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The House Committees on Public Education and Public Health met on June 28 in a joint hearing to consider testimony presented at the May 17 House Public Health hearing regarding improving mental health services for children, school safety, and programs designed to support student mental health.

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics the committee took up. This report is not a verbatim transcript of the hearing; it is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Elias Zambrano, Texas Counseling Association

  • The role of school counselor has changed greatly through the years; Counselors are the mental health professionals on campus, hopefully working through a program model
  • School psychologists sometimes do not get hired because of lack of funds
  • These professionals should be the first responders in crisis situations; many school counselors have not felt comfortable and confident to step in and be effective in mental health situations
  • Planning must begin long before an incident can occur, one method is intensive counselor training and assessment of all students to determine mental health needs
  • Recommendations include requiring evidence-based training to counselors in schools & relieving counselors of non-counseling responsibilities
  • This allows them to use their training to stay ahead of any potential mental health issues
  • Increasing the CE requirement to 6 hours for principals and superintendents will increase awareness in administrative staff
  • Can work to increase school counselors and psychologists, with increased funds through grant programs
  • Huberty – What are you including in non-counseling duties?
    • It’s disheartening to see counselors with Masters degrees monitoring cafeterias rather than be available to students and parents
    • Counselors often brought into coordinating programs that do not apply to counseling or mental health
  • Huberty- Assuming that its between $80k-85k per year to pay counselors, this would be $1 billion dollars to spend in order to hire your recommended number of counselors
  • Huberty- I know that you are advocating for more counseling, but we have a limited budget that we must abide by

 

Cindy Doyle, Texas Counseling Association

  • We believe the first step to achieving a productive mental health program is implementing the Texas Comprehensive Model for Counseling Programs
  • There is much less stigma for visiting a school counselor rather than a psychologist
  • My goal is to help kids stay in school, and address their needs while keeping them focused on academics
  • When a student is recommended for more counseling, they will be referred to a mental health professional in the area
  • Shared experience with student who was sent to her office showing signs of violence and mental health issues
  • Should remove non-counseling duties from counselors
  • Should require at least 6 CE hours for principals/superintendents
  • Dutton – Your model may work well in suburbs, but in rural or urban areas, a lot of kids/parents will not seek out mental professionals; we need to make it more accessible
  • Dutton – Not every parent is going to follow through with seeking mental health care, and taking away scheduling duties from counselors may negatively affect students
    • I was hoping to emphasize the coordination between on-site school counselors and mental health professionals outside of the school system
    • The Comprehensive Model is in law, but not being implemented in a lot of areas
  • Cortez – How are counselors approaching cyberbullying and social media pressures?
    • I’m not a school counselor, I think they are supporting and sharing information and being in front of things going on, but I cannot speak well on school counselor roles
    • We work with children to feel stronger in their self-worth and disconnect from societal pressures
  • Cortez – Students cannot disconnect when they have their phone, and cannot escape the bullying that comes with having a phone
  • Koop – Is your profession paid through the state or are you accepting insurance?
    • We accept insurance and are not a Medicare provider, but some mental health professionals are
  • Koop – We still have students that are applying for free or reduced lunch, how is your system of private practice mental health going to work? Are schools liable for services?
    • Denton ISD has services paid for by a grant, and there are several places that accept Medicare
    • There has been no school liability as far as I know
  • Koop – Does Texas model include the private mental health services?
    • We promote coordination and working with schools and private practices to provide the best care
  • Koop – We may want to call counselors something else, so that it won’t get confused with scheduling duties etc.
    • Gave example of counselor that doesn’t have enough time to see students because of other responsibilities
  • Huberty – We need numbers and more data, but if counselors aren’t scheduling, who is? If counselors are not providing scheduling help, someone will need to fill that role
  • Bernal- Do counselors have the capacity to confront all the issues with mental health issues in schools? Do we need to add individuals to help with the large workload? It sounds like you’re saying that mental health practice is pushed aside for other duties
  • Huberty – There is no one-size fits all model, and there are many models being tested; some districts support mental health clinics, while some stress coordination with private mental health professional

