Yakima schools eye additional state funding for staff to support students' physical and mental health
Yakima Herald-RepublicMay 01, 2022
May 1—Washington school districts will receive funding for additional staff to support students' physical and mental health, thanks to new legislation.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, positions that support those student needs are often viewed as supplementary. Advocates said this legislation will protect funding for those roles.
While these positions have sometimes been difficult to fill, local schools have found ways to provide support for their students. Officials said they are looking forward to the extra financial support.
Secure funds
HB 1664, signed in March by Gov.
Funds will be distributed based on school size, using a prototypical model, the final legislative report on HB 1664 said.
It is largely up to districts how to spend these funds, based on their
HB 1664 secured funding for counselors, but also broadened the positions in which funding can be used, she said.
"We want districts and schools to be able to make the call as to what they need most," she said. "But we also want to protect the funding to say whatever you need most, this money is to be spent on support staff of some kind."
While the funds cannot be used to hire additional classroom teachers, it also does not take away from funding that districts would normally use to pay teachers, Franklin said. Instead, it supplements districts so they do not have to choose between hiring classroom teachers and hiring support staff.
Impact in
HB 1664 does not go into effect until
However, local districts have been keeping an eye on both the legislation and the social and emotional needs of their students.
Under the new legislation, the district can bring on several kinds of support staff. Counselors and mental health professionals are a priority, Birley said.
The district is also looking to use some of the funds to continue to support its nursing staff. During the pandemic, the district has used COVID-19 relief funds to help cover nurses and health aides.
Though there was a demand for student mental health services prior to 2020, the pandemic and remote learning brought the need into even sharper focus.
Mitchell said the district has worked with its counselors and coordinated with
While the final monetary impact of HB 1664 on the district isn't yet clear, Mitchell said hiring more support staff will help improve student services — which ultimately leads to positive changes in academics.
"Any extra help that we receive and the ability to hire more and more qualified staff to provide direct services to students is going to be an improvement for us," Mitchell said.
Current support
Since returning from remote learning, districts have been pushing to expand social and emotional support services for students.
This school year, the
The district uses a data-driven approach to identify which campuses have students in need of additional support positions, Mitchell said. Each
A multi-tiered system of support is a pyramidlike framework that identifies and groups students based on their increasing levels of need. Going up the pyramid, smaller groups of students require more intense support. It is used in many
In
Each elementary school building has a counselor or a social worker and some of the larger schools have behavior specialists as well. And at
The middle school has two counselors and a social worker, she said. The high school has three counselors and a social worker. And the district added a counselor for its preschool program this year.
Short supply
Counseling positions have not always been easy to fill or keep filled, Birley said.
Several school districts in
Nationwide, districts have struggled to attract enough counselors and other mental health professionals.
That investigation also found that less than 1% of
Birley said
"So, he would return, and we would have a local bilingual school (psychologist) with us who's starting this year," she said.
In
While the new legislation will grant schools funds to hire additional support staff, the large number of soon-to-be-open positions might not be filled immediately, as there are only so many qualified candidates.
"I think one of the challenges is as we post those positions in the district, so will every other district in our Valley," Birley said.
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