State funding for school programs has gone up since the Parkland shooting, but so has the need.
By Kara Newhouse/Suncoast Searchlight
Original Air Date: April 30, 2025
Host: Florida has been increasing its mental health funding for schools ever since the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. This year, it dedicated over $175 million to that purpose. But school officials say the rising need is outpacing resources. Kara Newhouse with Suncoast Searchlight reports.
Kara Newhouse: In 2018, Florida lawmakers responded to the deadly school shooting in Parkland with a pledge: more money for student mental health.
Since then, the state has more than doubled the amount of money it gives to school districts for mental health services.
Each school district receives a base amount, plus an additional amount based on enrollment.
This year, Sarasota County Schools received $2.8 million. Manatee received over $3.3 million. And DeSoto, which has the smallest enrollment, received less than $0.5 million.
Chart by Kara Newhouse via Suncoast Searchlight.
That sounds like a lot, but when you break it down, the funding amounts to about $60 to $80 per student.
For comparison, state and national estimates say that a single therapy session typically costs between $75 and $200.
Schools use the state money to hire mental health professionals, train staff, and contract with outside agencies, among other services.
In Manatee County, school district Mental Health Coordinator Sara Sanders said the money has allowed her district to reduce its ratio of school social workers to students.
Sara Sanders: It impacts our students greatly.
KN: While state mental health funding has gone up since the Parkland shooting, so has the need. Schools nationwide have reported increased demand for student mental health services in recent years.
Sanders said that school staff are seeing disruptive behavior, aggression, depression and anxiety among students. She also said that time and personnel constraints make it hard to serve every student in-house.
In Sarasota County, school board member Tom Edwards recently spoke about the limits of state funding.
Tom Edwards: We don’t get enough money from the state for mental health services. In the base student allocation and the mental health allocation, although it’s been increased over the years and people are talking about its increase, it’s still not enough.
KN: Edwards was speaking before a school board vote on ending a contract with an agency that provided therapists to Sarasota County elementary schools. District leaders decided to redirect funds from that program to in-house mental health services. They said the move would help the dollars stretch further.
Chart by Kara Newhouse via Suncoast Searchlight.
National associations recommend specific staff-to-student ratios for school mental health professionals. Those ratios are:
- 1 school counselor for every 250 students,
- 1 school social worker for every 250 students, and
- 1 school psychologist for every 500 students.
No local district in the Suncoast met those ratios. That’s according to the mental health plans they submitted to the state last summer.
Caitlin Hochul, Vice President of Public Policy at the mental health advocacy organization Inseparable, said most schools don’t meet those ratios. But she said in some states, schools have reached the ratio for one of the three professions.
Hochul is a co-author of her organization’s School Mental Health Report Card. The recent report highlighted Florida for the money it gives to schools to support student mental health.
But Florida received only partial marks for mental health literacy education.
Ronan Zeitler, a junior at Sarasota’s Suncoast Polytechnical High School, spoke about mental health education at the April school board meeting.
Ronan Zeitler: I’ve had peers come up to me personally and cry and say they’ve been bullied and that they’re having problems at school and at home and with teachers and that they have problems of being heard and going and finding people to listen to them. I agree that addressing these issues after the fact are incredibly important and at the foundation of improving our mental health. However, it’s also incredibly important to find this at its cause, addressing these problems before they become a problem. The education of mental health is at the core of what we need to be establishing in order to prepare for the future of our student body’s mental health.
KN: Legislators in Tallahassee are currently stalled on negotiations for next year’s state budget.
Chart by Kara Newhouse via Suncoast Searchlight.
Kirk Hutchinson, the Chief of Student Services for Sarasota County Schools, said at the April school board meeting that the district is not expecting any increase to mental health funding next year.
If that happens, it would be the first time in the fund’s history that any local school district did not receive an increase.
For Suncoast Searchlight, I’m Kara Newhouse.
To read the full report, visit suncoastsearchlight.org/florida-school-mental-health-funding-parkland-suncoast.
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