 

Laura Huelin, School Social Worker, National Association of Social Workers

  • Social workers the front line, direct connector to mental health services; work in collaboration with counselors, and other social workers
  • Social workers provide support and counseling through different means; social workers have expertise in family and community systems, and meet with children in homes of schools depending on need
  • The key to mental health is developing relationships with these troubled kids, so that if they need anything they have at least 3 people to seek out
  • The students need to be comfortable around counselors and social workers to be ready to report what is going on with them and others
  • We work to eliminate pressures brought on by poverty and abuse
  • By providing ample number of mental health workers, we are able to ensure that each student gets the care they need
  • We may need to look in to partnering with universities or other institutions to put more boots on the ground
  • There must be a system of anonymous reporting at each school, which is sent to the principal who then decides what help to reach out to
  • Early intervention, and creating a user-friendly reporting process will see more problems being solved before they could turn violent
  • Keep teachers and students updated on what/how to report, because most referrals take place at the beginning of the year and are forgotten
  • Having student-led mental health groups to have a voice from students would reduce mental health issues on campus
  • We should extend the Child Psychology Access Program (CPAP) to include school nurses to provide some counseling, so we can have a proactive approach and prevent future issues
  • Having more co-locations on campus or close to the campus will provide a place to go to address any issue facing students
  • Asks committee to remember that mental health development starts early, and access is important and any measure to make schools safer must always include a mental health plan
  • Huberty – We had a bill last session defining social workers, but it died on the floor for political reasons
  • Burkett – It sounds like our best practices need to be put in practice
  • Oliverson – How does it work having to coordinate your work with the student’s home life?
    • Often times I can meet with a student that refuses to attend school, and I will go to the house and work something out to get them back in class
    • We also complete forms with families, which makes them more confident in our program and provides a branch to food stamps/healthcare etc.
  • Oliverson – Should we be looking at having our mental health professionals make sure that parents are involved and the home life is not ignored?
    • Yes, parent cooperation is very important, also letting the student know that anything happening at home does not define them as a person
  • Oliverson – Can you speak on anonymous reporting in your school?
    • Anonymous reporting does create false reports, but we need to take every report seriously
    • If a cyberbullying incident comes in, it may be difficult to investigate with no names
    • We will meet with the student and have a discussion about their life and as we are talking the student can end up telling us what is going on
  • Burkett – We recognize need versus safety of school personnel on home visits?
    • Part of it is my training, and safety precautions before I visit the home; depending on the situation, I can bring someone with me

 

Brook Roberts, Texas Association of School Psychologists

  • Appreciates effort to explore student mental health initiatives
  • Should consider codification of school social work &also school psychology
  • Should Incentivize districts to adopt National School Psychology & Counseling models
  • Proper ratio for psychologists is 1/1000 students, for counselors 1/250, for social workers 1/400
  • Recommendations are based on school psychologists providing comprehensive services, having psychologists practice only in special education limits access
  • Current Texas psychologist ratio is around 1/3000 students, should find incentives for licensees to return to the schools
  • School psychologists spend ~20 hours to complete evaluations of special education students, need to be more robust in this process to plan for student and limit liability
  • Psychologists are not positioned as service providers, but as gate keepers for special education access
  • Could have loan forgiveness, other incentives for professionals willing to work in high-risk schools, could retrain other professions to promote psychologist numbers (e.g. educational diagnosticians)
  • Program exists to reduce shortage of licensed speech-language pathologists in schools, committee should explore other programs to promote online learning, weekend courses, etc. and increase numbers of professionals; could partners with universities
  • ESCs could house crisis teams for schools, could also possibly assume responsibility for special education evaluations to free up local staff
  • TWITR program could be expanded
  • Only 20% of teens experiencing mental health problems will receive appropriate treatment, but 80% of these teens will receive services in schools; school-based mental health is independent and effective
  • Should also measure school connectedness & climate, not just testing
  • Huberty – HB 22 did expand the accountability to include other factors aside from testing, we are doing these things
  • Collier – I don’t disagree that counselors, psychologists, etc. are being asked to cover other tasks; seems like some of these other tasks would fit in the job description of counselors, like monitoring student populations during lunch, early morning unloading, etc.
    • Part of what I’m discussing is redundancy and inefficiency of these roles across settings, particularly with special education
    • Texas code prohibits anyone without a license from practicing psychology & special education evaluation must be performed by psychologists; could retrain diagnosticians to perform these roles
  • Collier – IS that in the Texas model?
    • No, it is in the National Association of School Psychologists Practice Model
  • Huberty – I like the idea of ESCs running crisis teams, not every district needs a crisis team full time; could figure out what this costs

