New York City public schools are ill-equipped to supportstudents' mental health. In the past, reports have misled parents about the programs available to their children in need. according to the State Comptroller's Office Thursday.
A four-year audit found that the Department of Education lacked the staff and training to support student well-being and ensured that students learned about mental health as required by state law. It turned out that it was not possible.
"Despite the DOE's willingness to address these issues, many New York schoolchildren still face mental health emergencies and schools do not meet their needs. We are not equipped to provide such support," Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement.
Auditors found government agencies ignoring state laws In 2018, it passed a call to make mental health instruction part of the curriculum, but there was no need to monitor schools for meeting minimum requirements or assess effectiveness. is not evaluated.
At the beginning of the audit period, the DOE also said online that at each school she had one of her six mental health programs available.
Auditors found that nearly 40% of her in public schools had none of these programs. Many of these schools are located in Manhattan's 2nd District and Staten Island's 31st District, the two largest in the system.
DOE discourages misleading information on its website. Fixed. Audit, according to the report.
In response to the findings, First Vice Chancellor Daniel Weisberg argued that DOE complied with the law, but that mental health classes as part of health education were tracked as a separate subject. Admitted that it is not.
An audit covering the period through last spring also found a shortage of social workers in many municipal schools.
According to data for the 2020-21 school year, more than 400 of approximately 1,600 schools did not have a social worker. It also found that 80% of schools with social workers were below the staff-to-student ratio recommended by the National Association of Social Workers (1 social worker for every 250 students). Auditor found.
In schools such as John Bowen High School in Flushing, he had only one social worker for more than 3,400 students, the report found. Also in Queens, more than 1,200 middle school students were assigned to her I.S. 238 Susan B. Anthony as a less than part-time social worker.
With more than 5,000 social workers and guidance counselors currently employed, each school has at least one of his mental health professionals, according to education officials. However, the city's Independent Budget Office disputes this claim.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates the youth mental health crisis in New York State, the DOE is working to improve oversight of mental health curricula in public schools and to develop measures to equip school staff. We need to step up our efforts, we have the resources we need to support the emotional health of our students,” said DiNapoli.
DOE provides mental health services to teachers and other school staff. training—but attendance at those lessons was low, auditors found in a sample of schools. Only staff — Eleanor Roosevelt High School in the Upper East Side and John B. Russwurm in P.S. 197 Harlem — participated in suicide prevention training during their tenure as Inspector General, the Inspector General found.
Educators say staff participate in other mandated trainings that serve similar purposes.
