The Mississippi State Legislature passed Senate Bill 2727 during its 2024 regular session. This law establishes the Mississippi K-12 Mental Health Task Force for 2024. The law requires the Task Force to review and recommend to the legislature regarding available resources and gaps in resources to address students’ mental health in grades K-12 and through the community college and university systems.
Last week, we shared Families as Allies’ interim recommendations to the task force. In our recommendations, we explained that all schools in Mississippi are already mandated to implement Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (commonly referred to as the Tier Process) for both academics and behavior. The Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is a comprehensive approach to supporting all students with academics and behavior. It helps students learn.
One of the most important things school counselors do is help with MTSS. Yet, school counselors told the task force there is a shortage of school counselors and that administrators routinely direct the available school counselors to other duties, so they cannot help with MTSS.
Families as Allies believes that one of the most critical gaps for the task force to address is school counselors’ unavailability to help with MTSS. Executive Director Joy Hogge shared with the task force that she believes calls to Families as Allies about school issues would significantly decrease if the school counselors who are currently in schools were allowed to focus on MTSS.
Mental health support from outside mental health providers (such as community mental health centers and other nonprofits) must also be coordinated with the MTSS. This coordination is common in other states and supports learning and positive behavior. We urge the task force to find out from school districts how well outside mental health services work and if they are coordinated with MTSS.
We further urge the task force to ensure that any Memoranda of Agreement between mental health providers and school districts focuses on MTSS coordination and does not limit providers’ freedom of choice. The task force also needs more information on how school-based day treatment programs coordinate with MTSS and what types of outcomes they have.
If you have feedback or recommendations for the task force, email them at MHTF@peer.ms.gov.
