After more than two years of town disputes and a state investigation, the debate over whether one school district’s mental health care for students is adequate may come to an end in the coming weeks.
A state board of education committee recently heard testimony from mental health service providers who said the Killingly school district plans to expand services for the next school year, depending on funding. Caitlin Ogilvie, services director for Community Health Resources, described the expansion plans to lawyers at the state hearing.
“It appears that Killingly students are finally getting what they have been asking for for a long time … and we are very hopeful that this matter will be resolved before the start of the school year,” said Mike McKeon, director of legal and government relations for the state Department of Education.
The hearing is part of the Department of Education’s 10-4b investigation to determine whether local school districts violated state educational interests by missing an opportunity to establish in-school wellness centers for mental health care in 2022. Complaints of this nature rarely proceed to a hearing, but this hearing followed a formal process that stretched over several days and stretched into more than six months.
The lawsuit with the state has not been formally resolved, but lawyers for all parties said it is expected to be resolved by next fiscal year.
A group of Killingly residents filed a complaint with the state after the local school board voted two years ago to reject a grant-funded wellness center for students. The vote came after a mental health nonprofit surveyed Killingly’s seventh through 12th graders and found that about 30 percent of respondents had thought about harming themselves, and 14.7 percent had planned to commit suicide.
At the time, opponents of the mental health center raised a number of complaints and references commonly heard from the political right, including cancel culture, Hillary Clinton, abortion and gender identity.
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Some questioned whether schools were the best places for mental health care, and some questioned whether providers should seek parental consent to treat students.
More than a year after the initial vote, the local board approved a contract with Community Health Resources to provide part-time mental health care in the school district.
The school board came under Democratic control in the 2023 elections, and commissioners voted to expand the contract.
CHR plans to hire two full-time employees and one part-time employee. Previous contracts called for 0.6 hours per week per employee, but the company is willing to offer more hours, Ogilvie said.
School-based services will also be implemented in primary, middle and high schools, she added.
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This is not quite the same as a school-based health center, which typically does not charge copays, while CHRs still bill families and insurance companies for services.
But Ogilvie said state funds are available for those who can’t pay, and the organization has a sliding scale payment system.
“The proposal to provide 2.5 full-time equivalent therapy services at three schools for the new school year is a far cry from the deliberate indifference to which the report referred,” McKeon said of the investigative report he wrote about Killingly ahead of the 10-4b hearing.
Andrew Feinstein, an attorney for the concerned parents who filed the complaint, said it was a positive step.
“From my client’s perspective, this is a huge win for Killingly students,” Feinstein said.
The State Board of Education’s 10-4b hearing committee is scheduled to reconvene in about a month to finalize the settlement, he said.
Ginny Monk is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror ( https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2024 © Connecticut Mirror.