John R. Lewis Excessive College was honored to host U.S. Secretary of Schooling Miguel Cardona and U.S. Surgeon Normal Vivek Murthy this week for a nationwide city corridor on psychological well being and colleges.
“We all know studying goes to go higher while you’re feeling higher mentally,” Fairfax County Public Faculties Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid, Ed.D., stated whereas welcoming greater than 200 Lewis Excessive College college students to the discussion board. “That is the primary matter on the minds of our college students, our workers, our group and our nation. It’s so essential that we discuss psychological well being, as a result of we are able to’t work to enhance issues that we aren’t brazenly discussing.”
A panel dialogue included questions from Lewis HS college students and insights from Sec. Cardona, Surgeon Normal Murthy, CDC Director for the Division of Adolescent and College Well being Kathleen Ethier, and Dr. Mike Axler, Performing Director, Intervention and Prevention Companies at Fairfax County Public Faculties.
The city corridor gathering got here days after the discharge of a Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention report that present in 2021, “nearly 60% of feminine college students skilled persistent emotions of disappointment or hopelessness through the previous yr and practically 25% made a suicide plan.”
Surgeon Normal Murthy stated he worries the nation turns into “numb to those numbers.”
“These are usually not regular numbers, this shouldn’t be occurring in our society,” he stated, whereas calling out a number of contributing components to the disaster, together with social media content material, anxiousness over the atmosphere and local weather change, the strain to succeed and violence throughout the U.S.
Panelists additionally mentioned psychological well being grants below the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and the pressing want for assist to handle the psychological well being disaster.
FCPS will use its Division of Schooling grant to supply prevention and early intervention companies, improve scholar entry to school-based psychological and behavioral well being companies, present focused and well timed psychological well being consultations, and cut back caseloads for psychological well being service suppliers.
“The psychological well-being of our college students will decide their degree of success greater than whether or not they can learn or not. Interval.,” Cardona stated on the Lewis HS occasion.
