About a third of young people in New Orleans say they struggle with their mental health, and Black and Hispanic students reported less access to mental health care than their White peers, according to a newly released survey of the city’s middle and high school students.
More than 40% of Black and Hispanic students and 25% of White students said they felt sad and hopeless every day, which can be symptoms of depression, according to the survey last school year of about 2,000 New Orleans students in grades 6-11. The wide-ranging survey found that nearly 30% of Black students and 22% of Hispanic students said they needed counseling in the past year but didn’t get it, compared with 15% of White students who reported the same.
The findings show that despite elevated attention and resources put into youth mental during the pandemic, it remains a challenge for many young people, who still encounter barriers to care.
“New Orleans students are still recuperating from the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the report by the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans at Tulane University. “More work can be done to meet New Orleans youth where they are and understand the barriers preventing them from receiving needed mental health counseling.”
Conducted during the 2024-2025 school year, the survey asked students from 16 New Orleans public schools about a variety of topics including mental health, career aspirations and social media usage.
NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Fateama Fulmore said the findings about students’ mental health and how their school experiences vary sharply by race highlight some “uncomfortable truths.”
“That is a call to action to understand why our students feel such disparities in the same education environment,” Fulmore said during an event last week discussing the survey with a Tulane researcher, education nonprofit leaders and a city health department official.
Pandemic-era challenges
The survey, which asked students about a wide range of topics from career aspirations to wellbeing, found that many pandemic-era challenges persist.
In a similar survey during the pandemic, the researchers found a dramatic decline in the number of students who felt their education was preparing them for their future lives and students reported putting less effort into their school work. Those numbers have not budged, and students also reported higher rates of missing school than they did before the pandemic.
“I think that’s a real call to action across our system,” said Cate Swinburn, CEO of YouthForce NOLA, “to help our young people find value in school and to make sure school feels relevant.”
Researchers said that despite academic rebounds, the pandemic has had a lingering impact on how students feel about education. Many don’t feel supported and less of half of students said they felt like their teachers cared about them.
Black students consistently report worse school climate than their White peers, including lower sense of safety and feeling less of a sense of belonging and more unequal treatment compared to other students.
Makeda Butler, a senior at Ben Franklin High School, said White students sometimes seem to get the benefit of the doubt from adults at school in a way that Black students like her do not.
For example, she said, teachers might treat “a different friend group in the same class differently for doing the same things, which has happened at my school,” said Butler, who interned with the Education Research Alliance.
Researchers pointed to a few bright spots in the survey. For example, 70% of students say they want to go to college, which has rebounded after a pandemic-era low.
“One of the great findings is that (college aspirations) have gone back to where it was before,” said Jamie Carroll, a researcher at the Education Research Alliance and lead author of the study. “They have more certainty in their educational expectations and they are very high.”
But students cited barriers that might prevent them from reaching their goals, including a lack of motivation, low grades, uncertainty about the right path and the cost of higher education.
“I think our students have spoken with agency and hope,” Fulmore said. “It is now our responsibility to listen with humility and act with urgency.”