Colorado districts prepare for school year amid mental health cuts. But will less cellphone distractions help?

About 80% of Colorado schools say they expect to reduce staff due to uncertainty about federal education funding, said Vincent Atchity, president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado.

Medicaid cuts approved in last summer’s federal budget bill have added another strain on districts. The program is the largest payer of school-based health services, and as many as 40% of Colorado children rely on it, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Students are six times more likely to receive mental-health care at school than anywhere else, Atchity said. When those services are reduced or disappear, many kids simply have no alternative, he added.

Dr. Lauren Henry, a child psychologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, pointed to the pandemic as a sign of what can happen when school-based services become unavailable.

“With the onset of COVID restrictions, when kids did not have access to this primary level of mental health support, our kids fell into crisis … our community systems to support these families became overwhelmed,” she said. “Our prevention approach really turned into a triage when (kids) weren’t able to access these supports in school.”