By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                School Board member Brad Etheridge said Monday he believes it’s time for the school board to start encouraging state lawmakers in Tallahassee to take a closer look at the mental health counseling crisis in public schools.

            “I think we have a major crisis with our mental health counseling within the State of Florida and maybe the country,” Etheridge said at Tuesday’s school board meeting. “It’s not going to be fixed overnight.”

            Etheridge said additional funding is needed to address the problem.

            “Every meeting this issue is coming up. We have students who need services I’m afraid they’re not getting,” he said.

            Etheridge spoke during the portion of the meeting set aside for individual school board members to speak about issues or events of importance to them.

            After the meeting, School Superintendent Chris Cowart was asked to comment on what Etheridge said about crisis in mental health counseling.

            “I think statewide what you are seeing from the COVID epidemic and the kids being out, is that there are issues that have accelerated and issues that are being tracked,” Cowart said.

            Looking back to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas murders and everything that came down from the state as a result of the incident, Cowart said there are a lot more expectations for school districts to provide more services to students.

            Cowart compared the shortage of mental health counseling services to the shortage of teachers and law enforcement officers, saying there is also a lack of mental health clinicians and student mental health counselors in the workforce to provide those services at the school level.

            He said the availability of those services and service providers is more limited in smaller school districts. He said the only private provider assisting Levy County is Meridian Behavioral Healthcare. He said the problem extends to those who may need help but can’t afford the services.

            “That’s the other issue that’s driving these things,” Cowart said. “There’s a lack of people in the field and there’s also a lack of entities to help with the crisis that’s out there,” he said.

            Cowart said Meridian is providing some mental health care clinicians to the school district and they have helped in some instances. He said in the modern era, a lot of clinicians are providing “telehealth” by way of televised internet connection.

            The superintendent was asked if students acting out is part of the problem.  “I think it has a direct correlation to where our country has gone. We’re at a crossroads. How much can they put on the education system? I know that Tallahassee has put a lot of dollars towards mental health, but there’s still a lot more that’s going to be needed to rectify the situation. We’ll take it as it comes,” Cowart said.    

            Cowart said Levy County School District’s academic counselors have morphed into a new role providing some of the basic mental health counseling services for students at the “lower level,” such as when students act out.

            “They’re not clinicians (trained mental health counselors). They’re not diagnosing kids, just simple counseling and helping refer students to those people essentially that will give them the services they need,” Cowart said.

            He said the seven students sat before the school board Tuesday in expulsion hearings, but none were not there because of mental health issues.

            “Today we just had students who needed to take accountability for their actions and follow the rules,” he said.

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School Board of Levy County Regular Meeting October 12, 2021; Posted October 13, 2021.