Youth Mental Health and Public Schools
A Tipping Point
Last week I wrote about the legislative mental health priorities for Iowa’s upcoming 2024 session, and the need for increased mental healthcare support in our schools was at the top of the NAMI Iowa priority list.
Before I even hit publish on that article, the horrific shootings at Perry High School happened on Thursday morning.
Thursday afternoon, as Iowa news channels were still live reporting on the incident, I attended a scheduled meeting with an administrative team at Findley Elementary, an east side Des Moines neighborhood school with a critical need for a full-time, onsite therapist and social worker to deal with the overwhelming and increasing complex mental health demands of their students, and funding for those positions.
This is a K-5 building, by the way. A building that serves kids ages 5-11 years old.
By the time I got home from the meeting at Findley, I had another email from another Iowa school in a different district asking if I had any youth-specific mental health resources I could share to help them deal with, again, the overwhelming student mental health crisis they’re experiencing across every grade, K-12.
Friday, while wearing a Bondurant-Farrar Bluejay sweatshirt in honor of my fellow athletic conference member Perry Bluejays, my district superintendent talked with me on the phone for an hour about the critical state of mental health in students across our own school buildings. He shared several disturbing incidents. Our upper elementary principal getting a large rock thrown at his head by a student. Kids name calling and swearing at teachers. Elementary students with suicidal ideations. The high burnout rate of overly stressed teachers.
While I was on the phone with my superintendent, two separate people texted me a link to an anonymous op-ed in my childhood hometown newspaper in rural Southern Iowa: “School Behavior Is Biggest Challenge Facing Community in 2024.” In it, the author stated, “ . . . one prevailing concern that is screaming for community attention in 2024—student behavior . . . teachers, associates, and school staff are facing problems on a daily basis as are all involved in kindergarten through 12th grade education nationwide . . . school staff members are being challenged by behavior problems to the point that instruction is suffering and teachers are under tremendous stress.” The concerned writer went on to suggest holding one or more town hall meetings to start forming a larger strategy of community assistance.
It’s a gross understatement to say student mental health in all our schools—big, small, rural, metro—has reached a tipping point.
As I toured Findley, I immediately noticed the building was immaculately maintained, that classrooms were calm, and students were engaged and busy working. Everywhere I went, there were signs of the school’s commitment to quality learning, safety, care, and student well-being.
But I also saw “calm corners” in every classroom, and the team explained that they teach students at the beginning of the school year how to use these space as a break from a challenging or frustrating task at hand to help the student get emotionally and mentally back on track.
I was also shown two therapeutic-type classroom spaces for students to use during more serious moments of stress, anxiety, or other emotional or mental health struggles. Those rooms were staffed by a behavioral disorders special education teacher, and a regular substitute teacher dedicated to Findley. And multiple children visit them every single day, all day.
When I arrived at Findley, the school had already sent a child home by 9am because of serious behavioral and mental health issues. The parent told the principal to just “call the police” because they didn’t know what to do for their own child, either.
So many of the problems our public schools are dealing with aren’t always obvious or surface level; they’re far more complex and beyond the need for simple discipline or skill building.
While Findley has an excellent guidance counselor, the type of services school counselors are trained to provide are more “skill building,” and a growing number of students desperately need acute mental healthcare and crisis intervention services. But private therapy is a major challenge for many Iowa families. At Findley, cost and transportation to and from weekly therapy appointments, sometimes on the other side of the metro, is a major obstacle. And these obstacles are even greater for our rural school districts.
Last year, Gov. Reynolds invested some $100M in school safety measures and support. Now it’s time to seriously invest in mental health services and support so that one day, ideally, we won’t need so much funding for school building safety.
So many of the problems our public schools are dealing with aren’t always obvious or surface level; they’re far more complex and beyond the need for simple discipline or skill building.
In the devastating wake of the Perry shootings and the outcry from public schools for more mental health services, we must get our children’s behavior health system built, and pass legislation to provide and fund public school mental health therapy services.
Because the stark reality is that schools of every level around the state are overwhelmed just trying to plug daily leaks by themselves, and have no support or infrastructure in sight to fix the critically failing dam. ~
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Thank you for writing this. It's like all of my thoughts and observations as a teacher. I see all of this and more on a daily basis. I teach small groups of students, but am pulled to sub. If I had to teach a classroom every day, I would and could not make it.