Calallen ISD sends letter to TEA on student mental health
“The actuality that their little one passed the STAAR implies incredibly minimal to a guardian that has missing their little one to suicide or a faculty capturing,” board users mentioned in a letter.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — “How many additional learners ought to die for TEA to prioritize university student mental well being?”
That is a problem the Calallen ISD Board of Trustees asked the Commissioner of Training, Mike Morath, in a letter to Texas Education and learning Agency (TEA) legislators. The letter, dated June 13 and produced by the district on July 19, was penned in the wake of the Uvalde massacre where by 19 college students and 2 academics have been killed by a gunman.
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The Calallen ISD board wishes a complete re-evaluation of the priorities in the Texas instruction process, the letter states, particularly moving resources away from standardized screening to help with scholar mental health and fitness and teacher retention.
“Texas little ones are struggling, when TEA carries on to force forward with a technology and data drive agenda,” the letter states.
Texas officials signed four-calendar year agreements totaling $388 million with two companies to build and administer its controversial Condition of Texas Assessments of Educational Readiness (STAAR) examinations for general public school students until eventually 2024. The Calallen board reported that dollars can be far better used somewhere else.
“All colleges want far more licensed therapists, assist staff members and schooling for our lecturers,” the letter said. “The actuality that their youngster passed the STAAR suggests pretty little to a father or mother that has lost their boy or girl to suicide or a school capturing.”
In June 2022, Texas leaders announced that they have agreed to devote $105.5 million in point out resources to increase college safety and mental health products and services following the Uvalde massacre, according to a report by the Texas Tribune. 50 percent of that dollars will go towards bulletproof shields for officers.
“These impersonal priorities remove the very point our youngsters want the most- particular connections and associations,” the letter said.
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“We cannot stand by any for a longer period and carry on to accept the projected path of Texas schooling. The Texas education and learning program desires to be restructured with a new emphasis on university student wellbeing, a return to local community choice-making and correcting teachers salaries. Texas learners should have improved.”
Corpus Christi Fireplace Marshal Randy Paige, whose son attended Calallen ISD and died by suicide in 2015 said there was a whole lot of real truth to the letter.
“I did not know that there was $900 million spent by the condition on screening, which is absurd. I feel that money need to be targeted on academics and mental wellbeing of pupils,” Paige reported.
Calallen ISD has counselors on each campus as a psychological wellbeing useful resource. Paige explained the campus continue to goes to him to honor his son’s memory as perfectly as to proceed the discussion of mental wellness awareness.
“Just after Colton handed absent, the faculty out there, in partnership with them by way of our walks and different things, they have stepped up,” Paige claimed. “At the very least speaking about suicide recognition and mental health and fitness.”
Initial-year superintendent Emily Lorenz reported now is the time to address the TEA’s funding priorities. She would like to see protection, university security and mental overall health at the forefront.
“I believe the voice of the board associates, they signify our local community,” Lorenz reported, “and they genuinely felt that this was important for them to voice as they imagine that we will need to assist and prioritize the requires of our learners and employees in schooling.
As a superintendent, Lorenz appreciates college student effectiveness is unbelievably important, but she claimed the district also will work to prioritize making effectively-rounded citizens outdoors their walls one more motive she’s hoping to see better-balanced TEA funding.
“We’re not against point out screening, I think it is really just building a far more equitable technique and bringing consciousness to some of all those additional desires that perhaps are not funded at this kind of a superior amount,” Lorenz claimed.
Read the letter in complete under.
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