Episode 1 Transcript: The Ongoing Mental Health Crisis Among Adolescents

Episode 1: The Ongoing Mental Health Crisis Among Adolescents
Guest: Dr. Dan Holtzman, Principal, Great Neck North High School

There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere is a podcast hosted by Jamie Serino and Carlos Arcila that features exceptional people that have compelling stories to tell. Whether it’s a unique perspective, an act of kindness, an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome, or bearing witness to a captivating event, these are stories that must be heard, and from which we can draw important lessons.   

Episode 1 features Principal Dr. Dan Holtzman and the conversation focuses on the mental health crisis among teenagers. We hear the perspectives of a high school principal on the current situation as well as some advice for both parents and educators. You can watch the episode on the Podcast page of this site, listen to it wherever you get your podcasts, and the lightly edited transcript is below. Hope you enjoy it!

You're listening to, There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere, a podcast featuring compelling conversations with exceptional people, whether it's an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome or simply a unique perspective, these are stories we can all learn from. Here are your hosts, Jamie Serino and Carlos Arcila.

Jamie Serino

All right. Thank you for joining us. You are listening to or watching There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere. I'm Jamie Serino.

Carlos Arcila

And I’m Carlos Arcila

Jamie

And we're joined today by Dan Holtzman. Dan is a principal of a high school on Long Island and he's been in education his whole career, which is about 120 years.

Carlos

Started off in a schoolhouse.

Jamie

Yeah. He started off as a teacher and then became a department chair, then an assistant principal and now he's been a principal for, for quite a few years. So we're gonna explore the topic of mental health in teenagers in adolescence. If this is something that triggers you, we may touch upon suicide. The suicide hotline is 988,

and just wanna let you know that there may be some topics in here that may trigger you. But we're gonna start by having Dan kind of introduce himself and maybe fill in some of the blanks that I left. So Dan over to you.

Dan

Thank you, Jamie. So I started off my career in 1997 as a social studies teacher until 2005. just for the purposes of, of, of facts. I, I was actually not a department chair. I went from a high school teacher to an assistant principal. I was assistant principal in two different high schools for a total of three years and then became a high school principal in another school on Long Island. And now in the current school that I'm in, this is my 27th year in education and my 15th or 16th year as a, as a building principal.

Carlos

That’s excellent. And very unique when you think of that. Right? Like that's a pretty early stage to be a principal. I don't know why I always picture, well, you think of an old person, you know,

Jamie

Like with a wizard hat and a long beard and everything.

Dan

Barking at kids. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie

So a minute in and I was already fact checked,

Jamie

Check everything that I say from here forward.

Carlos

There's also resources that you'll probably be able to get if you're a teenager or a high school student listening to this from your own, from your own school district and from your own school.

Jamie

Maybe that's a good starting point. So, Dan, why tell us a little bit about, you know, when, when you see some students having difficulties, what, what, what's really the first step or what's, what's one of the first things you see and then one of the first steps you take.

Dan

So generally it's, it's a report. a teacher or a faculty member, staff member or even a friend will report something to either an administrator, a dean of students or to their respective guidance counsel or a mental health member of a member of the mental health team because we have eight guidance counselors, three school psychologists and a social worker.

So there's, there's a, there's plenty, there's a lot of resources particularly in, in my school. So generally it, it comes out of a concern that a friend or a teacher or staff member will have either had a conversation with that particular student or they will notice a trend of change over time. That is cause for concern And then they'll report it.

And what will happen at that point is that staff member who gets the report will call that student in and all for what's been shared and give them an opportunity to perhaps share or talk a little bit about, why, why that report might have been made. There any details or any, anything going on that they wanna share. Generally speaking, if it's the guidance counselor, there's already a report there. Unless of course, the ninth grader where they're just coming into the building, so they might be meeting for the first time under those circumstances. and same with the, with the mental health team. you know, unless it's part of a mandated counseling situation, that could also be the very first time that the mental health person is meeting that student and, and vice versa.

So, like any other, you know, sort of tenuous situation, you don't, don't just generally just kind of jump right into things, you try to establish a relationship and try to get a little bit, a little bit of information about why, you know, a report like that would come. And depending upon how that conversation goes or how long it takes to get to that point.

If there's any kind of suicidal ideation that's been reported and, or admitted to, we, we do a threat assessment on that student, it's a lengthy report that gets, it has a series of questions that the student has to answer generally a Likert scale kind of model and, or a yes or no kinds of questions. And then based upon the outcome of that report, we would then determine whether or not, you know, i immediate interventions like calling the crisis Mobile hotline or having the the crisis mobile Crisis unit report to the school. Certainly a, a call to the parents would occur at that point. letting them know where, where things stand and, and what our recommendations are.

If it's not a situation that we, that we believe that the student is a threat to themselves. That phone call to the parents still gets made and recommendations for a follow up in terms of either going and seeing their primary physician and, or giving them resources to seek out counseling services if the student may not, may or may or may not have already been in counseling, to try to get that students, the support that they need. And, and the problem is, and this could be a whole separate podcast but is, is, is the, the difficulty in actually getting an appointment in a timely manner. unless you were actually taken to the emergency room or, you know, brought to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation trying to get into any kind of private therapy could take 3456 weeks.

because there's just the lack of resources depending upon the family's financial standing insurance and availability of the person or persons that they're trying to contact. So it's, is, it starts, it certainly is very helpful when it starts at the school level because we can at least try to, direct and guide parents and we can pro, we can provide a level of support.

