I am writing in response to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle our education system as we know it. Per the National Education Association (NEA), Donald Trump’s proposed education bill includes $4.5 billion in cuts to K-12 schools alone and $12 billion in cuts total to the Department of Education. While these cuts will do far more than reduce the number of mental health providers in schools (which is the very inevitable outcome), as a prior school counselor, that is the focus of my attention in this letter.

Students are suffering. They have not recovered from the pandemic. Anxiety is out of control and depression, substance misuse, disordered eating, and self harm is, too. Students are dying. (Suicide deaths among 10- to 24-year-olds increased by 62% from 2007 to 2021, per the Yale School of Medicine.) Kids are coming to school with higher levels of mental illness and educators are having to adjust accordingly. Students are bearing the brunt of our collective madness and inability to prioritize their needs. And guess what? The ones who are most vulnerable — our students of color and/or queer kids and/or kids with disabilities and/or kids living in poverty — they will suffer even more with less access to mental health care.

And even the ones who seem to have it together, often suffer from chronic anxiety, self-doubt, and panic at the thought of not “achieving” or “measuring up.” This is no joke and these are not kids in distant communities. They are our kids, our grandchildren, our neighbors ... the smiling faces we “like” on FB or Instagram that seem to have it “all together.” Did you know that the national average of counselors to students is 1:376? Did you know that I was considered “fortunate” because I “only” had 210 students on my caseload? Even with this “small” caseload, I struggled greatly to meet the needs of my students. It was a losing battle, a set up, and while I could get out (and did), my students could not.

Barriers to mental health care in the community are real and further exacerbated by transportation difficulties, insurance type, dependence on guardians to be aware and supportive, and more. This means schools are the place many students receive mental health support. Counselors are embedded in our children’s environment; that makes them uniquely positioned to both understand what students are facing and respond, albeit often imperfectly, in real time. And now let’s make this education “system” which is already running on a shoestring budget even more compromised — because that’s the way we are going to get ourselves out of our debt crisis? And while we are at it, why don’t we cut funding for SAMHSA and WIC?

I think — hope? — we can all agree that the need for more fiscal responsibility and accountability is needed. I hope we can also agree that the way to do it is not to further exploit the public school employees charged with one of the most important jobs there is, teaching and preparing our youth for adulthood. The teachers will leave the field, or they’ll continue to burn out at unprecedented rates like I did, but the kids don’t have an “opt out” button.

Dialogue about education funding isn’t sexy or fun. We all want as much left in our paychecks as we can. It’s tempting to fall in line with magical thinking and propaganda that oversimplifies the problem and over promises a “solution.” Complex systems need complex solutions from informed and educated professionals who have experience on the inside. So next time you’re completing your ballot to vote, please think twice before empowering people who think so little of our most vulnerable group — our children — and purport to have a quick solution to a long-standing crisis in education. Mental health care in schools isn’t a luxury, it’s an imperative.

Bethany Rochon, M.Ed, EdS., lives in Florence.