Crisis in Student Mental Health & Wellbeing

In this episode of Idaho Education Association's HOTLINE Podcast, we discuss the growing, critical crisis of student mental health and wellbeing and how its impacting Idaho students, classrooms and educators. 

The panel discusses what's behind this crisis, the need for increased school staffing to help ease its impacts, how student learning and the teaching environment are affected, and how growing expectations for managing outbursts are taking a physical and emotional toll on professional educators.

Our guests for this conversation are:

• Sonia Galiviz, a veteran educator, IEA member and newly elected member of the Idaho House of Representatives 
• Brooke Calderon, an IEA regional director who spent 10-years as middle school teacher in Idaho  
• Matt Compton, IEA’s associate executive director and key member of IEA’s Lobby Team

Transcript

Mike Journee: 0:13

Welcome to Idaho education Association's hotline podcast, a weekly discussion about what's happening at the Idaho legislature around public education and the policy priorities of ies members. I EAA members, our public school educators from all over the state. They're Idaho's most important education experts, and they use their influence to fight for free quality and equitable public education for every student in the state. I'm Mike journee, communications director at the IEA and I'll be your host for this episode of hotline. Today we're discussing the growing critical crisis of student mental health and wellbeing, and how it's impacting Idaho students, classrooms, and educators. It's a gut wrenching challenge in classrooms all across the nation and an issue that IEA members are eager for policymakers in the legislature to tackle. joining me for today's discussion, our veteran educator and IEA member and newly elected member of the Idaho House of Representatives, Sonia Galaviz, IEA Regional Director Brooke Calderon, who spent 10 years as a middle school teacher in Idaho. And IEA is Associate Executive Director and key member of Ida lobby team, Matt Compton. Thanks, everybody, for joining us today on this, this edition of the hotline podcasts for the AAA. And I wanted to we're going to talk tonight about student mental health and wellbeing. And we've been hearing a lot from AAA members, recently in recent months and years, about the challenges that they're facing in the classroom around this issue, and how it is really impacting their ability to teach how it's really impacting their student's ability to learn how it's impacting their ability to do their job overall. And so I'd love to hear a little bit from the two of you. And I'll let either one of you jump in here and talk a little bit about just how big of an issue is this for education these days?

Brooke Calderon: 2:12

Oh, boy, broke you on a star. Yeah, it's been huge ever since COVID, I think, really shifted a lot of things. And that was one of those things that we've seen a really massive rise in student behaviors and disruptions in the classroom in the last year and a half since the return.

Sonia Galiviz: 2:30

I think maybe that that time during the hard shutdown of the pandemic and the COVID years or whatever, it exacerbated some of the mental health but the crisis and need has been there for some time. It's just more profound and maybe more visible, because we have kids more aptly wearing trauma more close to the chest or on their sleeve a little bit more, we've been able to see some of the things that were maybe under the surface really rise to the top. And then not having coping skills or not having social emotional tools to be able to regulate emotion or be able to articulate what is bothering them. And then we had a good year and a half to where kids were perhaps in situations of isolation or some really painful situations in the at home without the intervention of the school because so often we our eyes and ears on kids to know if there are some of some of those needs, or situations happening that we might need to step in. And we were unable to do that. So then kids come back a year and a half later. And so we're sort of seeing the repercussions of that.

Mike Journee: 3:43

I so the, it sounds like this is a kind of a layering of issues that have happened over time. And then and then you just dump it all on the big vat of, of pandemic, right, and everybody in online learning and all the challenges and the lack of interaction and socialization. And that kind of thing is kind of where you think this is kind of coming from,

Sonia Galiviz: 4:03

yeah, it's kind of like a pressure cooker. You know, what you're saying that time away from school, away from some of the things that are the most consistent in the children's life. And I can't emphasize enough the interventions that just social and emotional and food and safety and clothing and access to health care and all those things that schools provide. And so they they were gone. And now we've got, you know that we hear a lot about learning loss, but beyond that we have social loss, we have you know, just those experiences that kids missed and some of those things where kids are learning, you know, manners and social norms. And so and then we have also I think the rise of pretty toxic social media at the same time and then social media and sort of this online world was um profound in the kids lives a lot of access to it all day when before they would have been at school. And so we sort of have this twofold. And so I've seen a rise in inappropriate behavior or some, you know, mental health, you know, outcry is or you know, something that would manifest as such, in that social media realm when it it wasn't like this 567 years ago. It's just, it's constant now, and we see it coming back into the classroom, as, you know, different types of bullying, getting into things that are really inappropriate. And it's just because they've had unlimited access for a while. And now, we see what that looks like in the classroom.

