A month after the Hamilton County school board opted not to renew a longstanding contract with a community mental health center to provide school-based services for students, members declined to consider an updated agreement Thursday.
Centerstone Community Mental Health Centers has had staff in Hamilton County Schools since 2013 — until August, when a board vote cut the service off immediately. Schools had referred students and families to Centerstone, which provided services if given parental consent. The services, using outside funding sources, came at no cost to the district.
School board member Ben Connor, D-Chattanooga, called caring for students a moral obligation, not a partisan issue. The over 500 emails he received praising Centerstone’s work would weigh over 20 pounds, he said.
“Ounce by ounce, that’s 20 pounds of parents begging us to care about their children,” he said. “That’s 20 pounds of community members begging us to do what is right and good. Twenty pounds of students in disbelief that their supports have been stripped of them with no outlets. Nothing, gone overnight. Do you know what 20 pounds of emails looks like? It looks like that.”
Hamilton County school board declines to reconsider mental health center contract
The papers made an audible thud as they landed on the ground before the board’s dais.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County school-based mental health services up for vote again)
After Connor’s remarks, school board member Jodi Schaffer, R-East Brainerd, moved to table the discussion, saying the board had already spoken on this matter. Her motion immediately cut off all discussion.
The Hamilton County school board voted to 7-4 to table the agreement. Republican school board members Joe Smith, R-Hixson; Ben Daugherty, R-Signal Mountain; Jodi Schaffer, R-East Brainerd; Steve Slater, R-Soddy Daisy; Larry Grohn, R-East Ridge; Gary Kuehn, R-Ooltewah, and Felice Hadden, R-Ooltewah, voted to table the motion.
Applause and loud cries of “shame” both filled the room after the vote. After listening to over an hour of public comment on Thursday that was mostly related to Centerstone and mental health services, the board’s discussion around its vote lasted less than 10 minutes.
As Hadden began to discuss the next agenda item, members of the audience continued to react to the board’s vote, and Hadden said she thought people needed to be removed if they were going to continue to interrupt.
“We certainly haven’t shown them any respect tonight by even listening, by even debating,” school board member Jill Black, D-Chattanooga, said, pointing at the crowd. “Vote in front of them.”
A member of the crowd stood up and clapped, chanting “Shame. Shame. Remove me.”
She was escorted out of the room by security.
Black stood up and packed her things. Before she walked out of the room, she yelled, “Blood on your hands. Blood on your hands. All of you.”
CENTERSTONE
The proposed agreement to reinstate the services would have given Centerstone counselors access to school campuses to provide mental health services for students with emotional and behavioral challenges. The services were largely paid for by TennCare and a state mental health grant for uninsured Tennesseans.
After board members opted not to renew the original agreement at August’s board meeting, Connor proposed a new contract that would have reinstated the services immediately and had them continue until an open bid for student mental health providers could be conducted. It also would have ensured all Centerstone employees were background checked through Hamilton County Schools or a district-approved method.
This school year, Centerstone was servicing around 1,000 students across 50 district schools, Regional Vice President Dan Mansfield told the Chattanooga Times Free Press earlier this week. Of those students, he said 190 had not been seen by their therapist since the board’s August vote.
Before the board’s conducted its vote Thursday, Black asked to hear from the two non-voting student representatives who were appointed earlier in the meeting.
The debate has ended, Smith, the board chair, said, and he called for a roll call.
“So we have student representatives, we’re not going to listen at all,” Black said.
Smith responded that he was following the rules of procedure, to which school board member Karitsa Jones, D-Chattanooga, replied that he wasn’t.
“We just sat here and told these two people, these two young people, that they had a voice and it mattered,” she said.
The vote occurred without any further discussion.
Thursday’s meeting was the first at which the district’s new safety protocols were in place that limited the attendees allowed in the room to 120. Every seat was filled, people lined the sides of the room, and more waited outside after capacity was reached during the public comment period.
Twenty-one people spoke during public comment, and almost all referenced mental health services. More than half of the speakers were in favor of keeping the mental health services in schools.
Those who supported Centerstone told personal stories about how mental health services had impacted them and called it a lifeline for students. Those opposed to renewing the contract said Centerstone pushed ideological agendas and called for parents to be at the center of their children’s upbringing and well-being.
After Smith adjourned the meeting, Reed Hampton, a senior who serves as chair of the Hamilton County High School Democrats, walked to stand at the front of the room.
“This board has derelicted its duty,” he yelled. “Our students will be back until you help us.”
Audience chants of “students over politics” followed as people began to walk out of the room.
Contact education reporter Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.