The Problem is Real

LPSB Talks Mental Health in Schools

By Caleb Daniel

Last week, the Lincoln Parish School Board received a reminder of the reality of mental health issues among the school system’s students, as well as the resources in place to address such issues.

While the disturbing “Momo challenge” spotlighted in Sunday’s Ruston Daily Leader is perhaps the most popular source of mental health challenges today. Pupil Appraisal Coordinator Becky Stutzman told board members that is just one small example of how “suicidal or homicidal ideations” can manifest. While the district’s pupil appraisal department has a wide umbrella of jobs, including performing disability evaluations, one of its major focuses is the provision of mental health counseling services for the parish’s students.

Stutzman said any time a child in Lincoln Parish schools reports either suicidal or homicidal ideations of any kind, a “threat assessment” is performed by a counselor or other pupil appraisal designee to gauge any potential danger posed to the student or to others.

As of the end of February, 102 threat assessments have been performed this school year alone, along with 504 counseling referrals.

“It’s not always as severe as it sounds,” Stutzman said. “It could be something as small as a child writing in their journal, ‘I just don’t want to be here anymore,’ or a child being angry and saying, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ We have to take that seriously and do a threat assessment to determine what that means for that child.”

The threats are tiered as “low,” “medium” or “high,” with the high threats often ending in a student being hospitalized for his/her safety or arrested, depending on the threat’s nature.

But Stutzman said a “very small percentage” of the district’s threats are in this category.

“To think that in a small community like ours there’s been over 100 threat assessments this year—it’s a scary statistic, but at the same time, considering the number of students we have, percentage-wise it’s not that alarming,” she said.

“More than anything, that is 102 cases where a child was crying out for help in some way, shape or form. So we want to take that seriously.”

In addition to these threats, Stutzman said parish students also face issues like teen pregnancy, domestic and dating violence, bullying and cyberbullying, and increase in chronic health conditions, human trafficking and substance abuse.

Schools Superintendent Mike Milstead said he recognizes the mental health dangers in the parish and that they are no more or less present than in any other part of the country.

“Ruston is no different than any other community in the United States,” he said.

“We’re not a community without problems, but we’re not unique in the problems we have.”

So what systems are in place to respond to these issues? For starters, the school board employs four mental health professionals strictly for the purpose of offering counseling services to students. Three are based at one school each—Ruston Elementary, Cypress Springs and Choudrant High—and a fourth splits time between Ruston Junior High and I.A. Lewis.

There are a few other mental health professionals in the district acting as guidance counselors or working with pupil appraisal, but the majority of their time is devoted to tasks other than therapeutic services.

When District 7 board member Hunter Smith asked Stutzman at last week’s meeting what the counseling services in Lincoln Parish would look like in a perfect world, with no budgetary restrictions, she said there should be a full-time mental health professionals in every school.

“If you are going to get credentialed, licensed people, they can go to the private sector and make more money,” she said. “But a lot of them, like myself, are willing to accept a teacher base salary because I love what I do, and I have kids. So being able to offer them a board-hired package is ideal.”

Milstead agreed with Stutzman’s vision. One of the would-be millages in the proposed PROJECTS SECURE would have funded three more mental health specialists, but the plan was pulled from the school board agenda back in January due to a lack of board support.

“We know there are problems out there, and there’s a moral obligation on our part to address that,” he said.

“One of our goals is to increase the number of mental health specialists in our schools. We need to make it across the board in our district to address the issues we have. Of course, we’re not there yet.”

Even so, Stutzman said the district has found ways to “get creative” to provide the needed services. This includes partnerships with local entities such as the Lincoln Health Foundation, Louisiana Methodist Children’s Home, the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services and others.

“(The Center for Counseling and Psychological Services) came to us because Medicaid is paying a lot for mental health,” Stutzman said. “So they’re able to come to the schools and bill. If we can get that going, we can then start to sustain what we’re doing.”

Stutzman said her goal in bringing these things to the school board’s attention was to create an awareness that these needs are right here at home in Lincoln Parish.

“We have kids who are struggling,” she said. “It’s not kids from one part of town or one school or one socioeconomic status. It’s all kids.

“And we’re fortunate to have a community where over the years the mental health awareness has grown.”