Chalkbeat

New campaign aims to dispel cannabis myths for NY teens after legalization

2026-07-13T21:10:53+00:00

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In the five years since New York legalized cannabis, educators across the city have seen an uptick in student marijuana use spilling into the school day and grappled with how to respond.

As smoke shops proliferated, teens had more access to potent products, and some used cannabis to self-medicate mental health challenges that spiked in the wake of the pandemic, educators previously told Chalkbeat. Many educators said they felt ill-equipped to respond to students using cannabis during school or showing up high to class.

Now, a new set of educational resources developed by the state’s Office of Cannabis Management could help fill that gap.

“What we heard when we brought together everyone from school nurses to superintendents to assistant superintendents, to principals, to teachers … everyone asked for resources,” said Lyla Hunt, the director of public health and education at the state’s cannabis management office. They wanted to understand the cannabis landscape post-legalization, saying, “‘We need that information in order to better serve the people we serve.’”

The education program, called Cannabis Honestly, is geared toward young people and trusted adults in their lives trying to navigate a murky cannabis landscape. The resources, released on Monday, are based on 23 listening sessions with roughly 450 young people and caregivers throughout the state who shared their experience with cannabis and what kind of information they wanted.

Researchers found that many teens were still confused about some basic facts, with roughly a third incorrectly guessing the legal age of cannabis consumption in New York. (It’s 21.) Both young people and adults also expressed confusion about how to distinguish between sanctioned cannabis products and illicit ones. The materials point out that legal shops will have a QR code near the door to verify the store is licensed and will have the state logo on product packaging.

When asked why young people were turning to cannabis, youth participants overwhelmingly pointed to mental health challenges, with 85% of the young people surveyed raising it as an issue. Roughly 60% said they believed cannabis served a medicinal purpose, the listening sessions found.

More than half of the teens who participated also said they wanted a clearer understanding of how cannabis affects the brain and body. And they were clear in telling researchers that an education campaign that came across as too-heavy handed or moralizing would fall flat.

The educational materials include sections directly aimed at youth through a mix of comic-style graphics with frequently asked questions and blurbs, along with short videos. A section called “Weed 101” explains that using products with a higher concentration of THC can raise the risk of “greening out,” or getting so high that it triggers intense anxiety and physical side effects.

Other sections address the myths that people can’t get addicted to cannabis and that most teens are using the drug. In fact, roughly 17 of 20 teens across the state say they’re not using weed, according to the guidance.

The materials also include a choose-your-own-adventure-style interactive guide for how to have a conversation with a teenager about cannabis and resources designed specifically for parents who use the drug themselves.

The resources are available in English and Spanish and are available in print versions for free at the state’s cannabis education library. Hunt said these are exactly the types of materials that school counselors can have on hand when they have to call a parent about student cannabis use.

“When the parent goes home, they can continue to have the conversation,” Hunt said. “But also to support [the counselor] as they’re having that conversation as well.”

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

Some immigrant children are more fearful than ever to go to school. U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia wants to help them.

2026-06-16T21:41:29+00:00

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An Illinois congressman is seeking to expand support for immigrant students in schools — a move that builds on protections state lawmakers approved last year.

U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, who represents several Latino communities in Chicago, introduced legislation Tuesday that would provide federal support to schools serving students affected by immigration enforcement. Joined by Chicago Board of Education member Yesenia Lopez and Latino Policy Forum President Linda Xóchitl Tortolero, Garcia unveiled the proposal, dubbed The Right to Learn Act, Tuesday before more than 30 students and staff at Richard J. Daley College in south Chicago.

“For immigrant kids, school is often the first place that they have in this country. They feel welcome, they feel seen, and they feel heard,” Garcia said. “Too many students now walk through the same doors in fear.”

But passing the bill will be a tall order in the Republican-controlled House for Garcia and the cohort of largely progressive House Democrats who co-sponsored it, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar. That could change if Democrats flip the chamber in November’s midterms.

The bill would create a federal grant program for schools impacted by immigration enforcement. Schools could use the funding to hire bilingual counselors and social workers, promote trauma-informed and culturally sensitive mental health services, and provide emergency assistance to families in need. The U.S. Department of Education would administer the program.

The proposal comes as the Trump administration seeks to reduce educational funding for programs serving undocumented and immigrant students. Some of those efforts were carried out through President Donald Trump’s executive orders, including one targeting states that provide in-state tuition for undocumented college students.

Federal agencies have also played a role in cutting back services for immigrant children. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services barred undocumented children from using Head Start, a federal preschool program aimed at supporting low-income families. That policy is held up in a legal battle, but its looming implementation has worried some parents.

As the Education Department continues to wind down its services and transfer programs to other agencies, the Office of English Language Acquisition has been dissolved. Its funding for English language learning and teacher training is being folded into other programs, according to Education Department officials in April.

Garcia says his legislation contains the “spirit of that office,” adding that federal services such as the Office of English Language Acquisition helped ensure mental health support for students is “culturally rooted and considered.”

Chicago Board of Education member Yesenia Lopez speaks about The Right To Learn Act in a panel for Richard J. Daley College students and faculty in South Chicago on Tuesday, June 16, 2026.

Given federal rollbacks and Trump’s mass deportation campaign, Illinois state lawmakers took steps last year to enhance protections for immigrant children.

A new state law requires Illinois schools to follow policies on how to respond to immigration enforcement agents on campus and prohibits schools from requesting a student’s immigration status or Social Security number. Another law passed last year largely blocks university and childcare staff from revealing a family’s immigration status.

Garcia’s bill is a way to extend those protections at the federal level, said state Rep. Edgar Gonzalez, who represents Little Village and Brighton Park, during the press conference.

“You need to put your money where your mouth is, and a bill like this really allows for our schools to make sure they’re safe spaces,” he said.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.

NYC to overhaul attendance rules, requiring a ‘school avoidance liaison’ at every school

2026-06-16T19:15:16+00:00

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To address New York City’s stubbornly high rates of chronic absenteeism, the Education Department is proposing to overhaul its attendance regulations for the first time in nearly a decade.

One big change: Starting in September, every school must have a “school avoidance liaison.”

The city is requiring schools to designate a staffer — a teacher, administrator, social worker or guidance counselor — who will receive training on school avoidance and join their school’s attendance committee, which meets weekly to tackle student absences.

The Panel for Educational Policy is expected to vote Wednesday on the proposal.

Students who are school avoidant, or who exhibit school “refusal” as it’s sometimes called, might be unable to attend school for large stretches of time due to social or emotional disabilities, such as severe anxiety or depression. As they fall behind academically, it can be even harder to get them back to school.

Researchers estimate between 1% and 15% of children exhibit school refusal. Experts say that it tends to be more difficult for school-avoidant children to return to school after periods of transition or prolonged closures. And parents and educators believe the problem was exacerbated when school buildings opened after the pandemic forced buildings to close for remote learning.

Education Department officials declined to say how many of the city’s roughly 33% chronically absent students are avoiding school because of social or emotional issues.

“By strengthening training and coordination at the school level, we are providing staff with additional tools to work closely with students and families, address concerns early, and connect them with appropriate interventions and resources,” Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said in a statement.

The nation’s largest school system has lacked official guidance on how to respond to students struggling with school refusal, as Chalkbeat previously reported. That has led to an uneven response from the city’s nearly 1,600 schools.

Some schools might follow the gold standard for care, forming deep partnerships with families, customizing programs to slowly get kids back in the doors, and finding accommodations such as lightening the homework load. Other schools have left families to fend for themselves — or even involved child protective services when students fail to attend regularly.

A class action lawsuit filed last year claimed the Education Department was systematically failing to provide equal access to education for students with disabilities who were chronically absent. The city lacked a policy to track, evaluate, and get school-avoidant students back in school, the suit charged.

Education Department officials did not respond to questions about the lawsuit, but attorneys who filed it said they were continuing to hash out a settlement with the city.

“While we are still working to settle the lawsuit, DOE’s new proposal to add a trained liaison at every school is a crucial step toward helping students with school avoidance,” said Susan Horwitz, supervising attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s Education Law Project.

Advocates says struggling students need more intensive support

Having a liaison, however, may not be enough to address the needs of some students struggling with school refusal, some experts and advocates say.

Maleeha Chida, an attorney who is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Advocates for Children, said the city should continue to explore additional avenues to help students, such as creating flexible school schedules, connecting them to mental health providers, and hiring trained behavioral specialists to coordinate plans to gradually re-reintroduce students to the classroom.

“Students who are facing school avoidance require significant supports and interventions to be able to return to school, and much more will be needed to address the needs of this student population,” Chida wrote in an email.

School avoidance often is not something that happens suddenly, said Jenn Choi, a special education consultant. It might start with a student making frequent trips to the nurse’s office because of stomach aches, asking to go home early, or missing one day then going in the next before stopping for longer stretches.

“How much time would this person use for preventing and not just treating the problem?” Choi asked.

Anne Marie Albano, the director of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders, said confronting school avoidance is rarely a one-size-fits-all approach and echoed the importance of intervening early as well as working with a child’s family.

It’s also critical to do a “school climate” evaluation to understand what staffers can do to make the environment “more welcoming,” Albano said.

“It’s a multi-level intervention that has to take into account the [child’s] development, the environmental issues, and the family issues, as well as, what are the schools’ resources, and what are the limitations,” she said.

A student, for instance, might need resources, such as getting access to transportation for therapy. Or if a relative is ill at home, the child might be worried to leave them, Albano said.

“You’ve got to think about what else we have to do to help the systems the child is involved in, so the child can learn how to thrive,” she said.

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

What is the price of Success (Academy)? Former students open up

2026-05-14T10:00:00+00:00

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As Success Academy turns 20 this year, former students of New York City’s largest charter school network share their stories in this episode of P.S. Weekly.

Success Academy reshaped what free education for low-income students could look like. The network boasts above average scores on state tests and impressive college admissions statistics. Some alumni, however, wonder if the academic pressure and strict behavioral standards are worth it. Its famously test-focused approach has raised a question: How much pressure on students is too much?

P.S. Weekly producers Jeremiah Dickerson, a senior at Williamsburg Charter High School, and Noa Salas Adam, a junior at Stuyvesant High School, dive into the complex world of Success Academy.

Dickerson, himself a former Success Academy student, interviews another former student about what it was like to attend the school. They touch on everything from uniforms, “mouth bubbles,” and clip charts to extremely rigorous academics and the lingering emotional price tag of attending Success Academy.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. It’s available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. New episodes drop on Thursdays.

P.S. Weekly is made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Transcript

Jeremiah: On the last day of kindergarten, we lined up, and one by one were handed our school’s signature orange tie. That was the prize for graduating to first grade. At five years old, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on mine. It felt like it had a magic power. These days, people might call that aura, but back then, we called it success.

Newscaster: Success Academy, with schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn, is living up to its name, outperforming their peers by a landslide.

Newscaster: If Success Academy were a school district, it would be the single most successful school district

Newscaster: the video raises new concerns about the demands on students at the 34 Success Academy schools in New York City.

Newscaster: Andrew Cuomo, who’s running for mayor of New York, wrote in support of Success Academy

News: Success Academy

News: Success Academy

Jeremiah: Welcome back to PS Weekly, The Sound of the New York City School System. I’m Jeremiah Dickerson, a senior at Williamsburg Charter High School.

Noa: And I’m Noa Salas Adam, a junior at Stuyvesant High School.

Jeremiah: You’ve probably seen the commercials, the TikTok horror stories, and students in navy blue sweaters swarming the streets on weekday afternoons.

That’s right, we’re talking about Success Academy.

Noa: Refresh my mind. Isn’t Success Academy that huge network of charter schools that’s been expanding over time? I see the Success ads everywhere, on subways, buses, even on Spotify.

Jeremiah: Noa, you’re spot on. 22,000 students attend Success Academy, making it the largest charter school network in the city, and that’s even larger than Syracuse, New York’s entire school district.

News clip: And it’s even expanding to Florida next year.

News clip: Success Academy Charter School’s announcing its expansion to Florida, right here in Miami today. With Citadel’s Ken Griffin contributing $50 million to that expansion.

Jeremiah: Success Academy turns 20 this year. It started in Harlem back in 2006 with just one school and 165 students. But two decades later, there are FIFTY NINE Success Academy schools across the city.

Noa: So if there are so many of the schools, they must be doing pretty well, right?

Jeremiah: On paper they are!. Just recently in 2025, Success was ranked number one in mathematics and number two in ELA state test scores out of over 700 public and charter schools across the state.

The school started in predominantly Black and brown, as well as low-income neighborhoods in New York, and more recently have been expanding to wealthier, whiter neighborhoods.

Success has always been a huge target for both praise

News clip: this dreary weather can’t possibly put a damper on the bright students shining inside of Success Academy Bronx 2, They passed their state exams with flying colors.

Jeremiah: And criticism.

News clip: the New York Times broke the story that a principal at the charter school network Success Academy targeted a group of students to be pushed out of his school, maintaining a secret “got to go” list.

News clip: Some disturbing video of a teacher at a New York City charter school is raising questions tonight about the harsh treatment of some of its youngest students.

Teacher: Count it again, making sure you’re counting correctly. Go to the calm-down chair and sit.

Jeremiah: I went to Success from kindergarten to second grade. And because the first class of Success Academy only graduated high school eight years ago, I’m part of a growing number of teens and young adults who make up the Success Academy network and are now can share their stories.

Noa: so I know it was a while ago, but what was your experience at Success like?

Jeremiah: Well, Noa, I’ll keep it brief, but I was suspended multiple times between ages five and seven.

Noa: What, how does such a young kid get suspended?

Jeremiah: I got suspended for things that young kids usually do.

Screaming, throwing a temper tantrum, being upset. You know, just not getting along with peers and not, in general, enjoying my environment

And a lot of times I felt like I was overstimulated, overworked, exhausted, and certain things that really led me to, like, what we would say in common times is crash out.

Noa: ‘Cause you were going through a long school day, right?

Jeremiah: Yeah, like 7 to 4:30 in the afternoon. And

we’re not even accounting for the travel time commuting, you know, commuting from different places. Like, I lived in Harlem with my grandma, but then I attended Success Academy in the Bronx.

Noa: That’s a lot for a small kid

Jeremiah: Yeah, and it honestly makes me wonder whether there are other Success students out there who have had similar experiences to me

Fast-forward to today, I’m a high schooler going to school in Williamsburg. But throughout my high school career, I’ve made friends with quite a few students who went to Success Academy as well.

Sasha: I immediately foot in the door. I was like, okay, things are going to change.

Jeremiah: That’s my friend Sasha Hartwell.She’s a senior at my school and attended Success for much longer than I did. While I went there for a short time, Sasha attended Success for most of her educational career. From third grade to the beginning of her senior year..

Jeremiah: Do you remember what your parents said, if anything, about why they chose Success Academy in the first

Sasha: I do know that they were super ecstatic about the education that the kids were receiving and acceptance rates, the high, you know, amount of kids that were able to make it to college or were able to succeed in life through Success Academy.

Jeremiah: Sasha transferred to Success Academy at the beginning of third grade

Sasha: Immediately I was told about mouth bubble and the clip chart and the sitting on the, on the carpet.

Jeremiah: Yeah.

Sasha: And sitting on your assigned color

Jeremiah: Criss cross applesauce.

Sasha: Yep. Sitting on your assigned color. And I was like, it’s just different. This is really different.

Jeremiah: Take us through like, what is a mouth bubble? Describe it to us.

Sasha: You take a deep breath, you, you breathe in, you try to catch all that air in your mouth because you literally take all the air that you have. You close your, you tight, your lips.

Jeremiah: And you tighten your lips.

Sasha: And you create a bubble with your cheeks. You look like a, a squirrel, essentially.

Jeremiah: I remembered my jaw being sore from holding my mouth in a bubble all day. Kids would try to make the perfect mouth bubble to impress the teachers. This and perfect posture were a sign of respect.

Noa: Sasha also said something about a clip chart? What’s that? You guys speak in code at this school.

Jeremiah: About that.. Sasha will explain..

Sasha: A clip chart essentially is, uh, it’s a, a classic , you know, piece of cardboard. Um, and they paint on it. There’s different colors. You have green, you’d have yellow, you’d have orange, the clip chart specifically, what makes it a clip chart is you have a clip, like you have one of those pinboard clips and you have your name on it, and you put that clip.

Well, I mean, I, when I got there, I remember I got to decorate, you get to decorate your clip, at least you got that privilege. But, you know, you put your clip, you, you do something bad, you get a, I remember there was at some point where, I guess it was like around finals testing.

Jeremiah: Okay

Sasha: Sometimes they would dictate it based off how you did on like a practice exam.

Sasha: it’s one thing to do it, like, after class or do it in private, but no, you told me to get up in front of the whole class and walk to this clip chart and move my chart. And the thing is, is that with Success Academy kids, when we were kids, we were competitive, but we were, we weren’t, like, harsh or mean or anything.

You know, you’re just kids, so you know, you’re playing. “Ooh, you in trouble.” Oh my gosh. Y- every time, “Ooh, you in trouble. You gotta move your chart.” And usually when you move your clip chart, that mean they getting a me- you getting a message from ParentSquare. Your parents will be notified of your clip change, and I’m just like, “Oh my gosh,” like I already be knowing what be happening when I get home.

Jeremiah: at my school they had, like clip chart sheets that you were bringing to your parents where like the teacher can sign off and describe your behavior and basically give a reasoning as to why they gave you that color for the day. Like, a lot of times, like I remember my mom would get upset and she would just like rip up the red papers because the reasonings would be like things that were so little like, hey, like Jeremiah wasn’t paying attention to me, so we put his chart on red. But then for me, like.

Every time, like I would, you know, go down the red, I would cry in certain things because it was an embarrassing moment. It wasn’t something that you wanted to see, you know, like no one wants to see that

Jeremiah: The school doesn’t use clip charts any more. but now according to the 2025-2026 SA handbook they use a stoplight system. The handbook says quote “ Every day, scholars start on green. Throughout the day, if scholars are not following instructions, their color may be moved down to yellow or even red. We keep parents regularly informed about behavioral challenges students face in school and we ask for your support.” end quote

Noa: Sounds kinda clip chart-y to me

Jeremiah: And then are you familiar with the like water fountain rule? I, I think it was 1, 2, 3.That’s enough for me. Yeah.

Sasha: it was, yeah, definitely that

Jeremiah: the teachers would say it, but then the, a lot of the people behind me would say because they wanted that water right.

Sasha: Do remember that, that phrase, that was a waterfront rule

Jeremiah: Success Academy, a big portion of its identity is its uniforms and how students come to school represented. Take us through like what the uniform means to you and how it is.

Sasha: Even before you even get in the building, there -you either have your principal or you have your vice principal and they’re standing outside of the door. They’re holding the door open, but they are there to check to see if you are in full uniform.

Jeremiah: Right.

Sasha: Even in the freezing cold, they will tell you to zip down your coat. Let me make sure you have your tie and your blazer.

Boy, girl, it does not matter. You have to have that tie on and you still have the option to wear a skirt or pants, depending, whatever your preference was. Um, but yeah, they were very cutthroat on them. Socks. I Have been sent home my junior year because I had on black socks, I had on black socks, but not Navy blue socks. Yeah, you have to have them and them shoes.

Oh. They used to get on me for my shoes. They’re all, they’re all black, but they have a little white check mark.

Jeremiah: YEAH

Sasha: If anybody that goes to my school knows me, they know about these sneakers. I wear these sneakers every day. Now my parents obviously are not, you know, they ain’t the wealthiest, so, you know, I make do of what I got.

Right. So I got these shoes. I liked them. I was like, okay, cool. But the one problem, the one problem, it had a little white check. And they used to nitpick on me so bad for it. The principal himself came up to me and handed me a black roll of tape, and I was like, what is And he was like, for your, for your shoe.

Jeremiah: And I know you can hear me and Sasha laughing and joking about all the rules at Success Academy but some of the discipline.Wasn’t a joke. At times, it felt like it we were being punished for just being kids.

They also tried to balance the harsh discipline with special rewards. Like Fun Fridays

Sasha: It’s a fun Friday. It’s like a, you lasted through weeks, so now you get your little Friday and advisory and there would be a shelf on your wall or you know, like on a little bookshelf where you had your little area where they had things from toys and you know, we had a bunch of little toys, trinkets, fidgets, all that type of stuff. And you know, you had, um, a system called Class Dojo where you would gain or lose points , depending on your behavior

Jeremiah: Fridays weren’t so fun for everyone. If your clip wasn’t high enough on the clip chart, or your points in class dojo weren’t adding up. You would have to sit out while your friends ate pizza and sang their hearts out to Just Dance.

Sasha: Think there was one time where I was highly upset. Mm-hmm. I was, I was in trouble. I was in trouble for sure. I was in trouble and they told me that I couldn’t participate in Fun Friday.

Jeremiah: That used to be the worst

Sasha: So obviously I was sulking, yeah. I was sulking in the corner.

I think that that was when I was in the negative probably. ‘cause obviously you can’t spend no points. Yeah. So when you’re in the negative, you’re not allowed to participate in Fun Friday. Mm-hmm. That’s just it. Like, you’re not allowed

Jeremiah: why do you think Success Academy was so strict with all the different rules, like mouth bubbles, clip charts, walking in a straight line, and all of that?

Sasha: I feel like …Even though I don’t feel like the execution was appropriate for us at the age, at the ages that we were, I don’t feel like the actions that they were taking were appropriate. But I do feel like they really do prepare us for the real world and what we would have to face out in the real world.

Jeremiah: What do you remember about test preparation culture at Success Academy?

Like, how did they prepare you? Do you feel like it was effective? What do you think?

Sasha: Think? Mm, I do feel like it was effective, but it was very rigorous. So it definitely caused a lot of burnout before the test even started. Do I think taking tests over and over and over and over again was helpful? No. I don’t feel like that part was helpful. I feel like it stressed us out and it burnt us out for the actual test,

Jeremiah: Success is known for its intense test prep culture. How else would they get those super high scores on state exams?

Sasha: As much as, you know, like this conversation is more of like how it’s affected us mentally, I could say, like, um, educationally success has benefited me way beyond that I, I even can think of now, right? So I can’t, I graduated out of middle school with all my regents done, and I went to public school and everybody was looking at me like I was an alien.

So I was like, oh, so this ain’t normal.

Jeremiah: So eventually you transferred to my school So there had to be a conversation or something that happened where your parents were like, “It’s time to go.” So can you take us through that experience? What happened?

Sasha: Um, honestly, I kinda put my foot down on that one. I said, “Baby, I’m leaving.” I don’t know what y’all think, but I think it’s time for me to go. Not to even be that type of person, but I was literally coming home crying every day. I was really just sitting there, with my little bunk bed with my LED lights and I’m like, “I can’t do this.”

I ca- I can’t do this for another, I can’t do this for another five months. I just can’t."

And so I finally sat down my parents and I said, “Honestly, I don’t know where I go. I just don’t wanna be here. It can’t be here. I can’t do this my senior year.” But again, because I was so upset- Every day coming home, having to do the same cycle. Even on weekends, I just wanted to stay in bed. I didn’t wanna go out, I didn’t wanna go to the movies, I didn’t wanna go shopping, I didn’t wanna do nothing.

Jeremiah: And even though Sasha and I both left Success Academy and are happier in our new school, Sasha felt conflicted like me.

Sasha: in certain aspects I’m grateful for like how they’ve made me who I am as a person, but sometimes I be taking a step back and I’m like, “Oof. Babe, that, that ... Ooh, I’m, I’m a little damaged,” like. Um, like sometimes I would talk to my parents and like, obviously every conversation with your parents, it’s not gonna be a great one.

So you know, we’re dis- we had a disagreement, and I kinda just shut down. Like I stopped talking and I was just looking at them. And it was like you’re not gonna say anything? ‘Cause obviously like you know how we’re talking right now, I’m a very verbal person. If something’s wrong with me, I’m gonna tell you.

So I’m just sitting there and I’m just like not saying anything, and they’re like, “Are you okay?” Like, “You’re not gonna say anything? You don’t agree, disagree?” And I’m just like, “I don’t know. That’s...” And I was just shutting down. And looking back on it- It definitely is like I, I had to deal with that from Success.

When you got in trouble at Success or you’re trying to talk to a teacher to change a grade or why you were late to class, it’s never a conversation. It’s a monologue. They’re talking at you, they’re not talking with you. So I feel like that aspect of it, , it definitely affected me,

I feel like there’s obviously certain aspects of Success Academy where their intensity of certain things, it helps, but also it definitely did take away from my childhood, and actually, like, becoming my own person naturally. When, like, with going to Success Academy, you’re, you’re getting all these rules and all these things thrown at you and, you know, they kinda, they say that your grades don’t define you, but they act like your grades do define you. So when you have that type of mindset growing up, it lowers your self-esteem.

Jeremiah: I’m always someone who participates or raises my hand or says a lot. But then for me, I feel like I rescind it as easily as I give it because I feel like once a space makes it known that it’s not appreciated that I’m speaking up or saying certain things, I just fall all the way back because I have trauma behind that. I feel like growing up with Success Academy, it’s been more so just, like, juggling with the emotions and how I’m still, like, even at 18 years old, I’m still processing my kindergarten through second grade experience.

Jeremiah: So thank you so much for joining us, Sasha today.

Sasha: Thank you Jeremiah, so much for the interview.

Noa: So after all this, the clip charts, the mouth bubbles, why do parents keep sending their kids to Success Academy.

Jeremiah: Honestly, to be real with you, I don’t know either. But looking as a parent – a parents perspective. I would say a lot of parents send their kids to Success academy because of the image. They see kids structured in uniforms, behaving well, they’re keeping quiet, they’re doing their work, and their coming out with good grades. I think the parents especially are the ones drawn in by test scores because every parent wants tso see their student do well. And when the Success Academy scores are in the 90s and the average school nearby is in the 50s, which one are you going to choose – the one in the 90s or the one in the 50s?

If I were a parent, maybe I would trust that high test scores means my child would learn what they need to in order to be prepared for college, their career, or whatever comes next.

Noa: Yeah, speaking of college – I just saw that viral video of the first student to get into an Ivy league at her Success Academy Chapter. Let’s watch it

Clip: I have a very special announcement Our school has again made history on the college acceptance front. We have our first scholar to get accepted to an Ivy League school. (Cheers)

Jeremiah: I feel like it was just very sweet like, on the announcements to hear whoever was just like, announcing it to the school and everything. Because not only did that really show support for the individual, it really like, enhanced I feel like, the community in there that aspect with everyone clapping for her because if I were in her shoes, I would be so happy for everyone clapping for me and everything just in that moment. cheering me on and just celebrating me in general. So I’m sure she appreciated that.

Noa: Yeah, and everyone is just supporting her, which is super cool. I mean, having good college acceptances must be a major draw for families.

Jeremiah: Definitely. One of their major selling points is that 100% of their graduating classes receive offers to a four-year college. And a majority of these students are accepted to selective schools. From the outside, it’s pretty impressive, especially considering 65% of these students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Noa: It really speaks to this idea I’ve heard about Success being a private school without the price tag.

Jeremiah: Yeah. I really connected with Sasha on this idea. On one hand, we were set up to thrive academically by Success, but on the other hand, we both experienced some pretty intense emotional hardship as a result.

Noa: I’m really glad you got to talk about your similarities and I hope maybe other students who went to success or families thinking about sending their kids there found something useful in the conversation too.

Jeremiah: Agreed.

Jeremiah: Success Academy did not respond to our request for comment.

Jeremiah: PS Weekly is a collaboration between the Bell and Chalkbeat made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation. Producers for this episode were me, Jeremiah Dickerson

Noa: And me, Noa Salas Adam

Jeremiah: Our senior producer for the show is Maria Robins Somerville, and our technical director is Jake Lummus.

Noa: Our executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw

Jeremiah: Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay, Zana Halili, and Katelyn Melville, and our friends at Chalkbeat

Noa: Music is from APM, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of the episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang. Thanks so much for tuning in and see you next time.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

These Memphis-area students are lobbying for mental health investments

2026-03-12T20:28:01+00:00

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On a Monday night in December, around 20 Memphis and Shelby County students sat in a conference room illuminated by a big screen projecting policy recommendations.

The group discussion sounded nearly identical to a local government meeting, aside from the occasional “6-7” joke. One at a time, the high schoolers that make up the Shelby County Youth Council suggested tweaks and changes to the policies they’ve been brainstorming since August to improve local life and especially mental health for young people.

“I feel like we’re coming in very strong about the things that we want to do,” said Maura Young, a senior at Collierville High School. “Maybe we need to take smaller steps.”

That comment was met with grumbles of disapproval from some. To be fair, a few of the goals sound lofty, like completely eliminating AI use in local government or spending $1 million to create an online hub for local mental health resources.

But with budget season just around the corner, the student leaders are trying to convince county and city leaders to fund even one of their youth-centered solutions. They’ve been making their case at county commission and school board meetings since last fall.

This school year, the group is focused on addressing youth mental health issues, which have increased in Shelby County and nationwide since the pandemic.

“I live in South Memphis, where you see a lot of stuff,” Marc Williams, a sophomore at Hollis F. Price Middle College High School, said. “It could be violence or going to broken homes, dysfunctional homes. It could be that [students] may not have food for a night.”

Tennessee ranks as one of the worst states in the country for youth mental health, with high rates of mental health conditions and low access to care. In 2021, for example, more than half of 12-to-17-year-olds struggling with depression in Tennessee did not receive help. Nearly a quarter of Shelby County high schoolers reported seriously considering suicide that year, according to the Centers for Disease and Prevention.

The mental health resource hub, one of the group’s top policy recommendations, would include a website and an in-person team to answer phone calls from Shelby County teens.

“Resources here are very scattered, and you have to do so much manual research before you can even find services,” Williams said. “It’s very based on like, tell a friend, tell a friend, instead of it being like, ‘Hey, if you need help, come here and you have all the resources.’”

Collecting data for the hub would also help identify gaps in local resources, said SCYC member Madison Thomas.

“A lot of people are duplicating efforts that don’t need to be duplicated,” Thomas, a junior at Lausanne Collegiate School in East Memphis, said. “Right now we’re very saturated in awareness efforts, but it distracts from concrete resources that could help.”

SCYC is also pushing for more school social workers and counselors, wellness rooms for decompression during the school day, and a student advisory board that would regularly meet with county and city leaders to direct mental health initiatives.

The student group, also called SCYC, is run by local nonprofit Bridges USA and has been fully funded by the Shelby County government since 2019. Around 25 student members receive $15 per hour wages for their work each year.

Zachary Harris, a junior at Lakeland Preparatory School, has been on the council for three years. He said his goal is to get just one of the group’s priorities written into the county, city, or school system budget. In September, the county commission approved a resolution to consider the group’s recommendations for budget spending but haven’t adopted one yet.

“Knowing that we can touch the budget even a little bit is all that we need to get started,” Harris told Chalkbeat. “Because if we can do it once, we can do it again.”

Youth council trains Memphis students to be public advocates

Each spring, SCYC hosts the Youth Voices Summit to train fellow peers on how to advocate for their own causes. On Feb. 28, more than 130 students showed up at the Bridges building downtown to practice giving public comments that typically happen in local government meetings to a crowd of almost 80 community leaders and 15 elected officials.

Dorian Allert, a senior at White Station High School, advocated for hiring more school mental health professionals. Her school, which holds almost 2,000 students, has only one social worker and one psychologist on staff.

“School counselors and social workers are overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid,” Allert said. “Students looking for mental health support have to wait days or even weeks to get an appointment.”

It was MSCS Board Chair Natalie McKinney’s second time attending the summit. This year, she was drawn to SCYC’s proposal to create a youth mental health advisory board.

“That has been an ongoing and persistent ask from our youth since the pandemic,” McKinney said. “What I always stress is this has to be a collaborative effort because we are a school system. We are not the mental health system. So we need to figure out how to align our systems and resources.”

McKinney said she plans to continue working with student leaders to figure out how to best implement their vision. “I firmly believe in, ‘don’t do it to us, do it with us,’” she said, referencing a phrase echoed by SCYC leaders.

Harris, the three-year SCYC veteran, said the group knows its work isn’t a short-term project. He hopes that county and city leaders like McKinney advocate for SCYC recommendations in upcoming budget creation and approval meetings.

“This is going to take years and years of work,” he said. “But the satisfaction of knowing that I at least helped one person out there through just talking to somebody, that’s perfect for me.”

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Students are more likely to support this type of school cellphone ban, new research says

2026-01-26T15:16:54+00:00

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Rebekah Munro traded in Snapchat for novels this school year.

The Oklahoma teen, 17, said a complete ban on cellphones during the school day that state lawmakers passed in 2025 means she uses more of her free time to read sci-fi and dystopian novels, her favorite genres. She’s less glued to her phone, an Android in a pastel blue case, she said.

Munro is in the narrow minority of teens — 4 in 10 — who support classroom phone bans, according to a nationwide survey out this month from Pew Research Center. And data released Monday by researchers with the University of Southern California found that 78% of teens surveyed reported that their schools have a policy limiting or completely banning phones this year.

Policies range from restrictions on using phones during class to “bell-to-bell” bans that prohibit phone use in the hallways and during lunch.

As the reins tighten on phone use in schools — with some directives coming all the way from state governments — this research offers a glimpse into how teens feel about the attention on cell phone use in schools in recent years. Policymakers and educators credit phone bans with improving school culture as well as focus in the classroom. One study even found phone bans can improve test scores.

But the data indicates that the majority of teens aren’t on board with their school’s phone bans, and support among teens wavers as the bans become more strict. About 73% of students ages 13 to 17 reported to Pew that they opposed “bell-to-bell” bans. However, students may be open to some boundaries: 68% of teens in the USC survey said they preferred rules that require students to put away their phones during class time, with 8% supporting bell-to-bell bans. The USC survey used different questions than the Pew survey.

Phone policies are evolving fast in American schools: 50% of teens said in the USC survey that the rules are different from last year, and enforcement has ramped up. About half of teens in the USC survey said their school’s policy is stricter this school year than last year. About 42% said their school’s rules were “just right,” while 48% said they were too strict, and just 9% said they were too lenient.

“There were very few teens who said they didn’t have rules in place,” said Anna Saavedra, a research scientist with the University of Southern California.

More than 30 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws or executive orders around students using their phones in schools, according to the Phone-Free Schools State Report Card, which tracks state laws governing phones in schools.

In Oklahoma, the ban is limited to this school year, but lawmakers have already introduced legislation, S.B. 1719, to extend the ban permanently. Munro said before the state law some teachers at Santa Fe High School in Edmond banned phones in their classrooms, while others did not.

“It’s really good for us to be able to be actual children and function like actual people,” she said. “I think the school system should definitely keep the phone ban.”

The USC research found that 48% of teens reported that phones are allowed in their schools but not allowed to be out during the day, 42% said their schools don’t allow phones to be used during class time but are allowed during other times, and 5% said phones aren’t allowed on school grounds. The remaining 2% reported no rules at all.

Saavedra said this research indicates these rules are working: Teens in schools with no phones allowed out estimated using devices for 1.3 hours during the school day compared with an estimated 1.6 hours a day for teens in schools with phones allowed during non-instructional time.

“Kids with bell-to-bell bans are using cell phones much less at lunchtime and in hallways,” she said.

Both USC and Pew also asked adults how they felt about phone bans. Both reported a majority of adults support restrictions.

But the majority of both teens and parents also reported in the USC survey that they don’t think the policies have affected them when it comes to issues like a sense of community, relationships between teachers and students, and bullying. Those findings belie the onslaught of attention phone bans have received from policymakers and news stories.

A lack of pushback from the people who have to follow these policies, however, means schools could double down on their efforts, Saavedra said.

“It’s also notable the level of support for having restrictions on cell phone use in classrooms.”

For Munro, the ban in Oklahoma schools has allowed her some distance from Instagram, where she often found herself comparing her own life to the opulent and flawless lifestyles of influencers.

“I definitely get more out of just being in the present and not always constantly looking at social media,” she said. “Being able to be present and being in the moment of where I’m at just makes [life] a little more realistic.”

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org.

Newark students will no longer be allowed to use cellphones in schools under new state law

2026-01-08T23:23:05+00:00

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Newark schools will go phone-free beginning this September under a new state law requiring districts to limit students from using cellphones during instructional hours.

On Thursday, in a room full of educators, students, and lawmakers at Ramsey High School, Gov. Phil Murphy signed the law requiring all New Jersey school districts to adopt new restrictions on the use of cellphones and other internet-enabled devices in K-12 schools. The state Education Department will also publish updated guidance on cellphones later this month.

The new law does not ban cellphones in schools outright but instead calls on districts to implement policies at the start of the 2026-27 school year.

The new policies should, at a minimum, provide “age-appropriate and grade-level guidelines” for restricting cellphone and social media use during classroom instruction. The policies must also allow for exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

The new law comes after the state, in December, awarded a grant to Newark and 85 other school districts that committed to phone-free schools and implementation of a “bell-to-bell” policy.

Murphy has repeatedly called for banning phones during school, and this year, the state Commission on the Effects of Social Media Usage on Adolescents issued a report that recommended a “bell-to-bell” ban on cellphones. The commission also found that cellphones and social media can affect youth self-esteem and cause anxiety and depression.

“We’re going to rid our classrooms of needless distractions and encourage our children to be more attentive and engaged during the school day,” Murphy said.

New Jersey’s phone-free schools push is part of a growing trend nationwide to ban cellphone use from the first bell to dismissal. California and New York implemented similar initiatives to limit phones in school and provide funding to districts to enforce policies.

The excessive use of smartphones and social media can impact sleep, have negative effects on youth mental health, and hinder academic performance, according to recent studies. Some school districts are also seeing a boost in test scores after implementing cellphone bans.

The new law marks one of Murphy’s final acts as governor before Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill is sworn into office on Jan. 20 in Newark. During her gubernatorial campaign, Sherrill said she supported a statewide ban on cellphones in schools and pushed for more awareness about the dangers of social media and their effects on youth mental health.

Here’s what we know about New Jersey’s phone-free schools law:

Who and what does the law apply to?

Under the new law, the state’s Commissioner of Education must update guidelines on restricting students’ use of cell phones and other internet-enabled devices, including smart watches, during regular school hours, on a school bus, or during school-sanctioned events. Students will also be barred from using social media platforms during instructional hours.

The guidelines will be published in mid-January after consultation with stakeholders, according to the state.

School boards will be required to adopt policies that align with state guidelines, while maintaining flexibility to provide reasonable accommodations as appropriate. The law will apply to K-12 public schools, including charter schools.

Murphy on Thursday said the new law will improve learning environments across the state.

“Students are more focused, they’re less anxious, and they’re socializing and laughing with each other, not through a screen, but in the hallways and classrooms,” said Murphy, referring to Ramsey High School, where phones are prohibited during school hours.

How will schools collect phones?

School districts can purchase phone storage systems such as lockers, locked pouches, or check-in cabinets to store cellphones at the start of the school day. The state’s new guidelines will include options that school districts may use to store students’ devices.

In December, Newark Public Schools was awarded $176,625 to purchase a storage system as part of the state’s Phone-Free Schools Grant Program, a $3 million appropriation in the fiscal year 2026 budget. Two Newark charter schools were also awarded grant funds: Maria L. Varisco-Rogers for $1,490, and Great Oaks Legacy for $9,022.

The goal, state leaders have previously said, is to minimize distractions during the school day and ensure students are engaged throughout instructional hours.

Are there exceptions to the law?

New school policies must address the use of cellphones during an emergency and include guidelines for students who need their phones for language translation or those responsible for caring for a family member.

Exceptions must also be made for students with disabilities and for those whose health plans require their devices to manage a medical condition. Parents will have to provide documentation from a health care provider.

Across the country, parents have raised concerns about cellphone bans, and there is evidence in other surveys that parents want their children to have a phone in school in case of an emergency. Newark Public Schools’ current cellphone policy says that in the event of an emergency, administrators will direct students on when they may safely turn on a cellphone.

How will it be enforced?

Local school boards will adopt their own policies in line with updated guidance from the state’s Education Department, which will serve as a “roadmap for creating safer, more focused learning environments,” per the state.

The state has not said how it will monitor school districts’ enforcement of the new law, but will let districts develop their own enforcement plans.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago offers free virtual therapy to students, but some have concerns

2025-11-13T22:31:13+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools high school students have access to free virtual therapy through an agreement with a for-profit company that carries no cost to the district. But a group of student privacy and mental health advocates are raising flags about the contract, arguing it may violate an Illinois student privacy law.

CPS and the company, Hazel Health, say the provider safeguards student data and has helped the district tackle a teen mental health crisis at a time of limited access to care, threatened further by looming Medicaid cuts.

“CPS has worked hard to ensure all CPS high school students have access to free, high-quality online therapy and counseling while maintaining student safety, privacy, and trust,” a district spokeswoman said in a statement.

But student privacy advocates are urging the school board to drop or overhaul the district’s agreement with Hazel Health. They say the company’s parent consent form raises concerns about the possible use of student data to develop its product in violation of the state’s online student privacy law.

“If these services are for the students, they shouldn’t be guinea pigs,” said Cassie Creswell of the nonprofit Illinois Families for Public Schools. “They shouldn’t be the data that is generating tech profits.”

The advocates say the district should prioritize expanding its stable of social workers and clinicians and working with local health centers, where staff might be more attuned to students’ communities and experiences.

School-based teletherapy exploded nationally during the pandemic, when school districts spent millions in federal COVID aid on these services as youth mental health needs skyrocketed. In Chicago, officials have pointed to results from an annual survey showing that roughly 40% of high school students report feeling persistent sadness and hopelessness and more than 15% seriously considered suicide.

Chicago is not alone in turning to teletherapy at a time when local providers have struggled to meet a massive rise in demand. As of the 2023-24 school year, 13 of the 20 largest school districts had added virtual mental health therapy for students. Some leaned on local providers, but others enlisted for-profit companies, with San Francisco-based Hazel Health emerging as a dominant player who licensed therapists serve 5 million students by its own account.

CPS said it could not provide up-to-date data on the number of students served and sessions completed since the initiative with Hazel Health launched in March. Data as of September obtained by advocates through a public records request showed that at that point, about 250 students had completed roughly 920 sessions.

In Chicago, the company charges private insurance or Medicaid for the services; an agreement with health insurance behemoth UnitedHealthcare helps with the cost. But the services might not remain free to CPS indefinitely. The company has said it is speaking with insurers, city, and state leaders about the possibility of covering services in CPS and other Illinois districts with grants, state dollars, or other funding.