 

Lisa Descant, Communities in Schools of Texas

  • CIS was created to keep students in schools and increase graduation rates, has shifted to focus on academics, behavior, and attendance outcomes
  • Demand for student mental health has grown substantially, CIS offers supports free of charge within school buildings
  • CIS’ scholl based programing is by far the most accessible resource for struggling students
  • HB 13 created a grant through HHSC that has been awarded to two CIS programs, being used in Houston to expand school mental health services & contracting
  • CIS affiliates across Texas are already providing 5 aspects of Gov. Abbott’s plan, including suicide prevention programs, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), expansion school counselor services
  • CIS was instrumental in assisting districts during Harvey, local ISDs relied on existing CIS infrastructure to provide critical supports
  • CIS works with DAEPs to provide services & supports for parents and students, also services for individuals in the DAEP
  • Allen – Should support CIS
  • K King – Agrees, CIS works with all types of schools
  • VanDeaver – I remember you being in the bill pattern for Art III, can you tell us how you’re funded?
    • Cost to state of individual student to receive case management services is $218/year, CIS works to reinvest funds into local students
  • Price – What is your capacity for that?
    • Constantly pushing the limit to continue to grow
  • Price – SO biggest barrier is lack of adequate resources to expand?
    • This is the most significant challenge, our “product” is CIS staff
  • Price and Descant discuss reach of CIS operations, CIS is active across the state

 

Billy Phillips, Rural and Community Health, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

  • Speaking on the Telemedicine Wellness and Intervention Triage Program (TWITR), charged to develop this program by Gov. Perry in 2013, funded through Office of the Governor
  • Serving 10 ISDs currently, TWITR is a mental health screening secondary prevention program
  • Designed to work in ISDs that have vacancies in counselors, limited mental health resources, etc.
  • Runs through Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
  • Train individuals on a referral process, roughly 100/year; immediately responds to student referrals via school counselors or school psychologists
  • SROs are good partners, program has had to remove one student where it looked like an arrest, but not focused on finding problem students
  • Program is scalable, ESC & solid educational training could help expand the program; conversations ongoing with potential partners
  • Had 30 ISDs reach out for participation recently, 4-5/day
  • Price – Everything you’re doing is done with the consent of the parent or guardian?
    • Yes, there are multiple consent checks at different steps of the process
  • Price – Regarding expansion, you wouldn’t necessarily be involved with expansion across the state, but Texas Tech HSC would spearhead, correct?
    • We developed a model that could work in scarcity, expanding thanks to HB 13; don’t have interest in running this statewide, but would like to help others adopt it
  • Klick – How are services determined when a student is referred?
    • Service dimension of it is very difficult, appreciates support of CIS
  • Klick – Have heard reports in Dallas that kids are taken directly to mental health facilities and parents only find out after the fact
    • Consent is a major portion of this discussion for us, this would not happen in our area
    • Generally, we find that people responsible for these children want to do the right thing
  • Klick – reports are distressing to me as parents have a right to be involved
    • Would need to pay attention to training aspect, TWITR expansion would need to be consistent with values of consent
  • Allen – What impact does TWITR have on students with disabilities
    • This is a difficult one as it is a hand-off issue, generally we have not encountered students with disabilities as defined in code
  • Bohac – Could you give the committee and example of how you interact with the faith community?
    • Very often when we need a long-term placement, faith-based ministries have assisted
  • VanDeaver – Have heard criticism regarding accuracy of the screening process, 42% of student referrals are accurate
    • We only screen ~half of students referred, currently reviewing process

