”

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark, covering the city’s K-12 schools with a focus on English language learners. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

School psychologist, counselor hiring lags nationwide even as student mental health needs soar

2022-11-18T12:00:00+00:00

This story is a partnership with The Associated Press.

Mira Ugwuadu felt anxious and depressed when she returned to her high school in Cobb County, Georgia, last fall after months of remote learning, so she sought help. But her school counselor kept rescheduling their meetings because she had so many students to see.

“I felt helpless and alone,” the 12th grader later said.

Despite an influx of COVID-19 relief money, school districts across the country have struggled to staff up to address students’ mental health needs that have only grown since the pandemic hit.

Among 18 of the country’s largest school districts, 12 started this school year with fewer counselors or psychologists than they had in fall 2019, according to an analysis by Chalkbeat. As a result, many school mental health professionals have caseloads that far exceed recommended limits, according to experts and advocates, and students must wait for urgently needed help.

Some of the extra need for support has been absorbed by social workers — their ranks have grown by nearly 50% since before the pandemic, federal data shows — but they have different training from other mental health professionals and many other duties, including helping families. Districts included in the analysis, which serve a combined 3 million students, started the year with nearly 1,000 unfilled mental health positions.

Hiring challenges are largely to blame, but some school systems have invested relief money in other priorities. The Cobb County district, for one, has not added any new counselors.

“They have so many students that they’re dealing with,” said Mira, 17. “I personally don’t want to blame them. But I also deserve care and support, too.”

A spokesperson for Cobb County Public Schools said school counselor positions are based on a state funding formula, and the district strongly supports more funding.

The Chalkbeat analysis is based on school staffing and vacancy data obtained through open records requests. The 31 largest districts in the U.S. were surveyed, but some did not track or provide data.

Some school systems used federal relief money to add mental health staff, but others did not because they worried about affording them once the aid runs out. Districts have limited time to spend the nearly $190 billion allocated for recovery.

“Here’s this conundrum that we’re in,” said Christy McCoy, the president of the School Social Work Association of America. “It’s like we are trying to put a Band-Aid on something that needs a more comprehensive and integrated approach.”

Hiring challenges for psychologists, counselors

Many of the schools that have wanted to hire more mental health workers simply can’t find them. School psychologist positions have been particularly hard to fill.

Chicago, for example, added 32 school psychologist positions since fall 2019 but ended up with just one additional psychologist on staff this fall. Dozens of positions couldn’t be filled.

Schools in Hillsborough County, Florida eliminated dozens of unfilled psychologist positions, leaving schools with 33 fewer psychologists this fall than pre-pandemic. Houston schools also cut more than a dozen psychologist roles it couldn’t fill before the pandemic. Instead, the district used the money to pay outside providers and hire psychologist interns.

With their extended training, school psychologists are relied upon to provide intensive one-on-one counseling and help determine whether students are at risk for suicide.

In Maryland, a shortage of psychologists at Montgomery County Public Schools has kept the short-staffed department focused on crisis intervention and providing legally mandated services like special education assessments, said Christina Connolly-Chester, director of psychological services. That has meant they cannot keep up with other, less urgent counseling services.

“If that psychologist has more schools because there are vacancies and they’re not able to spend as much time in their assigned schools, then things like counseling go away,” she said.

The district sought to hire staff to address increased student needs such as anxiety, depression and struggles with conflict management, but still had 30 vacant psychologist positions, a district official said this month.

Even before the pandemic, some schools struggled to find psychologists. New practitioners have not been entering the field fast enough, and others have been switching to telehealth or private practices with higher pay and often better working conditions.

“We can’t afford to pay professionals enough to make it a desirable position,” said Sharon Hoover, a psychologist who co-directs the National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland.

Counselor staffing has been a challenge for some districts, too, with nine of the large districts down counselors this year, while another nine saw increases.

Where hiring has been toughest, schools have turned to alternatives. In Hawaii, which had 31 vacant counselor positions and 20 vacant psychologist roles at the start of the year, the state has trained educators to spot signs that a student is in distress — an increasingly common practice — and pays a private company to provide tele-mental health services.

To help with student counseling, the state also employs about 300 behavioral health specialists — a position created before the pandemic partly in response to a longstanding school psychologist shortage, said Annie Kalama, the department official who oversees student support services.

“We’re trying to attack it from every angle,” she said.

It isn’t just hiring challenges that have led to smaller-than-expected staffing increases. Some school systems spent most of their federal aid on more lasting investments, such as technology or building repairs. And many opted not to add new mental health workers at all.

In the Chalkbeat analysis, half of the 18 large districts budgeted for fewer counselor or psychologist positions this school year than they did in fall 2019.

In April, just 4 in 10 districts reported hiring new staffers to address students’ mental health needs, according to a national survey.

“For all the talk about mental health, the actual money they’re spending on it is not that high,” said Phyllis Jordan, associate director of FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University that tracks school spending. School districts only planned to spend about 2% of the largest round of federal COVID aid on mental health hiring, according to the group’s analysis of more than 5,000 district spending plans.

Schools have added social workers

One bright spot in the school mental health landscape, though, is the increase in social workers.

