Julisa Curet

By Julisa Curet

He had his first psychotic episode at sixteen, but mental illness does not happen overnight. His family and teachers didn’t see the warning signs: as a kid, he fought with other students and didn’t complete his schoolwork. He was suspended continuously and ended up held back twice. After his breakdown he was forced to leave the Boston Public Schools. His only alternative was homeschooling.

You can have all the resources in the world but it doesn’t matter if they are not being used, and part of this is because we do not know they exist.

This student is an example of how BPS fails their students with mental health issues because they do not have the systems in place to deal with these kinds of fragile students and often mistake mental illness for behavioral problems. This is not unique to schools because even families are clueless about what it means to be emotionally unstable. Boston Public Schools can play a central role in helping this vulnerable population. Karla Estrada, deputy superintendent of student support services for Boston Public Schools, says that BPS has a renewed focus on the social-emotional needs of students because they are aware that their social-emotional aspect is critical to student success. BPS currently has resources available such as BPS Behavior Health Services, however, Karla worries that students do not know what they are or how to access them.[1]

You can have all the resources in the world but it doesn’t matter if they are not being used, and part of this is because we do not know they exist. BPS needs to do a better job of informing students and their families about these resources. But in order to do this our school communities first need to fight stigmatization and acknowledge that there is actually a huge problem that has been going on for generations.

Mental health issues do exist and can range from feeling anxious to schizophrenia. Why is it so important to help students who are struggling with mental illnesses? The National Alliance on Mental Health shows that one in five youth from ages 13 to 18 experience a severe mental disorder at one point in their life, and 37 percent of students 14 to 21 with mental health conditions being served by special education programs dropout. They are the highest dropout rate of any disability group.[2]

In a school setting, mental health issues are often misconstrued as “bad behavior,” leading to disciplinary actions like detention, suspension, and expulsion. Out of school, it is well documented that a significant portion of our prison population has mental health issues.[3] If our schools, and justice system, for that matter, treated mental illness as a health issue instead of a behavioral or criminal issue, Boston Public Schools could interrupt the school to prison pipeline. According to Alison Mollman, a staff attorney in Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative, “Schools should invest more in their counselors, invest more in training their teachers on mental health, or even having sessions for students where they talk about mental illness sensitivity.”[4]

… we need to change the way we deal with mental health problems in Boston Public Schools, so we can eliminate the stigma attached to mental illness that keeps students from receiving the support they need.

In other words, we need to change the way we deal with mental health problems in Boston Public Schools, so we can eliminate the stigma attached to mental illness that keeps students from receiving the support they need. Research suggests that the most promising prevention and intervention strategies involve the entire educational community: administrators, teachers, families, students, support staff, and community members.[5] We must involve EVERYONE who is a part of BPS. My proposal, therefore, includes the following:

  • BPS should have an additional unit in our health classes that covers mental health. Instead of limiting health class to discussing physical health and sexual education, we must educate students more about mental and emotional well-being. In these classes we will discuss mental illnesses, their symptoms, treatments, and resources available for students and their families both inside and outside of school. Also, this course will address appropriate responses when dealing with mental health issues.
  • Schools should be required to have family services coordinators. This way parents can be a part of their child’s academic and social lives. The family coordinator’s job is to discuss all aspects regarding children to their families, from academic to emotional issues. They will offer advice, support, and resources to parents and their children.
  • Teachers should be required to have some psychology background or learn about the connections between mental health and behavioral issues. They must learn different ways of how to approach students who are persistent in demonstrating bad conduct. Workshops should be provided for teachers during the school year as well to continue educating themselves on warning signs and come up with new approaches to help their students. School psychologist, counselors, and family services coordinators should also be present during these workshops.
  • We need to invest more on school psychologists and counselors, who should be required to see a maximum of ten students consistently. There should be an open-door policy for students to see any of these professionals. That way, they can talk when they please without having to be referred. BPS High Schools can connect schools with outside organizations as well. These partnerships can be really helpful for those who are suffering with severe mental illnesses because they have somewhere to go to outside of school. These organizations can potentially connect them to other support services like local clinics.

BPS partnerships can solve the issue of insufficient money that goes towards funding our programs. In a 2014 journal article, school psychologist Kelly Vaillancourt states that even if there is sufficient staff community, community partners fill a critical need.”[6] Our entire school communities will benefit from these services regardless of if you are dealing with a mental illness or not. We should all learn healthy ways of dealing with difficult emotions. Students will advocate more, and everyone involved will become understanding towards others, and more likely to help each other out. BPS will become a more welcoming and safe environment for everyone.

  1. Karla Estrada, in discussion with author, February 9, 2016. ↑
  2. National Alliance on Mental Health, “New Report Finds Families Struggle Over a Decade to Get Help for Mental Illness,” press release, February 23, 2016. ↑
  3. Meryl Engle, “A quarter of Arizona prisoners are mentally ill,” Arizona Sonora News, February 18, 2016. ↑
  4. Alison Mollman, in discussion with author, January 15, 2016. ↑
  5. U.S. Department of Education, “Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools,” http://www.ed.gov/offices/ OSERS/OSEP/earlywrn.html (accessed February 12, 2016). ↑
  6. Kelly Vaillancourt and Andria Amador, “School-community Alliances Enhance Mental Health Services: Resource-stretched Schools Can Ensure Comprehensive Mental Health Care for Students by Creating Partnerships with Community-based Service Providers,” Phi Delta Kappa 96, no. 4 (2014): 57. ↑