Disappearance of therapists from schools worries parents, advocates, and at least one board member.
By Kara Newhouse/Suncoast Searchlight
Original Air Date: April 9, 2025
Host: Next Tuesday, the Sarasota School Board is set to vote on ending a mental health program, which has at least one school board member worried. Kara Newhouse with the Suncoast Searchlight reports.
Kara Newhouse: After seven years, Sarasota County Schools is ending a contract that placed full-time mental health therapists in elementary schools. The program served nearly five hundred children last year.
The school district says the nearly $1 million contract with The Florida Center for Early Childhood will expire in June and won’t be renewed. Instead, officials are proposing a new model that moves away from in-school therapy—and the change is raising concerns among parents and mental health advocates.
The district is now considering an interagency agreement that would let schools refer students to The Florida Center—but those services wouldn’t be paid for by the district. The agreement would allow the Florida Center to use school space. However, without funding for travel or staff time, CEO Kristie Skoglund says the center may not be able to send clinicians into schools.
Kristie Skoglund. Courtesy photo via Suncoast Searchlight
“We’re going back to the dark ages here….You’re going to just make referrals for kids and hope they get seen, and hope families can drive here and be seen at our center.”
Families would also need to navigate insurance requirements and copays—something they haven’t dealt with under the current model.
Sarasota County School District’s central office. Photo via Suncoast Searchlight
Instead of school-based therapists, the district wants to use about $862,000 from its mental health budget to retain seven home school liaisons. That’s a social worker role the district says would otherwise be slated for cuts.
The district also is looking to hire five school psychologists or social workers who would rotate among 33 schools. The estimated cost of these new positions has not been disclosed.
Parent Christine Scott says having a therapist on campus helped her son. He began seeing a counselor weekly after his grandfather’s death and a serious family illness. Scott says: “It was kind of just back-to-back blows for the family….If that had not been available for him, I don’t quite know how well he would have done through both of those experiences.”
Some school board members support the shift. They say it could allow for more consistent staffing and more students to benefit from how mental health funds are used. But at least one school board member, Liz Barker, worries that students could face service disruptions or end up on waiting lists.
The district says its plans aren’t final, and state funding for school mental health is still pending.
Political pressures can also affect programming. Two years ago, the conservative activist group Moms for Liberty opposed the district’s mental health budget, calling it a vehicle for indoctrination.
Christine Scott with her son. Photo by Kara Newhouse via Suncoast Searchlight
Scott says her son’s visits to the counselor were ending this year anyway, but she was disappointed that other children won’t have the same access to mental health treatment. “It hurts my heart for all the people that really need this service and could have benefited from it.”
The Sarasota County School Board is set to vote on the new agreement at its meeting next Tuesday.
For the Suncoast Searchlight, this has been Kara Newhouse.
To read the full report, go to https://suncoastsearchlight.org/sarasota-schools-to-end-on-campus-therapy-program-that-helped-hundreds-of-kids.
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