Creswell and other advocates recently wrote to district interim CEO Macquline King and school board members urging them to discontinue the contract, or at least push for revisions to better protect student privacy.

Currently, the company’s consent form for families says Hazel Health can use student information for “the development and improvement of software, hardware, and related tools designed to improve services,” which Cresswell said could run afoul of the state’s Student Online Privacy Protection Act.

Kyle Hillman of the Illinois chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, another group that signed the letter to board members, said school-based social workers develop trusting relationships with students and work closely with educators. They can also bill Medicaid for services, which Hillman said is a better use of these taxpayer resources. Hillman said he doesn’t have details about Hazel Health’s services, but at some privately funded providers, a focus on profits has meant large caseloads and brisk staff turnover.

“Our position has always been that for-profit mental health is not in the best interest of kids,” he said.

In written responses to Chalkbeat, a Hazel Health spokesman stressed the company does not sell, share, or use student data for commercial purposes and safeguards it carefully in keeping with state and federal law. It said more than 70% of CPS schools have connected students with the service and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

The company did not provide information about its therapists’ caseloads. But in a letter to advocacy groups, the CPS Office of Health and Wellness wrote that Hazel aims for 25 client hours per therapist per week to allow a lot of time for prep and supervision. That letter also noted the high caseloads of more than 1,000 students per school social workers and 385 students per counselor on average across the country.

Karen Foley, the executive director of the nonprofit Juvenile Protective Association, which provides therapy at 22 mostly elementary Chicago schools, says the group of Chicago advocates has raised valid questions. Her organization keeps therapist caseloads to 20 students, who have complex mental health needs. It develops relationships with students and their families over time, and works closely with their teachers and principals.

At the same time, Foley says, young people are facing a mental health crisis, with stepped-up immigration enforcement adding to longstanding stressors, such as poverty and gun violence. She said thousands of Chicago students are struggling with mental health needs that might not be severe or visible enough to make them a priority for limited services — a void that Hazel Health’s therapists could fill.

“I believe having interested adults listening to kids is always a good thing,” she said. “We should all be trying lots of different things.”

The no-cost contract between CPS and Hazel Health, which recently absorbed two other teletherapy startups, will automatically renew in December.

Board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who flagged student mental health as a priority during his election campaign last year, said he said he is doing more research to decide if the board needs to rethink the contract with Hazel Health.

He is taking the advocates’ concerns seriously, but he’s also heard from school employees who’ve said the free therapy has been welcome “at a time of scarcity, when families don’t know where to get their students’ needs met.”

Chalkbeat Chicago bureau chief Becky Vevea contributed to this report.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Fewer Memphis students are showing up to mental health assemblies. This state law may be to blame.

2025-10-23T20:31:06+00:00

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Tennessee’s largest school district is reaching significantly fewer students in school-wide suicide and bullying prevention trainings, and Memphis leaders say it’s because of a controversial parents’ rights law passed in 2024.

Donna Goings, who leads the mental health centers in Memphis-Shelby County Schools, said the number of students attending these “lifesaving” assemblies fell by two-thirds last year. That’s because the Tennessee Families’ Rights and Responsibilities Act requires districts to receive verbal or written consent from parents for psychological and other health care services.

Goings said the majority of those permission slips aren’t brought back.

“Before it was passive consent, so if students didn’t bring the [permission] form back, we assumed that it was OK,” she said. “Now we have to physically have you say, ‘Yes, my child can participate.’ That’s severely impacted the number of students that we’re able to see.”

The 2024 law has already been revised once because of unintended consequences. Earlier this year, state lawmakers amended the language to allow school nurses to provide “non-emergency first aid” for students without parent permission. That change came after some school staff and parents complained the law prevented students from receiving the most basic care.

In the original law, school mental health staff were blocked from providing any counseling or psychological services without consent. The amended version now allows school counselors or psychologists who are licensed by the state board of education to provide “preventative and developmental counseling” without limit.

But in MSCS, the suicide and bullying prevention assemblies are typically run by school social workers. Social workers focus more on therapeutic support for students, Goings said, while psychologists run evaluations and give diagnoses. Leaving social workers out of the list of exempted providers creates a legal barrier, she said.

Sen. Ferrell Haile (R-Gallatin), who sponsored the original bill, said MSCS is misinterpreting the amended legislation.

“The intent of the law is to protect parental rights related to individual counseling and medical decisions—not to restrict general educational or preventative initiatives offered to all students,” Haile said in an email to Chalkbeat.

Haile says he hasn’t heard reports of the family rights law reducing these school-wide prevention services elsewhere. He’s open to making more amendments, he said, but there aren’t any plans for changes in the upcoming legislative session.

The push for parental rights in education has been a key platform point for conservatives nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic. Some local and state efforts focus specifically on parents’ ability to control their child’s exposure to topics like sexuality and race, while others more broadly establish rights to direct education decisions.

Advocates for more oversight in education, including conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, say parents know best what their child can and should be exposed to. But opponents say these measures politicize school environments and hinder teachers’ ability to educate and support students.

Haile said the 2024 Tennessee law is meant to “protect parents’ God-given rights” to be the “primary decision makers for their children.”

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

How to improve restorative justice in NYC schools

2025-10-03T20:44:05+00:00

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This originally aired on The Bell’s Miseducation podcast on June 18.

In New York City schools, restorative justice – or RJ – has been around for almost a decade. It’s a way to repair harm by bringing together the person who caused it, the person affected, and the community.

Restorative justice circles are designed to help students heal, take accountability, and build stronger communities, but too often they feel like just another routine. Most RJ schools rely on circles — structured conversations that serve three tiers: Tier 1 community-building before harm occurs; Tier 2 conflict resolution when harm happens; and Tier 3 reintegration after healing.

At my Brooklyn high school, we sit in a circle twice a week, yet phones stay out and eyes glaze over. Far from the healing practice they’re meant to be, these sessions can become checkbox exercises.

As a peer mediator and RJ leader, I’ve seen both their promise and their pitfalls. Black students are suspended 3.4 times more than their white peers. Studies show that even minor suspensions can derail academic achievement for years. A 2022 citywide study found that some students “do not care, do not pay attention, or fall asleep during circle”. I see my peers doing the same. So I started asking: What would it actually take to make it work? And how should we reassess success — beyond suspension rates — to include trust, student voice, and genuine community healing?

Join me as I dig into the gap between adult-led and student-led circles, sit down with restorative justice facilitator Javon Lomax, and make the case that real healing demands students, not just staff, at the forefront.

This is a video-first episode. You can watch it now on YouTube.

Miseducation is The Bell’s flagship podcast, which gives New York City public high school students the tools to report on inequities in the nation’s largest school system.

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How NYC educators are pushing the joys of ‘cellphone-free’ over fears of ‘cellphone ban’

2025-09-22T21:34:39+00:00

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Two weeks into the school year, Manhattan school social worker Jessica Chock-Goldman spotted about 20 students huddled in the courtyard during lunch. Her first thought: a student had smuggled in a cellphone.

As part of New York’s statewide ban on personal internet-enabled devices, Bard High School Early College had just rolled out its cellphone collection policy, and Chock-Goldman was prepared for students to test its limits.

She approached the group and made a surprising discovery. They were marveling at a baby bird nestled inside of a plant.

She called it the “perfect fairy-tale story example” of how the cellphone ban has opened up new opportunities for students to engage with the world and with each other.

“It’s truly more socializing than I’ve seen in my 10 years working in a high school,” she said.

As students adapt to the “bell-to-bell” ban on cellphones in schools, parents, educators, and mental health workers have already noticed benefits — from stronger social connections and improved focus to fewer fights and incidents of bullying.

Still, not all students are on board with the changes, and adults are working to support them through the transition, figuring out ways to better respond to their emotional needs and trying to shift their mindset by using language like “cellphone free” instead of “cellphone ban” to emphasize students’ freedom from their devices.

“The word ‘ban,’ the word ‘don’t,’ the words ‘take away’ — kids don’t want to hear that. Even as adults, we don’t want to hear that,” said Whitney Walton, a social worker and professional development facilitator at Counseling In Schools, a nonprofit that places mental health professionals in New York City schools.

Students check their phones after dismissal from the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan.

KIPP NYC College Prep High School in the Bronx began enforcing its own “bell-to-bell” ban on cellphones in 2023. Instead of calling it a ban, the school used the term “electronic free zone” and reinforced it with regular student check-ins.

“I would just ask them, ‘Well, what do you think? How do you think the cellphone-free zone has shifted?’” Principal Monica Samuels said.

At first, students were quiet, but over time, they became more vocal about the benefits, she said, especially in the classroom.

Abrielle, a 17-year-old senior, said she has developed a better relationship with her teachers.

“ Sometimes when I was confused and I wasn’t sure, I would search it up on my phone, but now I just ask my teachers,” she said.

Highlighting these kinds of positive outcomes will be key to a smoother transition, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling In Schools. He urged adults to “put the emphasis on freedom” and help students see the opportunities that come from being less tied to their devices.

City and state leaders have already made an effort to focus on the positive aspects of the new law. Recently, New York City Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos described banning cellphones as creating “distraction-free zones.”

And Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled “Frankie Focus,” a fuzzy, neon-green mascot, during an appearance at a Brooklyn middle school as part of her ongoing campaign to promote the ban.

“He is very focused on learning in school, focused on the teachers, focused on making friends,” Hochul said about the mascot.

Despite these and other efforts to make the ban more palatable to students, some still don’t like it.

“It’s kind of bad, honestly,” said Danny Diaz, a sophomore at A-Tech High School in Brooklyn.

Danny said the school day drags on now without access to personal devices.

“It can get boring sometimes … to socialize because you have nothing to talk about,” the 15-year-old said.

Schools work to ease communication fears about cellphone ban

Many schools are collecting and storing phones, while others let students keep their devices locked in cloth Yondr pouches. Some of the city’s largest high schools have opted for velcro pouches, including Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Townsend Harris, and Edward R. Murrow High School. These less expensive options block the internet but don’t have locks. Other schools allow students to store their devices in their own lockers.

According to the Department of Education, roughly 820 schools are using pouches, about 600 employ some type of storage bin, and approximately 550 rely on classroom collection methods.

A group of friends check their phones after dismissal from the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan.

Under the new law, schools must explain how students, families, and schools can communicate in the event of an emergency.

KIPP NYC College Prep uses DeansList, a system it relied on before the ban. Murrow and Townsend Harris use a messaging system called GAMA (Townsend Harris also uses Jupiter), and Brooklyn Tech uses the NYC Schools Account app.

Some schools, like Beacon High School in Manhattan, have delayed implementation of the ban as they work through logistical concerns.

“[W]e first need time to build the communication systems that ensure student and parent comfort,” Principal Jeannie Ferrari wrote to teachers and families before the start of the school year.

As Beacon rolls out its cellphone policy later this fall, the school will use the Kinvo texting app, which allows parents to stay in touch with staff and receive important messages. Beacon’s main office landline and school email will also remain available.

Beacon’s principal did not respond to an interview request.

Chock-Goldman, Bard Manhattan’s social worker, said this fall is a transition for parents as well as students.

“I do think a lot of this is parent anxiety,” she said. “ I do believe schools have the ability to be in touch with parents if anything happens.”

Walton said cellphones often function as modern-day “transitional objects” — not unlike stuffed animals that children may hold close as they gain independence or cope with stressful life events.

She said she’s noticed some schools take that into account in their rollout of the policy. For example, some are encouraging students to decorate their Yondr pouches.

Allowing KIPP students to carry their cellphones — even though they are locked in Yondr pouches — helped ease the transition not just into a phone-free school but also back to in-person learning after COVID, Samuels said.

“ Initially it was like a security blanket. And I understand because they were required to be on screen for a year-and-a-half, so it was a big shift for them,” she said.

Students check their phones after dismissal from the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan.

Two years into the ban, Samuels said the changes didn’t come without challenges.

“We collected hundreds of burner phones the first year,” Samuels said, laughing.

One student even charged classmates a dollar to unlock pouches using a gadget, she said, prompting staff to communicate and enforce clear consequences.

KIPP senior Yaovi, 17, said that transition to a phone-free school wasn’t easy at first.

“I didn’t know what to do with the free time that I had when I wasn’t on my phone,” he said.

But over time, he noticed he was earning better grades and developing stronger friendships.

“Honestly, I would say be patient with it,” he advised other students.

Seyma Bayram is a New York City-based journalist. You can reach her at sbayram@chalkbeat.org.

New York state high schools train teens in mental health first aid

2025-09-22T19:19:51+00:00

This story was originally published by Healthbeat. Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free national newsletter here.

High schools across New York state are training students on how to support their peers in crisis, as rates of teen anxiety, depression, and suicide continue to climb across the country.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 40% of U.S. high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2023, with nearly 1 in 5 saying they had seriously considered suicide.

The training initiative is part of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s broader youth mental health strategy, which aims to equip young people not only to care for their own well-being, but also to support peers in crisis — and to recognize when to guide them toward professional help.

“Peer-to-peer support is something so integral at this stage of our lives,” said 17-year-old Jacob Wolmetz, a high school senior from Suffolk County who serves on the Governor’s Youth Council. Teenagers “might not feel comfortable talking to a school social worker or counselor. It’s easier to confide in people you trust.”

A new response to crisis: teens helping teens

Teen Mental Health First Aid was started by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, a nonprofit focused on mental health policy and social change. This training program created for teens 15 to 18, helps them recognize and respond to mental health and substance use challenges among their peers. In the course, students learn how to spot common warning signs, understand the effects of bullying and school violence on mental well-being, engage in meaningful conversations with classmates about mental health, and know when to involve a trusted adult.

To grow and expand this initiative in the state, Hochul announced $20 million in funding to expand Teen Mental Health First Aid and other early intervention programs across public schools earlier this year.

Mental Health Association in New York State was one of the organizations awarded some of the funding via a grant to implement teen mental health first aid in high schools throughout the state.

“It’s $10 million over the next five years to continue to build capacity and train about 2,500 adults and teens a year, and create about 200 new instructors across the state every year,” said Katie Oldakowski, director of training for MHANYS.

Here’s how Teen Mental Health First Aid works

Students ages 14 to 18 can become certified in Teen Mental Health First Aid, either through their high school or an outside organization. In schools, the training may be led by certified teachers or staff members, or by external instructors who come in to deliver the program on-site.

“We work with schools who already have funding, and for those who don’t, we help them from the very beginning — developing an implementation plan, offering technical assistance, and ensuring instructors are supported every step of the way,” Oldakowski said.

Jamie Hagenbuch, program manager of Mental Health First Aid at the Madison County Rural Health Council, visits high schools in multiple suburban and rural counties in New York, including Madison, Broome, Chenango, Otsego, Schoharie, and Onondaga.

Wolmetz was certified in TMHFA through Cohen Strong, a youth mental health advocacy program run by Northwell Health. Over six weeks, he attended weekly live sessions and completed interactive modules that covered topics like crisis response, active listening, and boundary setting.

“It was really interesting and helpful to get this training on how to support friends that are dealing with mental health struggles or crises,” Wolmetz said.

For students like him, the training was more than just academic. “I try to make sure that my friends know that I’m always available. I’ve definitely helped friends who are dealing with different mental health problems,” he said.

Program has promising results, but uneven access

Early studies suggest Teen Mental Health First Aid can improve students’ confidence in helping peers and reduce stigma around mental illness. Research conducted in collaboration with the National Council for Wellbeing and Johns Hopkins University indicates trained students are more likely to intervene appropriately, have greater empathy for those with mental health challenges, and can identify helpful resources for their friends

Metro Atlanta program looks to support high-schoolers responsible for caregiving at home

But not every New York high school student has access to the program, especially those outside well-resourced districts. Hagenbuch and her team are working to facilitate access in more rural parts of the state, to communities who need it most.

“We’re not in an urban community. Sometimes it takes an hour if somebody’s in crisis. We don’t always have mobile crisis teams. That’s why it’s so important to wrap services around teens in school,” Hagenbuch said.

Hochul’s office said the new funding will go toward expanding access statewide, prioritizing underserved communities. However, the rollout has been slow, and no clear public data exists yet on how many schools have implemented the program.

Peer training is not a replacement for professional care

While peer training can fill an important gap, mental health advocates caution that it’s not a replacement for professional care. The burden should not fall on teens to manage their friends’ mental health, especially without follow-up systems in place.

“We can’t, as young people, handle everyone else’s problems. We need to be able to refer them to help and resources so that they get the care they need,” Wolmetz said.

Another challenge is that it may not be feasible for teachers to provide the training to students, particularly in underfunded schools with limited staff. High turnover among school personnel and administrative leadership can also pose a barrier to implementing the program with in-house instructors, Oldakowski said.

“The issue is capacity — teachers want this training, but they don’t always have the bandwidth. That’s why we help schools bring in instructors or develop internal capacity in a way that works for them,” she said.

Still, advocates say the program offers a powerful starting point to make a difference in the lives of students.

“Helping community helps community — reducing stigma and opening up conversations — can save lives,” Hagenbuch said.

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.”

Anika Nayak is a freelance reporter in New York.

This NYC teacher is learning how to fight burnout and improve educators’ well-being

2025-09-17T11:31:38+00:00

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Natalie Yasmin Soto pours herself into her job teaching English as a new language to students at a Manhattan transfer school.

For 10 years she’s been at the James Baldwin School, serving students who tend to have struggled in traditional settings and are at-risk of dropping out. For the past three years, she’s also worked as her school’s teacher co-director, closely watching how local and national policy shifts affected not only students and families, but also educators and support staff.

Natalie Yasmin Soto studied well-being practices this summer she plans to share with her colleagues.

This summer, she had the time, space, and funding to grapple with these matters and dream up some possible solutions. Through the Fund for Teachers, she enrolled in “Resilience and Well-Being Strengths for Teachers” and “Energy Tools and Mind-Body Activities for Self-Care” courses in Barcelona, Spain and Florence, Italy. (This year, 351 teachers across the nation won grants between $5,000 to $10,000 for self-directed summer study.)

“We are deeply invested in supporting our young people to become self-sufficient adults who are compassionate, healthy, inquisitive, and joyful contributors in the world. But doing this work IS work,” Soto said. “And you cannot pour from an empty vessel.”

Over the course of this year, she hopes to share the new skills she’s learned with her colleagues to help them feel more balanced while increasing their “capacity to serve and respond as we weather the changes ahead.”

In many ways, Soto said, the challenges of working with young people remain the same: making sure that students are learning things that feel relevant and useful. But now, there’s an added layer of doing that amid “an individual and collective fear and threat to the safety of themselves and their families,” especially for her students who are undocumented or from mixed status families.

She tries to stay grounded by finding the small victories.

“It’s when a student makes it to class on time or meets a deadline despite the responsibilities of work or sibling care. It’s when they become comfortable enough to talk to another student and they have lunch together,” she said. “The triumphs are in the moments when, despite all of the pressures and fears and noise, they get to be kids. They get to be learners.”

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

How and when did you decide to become a teacher?

I’ve realized my answer to this varies over time – shifts in perspective and all that. But I think the truth is I fell into teaching from a place of curiosity and indignation.

While in a Ph.D. program at an Ivy League institution in my early 20s, I taught a course I’d designed on short stories. From a compositional and grammatical perspective, students’ writings were often without major error. Their analyses were arguably adequate, but lacking in depth.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself teaching in a very different setting. Almost all of my students were first-generation college attendees, many children of or themselves immigrants from the Caribbean, and at least half were adults 20+ years my senior attending college for the first time.

But what I found, consistently, was that despite their depth of analysis in discussion and the nuance in their understanding of the connections and complexities of family dynamics and inequities, their writing – from a composition perspective – didn’t capture their brilliance, insights, analyses, or experiences.

I’d had students when I was teaching in the Ivory Tower who never once doubted their skills or their right to sit in a college classroom, despite an absence of life experience and still-developing critical thinking skills, and yet here were students who looked like me who lacked the confidence to continue. I thought, “How do I lower the first-year college dropout rate?” and figured, “Well, I’ll just leave academia and get licensed to teach high school.”

It makes me laugh a little that, to me, the solution was both so obvious and so simple – and maybe naive? But, years later, here I am.

Can you tell us a bit more about some of the challenges you’ve been seeing with those students and how this summer’s work might help?

For many in New York City Public Schools, the influx of newcomers in our classrooms has raised unanticipated challenges – ones that exceed the need for added language acquisition support and test the unconscious biases that even the best-intentioned harbor.

I’m really proud to be a part of a community that, I think, does consistently admirable work in meeting the emotional regulation needs of our students and their families – newcomers, long-term [English language learners], and home language speakers of English alike. I genuinely watch my colleagues and administrators in amazement at the skills they have in this regard.

But that skill demands a lot of labor and effort, no matter how many years in you are. It’s my hope that in expanding our adults’ reservoirs in this arena, we’ll be better positioned as a community to take on the work of learning how to increase our instructional capacity across English language proficiencies to better teach our city’s newcomers.

Any best practices you can share with other teachers regarding working with English language learners?

A best practice that I think too often gets overlooked is being deliberate in our communications with families and loved ones. Don’t assume because a child is not a designated [English language learner] that their families wouldn’t prefer communications in a language other than English. Confirm in which language families prefer written communications versus spoken ones. When utilizing an interpreter, direct your communications to the family member, not the interpreter.

Remember that, for so many families, schools can be scary. They can be intimidating places of judgment and even chastisement, and no matter a student’s behavior or academic performance, families are our partners in the work and deserving of dignity and respect.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

At Baldwin, we have crew (advisory), and two of my absolute favorite lesson series to run in advisory are one based on unconscious bias and the other is more financial literacy related.

The first is great to run at the start of the year whenever you have a new-ish group. It’s fun for students because it gives them the permission to outline all of their assumptions about you and then work collectively to interrogate/reflect on what they’re basing those assumptions on. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it builds community and I’m all for it!

The other is both sociology- and financial literacy-based. It comes up whenever a student says they can’t wait to move out on their own after high school. (And there is always at least one!) We do a StreetEasy deep dive, project necessary budgets, and conduct asset mapping to interrogate what accounts for the differences across ZIP codes.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your classroom (or your school)?

Censorship in education, at both the national and local level, is an undeniable force that both interferes with the education of young people and undermines the professional integrity and skills of teachers. There is a moral imperative to provide young people with information that is rooted in fact and teach them how to identify falsehoods, verify sourcing, and interrogate perspectives so that they can draw their own conclusions, take their own stands, and determine how they want to show up in the world.

When narratives are falsified, limited, and/or manipulated, when explicit and implicit gag orders are issued, we rob young people – and society – of the opportunity to build a compassionate world that is solutions-oriented and responsive, rather than retaliatory, self-righteous, and violent.

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

NYC school year starts with new schools, a phone ban, and looming mayoral election

2025-09-04T21:00:48+00:00

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Middle schoolers arrived at I.S. 5 in Queens Thursday morning with a mix of first-day emotions. They mourned the end of summer, nervously awaited classroom assignments, and some shed tears despite the bouquets of “welcome” balloons.

Seventh grader Gabriel Chrisman said he would miss sleeping late and playing video games. He hoped for hands-on learning rather than textbook-oriented lessons. Aarav Patel was anxious to learn whether he’ll make it into honors classes at the Elmhurst school. “I’m hoping mostly I’ll get good grades,” said the seventh grader.

The new school year brings an array of changes and challenges to the nation’s largest school system, with a new cellphone ban, looming class size requirements, and a mayoral race that could bring new leadership to the Education Department midway through the school year.

Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani and Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, visited I.S. 5 to highlight the school’s efforts to reduce class sizes and its success banning cellphones. About a 48-minute transit ride away in another part of Queens, Mayor Eric Adams joined the city’s schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos at HBCU Early College Prep High School, one of seven new schools opening this fall.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running for mayor as an independent, did not have any public first day of school appearances. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa planned to visit a Queens K-8 school after dismissal.

Adams, who trails all of the other candidates in most polls, returned not far from where he grew up to make the case that he has invested in underserved neighborhoods by opening high-performing schools.

“Oftentimes communities like Southeast Queens are overlooked,” Adams told the crowd during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at HBCU Early College Prep. “Not in this administration. We are going to make sure you get the same skills and tools that will prepare you for the future.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams appeared alongside other elected officials and school administrators during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at HBCU Early College Prep, a new high school in Southeast Queens, on the first day of school on Sept. 4, 2025.

The first-of-its-kind school aims to foster academic excellence and a sense of belonging among Black and brown students by drawing on the legacy of historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

Through a partnership with the HBCU Delaware State University, students will be able to take online courses with professors at the university, who will also serve as faculty mentors. They can earn a tuition-free associate degree while still in high school, and they’re also guaranteed admission to Delaware State.

The selective school admits students based on grades, which account for 30% of a student’s admissions application. Students must also complete two writing prompts and a video.

“This is a huge opportunity for us, and we’re excited,” said Far Rockaway resident and parent Trudy Quintyne.

Quintyne first heard about the new school last spring when her son — now a senior at Delaware State — showed her an Instagram post announcing its opening.

“My son is actually the first one to go to college. So now to have her follow in his footsteps — it’s amazing,” Quintyne said Thursday as she dropped off her 14-year-old daughter, Maliya, for her first day.

“I feel good to be in a school that represents me,” said Maliya, who is among the roughly 100 students in HBCU Early College Prep’s inaugural freshman class. “To be somewhere where you’re supported, where people love you, and want to see you succeed … it’s just amazing to be in a place like that.”

Students arrive at HBCU Early College Prep, a new high school in Southeast Queens.

Ringing in a statewide cellphone ban

Besides being at a new school, Maliya was still adjusting to the cellphone ban before classes began.

“I love being on my phone!” she said.

Her mother interjected, laughing: “No, I love the ban.”

Roughly half of the city’s schools already had some restrictions on cellphones in place, whether they collected devices or had students carry them locked in pouches. But the new state law requires all public schools ban students’ personal internet-enabled devices from “bell to bell,” with some exceptions.

Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani on the first day of school at I.S. 5.

I.S. 5 has required students to place their phones in lockable pouches since 2024, which Mulgrew and Mamdani trumpeted as a model for other schools.

“To be young in this moment is to feel a relentless amount of pressure to not only be online,” Mamdani said, “but to be subject to the incentives and the imperatives of an algorithm.”

He said the ban should help reduce bullying and other disciplinary issues.

Adams, too, talked about the need to reduce bullying. The share of New York City students who report that their classmates harass or intimidate each other online has grown in the wake of the pandemic.

“Young people met and sat down with us and stated that they’re tired of the bullying on the cell phones,” Adams told students and community members at HBCU Early College Prep. “They’re tired of the violence that comes from the cellphones. … they’re tired of watching their friends go through depression, suicidal ideations.”

Zahidul Amin, whose daughter is starting sixth grade at I.S. 5, had mixed feelings about the cellphone ban. He worried about contacting his daughter in an emergency, though he acknowledged that students may surreptitiously use their phones to play games during class. Ultimately, he agreed that schools should collect them.

He said his main hope for the school year is for his daughter, who is on the autism spectrum, to make progress in math, a subject that has tripped her up. He’s also hopeful that she’ll become more independent.

“It’s the very first day of middle school, it’s a new chapter of her life, and as a parent I’m delighted,” he said.

Families gather for drop off at I.S. 5.

Thousands of new teachers in NYC classes

Schools across the city are hiring thousands of new teachers to comply with a state mandate to sharply reduce class sizes — and Mulgrew pointed to I.S. 5 as an early success story.

The school received funding for 21 new teachers, the second highest number of roughly 740 schools awarded more than $400 million to shrink classes. That will allow all of its classes to have 23 or fewer students, meeting the new caps, said Principal Kelly Nepogoda.

The city so far hired about 3,200 of the 3,700 additional teachers needed, Mulgrew said. (An Education Department spokesperson declined to confirm current hiring figures.)

Luisa Zapata, a parent association leader at I.S. 5, said her son, a seventh grader, had 30 students in his classes last year. She believes the change will make it easier for him to pay attention and get more individual support from his teachers.

Luisa Zapata, a parent leader at I.S. 5.

“It’s really a big deal because the classroom will be less crowded,” she said.

Mamdani, who won the teachers union’s endorsement in the November general election, indicated he would not waiver from implementing the law, which passed after intense lobbying from the union.

“The question of compliance has too often been a negotiation,” Mamdani said, “as opposed to something that we are all equally working alongside to fulfill.”

Mayoral election hangs over the school year

On the campaign trail, Mamdani often talks about how out-of-school factors, such as affordable housing and groceries, can improve student outcomes, since children facing housing and food insecurity often struggle to show up to class or concentrate on school work. The mayoral frontrunner has also promised to make child care more affordable and give communities a greater say in Education Department policies, though he has not released a detailed K-12 platform.

Asked on Thursday how he would improve the city’s highest-need schools, Mamdani said he would eliminate wasteful spending on contacts and consultants and direct more funding to classrooms.

But he did not outline any specific policy proposals or commit to releasing a more comprehensive plan before the election. “We are continuing to develop policy,” he said.

Adams’ education agenda has focused on overhauling reading and math instruction as well as expanding access to career opportunities before graduation. His mayoral opponents have largely signaled they will continue the literacy program mandates.

Cuomo recently released his plans to replace “chronically underperforming” schools with a “high performance model,” such as early college high schools, “innovative” or “specialized” schools, or charter schools.

Sliwa released his schools plan on Thursday, calling for more theme-based and vocational schools and an end to the state’s charter school cap.

The mayoral election, however, was far from many parents’ minds at I.S. 5.

After the press conference wound down just a few feet from the school’s main entrance, some families snapped photos and shook Mamdani’s hand. Several others remarked that they weren’t sure who he was.

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

Seyma Bayram is a New York City-based journalist. You can reach her at sbayram@chalkbeat.org.

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

How much is your NYC school getting for state’s new cellphone ban?

2025-08-07T21:10:28+00:00

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How much money is your school getting to implement the statewide “bell-to-bell” cellphone ban this school year?

Each New York City public school is entitled to one-time funding amounting to $25.90 per student, determined by the number of students in grades 3-12, according to Education Department documents.

For the city’s most densely populated schools, the price tag to implement the bans is eye-popping: Brooklyn Tech, the nation’s largest high school, is getting more than $145,000. Francis Lewis High School in Queens is getting more than $122,000, and Brooklyn’s James Madison High School is receiving more than $110,000.

In all, the city is sending more than $16 million to schools, according to the July 24 budget documents. City officials had previously said they earmarked $29 million, with the city contributing $25 million and the state kicking in $4 million. When asked about the discrepancy, Education Department officials said they plan to use the additional money to support schools as needs arise.

The funds can go toward purchasing pouches or setting up cellphone lockers from Education Department-approved sellers, including at schools that already had bans in place. Roughly 800 of the city’s 1,600 schools already collected phones or allowed students to carry their phones locked in pouches.

As of last month, 26 states banned or limited cellphone usage in K-12 schools, according to Ballotpedia.

Many New York City educators have been longing for a more consistent approach to cellphones. But some students — and their parents — are concerned about time-consuming storage logistics and the ability to connect during emergencies. Even though schools must provide at least one way for parents to contact their children in the case of an emergency, including a direct number for the school, some families say those numbers don’t always work.

And no policy will be foolproof: Students have found ways around the rules, putting dummy phones in storage lockers or figuring out ways to unlock the pouches. Possible consequences for violating the rules include confiscating devices. Though schools cannot suspend students solely for using devices during the school day, they can suspend for repeated refusal to surrender or store phones, the Education Department’s rules state.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos emailed a letter to families earlier this month, urging them to review the city’s recently revised school cellphone policy.

Her note included an anecdote from Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology’s principal about how implementing a ban last year transformed the vibe in and out of the classroom.

“Within the first week, teachers were saying they were finishing lessons they used last year 5-10 minutes faster, because of the lack of interruption from phones and the increased engagement,” Principal Kristina Dvorakovskaya wrote. “The cafeteria actually felt like a high school! Students at tables were talking to each other. The yard was packed with kids playing sports.”

Students will not be allowed to use internet-enabled devices — including cellphones, tablets, and smart watches — during school hours while on campus, including school yards and athletic fields. (Students can take their devices if they go off campus for lunch.)

Exceptions to the ban include students with medical conditions, translation needs, and devices required by a student’s special education plan. Student caregivers might also be allowed to keep their devices on a case-by-case basis.

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

Mentorship, tutoring, fun: Social workers in training tackle middle school mental health

2025-07-30T18:25:31+00:00

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Eric Tate felt tired.

The 12-year-old from Brooklyn was up late again, playing on his phone and watching movies. He would rather have been home sleeping than in school on that Friday in May.

But Eric perked up when Marshall “Mars” Leonard pulled him from a schoolwide town hall to hang out with him in a space carved out on the second floor in the massive building housing the Meyer Levin Middle School.

Frankly, the tween said, he doesn’t much like school at all, with a major exception.

“I like being here,” said Eric, who wrapped up seventh grade last month.

Eric’s rapport with Leonard goes deep. They bond over horror movies. They play Crazy Eights. And Leonard recently relearned how to teach math to help Eric, who moved his grade up from a 55 to 80. (Leonard admitted to using ChatGPT to help him.)

Leonard is Eric’s mentor. He’s a graduate social work student at Adelphi University, who was placed at the East Flatbush middle school through an organization called the Arthur Project, which prepares clinicians-in-training to provide mentoring that focuses on school, family, friendships, and health to students with unmet academic, social, or mental health needs.

The program takes a therapeutic approach, but it’s not therapy. The students set individualized goals with their mentors through fun 1-on-1 activities and in small groups. For their Saturday community programs, they’ve taken students to the movies, to an escape room, and to play paint ball. The program exclusively focuses on middle school, an often overlooked but challenging time for kids as their bodies and brains are rapidly changing. It’s also an age where professionals are seeing greater mental health challenges.

“We know that kids feel extraordinarily lonely, that they consider self harm and suicide way more often than we want them to,” Jessica Greenawalt, executive director and co-founder of the Arthur Project. “It used to be pretty rare to hear a 10- or 11-year-old-talk about and seriously contemplate or attempt or complete even suicide, and it has become way more common.”

A 2023 Health Department survey on New York City teens found that most worry about the future or something bad happening to them or their families — a potential sign of anxiety, according to city officials. The survey found 48% of teens experienced depressive symptoms, with 11% experiencing severe symptoms, and 16% of the respondents saying they had seriously considered suicide in the previous 12 months.

The Arthur Project has seen significant improvements in youth mental health, with 67% of its participants experiencing improvement in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder over the 2023-24 school year, according to the organization’s most recently available data.

Greenawalt said her organization takes into account serious mental health issues while also exploring how they intersect with academic engagement and social emotional wellness. And they look for ways to help students even if they don’t explicitly talk about mental health with a student.

“We’re still supporting mental health by giving our kids a voice, by supporting their engagement, their feelings of connectedness and belonging, their essential skill development,” Greenawalt said. “We might not ever even talk about mental health with a particular student, but their mental health improves because they’re getting this really deep, intensive, self-determined type of support and opportunities, [and to] practice those things in a safe environment with safe adults.”

Eric Tate, 12, a student at the Meyer Levin Middle School, plays a game about identifying emotions with Marshall "Mars" Leonard, a mentor through the Arthur Project.

For Eric, getting help on math was a gamechanger. As Eric’s math grade rose, so did his confidence.

“Remember we were doing long division and I had these crazy methods of doing it because I was kind of just trying to do it intuitively,” Leonard said to Eric, “and it occurred to me … I’m not teaching this right. So then after that I went to chatGPT, and I was like, OK, how do seventh graders do long division?”

Together they figured it out, and math is now Eric’s favorite subject, he said.

Eric and Leonard also talk about emotions, not always an easy feat for many of the tweens. So the mentors sometimes give kids incentives or other prizes to encourage them. And while the mentees might not directly talk about mental health, they do fill out mental health assessments to see how they’ve changed throughout the year.

The program is not mandatory, Leonard said. Giving the students the choice of whether to come is helpful, he believes. His job is to make a space they want to be part of.

“I’m not a teacher. I’m not a disciplinary figure,” Leonard said to Eric. “You get to kind of be yourself and do what you wanna do … Even if we’re not talking about your most intense stuff, it’s still just kind of like a nice zone to relax.”

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

Is New Jersey’s revamped mental health program for students working?

2025-07-30T15:14:01+00:00

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At the beginning of the 2023 school year, New Jersey launched a program to increase mental health services for students.

The plan created 15 hubs, or treatment service centers, throughout the state, in an effort to provide preventive and “brief intervention” mental health services to more public-school students.

That program, known as the New Jersey Statewide Student Support Services network, or NJ4S, was a response to the “sharp increase” in the rates of depression, anxiety, and stress among New Jersey teenagers and young adults that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The state budget recently signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy dedicates $43 million to the program, which keeps funding flat for the program.

So far, nearly three years into the state’s plan, the program has been responsive and effective in helping to address the mental health needs of children, according to school employees who spoke with NJ Spotlight News.

“What I like is the relationship that develops between the student and the counselor that keeps them coming [back],” Andrew Becker, a district supervisor and social worker in the North Bergen School District, said of the mental health services available to students through the state’s plan. “That’s really important.”

State data through mid-March shows that over 521,000 people have attended or received services through workshops and assemblies addressing substance use, conflict resolution and lifestyle changes to improve mental health, among other offerings. These services, known as Tier 1 services, are available for all students in the state, their parents and school faculty.

Mental health concerns for children, teens made worse by pandemic

However, some students need more care options, especially those seeking more intensive mental health support, said other school officials. But that intensive mental health care is not a focus of the NJ4S program.

To fill that need, some school districts are hiring their own mental health clinicians to provide intensive services, which superintendents say are desperately needed.

“The overall response that we’ve experienced from the schools is that it’s pretty hard to access NJ4S. There’s so many students that have need and some of the areas, there’s just not that many clinicians to provide the services,” said Teresa Ely, regional vice president at Effective School Solutions, which provides mental health support to about 50 New Jersey school districts outside of NJ4S.

Children and adolescents have faced significant mental health concerns in recent years that were made worse by the pandemic. In 2023, 40% of high school students in the U.S. felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped doing their usual activities, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year in New Jersey, 54 people between the ages of 15 and 24 died by suicide, according to provisional Health Department data. In 2023, 79 people in the same age range died by suicide.

Even younger New Jersey residents have been impacted. In 2023, five children between the ages of 10 and 14 died by suicide, according to provisional state data. Last year, 11 children in the same age range also died by suicide.

NJ4S services include suicide prevention, clinical intervention

Under the NJ4S model, each hub includes a director, mental health crisis prevention consultants, and mental health counselors who deliver services to schools, libraries, community centers, social service agencies, and faith-based organizations.

Community organizations have been hired to run each hub, which also has a local advisory board that includes students, parents, school representatives and faith leaders.

The aim of NJ4S is to serve as a prevention program, not to address severe mental health concerns or crisis situations, according to a website that introduces and explains the network. Additionally, the program is designed to avoid duplicating services and to efficiently use the limited pool of mental health experts available in New Jersey, according to an April 2023 news release from the state.

“It’s not meant to replace the innovations you already have,” Department of Children and Families Commissioner Christine Norbut Beyer told a group of principals at a spring conference. “It’s not meant to replace the clinician that maybe is in your office or your substance abuse counselor. It is an enhancement.”

The hubs provide three tiers of services. Services in the first tier are available for all students in the state, their parents, and school faculty. These include workshops on substance use, conflict resolution, and lifestyle changes to improve mental health, among other offerings.

The second tier is for students who need services for issues including substance-use prevention, suicide prevention, and pregnancy prevention. These services are offered to smaller groups of students.

The third tier involves individual services provided to students identified by school officials as needing brief clinical intervention. That would include a “psychosocial assessment” of the student to determine if a referral is needed to a psychiatrist, outpatient treatment, longer-term care, or counseling within the school itself.

Additionally, the services in the second and third tiers are provided to middle and high school students. An application must be submitted by a staff member designated as the NJ4S representative to be considered for these services, according to the state.

In its second year, program reaches more students

In the 2023-2024 school year, when the state program first started, 239,640 people received Tier 1 services, according to Jason Butkowski, a spokesperson for the state Department of Children and Families. In the 2024-2025 school year, that number grew to 281,972 as of mid-March.

The number of people receiving Tier 2 and Tier 3 services also increased from the 2023-2024 school year to the most recent school year.

The total number of students receiving services increased about 18% from the first to second year of the program, Norbut Beyer said at the spring conference. She encouraged principals to sign up for NJ4S if they hadn’t already and reach out to the state with any concerns.

This state program has been an “incredible help” for the school and some students who receive therapy sessions through the state program do not want them to end, Evelyn Collazo of the Anna L. Klein School in Guttenberg told NJ Spotlight News.

Tier 3 services are intended to be a brief intervention with a licensed mental health clinician to allow struggling students to focus on academics and be referred to long-term community mental health resources.

“A lot of the kids don’t know how to cope with the stress and the anxiety of life,” said Collazo, a student assistance coordinator at the school. “It’s been difficult, but I can see it getting a little bit better. But I definitely know that there’s a need for mental health for the students,” she said.

The Anna L. Klein School enrolls approximately 1,000 students from pre-kindergarten to the eighth grade, according to the school’s website.

Partners in Prevention, a Secaucus-based nonprofit, is the hub that provides mental health support and services to the school, according to Collazo.

Some school districts hire clinicians to meet student needs

The prevention and brief intervention services offered in the state’s plan — the higher levels of support — are not available to middle schools and high schools that already have school-based youth services programs. The latter programs have been in place since the late 1980s and were in 86 schools as of July 2024. School-based youth services programs provide mental health and career development services, among other offerings, in the school buildings themselves.

The state’s original plan was to end those school-based youth services programs by June 30, 2023, and transition to the NJ4S model. After pushback from school officials, lawmakers and advocates of the school-based youth services programs, the state announced in May 2023 that it would no longer attempt to cut these programs.

“NJ4S is not hiring a clinician for every school,” Norbut Beyer said at the spring conference. “We would love to. We don’t have enough clinicians in the state. We don’t have enough money to do that.”

Some school districts have hired clinicians on their own to make sure student needs are met.

West Windsor-Plainsboro School District partners with Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care to offer more targeted mental health support to students than is offered by NJ4S. The district has three on-site clinicians to provide counseling services and help students and families access care and navigate the health care system, Superintendent Dave Aderhold said.

Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care has partnerships with about three dozen districts to provide mental health services. It also serves as the Middlesex County Hub for NJ4S.

“The relationship between UBHC, district counselors, and administrators is pivotal to creating a system of care for our students,” Aderhold said.