Mike Journee: 5:40

We'll talk a little bit about that, then if you will talk about when you have a really serious incident in the classroom, what walk us through what happens from from the moment that the disruption happens until you kind of get back to normal in the classroom? It's

Sonia Galiviz: 5:54

sure, tell me what describe the incident you're talking about pens depends.

Brooke Calderon: 5:58

It depends on

Mike Journee: 6:00

some, some examples. Give an example.

Brooke Calderon: 6:03

And then well, it depends like give me a few for have a student that's throwing tables, you might have to evacuate the entire classroom. And then there's a calming down period and things but there's also just the standard, you know, someone who's being super belligerent which you're going to be handling mostly in the classroom. I think probably the most common maybe someone you could tell me if you agree with this, but is a behavior that a teacher feels they can't handle in the classroom, it's usually, I mean, there's also violent behaviors and things but we're talking about the general problem is when you need a kid out of the classroom for a little while to get some redirection, and then bringing them back. And there's a lot of we're just short staffed, so it not enough administration to deal with those type of issues. People a lot of teachers don't feel like things are being handled outside the classroom, because they don't know what's happening with that student outside. And so there's just a lot that can happen within that realm that it's very unpredictable. Yeah,

Sonia Galiviz: 6:59

the default is if there's for talking about violent incidents, so far, we got a kid overturning a table. That's happened to me, I've got a kid chucking a stapler that's happened to me, I caught it. That was awesome. So yeah, all of those things, it's quite possible, that child takes priority. And so you actually exit the classroom, not the child. And I know first sometimes, non educators or parents, they're like, What do you mean? Why didn't you pull the kid out, and that's because we don't put hands on kids. And so I'm not physically removing that clip kid, we will go ahead and exit the rest of the classroom, and also has a different layer of intervention. And what you would do next next steps if the child is on an IEP, so if they're on, you know, individual education plan, there may be protocol for how you address, you know, outburst or something from that particular child and that trumps anything else that goes on in the classroom, the child with the IEP, you have, because it's a legal document. So but if describe

Mike Journee: 8:06

that a little bit, what is what is an IEP? And why why would what circumstances do you have one of those for a kid in your class?

Sonia Galiviz: 8:12

Sure. So a child on an IEP has medical diagnosis or otherwise need that impacts their academic or social learning. And they have a special like an individualized plan for them either academically receiving minutes of service for, you know, writing or reading or you know, math, but then there's also social qualifications. And kids may have diagnosis, either from outside professionals or we have a litany of testing and assessments and professionals, you know, school sites that do extensive testing in the classroom to see what exactly that child needs. And so there's protocol to get to that point. So you have to have a lot of data, you have to try a variety of interventions before a child would qualify for an IEP and it's always with in partnership and with consent of the family. And then they receive certain either pullout services or pushin services, or sometimes, you know, self contained classrooms, depending on the needs of the child. You know, we've got a variety of programs and districts across our country and across our state, you know, for self contained for, you know, children with autism or kids that need basically a one on one or everything from you know, where we have special education, but then you have extended resource where maybe they're spending the day, you know, with replacement curriculum. There's just a variety of things to where we're trying to provide the least restrictive environment for kids to be able to learn, but an IEP is quite common in the classroom. And so there's a just a variety of things you've got to know about how we handle something like an outburst or whatever the special needs are of the child.

Mike Journee: 9:55

And Brooke in the meantime, while this this outbreak is happening, every other kid in the classes is not being taught.

Brooke Calderon: 10:04

Yeah, I'm in a situation where you evacuate the classroom, typically someone is coming in to try to get that kid to calm down and to make that a safe space again. And in the meantime, everyone else was in a holding pattern somewhere else.