 

Madhukar Trivedi, UT Southwestern Medical Center

  • Hard to understand why we prioritize physical health issues rather than mental health issues, mental health is mostly taken care of through crisis centers, etc.
  • Delivered program called Youth Aware of Mental Health to many campuses, small scope prevention program that has led to measurable decreases in symptoms of depression and anxiety
  • Involves extensive mental health curricula, particularly only crisis, anxiety, suicide & depression, how you find help for a friend, etc.
  • Friend referral is very important, can help get mental health services to these more students
  • Program is proven and effective, ready to be scaled up
  • Koop – What age did you start with?
    • Originally 9th graders, expanded to 10th, 11th, and 12th
  • Koop – We received testimony on teaching children kindness at very young ages, what do you think about this?
    • Program is focused on resilience in critical ages, works well as a complimentary support
  • Koop – In the European study, they tracked the early ages, did they ever come back in 9th and later?
    • They did not, they are very excited that we are doing a booster program focusing on older students
  • Bernal – Do school counselors or other personnel make your programs more effective?
    • Out program is clearly enriched by counseling and behavioral health programs in schools, work to build linkages with local practices in schools without before we begin
  • Bohac – How do you get around the stigmatizing factor due to presence of mental health professionals?
    • Our program is working with the entire class; this and educating on mental health treatment reduces stigma around students seeking help
  • Koop – Normalizing process is beneficial, similar to how certain conditions became normal to talk about physicians
    • Absolutely, similar to how breast cancer was not discussed with doctors in the past

 

Andy Keller, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute

  • Speaking on how different pieces fit together; how different programs around the state fit into overall mental health policy
  • Had an opportunity to study these issues in Houston & how Harris County Harvey responses and local programs fit into surrounding counties like Aransas, etc.
  • Desire to assist remains consistent, but resources and opportunities to implement certain things change between areas
  • Regarding link between violence and mental illness, mass murder events are difficult to stop, but we do have strategies that reduce overall risk of violence within populations
  • Mental illness by itself is not predictive of homicide, only very severe levels of certain illnesses are associated with escalating risk, and only then very slightly
  • Looking at those with significant risk of violence, home disruption, etc.; universal across socio-economic strata and ethnicity, however protective factors are predictive of potential issues
  • Also have a very small population, 900/year, who develop severe psychosis with drastically increased risk of violence
  • Need to consider these areas and where we can make the largest impact
  • Currently we wait ~8 years before providing effective treatment, much too long
  • Should help local schools develop mental health programs, the ability to intervene early and fast is important; Need to recognize that counselors and professionals in schools cannot cover all issues, need to build linkages to effective supports
  • Need to put telehealth on the same level as other delivery methods, very effective for psychiatry/counseling
  • TWITR should be expanded across the state, expert evaluation should be available at all campuses; but should be some sort of locality, e.g. students in Houston should get advice from professionals in Houston
  • Children’s Psychiatric Access Program (CPAP) program has momentum, Sen. Nelson has expressed desire to file legislation; works to support children’s doctors to expand access to care
  • Need to also look at children with severe psychosis, cost would be roughly $15 million, could be carried mostly by private sector through HB 10

 

