The Conroe ISD School Health Advisory Council on the evening's meeting approved mental-health and suicide-prevention survey questions drafted by its subcommittee and directed staff to seek district and board approval for distribution.

SHAC co-chairs and subcommittee members said the questions are intended for multiple audiences — students, teachers and parents — and aimed to identify gaps in prevention, postvention and timely access to mental-health care. "We feel we're kind of at a standstill because the district is doing the survey with Dr. Vincent," one co-chair (S4) said, explaining the subcommittee wants to coordinate to avoid survey overload while ensuring its items are included.

A Conroe ISD representative (S11) told the council the district’s suicide "outcry" protocol is posted on the district website and that counselors are trained on those procedures. "We make sure at the end, you know, we first we secure the student ... we notify the parent and guardian," S11 said, adding district crisis-intervention specialists can be mobilized to support campuses. SHAC members noted that, while the protocol exists, information on prevention and postvention on the district website appeared limited and that campus resources vary.

Members pressed for concrete data — such as counts of risk assessments and what happened after those assessments — to measure whether students have timely access to mental-health care. Several members described high counselor caseloads and differing supports by campus; one member summarized the concern as: "The counselors are overwhelmed ... it's a system failure" (S7).

After debate over whether to review questions in full as a group, a member (S14) moved to approve the subcommittee’s survey questions without additional review; the motion was seconded and passed by show of hands with two abstentions. The approval is conditional: the surveys must be submitted to district administration for legal review and to the school board for formal approval and distribution.

Next steps include submitting the approved questions to the district to determine whether they can be incorporated into the district’s planned surveys or must be distributed separately, and a request from SHAC that district staff provide anonymized data on crisis protocols and risk-assessment counts for committee review.

The SHAC emphasized the distinction between discussion, data-gathering and formal action: the vote approved survey questions for submission to the board for approval, not the district’s distribution method or final wording.