COVID-19 certainly has underscored that schools must play a greater role in addressing mental health concerns.
The question is: How best to do it?
As in the past, we see folks simply drawing on old and simplistic ideas, such as hiring another student support staff member for a school (e.g., a counselor, social worker, psychologist, nurse).
In that context, we were struck by this recent headline
"Schools' student to counselor ratio improves"
The American School Counselor Association recommends an average student to counselor ratio of 250:1. The highlighted "improvement" was a move from a ratio of 415:1 in 2020 21 to 408:1 in the 2021-22.
The reality is that sparse district budgets make it unlikely that schools will ever be able to afford hiring all the student support professionals that advocates say are needed in order for schools to play their role in addressing current mental health concerns.
After the influx of relief funds, school budgets again are tight, and there is no indication that funding will increase.
We continue to be concerned that advocacy just for more and more student support professionals tends to work against efforts to rethink how schools use the student/learning supports they have.
(See Rethinking Student/Learning Supports https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/fall22.pdf )
So recently we began asking:
What do you recommend beyond hiring more personnel?
See some initial responses we received
(https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/responses.pdf ).
Analyses of these responses leads us now to ask what you think about this issue:
Is current advocacy for more and more student support professionals interfering with efforts to transform student/learning supports?
We look forward to hearing from you.
What are your thoughts about this hot issue?
Send your
responses to Ltaylor@ucla.edu
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For a range of resources related to this matter,
see:
National Initiative for Transforming Student and Learning Supports in 2016
Previously highlighted hot issues
