Dist. 15 Candidates Address Making Mental Health Of Students A Priority

Dist. 15 candidates (from left) James Taylor, Frank Annerino, Lisa Beth Szczupaj, Eric Bachmann, Anthony Wang

The five candidates running for four, four-year seats on the Palatine Elementary School Dist. 15 Board of Education believe more work can be done in the area of mental health needs for students.

Current board member Anthony Wang says mental health is a major post-COVID issue, and to address this, the district has made increases in hiring mental health professionals and supports for students.

“We are still not quite as right-sized as we’d like to be as a district, but much of that has to do with budgetary constraints,” Wang said.

According to fellow board member James Taylor, since Covid, the district and board of education have made mental health support of students a top priority.

“We have supported the increase of mental health providers in each of our schools to ensure that support is available for our students each day,” Taylor said. “Our schools partner with local mental health agencies to provide resources to students and families above and beyond what our staff provides at the school level.” 

Taylor said the district prioritizes student safety and mental health and district policies and procedures are in place to do so, but he thinks the district needs to do better bringing those policies to life at a building/community level. 

“We are a very large district and decisions need to be made with the entire district in mind,” Taylor said. “When it comes to mental health, however, more effort needs to be made by the district to help the buildings put those policies and procedures into practice in a small community based approach.”

Taylor added that buildings need to be able to apply those policies in a way that encourages them to get to know and understand the mental health needs of individual students. 

Challenger Eric Bachmann believes the district must continue to train all staff on potential threats and mental health assessments in order to improve awareness. He said this will help staff members be more prepared to stop concerning behaviors and choices before they happen. 

“The district has many mental health supports in place and is continuing to make sure that all students and staff have what they need,” Bachmann said. “Counselors and social workers in the schools are so important.”

Bachmann added the district is getting ahead of potential situations by recently including safe gun storage information on their website and in the newsletter. He believes these are the issues the district needs to address in order to keep everyone safe and potentially save lives.

Current board member Frank Annerino believes that if a child is not feeling healthy physically or mentally, then they are not able to learn effectively.  

“Physical health is generally more obvious, and so is corrective action,” Annerino said. “Unfortunately, mental health is not necessarily easy to see, and children can suffer in silence.”

According to Annerino, to better address students’ mental health needs, the district has hired more counselors for all the schools.

“We saw the rising need of our student body several years ago and answered this need expeditiously,” Annerino commented. “We recognize that the mental health of our students is extremely important and have provided them with education on mental health. This social-emotional learning fosters emotional awareness and resilience in the students. They are also informed about help that is available to them.”

Annerino added that district staff is trained to recognize the warning signs of a student that may need assistance and the resources available, and the tiered interventions the district provides are tailored support based on individual student needs.

Fourth board member, Lisa Beth Szczupaj noted the district increased their mental health staff following Covid in an effort to mitigate what they saw as rising mental health concerns that were “exacerbated by the pandemic.” 

“Budget constraints are a concern with regard to this issue as we strongly feel we need to maintain this elevated staff number, but there is not sufficient funding provided to ensure a sustainable, right-sized mental health staff,” Szczupaj said.

She stated this is not just a Dist. 15 issue: “Budgetary support for increased mental health services should be a priority on both state and federal levels.”

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