Increasing counseling staff would help schools
Our school systems are in an opportune position to protect our students so they can attend safe schools without fear of gun violence. The way to do this is to employ sufficient numbers of staff appropriately trained and licensed to recognize such needy students and to do so adequately. In my opinion, the ratio of counselors to students is pathetically low in Yuma schools. Thousands of students in the hands of one person is not a realistic solution to improving counseling needs to meet the unique emotional special needs of significant numbers of adolescent students. If we provide a service to identify and direct programs to overcome emotional problems, then early and effective treatment will allow better and more healthy young people to grow up in our educational system and in our community.
Gun violence comes about from emotionally troubling issues and not from too many guns. Our children deserve safe schools. Families deserve freedom of worry when they send their children to school. Drug and alcohol abuse in our population is but one symptom of troubled youth. Gun violence is the result of unstable people using a violent weapon irresponsibly.
We need to make a change in the counseling services and personnel that we hire and provide for our school population. We need to become committed to hiring adequate numbers of the necessary trained personnel to identify students with behavior problems before they become life threatening events. As suicide statistics keep rising in the adolescent years, school psychologists are professionally trained to identify the symptoms in the behaviors of students and guide their families to seek treatment before life threatening happenings occur. In my opinion, we do not have sufficient, certified and competent staff trained and available to counsel or identify those special needs in our student population.
Increasing this limited staff is an imperative step in improving the quality of life and safety in the schools in our community and in our society.