School counselors plead with Kennewick to keep 9 mental health therapists for students

Counselors from more than a dozen Kennewick schools have signed a letter urging the district’s top brass to keep a contract that has provided critical mental health and therapy services for students.

The Kennewick School District plans to end its contract with Yakima-based Comprehensive Healthcare starting next school year in a cost-cutting move the counselors say will have serious detrimental effects on students in crisis.

That means there will be nine fewer school-based therapists working full-time in Kennewick schools.

“The absence of mental health therapists in our middle and high schools means that many students will not have access to the crucial support and intervention they may desperately need during this critical period of development, that could pose long-term effects,” said the letter sent this week to Superintendent Traci Pierce.

Under Kennewick’s $1.1 million contract with Comprehensive Healthcare, the nine master’s level therapists provide student screenings for various mental health conditions, conducting assessments and implementing treatment plans.

The therapists also offer help for deaths and crisis events. And they refer students to Comprehensive Health’s crisis clinic in Kennewick when specialized treatment is needed and serve as consultants to district employees.

In two separate incidents in the last couple months, Kennewick counselors and therapists were assigned to help middle school students traumatized by neighborhood gun violence.

“The mental health impact of shootings presents a wide range of struggles and trauma for students who reside in a neighborhood where catastrophe happens,” said the letter to Pierce.

In a response sent to counselors, the superintendent said the contract was part of a short-term strategy to support student social-emotional well being during the pandemic.

It was funded with one-time COVID relief money the district received from the federal government, which expires this September.

“We are looking at opportunities to continue to partner with Comprehensive Healthcare in terms of providing a process for student and family referrals,” she wrote in the letter obtained by the Tri-City Herald. “We know that our students face a variety of challenges and needs, and we are making it a priority to use the funding we receive to provide our KSD students with the best support possible and maintain our valuable KSD staff.”

In a statement to the Herald, Board President Gabe Galbraith reiterated the short-term aspect of the funds. But he also took aim at the “bad policies” coming from Olympia and Washington, D.C., noting the past couple years that have resulted in rising costs that strain school districts like Kennewick.

“As a result, we prioritize using the resources we receive to maintain our excellent KSD team and give our kids the greatest support possible, taking into account the diverse needs and challenges they experience,” he wrote.

1,200 students use Hazel Health

Kennewick’s decision underscores wider financial stresses local school districts are under as they begin forming budgets for the 2024-25 school year.

With the last of ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds due to expire in fall 2024, school districts across the U.S. will be making some tough choices about which pandemic-era mental health programs to continue funding and which to abandon.

It’s unclear how many Kennewick students used Comprehensive Healthcare’s services, but telemedicine services have proved popular in Pasco and Richland.

Hazel Health provides virtual mental health services and six therapy sessions to all 19,000 Pasco students for free. The students can use the services at school or at home with their family.

Pasco pays $300,000 annually for the service, at cost of about $15 per student, which is paid for with ESSER funds.

The program has mostly served as a form of triage, with families being referred out to Comprehensive Healthcare for longer term needs. So far, more than 600 Pasco students have completed 3,000 visits with Hazel Health tele-therapists.

Richland School District has also used Hazel Health for its 14,000 students since September 2022.

From October 2022 to January this year, about 600 Richland students completed more than 1,400 visits.

Half of those visits occurred just this last fall. Richland administrators expect the number of visits and students receiving referrals to rise considerably.

Unlike Pasco, Richland is not using its one-time funds to pay for its Hazel Health contract.

Mental health contract

Pierce says they continue to invest in strategies and programs that support student well being in Kennewick schools and are working to implement a comprehensive school counseling program.

The district recently hired more school counselors at each of its comprehensive high schools — Kennewick, Kamiakin and Southridge.

Each school now has five counselors doing guidance and counseling work that helps students with their academic, career, personal and social needs.

But nearly all Kennewick counselors are catering to about 300-400 students.

And they argue the services provided by Comprehensive Healthcare’s mental health professionals are a crucial tool for addressing the more intricate and holistic needs of students.

Removing the services, counselors say, “sends a troubling message to students and families about the importance placed on mental health within our educational community.”

“While we strive to address the diverse needs of our students to the best of our abilities, the expertise of specialized services offered by mental health therapists are invaluable in addressing complex mental health issues. School counselors, school-based mental health therapists and Communities in Schools (of Benton-Franklin) work together to create safe and welcoming school environments,” Kennewick counselors wrote in their letter.

Having those services in schools removes barriers to access caused by transportation and the financial ability of parents to pay costs out of their pocket. The amount of youth mental health care services in the Tri-Cities also hasn’t kept up with rising demands, which has led to longer wait times for local families.

Roughly one-in-five Washington youths age 12-17 have reported a “major depressive episode” in the last 12 months, which is higher than the national average.

“Students spend most of their waking hours in schools, and we know that our youth have suffered serious declines in access to mental and behavioral health care services in our area,” the counselors wrote. “The wait time to receive outside therapy is anywhere from 3 to 6 months. Research shows that schools are the most common place young people seek and receive mental health services.”

Kennewick budget deficit

In addition to the end of ESSER money, Kennewick School District is also undergoing severe budgetary woes, which started with enrollment decreases during the COVID pandemic and were exacerbated greatly after voters rejected two levy initiatives in 2022. As a result, the district expects to operate on an annual budget deficit of about $5 million to $10 million the next few years.

The school district collected nothing in local funding in 2023 due to its double levy failure.

And while voters agreed in February 2023 to a smaller three-year $71.5 million levy to support basic education beginning that following year, skyrocketing property values reduced the total state match the district expected to collect.

That accounts for $2.5 million less the district expects to see in the 2024-25 school year, and possibly more in the years after.

It’s expected that Kennewick will have spent about one-third of its ESSER funds — about $20 million of its total $58.7 million allocation — covering programs, teacher salaries and other expenses that should have been covered by levy dollars it lost in 2023.