Sonia Galiviz: 10:16

Sure. Yeah. And we've had times where kids are exited. And let's say Brooke and I are teaching partners and she's across the hall where I've got her entire class as she's trying to address an outburst or you know, whatever else that's quite common, or you exit you know, your group of kids and you're in the library and you're trying to pick it up and when when Brooks talking about someone you know, pushing in to try to de escalate a child if that's the case, if we're talking about a violent outbursts or something that disables you know, the teacher from continuing, you've got so there are behavior interventionist B eyes that are in the classroom, and that's where we get into the different types of needs and in different schools for where they have one BI for 200. Kids, one BI for 600. Kids. So the school I'm in now has 600 students, the school I was in last year has like 220, still one bi, so and then you know, where you have different when you have?

Mike Journee: 11:11

And these are these people are specialized in, in being able to de escalate this these are are they are they counselors? Are they is they're not specific professionals. I mean, how Who are these

Brooke Calderon: 11:23

folks, that actually goes back to the whole issue of not having enough staff, because counselors is another one, you know, when we've got kids who were in traumatized is really what we're at. And then yeah, and then most of the time, it's an admin. It could be a bi, I'm in but a lot of times, it's just the the teacher.

Mike Journee: 11:40

Right? Right, which which, which then that leaves leaves, again, in the classroom, kind of out in the wind as far as their, their, their, their learning environment.

Sonia Galiviz: 11:50

And that's really common, where we're seeing from the narratives and the stories from our members, association members across the state, and, you know, our colleagues, our educator colleagues across the nation, that we don't have adequate staff to be able to meet the needs. And then we talked about the pressure cooker of the pandemic, and that the needs are significantly more and we don't have staff. So that's where you're pulling, you know, vice principals, secretaries, I mean, it is all hands on deck, we have had cafeteria personnel having you know, and we have committees and teams across schools that are trained in holds, if we have a child that's potentially hurting self or others, you know, we have teams that are the ones sort of the first responders if we have a kid run, because they're escalated, I have I have run out into Broadway in traffic to grab a kiddo that is sprint out of a classroom, these are all this is all a day in the life of a teacher, for sure. And you just, you know, we've, it's all hands on deck, but we the need that we see on a daily basis is is pretty significant. This week alone. We have one behavioral interventionist at my school. And you know, people are wearing the walkies and you hear like, where are you? Where are you? Where are you in his like, I'm already with another student. So now what do you do? Right? And so then it's like, who's, you know, Next Level tier two, tier three, and you're just trying to find the help you need?

Mike Journee: 13:15

Matt, this is something that we've been hearing a lot from our members about and recently in, and it seems like it's really gotten to a crisis point for a lot of a lot of our members. And we've touched on a lot of the different policy considerations around this. But you and I have talked at length about this, this the larger issue around personnel and and the funding of public education and the cascading effects that the lack of adequate funding has created in schools all across the state. We're not just talking about FC here, we're not just talking about, you know, for my time, spit balls are somebody talking about a turn right, this is this is a serious thing. So tell us a little bit about some of the issues that you've heard from members around this. Yeah.

Matt Compton: 14:03

So visiting with some members in eastern Idaho, we were in Idaho Falls talking with teachers from Bonneville. And over dinner, one of the educators indicated that she would be willing to forego a raise this upcoming year if they could afford to have more support personnel in school, so more classified employees. She says there's just too few adults in the building these days. And that's where some of these behavioral issues are taking place. She indicated that one of the best days she's had this year is one where she actually got to teach her class. And I think that's that that's something we're hearing more often we've done some longitudinal studies of from educators. And the last three years teachers have indicated that this is the most amount of burnout or frustration that they've experienced in their entire career. Interestingly, today, the Office for performance evaluation did a report indicate Anything that how short funded schools the whole system is when it comes to funding classified employees, and that the state is only funding 60% of the salaries and benefits for classified staff. When when the state has a $1.5 billion surplus, this really shouldn't be an issue in education.

