DENVER — Two shootings in less than two months at East High School brought the promise of quick change at Denver Public Schools (DPS).
When DPS agreed to bring police officers back to schools, the plan was to also include mental health professionals in classrooms. As we near the end of the school year, there aren’t any additional therapists of psychologists that have been hired.
"We will have two armed officers here at East until the end of the school year," Superintendent Alex Morrero said shortly after a shooting at East left two administrators injured after a student brought a gun to the school. The student later took his own life.
The school resource officers (SROs) Morrero promised soon arrived at East and other high schools around the district. But there was more to the plan that hasn’t panned out.
"The caveat was that we’re not only bringing cops back, but we’re going to add mental health professionals," said Denver School Board of Education Vice President Auon’tai Anderson, who led the push to take SROs out of schools in 2020.
On March 23 of this year, Anderson and the rest of the board of education signed a memo directing the superintendent to bring armed police officers back to schools. It also asks that mental health professionals come with them.
A month later and with only a month left in school, the psychologists and therapists haven’t arrived.
Anderson said he would not have signed the memo directing the superintendent to bring back armed officers if he knew that it would take this long to hire the mental health professionals that were supposed to come with them.
"No, I would not have," Anderson said. "That’s because our mental health professionals are key. We need to be able to make sure we have safety alongside mental health professionals."
Anderson and Board President Xóchitl Gaytán don’t agree on much. But today, they both said it’s not the district’s fault that mental health professionals haven’t been hired. Gaytán told 9NEWS the district can’t fill its “regularly allotted mental health positions, as well as the additional positions requested by the Board.” She placed the blame on a limited pool of candidates. The district is now offering a $2,000 signing bonus to help fill the jobs.
"Superintendent Morrero has not fallen short in this moment. I believe that he has done everything that the board of education asked him to do on March 23. I’m confident that he is the leader for this moment, the leader for this district," said Anderson. "We need the mayor and city hall to step up and help us."
Anderson said Mayor Michael Hancock's office has not been willing to provide funding for additional mental health positions. Hancock's office said they are actively trying to get funding and the allegations from Anderson are “untrue” and “latest in a string of falsehoods by Director Anderson.”
"The Mayor is actively pursuing funding to bring mental health professionals to Denver high schools to address this crisis among our youth," a statement to 9NEWS from the Mayor's office read, in part.
We asked DPS if anyone has even applied to fill any of these positions, but the district did not respond.
"I think that one of the issues is that Denver is an unaffordable place to live," said Anderson. "When we are offering individuals signing bonuses to come to Denver Public Schools, when we are incentivizing them to come work for us, they can’t live and work in the same city that we’re asking them to be a part of."
We know that there’s a shortage of people with mental health expertise everywhere. We saw Aurora police struggle to hire clinicians for their crisis response team recently. We know the state needs more people working in mental hospitals.
DPS did not provide a timeline on when they hope to be able to hire more mental health professionals or how many positions they are hoping to fill.
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