Blue Valley Schools is adding a dozen social workers to its schools, the latest step in the district’s years-long efforts to address student mental health.
The Blue Valley Board of Education last week approved adding 12 bachelor’s-level social workers to 12 schools in the district, under the Kansas Mental Health Intervention Team grant.
The grant will be completed through an addendum to the district’s contract with Children’s Mercy Hospital, which currently provides one master’s-level social worker per school in the district, regardless of size and need.
The school board approved the measure 6-1, with board member Jim McMullen casting the lone dissenting vote.
How will the grant be used?
The grant provides roughly $391,000 for the cost of salary and benefits for the 12 social workers. The district will post job listings and hire the staff this spring, using Children’s Mercy as the service provider.
The new social workers will start in the fall, working alongside the master-level social workers already in school buildings.
As part of the grant, 35% of the money must pass through Children’s Mercy; however, the hospital will reduce its bill to the district for the other services it provides (like the current social workers, who are employed by Children’s Mercy) by that same amount of 35%.
The remaining 65% of the grant funding will remain in the district, supporting the salaries and benefits of the dozen new social workers.
“These 12 additional individuals that will support our children will cost the district nothing,” said Mark Schmidt, assistant superintendent of special education.
While the grant is only for this year, Schmidt said that every school district that receives it is given priority for the following year, assuming the funding is there.
“Educating kids is a complicated, complex and very labor-intensive process,” said Board Member Patrick Hurley. “As they develop and grow, each kid has different needs.”
Half the school board campaigned on mental health
Whether and how Blue Valley should provide mental health services emerged as a key ideological divide between two slates of candidates in the last contest for school board in 2023.
Four of the current school board members who voted in favor this month of adding a dozen social workers all won their bids in the November 2023 election, an indication of voters’ support for the district’s ongoing efforts to address student mental health.
Ahead of that election, that slate of then-candidates, who called themselves the A+ Team, advocated for keeping student mental health a priority, including by employing social workers in school buildings.
The slate included three incumbent members — Jan Kessinger, Patrick Hurley and Jodie Dietz — as well as a new candidate, Clay Norkey.
One board member criticized the program
In casting the single dissenting vote, McMullen highlighted his reasoning for opposition to the program in Blue Valley schools.
“My biggest criticism of the program is it goes along the lines of our school system becoming like a supermarket, where we provide educational services and a bunch of other things, including health services and — the buzzword of our culture these days is — mental health,” McMullen said. “So we have this rapidly expanding view that schools should become one-stop shops.
“It’s not positive, and I just don’t support it,” he added.