Sonia Galiviz: 15:20

And I don't think folks, non educator folks, or if they haven't been in a classroom as a, you know, parent or a community member understand what the need is a, and then what those job requirements are for$12 an hour. There's a reason why we started the school year with a gap of over 700, you know, unfilled positions that's certified. When we talk about classified personnel, it's easily twice that, you know, across the state where we just have these needs, if we look at the Boise school district, or Nampa school district, or you know, any of our treasurer, that Treasure Valley, there have been jobs unfilled the entire year, you could go on there and see the job opportunities there. Quite quite a few. And so we have at my school have been short staffed since the first day of school and continue to be so we don't have the personnel that we need, because we can't hire them as well. So you have that on top of it. So that classified staff were talking

Mike Journee: 16:18

and you kind of touched on this, I believe, do you do you feel like this scenario, the the mental health and well being of students, and this challenge that we have with that is contributing to the vacancies that you see for educators. And when I say educators, I don't mean just certified educators, I also I'm just talking about our educational support personnel.

Brooke Calderon: 16:41

Yeah, we had, in one of my districts that I work with, they had more than once we've had people who started as a paraprofessional at the beginning of the day and drop their keys off before the end of the day. I mean, they, once they got in there, and they saw how much work was required for that amount of money, it just wasn't worth it. And it and it, it's such an important job. It's just so you can get them in the door. And you can't keep them right. Because

Sonia Galiviz: 17:09

because of the lack of personnel and I'm not speaking hyperbolically, this, they have had concussions, they've had full bite marks blood drawn, they've you know, kicked, beaten, battered, we had a closet, a glorified closet at my last school to where our SLC teacher would go in and turn off the lights because she had received two concussions, like back to back, and she just needed the lights off. Because like it, you know, it started to hurt her head, and she'd go in, and I'd go in to get some science supplies. And I'd see her in there. And I'm like, okay, and I backed back out trying to give her some space. And this was from her day job, you know, injuries from the day job. And so, because we didn't have adequate personnel helping, having, you know, one on one or smaller groups, and so because we're lacking personnel, but the, the classrooms have to go forward, legally, we have to be able to provide them. So even when you don't when you can't hire classified, we can't hire the paraprofessionals. That doesn't allow the teacher to be like, well, I guess we closed shop today. No, we're still open. It's still happening.

Mike Journee: 18:17

So it's no mystery to you guys about why we have this educator. Vacancy challenge, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty obvious.

Brooke Calderon: 18:26

It's, you know, I can't overstate how important class size is. You know, teaching 30 Kids is just, it's too much. I mean, you can do it, but you can't be effective. I think one of my favorite years of teaching was actually COVID. Because I had 15 Kids high end, with the hybrid days you're talking about, yeah, or even, actually, not the hybrid days, but a different point in time where we only had, we only had 15 kids in my class. And I mean, we we got through everything, we did so many amazing things. They got great feedback. I mean, honestly, double the staff that you have in schools in Idaho right now. And we'd be 100 times better. I mean, we just need more people in the schools.

Mike Journee: 19:12

We've touched a little bit about on a little bit about the the IEP right. And and and so that's there are a number of, of protections for students as well as for educators as well. And I think I'm curious to hear how they're there are laws on the books that that protect educators and give them a way to move forward if they're members of the IEA. They have advocacy advocate advocates like yourself, Brooke, who they can turn to to help them work through things. So where are the gaps in those protections and what is a good path forward for this issue? So that Matt, and to lobby to go to the legislature and talk to him about can

Sonia Galiviz: 20:03

I speak to something really quickly? I don't want to ever have it come across that we're saying that it's children that are on IEP s are like, I didn't mean violent. No, no, no, no, no, I just wanted to make sure that we, I would say, because I've got 20 years in the classroom, I would say the majority of my for talking about those interruptions or, you know, negative behaviors or things that need intervention are not my students, or my ups. So then that's a different layer, right? That's a different conversation. So when we have the IEP, you have an IEP, you have provisions in place, you've talked through what you know, what it looks like, what accommodations will be, what staff or your support staff to be able to meet the needs of the IEP. But what about your gen ed kit, just Jimmy, upset, you know, about whatever or we have at the schools that I've I've worked at, you know, in Boise, the last 11 years are new to country, or refugee or immigrant kiddos, where they have been in camps, they've been in war torn countries, and now we have a different level of trauma and crisis. And now I can't, I can't speak a language with him that that you know, to be able to de escalate properly. So we have layers of intervention that is needed and layers of understanding and professional development that is critical for educators to be able to make the best choices with the tools that they have. And so I'm still sort of amazed that social emotional learning, somehow got twisted and got this bad rap when what we're trying to do is give kids a toolbox an emotional toolbox of how to regulate how to identify what's going on, how to make different choices, how to self soothe truly, like you know, and then how to be able to relate to others and develop an empathy bone. So when that's been amped up, post,

Brooke Calderon: 22:04

yeah, along with that social emotional learning piece for the kids also is trauma informed teaching for teachers, they need to understand because I think the the key words from what Sonia was talking about earlier, the that exacerbation of things that were already there. And really trauma, it it was it's trauma of COVID is being carried over into the classroom, and it will be for years. And so increasing our counselors, increasing the social emotional learning, giving teachers, trauma informed practice procedures and things to help them do that would be super helpful, along with more staff.

