Concerned about mental health? Then commit to fighting for it after schools reopen

 “Actually, it’s about mental health.”

The ongoing discussions over when and how to reopen schools have seemingly reached a boiling point recently. Parents are understandably frustrated, as children have now been home for nearly a year with little-to-no in-person instruction as other, clearly less vital operations are back up and running. It makes sense that one would see gyms, pool halls, and amusement parks operating and conclude that our education system should be held in similar import. Teachers are frustrated and fearful, as government entities at the local, state, and federal levels have prioritized economic reopening and failed to create conditions where the virus could be kept at bay. 

The merits and conditions of school reopenings are a topic for another day, but I think it’s important to address one of the leading talking points those pushing for reopening have been repeating—the mental health of our children. While I welcome any new allies into the fight for improved services, the rhetoric has an uncomfortable familiarity to anyone who has been following the news for the past several years. In the wake of another mass shooting, we hear the cynical deflection: “There is no gun problem! What we really have is a mental health problem.” It echoes from those who have little to say about mental health services when there isn’t a body count, from those who take advantage of every opportunity in between these mental health episodes doing everything possible to cut funding for those vital services. It’s clear that these people don’t have any interest in addressing mental health beyond making sure it’s used as a dodge when discussing gun regulation. It’s hard to miss that it’s many of the same people, from Ron DeSantis on down to the facebook comment nitwits who again seem to suddenly be concerned about the mental state of children.

It is important to note that this is not an across-the-board condemnation. Many people who are legitimately concerned about our children and their health are pushing for fair, sensible reopening guidelines. These are teachers, librarians, parents, and other community leaders whose commitment to mental health has been ongoing and unflinching, and they should be commended for it. I would ask that these people keep up the fight for fairness, but also to be wary of these newfound allies on the right who seem to have taken up their cause. 

An example here in Onondaga County shines a light on the lack of priority these newfound mental-health advocates are actually placing on trying to help. A distressing story was published by The Newshouse detailing the draconian cuts to the Department of Children and Family Services in the 2021 county budget. An excerpt: 

Employees say that years of cuts in staffing in DCFS have resulted in a situation where an investigator may be tasked with investigating three to five child abuse reports per week. The state recommends investigators receive three. In the office of permanency, which handles long term child removals and foster care, case workers could be looking after 25 or more children, according to multiple employees in the department. The state recommends 12.

 

As President Biden famously said, “Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value.” In words, the county’s GOP leadership is valiantly fighting for our children. Unfortunately, they have found more room in their pocketbooks to try to buy out Burnet Road residents and raze their neighborhood in order to give a tax break to an unnamed out-of-state semi-conductor company. 

What is the goal, then? For some, the primacy of economic growth trumps all other considerations. School has long served as a holding station for children so that parents can do their parts as cogs in the machine. (Funny that the same commitment never extends to a school day that actually works for families, to funding before-school and after-school programming that is both valuable to our young minds and flexible for their working caregivers). In August, County Executive McMahon was critical of hybrid learning schemes that enabled safe distancing in classrooms because it made caregiving - and returning to work - all the more difficult. An alternative approach of paying parents to stay home to deal with the specific circumstances presented by the pandemic was never mentioned. In the world of economic growth people need to work, and people with kids need to be able to put those kids somewhere while they do it. 

For others, it has presented a grand opportunity to indulge the time-honored tradition of union-busting (non-police edition, naturally). Our friends at the New York Post have a screed against the teachers in San Francisco, a place where the Post is obviously very concerned about positive outcomes and is totally not concern-trolling. Schoolyard bully Donald Trump Jr. is conveniently connecting all the ways conservative blowhards pretend to care about mental health, blathering about teachers union whilst sitting in front of his wall o’ guns. 

Again, many of the fiercest advocates for school reopening do not fall into these categories. As this outstanding piece by Marnie Eisenstadt in the Syracuse Post-Standard illustrates, the mental health problems coming from lack of in-person schooling are very real and very serious. So, how to tell those who genuinely care about our students with the ones who are cynically using them to dodge more important issues and get the outcome they want? It’s actually fairly simple to tell the difference- find out their action plans for how to get schools open and how to address mental health once school is back in session. Are you prioritizing vaccinating teachers? (In New York, yes! My friends in Massachusetts? Not so much!) Are you willing to pay for upgraded air filtration and purification systems? Will there be increased support staff to assist children as they transition back? What off-hours resources will be put in place? If an advocate for school reopenings has an answer to these questions, work with them. If not, if they start grumbling about unions or socialism or manning up, it is a sign that their argument is being made in bad faith. If their chosen motif for talking about supporting children going back into a small space is a wall of weapons used to terrorize them in those spaces, they are not on our children's side.

Unions are not infallible. Some make short-sighted decisions for reasons that may or may not be clear. CSEA Local 834, the union that represents the aforementioned Department of Children and Family Services, endorsed County Executive McMahon in the 2019 election. It did them little good, as McMahon and the Republincan-held county legislature went on to make those drastic cuts anyway. Being critical of the school reopening process is entirely fair. But in a choice between our teachers and anti-worker, anti-government forces like the Post and the Trumps, there is little question who better will represent our children and their mental health.