Montgomery County in Maryland, Gwinnett County in Georgia, and Orange, Broward, and Palm Beach counties in Florida all started the year with dozens more social workers than they had in fall 2019. Chicago added the most — nearly 150 additional social workers — in part due to staffing promises in the latest teachers union contract.

The Chalkbeat analysis echoes national data collected by the White House that show the number of school social workers was up 48% this fall compared with before the pandemic, while the number of school counselors was up a more modest 12% and the count of school psychologists inched up 4%.

In Houston, staffing increases meant nearly every school started this fall with a counselor or social worker.

Newly hired social worker Natalie Rincon is able to meet one-on-one with students who are in crisis and teach other students calming strategies, such as tracing their hand with a finger while breathing.

Still, need often outstrips capacity at Rincon’s school, where many students are refugees or recent immigrants coping with trauma. She often has to prioritize helping students with urgent issues, leaving less time to check in on others.

Natalie Rincon, a social worker, has seen the benefits of having a fuller mental health team at her Houston elementary school.

“I want to be able to meet with a kindergartner just to talk about how they’re feeling,” Rincon said. “Those are the kind of things that I think slip through the cracks.”

And in some schools, the social worker doesn’t have any backup.

As the sole mental health professional at a charter school in Buffalo, New York, social worker Danielle Dylik provides counseling to more than 40 students most weeks. She also assists with discipline issues and is setting up a food pantry and clothes bank for families.

But as just one person, she knows she can’t help every student who needs it.

“There’s just not enough hours in the school day,” she said.

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Annie Ma is a reporter for The Associated Press.

New Jersey students protest policing in schools, call for more counselors, teachers

2022-11-10T23:14:31+00:00

Newark and Elizabeth Public School students used their day off on Thursday to demand fewer police and more mental health resources and teachers in schools.

Make the Road New Jersey youth leaders gathered dozens of teens in Elizabeth to call for more resources for students in public schools and greater transparency in school policies.

As they marched down Broad Street in Elizabeth and made their way to Thomas Jefferson Arts Academy to continue their rally, the students chanted: “Police in schools have got to go!”

Breoghan Conchas Marquez, a senior at East Side High School in Newark, said “there are a lot of issues affecting Black and brown students” in cities like Newark and Elizabeth but mental health resources should be at the forefront in these communities.

“There is a discrepancy between the security guard amount and counselor amount,” said Conchas Marquez at the march. “There is not really, like, a good way for all students to get mental health support in Newark or anywhere else for that matter.”

Across the country, federal and state leaders have highlighted the urgent need for mental health support among young people following the pandemic. In July, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy introduced his National Governors Association Chair Initiative, which focuses on strengthening youth mental health. The initiative has garnered support from other state governors searching for bipartisan solutions.

In New Jersey, Black and Latinx students have less access to school mental health staff today than they did a decade ago, according to a study from the New Jersey Policy Perspective. In Newark and Elizabeth, where the majority of students identify as Black and Latinx, the inequity is forefront as teens and their families have a higher chance of living in poverty and may have experienced the disproportionate effects of the pandemic.

Dozens of teens marched in Elizabeth, New Jersey to protest policing in schools and demand more counselors and resources to help students of color.

Students at Thursday’s march said they not only rallied for mental health issues but are also pressing state and local leaders to provide clean drinking water at schools, eliminate uniforms, provide access to clean bathrooms, and have cell phone privileges during the day among other issues affecting public school teens in the area.

Giovana Castaneda is a senior at Rutgers and organized the march alongside her youth team at Make the Road New Jersey. For her, the discrepancies in public schools are the same as when she went to high school four years ago. Currently, her team launched the “Counselors Not Cops” campaign to bring awareness to the amount of police presence in New Jersey in comparison to counselors or other school-based resources.

“We started seeing an increase of law enforcement presence in schools and referrals to law enforcement. The Counselors not Cops campaign started because we saw there was an overpolicing of Black and brown students happening,” Castaneda said.

Currently, her team focuses on community-based actions in Elizabeth but she said “the issues are similar in Newark” when it comes to students of color.

“When I go to their schools, their schools look like prisons. Some don’t have AC, some don’t have quality lunch or quality water,” Castaneda added. “It’s up to community members to create community access programs when it shouldn’t be like that. We should be using city budgets and school budgets to be creating these resources for students, the community shouldn’t be doing it.”

Joe Johnson, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union New Jersey attended Thursday’s march and said state leaders need to do more to help students in cities like Newark and Elizabeth who deal with violence in their communities and the aftermath of the pandemic.

“Students have issues they are dealing with and they want to be able to speak to a professional about them whether it’s something happening in schools, in the community or at home,” Johnson said. “Most students don’t have access to a mental health professional.”

Additionally, state leaders should stay away from “quick” solutions or increased policing after events like the Uvalde, Texas school shooting or violence in the community, Johnson added. The goal is “listen to what students want,” he said.

“What we really see is that whenever something happens there’s a very quick visceral reaction: ‘We need to have more police, more cameras, more metal detectors,’” Johnson said. “What ends up happening is that most of these things go into Black and brown school districts, pretty much without fail.”

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.