Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Medford survey: 1 in 5 students report recent poor mental health; district outlines prevention and support plan
Summary
Medford officials presented results from the 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey showing 19% of middle-schoolers and 20% of high-schoolers reported poor recent mental health. Presenters emphasized disparities for LGBTQ and some racial/ethnic groups and described prevention steps including 'I Decide' interventions, vape detectors, and a caregiver education series.
Stacy Schulman, director of school counseling and behavioral health for Medford Public Schools, told the School Committee that the district’s 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) found substantial numbers of students reporting recent problems with mental health. “Nineteen percent of our middle schoolers and 20 percent of our high schoolers reported that their mental health was not good most of the time or always in the past 30 days,” Schulman said during the Jan. 26 presentation.
The district switched in 2025 from a locally developed instrument to the nationally standardized YRBS to allow comparisons with state and national trends, the presenters said. Catherine Dhingra of the City of Medford Office of Prevention and Outreach described the YRBS as “a nationally recognized evidence‑based tool” that uses anonymity to improve honesty and pairs quantitative results with focus groups to…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
