It’s a stressful time to be a student, and schools should be working to care for students’ mental health.
That message was delivered to the New Westminster school board April 27 as student, parent and staff groups made their pitches in advance of the school district’s 2021/22 budget.
Mental health was a recurring theme in their presentations.
Katharine Galloway, a New Westminster Secondary School student representing the Student Voice group, said participants in a recent school symposium had a number of ideas about how the school can support students’ mental health.
They suggested having Pro-D days for teachers to learn more about mental health and how to help students.
“Students believe that class time should be devoted to educating everyone on mental health challenges and coping tools,” Galloway said.
She also said students would like to see a parent education night offered around mental health.
“A lot of students felt as though their parents didn’t know a lot or parents didn’t support them, and so a night like that would be good for everyone’s learning,” she said.
Kathleen Carlsen, speaking for the district parent advisory council, also stressed the need to support students’ mental health.
“Even before COVID, there was a huge demand for more mental health supports,” she said. “The pandemic has only reinforced the need for these supports and made them even more necessary.”
Carlsen said the district needs to provide funding for supports such as additional counsellors and Indigenous support workers – or, if it doesn’t have sufficient funding to provide those supports, to advocate to the Ministry of Education for it. She said DPAC wants to see at least one full-time counsellor in every district school.
TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS PUSH FOR COUNSELLORS
District staff were on the same page.
Sarah Wethered, president of the New Westminster Teachers’ Union, noted the district provided extra counsellors in the 2019/20 school year.
“This year we staffed over our required number for counsellors, and teachers would like to see this continue as we deal with the aftermath of a global pandemic and the trauma it has inflicted on society,” she said.
Ken Millard, speaking for the district principals and vice-principals, added his voice to the call for counsellors.
“We know that right now is a stressful time, but I think, just in general, things in society are becoming a little more stressful,” he said. “We’ve seen that especially in the middle school and high school students, so we would support any growth in counsellor time; we think that’s important.”
The stakeholder groups’ submissions to the board were part of the school district’s 2021/22 budget process.
Superintendent Karim Hachlaf will be bringing budget recommendations to the board at its May 11 committee meeting, and the budget is expected to be passed at the May 25 school board meeting.
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, [email protected].
