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Data from student mental health reports led ETHS’s student services team to ask the board of education on Monday for help to address student needs.
Associate Principal of Student Services Mia Lavizzo led a presentation of the 2023-2024 report on student mental health on Monday, Dec. 9, in front of the District 202 Board of Education.
This report included a number of suggestions for how the team can better support students with mental health needs, including incorporating a multi-tiered system of support and adding a coordinator to better facilitate the support programs available for students across the school.
“We need an MTSS coordinator,” Lavizzo said. “One who is highly qualified, who understands the complexities of MTSS work and how it impacts interventions and it works across the district. It isn’t a student services need, it’s a school need.”
By the numbers
Students at ETHS reportedly saw relatively steady mental health levels over the last two school years. Disparities, though, continue to exist between demographic groups, according to data presented Monday
The high school saw a slight increase, from 315 to 330, in the number of referrals for mental health services between 2023-2024, according to the report. This took the total percentage of students receiving mental health referrals from 8.8% to 9.5%.
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Although this number increased, the school saw some small success in the severity of some students’ mental health needs.
The number of students hospitalized and the total number of hospitalizations decreased marginally, dropping from 127 students (3.5% of students) with 159 hospitalizations to 113 students (3.2% of students) with 123 total hospitalizations.
The percentage of students receiving suicide risk assessments rose slightly, from 2.8% in 2022-2023 to 2.9% of students in 2023-2024. The severity of these risk assessments, though, reportedly has shifted toward more moderate and low levels in recent years.
None of these listed statistics are a change of more than one percentage point.
The school saw the biggest drop in mental health levels during the pandemic, and the numbers have been rebounding since then.
Still, though, the student service team cited disparities in mental health levels, and the ever growing needs of the school’s students.
Disparities in mental health levels
“We see that our Black and Brown students continue to be represented in those numbers highly, and our white students still have significant needs as well,” Lavizzo said.
Black or African American students made up nearly half of the social work referrals in the last year, mirroring disparities in last year’s report. Black or African American and Hispanic students also were disproportionately represented in referrals to ETHS support groups.
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At last month’s Nov. 12 Board of Education meeting, ETHS Director of Research, Evaluation & Assessment Carrie Levy also presented a student well-being survey in which Black and Hispanic students reported lower levels of sense of belonging, school involvement and feeling of inclusion.
Board member Patricia Maunsell asked the gathered student support services team on what they need to better help serve these students, and they provided some suggestions.
Addressing needs
Student services offers a number of supports for students, whether referring students to social workers, the school’s Literacy Lab or the school’s support groups offered.
But Lavizzo described a difficulty in incorporating all the different channels of support that are accessible to students.
Lavizzo’s team has already begun trialing MTSS software, called Panorama, and the team described how the software allows staff to create a list of all interventions, whether they’re initiated by deans for disciplinary infractions, teachers for additional learning support, or a student services employee for mental health needs.
Eventually, they hope this software will help with integration of all the school’s support offerings.
Lavizzo urged the board, though, to consider hiring a specific MTSS coordinator. She told them the school needs someone to track and monitor these supports and doing so is beyond the scope and capability of just student services.
ETHS officials request another staffer to address student mental health is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.