Program still leaves gaps in crisis support

NJ4S does little to meet students’ needs for crisis support, which is where districts need help, Aderhold said at a meeting of school superintendents in January. His district pays about $600,000 each year for support from Rutgers, which is on par with spending in other districts.

Superintendents from Freehold Regional High School District and Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District said they pay about half a million dollars each year for more intensive support from Effective School Solutions.

Effective School Solutions focuses on providing Tier 3 support to students with emotional and behavioral needs, including individual, group, and family therapy. Half of its programs serve high school students.

Some districts used federal pandemic relief dollars to bring in Effective School Solutions to address rising mental health needs. Now that the money is gone, almost all the districts found a way to keep providing the services through local or grant funding, said Ely, of Effective School Solutions.

Young people are six times more likely to complete mental health treatment in schools than in community settings, Ely said, citing research included in a U.S. Department of Education report.

“Our work is so important because we’ve seen it can be more successful if we are providing it at the place where they spend the majority of their time. They’re able to access really great clinical care within the school setting at no cost,” said Ely.

“The need is so great and so many more students are in need of mental health services.”

This story is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

Hannah Gross covers education and child welfare for NJ Spotlight News via a partnership with Report for America. She covers the full spectrum of education and children’s services in New Jersey and looks especially through the lens of equity and opportunity. This story was first published on NJ Spotlight News, a content partner of Chalkbeat Newark.

Bobby Brier is a multimedia mental health reporter for NJ Spotlight News. Brier focuses on underserved and rural communities throughout New Jersey via a partnership with Report for America. This story was first published on NJ Spotlight News, a content partner of Chalkbeat Newark.

16 U.S. state attorneys sue Trump administration over $1 billion cut to school mental health funding

2025-07-01T19:59:21+00:00

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A Trump administration directive terminating more than $1 billion in federal funding for school-based mental health services is the latest ruling being challenged by a group of 16 Democratic attorneys.

Led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, the lawsuit filed this week calls on the court to reinstate the grants, calling the cut unlawful, unconstitutional, and ideologically driven.

The grants were created by Congress under a bipartisan law passed after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, when an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 elementary school children and two teachers. The money was used to hire staff, diversify the mental health profession, and prepare educators to work with kids from diverse backgrounds — specifically in high-need, low-income, and rural schools — but with President Donald Trump’s attempts to root out programs incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion, his administration pulled the funding for many states and schools two months ago.

Without offering evidence that the cuts were based on grantees’ performance standards, the lawsuit says the administration instead applied an ideological litmus test after terminating the program. The administration sent grantees boilerplate language, according to the lawsuit, which claims it was an “arbitrary and capricious” move that did not account for any individualized reasons for the change, nor consider the harmful impact to children dependent on the mental health services or the effect on the pipeline for the chronically understaffed mental health workforce across the nation.

“The cost to our children’s safety, well-being, and academic success is incalculable,” the lawsuit stated. “These grants were designed to respond to America’s school shooting crisis and fill a critical need in schools. Without them, many children in rural and lower-income schools will go without mental health services and will suffer the attendant consequences: short- and long-term health problems; lower grades; increased absenteeism, suspensions, and expulsions; and a higher risk of suicide and drug overdose.”

In the grant program’s first year, nearly 775,000 students received mental or behavioral health services, according to the lawsuit. The grants helped hire more than 1,200 school-based mental health professionals, and student wait times for services dropped by 80%. A sample of projects reported a 50% reduction in suicide risk at high-need schools, improved attendance, and stronger student-staff relationships.

The federal Department of Education did not respond for comment.

Among the decimated programs, Teachers College at Columbia University had begun training five graduate students to provide mental health services in Harlem and East Harlem schools serving large populations of newly arrived immigrants and families struggling to find stable housing. The program was in the process of sending out acceptance letters to eight more students when the funding was cut.

The $4.9 million, five-year grant aimed to prepare mental health professionals, many of whom were bilingual or first-generation students who couldn’t have afforded graduate school otherwise and planned to commit to working in school-based mental health for their careers. The cuts not only affected the program’s short-term ability to provide high-needs schools with critical services for free, said Prerna Arora, an associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College who was overseeing the grant, but also decimated the future pipeline of professionals dedicated to this kind of work.

If the lawsuit is successful, restarting the grant would not be impossible, Arora said, but it would take time to scale services back up, and the program and the schools are on a typical school calendar, which could affect timelines.

“The funds are definitely needed to address the mental health workforce shortage in our school,” she said in an email. “However, because of the cuts, which were effective immediately, additional time would be needed to rehire staff, recruit and admit students to the training program, and restart the formal partnership with our community schools.”

In all, New York stands to lose at least $19 million in previously approved funding as a result of these cuts, including more than $7.6 million for the State University of New York system, James’ office said.

Chalkbeat senior national reporter Kalyn Belsha contributed reporting.

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

This Brooklyn mentor understands why students don’t show up. He was once in their shoes.

2025-05-07T21:49:33+00:00

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As a success mentor at Brooklyn’s A-Tech High School, Keiron Darnley helps students at risk of being chronically absent.

A big reason he clicks so well with them: He was in their shoes less than a decade ago.

Darnley, who graduated from Brooklyn Collegiate in 2018, had a complicated relationship with school. Though he was passing his classes, he didn’t really see the point in showing up, he said. He typically stayed home one or two times a week, watching TV, playing video games, or sleeping. When he did attend, he’d often arrive late.

“The idea of going to school was like a fulfillment to make sure my parents don’t have any issues,” he said, “or that it’s just a placeholder in my day.”

After a school counselor’s check-ins with Darnley fell flat, he connected Darnley with a colleague who changed his trajectory. This staffer, from Counseling in Schools, a nonprofit that provides counselors to dozens of New York City public schools, made Darnley feel that school was “worth it.” She would greet him at the school’s front door. He’d go to her office during lunch to do schoolwork.

Eventually, the counselor got him a high school internship that put him on his current path as a Counseling in Schools success mentor at A-Tech, where he’s worked the past five years.

As the school, formerly known as Automotive, has been transforming in various ways, moving beyond car mechanics into digital design and business, its gender balance is slowly shifting. This year’s freshman class enrolled the most girls it’s ever had, Darnley said. The school was 89% male last year.

That shift is changing the school’s vibe — and possibly helping boost attendance as well, Darnely believes.

At the end of Darnley’s first year at A-Tech, the chronic absenteeism rate was 49%. This school year to date, it’s about 15%, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat. The school has leaned heavily on data to pinpoint whether students are on the cusp of being chronically absent — defined as missing at least 10% of the school year — enabling staffers to target interventions, including credit recovery programs and mentors, like Darnley.

“It takes time, but it’s definitely worth it to build that relationship, because some of them very well need it, and kind of just need to know there’s somebody here who cares,” said Darnely, who is also studying to be a nurse.

Chalkbeat spoke recently with Darnley.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How did you decide to become a success mentor?

It’s always so funny how life works out. I was never really like a ‘school person.’ I never saw myself working at a school working with kids, but when I was in high school, I interned for my counselor and mentor, and she got me an internship with Counseling in Schools, so I’ve kind of been on and off with them. One day, she reached out to me after I graduated and was like, “Hey, I have a job opportunity.”

Are there any anecdotes you can tell me about a particular student who, like yourself, didn’t want to come to school, and how you got that student to come to school?

I work with the idea of, hey, I’m trying to get them not to be like me.

Last year, when one of my old students graduated, he was telling how much it really meant to him and how much of a difference it really made. All I really did was the same thing somebody did for me. I was there when he was in the building. First thing he saw in the morning was a ”good morning,” a good smile. Like, “Hey, how are you doing?” When he was late, I would text him like, “Hey, what’s up?” or “Where are you at? Are you coming to school today?”

[When he was absent], I would get his work for him. I’d make sure he was staying on top of what he has to do, even though he’s not in the building, because being online now, more than ever, things are a lot more accessible, so they can still do their work.

I even went to the extreme because he loved to tell me that he slept through his alarm. So I used to take his phone, set all his alarms for him, and know when they go off, so I used to call him after his alarm goes off, because I know kids love to hit their snooze button. So their 8 a.m. alarm turns into a 10 a.m. alarm.

For some students, if they’re not going to school, the further behind they fall. That makes them even less likely to want to go to school because there’s the stress of having to catch up. How do you address that?

I’ve had a lot of students who felt like there was no point in even coming anymore, because they’re like, “I’m missing credits, I’m failing the class. I don’t have the motivation to do it. It’s too much work.” And I’m just like, “It’s too much work, but you can have help doing the work.”

What I’ve noticed, specifically in this school, is that they have so many methods to catch up, whether it’s through after-school tutoring, somebody like me, or even just the teachers themselves willing to stay back past their hours. Even over the breaks, they’ll all log in, and they’ll do online work together. The teachers will push back some of the due dates.

It sounds like you’re really able to connect with the students. Can you tell me more about that?

They very well see me as a student myself.

Maybe it’s because of the dialect, or how young they think I look. And the same issues they went through, I went through. So it’s easy to connect to them and understand, “Hey, I’ve been there. I know what’s going on. So let me just help you.” And I think, when they see you from the first minute they walk into the building to their lunch period to the end of the day, they’re like, “Hey, this is somebody I can trust and talk to.”

And we have a wellness room where they come and they do their work at lunch, or if they just want to come and hang out. One of their key moments of the day is their lunch period because this is their decompress period. They get to come here, [and] they don’t have to worry about the pressure of education, or their grades, or their teachers.

And I think just being able to relate to somebody like me who can talk to them outside of their teacher [makes them] feel comfortable opening up about their problems, about their education issues, or just how school in general makes them feel.

I know you’re also working toward a nursing degree. Why nursing?

My goal has kind of always been to help people. I think that’s why I clicked so well with this job — kind of helping people who are like me. At first, I wanted to be a doctor, but being how much I don’t like school, I can’t see myself doing all those years in school, medical and residency, so I’d rather start with nursing and kind of work my way through. As long as I’m in a profession where I’m giving more than I’m getting, I think I’ll be happy,

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

New York’s cellphone ban: Exemptions, enforcement, and costs explained

2025-05-06T21:29:49+00:00

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There are still many questions about what New York’s recently passed statewide “bell-to-bell” student cellphone ban will look like across New York City’s 1,600 public schools.

Under the policy, announced last week as part of the budget deal between Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature, districts have until August to craft their own plans for how to store phones, enforce the ban, and pay for it.

But some details came into focus Tuesday as state officials released additional information.

Among the asterisks in the state policy: Students who need their phones for language translation or caregiving responsibilities may qualify for exemptions. Phones without internet access are still allowed. And despite the “bell-to-bell” label, schools that allow students off campus for lunch — a relatively common practice for New York City high schools (and even some middle schools) — can give students their phones when they’re out of the building.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said during a January interview with the radio station WBAI that she supports collecting student cellphones and did so when she was a high school principal, but enforcing a citywide ban is complicated.

“The journey between a great concept and implementation is sometimes a long one,” she said.

Here’s what we know — and don’t yet know — about what the state policy will mean in the nation’s largest school system:

When and where does the ban apply?

At its most basic, the “bell-to-bell” approach means “no cellphones in a child’s hand from the moment they enter school until they leave,” Hochul said.

The ban applies to all public and charter schools across the state.

The ban covers any personal devices that connect to the internet, a state spokesperson said, including personal laptops, tablets, and smart watches. School-issued devices are exempt.

What about lunch and non-classroom time?

Hochul was insistent that keeping phones out of students’ hands not just during class time, but during lunch, free periods, and between classes is a critical piece of the policy.

Allowing students to keep their phones during those times would have “defeated the purpose” of the policy, she said at a press conference Tuesday alongside state teachers union officials, parent advocates and students.

“You had that distraction … sitting in their pocket that you could whip out during lunch or study hall. They would never even talk to another student during study hall or lunch,” she said.

In New York City, some schools that collect phones during the school day allow students to retrieve their devices when they leave campus for lunch. A spokesperson for Hochul confirmed that arrangement is permitted under the state law, which only applies to student cellphone use on school grounds.

One city principal, however, noted that redistributing and collecting phones during lunch would require additional staff.

How are schools supposed to collect phones?

The policy gives schools the freedom to come up with their own approach. Many New York City schools have turned to Yondr, a company that produces magnetized pouches that students carry to store their phones in during the school day, and schools can unlock at the end of the day. (Some teenagers have figured out how to open the pouches.)

Other common storage systems include cubbies and bins.

Policies in which individual classroom teachers collect phones at the start of the class period and return them at the end appear to violate the state policy.

How much is this going to cost, and who’s paying?

In the final budget deal, state officials set aside $13.5 million to help districts implement the ban. But New York City officials are predicting much higher costs.

In budget documents released last week, the city’s Office of Management and Budget projected that implementing the ban will cost $25 million, which it said was based on the costs of pouches.

Public schools in the five boroughs have historically had to dip into their own budgets to purchase cellphone storage systems, which can cost up to $30 a student. Some school administrators also expect to spend more on staffing costs to implement their collection systems.

Are there exceptions to the ban?

Yes. State officials said the smartphone ban will not apply to students who need their device to manage a medical condition, whose Individual Education Programs or IEPs mandate access to their device, who need it for academic or other “legitimate” purposes including “translation, family caregiving and emergencies.”

At some city schools, those categories may cover a substantial chunk of the student body. One principal of a transfer school for older students who have struggled in traditional high schools said many students rely on cellphones to juggle adult responsibilities like caring for their own children or coordinating full-time jobs.

The principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, worried that the process of awarding exemptions could become subjective and contentious with students.

The ban also only applies to internet-enabled devices, so students can still bring cellphones that don’t have internet access.

How will it be enforced?

Individual districts will come up with their own enforcement plans. But the state law contains some safeguards, including “monitoring of disparate enforcement and a prohibition on suspensions solely for a violation of the internet-enabled device policy,” said a Hochul spokesperson. State officials will require districts to report regularly on disciplinary action related to the cellphone ban, the spokesperson added.

The possibility that enforcing the ban could result in additional conflicts between students and educators — and in consequences that disproportionately fall on students already more likely to get tangled up in school discipline — has been a major concern of some skeptics of the policy.

What about when parents need to reach kids?

The policy mandates that schools “give parents a way to contact their kids during the day when necessary.”

Former schools Chancellor David Banks said when he began talking to schools about cellphone use, he quickly discovered that parents and guardians were often contacting their kids during school hours. Some parents have raised concerns about being able to contact their kids in the event of an emergency like a school shooting, though Hochul said she’s heard from law enforcement that students having access to their phones during emergencies could actually pose more safety risks.

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa also raised concerns shortly after the inauguration of President Donald Trump that banning phones at schools may pose communication challenges for immigrant students who want to stay in touch with their family members at a time of heightened deportation fears.

Districts and schools must consult families while crafting their plans, state officials said.

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

After Uvalde, school mental health grants had bipartisan support. Now Trump is cutting them.

2025-05-02T23:18:36+00:00

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Schools will likely have to lay off social workers and counselors, and college programs designed to train mental health providers may shut down after the Trump administration decided it would stop funding grants created under a bipartisan law passed in response to mass school shootings.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act came on the heels of the devastating 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas where an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 elementary schoolers and two teachers. Gun control remains a deeply divisive issue, but Democrats and Republicans agreed: Schools should get more money to address students’ mental health needs. They set aside $1 billion to do that.

When it came time to distribute that money, the Biden administration gave applicants the option to show how they planned to diversify the mental health profession and prepare educators to work with kids from diverse backgrounds — in a bid to help students who often have higher needs but struggle to access care outside of school. Now schools that tailored their proposals to meet that criteria appear to be among those losing their funding.

“The Department has determined these grantees are violating the letter or purpose of Federal civil rights law; conflict with the Department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education; undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help; or constitute an inappropriate use of federal funds,” Brandy Brown, the deputy assistant secretary for K-12 education, wrote in a Tuesday night email to members of Congress.

The Education Department has the authority to stop funding multi-year grant recipients, but it rarely does so.

The state education agencies in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin were among the grantees that lost their funding. So did the San Diego County Office of Education, Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska, and Teachers College at Columbia University, which was supporting efforts in New York City schools.

“Grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help,” Madi Biedermann, an Education Department spokesperson, wrote in an email to Chalkbeat.

The Trump administration is objecting, in particular, to the Biden administration’s decision to give schools more points on their grant application if they planned to increase the number of mental health staffers from diverse backgrounds or who were from the communities where they’d be working with kids. The federal notice didn’t say what counted as “diverse,” and it noted that any hiring strategies used by schools had to follow federal civil rights laws.

“We were not there to say that this meant there had to be any type of racial quotas, or it had to be along the lines or race, or ability, or language,” said Mary Wall, who until January served as the Education Department’s deputy assistant secretary for P-12 education. “We simply said it would be wise and we encourage applicants to make hires of school-based mental health professionals that are reflective of the communities that they’re serving.”

Many schools expected to get three or four more years of funding, but now the grants will run out in December. Wall said schools were well on their way to hitting the goal of hiring and training 14,000 mental health professionals, but these cuts put that at risk.

“Not giving grant continuations has an extreme impact on whether or not the work can continue,” she said.

That’s already happening in some places. Teachers College had begun training five graduate students to provide mental health services in schools, and was preparing to send offer letters to eight more when the college found out it had lost its $4.9 million five-year grant. The Trump administration ended it back in March when it terminated $400 million in funding for Columbia University.

Those trainees, many of whom were bilingual or first-generation college students who couldn’t otherwise afford graduate school were slated to work in high-need schools in Harlem and East Harlem — parts of New York City where many newly arrived immigrants live and families often struggle to find stable housing. Now, schools won’t get the year of free services those trainees were going to provide, such as therapy and parent training. And there will be gaps in the future pipeline, too.

“We were going to be producing professionals who would be working in these settings delivering school-based mental health services for years to come, ideally their entire careers,” said Prerna Arora, an associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College who was overseeing the grant. “We are in desperate need of these types of professionals.”

Cuts to mental health grants part of anti-DEI push

The cuts appear to be part of the Trump administration’s broader attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and exemplify how the administration is using the Supreme Court’s ruling that barred affirmative action in higher education to target a much wider set of DEI practices in K-12 schools.

Already, the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal education funding from states that won’t sign off on its contested interpretation of what constitutes racial discrimination under federal civil rights law — a policy that’s currently on hold as several legal challenges work their way through the courts.

The Trump administration is investigating Chicago Public Schools for launching a Black student success plan and has sought to dismantle other practices, such as forming staff affinity groups based on race or allowing college students to participate in separate graduation ceremonies that celebrate their race or heritage.

It is unclear exactly how many of the 265 grantees listed on the Education Department’s website lost their funding and how much money was clawed back. On Thursday, an Education Department spokesperson said they could not provide a list of which school districts, states, or colleges lost their funding.

The Education Department told members of Congress that the terminated grants were worth $1 billion, but that is almost certainly an overestimate, Wall said, as many grantees had already spent a chunk of their money. The grants paid for 1,500 to 2,000 new mental health providers to work in schools across the U.S. in the first year alone, Wall said.

It also appears some schools kept their grants. The Indiana Department of Education, Fort Wayne Community Schools in Indiana, and Normal Public Schools in Oklahoma all told Chalkbeat they hadn’t been contacted about changes to their funding.

The pandemic helped bring the need for more school-based mental health workers into sharp relief as many schools saw a spike in children experiencing depression, anxiety, or other kinds of stress. So did the many unaddressed warning signs exhibited by the teenage gunman in Uvalde, who spoke often of violence and targeted the classroom where he was once bullied. That, and similar cases in other school shootings, led Congress to invest in mental health staff as a school safety measure.

With the help of federal COVID relief funds, many schools launched teletherapy services to address in-person staff shortages and to connect kids with bilingual therapists, male counselors, or mental health workers of color — who are often in especially short supply, but can form close connections with kids who look like them or who faced similar challenges growing up.

While there isn’t much research on the effects of pairing school-based mental health workers with kids of similar backgrounds, “we do know in research outside of the school environment that it’s actually really beneficial for students of color to have therapists or mental health supports from folks within their own communities,” said Nancy Duchesneau, a senior P-12 research associate who studies children’s social and emotional well-being at the nonprofit EdTrust.

“If you have students of color in a school, you really do want adults in the building — teachers, school counselors, mental health supports — who are of the same race and ethnicity to be able to better understand where students are coming from and make sure that the interventions or supports that they receive are not based on bias, but are truly based upon the needs of the students,” Duchesneau said.

Chris Rufo, the influential conservative activist, was the first to publicize the mental health grant cuts, the Associated Press reported. Rufo’s social media posts have prompted the Trump administration to cancel other education spending.

This time, Rufo posted examples from the grant proposals on the social media site X that he said were being used to “advance left-wing racialism and discrimination.” The Education Department pointed to some of those same examples when explaining what it found objectionable about the grants.

One grantee planned to hire 24 new school counselors and set a goal for eight to be people of color, an Education Department spokesperson told Chalkbeat. Other grantees said they would train therapists to address racial trauma or help mental health workers use a “critical compassion perspective,” instead of a colorblind perspective that assumes race and skin color don’t matter.

Another grantee wrote that they were training the next generation of school counselors “to recognize and challenge systemic injustices, antiracism, and the pervasiveness of white supremacy.”

State officials condemn — and applaud — the cuts

Some officials agreed with the move. In a statement, Ryan Walters, the superintendent of Oklahoma’s schools, said he applauded the Trump administration for “taking bold action to eliminate these misguided programs.” Oklahoma had planned to spend $1.9 million a year to help teachers, community members, and clinicians get retrained to work as mental health staff in schools before the state lost its funding.

“These grants were never about addressing real mental health needs, they were about pushing a political agenda into our classrooms,” Walters said in the statement, adding that his education agency was “forced” to apply for the money by state lawmakers. “We made our opposition clear then, and we stand by it today.”

Other state officials condemned the cuts. In Colorado, Jeremy Meyer, a spokesperson for the state’s education agency, said the state was “deeply disappointed” by the Trump administration’s decision to end Colorado’s grant, which was expected to total $7.5 million over five years.

Now the state will get just $1.5 million. The state was still rolling out its program to help schools recruit and retrain mental health staff so “no funds had yet been distributed to the field,” Meyer wrote.

Jill Underly, Wisconsin’s state superintendent, said in a news release that the decision to eliminate $8 million of the state’s planned $10 million grant was “indefensible” at a time “when communities are urgently asking for help.”

Already, she wrote, the federal grant had helped Wisconsin schools hire an additional 350 mental health staffers and helped enroll 500 new graduate students in the University of Wisconsin’s certification program.

“Kids don’t get a chance to do-over their school experience while the federal government recalibrates its political agenda,” Underly wrote. “These disruptions need to stop.”

Chalkbeat’s New York bureau chief Amy Zimmer contributed reporting.

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

Michigan commission calls for increased funding, efforts to reduce youth suicide

2025-05-02T18:06:48+00:00

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A state commission created in the wake of the 2021 deadly school shooting at Oxford High School has issued a final report that calls for steps to improve school safety, reduce youth suicides, and strengthen the mental health of students and their families.

The School Safety and Mental Health Commission was created in 2022 because of the Oxford shooting, which left four students dead, but also because of the student mental health challenges that soared during the pandemic and continue to be a concern.

Terry Dangerfield, superintendent for Lincoln Park Public Schools in Wayne County, said in a Thursday press release about the report that data shows about 16.5% of children between the ages of 0 and 17 have a diagnosable mental health disorder, and one in five have emotional or behavioral concerns.

“These numbers represent real students in classrooms who are trying to learn while struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, or other serious concerns, ” said Dangerfield. Michigan, he said, must invest in mental health resources to ensure students not only succeed academically but are able to “lead healthy, full lives.”

The report, which is dated April 14 but was publicly released Thursday, includes 10 recommendations for policymakers. It comes at a time when Michigan lawmakers have made school safety a priority. In January, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law legislation that would require every public school to have a behavior threat assessment and management team, require the Michigan State Police to create standardized terminology for use during school emergencies, and require the MSP to make training available to schools on how to use threat assessment materials, among other new initiatives.

Lawmakers in the Michigan Legislature are currently weighing additional safety bills that would create a comprehensive “school-community mental health system” and put additional crisis teams in schools.

Here are some of the recommendations. To read the full report and all of its recommendations, go here.

The state must provide consistent funding on a per pupil basis to support schools in ensuring they are provided with the resources needed to support their students.
The state must work with schools to ensure that the true impact of policy changes is understood, because policy changes can create additional burdens for districts and require them to hire additional staff or enter into costly contracts. Michigan schools currently struggle to hire mental health professionals because of shortages.
Minimize risk for suicidal behaviors by promoting safe environments, resiliency, and connectedness. Increase awareness of warning signs, provide opportunities for selective screening of high-risk youth, train on risk assessment and communication strategies for youth at-risk for suicide, and improve referral channels to facilitate care for youth at-risk for suicide in their communities.
Increase and expand access to care to support those at risk of suicide.
Improve suicide prevention training and education for school staff and volunteers.
Continuing to expand the 988 (a suicide and crisis hotline) line’s accessibility, including adding text and chat capabilities, with the aim of reducing youth suicide Michigan.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

NYC looks to parent volunteers to help tackle chronic absenteeism in Aviles-Ramos’ first initiative

2025-04-03T20:58:42+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department plans to train hundreds of new parent volunteers to help families overcome challenges affecting school attendance, Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said Thursday.

The department will also launch new student-led anti-vaping and anti-bullying campaigns.

These programs are the first steps in a plan called NYCPS Cares, created in response to the problems Aviles-Ramos heard during a five-borough listening tour she held in recent months. Among the issues that came up at these sessions: youth struggles with mental health, students feeling unsafe commuting to school, calls for more support for new immigrants, and the need for expanded access to sports and other extracurriculars.

“We cannot punish parents when kids cannot get to school. We need to ask the question; ‘Parents, what is keeping your children from getting to school and how can we help you?‘” Aviles-Ramos said Thursday in East Harlem kicking off the initiative. “Our parent leaders are our best partners to make sure we give our parents everything they need so our babies can get to school every single day.”

The “family connectors” program will train participants on how to help families in their schools access such city resources as housing support, food benefits, and mental and physical health providers.

Officials will begin rolling the program out in 12 of the city’s 32 community school districts that have higher levels of poverty, chronic absenteeism, and teacher turnover, but said people from other districts can also apply. The city ultimately plans to have a family connector in each of the city’s 1,600 public schools, a spokesperson said.

The program is unpaid for parent volunteers, unlike a previous COVID-era initiative that paid parents $500 stipends to become “wellness ambassadors.”

Brooklyn parent leader NeQuan McLean, who spoke at Thursday’s event, joked that he was looking forward to “another unpaid job.” Many of the primary roles for parent leaders — including serving on Community Education Councils and the Panel for Educational Policy — are uncompensated.

But McLean said the effort could still be a “gamechanger” by “codifying” and offering additional support for the kinds of work that many involved parent leaders already perform.

The advantage of keeping the position unpaid is that parent volunteers may feel less beholden to the Education Department, he added.

“Once they begin to pay you, then you are limited to what you can say or do,” McLean said.

Aviles-Ramos echoed that the initiative is largely about “formalizing the work [parent leaders] are already doing organically.”

The anti-bullying and anti-vaping initiative is expected to tap students to deliver the message to their peers rather than adults, officials said.

Annual student surveys show that bullying, particularly online, is a rising concern for city students. Roughly 43% of students in the most recent survey reported seeing regular bullying and harassment online, up from 35% in 2024.

“These campaigns will tell you more than ‘don’t vape’ and ‘don’t bully’ because we know how effective that is,” Aviles-Ramos said.

Jesus Peguero, a middle school student wearing an “Escape the Vape” shirt at Thursday’s event said he’s been part of a group brainstorming effective messages to steer peers away from vaping. That includes, for example, telling athletes “they won’t be able to continue what they’re doing” if they vape, he saId.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the campaigns would require additional funding. State Attorney General Letitia James announced last year she was sending $27 million to New York City for anti-vaping campaigns. The money came from a settlement in a successful lawsuit against the e-cigarette giant Juul, which was accused of illegally marketing its products to youth.

The chancellor expects to announce other aspects of the NYCPS Cares plan closer to the start of next school year. It’s the first major initiative Aviles-Ramos has announced since taking over in October after her predecessor David Banks unexpectedly retired. She has largely committed to continuing Banks’ major initiatives, including literacy and math curriculum overhauls.

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

Newark Public Schools hosts teen mental health summit to give students tools to cope, raise awareness

2025-03-26T10:00:01+00:00

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Jinelle Lebron and her peers spent Tuesday learning about the importance of mental health and the factors that may suggest a student is not okay.

“I think teens can feel lonely,” said Lebron, a sophomore at American History High School, during a group discussion about mental health struggles.

“Or,” she added, “someone might feel like they’re not being heard.”

Lebron was one of 204 Newark Public Schools mental health ambassadors in grades 9 through 11 who took part in a football-themed youth mental health summit that provided participants with a playbook of strategies to tackle mental health challenges for themselves and their peers. The summit also served as training for the students who will plan, develop, and facilitate mental health campaigns at district high schools in May.

The mental health conference, hosted by the district’s Office of Student Life, was held at Montclair State University, where students were greeted by green and white balloons and football centerpieces at their tables to reflect the theme: “Building your mental health playbook.” Students also received swag bags containing stress balls, notebooks, pens, books, and pamphlets that could be used for their campaigns in May.

Students heard from district social workers, therapists, and three NFL football players, including Jahan Dotson, wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, and Tony Richardson, former running back for the New York Jets, who talked about their mental health journeys and challenges they’ve overcome. Speakers guided students through discussions about mental health struggles, the signs that may suggest friends might not be okay, and where to go when you need support.

Jeremiah Brown, keynote speaker for the event and former safety for the Jacksonville Jaguars, talked about the life-threatening brain injury that forced him to retire from the NFL. He guided students through a brainstorming session about mental health challenges and encouraged them to create solutions.

“I’m here because of the support I received because I thought this world would be way better without me,” Brown told students on Tuesday.

Mental health problems among youth 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.

But there are signs that students are slowly recovering. Last August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data highlighting improvements in mental health among teens, including decreases in the percentage of students feeling persistently sad or hopeless. The report also highlighted concerns about increases in the percentage of teens reporting experiences of school-based violence and absenteeism due to safety concerns.

Jahi Gordon, a mental health educator at The Jed Foundation and presenter at Tuesday’s mental health summit, encouraged students to prioritize their mental health, even if they feel okay, and asked them to spread awareness in their schools. Gordon said 4 in 10 high school students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2023, and 42% of teens ages 13 to 17 did not ask adults for help.

“We have to remove the negative stigmas around mental health and mental health conversations,” said Gordon on Tuesday.

High school students with depression are two times more likely to drop out in comparison to their peers, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness New Jersey. The organization also found that across the state, 61.4% of youth ages 12-17 who have depression did not receive any care in the last year.

Kai-Lan Osorio-Rodriguez, a sophomore at American History High School who was part of the discussion group with Lebron, agreed that it’s important to raise awareness about mental health struggles, but it’s more important to have someone to talk to.

“Normally, teenagers dwell on the past and the stuff that’s happened to them, and they let it affect them, and they kind of make it their whole, like, vibe and personality, instead of just letting it go or talking to someone,” Osorio-Rodriguez said.

Jinelle Lebron and her peers discussed youth mental health challenges.

In 2023, Newark Public Schools received an $8.9 million federal grant to implement mental health programs. Through the grant, the district committed to hiring mental health coordinators, counselors, and social workers and expanding existing school-based social-emotional programs. The district is also working 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.

District staff at Tuesday’s summit also provided students with a suite of resources to help students maintain their mental health, including Gaggle, an app used to connect with therapists virtually, and Erika’s Lighthouse RECHARGE program, an online tool that helps students cope with daily struggles.

Isabella Crespo, a sophomore at American History High School who participated in Tuesday’s summit, said she faced mental health struggles last year. The conversations with her peers during the summit helped deepen her understanding of how to support her friends in times of crisis.

“I think that mental health is something that impacts kids a lot and that they don’t really like to talk about,” Crespo said. “So I feel like it’s very important to have kids be able to come to you and be like, hey, like, I’m going through this.”

Jessie Gomez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams touts school mental health clinics but omits them from his preliminary budget

2025-03-20T21:01:40+00:00

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Mayor Eric Adams visited P.S. 35 in the Bronx this week to tout the school’s new on-site mental health clinic — one of 16 schools that added them over the past year through a multi-agency program.

The mental health clinics are “a place to learn coping skills and resilience without financial burden,” Adams said, flanked by top health and education officials. The clinics received funding through a broader program called the Mental Health Continuum, which provides mental health support at 50 schools in the South Bronx and Brooklyn, including the 16 school-based clinics. Overall, the program serves 20,000 students, the mayor said.

But a key detail went unmentioned during the press conference and the media reports about it: Adams’ preliminary budget does not include funding for the Mental Health Continuum next school year.

Local lawmakers have pushed since the program launched four years ago to make it a permanent part of the city’s $112 billion budget, known as “baselining.” Those efforts have come up short, even as the $5 million program is included in the mayor’s own mental health blueprint.

“Clearly this administration wants to prioritize the mental health of students,” said Rohini Singh, director of the school justice project at Advocates for Children, an organization that played a role in pushing for the Mental Health Continuum. “I don’t know what the calculation is and why it hasn’t been baselined at this point given that it is currently up and running and serving students.”

The Mental Health Continuum is designed to make it easier for students and families to access mental health services through the 16 on-site mental health clinics, enabling “rapid referrals” for outpatient services at 34 more, training school staff on de-escalation techniques, and deploying mobile crisis teams.

One goal is to reduce the likelihood schools will call 911 when a student is facing an emotional crisis, a persistent problem that disproportionately affects Black students.

Rita Joseph, a Brooklyn City Council member who chairs the education committee, said the mental health program is essential.

“The Continuum is just $5 million — and we know post-COVID a lot of our students are recovering emotionally from the pandemic,” Joseph said. “It’s such a small amount.” She added: “I’m hoping that this is an easy win.”

The Mental Health Continuum — a partnership between the city’s education and health departments and the public hospital system — grew out of a task force convened under Mayor Bill de Blasio and got off the ground under Adams. Some school leaders say it is having an impact, according to a document explaining the program’s benefits circulated by city officials and advocates.

“One of my students had discontinued therapy in the community due to the parent’s work schedule and she is now able to attend sessions in school without disruption to the family income,” wrote Ellen Flanagan, principal of South Bronx Preparatory: A College Board School.

“Another student who frequently missed school and struggled with panic attacks in school has been attending therapy through the Mental Health Continuum and her attendance and grades have improved due to her being able to receive regular weekly therapy,” the principal added.

But every year since its launch, the mayor has left the program out of his preliminary budget only to add it later after pushback from advocates and elected officials. The uncertainty can complicate efforts to plan and keep it properly staffed, said Nelson Mar, a senior staff attorney at Bronx Legal Services who attends regular meetings about the program with the city agencies that operate it.

“When there’s uncertainty, that inhibits a lot of forward thinking in terms of planning and in terms of retention,” Mar said. “That’s very disruptive to social service initiatives, especially when you’re talking about mental health.”

As of December 2024, about 18% of the program’s social worker positions were vacant, city data show.

The mayor has recently touted other programs that were also left out of his preliminary budget, including a $5 million outreach effort to help families enroll in early childhood programs.

City Hall spokesperson Zachary Nosanchuk did not explain why the Mental Health Continuum and early childhood outreach programs were left out of Adams’ initial funding proposal even as he publicly promotes them. He noted that the city has previously added the mental health and early childhood outreach programs when the budget is finalized.

“We are in the early stages of our budget cycle, but as Mayor Adams says, ‘we always land the plane,’” Nosanchuk wrote.

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

Program looks to support high-schoolers responsible for caregiving at home

2025-03-20T15:33:14+00:00

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Aaliyah Taylor, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, is used to having more responsibilities than a typical teenager. She helped her dad feed and tend to her grandmother until she died in 2023, tasks that frequently stressed her out as she was trying to manage her own health issues, like her scoliosis.

“I felt like every 5 seconds I was called for something, even though I just sat back down,” she said.

Mariyah Carson, Taylor’s best friend and a 15-year-old freshman, managed similar family duties as her uncle struggled with diabetes-related immobility and blindness until his death a few years ago. She remembers planning with her siblings how they would approach his care.

“We’d take turns. Like, if you’re doing homework, it’s my turn, and I go down there and watch him,” Carson said. She and Taylor said they continue to help out with other loved ones.

Michelle Bolden, founder of Call for Caring Inc., congratulates students for completing her inaugural Young, Gifted and Caregiving class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

On a recent afternoon inside a Charles Drew High School auditorium, the two sat next to each other at a table topped with plastic bags, fragrant oils, and sugar pouches. The girls quipped and giggled over the instrumental jazz background music while they made body scrub bags, kits intended to help them relax at home.

Carson and Taylor are students at the school in Riverdale, just south of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The body scrub station was the opening activity for this school year’s final session of the Young, Gifted and Caregiving program, a new Atlanta-area initiative to support high-schoolers responsible for taking care of adults or children.

While most of the over 50 million unpaid family caregivers in the United States are adults, experts estimate that there are millions of adolescent Americans who provide this type of work every year. Research on the experience of teenage caregiving is limited, but studies suggest that young caregivers struggle to care for themselves and are at higher risk of anxiety and depression, chronic diseases, and dropping out of school.

These risks are what Young, Gifted and Caregiving aims to address. Once a week throughout February and March, Michelle Bolden, a registered nurse and the founder of the Atlanta caregiver support nonprofit Call for Caring, traveled to Charles Drew to lead lessons for 10 students.

She and an array of guest speakers — like attorneys, nurse practitioners, and mental health specialists — have tried to teach the students how to manage caregiving responsibilities while maintaining their own well-being and ambitions.

It’s the first time Bolden, who recently finished a Chamberlain University doctoral nursing program, has hosted in-person classes for high-school caregivers.

“We couldn’t create that community without them being in-person,” Bolden said.

Charles Drew High School students Zahion Mikell (from left), Mariyah Carson and Aaliyah Taylor listen to Dr. Adrienne during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

Erin Kent, a caregiver research associate professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, said that while there’s strong evidence that support programs can help adult caregivers, there are few, if any, analyses that have examined the best ways to aid high-schoolers with these responsibilities.

But she said evaluating new programs, like the Charles Drew program, is how researchers like herself can determine what could help young people in that position. And school-based initiatives could be more effective at finding teenage caregivers than programs in other settings.

“School is probably going to be the place that reaches more youths,” she said.

School supports teens with caregiving duties at home

Tangela Benjamin had only been Charles Drew’s principal for a few months when she was called to address a student meltdown in October 2023. The sleep-deprived girl complained about how the school’s rules conflicted with family duties.

“She said, ‘A lot of parents don’t parent, and responsibilities that should be on adults are on teenage kids,’” Benjamin said. “And she was like, ‘I happen to be one of these kids with all of these responsibilities.’”

The principal knew there were plenty of students in Riverdale, where the median household income is $16,000 below the national number, who face hardships at home even without tending to their loved ones’ needs. Learning that some faced an extra set of duties, Benjamin said she felt obligated to find a way to extend the school’s support.

“It was very much a great eye opener, and it quickened my spirit a bit,” she said.

Michelle Bolden, founder of Call for Caring Inc., speaks with students during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

It’s a big reason why a year later, when she met Bolden and heard about her work, she jumped at an opportunity to bring a program tailored for high-school caregivers to Charles Drew. Last fall, the Charles Drew staff put together an email survey to find students who have been informal family caregivers. The administrators identified 30 students, and they invited 10 to join the Young, Gifted and Caregiving program.

Bolden wanted to help all 30, but she said it would be difficult to create deep connections with that many students.

“Once it gets too large, they’re not going to talk,” she said.

Those 10 students, including Taylor and Carson, were invited to attend four weekly classes throughout the winter to learn about how to balance their family responsibilities and their own well-being. Among the skills facilitators taught in each session were basic CPR techniques, chronic disease management, and supportive strategies.

An exit survey is filled out by Charles Drew High School students during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

The Young, Gifted and Caregiving program also hosted a Charles Drew charity 5K run, a fundraiser for the school and for a program to give caregivers breaks from their family duties. Bolden said one of the caregiver students on the Charles Drew cross-country team won the race.

At the start of the high school program, Bolden wasn’t sure how long it would take the students to feel comfortable sharing about home lives and experiences with caregiving. But she said it was clear from the first session that they were open to it.

“I thought it would go really slow,” she said. “But they just picked up and really engaged right away.”

Program helps teens balance caregiving with self-care

At the final session this school year, Bolden invited two guest speakers to share how the students could make plans to prioritize their own health needs while tending to their family members.

It’s a balance some of the Charles Drew caregivers are still trying to figure out. While working at a local farmers market over the summer, Zahion Mikell, a 16-year-old sophomore who helps care for his siblings and great grandmother, remembers scampering from one task to the next when another employee asked to check his blood pressure.

“I was just ripping and running, ripping and running,” said Mikell, who also serves as a Youth County Commissioner.

The screening showed that he was at risk of hypertension, and the other employees told him to take care of his health.

Mikell said he tried to do that. But at the first student session of the Young, Gifted and Caregiving program, when Bolden and the other facilitators were teaching the students how to use a blood pressure pump cuff with their family members, they used Mikell’s arm in a demonstration. Once again, his numbers concerned the adults around him.

Since then, Bolden and the Call for Caring workers have made sure to check Mikell’s blood pressure at their weekly meetings. While reading his levels at that final session, Bolden told him he had moved from the “red zone” to the “yellow zone.”

“So that’s good,” Mikell said.

“But for you that’s high,” Bolden responded. “No, not good.”

“I like yellow though,” Mikell replied as the adults around him laughed.

Charles Drew High School freshman Zahion Mikell listens to speakers during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

Some of the students expressed the mental and emotional toll that caregiving has taken on their well-being. Tiandra Hodge, another 16-year-old sophomore, has only lived in the metro Atlanta area over the summer. She’s from the British Virgin Islands, but she left her parents and life in the Caribbean to finish her education in the United States last summer.

Hodge lives with her sister and helps feed and bathe her sister’s children, all under age 6. When the stress of adjusting to a new country, a new high school, and a new set of family responsibilities becomes overwhelming, Hodge said she can forget to eat.

She said she has few options to vent about her problems with anyone in-person.

“It’s very difficult,” she said.

That’s one of the reasons she said she’s found the Young, Gifted and Caregiving class helpful. At the end of that fourth session, in response to Bolden asking the student caregivers to share one thing that stood out about the class, Hodge focused on the shared community the program had created.