Mike Journee: 22:45

Right. Now, Matt, last session, there was a considerable discussion around aces adverse childhood experiences, and there was a resolution that's carried forward that went through both houses and became was approved. And there's a lot of discussion about that. How do you feel the current legislature might might feel about more discussion about that, bringing more of that into the way that they look at the legal framework around K through 12? Education?

Matt Compton: 23:15

I'm a little pessimistic. I think last year, the the the resolution that was introduced is non binding. It's just informative. It's basically saying we recognize that there's a problem. And a conversation that took place even during the session was legislators just didn't, I didn't feel like they took it very seriously. And we had plenty of opportunities in years prior to that to introduce legislation on professional development, or additional resources for educators. And the best that I saw the legislature able to do was passed this resolution as there is a continued effort to undermine public education. I don't see there being an investment in mental well being I think that, you know, the attacks about social emotional learning have paved the, the way for anti public school advocates to defund public schools. Right.

Mike Journee: 24:11

Which takes us back to the point earlier about the chronic underfunding and starvation of resources that you guys have been talking about.

Sonia Galiviz: 24:20

Right. The one thing that I'd like to see us amp up and I know we've done in the past, and every time I've ever gone to testify before how sad or Senate Ed, now will be on the other side of the mic, which is weird. But I've always invited legislators to my classroom always, you know, and I've had one take me up on that in the years that I've invited so to be able to see so when someone is saying that kids don't need social emotional learning, or we're doing something nefarious, you know, as as a part of our curriculum are indoctrinating kids in some way. I know several teachers across our state and association members that would glad really demonstrate what a social emotional lesson looks like whether you're using a curriculum program like Sources of Strength, or whether I'm showing kids how to breathe and the science behind what your brain does when you're able to, like, take deep breaths and pause and a whole, you know, and all these things that are just de escalation, regulation tools that we would use to help a kid Calm down, you know, and I'm a big proponent of restorative justice and restorative practice in the classroom. So not just punishment for punishment sake, but helping kids understand how our choices impact others, and what does that mean? And how do we restore a balance? Right? How do we bring, you know, peace back to the classroom, because children want to learn, they want a classroom where they feel safe. So when we're talking about the rest of the class, like you said, Mike, like, what's the rest of the class doing? People want a functioning safe environment where they can learn, and I would, I would assume families want that too. You know, I've been doing home visits for nearly two decades, and families, they love their teachers, you know, and they want to make sure that we have the tools that we need to meet the needs of their children and keep a community and a culture that where kids feel safe and secure. So we can learn. But I refuse to accept that there's nothing we can do about this. So when you asked like, you know, where are the gaps? What are things that we can do so policy is needed. I appreciate the resolution. But now we need to actually put some funding behind it. And there's so we could change the way that we fund our classified staff. So we can have more counselors. So it's pretty simple, right? There are certain units that get us the money to, you know, pay for the bodies to be in there. So we need to increase what that looks like we need to change the funding formula to allow I'm always going to be an advocate for equity in that regard, because there are schools that need more help in in for talking about behavior, interventionist, or additional counselors than others. And so look, looking at that. What else do you think that would be helpful for teachers that are then more staff and funding, I'd like

Brooke Calderon: 27:07

to see some better protections for teachers put into place because they're, I feel like there's been a rise not just of student behaviors. But you know, that like Sonia was talking about the this the behaviors that people have gotten off of social media. And, you know, we've seen teachers across the state being attacked on Tik Tok and social media there, they end up being a national target. They get calls to their classroom that's interrupting their teaching time from people that they've never heard, but somebody heard from them on social media. So I mean, unfortunately, it's not just the issues of student behaviors. It's also, you know, the decrease in respect and the way that teachers have been treated outside of the classroom and by parents, unfortunately,

