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SICILIA, Ky. (AP) – For fourth-grader Leah Rennie, the school day now begins with what her teacher calls “getting into the mood.”
“It’s so good to see you. How do you feel?” yells a cheerful voice on her laptop screen. It asks her to click on an emoticon that matches her state of mind: happy. sad. worried. angry. upset. calm. silly. tired.
Based on the answer, 9-year-old Leah gets advice from a cartoon character to manage her emotions and a few more questions: Did you eat breakfast? Are you hurt or sick? Is everything okay at home? Is someone unkind at school? Today, Leah chose “silly,” but said she struggled with grief during the online course.
All 420 students at Lakewood Elementary School will start their day the same way this year. The rural Kentucky school is one of thousands across the country to test students’ mindsets and alert teachers to anyone struggling.
In some ways, this year Back to school season Restores pre-pandemic levels of normalcy: Most districts lift mask mandates, drop Covid vaccination requirements and Ended laws on social distancing and isolation..
But many of the epidemic’s long-term effects remain a worrisome reality for schools. Among them: the detrimental effects of isolation and distance learning on children’s emotional well-being.
Student mental health It reached crisis levels last yearAnd the pressure on schools to find solutions has never been greater. Districts across the country are using federal pandemic funding to hire more mental health specialists, develop new coping tools and expand curriculum that prioritizes emotional health.
Still, some parents don’t believe schools should be involved in mental health. So-called social-emotional learning, or SEL, has become a political flashpoint, with conservatives saying schools are using it to promote progressive ideas about race. Gender and sexualityOr attention to safety attracts academic attention.
But at schools like Lakewood, they say helping students manage emotions and stress can benefit them in the classroom and throughout their lives.
The school, in a farming community about an hour’s drive south of Louisville, used federal funds to create “recess-taking” in every classroom. Students can shoot with a “self-management kit” that includes tips on deep breathing, squish stress balls and acupuncture rings, said school counselor Shelley Kerr. The school plans to build a “recovery room” this fall, part of a national trend to create on-campus shelters where students can reverse and talk to a counselor.
An online student monitor that Lakewood uses is called Closegap, and it helps teachers identify shy and quiet kids who need to talk and might otherwise go unnoticed.
Closegap founder Rachel Miller launched the online platform in 2019 with a few schools and saw demand explode after the pandemic hit. This year, she said, more than 3,600 US schools will use the technology in free and premium versions.
“We’re finally starting to realize that school is about more than just teaching kids to read, write and do math,” said Dan Domenech, executive director of the National Association of School Superintendents. Just as free lunch programs are based on the idea that a hungry child can’t learn, more and more schools are embracing the idea that a distracted or troubled mind can’t focus on schoolwork, he said.
Experts say the epidemic has exacerbated mental health problems among young Americans, who have been experiencing years of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 44% of high school students had it. Constant feelings of sadness or despair ” During the epidemic, girls and LGBTQ youth reported the highest rates of poor mental health and suicide attempts.
If there’s a silver lining, the outbreak has raised awareness of the crisis and helped de-stigmatize talking about mental health, while also highlighting shortcomings in schools’ handling of it. President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced more than $500 million to expand mental health services in the nation’s schools, adding to federal and state funding that has flowed into schools to help meet the needs of the pandemic.
Still, many skeptical schools’ responses are adequate.
“All these opportunities and resources are fleeting,” said Claire Chi, a junior who attends high school in the Central Pennsylvania State College Area. Last year, her school added emergency counseling and therapy dogs, among other supports, but most of that help lasted a day or two, Chee said. And that’s “not really an investment in students’ mental health.” This year, he said the school has added more counselors and plans mental health training for all 10th graders.
Some critics, including many conservative parents, don’t want to see mental health support in schools in the first place. Asra Nomani, a mother from Fairfax County, Virginia, says schools are using the mental health crisis as a “Trojan horse” to promote libertarian ideas about gender and racial identity. She also worries that schools don’t have the knowledge to deal with student mental illness.
“Social-emotional safety has become an excuse to intervene in children’s lives in very close and dangerous and irresponsible ways” because they are in the hands of untrained professionals, Nomani said. He said.
With unprecedented funding, schools are having trouble hiring counselors, mirroring shortages in other U.S. industries.
Goshen Junior High School in northwest Indiana has been struggling to fill a counselor vacancy last year when student stress and other behavior problems were “off the map.” each containing 500 students.
“Is someone trying to meet the needs of 500 students?” said Desmarais-Morse. “It’s impossible.”
The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per school counselor, which few states approach.
For the 2020-21 school year, only two states — New Hampshire and Vermont — met the goal, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from National Education Statistics. Some states experience surprisingly high ratios: Arizona averages one counselor for every 716 students. 1 to 638 in Michigan; and 1 to 592 in Minnesota.
Also in Indiana, the Hammond school district won a grant to hire clinical therapists at all 17 schools, but was unable to fill most of the new positions, Superintendent Scott Miller said. “Schools are stealing from other schools. There aren’t enough workers to go around.” And even with more funding, school salaries can’t compete with private consulting practices; They are overwhelmed and trying to hire more workers.
Another challenge for schools: Identifying struggling children before they spiral into emotional turmoil. Students in the Houston Independent School District, which has 277 schools and nearly 200,000 students, are asked to hold up their fingers every morning. One finger means that a child will be deeply hurt; Five means she or he feels good.
“Early in the day, it’s identifying brush fires,” said Sean Ricks, the district’s senior crisis intervention manager.
Houston teachers now offer mindfulness lessons, play the sounds of the ocean on YouTube, and a chihuahua named Lucy and a cockapoo named Omi have joined the district’s crisis team.
Grant-money helped build recreation rooms known as Thinkeries in 10 schools in Houston last year, for $5,000 each. District data shows that campuses with Thinkeries, which sport bean bag chairs and warm-colored walls, saw a 62% drop in calls to the crisis line last year, he said. The district is building more this year.
But the components themselves are not medicine. For the calming elements to work, schools must teach students to recognize when they are angry or upset. Then they can use the space to suppress their emotions before they explode, said Kevin Dahl-Fuschel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, a nonprofit that helps schools strengthen mental health services.
During the last days of summer vacation, an artist at University High School in Irvine, California, was finishing “Well Space,” a giant image of the moon over the mountains. Jars, jute rugs, Buddha-like statues and a hanging egg chair bring an out-of-school feel. When school starts this week, the class should be staffed full-time with a counselor or mental health professional.
The goal is to normalize the idea of asking for help and give students a place to regroup. “If they can re-center and re-focus, after a short break they can go back to their classrooms and be ready for deeper learning,” said Tammy Blakely, the district’s director of student support services.
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This story has been updated to reflect the first and last name of Irvine, California, director of support services.
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For more back-to-school coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/back-to-school
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Geker reports from San Francisco. Associated Press reporters Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Arlie Rogers in Indianapolis; Brooke Schultz of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Kavish Harjay in Los Angeles contributed.
Rogers, Schultz and Harjay are members of the Associated Press/Report for America State House News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues.
The Associated Press Education Group receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. AP is solely responsible for all content.
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