By: David Festner, Reporter
Omaha, NE – More than one third of high schoolers say they’re mental health is suffering since the pandemic forced them to learn remotely rather than in the classroom.
According to a recent pew research study, gay, lesbian, or bisexual students are more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to suffer from mental health stresses.
In Nebraska, school administrators are hoping to combat these numbers after the state was awarded 546 million dollar.
Nebraska districts are using this money to hire more mental health specialists, expand social and emotional learning curriculum.
The Counselor at Millard North, Jodi Therkelsen says that every state retrieved the covid 19 money and filtered through the schools and used it how they saw best.
“The money school districts got depended a lot on the make-up of their school districts as far as it was inner city or more of a rule setting” said Therkelsen.
Therkelsen says the school also applied an additional external grant and that money is coming from the Douglas County funds. And the total grant requested for 3years will cost up to half a million.
The additional help that Millard will be using that money for is Crisis Prevention Institute, Support for Students exposed to trauma, and hire Registered Behavior Technicians.
Math teacher at Millard North Eric Welte says it was hard on a day to day seeing the emotional effect on students and this is how Welte helps students out in the classroom.
“telling them I’m there to help them and I’m going to be patient with them and that pretty much sums it up” Said Welte.
Welte says that the next step after helping the students out is going to either an admin or a counselor.
Millard Public Schools will have more training coming later this year and will include healthy classroom practices and alternative strategies for students needing more support.