“I don’t have nobody to talk to about this,” Hodge told everyone in the auditorium.

Caregivers get continued support as they dream big about future

Bolden is excited for Young, Gifted and Caregiving’s future. She plans to lead another session at Charles Drew next school year, hoping to engage and support the other caregiver students who couldn’t fit in the first year.

She also hopes to recreate the program in at least two other Georgia schools this year. Bolden wants to host a series at one of Atlanta’s high schools and a middle school in Sandy Springs.

Charles Drew High School freshman Mariyah Carson listens to speakers during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

With these plans of expansion, she said she wants to make clear to this year’s Charles Drew students that support for them won’t wither away. Throughout the final session, Bolden brought up multiple times that her nonprofit would continue to engage with the inaugural class members and help with any challenges they might continue to experience.

She even suggested that they could be student ambassadors for the next Charles Drew caregivers in the program.

“These are adults you can trust and still be able to network,” Bolden told the students, gesturing at the Call for Caring workers and the Charles Drew staff who had joined the session. “I don’t want you to think that because you’re here in this situation, it’s not going to get better.”

Kent, the University of North Carolina professor, said one long-term benefit she’d expect from a program like Bolden’s is that the students now know that they are caregivers. With that knowledge, she said, the teenagers can start to seek out help for any issues that may come up.

Just before getting some cake to celebrate the class’s completion, Taylor, the 16-year-old who cared for her grandmother, talked about her future aspirations. She envisions moving to Houston and working as a chef or an entrepreneur.

Charles Drew High School freshman Mariyah Carson, (second from left) poses for a photo with Charles Drew High School principal Tangela Benjamin (left), Call for Caring Inc. founder Michelle Bolden (second from right) and Dementia educator Carrie Harris (right) during the Young, Gifted and Caregiving inaugural class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia, March 12.

But if she’s put in a position where she has to care for adults again, like her parents, Taylor said she feels more prepared to meet that task. She’s a little nervous about forgetting the lessons of the past month, but she now knows there are resources for people in her position.

“I would be more experienced to help my mom and my dad once they get a little bit older.”

Allen Siegler is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Allen at asiegler@healthbeat.org.

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With an ally in the White House, Moms for Liberty renews its fight against a longtime target

2025-02-27T23:07:38+00:00

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In a small recording studio near Nashville, Tennessee, conservative activist Kelly Schenkoske urged an online audience of parents to scour school district websites for contracts that mention social and emotional learning.

“Social-emotional learning is far more than just kindness,” Schenkoske said. “It is a bait and switch.”

The bait, according to Schenkoske and other panelists at the recent Moms for Liberty training event, is small shifts in the school day to introduce students to lessons about virtuous qualities like empathy and compassion.

The switch, they said, is to make children sympathetic to what they see as progressive ideas, ranging from open borders and acceptance of homosexuality to gun control, action against climate change, and redistribution of wealth.

“You send your child with your value system, your own beliefs, and now they’re getting the government’s value system installed into them,” warned Schenkoske, who hosts a podcast from her California home about education and parent rights.

The two-hour training session was the first installment in Moms for Liberty U, an online course meant to drive conservative parent activism in the group’s continuing effort to sway local and national education agendas.

That it focused on social and emotional learning illustrates the staying power of conservatives’ concerns about schools’ role in addressing student well-being. These concerns stretch back years, even as research on SEL shows wide-ranging benefits for students.

Now Moms for Liberty has an ally in the White House, with President Donald Trump painting schools as centers of radical indoctrination and signing executive orders that seek to stamp out teaching about systemic racism and policies supportive of transgender youth.

The group’s future trainings will cover critical race theory, restorative justice, sex education, library content, Marxism, and more — topics that are under scrutiny by the new administration and more prominent in public conversation.

Tiffany Justice, a Florida mom, activist, and former school board member who co-founded Moms for Liberty, sees SEL at the root of everything. She hopes the administration soon will call it out by name too.

“It’s very hard to focus on learning math if we’re all talking about, you know, Johnny’s dog that died.”
Tiffany Justice, co-founder, Moms for Liberty

Parents who agree with the Trump administration can “take those executive orders, that messaging, and really make it come alive throughout the entire country,” Justice told Chalkbeat.

SEL use grew in schools after the pandemic

Social and emotional learning is an educational approach introduced in the 1960s to teach life skills designed to help children manage stress, treat others with respect and empathy, work cooperatively, and recognize and regulate their emotions.

The use of SEL tools has increased as educators seek to help students rebound academically and emotionally from disruptions to schooling and children’s daily lives after the COVID pandemic emerged in early 2020.

About 83% of principals reported last year that their schools use an SEL curriculum or program, compared with 73% in the 2021-22 school year and 46% in 2017-18, based on a nationally representative survey by RAND Corp. and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.

A cafeteria mural at a Tennessee school promotes kindness, a tenet of programs that emphasize social and emotional learning. The educational approach was introduced in the 1960s to teach life skills designed to help children manage stress, treat others with respect and empathy, work cooperatively, and recognize and regulate their emotions.

Educators say the pandemic deeply affected students’ mental health, contributing to higher rates of depression and anxiety. And national studies highlight an urgent need to provide kids with tailor-made interventions. An infusion of federal aid for education during the pandemic helped to fuel the growth in SEL adoption.

The programs vary in quality. But a large analysis of studies on SEL published in 2023 found a wide range of positive effects, including better academic performance, homework completion, and attendance, a major area of concern nationwide since the pandemic.

Though teachers sometimes complain that SEL is one more thing piled on their very full plates and could distract from pure academics, the analysis also found that programs led by teachers had more positive effects than those led by counselors or outsiders.

“It’s frustrating to see the science and impacts in schools and then to see the noise around the banning of SEL,” said Christina Cipriano, an associate professor at Yale University and lead author of the meta-analysis, which synthesized more than 400 studies over 13 years that collectively included half a million children.

Cipriano recalled a trip to Washington, D.C., to talk with policymakers about using science to make decisions, including about social and emotional learning. One Republican congressional staffer told her that their constituents would love everything about her work — except the name.

“You have a Control-F problem,” the staffer said, referring to the computer keyboard command that lets someone easily find a term in documents such as school district contracts to purchase SEL products and services.

Polls back that up. Large numbers of parents support the idea that schools should teach interpersonal skills and self-regulation, but far fewer react positively to the term “social and emotional learning.”

Another SEL backlash brews

Justice, now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with close ties to the Trump administration, described social and emotional learning as a “Trojan horse” that opens students to ways of thinking that run counter to what parents teach at home. For example, an emphasis on kindness might lead a student to feel pressure to use a transgender classmate’s preferred pronouns, she said, when that makes the first student uncomfortable and runs counter to their parents’ values.

That’s why Moms for Liberty U started its parent training series with a focus on social and emotional learning.

“We had to start here, because this is what opens the child up to the indoctrination,” Justice said. “It’s the programming mechanism that allows for gender ideology to come in, for critical race theory to come in.”

The training session, which was taped early this year, describes SEL as being tucked into dozens of programs and tools in common use in schools, from teacher-parent messaging platforms to programs designed to make recess a more positive experience. Panelists named surveys on youth well-being as another example of SEL.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice (far right) moderates a panel discussion during the organization's new national training program for parents on monthly education topics. The first session, recorded near Nashville, featured (from left) author Alex Newman, parent activist Kelly Schenkoske, and psychology professor Jennifer Kom.

Alex Neuman, a conservative author who appeared on the inaugural training panel, said the ultimate goal of SEL is “de-Christianizing education,” something he traces back to Horace Mann, the 19th century social reformer considered one of the fathers of public education.

Panelist Jennifer Kom, a psychology professor at Bethany Lutheran College in Minnesota, said SEL forces teachers to be therapists and leads children to disclose personal matters that can lead to bullying.

Their arguments were enough to convince Tennessee mom Genevieve Pahos to take her activism a step further.

Pahos was part of a small live audience at the taping. A Moms for Liberty chapter leader in Williamson County, south of Nashville, she already had heard many of the arguments against SEL, but she said the session inspired her to start filing more public records requests about SEL programs in her local districts.

“I learned a lot from some of the speakers,” she said, “about how to find out what’s really happening in our schools.”

Speaking to Chalkbeat after the training session, Justice said schools should stick to academics.

“Kids are sad sometimes; it’s OK to be sad sometimes,” she said. “But we need to help children be resilient and find their way through (sadness) by finding interest in life and success in school and giving them the confidence that they get from mastery of skills in the classroom.”

Put another way: “It ends up having kids marinating in their feelings all day. It’s very hard to focus on learning math if we’re all talking about, you know, Johnny’s dog that died.”

Researcher: Schools should include families in SEL programming

Even supporters of social and emotional learning are sometimes fuzzy on what SEL is and isn’t, Cipriano said, which can make it hard to have productive conversations across different viewpoints.

SEL is not therapy or a mental health intervention, she said. But done well, it might mean fewer children need mental health support down the road, just as teaching reading properly to all students might mean fewer students need special education services.

Building resilience — so that students can focus on academics even when bad things are happening around them — is one goal of SEL.

School leaders should think about what problems they want to solve and how they’ll support teachers, Cipriano said, not just adopt a social and emotional learning curriculum because it seems like the thing to do.

She’s working on a public database that she hopes will help school communities make better decisions about which curriculum or products to invest in. Users will be able to see what outcomes were generated by certain programs and the types of communities where these programs have been tried.

She sees lots of room for improvement — better teacher training, more rigorous reviews of existing curriculum, and better communication with parents.

“It seems to me that we have a real opportunity to engage families at the outset of implementation so they’re aware of what’s happening in the schools,” she said. “When you talk to parents and families about the strategies involved in social and emotional learning, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t want their child to be a good friend or have less test anxiety.”

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

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

Little tracking, wide variability permeate the teams tasked with stopping school shootings

2025-02-05T18:33:29+00:00

This story originally appeared in KFF Health News and is republished here with permission.

Max Schachter wanted to be close to his son Alex on his birthday, July 9, so he watched old videos of him.

“It put a smile on my face to see him so happy,” Schachter said.

Alex would have turned 21 that day, six years after he and 16 other children and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, were shot and killed by a former student in 2018. In the years before the shooting, that former student had displayed concerning behavior that elicited dozens of calls to 911 and at least two tips to the FBI.

“Alex should still be here today. It’s not fair,” Schachter said.

After two weeks of grieving Alex’s death, Schachter, propelled by anger and pain, began advocating for school safety. In part, he wanted to ensure his three other children would never be harmed in the same way. He joined the newly formed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission to improve the safety and security of Florida’s students. And he launched a nonprofit bearing Alex’s name, which advocates for school safety.

Doing that work, he learned about threat assessment teams, groups of law enforcement and school officials who try to identify potentially dangerous or distressed kids, intervene, and prevent the next school shooting. Florida is one of about 18 states that require schools to have threat assessment and intervention teams; a national survey estimates 85% of public schools have a team assigned to the task.

The teams, whose mission and operational strategies often are based on research from the FBI and the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center have become more common as the number of school shootings has increased. Despite their prevalence for almost 25 years, some of the teams have developed systemic problems that put them at risk of unfairly labeling and vilifying children.

States vary widely in their requirements of threat assessment teams, and there isn’t a nationwide archetype. Few school districts and states collect data about the teams, little is known about their operations, and research on their effectiveness at thwarting mass shootings and other threats is limited. But a 2021 analysis by the NTAC of 67 plots against K-12 schools found that people “contemplating violence often exhibit observable behaviors, and when community members report these behaviors, the next tragedy can be averted.”

“School shooters have a long thought process. They don’t just snap. They have concerning behavior over time. If we can identify them early, we can intervene,” said Karie Gibson, chief of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Yet, Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist who in 2001 developed one of the first sets of guidelines for school threat assessment teams, said there have been problems. In many cases, he said, threats have been deemed not serious “but parents and teachers are so alarmed that it is difficult to assuage their fears. The school community gets in an uproar, and the school administrators feel pressured to expel the student.”

And in other cases, a school doesn’t do a threat assessment and assumes a student is dangerous when somebody else reports them as a threat, and they may take a zero tolerance approach and remove them from the school, said Cornell, the Virgil S. Ward professor of education at the University of Virginia.

Secret Service: Most student threats aren’t credible

A task force convened by the American Psychological Association found little evidence that zero tolerance policies have improved school climate or school safety and said they may create negative mental health outcomes for students. The task force cited examples of students who were expelled for incidents or school rule violations as minor as having a knife in their lunch box for cutting an apple.

Marisa Randazzo, a research psychologist and the director of threat assessment for Georgetown University, said she has also seen “hyperreactions,” especially among school communities that have experienced a mass killing.

“It’s understandable. People who have been close to an event like this are on higher alert than other people,” said Randazzo, who previously worked for the Secret Service and co-founded Sigma Threat Management Associates.

Threat assessments are supposed to be a graduated process calibrated to the seriousness of a problem, since the majority of student threats are not credible and can be resolved through supportive interventions, according to research from the Secret Service.

Stephanie Crawford-Goetz, a school psychologist and the director of mental health for student support services in the Douglas County School District in Colorado, where a shooting occurred at a charter school in 2019, said her district’s threat assessment process emphasizes a proactive, rehabilitative approach to managing potential threats, as the NTAC suggests.

Crawford-Goetz said her district interviews students before convening the team to assess whether a threat is a misguided expression of anger or frustration and if the student has a plan and means to carry out violence.

Students whose threats are deemed transient receive support, such as help with coping skills, and they may meet with a mental health provider.

If the threat is credible, a student may be temporarily removed from the classroom or school.

Randazzo said the vast majority of kids who make threats are suicidal or despondent: “The process is designed primarily to figure out if someone is in crisis and how we can help. It is not designed to be punitive.”

Crawford-Goetz tells parents about her district’s threat assessment team at the beginning of the school year. Some districts report keeping their teams a secret from parents, which is not how they were designed to operate, said Lina Alathari, chief of the NTAC. Her team encourages schools to educate the whole community about the threat assessment process.

Disability may be considered in threat assessment

Some advocacy groups contend that threat assessment teams have perpetuated inequities. There has also been widespread concern that children with disabilities can easily get swept into a threat assessment.

In a 2022 report, the National Disability Rights Network, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., said some threat assessment teams have become “judge, jury, and executioner,” going beyond assessing risk of serious, imminent harm to determining guilt and punishment.

Expanding their scope allows threat assessment teams to get around civil rights protections, the report says.

Cornell disputed the disability rights group’s conclusion. “This has not been corroborated by scientific studies and is speculative,” he said.

Some states, such as Florida, mandate that threat assessment teams determine whether a student’s disability played a role in their behavior and recommend they include special education teachers and other professionals in their evaluation.

In Texas, which has mandated threat assessment teams, a third of students subjected to threat assessments in the Dallas Independent School District receive special education services.

Yet, the district doesn’t have a special education staff representative on its threat assessment team, according to a March 2023 report by Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit public interest justice center.

Many school districts are developing their own models in the absence of national standards for threat assessments.

Florida revamped its threat assessment system in January 2024 to improve response times, provide consistent data collection, and build in more checks and balances and oversight, said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who is also chair of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission.

The new model requires the teams to work quickly and file uniform, electronic summary reports of threat assessment findings. Those results follow students throughout their school years.

The adjustments are intended to eliminate the risk of not knowing about a student’s past troubling behavior if they change schools, as occurred with the Parkland shooter and a student who shot and killed classmates at a high school near Winder, Georgia, in September, Gualtieri said.

“As parents, you never stop worrying about your kids,” Schachter said.

Virginia mandates that all public schools and higher education institutions, including colleges, have threat assessment teams. In Florida, where one of Schachter’s daughters attends college, threat assessment teams are mandated in all public schools, including charter schools.

“There’s more work to be done,” Schachter said.

This story was originally published by KFF Health News, Healthbeat’s national reporting partner. Cheryl Platzman Weinstock’s reporting is supported by a grant from the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company, which also publishes Chalkbeat. Sign up for Healthbeat’s newsletters here.

Hochul wants to ban cellphones (and smartwatches) from schools. Here’s what families should know.

2025-01-23T22:09:50+00:00

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Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to limit student access to cellphones during the school day would require all New York City public schools to implement a ban on devices by the start of the next school year.

It’s part of a broader effort by Hochul to establish a “distraction-free” learning environment, and to encourage students to spend less time online amid concerns over the impact of social media on student mental health.

The proposed legislation was unveiled by the governor during a budget presentation earlier this week.

Though the city’s Education Department seemed poised to implement a systemwide ban last summer, Mayor Eric Adams pumped the brakes on that plan — spurred in part by concerns over the costs of implementation. Parents also expressed fears about losing their ability to contact students directly in emergency situations.

Instead, the Education Department partnered with the city’s Health Department to conduct a study on school cellphone restriction policies.

Currently, the city allows principals to make their own decisions about whether and how schools will limit access to cellphones during the school day. About 850 city schools had implemented or were planning to implement cellphone restrictions, city officials said last year. Some schools collect devices each morning, while others provide students with locking pouches.

Hochul’s sweeping proposal would leave the specifics of the policies in the hands of school districts, giving local officials some degree of control over how the policy might operate in practice in New York City.

Still, new details released by the governor on Wednesday offer a closer look at the potential policy. Here’s what families should know:

How would a school cellphone ban work?

Under the proposed legislation, school districts would be required to adopt a written policy prohibiting the use of “internet-enabled devices” by students on school grounds from “bell to bell,” including during class time, lunch, and in the hallways.

Each school district can determine the specifics of its policy, including how schools will store student devices and ensure compliance. But the district policies must identify at least one method through which students can store their devices during the school day, with the bill noting that student lockers could be included as an option.

School districts would also be required to report annually on discipline as a result of the policy, with action required if that report reveals inequities in enforcement. Some advocates previously expressed concerns about equity issues related to enforcement.

When would the proposed legislation go into effect?

School districts must adopt a cellphone policy and publish it on their websites by Aug. 1, 2025, according to the bill.

What student devices are prohibited under the proposed legislation?

The cellphone restrictions would apply to all “internet-enabled devices,” including smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and any other device able to connect to the internet.

The proposal would not apply to phones that are unable to connect to the internet, or internet-enabled devices supplied by the school district for educational purposes.

Would some students receive exemptions?

Students with disabilities, as well as others who rely on digital devices for medical reasons or translation purposes, would be allowed exemptions from the policy.

The legislation also allows districts to include exceptions for when teachers direct students to use devices for educational purposes, or in case of emergencies.

How would parents get in touch with their kids during the school day?

Each school district’s cellphone policy would be required to include one or more ways for parents and guardians to get in touch with their students during the school day.

The proposed legislation also requires schools to send parents written notice of these methods at the start of each school year.

State officials also recommended districts update or establish emergency notification protocols so parent expectations remained clear.

Will schools receive funding to implement cellphone restrictions?

Hochul’s proposed state budget allocates $13.5 million to help schools cover costs associated with cellphone restrictions, like paying for storage or digital locking pouches developed by companies like Yondr.

If approved, schools would access the funds by requesting reimbursement when purchasing phone storage items, according to Hochul’s office.

Does the policy apply to charter and private schools?

The proposed legislation would apply to charter schools. It would not apply to private schools.

How should districts approach developing a cellphone policy?

Hochul’s office released a set of guidance to help school districts approach developing their cellphone policies.

The suggestions include involving students, parents, teachers, and administrators in conversations about the policy, clearly defining its scope and expectations, communicating with parents regularly, and monitoring and adjusting the policy as necessary to ensure it is effective and equitable.

State officials also advised school districts to develop a clear plan for discipline, ensuring students understand the consequences of failing to comply with the policy.

How can schools support device-free students?

The guidance also included advice for schools seeking to build student engagement as students lose access to devices at school. Among the suggestions: promoting school clubs, sports, and the arts, allowing teachers to offer lessons outside the classroom, and providing games when kids are out of class.

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

Climate change threatens youth mental well-being. Here’s how to help them cope.

2025-01-10T23:58:26+00:00

This story was originally published by KFF Health News and is republished here with permission.

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We’ve all read the stories and seen the images: The life-threatening heat waves. The wildfires of unprecedented ferocity. The record-breaking storms washing away entire neighborhoods. The melting glaciers, the rising sea levels, the coastal flooding.

As California wildfires stretch into the colder months, and hurricane survivors sort through the ruins left by floodwaters, let’s talk about an underreported victim of climate change: the emotional well-being of young people.

A nascent but growing body of research shows that a large proportion of adolescents and young adults, in the United States and abroad, feel anxious and worried about the impact of an unstable climate in their lives today and in the future.

Abby Rafeek, 14, is disquieted by the ravages of climate change, both near her home and far away. “It’s definitely affecting my life, because it’s causing stress thinking about the future and how, if we’re not addressing the problem now as a society, our planet is going to get worse,” says Abby, a high school student who lives in Gardena, California, a city of 58,000 about 15 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

She says wildfires are a particular worry for her. “That’s closer to where I live, so it’s a bigger problem for me personally, and it also causes a lot of damage to the surrounding areas,” she says. “And also, the air gets messed up.”

Climate change is a serious concern for young people

In April, Abby took a survey on climate change for kids ages 12-17 during a visit to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Rammy Assaf, a pediatric emergency physician at the hospital, adapted the survey from one developed five years ago for adults. He administered his version last year to over 800 kids ages 12-17 and their caregivers. He says initial results show climate change is a serious cause of concern for the emotional security and well-being of young people.

Assaf has followed up with the kids to ask more open-ended questions, including whether they believe climate change will be solved in their lifetimes; how they feel when they read about extreme climate events; what they think about the future of the planet; and with whom they are able to discuss their concerns.

“When asked about their outlook for the future, the first words they will use are helpless, powerless, hopeless,” Assaf says. “These are very strong emotions.”

Rebuilding after Helene and Milton: Educators share experiences from previous disasters

Assaf says he would like to see questions about climate change included in mental health screenings at pediatricians’ offices and in other settings where children get medical care. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that counseling on climate change be incorporated into the clinical practice of pediatricians and into medical school curriculums, but not with specific regard to mental health screening.

Assaf says anxiety about climate change intersects with the broader mental health crisis among youth, which has been marked by a rise in depression, loneliness, and suicide over the past decade, though there are recent signs it may be improving slightly.

A 2022 Harris Poll of 1,500 U.S. teenagers found that 89% of them regularly think about the environment, “with the majority feeling more worried than hopeful.” In addition, 69% said they feared they and their families would be affected by climate change in the near future. And 82% said they expected to have to make key life decisions — including where to live and whether to have children — based on the state of the environment.

And the impact is clearly not limited to the United States. A 2021 survey of 10,000 16- to 25-year-olds across 10 countries found “59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried” about climate change.

Susan Clayton, chair of the psychology department at the College of Wooster in Ohio, says climate change anxiety may be more pronounced among younger people than adults. “Older adults didn’t grow up being as aware of climate change or thinking about it very much, so there’s still a barrier to get over to accept it’s a real thing,” says Clayton, who co-created the adult climate change survey that Assaf adapted for younger people.

By contrast, “adolescents grew up with it as a real thing,” Clayton says. “Knowing you have the bulk of your life ahead of you gives you a very different view of what your life will be like.” She adds that younger people in particular feel betrayed by their government, which they don’t think is taking the problem seriously enough, and “this feeling of betrayal is associated with greater anxiety about the climate.”

Abby believes climate change is not being addressed with sufficient resolve. “I think if we figure out how to live on Mars and explore the deep sea, we could definitely figure out how to live here in a healthy environment,” she says.

How to ease kids' anxiety about environment

If you are a parent whose children show signs of climate anxiety, you can help.

Louise Chawla, professor emerita in the environmental design program at the University of Colorado-Boulder, says the most important thing is to listen in an open-ended way. “Let there be space for kids to express their emotions. Just listen to them and let them know it’s safe to express these emotions,” says Chawla, who co-founded the nonprofit Growing Up Boulder, which works with the city’s schools to encourage kids to engage civically, including to help shape their local environment.

Chawla and others recommend family activities that reinforce a commitment to the environment. They can be as simple as walking or biking and participating in cleanup or recycling efforts. Also, encourage your children to join activities and advocacy efforts sponsored by environmental, civic, or religious organizations.

Working with others can help alleviate stress and feelings of powerlessness by reassuring kids they are not alone and that they can be proactive.

Worries about climate change should be seen as a learning opportunity that might even lead some kids to their life’s path, says Vickie Mays, professor of psychology and health policy at UCLA, who teaches a class on climate change and mental health — one of eight similar courses offered recently at UC campuses.

“We should get out of this habit of ‘everything’s a mental health problem,’” Mays says, “and understand that often a challenge, a stress, a worry can be turned into advocacy, activism, or a reach for new knowledge to change the situation.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KFF Health News is Healthbeat’s national reporting partner.

Can peer support address student mental health? New York City Council members hope so.

2024-11-25T22:29:57+00:00

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To combat mental health challenges in schools, New York City Council members want to expand support for student wellness clubs and other peer-to-peer programs.

Under one proposal, the city would develop a pilot program to bring mental health professionals into middle and high school wellness clubs, council members discussed at a Monday hearing.

Other proposed bills in a legislative package focused on student mental health would require the city to expand informational materials for students seeking to start their own wellness clubs, as well as training for students interested in peer-to-peer mental health programs. Wellness clubs and other support programs that bring students together to discuss mental health concerns can raise awareness about the challenges students face at school, while reducing the stigma associated with seeking help, according to advocates and experts.

The proposals come as schools in the city and across the nation have seen a worrying rise in mental health challenges. For many students, the COVID-19 pandemic upended day-to-day life — isolating them from their peers, while in some cases causing financial or personal losses within their families. In recent years, educators have continued to report lingering behavioral concerns, even years after students returned to the classroom.

In New York City, the share of students who reported suicidal ideation jumped to nearly 16% in 2021, with about 9% of high school students reporting they had attempted suicide that year.

The legislative proposals are the latest step in a continued push from council members to expand peer support programs to address mental health concerns.

As council members discussed the proposed legislation and the need for more peer-to-peer programs, they added it’s critical the programs serve as one element of a robust mental health support system.

“What we keep hearing over and over again — from not just the providers, but also the students — is how important it is to have wellness clubs,” said Council member Linda Lee, who chairs the Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction. “These programs hopefully are meant to complement what’s already there. … It’s another way to catch the folks from slipping through the cracks.”

High school students who testified at the hearing spoke about their own experiences facing mental health challenges at school — sharing stories of friends who struggled with suicidal ideation or who had attempted suicide. Students called for more mental health support at school.

“We are the generation that spent important years of our lives in the COVID-19 lockdown, then released back into the world without the tools to cope,” said Adonte DaCosta, a senior at the Manhattan Early College School for Advertising. “Many of us hold all of our emotions back until we can’t deal with the stress anymore and have to release it.”

City officials told council members during the hearing that the city’s schools had roughly 5,200 counselors and social workers. As of February, that meant an average of one counselor or social worker per 162 students, according to city data. (Excluding social workers, the city’s schools on average had one counselor per 262 students.)

And at 548 schools, Health Department staff work with external mental health providers and community-based organizations on school campuses, said Erica Lynne Smith, director of school mental health for the city’s Health Department.

“Every student has access to a school counselor, a social worker, a mental health clinic through an external partner or clinics that are within their building,” said Beverly Logan, executive director of counseling supports for the city’s Education Department.

City officials said further conversations would be required to work out the logistics of a pilot program and a path to broader implementation, adding they were concerned that relying on volunteer mental health professionals could raise issues around safety and compensation.

Still, officials noted students have shown enthusiasm for peer-to-peer programming and for having more mental health professionals at school.

Amallia Orman, student voice manager at the city’s Education Department, told council members that students have frequently taken the initiative to start wellness clubs at school, particularly in the years since the pandemic.

“Anecdotally, I think that young people gravitate towards supportive adults in their school that may or may not have a clinical association,” she added. “It might be a staff member as a counselor, it might be a guidance counselor.

“But I would say that young people also advocate for more mental health professionals in their school,” Orman added.

Council members, advocates concerned over student data privacy

In response to escalating youth mental health concerns, NYC last year launched Teenspace — a free online therapy service for teenagers that saw roughly 16,000 students sign up within the first year. But council members had concerns about privacy on the platform.

Last month, advocates and attorneys from the New York Civil Liberties Union raised alarm over concerns that the online platform may violate state and federal laws protecting student data privacy.

Advocates fear that Teenspace — a $26 million partnership between the city Health Department and teletherapy giant Talkspace — may be improperly tracking and sharing student information with outside parties and social media companies.

During the Monday hearing, Council member Rita Joseph, who chairs the council’s education committee, pressed city officials on how data was being tracked by the platform, as well as how the city would ensure student student information was secure.

“We are looking into this right now,” said Marnie Davidoff, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Children, Youth, and Families at the city’s Health Department. “Our contract explicitly requires student information to be maintained privately, not to be shared, and we have been working extensively with our provider partner to ensure that that is being enforced and implemented as we’d expect it to be.”

When city officials were unable to provide a precise timeline, Joseph floated the possibility of holding an additional council hearing focused on the issue.

“What are we doing to protect the privacies of young people?” she said. “I don’t want to hear excuses. I want to hear a plan.”

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

Student mental health needs are growing. Indiana school counselors are overworked. Will the legislature help?

2024-11-25T12:00:00+00:00

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Doreen Waldbieser, a school counselor in Vigo County, stepped to the microphone Nov. 8 at a Department of Education hearing on diplomas and began alphabetically listing her counseling duties:

Attend active shooter training. Analyze transcripts. Answer emails and phone calls.

Change schedules. Conduct screenings. Connect students to assistance.

She didn’t get past the M’s before her speaking time ran out.

Her point to policymakers was that even before the state’s new graduation requirements take effect, Indiana’s school counselors are already stretched too thin.

A new report on the profession in Indiana found that many counselors agree.

Student mental health needs are consistently higher since the pandemic and school counselors say they have less time to spend with students, according to the 2024-25 Indiana School Counselor Survey. To blame, they said, are growing lists of tasks like test and attendance monitoring and higher-than-average caseloads — Indiana has one counselor for every 351 students, higher than the recommended ratio of 1-to-250.

As lawmakers prepare to meet for the 2025 legislative session, they’re poised to again consider a proposal requiring counselors spend at least 60% of their time working with students. Other suggestions from counselors include putting the nationally recommended ratio into law, or funding more pipeline programs for teachers to earn counseling degrees. In a budget year, lawmakers could consider funding proposals, but already face a laundry list of K-12 education priorities.

Senate Bill 141, sponsored by Oldenburg Republican Sen. Jean Leising in 2024, set a threshold of 60% and then 85% the year after, but the bill didn’t make it through the House. Leising said she intends to bring the proposal forward again next year.

Counselors in the survey said it’s critical that their roles and responsibilities are defined so that they are not “on call for just about anything that needs to be done.”

“Administrators are protective of teacher time and focus on teaching students, but no one is protective of the school counselor role,” one counselor said. “We are expected to be masters of all areas and it just isn’t possible.”

More counselor tasks means less time with students

Today’s high schoolers were in middle school when the pandemic closed school buildings, and they spent a pivotal time in their development in isolation, said Ryan Preci, board chair for the Indiana School Counselors Association and high school counselor coordinator with Indianapolis Public Schools.

The result is an ongoing increase in student mental health needs as noted in the last several years of the counseling survey. This year, more than half of all counselors said that students’ social-emotional needs are higher this school year than last.

“COVID did increase mental health needs but it also shone a light on what was always there,” Preci said.

Simultaneously, counselors’ perception that they have enough time to meet with students has dropped to its lowest level since the survey began in 2011.

On average, counselors this year spent around 69% of their time providing a mix of direct services, like meeting face-to-face with students, and indirect counseling services, like parent and teacher conferences. Another 16% was spent on program management, and 15% was spent on non-counseling duties, which include test proctoring and arrival and dismissal duties.

Preci said counselors’ focus should be in three domains: Academics, social-emotional support, and college and career readiness. National recommendations say counselors should spend around 80% of their time on direct and indirect counseling services.

The upcoming changes to Indiana’s graduation requirements could place even more clerical work on counselors’ plates, Waldbieser, the Vigo schools counselor, told the state education board.

With three new proposed diploma seals, each with two levels, counselors will be responsible for individualizing graduation plans, along with verifying students’ work hours and college-level courses, and facilitating the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test.

It’s not yet clear what other changes lawmakers may make. A bill last year would have allowed chaplains to work as school counselors in public schools, providing only secular guidance unless the student’s parent gave permission for nonsecular guidance. The proposal was dropped in Indiana, but has passed in states like Texas.

School leaders’ support for counselors has grown significantly, according to the report, after hitting a low in 2021-22.

Preci said he’d like to see lawmakers put the recommended counselor-to-student ratio into law. Also helpful would be more programs to help teachers earn master’s degrees in counseling in order to make the switch from teaching to counseling.

“We need to fully fund public education in order to do that, in order to provide those services,” Preci said.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Trump’s deportation plan could separate millions of families, leaving schools to pick up the pieces

2024-11-15T21:02:12+00:00

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Editor’s Note: This story was reported and published before the presidential election. It has been updated to reflect that Donald Trump won a second term.

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When immigration agents raided chicken processing plants in central Mississippi in 2019, they arrested nearly 700 undocumented workers — many of them parents of children enrolled in local schools.

Teens got frantic texts to leave class and find their younger siblings. Unfamiliar faces whose names weren’t on the pick-up list showed up to take children home. School staff scrambled to make sure no child went home to an empty house, while the owner of a local gym threw together a temporary shelter for kids with nowhere else to go.

In the Scott County School District, a quarter of the district’s Latino students, around 150 children, were absent from school the next day. When dozens of kids continued to miss school, staff packed onto school buses and went door to door with food, trying to reassure families that it was safe for their children to return. Academics were on hold for weeks, said Tony McGee, the district’s superintendent at the time.

“We went into kind of a Mom and Dad mode and just cared for kids,” McGee said. While some children bounced back quickly, others were shaken for months. “You could tell there was still some worry on kids’ hearts.”

After workplace raids in Mississippi, some school-age children whose parents were arrested were taken to a local gym that served as an emergency shelter.

Massive workplace raids have occurred in the past, with enforcement also targeting employers in an effort to deter unauthorized immigration. If President-elect Donald Trump enacts the hardline immigration policies he campaigned on, what happened in Mississippi could become a much more common occurrence affecting millions of children and their schools.

Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, tapping every resource at his disposal from local police to the National Guard and the military. Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether they would deport the parents of U.S. citizen children.

But any such plan inevitably would sweep up parents of school-age children, leaving educators with the responsibility of providing food, clothing, counseling, and more to affected students. Educators who have been through it before say schools that serve immigrant communities should prepare now. It’s estimated some 4.4 million U.S.-born children have at least one undocumented parent.

On top of that, it’s unclear if Trump would seek to undermine the “sanctuary school” policies that some districts enacted during his last presidency in an attempt to protect immigrant students and their families on school grounds.

Trump has shown willingness to target immigrant children

Trump frequently aims his rhetoric and policy proposals at the children of immigrants.

Last year, he said he would seek to end automatic citizenship rights for children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents, and he has defended his policy that separated immigrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. He has not ruled out deporting women and children as part of his mass deportation plan.

“We’re gonna look at it very closely,” he said in an interview earlier this fall, even as he acknowledged that images of families being loaded on buses would make it “a lot harder.”

Both Trump and Vance have characterized immigrant children as being burdens on schools who are overcrowding classrooms and taxing teachers with their language needs. Top aides to Trump tried for months during his first administration to give states the power to block undocumented children from attending public school, Bloomberg News reported, and an influential conservative think tank is seeking to revive that idea if Trump wins a second term.

RELATED: Think tank with ties to Trump lays out plan to deny free education to undocumented students

Immigrant rights advocates worry that Trump would seek to end a decades-old federal policy that has treated schools as “sensitive” or “protected” areas where immigration agents are not supposed to surveil families or make arrests, except in extraordinary circumstances, so as not to deter children from going to school.

“Enforcement actions undertaken in these locations have a ripple effect,” said Heidi Altman, the director of federal advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center. “It’s very frightening for communities when we think about the possibility of a Trump administration, both in terms of enforcement at and near protected areas, like schools, but also the impact on schools and access to education.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to questions sent in October about whether he would seek to carry out immigration enforcement activities at or near schools as part of his mass deportation plan. But Project 2025, a policy playbook written by several former Trump White House officials, calls for rescinding any memos that identify “sensitive zones” where immigration action should be limited.

And even when immigration enforcement happens off campus, it can still have far-reaching effects on children and schools.

Kheri Martinez was just 13 when her mother was swept up in the 2019 Mississippi raids. She was one of around 1,000 children whose parents were arrested that day. A family friend picked Martinez up early from school, and she later learned from her dad — who was working out of state on a construction job — that her mother had been detained.

The seventh grader bottled up her own fears and told her two little sisters, who were a toddler and early elementary schooler at the time, that their mom was working overtime. For dinner, they ate pizza dropped off by worried family friends. That night, Martinez climbed into her parents’ bed with her sisters, hoping the blankets that smelled like their mom would comfort her.

“Even though I don’t know if Mom is going to come home today,” she told herself, “at least I’d have something closer to me, I’ll feel like she’s here.”

Her mom came home crying at 4 in the morning — immigration officials had released some parents of small children on humanitarian grounds while their cases proceeded — and Martinez finally felt like she could breathe.

At school the next day, there were whispers that the school would be targeted for violence and that the government was going to come back and take kids away. It felt like everyone at school was “on alert.”

“The Hispanic kids, we were just kind of out of it,” Martinez said. “We weren’t us for a little bit.”

Immigration raids take heavy emotional toll on kids

What Martinez experienced is not uncommon among children whose parents have been caught up in immigration raids. Multiple studies have documented the sweeping psychological, emotional, and financial toll that such operations have on children and their families.

A local pastor and other volunteers gathered food and donated items to distribute to families affected by the immigration raids in Mississippi in 2019.

Researchers from the nonprofit Center for Law and Social Policy found that the Mississippi raids were especially traumatic for the children whose schools were located within sight of a poultry plant. Many saw their parents handcuffed and shoved into white vans on their way home from school, prompting screams and uncontrollable crying.

Children “continued to suffer emotionally” for weeks and months, the research team wrote, and even kids who’d been reunited with their parents showed signs of post-traumatic stress and separation anxiety. Some kindergartners started wetting the bed again, and toddlers regressed in their speech. It was common for kids to come home from school, drop their backpacks, and spend the rest of the day sleeping. Older kids often took on more housework, child care, and paying jobs so they could contribute to their households.

Similarly, researchers for The Urban Institute documented how earlier immigration raids in three states affected some 500 children whose parents were arrested.

Those children were most likely to experience emotional distress, but fear also spread to children who worried their parents would be “taken” next. Story time often turned to talk of the raids and got emotional, teachers said. Some kids internalized their parents’ disappearance as an abandonment. Some children ate less and lost weight, while others started acting out or had trouble sleeping.

“Some parents said that, months after the raids, their children still cried in the morning when getting dropped off at school or day care, something that they rarely used to do,” the report found. “Children were said to obsess over whether their parents were going to pick them up from school.”

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

With breadwinners in detention, many families fell behind on rent. Three-quarters of the parents said they struggled to buy enough food after the raids. Housing instability forced some kids to change schools multiple times. The experience “sapped the attention of some children and affected their academic performance,” researchers found.

For Martinez, it took a year for school to feel normal again. She often felt like she was on edge, “on the lookout” for another raid.

“It hurt me for a while,” Martinez said.

How schools and families can offer support to kids

School leaders say it’s difficult to plan for an immigration raid. Agents usually do not give schools any prior warning. But schools that serve immigrant communities can take certain steps in advance.

“We practice for fire drills and tornado drills, bus evacuations, and sad to say nowadays we practice for active shooters. There’s not many drills for ICE raids,” McGee, the former Scott County superintendent, said. When “families are separated, and you’re responsible for how do these kids get home and who takes care of them, it helps to have a little insight that: Hey, you need to be prepared.”

School staff who’ve experienced raids in their communities say it’s especially important to develop an emergency protocol for how children should be signed out at school if their approved caretaker is not available to pick them up. Identifying a potential temporary shelter for students — whether at a school, a local church, or a community center — is also helpful.

McGee and his team met daily with the principals of schools where many children were affected by the raids to ask how teachers and students were doing. The district also provided materials to help teachers talk about the raids in class and explain to kids who weren’t affected how their classmates may be feeling.

“We didn’t get into the political struggle of why this happened, or why that happened, should it happen, should it not happen?” McGee said. “Our job is to care for kids.”

For Martinez, the care two teachers showed her was especially helpful. They each pulled her aside to talk about what happened, and told her to let them know if she needed more time to complete assignments.

“I was very appreciative of that,” Martinez said. “It made me feel like: ‘Oh, they understood.’”

Her family also came up with a plan for exactly what they would do and where they would go if another immigration raid happened, which helped to ease some of the anxiety. Martinez knows, for example, that if her family has to sell their belongings and move back to Mexico that she would stay in the U.S. to finish her college degree.

Gabriela Uribe Mejia with her daughter, Kheri Martinez. Martinez was just 13 when her mom was detained during a mass immigration raid in Mississippi in 2019.

“You’re going to carry something that is not yours, but we don’t have any option,” Gabriela Uribe Mejia said she told her daughter. “She said: ‘Don’t worry, I understand, I know what to do.’ But she’s a young girl.”

Still, immigrant rights advocates worry about the long-term effects on children and families.

Lorena Quiroz, who directs the Mississippi-based Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, was among the community organizers who went door to door asking families if they needed food, legal assistance, or other support in the wake of the Mississippi raids.

Quiroz knows affected families who were torn apart by drinking and fighting, and teens who dropped out of school. Mothers still feel ashamed of the weeks they spent wearing an ankle monitor, visible for everyone to see under their traditional Maya skirts. Adults still tear up when they drive past the poultry plants.

People talk about it “like it’s yesterday,” Quiroz said. “Imagine that happening everywhere.”

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

I offer free online therapy to teens. Here’s what I’m seeing — and why it matters.

2024-11-14T20:00:00+00:00

Before the pandemic, the idea of communicating with a therapist via text seemed unthinkable. Then COVID closures and an unprecedented surge in teen mental health issues changed everything.

I know what a difference it makes for teens because I talk to them almost every day.

I am a therapist who works for NYC Teenspace, New York City’s free mental health service connecting young people with licensed multilingual therapists through the secure (and HIPAA-compliant) platform Talkspace. This effort is breaking down barriers to mental health care, especially for those who may struggle to find a therapist who meets their needs.