Sonja Gaines, Health and Human Services Commission

  • Have responsibility over the Office of Mental Health Coordination which oversees coordination of 23 agencies, 18 of which receive $9 billion in mental health dollars
  • Some of the programs under the purview of the office relate to access to care programs, prevention, intervention, shared data, support services, etc.
  • Prevention, early intervention, partnerships, and a focus on competencies are an important part of any effective mental health program
  • Also has responsibility of state-funded services coming through LMHAs across the state, these LMHAs provide supports like call centers, MHFA, etc.
  • Need to focus on trauma-informed care, important to consider mental health issues in context of trauma that has occurred; HHSC strongly supports this approach
  • Also looking to help continue support for children aging out of services, Transition Age Youth Level Care has been instrumental in keeping children within communities
  • Gov. Abbott’s plan has asked HHSC to work very closely with TEA, working to coordinate approach
  • Important to have a coordinated community approach, communities involved in solutions leads to much better outcomes for affected individuals
  • Should try and teach any individual coming into contact with students about trauma-informed care
  • HHSC has web-based research tools, important to be able to spread information with community and affect individuals

 

Pam Wells, Region 4 Education Service Center

  • We have the advantage of being the lead for the Texas Behavior Support network, a structure that helps to efficiently spread structure and training to schools across Texas through ESCs
  • Responded to Santa Fe shooting and assisted, but LMHA needed more supports; have never delineated roles between ESCs and LMHAs on which does what in supporting schools in crisis
  • Currently running a summit to help with ESC training and education, streamed to all ESCs
  • PBIS program is a component of the Texas Behavior Network, can help create connections with individual students; linkages promoted by entities like Meadows are very important in building out individual supports
  • Presents list of support services
  • VanDeaver – Asks after which ESCs these programs apply to
    • Many regions are provided through Texas Behavior Network, some are specific to Region 4 because of the capacity we have
  • Teen suicide rate has increased by 10%, some recent statistics are not going in the direction we want them to
  • Unified Services for Children and Region 4 as lead of Texas Behavior Support network has been hugely beneficial; have been working with Crime Stoppers
  • Have been placed into Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant after Santa Fe due to Gov. action plan,  plan states that this could serve as a pilot for future mental health services at ESCs
  • Huberty – Looking for recommendations that could be implemented now, as school year is going to start
    • There are benefits for collaboration & work to provide support for districts that might otherwise not receive it
  • Some of our previous testimony may have been misunderstood, there are screening and services for students with IDD; also possibly a misunderstanding of Functional Behavioral Assessment, wants to make clear that this is not behavior modification
  • Would like to support effort of rolling out MHFA more broadly
  • Recommendations
    • Need to provide schools with accurate resources and professionals, one way to mitigate cost is through community partners
    • Increase communication/collaboration between schools, communities, and agencies
    • Maximizing effectiveness of public support for student mental health
  • We have done a good job on collaborating, but would have done a better job is supports were in place before
  • Huberty – What type of coordination do you have with local Harris county education authorities?
    • Harris does run the JJAEP & likely have many connections with LMHA due to this
    • Region 4 serves 7 counties across the Greater Houston area & have been able to provide the broad communication supporting LMHAs, Harris recently helped sign an MOU to help us provide the communication
  • Huberty – When you think about Region 4, you think about the Harris County JJAEP program, do other ESCs provide the JJAEP program in their areas?
    • Not something done universally across the system
  • Huberty – Would like information on this, need to investigate this moving forward; don’t want services going away with no resources to continue providing them

 

