Though many of those interventions are free or low-cost to districts, local and federal COVID-19 funding will end at the beginning of next year. Some schools that have implemented mental health supports are worried about continued funding for those programs.
Trauma-informed practices
Student mental health started to trend downward in 2016, coinciding with the opioid epidemic, said Jessica Davies, director of Social Emotional Learning Services at the Montgomery County Educational Service Center.
Around 2018, Davies and Shannon Cox, the Montgomery County Educational Service Center superintendent, began to work with an expert on trauma-informed care.
In 2019, a tornado destroyed hundreds of homes in northern Montgomery County, devastating hundreds of families, and nine people were killed in a mass shooting in the Oregon District. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools and workplaces across the country.
Davies said all these traumatic experiences have led to traumatized children who struggle to behave. For kindergartners, she said, some of them even struggle to sit still in class.
“What their functioning is like, forget about teaching them how to read, they need to learn how to sit,” Davies said. “Their little brains are just, quite frankly, different than what we saw even six years ago.”
Davies said the trauma-informed practices can help kids feel safe in schools, a key part of helping the kids learn.
“It’s relooking at your mindset, as far as building culture and connection and rethinking discipline,” Davies said.
Districts that have implemented Montgomery County ESC training include Mad River and Kettering.
Schools realized in focusing on overall mental wellness, teachers are going to help kids learn academics, Davies said.
“It’s not separate,” she added.
The MCESC training can be less expensive for schools, around a few thousand dollars for it rather than hiring someone. The MCESC has provided free videos and materials for schools, too, she said.
Federal funds
Local schools received $818 million in federal COVID-19 funds, called ESSER funding, between 2020 and 2022 during the pandemic. About 20% of that money was spent on catching kids up on the learning they’d missed while schools were closed or held hybrid classes in 2020 and part of 2021.
Most districts have spent that money, and only a few districts have any of it left. All of it had to be allocated by Sept. 30, and schools have to spend it by early January.
A Dayton Daily News investigation found many local districts did not spend a high percentage of ESSER money on mental health support, like counselors. While some districts used the money to purchase counseling services, it was rare. Most districts were using the money to pay teachers or buy items that would otherwise be in their general fund.
Dayton Public Schools was one of the districts who used ESSER funds to purchase student resiliency coordinator services from Dayton Children’s Hospital. Those services included providing support to families and kids experiencing trauma, according to Dayton Children’s.
Those funds have since expired, and current Dayton Public Schools superintendent David Lawrence said the district is now paying for the services with general funds for this billing cycle and plans to use state funds for future cycles.
Other districts were paying for those student resiliency coordinators through local funding, such as Montgomery County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services funding that has since been cut.
Sue Fralick, director for The Center for Emotional Wellbeing at Dayton Children’s, said ADAMHS funding paid for many of the schools who had student resiliency counselors, including Miamisburg.
Local funding
ADAMHS was also paying for a variety of other projects that have been cut back due to lack of funding, according to records provided by the Montgomery County ESC.
Some of the programs funded by ADAMHS included suicide prevention and vaping prevention programs, according to the same records.
Davies said ADAMHS funding was the reason many of the programs in the community started. She now wants to make sure the community continues to work together on these projects.
“This community works incredibly close together, and ADAMHS has been a wonderful conduit for that,” she said. “With federal funding decreasing, local funding decreasing, we’re just going to have to spend more time talking together and collaborating with the solutions for our kids in this community, inside of schools and out. And not just 30-minute therapy sessions, but the network of care that we’re creating in the community.”
Student perspective
Norah Glovka, a Dayton Regional STEM school senior, said she feels her own school does well when it comes to helping students with mental health access.
“There’s a lot of resources I could go to if I needed, or anybody could,” she said.
Glovka suffered from an eating disorder during her freshman and sophomore years. She figured out what she was going through due to information online and never got care from a doctor, she said.
But she said having the information taught in schools would be useful to others like her.
“There’s a lot of misinformation online,” Glovka said. “You can’t always see it within yourself. But if you’re told about it in class, that these are the signs and symptoms, you might be like, ‘that matches with what I’m doing.’”
