In rural Kentucky, students go to school with people they’ve grown up with. It’s not uncommon for their teachers and principals to be family friends or even relatives. This can create a tight-knit school community, but it can also make privacy hard to come by.
Vivian Carter, a longtime teacher and principal and the current innovation coordinator at Hazard Independent Schools, in Eastern Kentucky, said students don’t always open up to the adults in the school building if they have issues at home. And as the role of counselors has changed, demanding they focus more on assessment and college advising, the time available to help students sort through personal problems has dwindled. Some schools in rural Appalachia don’t even have counselors. Budget cuts in Kentucky have hit districts hard and funding for these types of supports has disappeared.
To fill the gap and offer students a private, personalized resource, Hazard Independent Schools has turned to an online mental and behavioral health program called Ripple Effects. The district gets access for free thanks to a federal grant to the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative, of which Hazard Independent Schools is a member.
[For more on this story by author, go to http://hechingerreport.org/rur...h-services-students/]
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