Mike Journee: 27:53

the larger material on our public life

Sonia Galiviz: 27:55

exactly right. Well, and when we have elected officials at the highest levels, either federal or state, really a letting go. And really setting a really poor example of how not only how we treat our educators in the field, but also how you go about solving a problem. So civic engagement is not modeled, you know, respectful discourse is not modeled, and certainly not seeking out actual narrative and voice from actual, you know, educators in the classroom. There's a lot of false narrative and misconceptions and hearsay to be able to create wide sweeping allegations and quite frankly, it's exhausting, as as a professional in the classroom. And so when we wonder why folks are leaving the profession, or we wonder why no matter what your salary is, it doesn't matter. They're dropping their keys off at the end of the day. These are some of the reasons and we've got to protect our educators.

Mike Journee: 28:56

And, Matt, the notion of creating more resources around this issue is one of our key legislative priorities going to this session. And so Sonia and her fellow lawmakers are going to be hearing a lot from IEA members, her fellow IEA members about that issue. So can you can you talk a little bit about what we might be doing.

Matt Compton: 29:18

So on Martin Luther King Day, we're going to have hundreds of educators from around the state joining us at the capitol for our annual lobby day. That's always exciting to have educators in the capitol sharing their stories, their experiences. And then every Monday, in February and March, we're going to have a local lobby day where we'll have legislate will have members from different legislative districts coming in to lobby on all of the issues as well. I can say that not only is this you know, behavioral issue is a huge issue for educators but for administrators, the State Board, the incoming superintendent of public instruction, the governor, School Boards Association, everybody sees this as being a signal If we can issue that, that can and should be addressed in this upcoming session.

Mike Journee: 30:06

Well, with that I think we can leave it be unless you guys have something else you'd like to add, I think versation

Sonia Galiviz: 30:11

The only other thing I wanted to add is that there are also creative solutions for addressing the needs of kids where we can lean on the community and partnerships that exist in while I've been in the Boise School District. I've taught at community schools. And so I'm at my second Community School. And so community schools, leverage partnerships throughout the community and resources that are pushed into the building, which allow another level of access not only for kids, but for families. And so the school that I'm at, we have St. Luke's health services, mental health services push in, and so kids are actually seen and allowed, you know, sessions on site, if that program was expanded, expanded throughout other schools, where with or without community school, you know, title or diagnosis or whatever, but that we have mental health care professionals that are in the community that can also help us and that, of course, is done with full consent of families, and they, you know, they meet with them beforehand. But our families, we I mean, we have a waiting list for kids to be able to receive those services, because families are so happy because it's a single car family, and mom's working a double shift, and we can't, they're, they're not able to maybe meet those are in that's in the middle of the day, and they have to remove Timmy to be able to go and meet you know those appointments. And so having that service push in, just reduces those barriers. So I would love for us to look at some of more creative solutions where we allow the community to help us with this. I think that's been a long frustration of mine to where schools are just required to figure it out, right, figure it out. But I think there's help in the community. And I think there's a conversation to be had of like, how do we elevate that which is needed to protect our educators to serve our children to you know, be able to provide what is needed for our families. And I think we see it as a as a problem that we are all a part of creating a solution. Maybe we'll get some more buy in from policymakers.

Mike Journee: 32:20

Thank you all. You bet. Great conversations and an extraordinarily important topic. And we're looking forward to seeing how lawmakers and your new colleagues in the legislature respond to this and make progress.

Sonia Galiviz: 32:35

Looking forward to it. Thanks, Mike. Thank you.

Mike Journee: 32:40

Thank you for listening to Idaho education Association's hotline podcast, and this important discussion on the growing critical crisis of student mental health and well being. We hope you found it enlightening. Thanks as well to our guests IEA member and newly elected Idaho representative Sonia validities IEA, Regional Director, and veteran educator for Coldren and IEA, Associate Executive Director Matt Compton. Please watch for future updates about new episodes on IE A's social media channels or sign up for email updates on our website at Idaho eaa.org. I'm Mike journee. And as always, I hope you'll join me in thanking Idaho's public school educators for everything they do for our State students, families and public schools.