Dive Brief:
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Just under half — 48% — of schools say they can effectively provide mental health services to all students who need them, according to the latest findings from the National Center for Education Statistics.That’s down nearly 10 percentage points from 2021-22 when schools were mobilizing to provide social and emotional supports for students in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Staffing and budget remain problematic: Over half of public schools say mental health professional staffing (55%) and funding (54%) are limiting their ability to provide mental health services for students needing support, the National Center for Education Statistics data shows.
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The NCES data also shows more schools expecting multiple teacher and staff vacancies across the board compared with the 2022-23 school year. More than half of schools (59%) anticipate needing to fill multiple nonteaching vacancies before the next school year, and even more (67%) say they'll need to fill multiple teaching vacancies.
Dive Insight:
Schools are reporting higher staffing needs overall, including a dearth of mental health staff specifically, and lower capacity to effectively provide mental health services at a time when emergency pandemic relief is winding down. The nationally representative data showing these trends came from a survey of 1,683 public schools in March 2024.
States must commit any remaining funds from the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief aid for K-12 programs by Sept. 30,. After that, states and districts then have another four months — or until Jan. 28, 2025 — to spend money provided under the American Rescue Plan.
In preparation for that fiscal cliff, districts are already discussing cutting budgets in the 2024-25 school year. As part of this process, some are likely to lay off school professionals, including counselors and social workers.
That reality comes despite NCES data released last month showing that about 4 in 10 school leaders are “moderately” or “extremely” concerned about their students’ mental health, and despite what NCES now calls "a growing need" in mental health services.
“These challenges can be significant obstacles to student learning and well-being if not properly addressed," said NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr in a statement Wednesday.
Tight budgets will likely remain into the next school year, but may ease up beginning in the 2025-26 school year, finance expert Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s education finance policy and practice research center Edunomics Lab, told K-12 Dive in April.
Still, nearly all public schools, or 97%, provide some type of mental health services to students, the latest NCES data showed. The most frequent services offered were individual-based intervention and case management. On average, about 1 in 5 students use mental health services overall, schools reported.
Previous reports from civil rights organizations have shown that it's harder for marginalized groups of students, including LGBTQ+ students, to access mental health care.
Schools' efforts to address increased behavioral and mental health concerns, however, have been "encouraging," Kathleen Ethier, a social psychologist and director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, told K-12 Dive in March.
“This is the most attention, both in terms of public health and in terms of education, that I have seen directed toward trying to address the mental health crisis that we’re seeing among youth,” she said.
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