We're not therapeutic. That's not the point of having a school psychologist, it's supposed to be supportive. So, if you're out, if you're already in counseling, where does our purpose is to be in contact with their, with that child's counselor and work in tandem? Like one of some of the, you know, strategies you're you're using and what can we then do as a school to help support?

So it's supposed to be more of a, of a, of a team approach, not necessarily therapeutic. but that's generally in a nutshell how, how it gets reported the initial steps that we take and then of course, there's continued follow up between the student and either the counselor or a member of the mental health team. And of course, the parents to see how things are progressing, team meetings with the teachers, notifying them of the students having some struggles without necessarily getting into details and to keep an eye on it and let us know, keep in touch with parents and keep in touch with us. And here's a, here's some things, here are some steps that we're taking. Here are some steps that you could be taking kind of trying to give some, suggestions and recommendations for how to handle, that student moving forward because they could be vulnerable, they could be upset, they could be lots of things, they could be going through the, you know, the gamut of emotions. so you want to try to, you know, guide the student, guide the, the teacher in, in a, in a direction that helps, support the student in the best way possible. So, you know, maybe grades aren't the issue at that point, maybe extension on deadlines is a thing, you know, and just sort of letting certain things go without addressing it or whatever, whatever it happens to be, every situation is different. but that's, that's really, you know, a real skeletal version of, of what happens.

Carlos

That's a, that's a set of really good resources, you know, I think back and it's not to date myself. But I think back, you know, you've been in the system now for 27 years. But I think back, you know, 30 years ago or whatever, whenever, when, when, when we were in high school like that, those resource, like those resources, I don't really remember them being there, right?

Dan, Carlos

Like I'm imagining it's evolved and it's probably more organized now and there are counselors like, I, I mean, I don't even remember having, like they were always there, Carlos, they were, they were always there.

Dan

I think that mental health though wasn't in the forefront that it is now, I think that people saw the social worker or the, or the school psychologist for real extreme situations. And we, I mean, I, I'll speak for myself, you know, and, and Jamie and I went to high school together. We, you know, I don't really recall having friends within this, within that, within our group, within our friend group that struggled emotionally or, or struggled where they, they went into counseling and going to counseling. Like, wasn't a thing that we talked about, you know, or, or did it was happening? It was kept really quiet whereas now everyone's pretty much open, much more open about saying, oh, yeah, I've been going to a counselor or a therapist for years, you know, I'm on medication for depression.

Like it's sort of not, not fashionable, but it's certainly, it's, people are more comfortable with, with sharing that kind of information that maybe when we were in high school and college, we were very sort of, you know, it was very definitely like private.

Jamie

Absolutely. Because there were a couple of kids that I knew, that were seeing the guidance counselor more often than other kids and stuff and it was so private and secretive. So you mentioned something about getting an appointment and I remember talking to some intake people, and they were saying that there would be lines out the door and not beds, you know, and a lot of these people were teenagers.

So this was during the pandemic when I was hearing these stories and then I think we're hearing stories about having trouble getting an appointment for like a counselor or therapist. So what have you seen change a prepa pandemic? Post panem?

Dan

So pre pandemic, you know, having been as I've been a principal since 2008 and so you went from 2008 to 2020 which is when the pandemic hit. So, for that 12 or 13 years span, you know, mental health was an issue. We saw it growing as a, as a concern each year. The one school district I had had, I think seven or eight suicides, nine suicides in the time that I was there.

And we had a very, what I described what I would describe as a very strong mental health education program, not even so much the team that we had, but we had a program that, that raised awareness that taught kids particularly ninth graders. We did the program with about identifying the signs of depression and recognizing the, the, the trigger words when it related to suicidal ideation and where to go with who to report it to.

And even if it was two o'clock in the morning or it was in the middle of the summer or was on a weekend or was in school, we did gave them the gamut in fact, our program, we were invited one year to present, the students were invited to present at the American Foundation for Suicide Preventions annual conference in Suffolk County. And our program was student generate student run student facilitated along with adults.

And they wanted us to present to the other schools or the school faculty as a model program. So I felt that we had a really strong educational foundation and yet almost every year we still had suicide. And it was, it was, it was, it's, it's, it's terribly saddening. It's terribly frustrating to the to, to that feeling of helplessness. that we all felt that, you know, we're trying to reach everyone and we're trying to connect and we're trying to do all these things.

But yet for some reason or another, this particular student in that particular moment believed this was the only answer and to not and to never have gone through that is, is, is difficult for people to even understand how you got to that point. So it's kind of like anything else that you don't experience. If you don't, if you've never been through it, then you can't sit in judgment on it.

