After the pandemic, schools nationwide reported an increase in student behavior problems. In Utah, like many other states, it continues to be a major concern.
A report commissioned by the Utah State Board of Education and released this spring found that student behavior and mental health are a primary concern for many districts and charter schools. The board hired a consulting firm to analyze what schools need and how the state agency can help.
In the report, anonymous school leaders said behavior problems have impacted every aspect of the school day. It disrupts instructional time, interferes with other students' learning, contributes to decreased staff morale and takes up a lot of time and resources.
“We see a trend of increasing behavioral needs in both quantity of children and severity. This is exhausting our teachers and our resources,” said one anonymously quoted school leader.
Naomi Varuso, president of the Utah Association of School Psychologists, has seen that firsthand. As a psychologist in the Jordan School District since 2018, she has observed “a severe increase in aggressive behavior — not just verbal aggression, but physical aggression.” She has seen staff get hurt by students and need to seek medical attention, including herself.
“It's a totally different level, and we're having to pivot what our priorities are.”
These once rare occurrences, Varuso said, are now more commonplace. Additionally, more students are disengaged and chronically absent.
“We have kindergartners coming in who are so dysregulated, they just can't function in a regular school setting,” Varuso said. “We have high schoolers who would rather do anything else but actually go to a classroom, regardless of the consequences.”
The Salt Lake City School District has seen a similar rise in challenging behaviors. Alli Martin, the director of social and emotional learning, has also observed that lower-level student conflicts aren’t dissipating as quickly as they used to. As a whole, she said the current K-12 students often have a harder time managing conflict and letting go of things.
“We’ve definitely seen more anger and aggression from our younger students,” Martin said. “When a kid is eight or nine and they're making suicidal and homicidal threats, that's such a serious cry for help.”
Student mental health needs have been growing in recent years, with students reporting higher rates of sadness and hopelessness. The way Martin sees it, schools are a microcosm of society.
“The behavior is the outward symptom of the bigger issues.”
Overall, she said society has gotten a little bit angrier, less connected and people are feeling less secure — which has trickled into schools. Martin doesn’t think kids are worse off than adults right now, but kids tend to behave in more public ways. A student might hear an adult express contempt for certain groups in private, and then use that language in the classroom.
Another factor that Martin sees is families who struggle to meet their basic needs, like food. It causes them more stress and makes it harder for parents to support their kids’ education. That’s why Salt Lake City schools, as well as other districts, try to provide some of those needs at school, like West High’s health clinic.
Martin has also observed an overall lack of hope from students about their future prospects. This matters because, as Martin admits, school can be boring. But when she was a student, Martin got through classes she didn’t enjoy because she believed working hard in school would give her more opportunities
“I talk to kids now and they don't believe it's going to pay off,” Martin said.
Students hear about how college means racking up debt and that people struggle to get good-paying jobs. So, Martin said, if a student needs money and food now, skipping school and engaging in criminal activity seems more appealing. And she said they have seen more gang activity in recent years.
“We want to put people into society who are well adjusted and positive, and contributing to the world,” Martin said. “Kids don't just grow into that naturally, like we have to create that environment for them. And so without those kinds of supports. It's just gonna get scarier and scarier.”
That’s why Martin believes solving this problem will take more than just schools.
“I think we'll see a decrease in the behaviors when we see an increase in the joy in our schools, honestly. And I think you see an increase in joy in schools when you see an increase in joy in society.”
Varuso agrees that this is part of a bigger community issue. When she was in graduate school, she was trained not just to look at how a student was doing academically, but also if they had food at home, if they had community support and if their parents were feeling stable.
“Honestly, I can't say that the answer is ‘yes,’ because it's not right now,” she said. “We're in a national crisis when it comes to just stability in our communities.”
Not only are behavior and mental health resources stretched thin inside of schools, Varuso said, they’re also lacking when students go home. What keeps her up at night is worrying about the safety of her students.
Varuso said the biggest challenges schools face right now are a lack of funding and trained staff shortages.
That’s echoed in the state report.
It says there are national recommendations for ratios of students to psychologists, counselors and social workers – and Utah is nowhere near those ratios. For psychologists, the national recommendation is 500 students per staff member. In Utah, it is 1,917 to one. On counselor-to-student ratios, Utah ranks 44th in the nation.
Reaching those ratios is not enough if there are staff shortages in other parts of the school, Varuso said. There also needs to be enough teachers and aides in the classrooms to build relationships with students. And there needs to be more funding to hire qualified professionals.
But like everything else in school, behavior problems are also making it harder to retain staff.
“It is definitely getting in the way of student success and learning, and retention in our state,” Varuso said. “As well as just how well we are training them to become citizens.”
