A group of students line up to deliver a “continuous speech” at the March 17 Palo Alto Unified School District school board meeting. According to junior Dorian Luo (speaking), both the students and administration want to connect with each other. “Students need to see the changes being made,” Luo said. “We know you are all working so hard behind the scenes. Please, help us bring your work to the public’s attention.”
Editors’ Note: Resources for any person who is feeling depressed, troubled or suicidal are listed at the bottom of this article.
The Palo Alto Unified School District devotes $24 million a year towards mental health resources, providing counseling, wellness centers, online support and more, according to a budget presented March 25, 2025 by Chief Business Officer Charen Yu. This is 7% of PAUSD’s overall budget, a higher percentage than any comparable high school district, according to comments made last semester by then-Superintendent Don Austin in a meeting with The Paly Voice.
But at the March 17 board meeting, multiple students spoke out, calling attention to perceived flaws in PAUSD’s wellness program, particularly its response to a recent student suicide. So it’s important to ask: Why, despite extensive spending, do some students feel like the mental health resources aren’t providing the support needed?
From the student perspective, the district isn’t making it easy enough to access resources. Senior Aiden Shi said during the March 17 board meeting that the board should allow the public to see what PAUSD is doing to prevent suicides.
“We would like you to implement a section of the PAUSD website to keep the public informed about your postvention process,” Shi said. “Students, especially those close to Summer [the student who recently died by suicide], need to know what is happening.”
However, from the perspective of Palo Alto High School and the district, there is a wealth of available resources, and difficulty connecting students with the resources they need.
A graph of wellness center visits to Fletcher, Greene, JLS, Gunn, and Paly over the past three years. (Palo Alto Unified School District)
As shown at the April 21 school district board meeting, PAUSD had over 10,000 visits to the wellness center in the 2024-25 school year, and has already surpassed that number this school year.
According to Paly mental health specialist Andrea Barker, it is important for students to have trusted adults on campus.
“We [Paly] need students to feel comfortable coming to us and letting us know and talking to us and having safe adults on campus, who you can go to and say: ‘I’m being bullied,’ or ‘This is happening,’” Barker said. “We just need the lines of communication to remain open so that we can make sure that we’re taking care of everyone here on campus.”
Barker also said that the wellness center at Paly offers grief and loss services along with PRIME sessions to facilitate conversations with students, but student engagement has been low.
“We tried to initiate a check-and-connect group, and promoted that fairly widely across campus,” Barker said. “We even created a curriculum to go along with that, and we only had one student interested in it. … We don’t have people signing up for them [PRIME counseling sessions], but we’ll continue to offer them, because the thought is, if we continue to offer things like that, hopefully we’ll see people coming.”
This mismatch of expectations and resources persists across other mental health focus areas. According to multiple sources we interviewed, which includes both administration and students on campus, students are looking for the administration to provide proactive support, whereas the administration is asking students to seek out and use preexisting resources.
A table of Palo Alto Unified School District’s annual mental health expenditures from the “Budget Workshop Session
2025-26″ presentation, as shown at the March 25, 2025 special budget board meeting. (Palo Alto Unified School District)
According to senior Omkar Perinkulam, while he appreciates that adults from the Paly wellness center came into some classes and clubs following the recent suicide, the affected communities needed more counseling support.
“When I walked into Stage Tech the following Monday [after the suicide], the lack of wellness counselors coming to support students was very frustrating, especially when almost everyone in that community knew Summer,” Perinkulam said. “We hope that in the future you will show up not only for the individuals who lost their friend, but also the communities who lost one of their members to suicide.”
On the other hand, Barker said that she hopes groups of students will ask for support, and that students will never be denied.
“We’re more than open, and would love to facilitate a group,” Barker said. “If a group of students would come to us and say that this is needed and wanted, we will participate. We’ll do it in a heartbeat. We have therapists upstairs, one in particular specializes in group facilitation.”
Senior Atlas Gerritsen said that students would like the administration to take the first step in providing help.
“We [the Paly Dungeons and Dragons Club] never received any support,” Gerritsen said. “People who are struggling with grief cannot be expected to make the first move to reach out for help … it is the responsibility of the administration [to reach out].”
Bullying also illustrates this disconnect between the administration and students, as evidenced by junior Brennan Bailey and Paly Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson.
According to Bailey, the administration needs to be more clear on what they are doing to address bullying
“It is incredibly hard to convince people that the district is trying to help when I can’t point to any official statements from the district’s admin that prove that you are doing something,” Bailey said. “The bullying and the ‘culture’ [issues] are incredibly difficult things to address, but if we know what is already being done, we can help. Please consider keeping your students better informed.”
According to Berkson, PAUSD offers an extensive list of anti-bullying resources and an anonymous forum for reporting bullying, along with Paly administrators who are working with the Principal Advisory Committee to understand how students are being bullied in order to determine the best response.
“We started with the PAC executive board, met with them, followed by a PAC meeting, and they went into groups and discussed bullying, what that looks like,” Berkson said. “Our next step will be to go into subgroups to see what bullying is to them.”
Bridging this disconnect will take time, but both sides have said they are working towards the common goal of effective mental health support. According to Barker, Paly’s wellness center is relatively new and open to feedback.
“If there are suggestions or constructive feedback or ideas for programming, we’re always open to that,” Barker said. “We might not always be able to implement them, but we want to know we serve you all.”
Right now, the district is at a critical time between superintendents, as the school board searches for new leadership that aligns with the community’s values. The new superintendent will have an opportunity to bridge the gap between the administration and the student body — possibly solving a problem that $24 million couldn’t.
If you would like to provide your opinion on the new superintendent, the community input form can be found here. The form will close May 11.
If you or a friend are in need of immediate support, use the resources listed below:
Call 911 or 988 Lifeline
Crisis Text Line: Text ‘HOME’ or ‘HOLA’ to 741741
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call or Text 988
Trevor Lifeline LGBTQ+ Crisis Support: 1-866-488-7386
Bill Wilson Youth Hotline (24-hour Suicide & Crisis Line): 408-850-6125