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Board unanimously ratifies agreement with Center for Human Services to expand mental‑health supports districtwide
Summary
After a district presentation showing multi‑year collaboration and service metrics, the board unanimously ratified a 2025‑26 services agreement with the Center for Human Services to continue and expand student assistance specialists, family support specialists and integrated mental‑health clinicians at Modesto City Schools.
The Modesto City Schools Board of Trustees unanimously ratified a 2025‑26 services agreement with the Center for Human Services (CHS) on July 28, approving the district's continued contract for social‑emotional and behavioral supports.
Tony Lomi, senior director of student support services, told the board that the district and CHS have partnered for more than 30 years. He described three provider types funded through the agreement: student assistance specialists (SAS) who provide tier‑1 and tier‑2 supports, family support specialists (FSS) who focus on chronic absenteeism and family outreach, and integrated mental‑health clinicians who provide tier‑2 and tier‑3 individual and group services.
Lomi said SAS providers served more than 3,300 students last year, with increases in individual sessions and roughly 500 group sessions; CHS's family support specialists served about 494 families and logged approximately 5,900 contact events; and clinicians contributed more than 10,000 hours of individual and group clinical time, with clinicians placed at every PK–12 site for the first time.
During public comment, teacher Kimberly Hickman said the SAS support was crucial to her remaining in the classroom: "Without the help of the SAS, I probably would have quit teaching." Board members acknowledged her remarks.
Board members pressed staff on data and coverage. Trustee Daly noted that students served by CHS represented roughly 11% of the district population while national estimates often cite higher prevalence of mental‑health conditions, and asked whether the district was missing students who need services. Staff said the district will continue to refine outreach and track outcomes; Tony Lomi and Steve Collins of CHS described clinicians' caseloads as typically in the mid‑20s and said SAS interventions are often limited to a defined number of sessions (commonly up to eight for SAS).
The board voted to ratify the 2025‑26 services agreement with CHS; the motion carried unanimously. Immediately afterward the board also approved a related SELPA services agreement (moved from the consent agenda) addressing social‑emotional behavior interventions under special‑education/IEP governance.
What the agreement means: the district intends to sustain and expand CHS clinician coverage through billable opportunities and wellness‑coach implementation tied to the California Youth Behavioral Health initiative; staff will continue to track service metrics, survey feedback and staffing needs to identify areas for improvement.
Next steps: district staff said they will provide further breakdowns requested by trustees (for example, crisis intake counts by elementary/middle/high school, provider demographics, and analysis of whether increased outreach reduces chronic absenteeism).
