Concerned parents are feeling better about their schools even as pre-pandemic challenges weigh more heavily on families who are seeking easier access to mental health care. Bullying, violence and students’ social lives are now greater sources of worry than are learning loss and children contracting COVID, a National PTA survey of 1,400 parents and guardians found.
And though parents are becoming ever-more comfortable with in-person schooling, concerns about safety persist among key subgroups, especially among parents of color, the National PTA reports in the survey that was conducted at the end of 2022. Here are the survey’s other top findings:
- Parents’ concerns remain relatively consistent year-over-year, with the exception of school violence, which is the only concern that saw a sharp increase since the last survey was conducted in April/May 2022.
- Parents value mental health care for students and most support schools conducting mental health evaluations. Parents also want more information so they can work with educators to support their child’s mental health.
- Parents have difficulty accessing mental health support in schools. Less than four-in-10 parents are very confident they would know who to ask if their child needs mental health treatment at school.
- A majority of parents believe that the mental health services offered by their schools have remained unchanged or decreased compared to before the pandemic.
Parents appear satisfied schools have made it past the worst of the pandemic and are confident their schools are prepared to handle future potential disruptions. More than 80% of parents, for example, indicated their comfort with in-person instruction and about two-thirds said leaders of their schools did an ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ job managing pandemic-related challenges.
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However, more than half are worried about their children experiencing violence or being bullied at school, and struggling socially, emotionally or mentally.
Accordingly, nearly nine in 10 parents support schools providing mental health treatment and social-emotional resources such as in-school counselors or psychologists, referrals to external providers, interventions that are integrated into the school day, and efforts to keep parents informed and involved. But only about a third of parents say they would know who to ask at school to access mental health services for their children.
A large majority of parents also want their children’s school day to include social-emotional learning and for students to learn social skills like respect, cooperation, perseverance and empathy. Most parents also believe educators should teach content about race and ensure that all students feel seen, heard and included.