Lee Johnson, Texas Council of Community Centers

  • Updating Committees on current progress on developing MHFA
  • Many districts lack basic mental health literacy, initiative was rolled out to provide information and promote literacy amongst all school personnel (SROs, maintenance staff, etc.)
  • MHFA is designed to help support distressed individuals and provide basic first-aid level information, as well as assist average person help distressed individual to seek the professional help that they need
  • Gov.’s plan has made reference to MHFA and encouraging roll out before next school year, currently 225 trainings scheduled and anticipated activity will grow
  • Mental Health Coordinator at each LMHA has been posted in relation the Gov.’s plan
  • LMHA system was created to promote spread of MHFA across the state & also to provide data on dollars spent on mental health efforts
  • Expecting to see more collaboration among involved entities, especially with recent events like Santa Fe
  • VanDeaver – Will you be offering multiple trainings throughout the year? Is there follow up training?
    • Yes, multiple trainings throughout the year is very important, schedule is set by the LMHA very early on & most happen during the Summer
    • Training is really the first step in engaging people in the MHFA process
  • Huberty – We also need to know if this is a resource related issue, would also ask you to provide a list of wants & needs
    • Most LMHAs do not have a full0time MHFA coordinator to sustain community engagement
    • Working with HHSC to identify gap and will present recommendations
  • Huberty – Might need to think of school year differently & think of when staff can be trained more effectively
  • Price – These sound like good ideas, has been difficult in the past to identify staff that have been trained
    • Wells, Region 4 ESC – Perfect example of partnership between HHSC, TEA, ESCs, etc. is that TEA staff came to a meeting of ESCs and told us to go to LMHAs and help schedule training
    • Gaines, HHSC – We have begun tracking trainings over the last few months, will soon be able to note gaps

 

Public Testimony

Annalee Gulley, Mental Health America of Greater Houston

  • Worked with legislators last session that would have increased trauma training, access to care, and student services; bills did not pass the Senate
  • Will continue to work with legislature next session to pass measures focusing these issues

 

Kathleen Brown, Board Certified Music Therapists of Texas

  • Testifies to the positive effects resulting from music therapy, has a proven effect on improving mental health outcomes

 

Student Panel

Jacob Tate, Student

  • Shares his experience as a student with chronic depression and anxiety

 

Zoe Nansen, Student

  • Support services are focused on academic progress, not enough resources devoted to mental health supports in schools

 

David Ilouz, Student

  • Testified in support of expanded mental health access in schools

 

Questions for student panel

  • Bohac – Would like your opinion on mental health aspects in curricula and training
    • Inclusion in TEKS can help reduce stigma, lack of access can increase stigma overall
  • Huberty – Asks after social media use and trends in utilization
    • While internet does provide avenue for bullying, it can also be helpful to spread information to children on mental health issues; can often help in situations when information is not available otherwise
  • Burkett – Concerned about the development of stigma, would like to see recognition of mental health issues as primarily a health issue; would like to see multiple vectors developed to help students
  • Koop – Would you use an App to report cyberbullying if you knew it was anonymous? That is was the state is contemplating
    • All say yes, anonymity is an important component & should ensure that it isn’t used as a retaliation measure; also need to ensure reports are followed up on
    • Reporting is available on social media platforms
  • Bernal – Counselors may be the first touch point that is universally accepted & they exist on every campus; asks after counselors being an easy access for mental health services
    • Counselors are overburdened and difficult for them to administer additional mental health support services
    • Counselors do provide important services and solid touchstone, present constantly in the school; if ratios were more beneficial they could spend more time with each student

 

Joyce Mauk, Physician from Fort Worth – Texas Medical Association and Texas Pediatric Society

  • American Pediatrics Guidelines – doctors are expected to screen for mental health in a non-stigmatizing way
  • 75% of all mental health care diagnosis and treatments are handled with the primary doctor

 

Kisaundra Harris, High School teacher in Amarillo

  • In favor of trauma informed instruction training for all teachers
  • Personal story of working with a student who had a traumatic background, believes training and trauma informed instruction would have helped in the situation
  • Cortez – who would provide the training?
    • Hoping a program will be set up, there are trainings that exist and have spoken with other teacher groups who have had trainers that have come in
    • Mock – there are commercial training programs and some universities that conduct the training
    • Expects how each district implements could be different and different for each school

 

 Coral Zayas, Teacher

  • Request the state require all districts to provide “mental health first aid courses” and “trauma informed instruction”
  • Personal story of a student who attempted suicide and her interactions with students
  • Discussed how trauma informed instruction has helped her students
  • Requests to have more counselors in public schools

 

Roy Rios, Texas Council on Family Violence

  • Preventing data violence impacts school safety
  • School systems having prevention education will impact school safety

