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Laguna Beach Unified highlights declines in student sadness and suicidal ideation as counseling staff expands
Summary
Director of Social Emotional Wellness Dr. Keller told the board the district has boosted counseling staff and programs and reported a drop in several risk indicators for high‑school students: chronic sadness among 11th graders fell from about 38% to 23%, and reported suicidal ideation fell by 62% in the most recent California Healthy Kids Survey.
Laguna Beach Unified School District’s director of social‑emotional wellness, Dr. Kelly Keller, told the board the district has moved from a crisis‑driven model to an early‑intervention system that has added personnel and evidence‑based programs across all grade levels.
Keller said district counseling staff grew from seven to nine counselors serving four school sites and that the district’s student‑to‑counselor ratio is now roughly 1:254, significantly lower than the California average of 1:385. She credited partnerships — including work with School Power and a long‑standing partnership with Challenge Success at Stanford Graduate School of Education — for program design and data collection.
"Even more encouraging, we’ve seen a 62 percent reduction in that suicidal ideation," Keller said, citing the district’s most recent…
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