Study: 70 Percent of Public Schools Saw More Students Seek Mental-Health Help during Pandemic
Seventy percent of U.S. public schools have witnessed a rise in students seeking mental-health help since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new study published Tuesday.
Roughly 75 percent of public schools also reported an increase in staff voicing concerns about their students exhibiting symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and trauma, according to data gathered between April 12 and April 25 by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
“We’ve seen an increase in students seeking mental health services and in staff voicing concerns about students’ mental health since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,” NCES commissioner Peggy G. Carr said in a statement. “The pandemic has taken a clear and significant toll on students’ mental health. This snapshot of the pandemic’s mental health impact is critical in informing the need for student mental health services.”
The study finds that many schools feel ill-equipped to address the mental-health crisis among K–12 youth, given that 88 percent of public schools did not strongly agree that they could effectively provide mental-health services to students in need. However, it neglects to mention some of the suspected root causes of children’s mental-health deterioration since Covid-19 emerged, namely prolonged school shutdowns, disruptive transitions from in-person to remote/hybrid learning models, and a starvation of real social interaction for many months on end.
Many schools included in the study cited an “insufficient number of mental health professionals to manage their school’s caseload, inadequate access to licensed mental health professionals, and inadequate funding” as limitations for their treatment of students struggling with mental health, according to a NCES press release.
“When I took office, only 46[%] of schools were open for in-person learning. Now, more than 99[%] of schools and colleges are open, and our institutions are beginning to heal,” Education secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement Tuesday in response to the report. “We know COVID-19 disrupted our schools and colleges, and this report serves as an important reminder of the work left to be done on the road to recovery.”
He noted that school remaining open for students to attend class in-person must be a priority. For the Department of Education, the “urgency has shifted from getting institutions open to, now, keeping them open; providing the necessary academic, financial and mental health supports for students and families; and strengthening our K-12 and post-secondary education systems.”
