SAN FRANCISCO — As Benito Luna-Herrera teaches his 7th grade social studies classes, he is on alert for signs of inner turmoil. And there is so much of it these days.
Since the pandemic started, experts have warned of a mental health crisis facing American children. That is now playing out at schools in the form of increased childhood depression, anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders, fights and thoughts of suicide at alarming levels, according to interviews with teachers, administrators, education officials and mental health experts.
“I don’t want to read about another teenager where there were warning signs and we looked the other way,” said Sen. Anthony Portantino, author of a bill that would require all California middle and high schools to train at least 75% of employees in behavioral health. “Teachers and school staff are on the front lines of a crisis, and need to be trained to spot students who are suffering.”
Many children bounced back after the extended isolation, but for others it will take longer, and mental health problems often lag a stressor. “I have never seen kids be so mean to each other in my life,” said Terrin Musbach, who trains teachers in mental health awareness and other social-emotional programs at the Del Norte Unified School District, a high-poverty district in rural Northern California. “There’s more school violence, there’s more vaping, there’s more substance abuse, there’s more sexual activity, there’s more suicide ideation, there’s more of every single behavior that we would be worried about in kids.
President Joe Biden has proposed $1 billion in new federal funding to help schools hire more counselors and psychologists and bolster suicide prevention programs. That followed a rare pubic advisory in December from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on “the urgent need to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis.”
The course helps distinguish typical adolescent ways of dealing with stress — slamming doors, crying, bursts of anger — from warning signs of mental distress, which can be blatant or subtle. “Sometimes an adult can ask a question that causes more harm than good,” said Luna-Herrera, the social studies teacher at California City Middle School, a two-hour drive into the desert from Los Angeles.