SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Syracuse City School District students facing mental health crises will soon have more trained professionals to turn to, thanks to a $4 million federal grant announced Tuesday.
Rep. John W. Mannion (NY-22) made the announcement at Grant Middle School, where Superintendent Pamela Odom once served as principal. The money flows through the U.S. Department of Education’s School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program and will fund a partnership between the district and SUNY Oswego to train, place and retain school psychologists in Syracuse classrooms, at roughly $1 million per year over four years.
“Students today face unprecedented pressure and mental health challenges,” Mannion said. “This federal funding will help Syracuse City School District and SUNY Oswego train, recruit and hire school psychologists so more students can get support where they are: In school.”
The district has been short on school psychologists for at least six years, according to Dr. Laura Kelly, the district’s chief of student support services. Nationally, the recommended ratio is one psychologist for every 500 students. Dr. Kelly said meeting that benchmark has been out of reach and the COVID-19 Pandemic made it worse.
Mannion, who spent nearly 30 years as a science teacher before entering politics, pointed to social media as the other major culprit. The algorithms, he said, are engineered to keep kids scrolling, which erodes sleep patterns, spikes anxiety, and lowers self-esteem. He said he has stood with parents who lost children tied to social media interactions.
“We’re going through the largest experiment in the history of human beings as we place these phones into 11-year-olds’ hands,” he said.
What separates this grant from a typical hire-and-hope approach is the pipeline it is creating. SUNY Oswego school psychology interns will spend the second half of their training embedded inside Syracuse City schools, supervised by credentialed psychologists. When they graduate, they commit to staying in the district for several years, a built-in retention strategy Kelly said is already showing promise.
“Having a full-year internship opportunity right here in the city is typically what wins people over,” Kelly said. If the trajectory holds, she added, the district could be in significantly better shape within the next five years.
The district currently operates three school-based mental health clinics at McCarthy, Dr. Martin Luther King Elementary and Grant Middle School, plus two satellite clinics.
Over the next year, services will expand to six additional buildings, including Brighton Academy, Corcoran High School and Fraizer Pre-K8. Families often wait months to access evaluations through outside providers. The clinics cut that barrier entirely, offering assessments, individual and family counseling, group counseling, medication management and crisis intervention.
Mannion is also pushing the issue at the federal level. During Mental Health Awareness Month, he introduced two bills targeting student mental health from elementary school through college. The Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Act would create giant programs helping high-needs districts hire and retain mental health staff, with a Senate companion sponsored by Jeff Merkley (D-OR).
His second bill, the bipartisan Enhancing Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Through Campus Planning Act, would push colleges and universities to develop evidence-based suicide prevention plans. It is co-led in the House by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-P) and carries senate support from Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Tim Scott (R-SC).
Odom, who spent years walking Grant’s hallways before rising to lead the fourth-largest school district in the state, kept it simple.
“This investment will help ensure more Syracuse students have access to the mental health support they need to learn, grow and thrive,” she said.