Dear Commissioner, Legislators, Executive Councilors, and State Board of Education Members:
We are seeing school budgets rising while enrollment declines. Changing the model in public schools to the Community School (CDC’s) model will certainly add to those escalating costs. Turning our schools into mental health facilities has brought a whole new set of problems, and next up are the medical facilities known as School Based Health Clinics.
Much of this began when New Hampshire accepted the SAMHSA grant. These resources could have been used for mental health facilities, but some of this money was directed towards public schools. Many school districts have trouble teaching kids to read, now we are expecting them to administer mental health services to children.
What did this do? Increase behavior problems.
Instead of consequences for bad behavior, students are directed towards pseudo-psychology. This is administered by people working in the schools who do not have the education or clinical training needed to treat a child’s mental health. Now that discipline has become therapy, is it any wonder behavior issues have become a bigger problem?
Teachers are expected to “manage” their classroom, and if that doesn’t work, counselors, school psychologists, and social workers will deal with it. This has a significant impact on the school budget, and shifts consequences to non-punitive therapeutic sessions that taxpayers now have to fund. Is it any wonder that there are more calls to increase state funding to the public schools?
In a time where over half of the high school students in many of our districts are not scoring proficient in the core subjects, we are providing half-baked mental health services, by individuals who are not qualified to administer mental health treatment. Some of these services are packaged off-the-shelf products sold to schools for a profit. This was a money making endeavor, but we have nothing to show for it. This money would have been better spent helping children who are sent to the hospital, and sometimes wait a week to get into the ONE mental health facility in New Hampshire.
The Multi Tiered System of Support-Behavior in New Hampshire Schools has been costly with absolutely no scientific evidence that it has helped academic outcomes. If we are looking to reduce costs at the local level, then start with MTSS-B. This has turned our local schools into mental health clinics, and reports that behavior problems are becoming worse.
How many non-teachers are on the payroll to help schools become mental health clinics? Can we pay for some tutoring instead?
None of this was in place prior to 2010 when Massachusetts students were finishing at the top in the country. They showed that their students could compete with their peers in Singapore with high quality academic standards and tests. Instead their model has been discarded for the CDC’s dumbed down model. This starts with the Governor’s office, but all of you have some role to play in shaping our public schools.
What is MTSS-B?https://nhmtssb.org/what-is-mtss-b/overview/
Overview of NH MTSS-B
NH’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports for Behavioral Health and Wellness (MTSS-B) framework is a comprehensive system of social, emotional, and behavioral supports to promote student wellness and improve engagement in learning. Based on the Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF), MTSS-B blends research-based school mental health practices and social-emotional learning with a tiered prevention framework.
INCREASE COST TO EACH DISTRICT:
We can see enrollment is declining, so why are school budgets increasing? With these kinds of programs, the district is expected to hire additional coordinators, counselors, social workers and school psychologists. Turning the school into a mental health clinic isn’t going to be cheap.
TIER 1 SEL
The bottom tier of the MTSS-B framework is Social and Emotional SEL learning. SEL is directed at every child whether they need it or not. These programs come at a significant cost, can include leftist propaganda like Anti-Racism, and can deliver personal mental health data to SEL vendors. All of this is done without parental knowledge or consent. Once the SEL vendor collects this mental health data on children, there are no real privacy protections in place. The federal student privacy law, FERPA includes exceptions that allow data to be shared without parental knowledge or consent. SEL products and these data have become commodities.
From the PowerSchool Lawsuit
SEL EMBEDDED IN MATH PROGRAMS
Since data is gold, SEL is included in math programs used by schools throughout New Hampshire.
Eureka2is used in schools like Merrimack, Eureka2 embeds SEL in the math program. Not only will the Eureka2 math vendor collect data on a student’s math scores, they will be gathering mental health/ SEL data at the same time. On top of this invasion of privacy, this takes away time from learning math. Do you seewhy math proficiency scores are so low?
SEL BECOMES TRANSFORMATIVE SEL
Transformative SEL
The Critical Race Theory to SEL Education Pipeline
EXCERPT:
In the “transformative” model, “self-awareness” encompasses a student’s understanding of their “identity.” Their “identity” is to be understood in terms of “intersectionality,” a concept coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, the woman who coined the term “critical race theory.” This “transformative SEL” encourages students to understand their “identity” in terms of their belonging or non-belonging to identity politics categories that signify privilege or oppression.
CASEL the GATEKEEPER OF ALL SEL PROGRAMS
There is NO need to learn the academics, kids can look that stuff up on the computer. In their own words.
TIER 2 Interventions
Tier 2 will include visits to the School Counselors, Social Workers or School Psychologist. Schools used to employ counselors, but now they’ve added all kinds of pseudo-mental health providers. This has driven up the cost to local school districts, but many teachers are reporting that this has also increased behavior problems.
Since teachers have been sidelined to act as facilitators vs instructors, the chaos in the classroom has increased. Now there is an additional need for paraprofessionals, as behavior problems like we’ve seen in Keene, increase.
School counselors reported that Keene State BHII, the organization who must report back to the Feds on MTSS-B, gathered personally identifiable mental health data on students. This was done without parental knowledge or consent. This is a direct violation of a student’s privacy rights, and the School Counselor’s Code of Ethics.
TIER 3 Wrap Around Services
In North Hampton, when inquiring about the additional $90,000.00 to the budget for Seacoast Youth Services, I was denied basic information regarding student privacy, and if Medicaid or Private Insurance could be billed for these services. The Superintendent reported that in an effort to reduce suspensions, students were now attending SYS instead. This will be added to the school budget while Winnacunnet’s math proficiency scores have remained around 30%+ for the last three years.
Teachers have reported that the services provided by SYS (non-punitive) have been taken as a joke by students. Some will acknowledge that it could work if the student takes it seriously, but many report that it is not taken seriously by many students. SYS receives taxpayer funding, but how do they measure success? Based on feedback from the 3rd party provider who is making money off of the taxpayers?
This is another expensive experiment on children. Instead of consequences to bad behavior, students are now treated as if they have a mental health issue that needs to be addressed by individuals who are not qualified to administer mental health treatment. Taxpayers now have to pick up the tab on all of this.
I have heard testimony before our senate and house committees by counselors and social workers working with students in the schools. Some oppose legislation that requires informed consent by parents before administering mental health services to children. However, in federal law ESSA, this is already a requirement. These people are ill-informed of the federal law, which tells me that they are not following the law. I’m running around informing schools of their legal obligations. These people have no idea what the federal law requires of them when they administer mental health services or administer mental health assessments. That’s what happens when you expect education professionals to administer a mental health clinic.
Will some teachers support MTSS-B in their schools? Sure. They are desperate for some kind of help when children are misbehaving, and administrators are expected to administer therapy now. Now they can say they are doing something by providing SEL services, hiring pseudo mental health professionals, or farming out students to 3rd party providers who are not responsive or accountable to the people paying for their services.
If you are looking at grants or legislation to fund MTSS-B or anything associated with MTSS-B, I caution you to think twice. What I am seeing is a lot of money wasted on turning schools into mental health clinics with no real evidence it helps with academic outcomes or improved behavior.
Ann Marie Banfield
TRUST REQUIRES TRANSPARENCY
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
New Study Finds Multiple Problems with Push for Social-Emotional Learning in K-12 Education
The Trouble With Social and Emotional Learning