Erin Mack

The program, launched a year ago this month by Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, is available to anyone ages 13 to 17 living in New York City, regardless of their school, immigration status, income level, or insurance status. No payment or insurance information is required.

While we ask all teens to share a parent or guardian’s information so that they can provide consent, in special circumstances, state law permits waiving that requirement, for example when the young person is emancipated, incarcerated, or if notification is deemed detrimental to their well-being. That is something that the licensed therapist assesses.

For many teens, it’s the first time they’ve ever talked with a therapist. And my goal is to create a space where teens feel like they can be themselves. Asking questions, staying curious, and not making assumptions are key to helping young people feel supported.

While many of our interactions are asynchronous and over text, I always encourage a live face-to-face video session or offer to send asynchronous audio or video messages. I want them to know that it’s OK to ask questions that can help them better understand therapy, mental health, themselves, and how to advocate for their needs.

They’re often curious to learn about depression, ADHD, PTSD, and other diagnoses they may have heard about on social media or from their friends. Sometimes, they ask if I’m a real human or if I’m AI. They like hearing that I grew up in New York, in the Bronx and Yonkers, that I have a cat, and the types of music I enjoy.

Teens may be experiencing anxiety or depression, or they may be grieving. But they don’t need to be experiencing symptoms of mental illness or living with loss to participate. They may be navigating a new relationship or breakup, adjusting to changes in their family dynamics, or experiencing uncertainty about what they want to do after high school.

We talk about what’s causing them stress and what will improve their quality of life. It’s rewarding when I hear from a teen client who has tried a technique we’ve practiced, like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, thought-stopping, or communication skills, and found that it works. From my experience, teens are more likely than adults to share their progress as it’s happening, rather than to reflect on it several months later.

How effective is NYC Teenspace? More than 16,000 teens have signed up for the service so far. Early data shows that 65 percent of users reported improvement in their mental health, and that number is growing. Underserved neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx lead the city in signups, and 60 percent of users identify as Black or Hispanic.

Going forward, I hope to see even more teens using it, especially boys. City data shows that teenage girls have been more than three times as likely to seek help on the platform. We have work to do to increase reach to teen boys, who may encounter more stigma around seeking help.

Still, I’m astonished by telehealth’s ability to promote strong connections with users, particularly Gen Z. These digital natives communicate effortlessly through text and other online media. They express themselves in ways an adult patient typically wouldn’t. They share photos of their pets, selfies, memes, audio clips — and, yes, lots of emojis — offering glimpses into their world that enrich the therapeutic process.

NYC Teenspace therapists can communicate in 13 different languages, and the platform uses translation support in 120 languages.

They share photos of their pets, selfies, memes, audio clips — and, yes, lots of emojis.

No matter what their language, teens tend to find on-demand messaging a more comfortable, accessible option in which to open up about their challenges in ways they might find difficult IRL. Between school, commuting, extracurriculars, and other responsibilities, some teens have avoided therapy because it has been challenging to get to an in-person appointment. Having a private space can often be a challenge for any New Yorker, and this is no different for teens. More than half of all users prefer exclusively engaging with their therapist via messaging.

The current ratio of NYC public school guidance counselors is 1 for every 272 students, and there are even fewer licensed mental health professionals. Last year, nearly half of teens surveyed in New York City reported experiencing mild to severe depressive symptoms. They worry about the future or something bad happening to them or to their families, which may be a sign of anxiety.

Skeptics of therapy in a digital space may say that the experience of in-person treatment can’t be replicated. In some instances, this is true. However, therapy that can happen via telehealth can connect with teens in a way that meets their needs. As any teen today can tell you, messaging is how they communicate with their closest friends. Online therapy is also much easier than in-person appointments to scale amid unprecedented teen mental health needs.

As with any treatment, it’s important to know the limitations. NYC Teenspace therapists are responsible for assessing clients for risks, including risks to themselves or others. If a teen presents with significant concerns like self-harm or suicidality, their therapist is expected to share resources, make appropriate referrals, and intervene as needed to ensure safety.

For the majority of teens who are not in crisis, NYC Teenspace offers a vital space where they can explore their emotions, develop coping strategies, and build resilience. These are skills they can bring with them as they grow into adulthood.

Erin Mack is a therapist and clinical quality risk manager with Talkspace, which operates NYC Teenspace.

El plan de deportación de Trump podría separar a millones de familias y dejar a las escuelas la responsabilidad de reparar el daño

2024-10-29T23:23:59+00:00

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Durante las redadas de 2019 en plantas de procesamiento de pollo en el centro de Mississippi, agentes de inmigración arrestaron a casi 700 trabajadores indocumentados, muchos de ellos padres de niños que asistían a escuelas locales.

Los adolescentes recibieron mensajes de texto, en los que se les indicaba que dejaran la clase con urgencia y que buscaran a sus hermanos menores. Personas cuyos nombres no figuraban en la lista de recogida se presentaron para llevar a los niños a casa. El personal escolar se apresuró a asegurarse de que ningún niño regresara a un hogar vacío, mientras que el dueño de un gimnasio local improvisó un refugio temporal para los niños que no tenían a dónde ir.

En el Distrito Escolar del Condado de Scott, un 25% de los estudiantes latinos, cerca de 150 niños, faltaron a la escuela al día siguiente. Cuando docenas de niños continuaron ausentes, el personal se subió a los autobuses escolares y fue de puerta en puerta con comida, tratando de convencer a las familias de que era seguro que sus hijos regresaran. Las actividades académicas se retrasaron, afirmó Tony McGee, el superintendente del distrito en aquel momento. Los alumnos no podían concentrarse en sus clases, tanto profesores como alumnos estuvieron distraídos durante semanas.

“Adoptamos una actitud de ‘mamá y papá’ y nos enfocamos en cuidar a los niños”, dijo McGee. Si bien algunos se recuperaron rápidamente, otros estuvieron afectados durante meses. “Era evidente que aún había preocupación en sus corazones”.

En el pasado, se han llevado a cabo redadas masivas en lugares de trabajo, enfocándose también en los empleadores como medida para desalentar la inmigración no autorizada. Si el expresidente Donald Trump gana un segundo mandato y aplica sus estrictas políticas migratorias, lo sucedido en Mississippi podría repetirse con mayor frecuencia, impactando a millones de niños y sus escuelas.

Si Trump gana la reelección, ha asegurado que llevará a cabo la mayor operación de deportación en la historia de los Estados Unidos, utilizando todos los recursos a su alcance, desde la policía local hasta la Guardia Nacional y las fuerzas armadas. Tanto Trump y su compañero de fórmula, el senador de Ohio J.D. Vance, han rechazado repetidamente responder acerca de si deportarían a los padres de niños ciudadanos estadounidenses.

Sin embargo, cualquier plan de este tipo inevitablemente afectaría a padres de niños en edad escolar, dejando a los educadores con la responsabilidad de proporcionar alimentos, ropa, asesoramiento y otros apoyos. Aquellos educadores que ya han pasado por situaciones similares aconsejan que las escuelas que sirven a comunidades de inmigrantes deben comenzar a prepararse. Ya que, se estima que alrededor de 4.4 millones de niños nacidos en EE. UU. tienen al menos un padre sin documentos.

Además, no está claro si Trump intentaría debilitar las políticas de ‘escuelas santuario’ que algunos distritos implementaron durante su anterior presidencia para proteger a los estudiantes inmigrantes y sus familias en el recinto escolar.

Las políticas de Trump apuntan a los niños inmigrantes

Trump frecuentemente señala a los niños inmigrantes en sus discursos y propuestas políticas.

El año pasado, dijo que buscaría poner fin al derecho a la ciudadanía automática para los niños nacidos en EE.UU. de padres indocumentados y defendió su política de separar a los niños inmigrantes de sus familias en la frontera entre EE.UU. y México. No ha descartado deportar a mujeres y niños como parte de su plan de deportación masiva.

“Lo vamos a analizar muy de cerca”, dijo en una entrevista el mes pasado, aunque reconoció que las imágenes de las familias que eran llevadas a los autobuses “complicaría mucho la situación”.

Tanto Trump como Vance han caracterizado a los niños inmigrantes como una carga para las escuelas, señalando que sobrecargan las aulas y complican la labor de los maestros con sus necesidades lingüísticas. Durante su primer mandato, los asesores más cercanos a Trump intentaron, sin éxito, otorgar a los estados el poder de impedir que los niños indocumentados asistieran a escuelas públicas, tal como reportó Bloomberg News. Un influyente think tank conservador está buscando reactivar esta propuesta en caso de que Trump gane un segundo mandato.

MÁS: Cómo una nueva coalición defiende los derechos educativos de niños indocumentados

Los defensores de los derechos de los inmigrantes temen que Trump busque poner fin a una política federal que ha existido durante décadas y que considera a las escuelas como zonas ‘seguras’ o ‘protegidas’. En esas áreas, se supone que los agentes de inmigración no pueden vigilar o arrestar a las familias, excepto en circunstancias extraordinarias, para evitar que los niños se sientan desalentados a asistir a la escuela.

“Las acciones de ejecución realizadas en estas localidades tienen un efecto dominó”, comentó Heidi Altman, directora de defensa federal en el Centro Nacional de Leyes de Inmigración. “Es muy alarmante para las comunidades imaginar la posibilidad de una administración de Trump, tanto por la aplicación de la ley en áreas protegidas y en sus alrededores, como las escuelas, pero también por el impacto en las instituciones educativas y al acceso a la educación”.

Después de las redadas en Mississippi, algunos niños cuyos padres fueron detenidos se quedaron en un gimnasio local que sirvió como refugio temporal.

La campaña de Trump no respondió a preguntas sobre si el expresidente intentaría llevar a cabo actividades de aplicación de la ley migratoria en las escuelas o en sus alrededores como parte de su plan de deportación masiva. Sin embargo, el Proyecto 2025, un manual de políticas redactado por varios exfuncionarios de la Casa Blanca de Trump, propone anular cualquier documento que identifique ‘zonas protegidas’ donde la acción migratoria debería ser restringida.

Incluso cuando la aplicación de la ley de inmigración se lleva a cabo fuera del recinto escolar, puede tener efectos significativos en los niños y las escuelas.

Kheri Martínez tenía apenas 13 años cuando su madre fue detenida en las redadas de Mississippi en 2019. Ese día, ella fue una más de los casi 1000 niños cuyos padres fueron arrestados. Una amiga de la familia la recogió antes de tiempo de la escuela, y más tarde su padre —que estaba viajando por un trabajo de construcción— le informó que su madre había sido detenida.

La estudiante de séptimo grado reprimió sus propios miedos y les dijo a sus dos hermanitas que su mamá estaba trabajando horas extra. Para cenar, compartieron una pizza que llevaron amigos de la familia que estaban preocupados por lo que había ocurrido. Esa noche, Martínez se metió en la cama de sus padres con sus hermanitas, deseando que las cobijas que olían a su mamá le brindaran consuelo.

“Aunque no estoy segura de que mamá regrese hoy”, se dijo, “al menos tendré algo cercano que me recordará de ella, y se sentirá como si realmente estuviera aquí”.

Su mamá regresó a casa llorando a las 4 de la mañana. Los funcionarios de inmigración habían dejado en libertad a algunos padres de niños pequeños por motivos humanitarios, mientras se procesaban sus casos. En ese instante, Martínez sintió que podía volver a respirar.

Al día siguiente en la escuela, surgieron rumores de que se planeaba un ataque violento contra la institución y que el gobierno regresaría para llevarse a los niños. Todos parecían estar “en alerta”.

“Los niños hispanos, estábamos un poco desconcertados”, expresó Martínez. “En aquel momento, sentíamos que no éramos nosotros mismos”.

Las redadas de inmigración generan un profundo impacto emocional en los niños

Lo que vivió Martínez es una experiencia común entre los niños cuyos padres han sido detenidos en redadas migratorias. Diversas investigaciones han documentado el considerable impacto psicológico, emocional y financiero que tales operativos generan en los niños y sus familias.

Un estudio realizado por investigadores del Centro de Derecho y Política Social (The Center for Law and Social Policy), una organización sin ánimo de lucro, reveló que las redadas en Mississippi resultaron particularmente traumáticas para los niños que asistían a escuelas cercanas a una planta de procesamiento de pollo. Muchos presenciaron cómo sus padres eran esposados y forzados a entrar en furgones blancos al regresar de la escuela, lo que provocó gritos y llantos incontrolables.

El equipo de investigación señaló que los niños ‘continuaron padeciendo emocionalmente’ durante semanas y meses, y aquellos que se habían reunido con sus padres también mostraron signos de estrés postraumático y ansiedad por separación. Algunos niños de Kínder volvieron a mojar la cama, y los más pequeños retrocedieron en su habilidad para hablar. Era común que los niños regresaran a casa de la escuela, dejaran sus mochilas y durmieran el resto del día. Los adolescentes a menudo asumían un rol más activo en las tareas del hogar, como con el cuidado de niños y realizando trabajos remunerados para contribuir con la economía familiar.

Un pastor local y otros voluntarios recogieron alimentos para distribuirlos a las familias afectadas por las redadas en Mississippi en 2019.

De manera similar, los investigadores del Urban Institute documentaron cómo redadas migratorias realizadas en tres estados afectaron a aproximadamente 500 niños debido a la detención de sus padres.

Los niños cuyos padres resultaron detenidos fueron los más propensos a sufrir angustia emocional, aunque el temor se extendió también a otros pequeños preocupados de que sus propios padres fueran ‘llevados’ después. Según los maestros, la hora de los cuentos se transformaba en un momento de conversación sobre las redadas, con mucha carga emocional. Algunos niños interpretaron la ausencia de sus padres como un abandono, y hubo quienes empezaron a comer menos y bajaron de peso, mientras que otros empezaron a portarse mal o tenían problemas para dormir.

“Algunos padres relataron que, incluso meses después de las redadas, sus hijos seguían llorando por las mañanas al dejarlos en la escuela o guardería, un comportamiento que solía ser poco común”, indicó el informe. “Decían que los niños se obsesionaban con la idea de si sus padres irían a buscarlos a la escuela”.

MÁS: Cómo un distrito escolar apoyó a los estudiantes recién llegados este año

Las detenciones provocaron retrasos en el pago de alquiler en muchas familias, ya que a menudo los detenidos eran el sostén económico principal. Tres de cada cuatro padres señalaron que, tras las redadas, enfrentaron serias dificultades para conseguir suficiente comida. La inestabilidad de viviendas llevó a algunos niños a cambiar de escuela varias veces. Los investigadores descubrieron que estas experiencias “distraen a los niños y afectan su rendimiento académico”.

Para Martínez, pasó un año antes de que la escuela volviera a sentirse normal. A menudo, se sentía al límite, ella estaba ‘en alerta’ ante la posibilidad de otra redada.

“Me dolió durante un tiempo”, confesó Martínez.

Cómo las escuelas y las familias pueden apoyar a los niños

Los líderes escolares sostienen que es complicado prepararse para una redada migratoria, ya que, por lo general, los agentes no notifican a las instituciones con antelación. Sin embargo, las escuelas que apoyan a comunidades inmigrantes pueden implementar medidas preventivas.

“Realizamos simulacros de incendios y tornados, evacuaciones de autobuses y, lamentablemente, en la actualidad también practicamos para situaciones de tiradores activos. Sin embargo, no hay muchos simulacros para redadas de ICE (El Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de Estados Unidos)”, dijo McGee, el exsuperintendente del Condado de Scott. “Cuando las familias están divididas y eres responsable de cómo regresan esos niños a casa y quién los cuida, es útil tener una idea, ese: Oye, necesitas estar preparado”.

El personal escolar que ha vivido redadas en sus comunidades sostiene que es fundamental establecer un protocolo de emergencia sobre cómo deben ser entregados los niños en la escuela si su cuidador autorizado no está disponible para recogerlos. También es útil identificar un posible refugio temporal para los estudiantes, ya sea en una escuela, una iglesia local o un centro comunitario.

McGee y su equipo se reunían a diario con los directores de las escuelas donde muchos niños se vieron afectados por las redadas para indagar sobre el bienestar de los maestros y los estudiantes. El distrito también proporcionó recursos para ayudar a los maestros a hablar sobre las redadas en clase, para explicarles la situación a los niños no afectados y ayudarlos a empatizar con los sentimientos de sus compañeros que sí lo fueron.

“No nos involucramos en la controversia política de porqué sucedió esto o aquello”, expresó McGee. “Nuestra responsabilidad es cuidar de los niños”.

Gabriela Uribe Mejía con su hija, Kheri Martínez. Martínez tenía apenas 13 años cuando su madre fue detenida en las redadas de Mississippi en 2019.

Martínez encontró un gran apoyo en la atención que le dieron dos maestros durante ese momento. Cada uno, en diferentes momentos, la apartaron para conversar sobre lo sucedido y le dijeron que si necesitaba más tiempo para terminar sus tareas, solo tenía que comunicarles.

“Eso fue muy valioso para mí”, dijo Martínez. “Me hizo sentir que: “Ah, ellos me comprendían”.

Además, su familia ideó un plan claro sobre qué hacer y a dónde ir en caso de otra redada migratoria, lo que contribuyó a aliviar parte de la ansiedad. Por ejemplo, Martínez sabe que si su familia necesita vender sus cosas y regresar a México, ella se quedaría en los Estados Unidos para completar su carrera universitaria.

“Vas a cargar algo que no te corresponde, pero no hay opción”, le explicó Gabriela Uribe Mejía a su hija. “Ella dice: ‘No te preocupes, yo entiendo, yo sé qué hacer,’ pero es una niña”.

Aun con los esfuerzos realizados, los defensores de los derechos de los inmigrantes no pueden evitar preocuparse por las consecuencias que este proceso dejará en la vida de los niños y sus familias.

Lorena Quiroz, quien lidera la Alianza de Inmigrantes por la Justicia y la Equidad en Mississippi, se unió con otros miembros de la comunidad. Juntos visitaron hogares para preguntar a las familias del vecindario si requerían alimentos, ayuda legal o cualquier otro tipo de asistencia, tras las redadas en el estado.

Quiroz ha sido testigo de familias divididas por el consumo de alcohol y las peleas, así como de adolescentes que decidieron abandonar la escuela. Muchas madres todavía sienten vergüenza por las semanas en las que usaron un grillete en el tobillo, visible bajo sus tradicionales faldas mayas. Los adultos aún se emocionan al pasar cerca de las plantas de procesamiento de pollo, recordando las difíciles experiencias que vivieron y la vulnerabilidad de sus familias ante la amenaza de la deportación.

“La gente habla de lo ocurrido como si hubiera sido ayer”, dijo Quiroz. “Imagina que eso sucediera en todas partes”.

Traducido por Flavia Melisa Franco

Kalyn Belsha es una periodista senior especializada en educación, ubicada en Chicago. Puedes comunicarte con ella a través de su correo electrónico: kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

After years of closures, four new specialized schools open for Colorado’s ‘most vulnerable’ students

2024-10-24T09:45:00+00:00

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Three new specialized Colorado schools began working with school districts this fall to serve students with some of the highest needs in the state. A fourth new school works with teenagers and young adults who are in the juvenile justice system.

Known as facility schools, the number of these specialized schools had been dwindling for years due to low state funding, staffing shortages, and operating hurdles. But the four new schools are an indication that a state law passed last year is having the intended effect of increasing options for what one state report called some of Colorado’s “most vulnerable” students.

Together, the new schools will provide more than 100 new facility school seats for students in Colorado, according to the state, shortening the long waitlists that have become common.

“It’s a sign that things are moving in the right direction,” said outgoing state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who sponsored the 2023 bill. “But it’s going to take a little bit more time to fully know the impact.”

Two of the new schools, TACT and Joshua Early Childhood Center, were existing programs that are now designated by the state as facility schools, opening up the flow of both public school funding and students. Another school, Austin Centers for Exceptional Students, is brand new to Colorado. Austin Centers runs six similar schools in Arizona.

Rocky Mountain Leadership School in Idaho Springs serves a small number of adjudicated boys and young men ages 16 to 20 who are in the custody of the state Division of Youth Services.

Many students who attend facility schools struggle with intense mental or behavioral health needs. Some have diagnoses of autism or emotional or intellectual disabilities. Others have experienced trauma, chronic illness, or substance abuse.

Facility schools are often schools of last resort. School districts and other state agencies send students to facility schools when they can’t meet the students’ needs. The districts pay tuition, and the facility schools also get funding directly from the state.

Photos of students from Austin Centers' schools in Arizona hang in its new Westminster school.

There were 80 facility schools in Colorado in 2004, but the number had plummeted to 30 by the time the new law was passed in spring 2023. Two more facility schools, Devereux Cleo Wallace in Westminster and Jefferson Hills in Lakewood, closed shortly thereafter.

But the 2023 law seems to be slowing the pace of the closures, advocates said. Among other changes, the law increased state funding for facility schools, allowing them to raise teacher pay and better compete for talent. It also created a new category called specialized day schools that provides a different way for schools and programs to get licensed as facility schools.

And the law created a grant-funded program that allows facility schools to band together to pay for services such as food, accounting, and IT. An early pilot showed participating facility schools saved between 15% and 30% on those services.

“It was the biggest sigh of relief for me of, ‘Yes, this is what we intended for this bill,’” said Becky Miller Updike, the executive director of the Colorado Association of Family and Children’s Agencies, which represents several facility schools.

But challenges remain. Most Colorado facility schools, including the new ones, are located along the Front Range. That leaves students in rural parts of the state with few to no options.

“The giant black hole continues to be the non-metro area,” Miller Updike said. “We all hope we can get a lot more geographic representation across the state for these kinds of schools.”

Austin Centers is located in the former Witt Elementary School in Westminster.

Austin Centers was called to Colorado by long waitlists

Brad Trout, principal of the new Austin Centers school in Westminster, said the organization had been looking to expand outside Arizona for several years. Austin Centers looked at six states including Colorado, said Trout, who previously worked for the organization in Tempe.

“When they looked at Colorado, they found that there were a lot of students that were homebound, and a lot of students that were on waitlists to get into facility schools,” Trout said. “That’s really the impetus behind the decision to come up here.”

Austin Centers was approved by the Colorado Facility Schools Board in early August. But word had gotten out before then. Trout said he began hearing from school districts in June.

“School districts started reaching out to me, sending me copies of [special education plans] saying, ‘Hey, can you review this kid? Let me know if this is a student you could work with,’” he said. “School districts were taking a big risk on us getting approved.”

Austin Centers now has 44 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, some of whom travel as long as an hour and 45 minutes to get there. It’s located inside the former Witt Elementary, which was shuttered by Jeffco Public Schools in 2023 due to declining enrollment.

Class sizes are no bigger than eight students; there are sensory materials in every classroom; and the school has a team of physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and psychologists to help students regulate their behavior and access learning.

Courtney Leyba, the Denver Public Schools administrator in charge of placing Denver students at facility schools, called Austin Centers “a godsend for us.”

“We now no longer have students waiting to find a placement,” she said at a recent school board committee meeting, noting that the district had already placed 17 students there.

Michael Hurst helps attendees of TACT operate a lift with a Toyota RAV4 during an auto shop and mechanic class in 2023.

TACT teaches the trades to teens

TACT, which stands for Teaching the Autism Community Trades, is for older students with autism or other neurodiversity. Located in a warehouse in Englewood, TACT teaches skilled trades such as carpentry, welding, auto mechanics, and culinary arts.

“This isn’t building birdhouses,” said founder Danny Combs, who was inspired to start TACT in 2016 because he has a son with autism. “It looks like what a trade school should look like.”

TACT offers workshops for younger children, but its main programs focus on training teenagers and young adults for good-paying jobs in the trades, helping them find positions, and then supporting them at work. The organization was historically funded through a combination of philanthropy and state programs for people with disabilities.

But since TACT is not a traditional school, Combs said the organization would sometimes run into problems when trying to work with school districts. Even if it was written into a student’s special education plan that they should attend TACT for vocational training, Combs said school principals would sometimes refuse to send them.

So in 2019, TACT began looking into becoming a facility school. But the organization didn’t quite fit the mold. It wasn’t a day treatment center or a residential program, as many facility schools are. It didn’t have a child care license, as some others did, and it didn’t offer the traditional therapy programs of many facility schools, though Combs says it is therapeutic.

“Our students are getting therapy; they just don’t know it,” he said. “It’s more real.”

The new specialized day schools category finally allowed TACT to become a facility school for students aged 18 to 21 who are still enrolled in public schools. Students with disabilities can delay graduation to attend vocational or life skills training until they turn 21.

TACT currently serves 80 teens and young adults, but Combs said only 35 are between the ages of 18 and 21. Of those, only eight qualify as facility school students because they haven’t yet graduated high school. The goal is to grow that number in the coming years, Combs said.

“Now this allows students who want to come here the opportunity,” he said.

An instructional assistant at the Joshua Early Childhood Center works with a student on their individualized programming.

Joshua School fills a need for early childhood seats

Joshua Early Childhood Center also serves students with autism, but on the other end of the age spectrum, where there was a lack of facility school seats.

The school’s current students range in age from 4 to 8, though it’s licensed to serve children from ages 3½ to 10, said Executive Director Cindy Lystad.

Lystad oversees three schools in total: Joshua Early Education Center in Centennial and two locations of the Joshua School that serve school-age students in Englewood and Boulder. Each student has a one-on-one instructional aide who personalizes their education.

While the two Joshua School locations had been facility schools for many years, Joshua Early Education Center operated under a different model, Lystad said. Twelve of the 24 early education seats were filled by students with autism whose health insurance paid their tuition. The other 12 seats were filled by neurotypical preschoolers whose families paid tuition.

The neurotypical students served as behavior models for the students with autism, a so-called inclusion program that Lystad said worked beautifully but wasn’t “fiscally salvageable.” Last school year, the school transitioned its 12 insurance seats to facility school seats. Lystad said the seats were filled before the state had even approved the facility school license.

“Districts were saying, ‘I want a seat, I want a seat, I want a seat,’” Lystad said.

So this school year, Joshua Early Education Center transitioned fully to a facility school. All 24 seats were filled within 24 hours with students who’d been on a waitlist, Lystad said.

“We field multiple calls a day at all of our campuses of, ‘How do I get my child into your school?’” she said. “It almost breaks my heart because every single one of those phone calls is a kid, is a family, is a situation. They are desperate for a place for their kiddo.”

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

Rebuilding after Helene and Milton: Educators share experiences from previous disasters

2024-10-16T17:39:31+00:00

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When devastating floods ripped through Jamestown, Colorado, in 2013, the rural mountain town’s school was physically unscathed. But students lost their homes. The town’s “patriarch” was killed. And the school building was converted to aid in disaster recovery.

It was only on the last day of the school year that kids were able to return to the school and celebrate graduation.

“It was a huge impact to be out of your home. I think just trying to care for the students, understanding that the biggest thing we could do for them was to support them emotionally and the families,” said Scott Boesel, the principal at the time. “Education was almost secondary for the first few months after the flood.”

As similar isolated but tight-knight rural communities in the southeast recover from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, educators and families are working together to address the physical and emotional consequences of the natural disasters. From flooding in Kentucky to fires in California to hurricanes in Puerto Rico, disasters everywhere have tested schools in recent years. Some facets of these crises are urgent but relatively short-term concerns. Others persist for years. But they are interconnected.

Helene and Milton have reportedly caused hundreds of deaths and devastating damage to property and livelihoods that’s still being tallied — one estimate has put the cost of recovering from Helene at $34 billion. Many schools and districts are still struggling with returning to class. Around 30 North Carolina school districts were impacted by the storms, according to the North Carolina Association of School Boards.

Most of the schools affected in North Carolina have “opened back up” but others have indicated that they are closed indefinitely, said Leanne Winner, the association’s executive director, late last week.

Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina in late September. More than 30 school districts in the state had to shut down classes due to the storm, according to the North Carolina Association of School Boards. (Mario Tama via Getty Images)

Specialists and educators interviewed by Chalkbeat about school communities that have been affected by such disasters highlighted the importance of prioritizing students’ mental health. Losing a house or a friend, or even less-catastrophic disruptions stemming from a natural disaster, are traumatic experiences for students.

Studies show that, during the first three months after a disaster, symptoms of post-traumatic stress can be seen in up to 72% of students in affected areas, according to research by Betty Lai, a professor of counseling psychology at Boston College.

That’s why it’s essential to monitor students and identify those under the most stress so that they can receive appropriate care.

“We have seen through research that many kids are resilient, meaning they seem to bounce back after a disaster,” Lai said. “But the bad news is that some children will experience high levels of distress, which we should be concerned about because we know that those distress symptoms can go on for many years.”

That issue is directly connected to academic recovery. A 2022 study published by the federal Government Accountability Office about the impact of natural disasters on schools found that “academic recovery generally could not take place until students and staff had begun their emotional recovery.”

The GAO’s study also found that the forced move to “improvised facilities” due to physical damage to normal school infrastructure also “disrupted the learning process.”

But trying to minimize effects on learning and test scores isn’t the only reason to focus on getting school buildings up and running again. In Jamestown, the district made an effort to resume classes as soon as possible, even if the school building could not be used. That’s because reestablishing kids’ routines is an essential aspect of making them feel safe.

“The key for the kids is trying to keep something similar in their lives,” Boesel said. “Having the ability to keep kids together, even though they were in a different location than they were used to, I think was huge for the kids in their recovery and huge for the families, so they could stay together as a unit.”

Losing a classroom can resemble losing a home

Schools in western North Carolina don’t have to look too far to find other schools that have grappled with expected and unexpected consequences from storms.

When Hurricane Florence hit the eastern portion of North Carolina in 2018, it severely damaged White Oak High School in Onslow County, forcing it to close entirely for more than five weeks.

During the 39 days while the school was entirely closed, students and teachers met in alternative locations — such libraries, churches, and other common areas — to keep kids engaged.

Even after the school partially reopened, students and teachers had to adapt to the loss of the science building, which remained under construction for almost a year, according to Christopher Barnes, the school’s principal at the time.

He recalled one teacher, for example, who had worked at the school for 30 years and lost all of her teaching materials.

“Teachers who lost their rooms in the school experienced the kind of trauma that I would expect when someone lost their home. And I did not anticipate that at the time,” said Barnes, who is now the Onslow County district’s chief academic officer. “Once I realized that was important to them and that it was more of an emotional toll, I understood that I could not be dismissive but had to sit and talk through those things with them.”

The recovery efforts did bring the White Oak community closer together and helped people support each other more. It also drove students' and teachers' focus to the academic curriculum. But in general, the challenges imposed by the loss of physical space also affect students’ learning: Students get less instruction time and attendance rates of both students and teachers can decline.

The federal accountability office’s report from 2022 quoted county education officials who stressed that students from already vulnerable populations, such as English language learners and students with disabilities, were hurt the most by instruction time lost to disasters.

It also noted that in districts with large shares of students from low-income backgrounds, there were adverse academic effects, whereas wealthier districts didn’t see “extended declines” in academic performance.

Data about the academic impacts of Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Matthew on North Carolina schools produced mixed results: Elementary schools’ test scores declined in the three years after the storms, but that pattern didn’t carry over into middle and high schools, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Recovery also depends significantly on the state and federal financial resources provided to schools. The GAO study showed that, in many cases, schools' insurance policies and federal grants were insufficient.

Counselor differentiates mental health support after disasters

The 2013 flood in Colorado also impacted Centaurus High School in Lafayette, where Sarina Gonzales worked as a counselor.

Gonzales works on the Boulder Valley School District’s Trauma Response Team, and provided emotional support for students after that flood as well as the Marshall Fire in 2021, which destroyed over 1,000 homes in Boulder County. When events like these happen, the team mobilizes quickly.

“I go in assuming that students, for a multitude of different reasons, don’t feel safe. And so I try to restore a sense of safety to the students,” she said.

Jamestown in Colorado's Boulder County was one of the most severely affected by floods in 2013. Students from different parts of the local school district had their lives affected by the storm. (Helen H. Richardson / Denver Post via Getty Images)

In the aftermath of the Marshall Fire, the number of students identified as homeless in Boulder Valley district rose dramatically. In that case, Gonzales was also responsible for working with students from other schools in the county.

After that immediate response, it is essential to monitor students and identify those under the most stress so that they can receive appropriate care. According to Betty Lai’s research, the number of students exhibiting post-traumatic stress symptoms stemming from natural disasters tends to decrease over time, but around 10% of kids will still present them more than two years after an extreme event.

“Children who watched the water level rise or had to evacuate quickly, couldn’t return to their homes, or had a caregiver lose their job, for example, are more likely to experience distress after a disaster,” Lai said.

The shared catastrophe of natural disasters might erase some normal distinctions between members of school communities. But Gonzales said she had to adapt the assistance provided according to students’ different ages and needs.

“In my experience, elementary and middle school students wanted to talk individually and just tell their story to an adult,” she recalled. “They wanted to talk about getting their pets out, their story of how they got out of their house and rushed away from the fire, and things like that.”

Meanwhile, she said, high school students “didn’t want to talk to a stranger. They preferred to process that with people they knew better. But the high schoolers needed a space to go to, even if they didn’t want to talk.”

Wellington Soares is Chalkbeat’s national education reporting intern based in New York City. Contact Wellington at wsoares@chalkbeat.org

How to get ‘school avoidant’ students with disabilities back to class? Lawsuit pushes for solutions.

2024-10-08T22:24:10+00:00

New York City’s Education Department is systematically failing to provide equal access to education for students with disabilities who are chronically absent due to “school avoidance,” according to a class action lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Legal Aid Society.

Four students involved in the lawsuit stopped regularly attending school because of their social or emotional disabilities, such as severe anxiety or depression, and the lawsuit alleges that the nation’s largest school system has no policy or procedures in place to ensure that these students are receiving the “free appropriate public education” they are entitled to under the law.

New York City schools do not have a systemwide policy to evaluate students who are experiencing school avoidance and get them back in school, according to the suit. The system also lacks a process to track and identify chronically absent students who are struggling with school avoidance, according to the complaint. (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman joined Legal Aid on the case.)

Instead, schools often either ignore the situation, convince parents to home-school their child, or suggest parents apply for home instruction, which provides a limited number of weekly instructional hours for children who can’t attend school due to physical or psychiatric disorders, the lawsuit states. Schools also often involve child protective services, the lawsuit notes.

The suit demands the Education Department immediately develop a comprehensive plan and implement a process to identify, evaluate, and establish programming to help students suffering from school avoidance, as required by federal and state law.

“We need some consistency around what schools are supposed to do,” said Susan Horwitz, supervising attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s Education Law Project, emphasizing that schools should not wait until a student is absent for more than 10 consecutive days, as chancellor’s regulations require, to investigate what’s happening.

“Every school knows who’s not coming,” and they know which of their students have accommodations for disabilities, Horwitz said. “There’s got to be some prevention … before it’s really kind of too late to come up with an effective, fast solution.”

Education Department officials said that school-based mental health teams look at behaviors and whether mental health issues are contributing to absences. Additionally, teams crafting individualized education programs, or IEPs, or 504 plans outlining mandated accommodations for students with disabilities can include services to address why students are refusing to attend school.

“We know that this is an issue among our most vulnerable students, including students with IEPs, and as such, we provide instructional supports, paraprofessional services, and mental health services based on students’ individual needs,” said Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tul in a statement.

Data gaps makes it difficult to address school avoidance

The lack of official city guidance, as Chalkbeat previously reported, leads to an uneven response across the city’s 1,600 schools, ranging from little to no involvement from school administrators to deeper partnerships with families. And it has often fallen to families to navigate an inadequate mental health system instead of getting school-based support they’re entitled to.

Ultimately, it means that many students with disabilities are missing critical instructional time as well as services and accommodations they would be receiving in school, such as counseling or occupational therapy, the lawsuit said.

Students with disabilities struggle disproportionately with chronic absenteeism, which is defined as missing 10% of the school year, or roughly 18 days per year. About 46% of the city’s 200,000 students with disabilities were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year. In District 75, which serves students with significant disabilities who cannot be accommodated in neighborhood schools, nearly 60% were chronically absent. That compared to a citywide average of 36%.

The Education Department, however, does not have granular data on how many of these students are chronically absent because of school avoidance. (Busing-related issues are also a driver of chronic absenteeism for students with disabilities.) When a student is absent from school for 10 consecutive days, the school is supposed to ascertain the reasons through parent outreach, and if they can’t obtain the reason, they are supposed to conduct what’s called a “407 investigation.” These investigations, however, do not even include a process to identify students specifically struggling with school avoidance, the lawsuit states.

“If one thing that comes out of this is that we finally know how many kids it’s affecting, that will be 10 steps ahead of where we are now,” Horwitz said. “Because then we can be more specific about how to address it.”

The Education Department instructs schools to consider conducting a “functional behavior assessment” to assess “any behavior with an impact on learning, including but not limited to: elopement [leaving class or school] . . . and school avoidance,” the lawsuit stated, but said that schools rarely conduct such evaluations for students experiencing school avoidance.

Education Department officials said additional evaluation might be warranted for students who are school avoidant to determine whether new supports might help get a student to return to school.

But no one conducted any functional behavior assessments or provided effective strategies for M.T., a 15-year-old ninth grader on the autism spectrum, who is part of the lawsuit.

M.T., who has a tendency to elope, struggled with attendance at her Queens middle school. (All of the plaintiffs used initials to protect privacy.) Though New York City schools have recommended a residential special education school paid for by the state, in two years, they have not been able to secure her a spot. Now at the Queens Transition Center, a District 75 school, M.T. began avoiding taking the bus to school in October 2023, so her parents began driving her, sometimes waiting with her for two hours trying unsuccessfully to coax her to go into the building.

Schools should be coming to student’s homes to conduct functional behavior assessments, Horwitz said.

“It’s getting at why this is happening and how do we fix it,” she said. “It’s not that complicated. What is complicated is what happens to kids and families when kids aren’t going to school, whether it’s ACS involvement or parents having to quit their jobs and then the cascade of horrible things that happen when people can’t afford to pay their rent in this city.”

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

Newark educators and families: Tell us what you think of your school’s cell phone policy

2024-09-20T22:00:00+00:00

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As cell phone use in school comes under renewed scrutiny around the country, Newark Public Schools is now joining other districts that are revisiting and strengthening policies regarding electronic devices in the classroom.

The district’s general cell phone policy, adopted in 2008, remains the same, but some schools are taking a harder stance this year.

At George Washington Carver/Bruce Street School, a K-8 school that also serves as a school for the deaf, school leaders have introduced a new policy banning cell phones on school property. The school also requires parents to sign a written agreement if they want their child to have a phone in school.

Under the district policy, which was reiterated in the new high school handbook released before the school year began, electronic devices and cell phones may be brought to school and used under certain conditions:

“Students may use devices in the classroom following district cell phone policy for use.”
“Students may not use cell phones to make calls or take photos or videos from within the school building unless they receive permission from a school administrator.”

The N.J. Department of Education also released a memo in August to districts with guidance on how to handle the issue, discussing the negative effects of cell phone usage in the classroom: “Excessive cell phone use is linked to increased levels of anxiety and depression among students.”

The state is also putting together a “Commission on the Effects of Social Media Usage on Adolescents” that will provide “research-based recommendations on proposed social media usage standards and effective strategies to mitigate its adverse effects on student health and academic performance” and has created a webpage to help administrators and educators iron out their policies.

These new rules have also created new dynamics between parents, teachers, and students. Chalkbeat Newark wants to know how these changes have affected how you teach or learn.

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Darius McClain is a Rutgers University-Newark reporting intern for Chalkbeat Newark covering public education in the city. Get in touch with Darius at dmcclain@chalkbeat.org or reach the bureau newsroom at newark.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado attorney general announces $50,000 grants so schools can cut student cell phone use

2024-09-20T20:30:04+00:00

Colorado school districts will soon be able to apply for grants of up to $50,000 to help their students reduce cell phone use during the school day.

State Attorney General Phil Weiser announced the “Smartphone Challenge Initiative” Friday in the library of Grand Junction High School. The program is funded with money from the state’s $31.7 million lawsuit settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc.

The initiative is the second school district grant program aimed at improving student mental health funded with Juul settlement dollars. In June, Weiser announced a $20 million mental health grant program for school districts. Applications for that program are set to open in mid-October. In addition, Weiser recently announced 30 grants — also funded with Juul settlement money — to help youth quit vaping.

Weiser said in an interview with Chalkbeat that many schools don’t have policies on phone use, or don’t enforce the ones they do have.

“We want schools to face this reality that phones, in many cases, are detrimental to learning and harmful, when kids are on these apps, to mental health,” he said.

A recent Chalkbeat survey of Colorado’s 20 largest school districts found that six have adopted stricter cell phone policies in the last two years. Six others, including Denver, Jeffco, and Aurora, have no district cell phone policies.

Educators told Chalkbeat that besides being a chronic distraction in class, smartphones can be a vehicle for students to buy or sell drugs, bully others, and orchestrate fights.

About 95% of American teens own or have access to a smartphone, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center report. YouTube is the most popular app among teens, with TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram close behind.

Weiser said the Smartphone Challenge doesn’t envision one particular solution to rampant cell phone use, but rather encourages schools to experiment with different strategies.

“We’re challenging them to come up with a range of different policy options, enforcement options, cultural improvements,” he said.

Weiser said the new grant program was announced in Mesa County Valley District 51 to acknowledge the district’s efforts to cut cell phone use among students. A policy adopted for this school year bans cell phones all day in the district’s elementary and middle schools and bans them during class time in high schools.

In addition to awarding grants, the Smartphone Challenge will collect data this fall from school districts statewide on cell phone policies and needs. School districts must participate in that survey to be eligible for a grant.

A spokesperson for Weiser’s office said Smartphone Challenge grants will go out in early 2025 and that officials haven’t yet decided the number of grants that will be awarded. Once the grant projects are complete, the attorney general’s office will release a white paper sharing best practices for reducing student phone use.

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

Where does NYC Chancellor David Banks stand on a school cellphone ban? Here’s a timeline.

2024-09-12T21:22:45+00:00

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Will they or won’t they? That’s the question many New Yorkers are asking about a citywide school cellphone ban.

Over the past six months, schools Chancellor David Banks has swung back and forth: from largely dismissing the idea in March, to hinting a citywide ban would come in a matter of weeks over the summer, to once again casting doubt on the fate of the proposal on Thursday.

“Who knows, we may not do a full-on ban, period,” he told leaders on his parent advisory council. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, that’s still the mayor’s call to make.” (And it was indeed Mayor Eric Adams who first announced during a late August press conference that the city was pumping the brakes on a systemwide ban,.)

