- Carolyn Heinrich is University Distinguished Professor and Patricia and Rose Hart Professor of Public Policy, Education, and Economics at Vanderbilt University.
The Tennessee General Assembly approved a state budget that includes $144 million to create a statewide school voucher program, but the program is not on the agenda for implementation this year.
Gov. Bill Lee intends to pursue Educational Freedom Scholarships again next year, but some of the funds will be earmarked to address the looming fiscal crisis for many school districts across the state when the next school year begins. there is a possibility.
Federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds that school districts have relied on to address a variety of challenges related to the pandemic, including significant student learning loss, increased mental health needs, and the cost of reopening schools, will soon be released. It will expire.
The loss of ESSER funds would be more significant for Tennessee school districts because districts with higher proportions of low-income families receive more ESSER funds, southern states have more children living in poverty, and state school spending is relatively low. It will hit the budget especially hard.
Tennessee faces challenges meeting youth mental health needs
Many school districts across Tennessee are leveraging ESSER funds to hire qualified social workers, behavioral health therapists, school nurses, crisis counselors, and Hiring other professionals.
Skyrocketing rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal behavior among children are also evident in our research using state administrative data, and a new poll from Vanderbilt Children’s Health found that parents in Tennessee It was found that half of respondents cited their child’s mental health as their top concern.
These parents’ concerns are well-founded, as children with unmet mental health needs are more likely to experience disciplinary problems, chronic absenteeism, dropping out of high school, and lower functioning as adults. However, Tennessee performs significantly worse than other states when it comes to youth access to mental health care, ranking 41st out of 50 states in the 2023 State of America’s Mental Health Report. It has become Washington DC.
Tennessee’s challenges in meeting the mental health needs of youth are exacerbated by the state’s mental health workforce shortage. Tennessee ranks 47th among states and Washington, D.C., on this measure, reflecting that more than 70 percent of youth with mental health needs do not receive treatment. Some school districts, particularly in rural areas, are struggling to recruit and retain mental health services staff on limited budgets.
Governor Lee recognizes the high level of need for mental and behavioral health supports for Tennessee’s children and how strained our current infrastructure is to serve them. If he wants to realize his stated intention to invest more in his health, he might do the following: He will start by increasing funding for the School Health Coordination (CSH) program, which is one of the state’s most continuing and most valuable assets for addressing children’s mental health needs.
Coordinated School Health, first introduced in 2008, has now expanded to nearly every school district in the state, with CSH directors working with other school officials, community groups, and families to improve the health and health benefits available to students. Promoting and improving academic support. Because schools often directly observe the mental health needs of children, especially those in rural, economically disadvantaged, and historically underserved populations, these CSH efforts are designed to and plays an important role in bridging the gap between access to health care and other support.
However, our state’s Coordinated School Health Program is currently woefully underfunded, and ESSER funds will soon not be available to fill that hole. CSH programs have not received increased funding to address increased student needs or increased costs for staffing programs. CSH directors across the state are instead struggling to fund student aid with a patchwork of time-limited and narrowly focused funding while maintaining infrastructure in the face of staffing shortages. We also rely on a network of struggling community partners.
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Tennessee needs to invest more to address children’s mental health needs
Reports on the use of ESSER funds across the country suggest that nearly half of those funds disappear into payroll costs, and our data collection in Tennessee shows that recently hired people (counselors, social workers, etc.) , behavioral health therapists, etc.) are now at risk of being laid off.
As one CSH director put it plainly: “We’ll automatically lose that person next year. We don’t have the funds.” The loss of such critical student support comes at a time when students are “far from” recouping learning losses due to the pandemic. I can’t forgive you.
Tennessee school districts now need a larger infusion of state funding than ever before to strengthen efforts to address children’s educational and mental health needs, with significant funding approved in state budget and can be deployed to meet these needs now.
Carolyn Heinrich is University Distinguished Professor and Patricia and Rose Hart Professor of Public Policy, Education, and Economics at Vanderbilt University.
