Recent cyberbullying incident also raises questions
Buda — More funds and resources will be provided to Hays CISD to address a variety of mental health concerns.
During the rescheduled board of trustees meeting on Feb. 24, the board approved an item that will provide the district with funds for mental health services through the Hays County Social Service Funding Agreement.
The board previously discussed the item during the agenda review meeting on Feb. 13. Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright said that in 2022, the Hays County Commissioners Court voted to allocate nearly $200,000 of the county’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to Hays CISD, Dripping Springs ISD, Wimberley ISD and San Marcos CISD for mental health services.
“We have an outside company that provides this service so that kids don’t have to leave campus during the day. They can see their counselor on a routine and regular basis,” Wright explained.
The funds are going to specifically target the district’s middle schools and high schools and are able to be expended through 2025, said Wright.
The board’s approval of the funding means the district can now enter into a contract with the company and provide more substance abuse counselors and mental health counselors on campus. The contract will outline how these particular funds will be used for families who may or may not have insurance, so as “many students as possible” can be served.
“We changed our exemption policies to allow students to go and see their counselors. We had several [students], especially at the high school level, that really needed the counseling but refused to miss because they didn’t want to give up their exemptions,” Wright said. “When you’re a teenage kid, sometimes your priorities aren’t where they always need to be. So we have to help educate them and provide times so that they won’t miss out on something that they deem critical … We’re hopeful that this will take care of that.”
Wright added that while they currently don’t know the full scope or amount of students the funds will be able to serve, with the board’s approval, the district can now send the memorandum of understanding to the county who will disperse the funds to the district and get things up and running quickly.
“Mental health is so important. We talk about fentanyl poisonings and other things … All of that stems from mental health. Students are using for a reason,” trustee Courtney Runkle said. “We do have lots of work to do and it doesn’t just start here at the school district. It goes much further and beyond with our legislators and our county and making sure we have things that are here in our county for our residents … We have behavioral specialists that we have on campuses that we need to keep on our campuses and additional services that we need to bring on our campuses.”
The funds come on the heels of a cyberbullying incident that was brought up during the Feb. 13 board meeting by several parents of students with developmental disabilities.
On Feb. 9, a Hays CISD student posted a video on the social media app TikTok with photos of some Dahlstrom students alongside disparaging remarks and derogatory sound effects.
According to parent Rachel Ham, the student scrolled through “months of posts on the Dahlstrom Middle School Facebook page” to “find pictures of these specific students with a range of emotional, physical and intellectual challenges.”
“To say I fell apart doesn’t adequately describe my pain that our beautiful son and several of my former students were targeted by this hate crime,” Ham said of finding out about the video. “The students are in different grades and assigned to different special education programs and yet whoever made this video managed to systematically choose their pictures and put them together into a montage video saying that they are ‘less than’ normal kids. This was a deliberate act that took time and effort.”
According to district officials, the video and account have both been deleted and the student responsible was identified and received disciplinary consequences. However, officials said that the disciplinary action could not be revealed as it would violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. A report was also filed with the Hays County Sheriff’s Office through the campus school resource officer to conduct an investigation.
Ham also called for “David’s Law” to be implemented, saying it would allow for expulsion and/or legal consequences for students engaged in cyberbullying with the intent to inflict harm on others. The law gives schools, parents and courts in Texas “new tools” to protect cyberbullying victims.
In light of the situation, board president Vanessa Petrea inquired if there was any flexibility in the ARPA funds to be used towards social and emotional learning (SEL) resources that would perhaps address situations like this more closely. David’s Law also encourages schools to invest in counseling and rehabilitation services for both victims and aggressors of bullying.
“We know the kids that bully other children are usually hurting themselves. Hurt people hurt people, as the saying goes,” Petrea said.
While more SEL resources are not ruled out, Wright said that through conversations with the commissioners, the ARPA funds were mainly geared towards mental health service providers specifically.
“When we have 22,400 kids [in Hays CISD], that amount [of ARPA funds] probably won't go as far as we need it to,” Wright said. “So when we begin the budgeting process, we’re going to need to look at all of our resources and then earmark additional funds for that [SEL] as well.”
