Photo Courtesy of Comptroller DiNapoli
“[T]he DOE should step up efforts to improve oversight of public schools’ mental health curriculum and equip school staff with the resources they need to support students’ emotional wellbeing,” Comptroller DiNapoli said.
By Forum Staff
The City Department of Education can do more to ensure that public school students receive the support and services that they need and that are supposed to be available, according to the latest in State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s series of audits of health and safety in schools.
The audit found that too many NYC public schools are understaffed with mental health professionals, are not adequately training staff and too few have services readily available—and that DOE provides little oversight to ensure students receive the required mental health instruction critical to developing their awareness and resilience.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rates of childhood mental health concerns have been increasing steadily since 2010. Among the New York state high school student population in 2017, around 17 percent of youth seriously considered suicide and slightly over 10 percent made non-fatal suicide attempts. This mental health crisis has been further compounded by the isolation, disengagement, and instability brought on by the pandemic as well as other traumatic societal events, making the need for comprehensive mental health training, services and supports even more critical.
State law requires that mental health instruction be a part of schools’ health education. However, auditors found that DOE does not take any action to ensure that schools have included a mental health component in their curriculum and are providing mental health instruction to the students, nor does it monitor whether schools’ programs meet the minimum requirements or assess their effectiveness.
In addition, based on DOE’s self-reported data for the 2020-21 school year, a time when mental health supports were especially critical, it is evident that many schools fell well below the staff-to-student ratio recommended by National Association of Social Workers, American School Counselor Association, and National Association of School Psychologists.
Among the audit’s findings:
Only 1,101 out of 1,524 public schools had at least one social worker; of those schools, 80% did not meet the recommended social-worker-to-student ratio of 1:250.
423 public schools did not have a social worker at all.
Although 1,422 out of 1,524 public schools had at least one school counselor, 910 (64%) of these did not meet the recommended school counselor-to-student ratio of 1:250.
DiNapoli recommended that DOE:
- Monitor schools’ curriculum to ensure they meet requirements of the state education law.
- Require schools to ensure all staff who have daily interactions with students attend mental health awareness training.
- Explore ways to maintain appropriate mental health professional staffing levels at all schools.
- Explore ways to collect, document and analyze mental health related information.
- Promote knowledge sharing among schools, including their solutions for remote mental health monitoring.
“At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated a worsening mental health crisis among youth in New York State, the DOE should step up efforts to improve oversight of public schools’ mental health curriculum and equip school staff with the resources they need to support students’ emotional wellbeing,” the comptroller said.
DOE generally agreed with the audit’s findings, DiNapoli noted.
