A survey released Tuesday documents the toll the pandemic has taken on students’ mental health, with 7 in 10 public schools seeing an increase in the number of children seeking services. What’s more, 76 percent said faculty and staff members have raised concerns about depression, anxiety and trauma in students since the start of the pandemic.
However, only about half of all schools said they could effectively provide needed services.
The results come as a hugely stressful school year draws to a close. They add to the evidence that the pandemic is leaving this generation of students with significant mental health challenges. Anecdotally, teachers report that students’ emotional growth was stunted during months or more of remote schooling, with many returning to the classroom without the coping skills that would be typical for their age.
“The pandemic has taken a clear and significant toll on the mental health of students,” said Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which conducted the survey.
The survey was conducted in April, ahead of last week’s survey. devastating massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
As a result of growing needs, 2 out of 3 schools have increased the types or number of mental health services available, the survey found. Nearly all schools, 96 percent, provided at least some mental health services at the school, most commonly from a school counselor or licensed mental health provider employed by the school system.
In addition, just over half of the schools offered teacher training on how to help students with their social, emotional, or mental well-being, and nearly half created or expanded social and emotional health programs.
Seven in 10 schools said they have a program to address social and emotional learning, even when those programs have be attacked of conservatives in some communities.
Separately, 28 percent of schools said they made changes to their daily or yearly academic calendars in hopes of mitigating mental health issues. In some places, that was a controversial move because it meant canceling classes on certain days, prompting families already exhausted from campus closures to scramble for care.
Indio High School in Southern California offers 14 support groups to address students’ social-emotional needs, Principal Derrick Lawson said. The groups address topics such as grief, wellness, anger management, and social skills. Some are long-term, and others meet for a short time.
Some 400 students, out of about 2,000 at the school, participate in at least one of the groups, he said. The school relies on outside vendors and would run more groups, Lawson said, if it could find ways to staff them.
“We have more need than we can find people,” he said.
In many cases, he said, the pandemic has brought long-standing mental health issues to the surface. She compared it to what appears to be a pool of still water. “If you drain the water, all of a sudden, you find all kinds of things.”
The federal survey found that many school officials said growing needs were not being met.
Only 12 percent of schools strongly agreed with the statement “My school can effectively provide mental health services to all students who need them.” An additional 44 percent said they moderately agree.
That left 44 percent who disagreed or did not express an opinion. The most frequently cited reasons were lack of staff and, for about half of the schools, insufficient funding.
The survey found no statistically significant difference on this question between schools based on the racial or economic demographics of their students.
It also found that middle and high schools were more likely than elementary schools to say they could serve all students.
The survey found that mental health needs were acute not only for students, but also for school employees. About 3 in 10 schools reported an increase in the number of workers seeking mental health services at school, and 6 in 10 reported an increase in staff concern about their own mental health or that of their colleagues.
Some schools responded to these increased needs by providing additional professional development on mental health and more time to prepare for classes. Three in 10 offered additional paid time off and 14 percent increased compensation.
The survey of 830 K-12 public schools from a sample chosen to be nationally representative was conducted April 12-26 by the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the federal Department of Education. The survey, conducted monthly, was created to track the impact of the pandemic, including the amount of in-person education districts are offering.
Virtually all schools now offer full-time face-to-face classes and have done so for some time. The April survey found a drop in the proportion of schools that had students out of the building due to quarantines, falling from 94 percent during the omicron surge in January to 30 percent in April.
