The Arizona Department of Education lets districts request funds for on-campus police officers, social workers and counselors. In recent years, school districts have been told to prioritize officers in their safety grant applications, leaving them to find alternative ways to fund mental health positions.
The Union Elementary School District (UESD) in Tolleson, which serves about 1,700 K-eighth graders, has received a $5.2 million mental health grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
The multi-year federal grant will allow UESD to have a psychologist at each of its four campuses. It’s the only Arizona school district to receive the funds.
Superintendent Kristine Morris said many students present with some adverse childhood experiences, which can manifest as anxiety or behavioral challenges.
“By having psychologists at school, we can get permission from parents to observe the children, to conduct what’s called a functional behavioral assessment and determine the root cause and come up with plans and strategies to try to prevent behaviors from becoming worse,” Morris said.
The National Association of School Psychologists recommends having one psychologist per 500 students. Morris said the grant will allow the district to align their ratios with that model, which will allow the psychologists to get to know their students better.
“We can get consent to do therapeutic services at school instead of having to leave school to go to psychologist sessions or to put demands on the families outside of school hours when there’s already stressors on the home and even financial stressors on the family,” Morris said.
UESD Executive Director of Student Success Melanie Block said the role of a school psychologist is often to evaluate students who may have disabilities.
“With that, there’s timelines you have to follow,” Block said. “Because of those timelines and the number of kids that districts are facing to have to test in that process, what the position has really become is one of just being a tester.”
The grant money will allow the district to implement a new model that focuses on prevention.
“Where we’re not always testing kids, and we’re looking at, ‘How do we get in front of the gaps that we might be facing or before a gap even occurs?,’” Block said. “How do we support our students and our staff to make sure they’re getting the best services that they can?”