The latest edition of the 802 Ed Newsletter, a publication for Vermont educators, focuses almost exclusively on behavioral and mental health-related problems facing students (and staff, too). 

Here’s a sample:

Mental Health for the Holidays

The Vermont Education Health Initiative, a non-profit organization that offers employee benefits through school districts, recently published a handful of mental health tips for the holidays: “Finding ways to honor our traditions in spite of trauma, turns out to be our superpower.” 

Animal House 2022

The University of Vermont recently announced their plans to charge undergraduate students for about $18,000 in damages to dormitories this semester, including more than 70 individual acts of vandalism. The university plans to assess payments from all of the students living on the floor of a dormitory when they could not determine the individual who caused the damage. 

Suicide Prevention for Schools

Principal, the school leadership magazine of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, offers a four-page dive into suicide prevention and intervention efforts that principals can take to help keep their students safe. 

School Shootings in 2022

Education Week’s tracker reports 49 school shootings [nationwide] so far this calendar year. “On Dec. 12, a 16-year-old student was shot and injured outside Cleveland High School in Portland, Ore.” 

As a reminder, DPS and AOE operate an anonymous school safety tip line for students, school staff, and their community: calling 1-844-SAFE4VT; texting SAFE4VT to 274637; or online at safe4vt.org. For questions about school safety training in Vermont, contact Rob Evans. 

Reader Survey

In each issue we ask a survey question to get a sense of what is on our readers’ minds. Then, the following issue, we report back on what we learned. Last issue we asked: Do you think teachers should have training in mental health?

The responses were overwhelmingly in favor of Yes, required as part of the license, with just a couple readers instead choosing Yes, as optional workshops. No one indicated they thought that No, they should stick to education.

Heads up, state legislators! To summarize the last two surveys, there appears to be strong support among school leaders to require mental health training as part of administrator and teacher licensure.
Editor’s note: It is perhaps not surprising that the number of job openings/postings for school administrators has risen in the last 60 days.