Colleen Horton, Hogg Foundation

  • Students in public schools may not be experiencing mental illness but may be struggling to achieve mental wellness
  • Support expanding mental health services within the school and reducing stigma associated with getting mental health support
  • Trauma informed care for children with intellectual disabilities – those children need mental health care as well
  • Trauma informed training needs to be in the Regional Education Centers and “Road to Recovery” curriculum needs to be readily available across the state

 

Shane McNamee, mdlogix

  • BH works technology has been proven to work in areas such as Delaware and New Jersey
  • Huberty – where is company based
    • Baltimore
  • Cortez – thanks them for all the work they did for the veterans as they returned home
  • Given they are a Dell company that wants to get more involved

 

Amy Hedtke, Individual

  • Believes stresses are due to legislative policies, education system hemorrhaging money and debt with them spending more money on sports than academics, people needing multiple jobs to pay for property taxes, etc
  • Refers back to shooting clubs once in schools, have gone from empowering students to medicating them
  • Not interested in her students being subject to universal mandated screening and data collection

 

Josette Saxton, Texans Care for Children

  • Need infrastructure to help students who need mental health outside of schools so they can access
  • Look at administrator training, school boards, superintendents regarding mental health wellness, risk factors, etc
  • Have a center where research based information and trainings are housed

 

Adrian Gaspar, Disability Rights Texas

  • Recommendation with twitter, extend contractual relationship so ISD is aware of contractual follow ups
  • HB 3887 which would have required information about trauma information prevention and instruction, would recommend they take another look at the bill
  • Supports something similar to SB 1688 which didn’t pass last session – would have created an office of mental health within TEA
  • Importance to utilized 1115 waiver dollars for the schools

 

Tiffany Williams, Coalition of Texans with Disabilities

  • Discussed concerns with Governor’s Plan with the Governor’s office this week
  • Concerned that some of the proposed policies could cause further harm by inappropriately targeting certain student groups in the name of discipline
  • Plan proposes funding for programs that are not evidence based

 

Columba Wilson, Individual

  • Personal story with her grandson, wishes schools had more trauma training

 

Shelia Hemphill, Texans Right to Know

  • Take God out of the classroom, get away from foundation then will have chaos in the classrooms
  • Personal story of child being treated with medication when really needing functional medicine

 

Virginia Young, Individual

  • Spoke about people experiencing adverse reactions to psychotropic drugs
  • Knows of parents being told they have to give there children medicine or risk having their children removed from their home by CPS
  • Concern of forcing certain drugs onto the community

 

Monica Ayres, Citizens Commission on Human Rights

  • Limited use of screening and they gives a number of false positive rates
  • Mental illness diagnoses is subjective

 

Yen Rabe, Start School Later

  • Working on bringing science and details to people on teen sleep
  • Sleep is foundation of health and tier one prevention
  • Wants districts to set health school start times

 

Pedro Gonzalez, Teenager and Start School Laster

  • Start time for school is 7a and bus pick up time is 6a and he works at fast food restaurant
  • Usually got between 4-6 hours of sleep and it was a challenge to stay awake in classes
  • If high school started at 8:30a or later as recommended it would be beneficial
  • Collier – thanked witness for his engagement and commitment to the cause

 

Lee Spiller, Citizen Commission on Human Rights

  • Concern about twitter program and mental health screening program
  • Concerned about identification – Florida example of numerous children having mental health detention
  • Funding is put into a lot of programs but suicide rate keeps going up, don’t have a statewide reporting law
  • Need to know how many children are being hauled off from school and what race
  • Don’t need a school to psychiatric pipeline
  • Good people out there religion or not religious that could help instead of all the mental health screening

 

Paige Williams, Texas Classroom Teachers Association

  • An 8 hour training course will not make them mental health experts
  • Teachers need clear and easy articulated process to follow should they notice certain mental illness
  • Thinks campus behavior coordinator could fit and address some issues
  • Urge that districts cannot exempt themselves from zero tolerance in District of Innovation