Another month, another crisis-level shortage in public schools. This time, it’s a dwindling number of mental health professionals and school counselors. How is this going to impact schools?
Here’s Five Fast Facts on Mental Health Professionals in Schools:
- 🏫 How Bad Is it? - A total of 40% of public schools surveyed are reporting vacancies in Mental Health and Counseling workers. One study shows that among 18 of the country’s largest school districts, 12 of them started with fewer counselors or psychologists than they had in fall 2019. Some of that can be attributed to professionals leaving the field.
- 📖 What’s Causing it? - The reason for the mass resignations? The usual suspects: poor pay, safety concerns, administrative work, and, of course, post-COVID stress. Lump that in with the fact that some counselors and mental health professionals are being assigned duties they aren’t trained for and it’s pretty easy to see why they’re taking a pass.
- 🚌 How Many Do We Need? - Experts say it would take 77,000 more school counselors, 6,300 more school psychologists, and tens of thousands of social workers to get to the level professionals have recommended. That’s bleak.
- 🎒 Where Are They? - Not only are professionals retiring or quitting, getting new faces is proving to be even more difficult. Mental health professional jobs require at least six or seven years of college. So when one professional retires, a district could be waiting seven years for their replacement.
- 🧑🏫 Can Schools Do Anything? - To try and meet the demand, colleges are expanding counseling programs, school districts are hiring interns and trainees, and some states are offering scholarships to attract new students into the study.
🔥Bottom line: Buses, lunches, teachers, and now mental health professionals. What’s left for public schools to miss out on? Don’t answer that. All of us depend on some kind of infrastructure to build up the next generation. Whether or not that’s public schools, private schools, or something else is yet to be seen. But, at any rate, this doesn’t look good for millions of students and parents.
Do you think this is a big problem?
Let us know by connecting with us on Facebook and Instagram! Also, remember to share this newsletter with your friends & coworkers!
Btw, If you’ve read this far and haven’t yet signed up for the weekly Paycheckology newsletter, CLICK HERE!
