Funding needed for school counseling

Published 10:43 am Wednesday, August 29, 2018

More funding is needed for school counseling programs. 

A school system, a community, a state or a society can no longer look at student mental health issues as an outlier. 

Addressing mental health in young people, especially teenagers, must go way beyond reacting to bad behavior or poor performance. 

Any student facing a mental health crisis must be seen as more than a potential danger to themselves or merely a young person being at-risk for academic failure. 

Mental health and school safety go hand in hand.

As lawmakers and decision makers statewide look at increased funding for school security, that must include more than fences, cameras and metal detectors. 

Increasing in-school counseling should be tied to funding for school security, and keeping our public schools safe should be a priority for the General Assembly when it reconvenes in January. 

This week’s SunLight Project report examines what can only be described as a woeful shortage of counselors and counseling programs in public school systems throughout the SunLight coverage areas. 

We are pleased that a panel of state lawmakers is meeting to talk about school safety. 

Talking about it, however, is not enough. 

Funding is necessary. 

Another unfunded mandate handed down by the state will do nothing to help struggling school systems across Georgia improve counseling programs and accessibility to what now must be seen as an essential service. 

Lawmakers are looking at the merits of a threat-assessment process but there is no greater threat to our classrooms than a young person in mental crisis. 

Tying school security to school counseling programs is an approach that could help professionals identify the potential for violent acts in our public school systems in very real and meaningful ways that go beyond stopping a shooter. 

We are not saying armed resource officers, fences, locked doors, cameras and metal detectors are unnecessary. 

We are saying identifying problems at the root level are just as crucial as thwarting an act of violence as it is erupting. 

Every year lawmakers under the gold dome bargain and make trade-offs for big ticket items in the state budget. 

What are we willing to barter for the safety of our most precious resource, our children? 

Adequate funding for improvements to Georgia public school counseling programs should be a priority.