City officials plan to take the year to study the approaches of the schools that already ban phones to figure out what works best. Roughly 350 schools had their own bans at the end of last year, and another 500 plan to implement them this year, Banks said.

If there is a citywide ban, it won’t come until next school year at the earliest. And these bans can be pricey: storage and staffing for collecting phones can add up, as do the pouches that some schools buy for students to carry their phones locked away. Those cloth cases cost $25-$30 per student. Banks acknowledged Thursday that the city would likely have to front that cost if he imposes a systemwide ban.

The chancellor, who is currently caught in a federal investigation, made light of his predicament, in which FBI agents seized his phone, along with those of other top officials, before the first day of school.

“I think they heard I was trying to do a cellphone ban in New York, so they decided to let me see what it feels like,” he told parent leaders Thursday. Banks is cooperating with the investigation but was told he was not a target, he said Thursday on WNYC.

To help you make sense of the phone ban back-and-forth, Chalkbeat created a timeline of Banks’ public statements.

The timeline traces Banks’ personal evolution on the idea, but also provides some insight into why it’s been so complicated to settle on a policy for banning phones in the nation’s largest school system.

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

Data privacy advocates raise alarm over NYC’s free teen teletherapy program

2024-09-10T22:22:28+00:00

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New York City’s free online therapy platform for teens may violate state and federal laws protecting student data privacy, lawyers from the New York Civil Liberties Union and advocates charged in a letter Tuesday to the city’s Education and Health Departments.

Teenspace, a $26 million partnership between the city Health Department and teletherapy giant Talkspace launched in late 2023, connects city residents between ages 13 and 17 with free therapists by text, phone, or video chat.

In less than a year, roughly 16,000 students have signed up, Health Department officials said. Sign-ups disproportionately came from youth who identified as Black, Latino, Asian American and female and live in some of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, officials said in May.

Information shared with a therapist is subject to stringent protections under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. But before connecting with a therapist through Teenspace, teens go through a registration process that asks for personal information like their name, school, mental health history, and gender identity. Advocates are concerned such information is being improperly collected and could be misused.

For one, teens enter the registration information before securing parental consent – a possible violation of federal student privacy laws, the letter contends.

And families don’t get a chance to review the privacy policy – which discloses that registration information can be used to “tailor advertising” and for marketing purposes – before entering the registration information, advocates allege. There’s an option for teens to request that their data be deleted from the company’s platform, but it’s hard to find, according to advocates.

“It’s all very invasive,” said Shannon Edwards, a parent and founder of AI For Families, an organization that seeks to help families navigate artificial intelligence, who co-authored the letter along with NYCLU and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. “It’s also very unclear that parents understand what they’re getting themselves into.”

Advocates also pointed to the risk of a potential data breach – something the city has experienced with multiple outside vendors in recent years.

Advocates say similar privacy questions about Talkspace have been circulating for years and questioned whether city officials did sufficient due diligence or built in enough additional privacy safeguards before inking the contract.

“It’s the opacity of the relationship here, and the failure to make manifest what the city is doing to ensure there isn’t this data accumulation and sharing for inappropriate purposes,” said Beth Haroules, a senior attorney at the NYCLU who co-authored the letter.

Health Department spokesperson Rachel Vick said the agency has “taken additional steps to protect the data of Teenspace users and ensure information is not collected for personal gain, including stipulations that require all client data to remain confidential during and after the completion of the city’s contract and barring use of data for any purpose other than providing the services included in the contract.”

Client data is destroyed after 30 days if a teen doesn’t connect with a therapist, officials said.

A spokesperson for Talkspace referred questions to the Health Department.

The extent to which Teenspace is subject to state and federal laws governing student privacy in educational settings is somewhat murky, given that the contract is with the city’s Health Department, not its Education Department.

But NYCLU attorneys contend “the City cannot absolve itself of its responsibility to provide the protections inherent in federal and state laws…simply because the contract sits with DOHMH instead of DOE. The service is promoted on public school websites, and it is DOE’s responsibility to ensure that student data is protected, regardless of which City agency signs the contract.”

Parents may be more inclined to trust the platform because it has a “stamp of approval” from the school system, Edwards added.

A Health Department spokesperson didn’t specify whether the program is subject to education privacy laws, but said it’s “not a school based service.”

Teenspace has been the city’s highest-profile effort to address the ongoing youth mental health crisis.

“We are meeting people where they are with a front door to the mental health system that for too long has been too hard to find,” said Ashwin Vasan, the city’s health commissioner, in May.

Some teens have praised the program, noting it’s a way to bring mental health care to young people who may not otherwise have access.

But some mental health providers have argued it can’t replace the kind of intensive care a clinician provides, especially for kids with severe mental health challenges.

Company officials shared in May that they had helped 36 teens navigate serious incidents including reports of suicide attempts and abuse – cases they referred to child protective services, in-person therapists, or hospitals.

Talkspace CEO Jon Cohen previously told Chalkbeat the company uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to scan transcripts of therapy sessions to help identify teens at risk of suicide.

Even advocates critical of Teenspace’s privacy protections acknowledge the severe shortage of mental health providers and say teletherapy can play a role in filling the gap.

“We know you cannot find providers … there is such a need,” said Haroules. But advocates said the city can do more to ensure its vendors are meeting strict standards for data privacy, especially with such sensitive information.

“Everyone thinks, well, mental health is important for kids, these kids of services are required … when on the other side is: ‘How are they getting to it?’” said Edwards. “It doesn’t matter what the app is, there has to be a standard.”

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

More bullying, teacher dissatisfaction with the chancellor: 5 takeaways from NYC’s 2024 school survey

2024-08-30T18:10:31+00:00

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More New York City students than at any point in the past five years say kids in their schools regularly bully each other, newly released 2024 school survey results show.

More than half of the roughly 355,000 middle and high school students who responded to the city school system’s annual survey earlier this year said their classmates sometimes or often bullied, harassed, or intimidated each other last school year – up from 44% in 2019, the first year for which citywide survey numbers are available.

The rise in student reports of bullying comes as city schools confront a swirl of social challenges including the lingering effects of the pandemic, cyberbullying, social media, and global tumult such as the Israel-Hamas war and mass migration into New York City.

The rising student bullying numbers are among several notable trends from the latest annual questionnaire, which also reached roughly 66,000 teachers and over 400,000 parents and guardians this year.

For educators, the survey suggests that sweeping new curriculum mandates are trickling down into classrooms, with teachers reporting less influence over selecting curriculum, but more coherence in how their schools are approaching instruction. And nearly a third of city teachers reported dissatisfaction with the schools chancellor – a figure that’s nearly doubled since 2019.

Parents, meanwhile, continued to express a desire for more extracurricular and after-school options.

Here are five takeaways from the 2024 school survey. You can access the full results by navigating to the Education Department’s 2024 survey page and clicking on the “results page” link.

Cyberbullying, discrimination on the rise

In all five questions on the 2024 survey involving bullying and harassment, students reported worse outcomes than in previous years.

Among the most notable changes: Roughly 43% of students reported seeing regular bullying and harassment online this year, compared to 35% in 2019.

Educators across the city have sounded the alarm about the effects of social media and online bullying spilling into classrooms. One Queens school administrator threatened last fall to suspend students for following an Instagram account that posted vulgar and insulting comments about students.

Increasing awareness of the harms of online harassment has also played a role in some schools’ decisions to ban cell phones during the school day, and in the city’s debate over instituting a systemwide ban.

More students also report seeing classmates bullied over their backgrounds, with 40% of students seeing harassment based on race, ethnicity, religion, or immigration status, up from 30% in 2019.

The reports came during a school year marked by explosive conflicts over the Israel-Hamas war and the continued arrival of tens of thousands of migrant students – some of whom expressed concerns that their immigration status made them targets.

As in past years, girls – and Black girls in particular – reported the highest rates of bullying and harassment.

Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said, “Bullying has absolutely no place in our school communities.” She pointed to a citywide Respect for All initiative that provides professional development for school staff to deal with bullying and designates a liaison in every school.

Teacher dissatisfaction with the chancellor is up

Roughly 32% of teachers said they were dissatisfied with schools Chancellor David Banks – up from 30% last year and 17% in 2019, when former Chancellor Richard Carranza was at the helm.

A plurality of teachers, 44%, reported that they were satisfied with the chancellor, while 24% said they didn’t know.

It’s difficult to know exactly what’s driving the rise in dissatisfaction. Banks has launched several major curriculum initiatives that have forced big changes in how schools teach reading and algebra, drawing mixed responses from educators.

Earlier in Banks’ tenure, he and Mayor Eric Adams presided over deeply unpopular budget cuts as federal pandemic aid dried up, though officials replaced much of the expiring funding last year.

Teacher dissatisfaction with the schools chancellor has swung dramatically in previous years as well. It dropped from 43% to 18% between 2014 and 2015 when Carmen Fariña took over from Dennis Walcott.

Lyle, the Education Department spokesperson, said Banks is making “needed changes” to the school system, but said he is “committed to supporting staff” during those changes. “95% of families are satisfied with the education their children are receiving and teachers report high levels of satisfaction with their work, their schools, and the professional development they are receiving,” she added.

Effects of curriculum changes take hold

Rising dissatisfaction with the chancellor may not be the only impact of the big curriculum changes.

Teachers, particularly those in elementary schools, where officials have mandated superintendents to choose one of three pre-approved literacy curriculums, report having less influence over selecting curriculum in their schools, with 67% saying they have some or a great deal of influence, down from 71% last year. Only 58% of elementary teachers said they had influence over choosing curriculum materials.

On the other hand, teachers reported more “instructional coherence,” with 81% saying that when their school started a new program, they followed up to make sure it was working, up three percentage points from last year.

Parents continue to crave more extracurricular options

When asked which improvement they most wanted at their kids’ schools, the largest group of parents asked for stronger enrichment programs like clubs and after-school activities.

That tracks with past years. Stronger enrichment programming has been the top request of parents for years, with smaller class sizes next in line. In 2024, 24% of parents said more enrichment programs were their top priority, while 15% said smaller class sizes. In 2017, 24% of families chose enrichment programs, while 21% chose class sizes.

Enrichment programs can be particularly difficult for small schools to offer because they are funded on a per-pupil basis. As enrollment has shrunk, the number of tiny schools has also grown.

Average class sizes for elementary, middle, and high schools are down slightly compared to 2019, though they’re up compared to 2022. The 2022 state class size law will require the city to continue significantly reducing class sizes in the coming years.

Mental health, classroom behavior remain challenges

Educators across the city and country have confronted growing challenges with student mental health and behavior in the wake of the pandemic, and those issues remain challenges, the survey data indicates.

This year, 68% of teachers said their students regularly do their work when they’re supposed to, down from 69% last year and from 75% in 2022 and 2019. Roughly 77% of teachers said adults in their buildings had access to mental health support, down two percentage points from last year, and eight percentage points compared to 2022.

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

National teacher of the year urges teachers to ‘find their voice’ as experts in their profession

2024-08-26T23:24:49+00:00

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The Tennessee educator chosen as the nation’s teacher of the year is calling on America’s 3.5 million teachers to “find their voice” on behalf of students as many states seek to censor teachers, ban books, and push voucher policies that send taxpayer funding to private schools.

Missy Testerman, who just ended her tenure as Tennessee’s teacher of the year, said that bigger educational priorities demand attention: air conditioners are breaking down in aging school buildings as a new academic year begins; federal pandemic relief funding is running out to pay for tutoring and summer learning programs; and school communities are struggling to provide mental health support, especially for their most marginalized students.

“When we find our voices, we find our own way to stand in the gap for kids. It is not enough to just shut our classroom doors and teach,” Testerman said in her video address to the nation, released this month by the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Testerman, who officially began as her profession’s top ambassador in July, is on leave this academic year from her job at Rogersville City School, where she teaches English language learners in her rural Appalachian town of 4,500 people. Her new role includes traveling to more than 150 speaking engagements or appearances before organizations spanning education, business, health, and government.

Among her messages: Teachers are experts in their field.

“Your governor is not an education expert. The legislature is not filled with education experts,” she told Chalkbeat. “If you want an expert on education policy and outcomes and what works for students, ask your teachers, your administrators, your director of schools.”

That message has resonated at her talks, where she’s routinely greeted afterward by a line of educators waiting to thank her.

“It’s hard to do a profession where you are the expert, but you’re often not treated as such,” she said. “Sometimes, we need to be reminded.”

Testerman spoke with Chalkbeat on Friday before ceding her title as Tennessee’s teacher of the year to the 2024-25 honoree, Bryan Kerns, a math and fire management instructor at Dobyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport.

In many ways, Testerman said, Tennessee epitomizes the challenges faced by educators she’s met across the nation, many of whom feel like they’re walking on eggshells just to keep demanding jobs that pay a modest salary.

While she applauded a focus on early literacy and significant investments in vocational and technical education under Gov. Bill Lee’s administration, she said other policy changes during the last six years have been more of a burden.

A 2021 state law limits what public school teachers can say about race, gender, and bias in the classroom and interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in the state’s academic standards. A group of Tennessee teachers is challenging that law in federal court.

Tennessee’s 2022 school library law, billed as a way to ensure materials are age-appropriate, quickly expanded so that a state panel can ban certain books statewide, based on local complaints. This year, lawmakers added a definition of “suitable” that makes it easier to remove materials, including many stories about Black people or those identifying as LGBTQ.

Also this year, the legislature passed a law requiring public school employees to out transgender students to their parents and debated a bill designed to ban LGBTQ+ flags in schools. Testerman called the second proposal, which failed to pass, a distraction.

“From my standpoint, there are so many problems facing schools — I’ll give you a list,” she said. “But that’s not one that I think we need to waste a lot of time on. Let that be a local decision.”

Meanwhile, Lee’s administration is pushing for a statewide voucher program that would let any Tennessee family use taxpayer money toward private school tuition, regardless of their family income.

“Tennessee is currently in the bottom tier of states in per-pupil funding for public education, and increasing that should be our focus,” said Testerman.

“Right now, however, there’s a $144 million placeholder in our state budget for a voucher program that didn’t even pass,” she continued. “It’s disheartening for teachers to know this money is sitting there doing nothing while their students have so many needs.”

Testerman said the money could be used instead to fix broken air conditioners in Memphis schools, hire more mental health professionals in her own school system, and replace outdated Chromebook laptops in suburban Williamson County near Nashville, one of the state’s most affluent districts.

“If Williamson County is seeing these kinds of financial problems,” she said, “you can imagine what’s happening in urban and rural districts in East and West Tennessee that don’t have the tax base to raise funds the traditional way.”

While it often feels like her profession is under attack, Testerman said she’s inspired by the educators she’s met across America as she advocates for higher compensation and respect for them.

“This job can feel heavy,” she said. “Teachers are facing student behavioral and mental health issues at a scale they’ve never seen before. We have no idea what kids go home to. But we can make the seven hours that they’re with us happy. We can use those hours to deliver academic content in a way that prepares them to move on and hopefully create a good life.”

“We are hope givers,” she said.

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

Every NYC school building now has Narcan to reverse opioid overdoses. Is it enough?

2024-08-19T18:41:03+00:00

Vince Muccioli will never forget the terror he felt waiting for paramedics as one of his students lay unresponsive on the classroom floor, color draining from his face.

It was a quiet Friday afternoon in March 2022, and Muccioli, a math teacher at West Brooklyn Community High School, had given the student permission to lay his head on his desk.

When a classmate later nudged the student and he wouldn’t wake up, Muccioli knew something was very wrong. The student’s pulse was racing, but he was barely breathing, recalled Muccioli, who immediately alerted the school nurse and told a student to call 911.

The thought of a drug overdose crossed Muccioli’s mind, but in his 15 years teaching, he’d never seen a student have one and didn’t know how to respond.

Fortunately, paramedics arrived within 15 minutes and administered Naloxone, a nasal spray that can reverse the effects of an overdose. The student revived immediately, Muccioli said.

“Those 15 minutes,” Muccioli said, “could’ve been the difference between life and death.”

Soon after the incident, Principal Malik Lewis invited the nonprofit Harm Reduction Coalition to train his staff on using Naloxone and provide educators with their own kits.

Nearly two-and-a-half years later, the rest of the nation’s largest school system has moved in a similar direction. Every school now stocks Naloxone, all school nurses are trained on administering the overdose reversal agent, and the Education Department is bringing the training to additional school staff, city officials said. This spring, the city partnered with New York University Langone Health to train roughly 300 educators on administering Naloxone, said Kelleyann Royce-Giron, the Education Department’s head of substance abuse programs.

“We see what we’re seeing in emergency rooms … youth that are coming in with overdoses,” said Royce-Giron at a training for about 50 educators last month at NYU’s Tisch Hospital. “The biggest space that we can help our New York City youth is in the biggest school district in the world, the New York City public schools.”

A participant at the June 24, 2024 Naloxone training displays the free Naloxone kits distributed to educators.

The effort to bring Naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, into schools is part of a larger push to make the reversal agent as widely available as possible in the city, including in pharmacies, bars, and public health vending machines created by the city Health Department. Some NYPD officers also carry Naloxone, though a police spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a question about whether school safety agents — the more than 4,000 unarmed police officers stationed inside public schools — carry it.

This push follows similar moves in school systems across the country. As of 2023, 33 states including New York had laws permitting schools to stock Naloxone, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News. A smaller number went further by requiring schools to carry the reversal agent, the analysis found, though some schools and districts have resisted for fear that carrying Narcan would indicate a larger drug problem. Several districts in Long Island require schools to stock Naloxone, and the state offers a program for school districts to train staff in administering the reversal agent.

A 2023 survey by NPR found that 11 of the nation’s 20 largest school districts require schools to stock Narcan.

Overdoses in schools appear to be rare, but the risk is real, according to staffers and experts. Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, required all schools to carry Naloxone and began training staff and volunteers after a 15-year-old died of an overdose at school in 2022.

In New York City, the number of 15- to 24-year-olds who have died from opioid overdoses has nearly doubled in recent years, from 48 in 2019 to 87 in 2022, the last year for which the city Health Department published data. Almost all of those deaths involved fentanyl, an extremely potent synthetic opioid that can be lethal in even small doses, or heroin, the Health Department analysis found.

Fentanyl is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin and is often mixed into drugs like heroin or cocaine or found in counterfeit pills meant to look like Adderall or Percocet, NYU trainers told educators.

A Health Department spokesperson said the agency isn’t aware of any confirmed opioid overdoses of students in school last school year. Two city principals have told Chalkbeat they’re aware of Naloxone being administered on a student during school in recent years, though the Health Department spokesperson noted that the use of Naloxone doesn’t mean the incident was a confirmed opioid overdose.

In New York City, the 2023 death of a 1-year-old in a Bronx daycare from inhaling Fentanyl-laced dust captured the attention of the city and helped spur City Council legislation to stock Narcan in middle and elementary schools.

Larrisa Laskowski, a doctor of emergency medicine at NYU Langone Hospital and director of NYU’s Prevention Education Partnership, which works with the Education Department to offer Naloxone training, said the city shouldn’t wait for a similar tragedy in a public school.

“We can be proactive. We can get this perfect, very effective, very safe antidote in schools to protect young people as we’re trying to deal with the Fentanyl crisis in many other ways,” she said.

Educators point to gaps in Naloxone training, access

Teens are not immune from the growing opioid crisis that has gripped the city and the country in recent years, health officials said.

Educators across the city have reported an uptick in visible drug use during the school day since the return of in-person schooling following the COVID school shutdowns. Grappling with an ongoing mental health crisis, some teens have turned to substances as a coping mechanism. At the same time, the city’s drug landscape has rapidly changed due to the proliferation of smoke shops following the state’s rocky rollout of legalized marijuana.

“After we came back from the epidemic, I definitely see that there’s definitely a higher usage of students just self-medicating,” said Manolo Polanco, a dean at Fordham Leadership Academy in the Bronx, who attended one of the recent Narcan trainings. He said he’s had to call 911 several times for students feeling unwell after taking drugs, though fortunately none of the cases were serious.

Despite the recent progress in trainings, some educators worry there are still gaps in the city’s efforts to ensure schools are prepared to respond to student overdoses.

At Brooklyn Technical High School, the city’s largest school with nearly 6,000 students spread across eight floors, “having one or two nurses dealing with an overdose … means nothing because you won’t get to them in time to save their life,” said a staffer at the school, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media.

Naloxone training should be mandated for multiple staffers at each school, similar to the way epi-pen training is mandatory for multiple staffers at schools where a student has a documented risk, the Brooklyn Tech staffer said.

Education Department officials said that anyone trained in Naloxone can carry and administer it at school, but the Brooklyn Tech staffer said that message “is not going out to everyone,” noting that many staffers at the school are under the impression that only the nurse can administer the reversal agent.

The city has also long struggled with nursing shortages: Roughly 140 schools didn’t have a nurse before the pandemic, according to the nonprofit Advocates for Children. The city used $65 million a year in one-time federal pandemic aid to hire an additional 400 contracted school nurses, but that money expired this year and was not replaced in the budget, according to advocates.

An Education Department spokesperson said officials are still “placing [a] nurse in every school and do not expect schools to be without a nurse,” but didn’t elaborate on where the funding will come from.

Trainings seek to make educators confident first responders

The technical requirements of administering Naloxone are fairly simple. It’s a nasal spray that doesn’t require any special technique and has no adverse side effects, according to Laskowski.

But the training sessions for school staffers are less about the technique than about giving educators “the confidence they need to feel like they can act,” Laskowski said.

That’s part of why Laskowski said she’s pushed back against suggestions to make the training sessions virtual, even though that might make them accessible to more people. It’s important to build the kind of comfort and familiarity that comes with in-person training, she said.

Royce-Giron — who oversees the school system’s roughly 260 Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention Specialists, or SAPIS — appreciates the chance to dispel some commonly held concerns, including assuring attendees that fentanyl can’t be absorbed through the skin. She also takes pains to remind the educators that the state’s “Good Samaritan” law offers legal protection to people who intervene to try to save someone during an overdose.

Sherille Sheppard, a special education teacher who attended the training, said she found it “very informative.”

“I was glad to get the hands-on piece to really show me how easy it is to use Naloxone,” she said. “It’s really just as easy as using a nasal spray.”

Polanco, the Bronx high school dean, left the training feeling “a little bit more prepared” to identify an overdose. “Before, I don’t know if I even would have been able to identify it, to me it would have just been a kid passed out.”

At West Brooklyn Community High School, the importance of carrying Narcan wasn’t the only lesson to emerge from the close call with the student overdose.

The incident was a vivid reminder to staff that no matter how ill-equipped they might feel in the moment to deal with some of the complex challenges students are facing – from serious drug use to suicidal ideation – it’s vital to engage.

“When a student comes to confide in you, talk to them,” Muccioli said. “No matter how heavy the situation is, talk to them. Because there’s a window where they might tell you and only you.”

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

A NYC school cellphone ban could dial up suspensions, some advocates worry

2024-08-16T19:32:35+00:00

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As New York City schools await the details of a possible citywide school cellphone ban, a host of big questions remain.

At the top of the list for some educators, advocates, and students: How will schools collect phones from students? And what will they do when students don’t comply?

Officials have yet to make a final announcement about a cellphone ban, though several principals familiar with the Education Department’s plans told Chalkbeat last month that officials are weighing a citywide ban that would take effect in February. Schools Chancellor David Banks had initially promised to announce a policy by mid-July, but the details of a plan for the city’s 1,600 schools are not simple.

Proponents of a ban hope that a more consistent and proactive citywide policy could avert some of the daily conflicts over cell phones. But some advocates and educators worry that a citywide ban could simply multiply the number of conflicts, especially if teachers are still tasked with enforcement. That could lead to a spike in disciplinary responses such as suspensions, especially at first, some advocates say.

“Some students, they need to stay in contact with family members or just having that security next to them,” said Nelson Mar, a senior staff attorney at Bronx Legal Services. “I can see that this will lead to potentially more discipline-related cases and just more challenging situations in schools.”

New York City schools have been able to craft their own cellphone policies since a systemwide ban was lifted in March 2015. Roughly 500 of the city’s schools already have some type of cellphone ban in place, including some that require kids carry their phones around in locked pouches or stow them in cubbies in the morning, according to a recent survey conducted by the United Federation of Teachers. Conflicts over cellphones are commonplace in classrooms, many educators have told Chalkbeat.

“It’s the perfect situation for engaging in power fights,” said Martin Urbach, a music teacher and restorative justice coordinator at Boerum Hill School for International Studies in Brooklyn.

Students are often deeply reliant on their phones and leery of handing over expensive pieces of technology with lots of private information on them, while teachers are exasperated by having to nag students about keeping them put away during class, said Urbach. He estimates he’s mediated between 300 and 400 student-teacher conflict resolution sessions over cellphones in his eight-year career.

He’s especially worried about equity issues related to cellphone enforcement if a citywide ban is imposed.

“Most issues with school discipline in schools end up criminalizing Black and brown kids,” Urbach said.

Anita Pinto, a high school speech therapist in Manhattan, recalled a student responding with curses and threats of violence when she confiscated his phone.

“I gave it back,” Pinto said. “It wasn’t worth it. You have to pick and choose your battles. … Many teachers don’t take [phones] because of the way kids spin out when they’re taken away. It can get intense.”

An Education Department spokesperson declined to comment on how the city will handle student discipline for a possible cell phone ban.

“We’re continuing to engage with stakeholders and will have more to share soon,” spokesperson Jenna Lyle said.

Advocates push for more guidance on discipline

Under the current school discipline code for middle and high schools, schools can dole out a variety of consequences to students who violate their cellphone policies.

Students can be penalized for inappropriate use of technology, for using electronic devices without appropriate permission, and for bringing in items that violate school policy — none of which result in suspensions.

But schools have another path to suspend students: writing them up for insubordination for refusing to turn over their phone.

Suspensions for insubordination are relatively rare and require approval from Education Department higher-ups. In fact, concerns that schools were meting out excessive suspensions for “insubordination” and racial disparities in who received those suspensions led to discipline code reforms under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. There were around 900 suspensions for insubordination during the 2022-23 school year, according to Education Department data.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, the city teachers union, said he’s concerned that without specific guidance on how schools should respond to students who don’t comply, more kids could wind up with harsh punishments such as suspensions. He said he’s pushing the Education Department to focus on issuing clear guidance to parents and students so they understand the consequences of violating the policy before it goes into effect.

“Insubordination … can lead to very severe suspensions,” Mulgrew said. “I don’t think we should be putting that on a child’s permanent record.”

Mulgrew acknowledged that there must be consequences for students who don’t comply with cellphone bans, but said schools shouldn’t turn to suspensions.

He’s also pushing to ensure that teachers are not responsible for enforcing any citywide cellphone ban.

“That becomes a fiasco,” he said, “because then at the beginning of every class, the teacher would be spending 10, 15 minutes doing cellphone work, removing instructional time.”

Several advocates said they also frequently encounter students ending up in disciplinary trouble for conduct that involves their phone, such as recording an inappropriate video or cyberbullying.

Getting phones out of students’ hands during the school day might cut down on that behavior marginally, but likely won’t make a big dent since much of it happens outside school hours, said Rohini Singh, the director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children.

Another disciplinary tool in a school’s arsenal is calling in parents when there’s a conflict over a cell phone. But that can backfire because parents often rely on being able to reach their kids at school on their cellphones and may not want to give up that option, educators said.

“Students know there’s really not that much we can do,” Urbach said. “Kids are not going to get in trouble at home for not giving their phone to a teacher. Some kids might, but most will not.”

Cellphone bans draw mixed responses

The movement to ban cellphones in schools has picked up considerable momentum recently, as evidence mounts of the negative effects of phone use on young people. Multiple states have moved to make cellphone bans mandatory – a step that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering. Some districts, including Los Angeles, have also committed to districtwide cellphone bans.

Some schools have turned to Yondr, a company that provides magnetized cloth pouches in which students can store their phones during the school day. But the system costs money, and some kids have figured out how to open the pouches, educators said. Other schools have students store their phones in cubbies at the start of the day. Most systems for collecting phones require schools to assign staff members to collect, keep track of, and return phones.

Shaël Flessel-Guirand, a 16-year-old rising senior and peer mediator at Boerum Hill School for International Studies, acknowledged that cellphone use in school can get out of hand, but doesn’t think a blanket ban is the solution.

As frustrating and exhausting as it can be, Flessel-Guirand thinks schools shouldn’t give up on talking to students about why they’re on their phones during school – whether it’s boredom, family or social obligations, or even a phone or social media addiction – and helping them learn healthier behavior.

“Taking away the possibility completely is not necessarily helping students,” she said. “We’re not focusing on the reason we’re using phones, just the fact we’re using phones.”

Amy Zimmer and Alex Zimmerman contributed.

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

¿Están acosando a tu hijo? Consulta esta guía para padres.

2024-07-01T20:06:15+00:00

Read in English.

A tu hijo lo empujaron contra los casilleros de la escuela por tercera vez esta semana. El grupo de examigos de tu hija no deja de propagar rumores crueles sobre ella—en los pasillos y por internet.

Que a un niño lo acosen en la escuela es causa de temor y trauma para los jóvenes. También puede dejar a los padres desesperados por encontrar la respuesta correcta: ¿A quién llamamos? ¿Cómo podemos ayudar? ¿Qué le debemos decir a nuestra hija?

Para obtener respuestas a estas preguntas, Chalkbeat reunió los consejos de expertos en el Departamento de Educación de Colorado, el Centro de Recursos para Recuperarse del Acoso en Denver y el Centro Jefferson, un proveedor sin fines de lucro de servicios para la salud mental.

Aunque no existe la solución perfecta, los expertos dicen que las conversaciones frecuentes y abiertas con los niños, y la escuela, pueden ayudar a identificar y detener el acoso escolar, también conocido como bullying en inglés.

“Si el bullying sucede, es importante seguir reportándolo y decirle al niño que estás de su lado sin importar lo que pase”, dijo Dru Ahlborg, directora ejecutiva del Centro de Recursos para Recuperarse del Acoso.

¿Qué es el acoso o bullying y qué no lo es?

El acoso ocurre cuando una persona demuestra agresión no deseada—física o verbalmente o de cualquier otra manera—hacia otra persona Y la persona que está practicando el acoso tiene más poder que la persona a quien está acosando. Los desbalances de poder pueden demostrarse de varias formas, por ejemplo, cuando el niño que está acosando es más grande físicamente, más fuerte o más popular que el niño a quien está acosando.

Los expertos señalan que el acoso es diferente al conflicto, el cual puede ser una riña en el área de juegos de la escuela o una pelea entre niños con niveles similares de poder. Los conflictos pueden resolverse a través de la negociación, pero el acoso no.

“No puede ser como: ‘Solo dense la mano y vayan por caminos aparte‘”, Ahlborg dijo. “Si realmente es acoso, eso no funcionará. Eso creará más daño para el niño que está siendo acosado”.

En general, los casos que suceden una vez—como que a un niño lo empujen o insulten—no se consideran acoso o bullying. Pero si una agresión no deseada tiene el potencial de repetirse, quizás lo sea, Ahlborg dijo.

“[Si] pones la cabeza de un niño en el inodoro una vez, eso es bullying”, dijo. “Hay una buena posibilidad de que se repita si no hay una intervención para que no pase”.

¿Son el hostigamiento y el acoso la misma cosa?

Son similares, pero no lo mismo. El hostigamiento (harassment, en inglés) es acoso dirigido a alguien que pertenece a una clase protegida, es decir, debido a su discapacidad, grupo racial, credo, color de piel, sexo, orientación sexual, identidad de género, expresión de género, estado civil, origen nacional, religión, linaje o necesidad de servicios educativos especiales. El hostigamiento se considera una forma de discriminación y hay más protecciones legales para estudiantes que sufren hostigamiento que para aquellos que son acosados.

¿Cuáles son las señales de que a un estudiante lo están acosando?

Cambios grandes y repentinos en el comportamiento del niño pueden ser una señal de que lo están acosando, Ahlborg dijo.

Por ejemplo, “ya no quiere ir a pasar tiempo con sus amigos después de la escuela, o quizás quiere salirse del equipo de fútbol americano, o quizás sus calificaciones están bajando bastante rápido, o está malhumorado y triste”, dijo.

¿Qué hago para que mi hija me diga que la están acosando?

Expertos dicen que los padres deben comunicarse regular y abiertamente con sus hijos.

Erin Twiehaus, una trabajadora social con el Centro Jefferson que trabaja regularmente en escuelas públicas, dijo que anima a los padres para que hablen con sus hijos todos los días. Por ejemplo, los padres pueden preguntar: “¿Cuál fue tu parte favorita del día?” y luego, “¿Cuál fue la parte más difícil de tu día?”

Estas conversaciones diarias para ver cómo están crea espacio para que los niños mencionen casos de acoso u otras situaciones desagradables, dijo. “Creo que así es como los padres pueden descubrir estas cosas un poco antes, en lugar de que el niño espere hasta que se pongan muy mal [las cosas] para decir algo”.

Ahlborg dijo que los niños con frecuencia comparten “microdosis” de información por la vergüenza que sienten de que los acosen. Es importante que los padres mantengan la calma y no critiquen cuando hablen con sus hijos que están siendo acosados, porque los niños a veces temen las reacciones de los padres.

“Hazle saber al niño que no ha hecho nada para merecerse lo que pasó, que juntos encontrarán una solución”, dijo.

Twiehaus sugirió que los padres digan cosas como: “Guau, eso sí suena difícil” o “suena como que usaste tus habilidades para resolver problemas”, en lugar de hacer comentarios despectivos como: “Eso no es tan difícil” o “ves, estuvo bien”.

¿Qué debo hacer si pienso que a mi hijo lo están acosando?

Si está sucediendo en la escuela o por los compañeros de clase afuera de la escuela, reportáselo a la escuela. Si está sucediendo en otro lugar, como en un grupo de jóvenes de la iglesia o un equipo deportivo, reportáselo a los líderes de esos grupos.

Ahlborg dijo que aunque los padres reporten el acoso verbalmente, es buena idea documentar la situación por escrito. Eso significa enviar un mensaje por correo electrónico o texto, repitiendo los puntos clave de la conversación y cualquier medida que el maestro u otro adulto haya dicho que tomará. También dijo que los padres deben reportar cada caso de acoso ante la escuela después de la primera conversación.

¿Debo enfrentar al niño que está acosando a mi hijo?

No. Por lo general, no es eficaz, y los padres pueden meterse en problemas por regañar o tratar de disciplinar al hijo de otra persona.

¿Debo hablar con los padres del niño que está acosando a mi hijo?

Usualmente no, a menos que ya tengas una amistad o relación con los padres de ese niño.

¿Qué debo esperar que haga la escuela de mi hijo después de reportarles la situación de acoso?

No existe una respuesta igual para todos los casos, pero lo más importante es que el acoso debe dejar de suceder, Ahlborg dijo.

Adam Collins, el gerente estatal de prevención del bullying en el Departamento de Educación de Colorado, dijo que cada escuela en Colorado está obligada a tener una norma para prevenir el acoso y debe seguir los pasos descritos en esa norma.

En lo relacionado con ayudar al estudiante siendo acosado, las soluciones pueden incluir conectarlo con un adulto confiable en la escuela que estará pendiente de él. También pueden incluir un plan de seguridad que indique que un integrante del personal debe acompañar al niño por los pasillos, que lo dejen salir cinco minutos antes, o que cambien su horario del almuerzo, salón o asiento en el autobús. En algunos casos, el estudiante que está acosando a otro podría estar sujeto a un “contrato sin contacto” que le prohíba interactuar con el niño a quien está acosando. En otros casos, a un estudiante que está acosando a otro lo pueden suspender o expulsar.

Expertos no recomiendan prácticas reparadoras, como mediación entre pares, en casos de acoso, Collins dijo. La razón es porque el desbalance de poder que caracterizó el acoso pueden volver a presentarse durante las conversaciones reparadoras y volver a traumatizar a la víctima, aun cuando haya adultos presentes.

Lo reporté, pero el acoso continúa. ¿Qué debo hacer?

Los representantes del estado recomiendan que los padres empiecen reportando el caso de acoso ante el empleado de menor nivel, por ejemplo, el maestro en el salón de clases. Si no se resuelve, que continúen con el siguiente empleado de mayor nivel, Eso quizás signifique que le digan al subdirector o director, luego al supervisor del director y luego al superintendente del distrito o consejo de educación.

A mi hijo lo están acosando en las redes sociales. ¿Cómo debo responder?

Expertos dicen que el ciberacoso es común y especialmente complicado porque muchos estudiantes tienen acceso a dispositivos electrónicos las 24 horas del día. Aunque esté ocurriendo fuera de la escuela o después del horario escolar, vale la pena reportárselo a la escuela del niño si el acoso involucra a los compañeros de la escuela.

Para detener el acoso por internet, los padres pueden hacer que sus hijos dejen de usar temporalmente las redes sociales, cambien su número de teléfono, empiecen una nueva cuenta con acceso solo para sus amigos cercanos, o se cambien a una plataforma que facilite el bloqueo de usuarios no deseados.

¿Me dirá la escuela de mi hija si el estudiante que estaba acosándola recibió un castigo?

No. Las leyes de privacidad impiden que las escuelas compartan cómo se disciplinó a un estudiante, hasta con la familia de la víctima. Expertos dicen que eso con frecuencia deja a los padres frustrados, pero que es mejor enfocarse en ayudar al estudiante víctima del acoso.

“Animo a los padres para que enfoquen su energía en actividades que valgan su tiempo”, Twiehaus dijo. “Tratar de combatir las leyes de privacidad … Probablemente no sea el mejor uso de su energía”.

El acoso se detuvo, pero mi hijo sigue teniendo dificultades. ¿Qué debo hacer?

Twiehaus dijo que es normal que el acoso tenga efectos a largo plazo porque con frecuencia produce mensajes internos negativos en niños que son acosados. La terapia o hasta cambiar de escuela pueden ayudar a que los estudiantes superen las dificultades después del acoso.

También anima a que los padres lleven a sus hijos a actividades que fortalezcan su autoestima o los ayuden a dominar una habilidad: jugar un nuevo deporte, aprender a tocar un instrumento musical o aprender a costurar.

Muchas familias dicen que las artes marciales ayudaron a sus hijos, Ahlborg dijo.

“Probablemente nunca las usen contra otra persona … pero es solo ese sentimiento interno de crecimiento y poder”, dijo.

Sospecho que mi hijo quizás esté acosando a otros. ¿Cuáles son las señales?

Los niños que tienen amigos que acosan a otros son susceptibles a demostrar comportamientos acosadores también, Collins dijo. Otras señales incluyen las peleas verbales o físicas frecuentes y pertenencias o dinero sin explicaciones, dijo.

Confirmé que mi hijo está acosando a otros. ¿Qué debo hacer?

Expertos dicen que es natural que los padres se molesten cuando descubren que su hijo está acosando a otros. Twiehaus dijo que los padres quizás quieran desahogarse: “¿Cómo es posible que hagas esto? ¿Por qué lo estabas haciendo? No puedo creerlo. No te enseñé esto”. Sin embargo, es importante controlar las emociones para que puedan tener una verdadera conversación.

Twiehaus también dijo que, aunque muchos padres quieren saber por qué su hijo estaba acosando a alguien, muchas personas jóvenes, aún hasta las de 16 y 17 años, no tienen la autoconciencia para explicar sus acciones.

Expertos dicen que los padres pueden trabajar con sus hijos para que entiendan el daño que causaron y desarrollen empatía y bondad.

“Los niños que practican actos de acoso, usualmente hay algo que está sucediendo en su vida que es incómodo y es una manera de reaccionar y tener poder sobre alguien más”, Ahlborg dijo.

Abordar la causa principal puede ayudar, dijo. “¿Hay algún desafío de salud mental? ¿Están teniendo problemas en la escuela o para hacer amigos? … Es muy, muy común que alguien que haya sido acosado se convierta en acosador”.

Ann Schimke es reportera senior de Chalkbeat y cubre temas relacionados con la niñez temprana y la alfabetización temprana. Para comunicarte con Ann, envíale un email a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Parents, here’s what you need to know if your child is being bullied.

2024-06-26T17:44:06+00:00

Leer en español.

Your son got shoved against the lockers at school for the third time this week. Your daughter’s former friend group won’t stop spreading nasty rumors about her — in the hallways and online.

Being bullied is scary and traumatic for youth. It can also leave parents flailing for the right response: Who should I call? How can I help? What should I say to my child?

To get answers to these questions, Chalkbeat gathered advice from experts at the Colorado Department of Education, the Denver-based Bullying Recovery Resource Center, and the Jefferson Center, a nonprofit mental health provider.

While there’s no silver bullet, experts say frequent and open conversations with children — and the school — can help identify and put a stop to bullying.

“If bullying happens, it’s important to keep reporting it and let the child know that you’re on their side no matter what,” said Dru Ahlborg, executive director of the Bullying Recovery Resource Center.

What is bullying — and what isn’t?

Bullying occurs when one person shows unwanted aggression — physically, verbally, or in another way — toward another person AND the person doing the bullying has more power than the one being bullied. Power imbalances can take various forms, for example, when the child doing the bullying is bigger, stronger, or more popular than the child being bullied.

Experts note that bullying is different from conflict, which could be a school yard scuffle or dispute involving children with similar levels of power. Conflicts can be resolved through negotiation but bullying can’t.

“It can’t be like, ‘Just shake hands and go your separate ways,’” said Ahlborg. “If it’s truly bullying, that’s not going to work. That’s going to create more harm for the child who’s being targeted.”

In general, one-time incidents — like a child getting pushed or called a name — aren’t considered bullying. But if an unwanted aggression has the potential to be repeated, it might be, said Ahlborg.

“You put a kid’s head in the toilet once, that’s bullying,” she said. “There’s a good chance it will be repeated if there’s not an intervention where it gets stopped.”

Are harassment and bullying the same thing?

They are similar, but not the same. Harassment is bullying targeted at someone in a protected class — in other words, because of their disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, national origin, religion, ancestry, or need for special education services. Harassment is considered a form of discrimination and there are more legal protections for students experiencing harassment than for those experiencing bullying.

What are signs a student is being bullied?

Large and rapid shifts in a child’s behavior can be a sign of bullying, Ahlborg said.

For example, “They no longer want to go hang out with friends after school, or maybe they want to quit the football team, or maybe the grades are dropping pretty quickly, or they’re more moody and sad,” she said.

How can I get my child to tell me if they’re being bullied?

Experts say parents should have regular, open communication with their children.

