'This is overreach': Ramapo Indian Hills school board kills student mental health programs

OAKLAND — The Ramapo Indian Hills Board of Education voted 4-4 on three motions Monday, effectively ending two of the district's student mental health programs.

The votes denied an annual renewal for the district's 13-year agreement with Sage Thrive Inc. to provide counseling services to students for $370,500 in 2023-2034, plus a new mental-wellness training, coaching and certification program for an additional $60,000.

The tie votes also nixed a proposed switch from Care Plus to Care Solace to provide an $8,433 referral website identifying mental health treatment resources for district staff, students and parents.

Schools Superintendent Rui Dionisio said "this is the first time as a superintendent that I had any indication that these resolutions would not pass" and that "we are actually moving backward."

"The three counselors are serving over 50 students over the course of the year," Dionisio said. "The challenge we have now is that school starts in about six weeks, and these families are now going to be wondering what's going to happen in September. If we have five to eight students that now have to go out of district, those placements will run approximately $100,000 per student with transportation."

Voting against resolutions E7, E8 and E11 were board President Judith Sullivan, Vice President Kim Ansh, and trustees Marianna Emmolo and Doreen Mariani. In a surprise split among the parents' rights majority, trustee Tom Bogdansky broke ranks to vote in favor of the resolutions with Brian DeLaite, Aaron Lorenz and Vivian Yudin King. Trustee Helen Koulikourdis was out of town and did not vote.

"I am extremely disappointed," said Bogdansky, who heads the Education and Personnel Committee. "I'd like to know what can be done for us to get back on track to address any of your concerns, to get the Thrive program back on board to help our students. I think we need to have that discussion. And I think it needs to move forward."

There was no explanation as to why the resolutions found their way to the meeting's agenda if they were so objectionable, or why they weren't tabled when objections arose rather than put to a vote.

Sullivan said it was not the first Dionisio had heard of her "significant concerns," which she said were emailed to him and discussed during committee meetings.

"Care Solace is a start-up company," Sullivan said. "I asked a lot of questions about this the first time it came before the committee. Had it been reviewed by counsel? It had not. So then it was ostensibly reviewed by counsel at the next meeting, but there was no report to the committee exactly what counsel's concerns were, how they were going to address those issues."

Sage Thrive had been approved the previous three years Sullivan sat on the board. However, Sullivan questioned the need for a third counselor, and what she contended were multiple reports of Thrive counselors testifying against students and parents at hearings.

"I heartily support mental health," Sullivan said. "But it has to be done the right way."

Ansh cited her concern for a New Jersey Graduation Proficiency Assessment presentation given earlier in the evening, which estimated that 23% of the district's seniors were not graduation-ready.

"I feel that our main focus should be on student achievement and helping all our students be graduation-ready," Ansh said. "As such, I cannot support the three initiatives on tonight's agenda. These types of programs actually remove parents to some degree from being involved in and supervising their children's mental health. This is overreach, and I feel that we are becoming a psychiatric institution at this point."

Michelle Clancy, head of the Ramapo Indian Hills teachers' union, and head teacher for Thrive, called the vote "upsetting."

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"I don't understand why this was voted down," Clancy said. "For 13 years this program has helped these children to survive, and we save the district money."

DeLaite called it "highly ironic that the same people who were voting down mental wellness funding are the same ones going out on a limb to find public relations firms to help sanitize the decisions that are made by this board."

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King said she did not "have enough adjectives to describe the disdain" she felt "for what just happened."

"I am really disappointed," Lorenz said. "This community needs to pay attention to what just happened and what Dr. Dionisio just said."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Ramapo Indian Hills school board kills student mental health programs