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Community members press Durham schools to expand mental-health supports and bring HEART response into schools
Summary
Parents, teachers and community advocates asked the Durham Public Schools board to maintain co-located mental-health services, improve counselor ratios, restore master's pay for school social workers and pursue an interlocal agreement to place HEART crisis response teams in schools, including a $450,000 county funding request.
Parents, teachers and community advocates used the budget hearing to press Durham Public Schools to expand mental-health services, increase school counselor supports, restore pay differentials for school social workers with master’s degrees and pursue partnership funding to embed HEART crisis-response teams in schools.
Fern Hickey, a parent at I.K. Poe Elementary and member of School Parents for Immigrant Defense, asked the board to keep funding for co-located mental-health services, improve school counselor ratios and support expansion of HEART into Durham schools. Hickey said students are facing compounding stressors and that district policy and culture should prioritize mental-health services.
Several speakers described concrete staffing and funding requests. Martie Triggs, a parent and MSW who identified herself as a DPS parent, urged restoration of master’s pay for school social workers and a student-to-social-worker ratio aligned with national recommendations. Triggs said the national recommendation is about 1 social worker per 250 students and that local caseload numbers cited in the meeting were not fully clear.
Shanice Hamilton and other advocates urged an interlocal agreement among the school board, county commissioners and city council to fund HEART teams in schools. Hamilton said organizers proposed embedding a full-time peer support specialist and an EMT in one elementary, one middle and one high school as a starting point and that the initial county budget request for that plan is $450,000 for fiscal year 2025–26.
Teacher speakers connected these mental-health requests to in-school safety and staffing pressures. Beth Clifford, a sixth-grade teacher at Githins Middle School, encouraged investment in local, evidence-based mental-health programs such as HEART and urged caution about outsourcing to for-profit providers. Clifford also raised compensation and staffing equity concerns for classified staff and bus drivers in the proposed budget.
Speakers asked that mental-health services be widely promoted and accessible to uninsured or underinsured students and that restored compensation for qualified social workers help attract and retain staff. Board members acknowledged the testimony and said community input will inform the board’s review of the superintendent’s recommended budget in the next work session.