Erin Twiehaus, a social worker with the Jefferson Center who regularly works in public schools, said she encourages parents to talk with their children daily. For example, parents can ask, “What was your favorite part of the day?” and then, “What was the hardest part of your day?”

These daily check-ins create space for children to bring up bullying or other upsetting situations, she said. “I think that’s how parents can catch these things a little bit earlier, rather than the child waiting until it gets really bad before they say something.”

Ahlborg said kids often share “micro-doses” of information because of the shame they feel over being bullied. It’s important for parents to be calm and non-judgmental when talking with children about bullying because kids sometimes fear parents’ reactions.

“Let the child know they’ve done nothing to deserve what happened, that together you’ll find a solution,” she said.

Twiehaus suggested parents say things like, “Wow, that does sound hard” or “Sounds like you used your problem-solving skills,” rather than making dismissive comments like, “That’s not that hard” or “See, it was fine.”

What should I do if I think my child is being bullied?

If it’s occurring in school, or being perpetrated by classmates outside of school, report it to the school. If it’s occurring elsewhere — in a church youth group or a club sport team — report it to leaders in those groups.

Ahlborg said even when parents report bullying verbally, it’s a good idea to create a paper trail. That means sending a follow-up email or text, repeating key points from the conversation and any action steps the teacher or other adult said they would take. She also said parents should report every bullying incident to the school after the initial communication.

Should I confront the child who is doing the bullying?

No. In general, it’s not effective, and parents can get in trouble for reprimanding or trying to discipline someone else’s child.

Should I talk to the parents of the child doing the bullying?

Not usually, unless you have an existing friendship or relationship with that child’s parents.

What should I expect from my child’s school after I report bullying?

There’s no one-size-fits-all response, but the most important thing is that the bullying needs to stop, said Ahlborg.

Adam Collins, the statewide bullying prevention manager at the Colorado Department of Education, said every school in Colorado is required to have a bullying prevention policy, and should follow the steps outlined there.

In terms of helping a bullied student, solutions might include connecting the child to a trusted adult at school who will look out for them. It could also mean a safety plan that calls for a student to be accompanied through the hallway by a staff member, let out of class five minutes early, or switched to a different lunch period, classroom, or seat on the bus. In some cases, the student doing the bullying may be subject to a “no-contact contract” that bars them from interacting with the child being bullied. In others, the student doing the bullying, may be suspended or expelled.

Experts don’t recommend restorative practices, such as peer mediation, in cases of bullying, said Collins. That’s because the imbalance of power that characterized the bullying can play out again during restorative conversations and retraumatize the victim — even when adults are present.

I’ve reported it, but the bullying hasn’t stopped. What should I do?

State officials recommend parents start by reporting bullying to the lowest-level employee — say, the classroom teacher. If there’s no resolution, continue reporting it up the chain. That might mean telling the assistant principal or principal, then the principal’s supervisor, then the district superintendent or board of education.

My child is being bullied on social media. How should I respond?

Experts say cyberbullying is common and particularly tricky because so many students have 24/7 access to electronics. Even if it’s technically occurring off-campus or after school hours, it’s worth reporting to the child’s school if it involves peers from the school.

To stop online bullying, parents can have their child take a break from social media, change their phone number, start a new account that only close friends have access to, or switch to a platform that makes it easier to block unwanted users.

Will my child’s school tell me whether the student doing the bullying was punished?

No. Privacy laws prevent schools from sharing how an individual student was disciplined — even with the victim’s family. Experts say that often leaves parents frustrated, but that it’s better to focus on helping the student who was bullied.

“I encourage parents to focus their energy on tasks that are going to be worth their time,” said Twiehaus. “Trying to combat privacy laws … It’s probably not going to be the best use of your energy.”

The bullying has stopped, but my child is still struggling. What should I do?

Twiehaus said it’s normal for bullying to have long-term effects because it often produces negative internal messages in children who experience it. Therapy or even switching schools can help students move forward after bullying.

She also encourages parents to get kids involved in activities that build self-confidence or help them master a skill — playing a new sport, taking up a musical instrument, or learning to sew.

Many families report that martial arts helped their children, Ahlborg said.

“They probably will never use it against another person … but it’s just that internal feeling of growth and power,” she said.

I suspect my child may be bullying others. What signs should I look for?

Children who have friends who bully others are susceptible to bullying behavior themselves, said Collins. Other signs include frequent verbal or physical fights and unexplained belongings or money, he said.

I’ve confirmed my child is bullying others. What should I do?

Experts say it’s natural for parents to be upset when they learn their child is involved in bullying. Twiehaus said parents may want to let loose: “How could you do this? Why were you doing this? I can’t even believe this. I didn’t teach you this” — but it’s important to keep emotions in check so there can be a real conversation.

Twiehaus also cautioned that although many parents want to know why their child would bully someone, many young people, even up to 16 or 17 years old, don’t have the self-awareness to explain their actions.

Experts say parents can work with their children to understand the harm they caused, and develop empathy and kindness.

“Children who engage in bullying acts, usually there’s something going on in their life that’s uncomfortable and it’s a way to lash out and have power over somebody else,” said Ahlborg.

Addressing the root cause can help, she said. “Is there a mental health struggle? Are they struggling in school or struggling making friends? … it’s very, very common for somebody that’s been bullied to become a bully.”

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

Fewer Colorado youth feel sad, hopeless, suicidal, health survey finds

2024-06-13T22:40:41+00:00

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Fewer Colorado youth felt consistently sad or hopeless and fewer considered suicide last year compared with 2021, a large statewide health survey found.

The results from the Healthy Kids Colorado survey represent a bright spot after unprecedented levels of teen anxiety and depression surfaced during the pandemic. The situation was dire enough that state lawmakers took swift action, creating a program in 2021 to provide free counseling sessions to children and youth. Many school districts also launched free counseling programs and hired additional social workers, counselors, and psychologists.

Leaders at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which publishes the survey results, were pleased with the survey findings released Wednesday.

“There have been dramatic changes in the right direction around indicators of mental health, suicide risk, and substance use,” said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, the department’s executive director, in a press release. “We’re hopeful this is an indication of state and community investments in prevention programming and protective factors paying off.”

The 2023 Healthy Kids findings on youth mental health are among the most notable of the survey results. In some cases they improved to well beyond pre-pandemic levels.

For example, 26% of high-schoolers reported persistent feelings of hopelessness or sadness in the 2023 survey, down from 40% in 2021 and 35% in 2019. In addition, 11% of high schoolers seriously considered suicide, down from 17% in 2021. Middle schoolers also saw drops in both categories.

Among both middle and high school students, 58% reported their stress level was manageable most days — an improvement for high school students compared with 2021, but the same for middle schoolers.

Alcohol use, vaping fell for high schoolers

In addition to positive trends on youth mental health for both middle and high school students, the survey revealed that fewer high school students are vaping, drinking alcohol, or using prescription pain medication without a prescription or differently than prescribed compared with 2021. Marijuana use held steady.

For middle schoolers, alcohol use was up in 2023, with many more reporting that they had ever taken a drink — 24% compared with 11% in 2021 — and more reporting they’d consumed alcohol in the previous month — 7% compared with 4% in 2021.

Middle school rates of vaping and using marijuana didn’t change in 2023 compared to 2021, but the survey found that more students in that age group had tried cigarettes — 7% compared to 4% in 2021.

While bullying overall didn’t increase in 2023 compared with 2021, LGBTQ students reported significantly higher rates of bullying than other students. For example, 29% of gay and lesbian high school students reported being bullied during the previous year, compared with 12% of students generally. Gay and lesbian students also reported higher rates of sadness and hopelessness, and that they’d seriously considered suicide.

More efforts to improve youth mental health are on the way in Colorado.

In May, the state announced a program that will train young adults ages 18 to 24 to connect youth with mental health support. This month, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced a new youth mental health grant program funded with millions from a lawsuit settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc.

The Healthy Kids survey has been given under various names since 1991. It has occasionally sparked backlash over concerns about data privacy or because some critics say the questions are too explicit.

Public health officials emphasize the survey is voluntary for students and provides key information about how pre-teens and teens are faring when it comes to physical, sexual, and mental health.

More than 120,000 students completed the survey in 2023 — the most ever.

State officials added several new questions to the 2023 survey, including about feeling safe at school, nightly sleep hours, use of psychedelic drugs, body image, and eating disorders.

One of the new questions revealed that nearly a quarter of high-schoolers and middle schoolers reported trying to lose weight or maintain their weight in unhealthy ways during the previous month — for example, by using diet pills, skipping meals, or vomiting.

Another new question revealed that large proportions of students worry about their physical appearance all or most of the time — 39% for high schoolers and 32% for middle schoolers.

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

NYC gets $27 million from Juul lawsuit settlement to combat youth vaping

2024-06-12T21:24:01+00:00

New York City is set to receive $27 million to combat youth vaping as part of a settlement stemming from a lawsuit against e-cigarette giant Juul, state Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday.

James led a multistate lawsuit against Juul in 2019 for deceptive marketing targeting youth and won a $462 million settlement. New York State is receiving $112 million of that sum, with $27 million flowing directly to the city to confront what James called a “youth vaping epidemic” that Juul helped spark. Of that allotment, $15 million will go directly to the public school system, and the remaining $12 million will go to other parts of city government.

The money will be distributed in a series of payments over the coming eight years, and districts will get wide discretion on how to spend their money in five general areas: education, prevention, enforcement, and research on the effectiveness of anti-vaping efforts.

“The smell of vapes has been commonplace in hallways, cafeterias, and stairwells,” James said of Manhattan’s Martin Luther King Jr. high school campus where she announced the new funding.

At other schools, James acknowledged, “vaping … became so frequent and widespread that schools had to install vaping detection devices inside of school bathrooms and in other rooms.”

Some school districts across the country have used their Juul settlement money to purchase vape sensors, which detect the chemicals emitted during vaping. A New York City program to buy vape detectors could be a permissible expense as long as it meets the other criteria for the funding, James’s office said.

One Manhattan principal who installed sensors this year to curb student vaping in the school’s bathrooms hopes the city will subsidize the devices. The detectors have been a game changer: The school initially saw roughly 60 vape alerts a week, and now they come only several times a month, according to the school leader.

This principal would also like the city to fund more substance abuse counselors to work in schools and argued that educators and school leaders should have a role in deciding how the funding is allocated.

“I will volunteer my time,” added the administrator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they’re unsure if the vape sensors are approved by the Education Department.

Officials from the Education Department and the Adams administration didn’t immediately respond to questions about how the city plans to spend its settlement money.

A national teen vape crisis takes hold

Vapes, or e-cigarettes, function by heating small liquid cartridges containing nicotine, often alongside flavoring and other chemicals, into an aerosol that can be inhaled. Concentrates of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, can also be vaporized.

There are signs that nicotine vaping can lead to lung disease, though the long-term effects on the lungs are still being studied. Nicotine can change the chemistry of the adolescent brain, affecting memory, concentration and learning ability, city health officials said last November. A 17-year-old in the Bronx died from vaping in 2019 – the youngest vaping casualty in the country.

Rates of teen vaping across the nation have exploded over the past decade or so.

The share of high school seniors who said they’d vaped nicotine in the past month jumped from 11% in 2017 to 21% in 2022, according to the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future study. The percentage who’d vaped marijuana in the past 30 days shot up from 5% in 2017 to 15% in 2022, the study found.

In New York City, roughly one in nine city teens reported vaping at least once in the past 30 days in 2021, the last year for which survey results were published in the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Girls were more than twice as likely than boys to report vaping, with 15% saying they’d smoked an e-cigarette in the last month, compared to 7% of boys.

Public health officials and state attorneys general have pointed to Juul’s singular role in fomenting the rise in youth vaping.

According to the lawsuit filed by James’s office in 2019, Juul systematically marketed its products to young people by emphasizing the fruity flavors and downplaying or hiding the health risks, violating state laws against selling tobacco products to minors in the process.

The suit claims that a Juul representative reached out directly to at least one New York City high school and “falsely told high school freshmen that its products were safer than cigarettes.”

Some educators and city students say the proliferation of smoke shops across the city in the wake of the state’s rocky rollout of legalized weed in 2021 has made the products even more accessible. And the ongoing youth mental health crisis accelerated by the pandemic has pushed more teens to turn to substances like cannabis and nicotine as a form of stress relief and self-medication, according to educators and mental health professionals.

The problem often spills directly into schools, with students vaping in bathrooms and hallways, according to educators and kids.

At Beacon High School in Hell’s Kitchen, 18-year-old senior Ava Stryker-Robbins recalled opening a bathroom door to be greeted by a cloud of smoke. She now avoids that restroom.

“I’ve heard people who have asthma say that there are some bathrooms in the school that they cannot use throughout the day because of the amount of smoke,” she said.

Beacon’s principal didn’t respond to an email asking about the school’s approach to student vaping.

Incidents of controlled substances confiscated in schools rose last year compared to before the pandemic, but are down roughly 24% this year compared to last year, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

Schools struggle with lack of anti-vaping resources

Educators and school leaders said they often feel mostly on their own when it comes to confronting widespread student vaping.

There are currently only 256 dedicated Substance Abuse Prevention and Intervention Specialists distributed across the city’s more than 1,600 public schools, according to recent testimony from District Council 37 Local 372, the union representing the workers.

That’s a loss of more than 200 SAPIS workers since 2006, due to the expiration of a federal grant, according to the union.

An Education Department spokesperson said SAPIS workers are placed based on reviews of schools’ needs and requests from principals. They can offer class lessons, small group counseling, parent workshops, and referrals to outside support.

Yvonne Perez, a school social worker at West Brooklyn Community High School, a transfer school for students at risk of not graduating, said she’s tried to bring in outside resources like a group that teaches harm reduction techniques that seek to reduce rather than outright eliminate the behavior, instead of relying on discipline.

“I’m always big on understanding,” she said. “Let’s not judge them or place an opinion on them for doing what they’re doing. They’re coping.”

But the scale of the challenge can be daunting. “We’ve been seeing a lot of our students smoking weed and vaping like it’s nothing,” she said.

City Council Member Gale Brewer, a democrat who represents the Upper West Side of Manhattan, said the explosion of smoke shops has created a significant challenge for schools.

“Schools need help,” she said at the Wednesday press conference. “I’ve even had a principal crying … because when you have a young woman vaping in your classroom, it’s really challenging. What in the world do I do? Where do I begin? How do I get her support?”

The city’s Education and Health Departments announced a partnership last November with the CATCH Global Foundation to offer an evidence-based anti-vaping curriculum to roughly 30,000 students across 180 schools over the next three years. City health educators will also be eligible to receive the training, according to officials.

Schools experiment with vape detectors

Some New York City school leaders have leaned on vape sensors in bathrooms and hallways to address the issue.

It’s not clear how many schools in New York City use the devices, and there have not been any district-wide initiatives to purchase them. But some individual schools have bought the sensors.

Zeptive, a Massachusetts-based company that produces vape detectors, works with about 30 New York City public and charter schools — a number that’s grown in recent years, according to chief growth officer Steve Milt.

State Sen. Nathalia Fernandez (D-Bronx) introduced a bill last year that would require all New York City schools to install vape detectors. The bill hasn’t advanced past committee.

The Manhattan principal who installed vape sensors at the start of this school year did so after hearing complaints from students about pervasive vaping in the bathrooms.

“‘I don’t like the smell, I don’t like the vibe of going into a bathroom and seeing someone smoking, it doesn’t feel safe,’” the principal recalled students saying. “That was enough for me.”

At first, responding to the frequent alerts required a significant time commitment from administrators. The school arranged meetings with families of students who were caught vaping and referred students to substance abuse treatment if the problem persisted.

Over time, the number of alerts dropped precipitously. The devices made “visible” a problem that was largely out of sight,the principal said, and opened up valuable conversations with students and parents.

But not everyone is sold on vape sensors. One Brooklyn principal looked into buying them but scrapped the idea over privacy concerns, he said.

Critics have raised concerns over the accuracy of the sensors and the potential that they could open students up to harsh discipline. In Texas, teens caught vaping in school by sensors have faced month-long suspensions and misdemeanor charges, according to the Associated Press.

“There just are so many issues here as to why do you think you need it, does it really work, what are the policies you’re putting into place, are you going to end up applying the consequences in a way that has a disproportionate impact on kids of color?” said Beth Haroules, a senior staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The Manhattan principal who installed vape sensors acknowledged the devices are a limited tool and can’t solve the “societal” problem of youth vaping. But the school leader stressed that curbing the practice in school is a critical first step.

“This is my home, and these are my kids,” the principal said. “I really want the best community and the best environment for my kids.”

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

Colorado to spend $20 million of Juul settlement on grant program to improve youth mental health

2024-06-04T20:56:27+00:00

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Colorado will spend $20 million of a $31.7 million lawsuit settlement with e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc. on a grant program aimed at improving youth mental health, state Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Tuesday.

The program will prioritize collaborations between school districts and community organizations. The aim is to address children’s mental health so they don’t turn to vaping as a way to cope.

“When you think about a challenge like youth vaping, you can think about addressing the symptom — the fact that people are vaping — or the underlying cause,” Weiser said in an interview after the announcement. “We’ve chosen to address the underlying cause.

“We know that because of mental health issues, people turn to substances like vaping. That’s why we’re going to the source to ask: How do we build better connections?”

The “how” will be up to the school districts, which will be invited to apply for grants later this year. The long lead time is intentional; Weiser said the goal is for districts to collaborate with one another and with local community organizations to come up with programs that help develop young people’s connections to trusted adults and to one another. Several Colorado foundations have offered to help facilitate those collaborations over the next six months.

“We do not want to prescribe what you need to do,” Weiser told a room full of educators at a Colorado Education Initiative summer conference, where he made the announcement. “We want to offer a broad opportunity around holistic youth mental health and leave it to you to think about what collaboration, what partnership, what strategies make sense in your community.”

Colorado sued Juul in 2020, alleging that it targeted youth with deceptive marketing and played down the health risks of vaping. The state was one of several that settled with the company. Juul did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.

Thirty percent of Colorado high school students reported having vaped at least once, according to the most recent data from the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, which is administered every other year. Sixteen percent of students said they’d vaped in the last 30 days.

The $20 million grant program is the largest of three programs that Colorado is spending the Juul settlement money on. The others are a $6 million grant program aimed at nonprofit organizations and government agencies, and an $11.4 million grant program for school districts to address the youth vaping crisis. Those grant programs are already underway, and Weiser said the recipients will be announced soon.

Weiser said he sees the $20 million program as especially impactful because of the power of collaboration. “Schools are free to work with whoever in their community is serving young people,” he said. “In some communities, it might be a Boys and Girls Club. In other communities, it might be a library teaching kids to read.”

Grant applicants whose school districts serve a combined 23,000 students or more will be eligible for a $2.5 million grant over a three-year period, Weiser said. Applicants whose districts serve between 7,500 and 23,000 students will be eligible for $1.75 million over three years, and districts that serve fewer than 7,500 students will be eligible for $750,000.

Late last year, Colorado led a coalition of 42 attorneys general nationwide that sued Meta in a similar lawsuit alleging that its social media platforms, including Instagram, used deceptive practices to harm children and teens and addict them to social media.

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

Para ayudar a abordar las necesidades de salud mental de los adolescentes, Colorado lanzará el Cuerpo de Salud Mental Juvenil

2024-05-24T19:02:44+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 dos veces al mes.

Colorado es uno de los cuatro estados que lanzará este otoño un nuevo programa público-privado destinado a abordar tanto las crecientes necesidades de salud mental de los adolescentes como la falta de proveedores.

Llamado Cuerpo de Salud Mental Juvenil, el programa capacitará a jóvenes de entre 18 y 24 años para actuar “como navegadores que sirven a estudiantes de secundaria y preparatoria en escuelas y en organizaciones comunitarias,” según un comunicado de prensa de la oficina de la vicegobernadora de Colorado, Dianne Primavera. El sitio web del Cuerpo de Salud Mental Juvenil dice que los miembros del cuerpo “conectarán a los jóvenes con los apoyos y recursos necesarios de salud mental en estrecha colaboración con profesionales y socios comunitarios.”

El programa federal de servicio AmeriCorps trabajará con la Administración de Salud Conductual de Colorado y el Sistema de Colegios Comunitarios de Colorado para reclutar y desplegar a los navegadores, quienes recibirán un estipendio y serán elegibles para la condonación de préstamos estudiantiles y otras ayudas para pagar la universidad, según el comunicado de prensa.

“Al unirnos a esta iniciativa nacional, no solo estamos abordando la urgente necesidad de recursos de salud mental, sino también creando vías significativas para que nuestros jóvenes adultos persigan carreras en este campo vital,” dijo Primavera en un comunicado.El Hospital de Niños de Colorado declaró un “estado de emergencia” en salud mental pediátrica en 2021, y tanto las agencias públicas como las organizaciones privadas del estado respondieron con programas para abordar la crisis. Los programas incluyen I Matter, financiado por el estado durante la pandemia, que proporciona seis sesiones gratuitas de teleterapia o terapia en persona a estudiantes desde primaria hasta preparatoria y que los legisladores de Colorado recientemente hicieron permanente.

La Fundación Familia Schultz, fundada por el ex-CEO de Starbucks Howard Schultz y su esposa Sheri, y la plataforma en línea Pinterest están respaldando el programa del Cuerpo de Salud Mental Juvenil, según un comunicado de prensa de AmeriCorps.

El comunicado de prensa menciona “una preocupación generalizada sobre el impacto de las redes sociales en la salud mental de los jóvenes” y dice que el Cuerpo de Salud Mental Juvenil “ayudará a los estudiantes a navegar desafíos sociales en línea como el acoso, el bullying y el sesgo.”

Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota y Texas lanzarán programas del Cuerpo de Salud Mental Juvenil en septiembre con “cientos” de navegadores en los cuatro estados, dice el comunicado de prensa. Otros siete estados —California, Iowa, Maryland, Nueva Jersey, Nueva York, Virginia y Utah— lanzarán programas en el otoño de 2025, agrega.

Melanie Asmar es la jefa de redacción de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Nearly 7,000 teens have signed up for NYC’s free online therapy platform in first 6 months

2024-05-23T22:20:14+00:00

Nearly 7,000 teenagers have signed up for New York City’s free online therapy program since it launched in November, with the largest numbers coming from some of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, city officials said Thursday.

A total of 6,800 teens have requested a therapist through Teenspace, a $26 million dollar partnership between the city’s Health Department and Talkspace, an online therapy platform that offers video and text-based mental health support.

The neighborhoods with the highest number of signups were Brownsville, Canarsie and East New York in Brooklyn, and Morrisania and Norwood in the Bronx. These areas, which have some of the highest poverty rates in the city, have historically lacked widespread access to mental health services, officials said.

Roughly 80% of teenagers using the program identify as Black, Latino, Asian-American or Native American, and almost 70% identified as female, according to the city data.

“We are meeting people where they are with a front door to the mental health system that for too long has been too hard to find,” said Ashwin Vasan, the city’s health commissioner, at a press conference Thursday alongside Mayor Eric Adams.

The preliminary data is the most extensive information the city has provided on how the major new initiative is working. When New York City announced the program last year, it joined a growing number of municipalities and school districts that have turned to telehealth and online platforms to try to broaden access to therapy amid an ongoing youth mental health crisis and shortages of providers.

Some experts have raised questions about the effectiveness of the practice, and other large-scale online therapy programs have sputtered. But Vasan cautioned that the “the cost of inaction is too high,” noting the elevated rates of youth suicidal ideation and attempts in New York City in the wake of the pandemic and arguing that therapy has traditionally been too difficult and burdensome for many teens to access.

The top reasons teens listed for signing up were feeling depressed, improving relationships, becoming the best versions of themselves, managing anxiety, and dealing with challenges at home and school, according to Vasan.

He emphasized that 65% of the teenagers who have signed up for the program “reported an improvement” after connecting with a therapist, who are required to be licensed in New York state.

Ruby Tarquinio, a 17-year-old student, said she’s learned through her Teenspace therapist that “bottling up thoughts leads to depression, numbness, and anger,” and has begun to “address the root” of her mental health challenges with the provider she met through the program.

“Everyone deserves to see beauty in themselves the way therapy allowed me to,” she said.

Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, a school social worker at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan, said she was encouraged to see the list of neighborhoods with the highest numbers of signups and the racial composition of the users.

“That is the group that needs access to care the most. So it’s absolutely reflecting the high-needs population,” she said.

But Chock-Goldman, also a professor at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, said she still doubts that the services offered through Teenspace, which include texting with a therapist, holding once-a-month video sessions, or a combination of the two, can replace the benefits of more intensive therapy.

“It’s interim care, basically,” she said. “It’s a really good starting point. But this doesn’t mirror actual clinical work.”

More than 50% of the 6,800 teenagers who have signed up for TeenSpace have so far opted to only send texts with their therapist, while 42% are doing both video sessions and texts.

Vasan said he doesn’t consider that a problem. To the contrary, he said it’s evidence that “they’re engaging in the ways that they want to engage … The majority of them are using texting, which is native to young people. They just want to text sometimes.”

And when students present more serious needs, they are referred to outside providers, program administrators said.

TeenSpace therapists have helped navigate 36 “high risk” events, including suicide attempts, reports of child abuse, and a drug overdose, according to Dr. Jon Cohen, the CEO of Talkspace.

In those cases, Teenspace therapists referred students to child protective services, more intensive therapy, or hospitalization, Cohen said. Those interventions for students in high risk situations “may have significantly altered their life trajectory,” Cohen added.

He added that TeenSpace has deemed roughly 50 students at moderate to high risk of suicide.

Chock-Goldman pointed out that identifying 50 out of roughly 6,800 at moderate or high risk of suicide constitutes less than 1% — far lower than the 16% of high school students who reported suicidal ideation in 2021, according to city officials.

Cohen said the 50 figure only includes students flagged by an artificial intelligence algorithm that scans the contents of the text conversations to look for signs of risk, and that therapists may have separately identified other teens at risk.

Vasan acknowledged that the city has a long way to go in improving the program and expanding access to greater numbers of the more than 440,000 teens eligible for it.

Haajra Ali, a 16-year-old junior at the Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology in Bedford-Stuyvesant, who recently worked on an initiative to expand mental health access for teens, said she found the early results “incredible.”

“To see how people from these areas specifically are actually getting this help and parents are getting on board with it too, I think that says a lot,” she said. “I feel like this is definitely something good for the community.”

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

LISTEN: Teens want therapy. Are they getting it?

2024-05-22T10:00:00+00:00

This week’s episode of P.S. Weekly looks at teen mental health, zooming in on one mother and daughter’s opposing views on therapy, and zooming out to look at New York City’s ambitious new effort to expand free mental health care to teens across the five boroughs.

The mother and daughter interviewed here were previously featured in Chalkbeat. You can read more about their journey here.

You can find out more about how to sign up for Teenspace here. And if you or someone you know needs access to immediate mental health care, you can call 988.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Be sure to drop a review in your app or shoot an email to PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. Tell us what you learned today or what you’re still wondering. We just might read your comment on a future episode.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. Listen for new episodes Wednesdays this spring.

Read the full episode transcript below

HOST (Christian): Welcome to P.S. Weekly… the sound of the New York City school system.

HOST (Christian): PS Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat New York and The Bell.

HOST (Christian): I’m your host this week, Christian Rojas Linares. I’m a senior at University Neighborhood High School in Manhattan.

Host (Christian): May happens to be Mental Health Awareness Month — and on today’s show, we’re focusing on what many are calling a youth mental health crisis.

Coming up, we have two stories — FIRST, we zoom in on a single family’s journey with therapy. THEN, one that zooms out to look at an ambitious new effort to expand mental health care to teens citywide.

HOST(Christian): But first!... The Chalkbeat news bulletin…

Chalkbeat:

I’m Amy Zimmer, from Chalkbeat. Here’s a recap of the week’s biggest education stories: Several immigrant students from the Cyberarts Studio Academy High School, say their principal pressured them to transfer out. Students and staff suspect the transfer was due to them potentially not graduating–AFTER they all failed an English Regents exam. If students don’t graduate this school year, it could harm the school’s four-year graduation rate — a key performance measure for schools.

As federal stimulus money dries up, New York City schools could see funding cut in half for restorative justice programs. Restorative justice initiatives prioritize peer mediation and other forms of conflict resolution over suspensions.

A group of lawmakers, parents, and school safety advocates are calling on Albany to reduce the number of annual lockdown drills from 4 to 2. The group says the drills are leading to mental health concerns. New York is among a handful of states that mandate four or more lockdown drills per year.

To stay up to date on local education news throughout the week, go to chalkbeat.org/newsletters and sign up for the New York Daily Roundup.

HOST (Christian): Thanks Chalkbeat!

HOST(Christian): Mental health has always been a serious issue, especially for teens. Think about it: there’s a whole genre of movies and TV shows about how hard middle and high school can be. Older generations sometimes minimize the challenges of youth: Oh, you’ll get through it. And for many of our parents, the subject continues to be taboo– especially for members of marginalized communities.

But the reality is that for my generation — Gen Z — mental health challenges are escalating. According to city data… between 2011 and 2021… there was a 42 percent increase in the number of high schoolers experiencing hopelessness… and a 33% increase in students who reported suicidal ideation.

There’s no single cause: pressure to do well in school… to fit in… STRESS: about our futures, the climate, and politics — all amplified by social media. Many of us are dealing with anxiety and/or depression, and don’t know where to turn for help.

HOST (Christian): So what do we do about it? Many times, we vent about our problems to our friends or family members, but sometimes what we really need is a licensed professional — whether that’s a therapist, clinical social worker, or counselor.

A new city initiative called TeenSpace is designed to help expand free access to care. We’ll hear about it directly from the city’s Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene, Dr. Ashwin Vasan. But first… our student reporter, Salma Baksh, has a story about a daughter, a mother, and how the generational divide can pose a barrier to getting therapy.

Here’s Salma.

Derry Oliver (MOM): Um I had to take the the A to the 4, but I got lost.

Narrator (Salma): I’m here at the PS Weekly studio in downtown Manhattan with Derry Elizabeth Oliver Nixon, her mom–ALSO named Derry Elizabeth Oliver, and the youngest member of the family, Desi–who will be turning 3 in June. You’ll be hearing her in the background.

Derry Oliver (MOM): It’s even more fun with a stroller… Say Hi Desi (baby cries)

Narrator (Salma): The younger Derry is a senior at Cobble Hill School for American Studies in Brooklyn. She’s about to graduate this year and plans to double-major in Law, Society, and Policy and Computer Science at Syracuse University, starting in the fall. She confidently tells me about her potential career options.

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): I don’t think it’s an unusual combination. Actually, I thought a lot about this where I wanted to get an understanding of cybersecurity– that’s what I plan to go into especially– but I also wanted to go into policy and I think it would’ve been a great idea to merge…, um, merge the gap between cybersecurity and public policy and be able to take technological policies.

Narrator (Salma): Hearing Derry speak– she sounds like she has it all figured out… But this wasn’t always the case… You’d never know that she has struggled with depression throughout childhood.

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER) I was dealing with a lot in school. And at home, where that was the first time she moved away from the family to get us ready to move to New York was dealing with bullying as well at school, and so it was weighing a lot on me mentally where I was dealing with like depression at like around nine, ten years old.

Derry Oliver (MOM) it was a lot of yelling, just being mad at the other students, but they were picking with her.

Narrator (Salma): This is Derry’s mom.

Derry Oliver (MOM)I don’t want to justify the lashing out, but like they say, don’t poke the bear.

Narrator (Salma): While Derry has known about therapy since age 10, it wasn’t until middle school that she actually considered getting it. Derry found out a friend of hers was speaking with a therapist. And the process seemed like something she’d want to try.

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): So for me, how I imagine therapy was where like not just be able to talk your feelings and that’s it, but more so, being able to like, use ways to, like, get to the bottom of like was like triggering certain things and so the moment I was told about therapy was when the school had to notify my grandmother, my mother about it.

Narrator (Salma): And what did they think? How did that conversation go?

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): The conversation, I will say didn’t go well at all. So my grandmother, my mother were actually upset with me because they feel as if, Oh, you are loved. You don’t, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Narrator (Salma): How did you react when she first brought up wanting to get therapy?

Derry Oliver (MOM): I was confused, concerned, taken aback, trying to go into Mom mode like you can talk to me. You know what’s wrong Is it me? What’s going on? Tell me

Derry Oliver (MOM): And I guess for me in my head, I’m like, she didn’t experience a lot of the things that I experienced. I dealt with a father that was an alcoholic and man me and him used to fight. Like we would go head to head. So for me, I guess that was my example of parenting.

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): it was also with the idea that teenagers or young kids can’t really express their emotions properly anyways. I feel as if it was like, Oh, you’re just dealing with like the emotional swings of like growing up. And for that reason, they probably thought therapy wasn’t needed.

Narrator (Salma): There was ANOTHER reason why Derry’s mom was cautious about letting her daughter do therapy…

Derry Oliver (MOM): I’ve tried it before, but they put me on a pill. Now you have this little pill to take to even you out, and now you’re in the bed all day like a zombie. There’s nothing you can do. You’re not even out now. You’re even more sad and what you were before you even went. Because that’s what happened to me. I was in the bed for days. I didn’t do much.

So I’m here for her getting therapy. Honestly, that’s not ever been an issue, it’s the person, you have to screen the person.

Derry Oliver (MOM): Derry, did you perceive the situation that way? That it wasn’t about therapy, it was about the therapist?

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER):Um, no, not really. She has explained that before, but it was also, like, sentiments like um what if you get like CPS involved? That’s a very big fear. Like in the black community,

Narrator (Salma): CPS – Child Protective Services.

Pause

Narrator (Salma): After a few years the two were able to reach a compromise for Derry to see a therapist... But, it came with a catch.

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): My mom was like physically there at the therapy session, so I wasn’t able to properly say everything I wanted to Where is immediately A Oh no, that didn’t happen or why do you see that? And so for that reason the therapist even said oh there’s nothing wrong. You know, it doesn’t seem like you really need like therapy and stuff. And it kind of turned into more of a therapy session for my mom between. So it became less about me and more about like, her. And so, like, I think afterwards we agreed that she also needed therapy too.

Narrator (Salma): Derry’s mom saw things differently.

Derry Oliver (MOM): I could tell she understood certain things my daughter was saying. I was I was also sitting in on the sessions, so it was benefiting me and her. I felt like we were actually communicating a little bit better when we saw her, Right? Wrong?

Narrator (Salma): Derry makes a face… she looks annoyed.

Derry Oliver (MOM): No, it was worse?

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): A little bit

Derry Oliver (MOM): It was worse?

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): Yeah.

Narrator (Salma): Um, Derry. Can you elaborate on why that wasn’t a good experience for you?

Derry Oliver (MOM): So for me, it just felt like I had a hard time giving, getting everything out because it just did it feel more like one on one? And so it’s harder to chime in as the person that like the therapy session was like for.

Derry Oliver (MOM): I didn’t know she was feeling that way during the sessions. You’re at this age, what do you have to say that’s so deep that I can’t hear? Like what is going on? And some things I feel like maybe I should hear, so I could either figure something out a little bit better and go from there versus you shutting me off and me not knowing what to do. Like I don’t have a blueprint or manual to how you are feeling or what is going on with you that day. So if I’m asking you as a mom, hey, you know, let me know what’s going on. You know, I wasn’t given that. So I’ve always tried to make sure that I have an ear for her.

Narrator (Salma): Derry’s mom reminds me of my own. She also wanted to be included in the conversation, but part of the reason I sought therapy in the first place was because I wanted to talk about HER. My mom probably sensed that, and feared what I had to say about her, scared that she wasn’t being a good mother to me.

Narrator (Salma): The two generations of women don’t agree on a lot when it comes to therapy. These kinds of disagreements can be really tough for many other teens who desperately want therapy, but also struggle to jump over the hurdle of parental consen.

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): Because of her, like fear or anxiety or like her trauma, like because of it is holding me back from having possibly, possibly a better experience. And so she never allowed us to take that leap of faith. And for that reason, it just made me very angry throughout the years where I wasn’t able to properly get help.

Narrator (Salma): The issue of parental consent is a somewhat murky area of state law. Minors can access mental health services and even medication in certain cases without parental consent — but only if the health care provider deems it medically necessary.

Salma: So where are you today with therapy?

Derry Oliver (DAUGHTER): Um, today with therapy, we’re still considering it. But now that, like I’m pushing closer to 18 and going to college, I decided myself that I plan on getting therapy on my own when I’m 18. The college I’m planning to go to which is Syracuse offers like mental health support services. And so I was planning to just take therapy there and just wait out the couple of months.

Narrator (Salma): I asked Derry’s mom how she would feel about therapy for her youngest daughter Desi in the future.

Derry Oliver (MOM):

When she gets older, you know, prayerfully, she won’t need it. But we all could use a little couch time here and there.

Narrator (Salma): Throughout the interview with Derry and her mom, what struck me most was how open they were — I don’t know if the conversation changed Derry’s mom’s attitude toward therapy, but I do know that the pair are doing something that many children and parents are not doing when it comes to mental health: Talking about it. And that… feels like a start.

Narrator (Salma): Reporting for PS Weekly, I’m Salma Baksh.

HOST (Christian): Thank you, Salma. Derry and her mom were featured in a Chalkbeat story about teen mental health earlier this spring. You can find the link to that story in the show notes.

HOST (Christian): We’ll be back, after a short break…

Hey Listeners! We hope you’re liking P.S. Weekly as much as we enjoy making it! Our episodes are the result of weeks of dedication from students with an already full schedule. We’re working overtime to create these episodes, and it’s been worth it! But here’s the thing: We don’t have a bunch of money or millions of followers, so we’re counting on you, loyal listener, to help us get the word out! Just take a few seconds, and share this link with your friends so they, too, can enjoy P.S. weekly. Thanks for your support!

HOST (Christian): The generational divide over mental health care won’t be solved overnight... But New York City took a big step forward last November to make access to therapy free and simple for students. It launched TeenSpace. While students under 18 still need parental consent to participate, it’s accessible anywhere online.

But…is TeenSpace… working?

P.S. Weekly reporter Shoaa Khan has the story.

Narrator (Shoaa): I’m here with my fellow student reporter, Dorothy Ha, to figure out how to sign up for TeenSpace, a branch of the mental healthcare provider TalkSpace only for 13-17-year-olds.

Dorothy: “Alright so it’s been like 10 minutes since I finished signing up and TalkSpace just sent me an email, it says, we’re thrilled to introduce you to your provider, and I’ve already been matched with a therapist

Narrator (Shoaa): Through a partnership with the city, TeenSpace is being offered for free to all New York City teens. All they have to do is register through the app or website and get parental consent. Then, the teen is matched with an online therapist within minutes or hours.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: We are seeing that the majority of young people coming onto the platform are interested in talking about anxiety or depression.

Narrator (Shoaa): This is Dr. Ashwin Vasan. He’s the commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the agency that manages TeenSpace.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: But we are also seeing a good trend of young people using it proactively for things like self-improvement. For example, improving concentration in school, improving relationship management, self-actualization, self-realization tips.

Narrator (Shoaa): TeenSpace is a big deal because, traditionally, getting access to therapy as a teenager… isn’t easy.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: The system is very confusing. It’s even confusing for me. And I’m a physician and someone who’s worked in this space for more than 2 decades, and it’s a very confusing front door. And as the parent of small children, and having had to seek mental health support for them at different times. It’s really confusing. And so I and we at the city wanted to find a way to take some of the guesswork out of asking for help and getting it.

Narrator (Shoaa): There’s also another problem.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: We have a massive mismatch and a gap between the supply and demand, especially coming out of Covid where demand has increased. But we don’t have a supply of mental health workers that are ready to take care of all of our needs, especially the needs of young people and teenagers, which is the group with the fastest rising mental health needs in the in the country and in the world. So we can’t all of a sudden create a workforce that doesn’t exist. But what we can do is use technology to make the workforce more accessible.

Narrator (Shoaa): And Dr. Vasan says students of a variety of backgrounds have expressed interest in the program—With the majority of Teenspace users being African American or Latino. These young people are also coming from neighborhoods with the lowest access to care.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: And that’s in an extremely positive trend, because young people that face intersecting, you know, communities and environments where they face violence and trauma and social and economic stressors that impact mental health, these are exactly where we want team space to be used the most, but make no mistake, it’s open to everyone.

Narrator (Shoaa): And… It seems to be working. Since its launch last November, more than SIX THOUSAND students have signed up for Teen Space. And Dr. Vasan said that every single teenager who has signed up–has been assigned to a therapist within 24 hours.

Shoaa: So, it’s been two weeks since youve signed up for TeenSpace, so what’s

happened since then?

Dorothy: So since I sent the initial message, Chad, my assigned teen space therapist, shot me a text back, and he said he’s willing to talk about whatever issues that have been on my mind lately. To be honest, I was really preoccupied with things over the past two weeks, so I didn’t have the chance to message him back. And so he messaged me again and he said just to say, like, hey, I’m touching base. I just wanted to know how you’re doing, and you could text me back whenever you feel comfortable, which I appreciated.

Narrator (Shoaa): Once they’re matched, users can message their therapist anytime and schedule up to one video therapy session per month. I would think talking to a therapist online could be rather… impersonal? The way Dorothy experienced. Nerve-wracking, even… Does being remote make it more difficult to establish a relationship?

I asked Dr. Jill Daino about this. She’s one of the TeenSpace therapists.

Jill Daino: For some clients being able to be comfortable in their own space, actually frees them up in a different way versus having to come to someone’s office where they might be a little more on edge. Right? It really depends on the person,

Narrator (Shoaa): Dorothy felt a little weird about communicating remotely.

Dorothy: I’m not really used to the idea of online therapy yet. His texts honestly felt really formal, almost like an email. And when I was responding to him, I felt the need to be formal as well and type it as if I were writing an email to like a colleague or a teacher or something. So I feel like it’s definitely harder to establish that personal connection over a laptop or a screen

Narrator (Shoaa): In any case, though, Dr. Daino also says doing it online also saves young people time.

Jill Daino: If you think about you have a 45-minute to an hour appointment. Now you’ve got to get on the subway, get to the appointment, get back to class, or to a commitment that you have, or an after-school job, or help out at home, how are you doing all of that? So one of the things that’s amazing about receiving virtual care is it takes those barriers down and that level of stress down for people. So being able to build that rapport and get to know someone. They’re not. Oh, my God, I can’t get there! How am I gonna do this? And it doesn’t fit into my life? Well, I just won’t go

Narrator (Shoaa): And if you’re wondering whether your information is safe–don’t worry. Dr. Vasan said all communication between the therapist and the teenager is encrypted, and it’s illegal for our private information to be shared with anyone, even parents, unless it is absolutely needed.

