Schools' budget troubles threaten support staff
6/3/03 -- A few weeks ago, a social worker in the Southgate (Mich.) Community School District attempted to encourage a young girl to focus on her schoolwork -- despite the girls' fears after finding her seriously ill mother collapsed on the floor at home.
Beverly Baroni-Yeglic, who also serves as president of the Michigan Association of School Social Workers, says she managed to reassure the young student and get her back into the classroom. But she wonders how many other students won't get the helping hand they need.
Her worries are warranted. Michigan's education budget was cut $130 million this year, and cuts of nearly $400 million have been proposed for 2003-04. Although such cuts haven't resulted in widespread layoffs among social workers, it appears that schools aren't filling positions that become vacant.
That's a shortsighted budget policy, Baroni-Yeglic says. "When we eliminate our ability to deal with students' mental well-being, we lose a whole chunk of kids. A lot are left behind."
It's happening nationwide. As local school officials rightly attempt to limit the budget impact on the classroom, they are being forced to strip schools of social workers, counselors, nurses, truant officers, and other support staff.
The short-term benefits of such budget decisions, however, are likely to be overshadowed by the long-term impact on students, warn a variety of non-classroom professionals.
Impact on learning
"Schools can no longer be narrowly focused on writing, reading, and arithmetic," Baroni-Yeglic says. "We have to look at the whole child. The well-being of a child has a huge impact on whether he or she can learn."
No one knows that better than Sheila Hummel, a truant officer in Washoe County, Nev. Over the years, the county's truant officers have found truants inside a drainage pipe, hiding from a playground bully, and, in one notable case, girls skipping school to work as prostitutes.
Yet budget cuts have cost her department its supervisor and three truant officers -- more than half the staff.
"It's very tough, very tough," Hummel says. "We don't have the means to help these kids, and it's so sad to see them falling through the cracks."
The problem isn't just that there are fewer bodies to haul kids back to school, she says. Although the public might view a truant officer as someone who does little more than prowl shopping malls for wayward students, the reality is that these professionals are very involved in intervention efforts.
Much of Hummel's day, in fact, is spent working with families to determine the underlying problems that are keeping students out of school. She steers families to counseling programs, deals with bullies, refers teenagers to drug rehabilitation programs, and works closely with juvenile justice and social service agencies.
Personal intervention
In Washoe County, truant officers have been known to buy clothes or alarm clocks for students -- anything to encourage them to return to school.
Without such personal attention, Hummel argues, more students will drop out -- or miss so many classes that failure will become inevitable. But with only three truant officers to serve the school system's 58,000 students, she can only watch as troubled students are neglected.
"We do not have as much time to work with kids," Hummel says. "I went from covering 13 schools to 29 schools. If I can save one in 10 students, that makes me feel good."
School nurses also are feeling the human cost of recent budget cuts. Judy Robinson, executive director of the National Association of School Nurses, says she recently talked to a school nurse who is the only one remaining in her district.
Such staffing cuts are leaving children vulnerable -- and, in some cases, affecting student learning, she says. Without nurses on site, health issues can easily be overlooked or poorly handled.
"We know that children are not getting the quality care they should get at school, Robinson says. "And it changes your ability to perform well. If your asthma or diabetes isn't handled well, you're not going to be learning well."
Health services cut
The fiscal crisis also has cut into the community support system. Across the nation, states are cutting funds for mental health agencies, health clinics, social service agencies, and residential homes for neglected or abused children.
In Rhode Island, for example, state officials are talking about cutting money for social workers, child-abuse investigators, guards at a youth training school, and youth anti-crime programs.
Policymakers in Montgomery County, Md., are weighing deep cuts in programs for troubled teenagers and community family resource centers. In New York City, budget cuts could lead to curtailed services at 18 child health clinics.
An influx of federal funds -- part of a $20 billion federal package to states that Congress recently passed -- could take some fiscal pressure off state lawmakers and ease future cuts in education funding. But many remain worried about the future.
In Massachusetts, for example, state lawmakers are talking of cutting funding for school-based health centers from $5.85 million to only $2 million. Already, budget cuts have forced one-third of the state's centers to close.
Yet, for many students, these centers are the only opportunity they have to receive immunizations, health screenings, referrals to physicians, and medical treatment, says Rita Olans, president of the Massachusetts Coalition of School-Based Health Centers.
"Schools with health centers are only in communities that are underserved by the medical community," she says. "If you take away these resources, I don't know what these children are going to do."
Actually, Olans knows perfectly well what will happen: High school students won't get screened and treated for sexually transmitted diseases, and more pregnant teenagers will receive little or no prenatal care. Students suffering from depression will go untreated, and chronic illnesses will go undiagnosed.
"Our country says it loves its children, yet I don't see it," she says.
Such frustration is shared by Claudia Ewald, executive director of the PACE Center for Girls in Dade County, Fla.
PACE is a school-based intervention program that attempts to keep girls in school. Its 19 centers statewide target troubled girls, ages 8 to 18, who are chronically truant, suspended or expelled, incarcerated, or otherwise at risk of dropping out.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has proposed eliminating all funding for the program, and although the legislature restored the funding, PACE leaders are holding their breath as budget talks continue. State funds support 59 percent of the program's budget.
Elsewhere, school officials are fighting for more resources. In California, widely recognized as the hardest-hit state fiscally, Sacramento school officials actually will be adding eight new social workers after winning a $9 million federal grant to tackle youth violence, drug abuse, and mental health problems.
More counselors needed
The need for such intervention is necessary after a study estimated that 20 percent of children in urban schools have some need for mental health counseling and support, says Melissa Brown, assistant superintendent for community health and education support services in Sacramento.
"This shows up in the classroom daily through kids who act out in the classroom, kids who have regular bouts of depression, complain about severe dysfunctions, or otherwise cry out for help," she says. "These funds will help children focus on learning."
Meanwhile, the nearby Robla school district is looking for ways to provide counseling services after cutting two school social workers that served its six elementary schools.
"It was a hard decision to make" to cut these positions, says Susan Battimarco, administrative assistant to the superintendent. She says the district is continuing to look for other resources to help children. "We don't want to lose the counseling for our students."
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