A report by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli shows a series of school districts around New York state failed to provide mandated mental health training to all school staff at the beginning of the previous school year, despite regulations under a longstanding school safety law.
Ninety percent of school districts audited by DiNapoli’s office for the 2020-2021 school year “either did not offer training or offered training that lacked some or all the recommended mental health components that educators should know” by the required date in September 2020, according to the comptroller’s report released Wednesday.
The findings come after a string of shootings across the United States, including one in a school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two adults. That attack came less than two weeks after a teenage gunman opened fire in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
Schools in New York are required to provide all staff with mental health training under school safety regulations by Sept. 15, each year. Nearly all of the 20 school districts surveyed for compliance with the mental health component of the New York Safe Schools Against Violence in Education Act failed to do so by the deadline, according to DiNapoli.
“School personnel are often the first to notice if a student is having mental health challenges, and they need effective training to help them understand the signs and symptoms early on,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “Failure to do so can have devastating consequences for students, staff, families and communities.”
Some of the 20 districts surveyed were located in the suburban areas of New York City, including the Port Washington Union Free School District on Long Island, and the Rye Neck school district in Westchester County.
Six of the 20 districts audited “either did not offer training or offered training that did not include any of the 12 recommended mental health components” under school safety regulations outlined by the State Education Department.
“In addition, trainings offered by the Districts lacked sufficient content to ensure that staff were, at a minimum, trained on recommended mental health components such as the 10 mental health warning signs, or ‘whom to turn to’ and ‘how to access crisis support and services,’” the report reads.
Several other shootings have erupted across the country in the days since Uvalde. Gun violence in schools, meanwhile, surged nationally last year.
Schools around the country have also been grappling with the emotional fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Children have reported increasing signs of anxiety and depression since school closures swept the globe in 2020. Educators have also seen an uptick in behavioral issues, which have at times escalated to physical violence.