Narrator (Shoaa): Overall, it seems like TeenSpace is a really helpful place to start for high schoolers in search of mental health care… That is if you have parental consent.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: Yeah, sadly. I mean, that’s the law. It’s federal law. It’s state law. And so it as minors, it’s impossible to get healthcare of any kind, except for some few exceptions.

Narrator (Shoaa): If a teen user turns 18, they can continue free sessions until June 30th with their therapist. Then, if they want to continue, they have to pay for sessions through their insurance or out of pocket.

Narrator (Shoaa): TeenSpace is a great start to providing New York City students with free mental health care services. Privately. Dr. Vasan and the Department of Health have done an applause-worthy job of listening to the voices in need of help and providing a solution.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan: I want all parents to get out of the way and Just let them try. It really is healing and important to allow your kids the Independence to find their way. My hope for the future is that all 440,000 teenagers ages 13 to 17 in New York end up using this at some point or another, and that we can break down every wall possible to accessing mental health care when you need it.

Narrator (Shoaa): While working on this story, my P.S. Weekly producers and I asked our friends at school if they’d heard about TeenSpace–and many hadn’t! SO… to check it out for yourself, go to Talkspace.com/NYC. That link is also in our show notes.

Narrator (Shoaa): Reporting for PS Weekly, this is Shoaa Khan.

HOST (Christian): Thank you, Shoaa.

HOST (Christian): If you or someone you know needs access to immediate mental health care, you can always call 9-8-8.

Because of privacy reasons, the Health Department wasn’t able to connect us with TeenSpace users. But we are curious to hear from more teens about their experiences using TeenSpace or accessing therapy generally. Did Derry’s experience resonate with you? If you’ve got a story you’d like to share, reach out to us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

That’s our show for today! But PS… we’re back next week with an episode about freedom of speech in schools…

Upcoming Episode Preview CLIP: “We have seen quite a few instances in which there were really big procedural violations and it concerns us. The student’s due process rights and First Amendment rights are not being validated.”

HOST: Until then… class dismissed!

CREDITS

HOST (Christian): PS Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation, The Summerfield Foundation, FJC, and Hindenburg Systems.

This episode was hosted by me, Christian Rojas Linares.

Producers for this episode were: Salma Baksh and Shoaa Khan, with reporting help from Chalkbeat reporter Mike Elsen Rooney.

Our marketing lead this week was Tanvir Kaur.

Our executive producer for the show is JoAnn DeLuna.

Executive editors are Amy Zimmer AND Taylor McGraw.

Additional production and reporting support was provided by Sabrina DuQuesnay, Mira Gordon, and our friends at Chalkbeat.

Special thanks to our interns Miriam Galicia AND Makenna Turner.

And also thanks to our amazing team of volunteer mentors.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

And, the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only: [Erica Huang]

Thanks for tuning in! See you next time!

To help address teens’ mental health needs, Colorado to launch Youth Mental Health Corps

2024-05-15T21:18:47+00:00

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Colorado is one of four states set to launch a new public-private program this fall aimed at addressing both the growing mental health needs of teenagers and a lack of providers.

Called the Youth Mental Health Corps, the program will train young adults ages 18 to 24 to act “as navigators serving middle and high school students in schools and in community-based organizations,” according to a press release from Colorado Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera’s office. The Youth Mental Health Corps website says corps members will “connect youth to needed mental health supports and resources in close collaboration with practitioners and community partners.”

The federal AmeriCorps service program will work with the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration and the Colorado Community College System to recruit and deploy the navigators, who will get a stipend and be eligible for student loan forgiveness and other help paying for college, the press release says.

“By joining this national initiative, we are not only addressing the urgent need for mental health resources but also creating meaningful pathways for our young adults to pursue careers in this vital field,” Primavera said in a statement.

Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a pediatric mental health “state of emergency” in 2021, and both public agencies and private organizations in the state responded with programs to address the crisis. The programs include the pandemic-era state-funded I Matter, which provides six free telehealth or in-person counseling sessions to students in elementary through high school and which Colorado lawmakers recently made permanent.

The Schultz Family Foundation, founded by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and his wife, Sheri, and the online platform Pinterest are backing the Youth Mental Health Corps program, according to a press release from AmeriCorps.

The press release mentions “broad concern about the impact of social media on the mental health of young people” and says the Youth Mental Health Corps will “help students navigate social challenges online such as harassment, bullying and bias.”

Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas will launch Youth Mental Health Corps programs in September with “hundreds” of navigators across the four states, the press release says. Seven other states — California, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Utah — are set to launch programs in the fall of 2025, it says.

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

Aspen Ideas fest for teens: Brooklyn students tackle mental health, immigration, rats

2024-05-06T22:43:30+00:00

Kimberly Gil knows what it’s like to struggle with mental health and not have a place to turn for support.

Gil, a 16-year-old sophomore at the High School for Social Justice in Bushwick, Brooklyn, immigrated to the U.S. as a kid and struggled to acclimate. She often felt like she couldn’t talk to her family about what she was going through. It’s a familiar story among her classmates, Gil said.

“Many of our students have lost a loved one. They’ve gone through sexual harassment, sexual assault, depression, self-harm,” said Gil. But when it comes to bringing up those topics with their families, many teens are concerned “they won’t believe me, or they won’t be there for me.”

That sense of isolation is what drove Gil and seven classmates to come up with a new approach to supporting student mental health: creating a space in school where kids can share what they’re going through with fellow teenagers.

Gil is a member of the school’s team for the second annual Aspen Challenge – a youth version of the famous Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado where teams of public school teenagers choose a pressing social challenge and come up with an innovative solution. Her team was among 20 high schools last month presenting their ideas on various issues from mental health, to rats, to immigration.

The team from the High School for Social Justice in Bushwick presents at the Aspen Challenge. Sophomore Kimberly Gil is second from left.

Gil’s team opted to tackle the ongoing youth mental health crisis at their school by transforming an empty classroom in their school into a wellness space staffed by teen volunteers who have undergone training as peer counselors, with adult supervision.

“This is a way where they can come and express how they truly feel without feeling ashamed,” said Gil.

In the first few days since the space opened up last month, they’ve already seen a steady stream of students coming to vent about grades and stress at the end of the marking period, said sophomore Grace Sewpersaud, 16.

Rats, immigration, and discrimination

Students in this year’s contest chose between five potential challenges: mental health, immigration, discrimination and bias, the environment, and rats.

The top honor, which included a trip to this summer’s Aspen Festival, went to students at Multicultural High School, a school in Cypress Hills geared toward recent immigrants. The team developed a website and workshops to connect newly arrived immigrant students with resources like legal help, support applying for financial aid, and access to free day care.

A team from Brooklyn Technical High School, called the Brooklyn Eraticators, took home an honorable mention for their multi-pronged plan to get the city’s largest high school to help bring down the rat population in Fort Greene.

The plan involved an education campaign to get students to discard their food waste in compost bins, which are taken out more frequently than other trash and are less likely to attract rats, student organizers said.

Teens at Sunset Park High School, meanwhile, drew on their own experiences watching immigrant family members face discrimination to devise a series of know-your-rights workshops for undocumented kids and adults.

Lizbeth Acevedo, a 16-year-old sophomore, said she’s seen her immigrant parents face discrimination since she was young. “So I guess this was a way for us … to cause the discrimination to stop.”

Teens talk parents and mental health

The topic that drew the most attention from the teen problem-solvers was the ongoing youth mental health crisis – a problem that has spurred city officials to launch their own novel approach: a free, online therapy program for kids 13-17.

Teams tackling mental health at this year’s Aspen challenge talked about pervasive anxiety, depression, and stress among their peers – and a lack of understanding or even direct opposition from their parents about accessing treatment.

The team at Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology focused one prong of their plan on educating parents about teens and mental health. The group proposed bringing parents into workshops to help ease some of the stigma, misunderstandings, and fears that adults may bring to conversations about the mental health of their kids.

“When I spoke to my family about when I wanted to have therapy and I felt like I needed help, they felt like I was telling them that I was crazy, and that I needed medications to calm me down, and that they were going to throw me in a psych ward,” said Ariana Garcia, a 17-year-old senior.

Parents are often still carrying their own burdens and traumas that may influence how they perceive their kids’ mental health, added Haajra Ali, a 16-year-old 11th grader. “It just depends on how we can help them so they can break the cycle,” she said.

Gil, the student at Bushwick’s High School for Social Justice, said she was not too hung up on the results of the contest.

“To be honest, we don’t really care about Aspen,” she said. “We’re more into actually doing something with the school. For us, it’s a really big thing that we’re able to put this up for people.”

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

As more youth struggle with behavior, clinicians are partnering with lawyers to help

2024-04-30T10:03:00+00:00

This story about medical-legal partnerships was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

Every night before going to bed, Antonio would tuck in his three younger siblings. After school, he’d tinker with toy cars, or help his dad, a mechanic, fix things around the house. “He’s quiet, but he’s caring in his own way,” said his mother, Yanelie Marquez. The Hechinger Report is using her son’s middle name to protect his privacy.

But four years ago, the then-12-year-old Antonio suddenly lost interest in everything and everyone. It started with school: He complained he couldn’t focus or understand the teacher’s instructions. “I’d open up his notebooks and they were completely empty,” Marquez said.

Then Antonio’s behavior began to change, too: He stopped showering and coming downstairs for dinner. Eventually, he refused to leave his room. And whenever Marquez would ask about his day, he would throw a tantrum.”He’d say, ‘None of the teachers like me, I hate it,’ and then he’d take that anger out on himself,” she said.

Worried that Antonio was struggling with depression, his mother enrolled him in therapy at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut.

After ruling out stressors in Antonio’s family environment, the Yale team learned more about the challenges he was facing at school, including severe learning difficulties in the classroom and bullies outside of school. And though the clinicians did everything they could do to help address those behavioral health stressors on their own, they realized they needed another team member to help: a lawyer.

This teamwork comes through the Yale Child Study Center’s Medical-Legal Partnership — a collaboration in which health and law professionals team up to address patients’ “health-harming legal needs” from food and housing to public benefits and school supports.

Their unique partnership functions as a kind of legal prescription. To treat a child’s behavioral health symptoms, clinicians and lawyers target the root cause, which can sometimes be a school environment where the child’s legally enshrined academic and emotional needs aren’t being met.

Though the concept of medical-legal partnerships has been around since the 1990s, the Yale partnership, launched in November 2020, is the first in the nation focused exclusively on children’s behavioral health. Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services invested $1.6 million in the first federally funded demonstration program for medical-legal partnerships, including one at Yale, focused on primary health care.

“When families come in, they tell us about struggles that might be adding stress and impacting their functioning, which could result in anxiety or depression,” said Christy Mills, a licensed clinical social worker and an associate clinical director at the Yale center.

Especially since COVID, she says those struggles have increasingly included “school climate issues,” like a student’s experience of bullying and classroom challenges, both of which could lead to school avoidance.

Behavioral health needs grow in wake of COVID

The post-COVID data shows that New Haven is far from alone. One study quoted in a White House report found that the number of chronically absent public school students nearly doubled, from around 15 percent in the 2018-19 school year to around 30 percent in 2021-22.

Another survey focused on students with disabilities experiencing “school refusal” — a behavioral pattern describing problems with attending or staying at school — revealed 57 percent of these students had no symptoms prior to the pandemic.

And for students who do attend school, their behavior struggles have increased, too; a national report of public schools in 2021-22 found more than 80 percent agreed that the pandemic negatively affected their students’ socioemotional and behavioral development.

A recent study found that depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts in teen girls has reached record highs, and that the number of mental health hospitalizations for children more than doubled between 2016 and 2022.

RELATED: Low academic expectations and poor support for special education students are ‘hurting their future’

Meanwhile, as children’s behavioral health struggles grow, the usual supports can’t keep up. The demand for child and adolescent psychiatrists and behavioral health providers continues to outpace supply, especially for young people already facing inequitable access to care.

One estimate found that nationally, there was just one school psychologist for every 1,127 students from kindergarten to 12th grade in the 2021-22 year.

And teachers want more support, too. A recent survey of U.S. teachers found that 9 in 10 reported they need more resources to care for their students’ mental health.

“Educators are doing the very best they can, but most of the time, in advocating for our low-income families, the issue cited is due to school district resources,” said Kathryn Meyer, an attorney at the Center for Children’s Advocacy, the legal partner of the Yale center.

That’s where the medical-legal team can help, by letting the school know how a child’s experience is affecting their behavior — and to connect the child’s needs to their legal rights, Meyer said.

“Sometimes we’re just trying to get the student an [individualized education program], and then, if we have the IEP, we’re trying to increase the service, or make sure that whatever is on the IEP is actually happening,” she said.

In Antonio’s case, after joining Marquez at school meetings, the medical-legal team pushed for the school to conduct another IEP evaluation, which revealed a key part of his story: Though an earlier evaluation diagnosed Antonio with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, the second evaluation found he had an intellectual disability as well.

And once the team made the legal case that the current school couldn’t address the services his IEP mandated, Antonio was placed in a school that could.

“In moving him, our goal was to have his academic needs addressed, emotional support to keep him safe, and a smaller structure so people could really have the time to work with him,” Meyer explained.

Sure enough, that worked. According to his mother, the new school didn’t just help Antonio improve in the classroom; it improved his behavioral health, too. “Being in a place that understood him for his differences relieved a lot of his pressure and stress,” said Mills, the Yale center associate clinical director.

Antonio now spends his days outside of his room, riding bikes with his new friends, or hanging out with his new girlfriend, whom he just took to prom.

“Finally, it’s like, he’s free,” his mother said. “That was the Antonio I wanted to see all these years.”

As word of the medical-legal partnership model spreads in Connecticut, educators are taking note, too.

“As a former Bridgeport public school superintendent, I know just how valuable educational advocates can be for our families,” said Fran Rabinowitz, the executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents. “Despite districts doing our best with the limited resources we have, it’s important that we continue to elevate the voice of families, and advocacy can provide a vehicle for that voice.”

Kathryn Meyer, left, attorney at the Center for Children’s Advocacy, and Christiana Mills, right, program coordinator and clinical social worker, at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut.

Medical-legal partnerships help families defend their rights

Dr. Barry Zuckerman, who created the first medical-legal partnership in Boston more than 30 years ago, saw the need for family advocacy firsthand during his childhood, in the 1950s. He grew up with a younger brother with “significant disabilities.” But 60 years ago, Barry says, there were virtually no laws, resources or community services that could support him.

His brother was eventually placed in an institution.

“Imagine a parent sending away their 8-year-old who’s never been on his own,” Zuckerman said. “It was extraordinarily traumatic for all of us.”

By the 1970s, the United States passed laws requiring schools to identify and evaluate students with disabilities, and provide them with “free, appropriate public education” tailored to their needs through individualized education programs. But Zuckerman, by then a pediatrician, realized that vulnerable families also needed support to enforce these protective laws.

In 1993, he discovered that need on the job, at Boston Medical Center, through a group of asthmatic patients. When the patients kept returning to the hospital with no improvement, Dr. Zuckerman learned that all of their homes had mold, which can trigger asthma attacks.

The landlords didn’t respond to the families or to Dr. Zuckerman when they asked for mold remediation. But they did remove the mold after a lawyer friend of Dr. Zuckerman’s called.

RELATED: Do protocols for school safety infringe on disability rights?

That case would become the first of many medical-legal partnership success stories, in a model that’s expanded to over 450 health care organizations around the nation.

One randomized trial found that families referred to legal support through the partnership had fewer emergency room visits six months later. Another found that patients given legal interventions had less asthma symptom severity and took fewer medications.

A more recent study of a hospital in Cincinnati found that the medical-legal partnership reduced all-cause hospitalizations of children by 38 percent over five years.

Most evidence around medical-legal partnerships comes from models in primary health care. But those models have demonstrated behavioral health benefits, too. “When parents have concerns about their children’s mental health, the first place they turn is their pediatrician,” said Josh Greenberg, one of the founding medical-legal partnership lawyers in Boston.

One of Greenberg’s earliest success stories came while shadowing a 7-year-old boy during a well checkup. He learned that the boy had been out of school for six months, suspended after pushing his teacher.

“The school just sent the child home and then never followed up, and never offered anything in the way of their legal rights around expulsions,” he said.

The Yale Child Study Center includes a children's library.

Need for legal support outstrips available attorneys

By “prescribing” legal support the same way they prescribe other kinds of medicine, health workers can see the benefits in their patients just the same. “When you have a life that’s full of stress, you can only do a few things as a doctor, but the lawyer was helping them achieve something they needed,” Dr. Zuckerman said.

It also helps to level the playing field. Before, “if a child wasn’t getting their developmental needs met, many schools would blow them off, and well-to-do people got their own lawyers,” he said.

But even with the new federal funding and nationwide expansion, the number of patients who need legal support far outnumbers the supply of lawyers who can provide it, Greenberg cautioned.

That’s one reason why legal professionals are also spreading their knowledge through training and educational resources, and are reserving formal representation for extreme cases. Through the Yale partnership, for instance, of 120 patient referrals made in the program’s first year, just 20 cases went to full representation.

RELATED: When your disability gets you sent home from school

Instead, most of the Yale legal team’s work is focused on educating clinicians, psychiatrists, social workers and families about legal options that exist for children, and that they can access on their own.

“Sometimes it’s just like, ‘Go to this place,’ or ‘Call this hotline’ — it’s really as simple as that,” Meyer said.

Through those trainings, clinicians can ask the legal professionals questions, too. “Sometimes we need help knowing, is this a fair legal ask? Does a family or child actually have a right to this expectation, or do we need to think about this in a different lens?” said Mills, the Yale associate clinical director.

Outside of the formal medical-legal partnership model, other organizations, like the Council for Parent Attorneys and Advocates — a national nonprofit working to protect the legal and civil rights of students with disabilities — have been similarly addressing families about their options.

Selene Almazan, their legal director, said that these kinds of trainings can help prevent behavioral health struggles before they develop, especially when a student has more than one disability. “The more information you have, the more that you know how to take care of yourself and advocate for yourself in a school setting,” Almazan said.

In her organization’s work, training parents and students on their rights has been “transformative” for students’ mental health and self-esteem. And in cases where students would otherwise be punished, Almazan says, the advocacy can completely change the trajectory of a child’s health and life.

“When kids are traumatized by exclusionary discipline or restraint and seclusion in schools, that can cause them to act out and can exacerbate any kind of mental health issues that they may already have,” she said. “Getting students what they need in school can break a pattern of family trauma and generational trauma and prevent the school-to-prison pipeline.”

California is investing $500M in therapy apps for youth. Advocates fear it won’t pay off.

2024-04-27T01:25:42+00:00

With little pomp, California launched two apps at the start of the year offering free behavioral health services to youths to help them cope with everything from living with anxiety to body acceptance.

Through their phones, young people and some caregivers can meet BrightLife Kids and Soluna coaches, some who specialize in peer support or substance use disorders, for roughly 30-minute virtual counseling sessions that are best suited to those with more mild needs, typically those without a clinical diagnosis. The apps also feature self-directed activities, such as white noise sessions, guided breathing, and videos of ocean waves to help users relax.

“We believe they’re going to have not just great impact, but wide impact across California, especially in places where maybe it’s not so easy to find an in-person behavioral health visit or the kind of coaching and supports that parents and young people need,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom’s health secretary, Mark Ghaly, during the Jan. 16 announcement.

The apps represent one of the Democratic governor’s major forays into health technology and come with four-year contracts valued at $498 million. California is believed to be the first state to offer a mental health app with free coaching to all young residents, according to the Department of Health Care Services, which operates the program.

However, the rollout has been slow. Only about 15,000 of the state’s 12.6 million children and young adults have signed up for the apps, school counselors say they’ve never heard of them, and one of the companies isn’t making its app available on Android phones until summer.

Advocates for youth question the wisdom of investing taxpayer dollars in two private companies. Social workers are concerned the companies’ coaches won’t properly identify youths who need referrals for clinical care. And the spending is drawing lawmaker scrutiny amid a state deficit pegged at as much as $73 billion.

An app for that

Newsom’s administration says the apps fill a need for young Californians and their families to access professional telehealth for free, in multiple languages, and outside of standard 9-to-5 hours. It’s part of Newsom’s sweeping $4.7 billion master plan for kids’ mental health, which was introduced in 2022 to increase access to mental health and substance use support services. In addition to launching virtual tools such as the teletherapy apps, the initiative is working to expand workforce capacity, especially in underserved areas.

“The reality is that we are rarely 6 feet away from our devices,” said Sohil Sud, director of Newsom’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. “The question is how we can leverage technology as a resource for all California youth and families, not in place of, but in addition to, other behavioral health services that are being developed and expanded.”

The virtual platforms come amid rising depression and suicide rates among youth and a shortage of mental health providers. Nearly half of California youths from the ages of 12 to 17 report having recently struggled with mental health issues, with nearly a third experiencing serious psychological distress, according to a 2021 study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. These rates are even higher for multiracial youths and those from low-income families.

But those supporting youth mental health at the local level question whether the apps will move the needle on climbing depression and suicide rates.

“It’s fair to applaud the state of California for aggressively seeking new tools,” said Alex Briscoe of California Children’s Trust, a statewide initiative that, along with more than 100 local partners, works to improve the social and emotional health of children. “We just don’t see it as fundamental. And we don’t believe the youth mental health crisis will be solved by technology projects built by a professional class who don’t share the lived experience of marginalized communities.”

Related: Student access to teletherapy skyrockets as schools combat youth mental health crisis

The apps, BrightLife Kids and Soluna, are operated by two companies: Brightline, a 5-year-old venture capital-backed startup; and Kooth, a London-based publicly traded company that has experience in the U.K. and has also signed on some schools in Kentucky and Pennsylvania and a health plan in Illinois. In the first five months of Kooth’s Pennsylvania pilot, 6% of students who had access to the app signed up.

Brightline and Kooth represent a growing number of health tech firms seeking to profit in this space. They beat out dozens of other bidders including international consulting companies and other youth telehealth platforms that had already snapped up contracts in California.

Although the service is intended to be free with no insurance requirement, Brightline’s app, BrightLife Kids, is folded into and only accessible through the company’s main app, which asks for insurance information and directs users to paid licensed counseling options alongside the free coaching. After KFF Health News questioned why the free coaching was advertised below paid options, Brightline reordered the page so that, even if a child has high-acuity needs, free coaching shows up first.

The apps take an expansive view of behavioral health, making the tools available to all California youth under age 26 as well as caregivers of babies, toddlers, and children 12 and under. When KFF Health News asked to speak with an app user, Brightline connected a reporter with a mother whose 3-year-old daughter was learning to sleep on her own.

‘It’s like crickets’

Despite being months into the launch and having millions in marketing funds, the companies don’t have a definitive rollout timeline. Brightline said it hopes to have deployed teams across the state to present the tools in person by midyear. Kooth said developing a strategy to hit every school would be “the main focus for this calendar year.”

“It’s a big state — 58 counties,” Bob McCullough of Kooth said. “It’ll take us a while to get to all of them.”

So far BrightLife Kids is available only on Apple phones. Brightline said it’s aiming to launch the Android version over the summer.

“Nobody’s really done anything like this at this magnitude, I think, in the U.S. before,” said Naomi Allen, a co-founder and the CEO of Brightline. “We’re very much in the early innings. We’re already learning a lot.”

The contracts, obtained by KFF Health News through a records request, show the companies operating the two apps could earn as much as $498 million through the contract term, which ends in June 2027, months after Newsom is set to leave office. And the state is spending hundreds of millions more on Newsom’s virtual behavioral health strategy. The state said it aims to make the apps available long-term, depending on usage.

The state said 15,000 people signed up in the first three months. When KFF Health News asked how many of those users actively engaged with the app, it declined to say, noting that data would be released this summer.

KFF Health News reached out to nearly a dozen California mental health professionals and youths. None of them were aware of the apps.

“I’m not hearing anything,” said Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors. “It’s like crickets.”

Whitson said she doesn’t think the apps are on “anyone’s” radar in schools, and she doesn’t know of any schools that are actively advertising them. Brightline will be presenting its tool to the counselor association in May, but Whitson said the company didn’t reach out to plan the meeting; she did.

Concern over referrals

Whitson isn’t comfortable promoting the apps just yet. Although both companies said they have a clinical team on staff to assist, Whitson said she’s concerned that the coaches, who aren’t all licensed therapists, won’t have the training to detect when users need more help and refer them to clinical care.

This sentiment was echoed by other school-based social workers, who also noted the apps’ duplicative nature — in some counties, like Los Angeles, youths can access free virtual counseling sessions through Hazel Health, a for-profit company. Nonprofits, too, have entered this space. For example, Teen Line, a peer-to-peer hotline operated by Southern California-based Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, is free nationwide.

While the state is also funneling money to the schools as part of Newsom’s master plan, students and school-based mental health professionals voiced confusion at the large app investment when, in many school districts, few in-person counseling roles exist, and in some cases are dwindling.

Kelly Merchant, a student at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, noted that it can be hard to access in-person therapy at her school. She believes the community college, which has about 15,000 students, has only one full-time counselor and one part-time bilingual counselor. She and several students interviewed by KFF Health News said they appreciated having engaging content on their phone and the ability to speak to a coach, but all said they’d prefer in-person therapy.

“There are a lot of people who are seeking therapy, and people close to me that I know. But their insurances are taking forever, and they’re on the waitlist,” Merchant said. “And, like, you’re seeing all these people struggle.”

Fiscal conservatives question whether the money could be spent more effectively, like to bolster county efforts and existing youth behavioral health programs.

Republican state Sen. Roger Niello, vice chair of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, noted that California is forecasted to face deficits for the next three years, and taxpayer watchdogs worry the apps might cost even more in the long run.

“What starts as a small financial commitment can become uncontrollable expenses down the road,” said Susan Shelley of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Correction: This article was revised to correct details about BrightLife Kids’ app for Android.

This article was produced by KFF Health News 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. KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

This Colorado teacher survived Columbine. Here’s how she prioritizes trauma-informed practices.

2024-04-10T21:04:21+00:00

When Heather Martin was a senior in high school, she survived the Columbine High School shooting that killed 12 students and one teacher in Littleton, Colorado. Even as she tried to move on with her life, she carried the trauma of that day inside her — often in ways that surprised her.

The following year, during a community college class, she burst into tears during a routine fire drill, confused and embarrassed by her emotional reaction.

“I hadn’t remembered, until that very moment, that the fire alarm had been going off while I was barricaded for three hours before the SWAT team came,” she said.

She also struggled with panic attacks, an eating disorder, and insensitive comments from instructors. Eventually, Martin dropped out of college.

Heather Martin teaches English at Aurora Central High School.

Today, Martin is a high school English teacher who prioritizes making her students feel safe and giving them the tools to understand and cope with trauma. She’s also the executive director of The Rebels Project, a nonprofit that supports survivors of mass tragedy. In March, she attended the State of the Union address as a guest of U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who represents the southeastern Denver suburbs.

Martin, who teaches at Aurora Central High School, talked to Chalkbeat about how she rediscovered her desire to teach after leaving college, what calming techniques she teaches students, and why she loves home visits.

Was there a moment when you decided to become a teacher?

When I was in elementary school, my friends and I used to “play school” when we would study for tests. We alternated being the teacher, and I think that really laid the foundation for me wanting to teach in some way.

After the shooting at Columbine in 1999, I struggled a lot with trauma while attending community college and ended up dropping out. One day, while filming some B roll for a documentary called ”Grieving in a Fishbowl,” I was asked to flip through my high school yearbook. I found where my English teacher had signed: “I hope you major in English and become a teacher - your students would love you!” it read.

It seems I had forgotten for a while where I wanted to go, but I eventually found my way back. After 10 years and a long road of healing, I went back to school, finished my degree, and earned my teaching license.

How did your trauma manifest during your initial college experience?

I had extreme anxiety and unpredictable panic attacks — or at the time I thought they were unpredictable. I developed an eating disorder, started ditching and failing classes, and even tried recreational drugs. I attributed many of these things to “normal” college behavior and refused to acknowledge that it had anything to do with the shooting. I told myself, “It’s been ___ months, I should be fine.”

I had an English teacher assign a final essay that had a prompt related to school safety or guns in schools. When I finally worked up the courage to tell her why I couldn’t do the essay, she said it was required and if I didn’t do it, I would fail the class. I never went back to that class and, ultimately, ended up failing. I was already questioning my “right” to be traumatized, and her dismissal was extremely harmful.

When I took English again, I was assigned to write a 2-3 page personal narrative about an event that impacted me. This was about a year after the shooting, so I decided to actually tackle writing about it. I wrote upwards of 10 pages. On the due date, I printed my essay and brought it to the instructor. I told her how long it was, but I did not tell her the content. I wanted reassurance that the length was okay.

She said she would probably just grade me on the first few pages. Again, I felt dismissed and that my experience didn’t matter, and again, this amplified my questions about whether I had any right to feel and be traumatized. Again, I failed English class because I stopped attending.

My students love to hear that I failed English class twice in college!

What was it like to attend the State of the Union address?

The invite from Congressman Crow came as a surprise and I was very excited, and even a bit nervous, to attend. Every person I met was very interested and compassionate regarding long-term recovery from trauma. Congressman Crow and his staff were wonderful and did an excellent job of helping get the message out about the need for long-term support.

How did your own experience in school influence your approach to teaching?

I was a student who often felt like I wasn’t seen or noticed in school. I did just enough to stay off everyone’s radar — never a super-high or a super-low performer. As a teacher now, I look for students who may feel like I felt and am sure to connect with them as best I can. Also, obviously, the shooting and my subsequent healing journey help to drive my mission to make my classroom (and school community) as safe as I can — both in the physical sense and the emotional sense.

Tell us about a favorite lesson you teach.

I call it a “Mirror Poem.” We begin by comparing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” to Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” We focus on which is the “truer” love poem.

After many discussions, we decide which one represents a mirror. The answer always depends on what students view as a mirror’s purpose, so the responses are excellent. My favorite part is that after we read and analyze, students write their own poem using a mirror as a metaphor to describe how they see themselves and/or how others see them. The poems are INCREDIBLE and reading them never ceases to amaze me at how brilliant they are.

Tell us about The Rebels Project.

I co-founded the organization in 2012 with three other classmates from Columbine in the aftermath of the Aurora theater shooting. It’s named for the Columbine High School mascot. We wanted to provide support that we didn’t have access to after the shooting at our school — a space to share, connect, and heal alongside others who understand what it’s like to experience a similar event. Everybody on our leadership team has experienced a mass trauma themselves, which drives our decisions in every project we develop.

We connect survivors from all across the world. We hold support meetings, travel to impacted communities, educate the public on ways to support trauma survivors, and host an annual survivor retreat. We do this all as volunteers.

How do you incorporate trauma-informed practices into your classes?

Recently, we read ”The Kite Runner,” which has some disturbing content that may provoke some anxiety or trauma responses. We practice grounding techniques before reading, then I offer opportunities to use some of the techniques as we read. These can include coloring, folding origami, deep breathing exercises, and bilateral movements that use both sides of the body together, such as tapping, pacing, or walking.

Another way I practice this is through good old-fashioned modeling. I point out when I’m feeling activated, how I notice it, what it feels like, and how I ground myself. I’m also very open about my healing journey. I teach seniors, so it’s age-appropriate that I share my story about surviving a school shooting and how I struggled in the aftermath. I am honest about some of the struggles I still have, even 25 years later. I think it’s so important that they know that healing doesn’t always mean you “get over it,” it’s more about working through it. Experiencing trauma changes us, and I feel that acknowledging that change is important.

Tell us about a memorable time — good or bad — when contact with a student’s family changed your perspective or approach.

At our school, we conduct home visits to help connect with the parents and guardians. These are always positive — basically pumping up the kiddo and sharing how amazing they are. I’ve had such wonderful visits with parents who come from various countries around the world, including Afghanistan, Republic of the Congo, Mexico, and Burma. I absolutely love connecting with them and learning more about the lives of the students.

What are you reading for enjoyment?

Currently, I’m reading a few books. (Yes, I’m one of those weirdos that can read multiple books at a time!) They include ”The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride, the ”Skyward Series” by Brandon Sanderson, and Bruce Springsteen’s memoir, ”Born to Run” because he is MY FAVORITE!

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

Tennessee’s at-risk youth could see a new education option under charter school bill

2024-04-10T14:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

A proposal to create new education options for at-risk youth in Tennessee is drawing interest from charter school networks, both inside and outside the state.

Labeled “opportunity” charter schools, the campuses would serve middle and high schoolers dealing with a range of challenges, such as substance abuse and juvenile crime, chronic absenteeism, teen pregnancy, getting held back in several grades, or being at risk of dropping out.

“We’re very interested in the proposal, because it’s directed at a lot of students we already serve,” said Jocquell Rodgers, executive director of Green Dot Public Schools in Memphis, which views the network’s Hillcrest High School campus as a good candidate to become an opportunity charter school. Green Dot’s charter contract to run Hillcrest ends in 2026 under the state’s Achievement School District, or ASD, which appears to be on its way out.

Rodgers likes that the Republican-sponsored bill calls for the state education department to develop different expectations for opportunity charter schools. Those measures likely would focus on college and career readiness instead of academic proficiency.

“It’s very hard to get some of our students to proficiency, which was the promise of the ASD. But we can give them job training and workforce development and make sure they’re on track to graduate, get a job, or go to college or a trade school,” Rodgers said.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools views alternative education programs — for students who are struggling to attend and succeed in traditional public schools — as a growth area for the sector, especially if accountability expectations are adjusted. Nationally, charter schools already serve 42% of students who are enrolled in alternative education campuses.

Under the legislation by House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Sen. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin, enrolling in an opportunity charter school would be a matter of choice. At least 75% of the school’s students would have to be classified as at risk, and the school also could include a residential setting.

That would be significantly different from most of Tennessee’s current alternative education schools, which were created as mandatory short-term learning programs for students who were suspended or expelled from their traditional public school.

“It has worked in some other states,” Sexton told reporters recently about his charter school proposal. “We think it gives us another public option that could help kids in bad situations.”

Not everyone is on board with the idea.

Even some Republicans are wary of the prospect of opening the door to residential charter schools — a new type of publicly funded but independently run school of choice — or the potential of commingling at-risk student populations on one campus.

And leaders of traditional public schools say they’d prefer to meet the needs of at-risk students in existing local settings. They just need additional money to hire more teachers, counselors, behavior specialists, and social workers, they say, not new programs that divert funding from their school systems.

“We’ve said time and again that districts want to provide our students with more behavioral and mental health supports,” said Gary Lilly, executive director of the state superintendents organization.

Despite those tensions, the opportunity charter school legislation has advanced quickly since sponsors introduced it last month.

Last week, it passed the full Senate 19-7 along mostly partisan lines. It’s scheduled to be taken up Wednesday by the House’s finance subcommittee.

Sexton’s bill is narrower in scope than his 2023 charter proposal

A longtime charter school advocate, Sexton introduced a much broader charter bill last year that riled up the home school community and quickly stalled. That legislation proposed charter schools to serve home school students, in addition to a charter boarding school component.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican from Crossville, answers reporters questions on April 4, 2024, at the state Capitol.

It also would have allowed operators to apply directly to the state-appointed charter commission without going through local school boards, prompting pushback from leaders of traditional public schools.

This year, Sexton’s proposal removed any reference to home schools. And operators would have to apply directly to the local district for authorization. As under current law, they could appeal to the state charter commission if their application is rejected locally.

“We’re hopeful,” Sexton said last week when asked about the prospects for this year’s bill. “We tried to pass it last year. We had some opposition. We worked through some issues, and I think now we’re in a pretty good place on the House side.”

Proposal goes beyond temporary placement

Tennessee already has hundreds of alternative education schools and programs, mostly through local public school systems.

State law requires at least one alternative school or program for grades 7-12 in each district to serve students who are suspended or expelled, until they can return to a regular school setting. School systems have the option of creating alternative programs for students in grades 1-6. And some districts also have choice-based schools or programs to provide an alternative path for students who, for whatever reason, don’t fit well into a traditional school environment.

Sexton’s opportunity school legislation takes cues from charter school laws in dozens of other states, including California, Florida, New York, and Texas.

“It’s not a temporary placement like under Tennessee law, where students are mandated to attend for a period of time. It’s a choice, where the school becomes a student’s new home school to try to go and learn,” said Greg Lippman, a former California charter leader who recently founded the New York-based Groundswell Network to support local work on alternative education models across the nation.

Last fall, Lippman was in Memphis to talk with educators and nonprofit and community groups during a gathering organized by Bobby White, founder and CEO of the Frayser Community Schools charter network.

And next month, Groundswell will convene a national conversation at Nashville’s Belmont University to discuss school models to serve youths who are overaged and undereducated, involved in the juvenile justice system, foster kids, or facing other educational barriers.

Lippman said that his group is not the source of Sexton’s legislation but that he supports it, as does the Tennessee Charter School Center.

“Many states have a more expansive definition of alternative schools than under Tennessee’s current model,” he said. “It’s not surprising that the speaker’s office would find interested partners with expertise in this area.”

Funding would come through TISA

Under the bill, opportunity charter schools would receive funding through Tennessee’s new K-12 education formula known as the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement, or TISA. The formula allocates more funding for students with higher needs, and the money follows the student to the school where they’re enrolled.

That’s a concern for the bill’s detractors, who say that dividing a finite amount of funding and resources for the same population of students won’t lead to better outcomes.

“Diverting funds to charter schools only rips funding from educational institutions that are constantly exploring ways to meet the needs of all students,” said Mary Jo Holmes, board president for the Tennessee Alternative Education Association.

“What will a charter school do that is better serving than current practices?” she asked, noting that Tennessee’s alternative education approach is based on collaboration among parents, educators, and disciplinarians.

“It is a team decision, not a menu item,” Holmes said.

Connor Grady, a spokesman for Sexton, said that, in addition to TISA funding, opportunity charter operators could partner with philanthropists or apply for federal grants, just as traditional schools and districts can.

Asked for examples of potential opportunity charter operators, Grady listed Goodwill’s Excel Center and groups in Colorado and Massachusetts.

Haile, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate, has said he doesn’t expect many opportunity charter operators to create residential schools due to the cost of such an endeavor. But it’s an option under the bill.

For Rodgers, the Green Dot charter operator in Memphis, the goal is to continue to do “transformation work” in a city with a large number of at-risk youth.

“Memphis-Shelby County Schools doesn’t have enough alternative schools to serve its own population, so maybe this could be a win-win,” Rodgers said. “It’s an opportunity for us to work together to address a big challenge in our community.”

You can track the bill’s status on the General Assembly’s website.

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

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

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

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

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

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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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.

‘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.

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.

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.

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

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

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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.

‘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.

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.

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.

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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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.

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.

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.

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.

‘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.

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

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.

How to support LGBTQ students: New York education officials update guidance

2023-06-12T13:00:00+00:00

As some states pass anti-LGBTQ legislation, New York state education officials have moved in the opposite direction, issuing new guidance on Monday on how schools should support transgender and gender-expansive students.

The 42-page document includes a slew of information for schools, including the correct terminology to use for gender identity, or how to support students who are coming out at school or want to transition. It has information on students’ privacy rights — including in relation to their parents — and research about LGBTQ students’ experiences at school. It also outlines the laws that prohibit discrimination against students on the basis of their gender.

Many of these laws were created after the state’s initial guidance from 2015, said Kathleen DeCataldo, assistant commissioner of the state education department’s Student Support Service office. One of those laws is the GENDA Act, which in 2019 added gender identity and expression as a protected category to New York’s Human Rights Law.

The document also includes more information and resources for schools than the 2015 guidance. For example, the guidance released Monday includes 26 words schools should know in relation to LGBTQ students, such as misgendering. The older document had just eight words.

The document opens with results from a 2021 national survey conducted by Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, which found that nearly 82% of the LGTBQ student respondents reported feeling unsafe at school. More than two-thirds of those students said they felt unsafe was because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Two-thirds of the respondents said they heard homophobic remarks at school, and roughly 40% said they “often or frequently” heard transphobic words, such as “tranny” or “he-she.”

As other states pass laws that seek to curb the rights of LGBTQ people, officials in New York “understand the climate right now,” DeCataldo told Chalkbeat.

“That makes it even more important to be clear about what the law requires of schools, so this is the perfect time to really have this update,” she said.

As one of the first states to release guidance nearly a decade ago, New York was ahead of the curve on pushing schools to create safer spaces for LGTBQ students. But members of New York’s Democratic committee recently signaled that the state is not doing enough. In May, the committee passed a resolution that called for elected officials and the governor to create a statewide LGTBQ curriculum for public schools. Efforts to do so in the past have failed.

New York City’s education department has a social studies curriculum supplement that centers the voices of LGTBQ people. On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order that, among other things, prohibits the city from cooperating with out-of-state investigations into gender-affirming care.

State officials developed the new guidance with the help of a roughly 30-person advisory committee that included representatives from advocacy groups such as the New York Civil Liberties Union, or NYCLU, and the Trevor Project, which focuses on preventing suicide among LGBTQ youth.

Allie Bohm, policy counsel for NYCLU and advisory committee member, praised the committee’s array of voices, including parents of transgender youth, lawyers who work in this subject area, school psychologists, and adults who had the experience of transitioning as children. She was especially glad that state officials asked transgender students themselves about their experiences to help shape the updated guidance.

The document quotes some of those students anonymously. For example, one student shared that it took about eight months to get a legal name change at school. “They will let you put in a nickname in the system,” the student said, “but teachers never really use it, especially in the beginning of the year.”

The state’s guidance cites a 2016 study that says LGBTQ students who felt discriminated against for their sexual orientation and gender expression got worse grades than students who reported fewer instances of harassment. Those students were also roughly three times as likely to miss school.

Bohm said her organization hears about different ways schools across the state have discriminated against transgender youth, such as people who were told they couldn’t use a bathroom that matches their gender identity. It’s less common to hear examples in New York City but not unheard of, she said.

“This is a document that really, clearly says from the state’s highest education agency, ‘We see you,’ to trans youth, and, ‘We support you,’” Bohm said. “To feel like your state has your back is incredibly powerful.”

Creating this guidance may also mean that students might not have to constantly explain themselves, said Kraig Pannell, director of the Office of LGBTQ Services for New York’s state health department and another advisory member.

“Regardless of how you identify or regardless of what your gender expression is, if you have to go in and explain and teach somebody something, that gets burdensome,” Pannell said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.