Centralia Schools Looking Elsewhere to Fund Mental Health Counselors

Nov. 13--After its request for sales tax money to fund mental health counseling in its middle school was denied, the Centralia School District is analyzing its own budget to possibly fund the positions.

"The mental health counseling, we feel, is very important," said Centralia School District Assistant Superintendent Matt McCauley.

The district applied for a $280,458 from Lewis County's one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax dollars for mental health programs for a two-year period.

The Sales Tax Ad Hoc Committee recommended to the Board of County Commissioners not to fund the request.

The money would have been used for a partnership with Education Service District 113's True North Student Assistance and Treatment Services program that focuses on treating youth dealing with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.

ESD 113 is one of nine regional education services agencies in Washington state created by state lawmakers.

According to Centralia's application, Centralia Middle School would be the host and site for direct services for 600 seventh- and eighth-graders, but outreach and prevention training would be available countywide for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The district was not successful in getting a grant from the county, which McCauley acknowledged was a disappointment.

According to a memo from the committee to the commissioners, it didn't recommend the program for funding because the large amount would only serve the middle school, the proposed services should be billable to insurance, the outreach for all school districts isn't a good use of funds and it isn't an evidence-based program.

However, the district plans to try to move forward.

"We are still going to be pursuing means to finance health counselors," McCauley said.

He said the district is analyzing its funds to determine whether it could support a full-time and part-time counselor or two full-time counselors with its own money.

McCauley is unaware of any grants the district could apply for to help fund the positions, but said ESD 113 might be able to apply for some.

The district partners with ESD 113 for its drug and alcohol assistance program for students.

It also currently has a full-time counselor at each primary school, except at Edison Elementary, where it has a three-quarter-time counselor. The middle school has a full-time and part-time counselor, and the high school has four counselors. McCauley said the district is interested in getting mental health counseling services without cutting out other counseling services.

"We appreciate the ESD 113 services and the True North services and they have people that we think can help us with our programs that are mental health, drug use related," McCauley said.

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