Like why would a 14-year-old would a 14-year-old, 15-year-old be so upset about? Like, it's, you can't be 10 people tend to be flippant about it. You know, what is, what is a 15-year-old stressing it out as a 15 year old, depressed. whereas with what, a principal of mine, when I was a teacher said something very poignant to me. And I've carried it through since there was a situation where there was a breakup between two students and the, and the, the male student was really upset and punched the window, you know, ripped his hand open the whole thing and the principal was really calm about it. He's like, you know, what people don't realize is that the kids, even though they're 1516 years old are feeling emotion, they're feeling sadness, they're feeling hurt, they're feeling heartbreak just like anybody else would just because they're younger doesn't mean they're going through, they, they can't go through or not going through emotional turmoil.

And I think that that was something and that was probably 99 or 2000 when he said that to me. And I still think to some degree, I think it's lesser now, but I still think to some degree adults might, particularly parents might not necessarily wrap their heads around the fact that their child could very well be suffering and be tortured like that. And not, and not really understand why not truly appreciate why that is. But I think so. So through that time, you know, mental health was becoming more and more of a, of a talking point was becoming more and more of a focus in schools. But I think when the pandemic hit. I think that was, that was a turning point because, you know, as much as kids always say, I don't want to be in school. I hate school, blah, blah, blah. I think the appreciation for what school represented for them and what schools did for them was, was recognized after the fact. So what I mean by that is they hate getting up, hate coming in, they hate the regimen, They hate having come in from eight o'clock to 233 every day and having 40 minute periods and going from here to there and then watch having watchful eyes on them.

Voila. OK. Fine. But then we ripped that away from them one at a moment's notice it was gone. They had no structure, they had no one looking after them, they had no one on their case. They could sit in their room in their pajamas in the dark with the camera off on zoom learning English social studies class. So then that isolation, that feeling of alone being disconnected, not being able to leave your house, not being able to communicate, see anybody face to face except this way I think was the pinnacle that set anybody who was already on that edge over that edge. I think it exacerbated the people who are already sort of managing their symptoms and managing their depression and anxiety. I think that pushed it a little bit more to, I think it pushed it a little bit more to the severe side. So when we finally got back, kids, honestly, it was like, they never went to school before.

When I got ninth graders and 10th graders back in the building, it was like they were in middle school, the amount of time that we were on zoom I believe was equal to the, to the age loss or the maturity loss that was generated as a result of that. So 15-year-olds acted like 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds acted like 12-year-olds, they're hanging on each other, they're pushing each other.

They, they, they, they don't know what to do with themselves. It was, it was interesting to watch as like this sort of psychological sociological experiment, but it was completely frustrating to do it because you, I sort of my brain expect, ok, the kids are coming back, they're just gonna sort of pick up where they left off and it wasn't, it was like we had to rebuild them, we had to reprogram them.

We had to, you know, teach them all over again what it meant to be a student. They forgot what it meant to be a student, they forgot what responsibility and accountability meant. I mean, kids were taking classes poolside, you know, they were, they were, it was, yeah, we did what we had to do. Right. And so I, I don't, I don't, never, will fault the decision that got made based on the information that we had no problem. We did the best we could with it, but no one thought that that would be the outcome, no conversation that we ever had. And I ever had with any of my colleagues in any other school district said, you know, a year from now, two years from now, we may, we may regret this because the kids are gonna regress emotionally from a maturity standpoint, psychologically, all the things we didn't think that we, we just never because we were so fixated on how we opening, how we keeping education, you know, presence and, and accessible, you know, what are we doing without the kids that don't have Wi Fi and the kids that don't have hotspots and for our, for our, for a high needs students, what are we doing about our, our, our really high special needs kids, like how we educating them and like we were just running around in, in, in six different directions. But when those kids came back into school, the behavior I was, I had never had a year of so many suspensions in all of my career. The first two years after the after the pandemic behaviors were either like little things or they are huge things. There was nothing in the middle, there was nothing in the middle. And so now over time, over the last couple of years, we're starting to see a little bit more of a, ok.

Things are kind of getting back to sort of homeostasis now. where, where you always kind of have some semblance of behavior, you have some sense. But, but I will say this, I don't think that the mental health part of this has, has, balanced off yet. I don't think that the academic loss has balanced off yet. I read an article recently about, is this the year that the, the the kids with the Pande from the pandemic sort of regain their academic footing and, and, and status and there's no, there's no data to support that, you know, that, that, that question to say one way or the other. But yeah, it's, it's been post pandemic has certainly been probably one of the more challenging times to be an educator. aside from all the other political and social things that have gone on pandemic and beyond. And that of course, doesn't help you know, the, the social, emotional stability of students. So that is something that we, we continually are dealing with.

We've had more hospitalizations, more hospitalization referrals, more, sending more kids to hospitals over the last few years than we had in the, in the previous years prior to. And I've been in my current district per se. This is my seventh year there. So I would say the last two or three years has you know, way surpassed the first three years of, of, of mental health needs and, and, and things of that nature, for sure. Wow.

Jamie

So what kinds of things would you say to parents then? You know, like, because they're, they're probably seeing this, my, my kids are younger so I feel like it didn't affect them as much, you know, it, it affected them but in a different way. so what, what would you say? You know, the parents, like, because, I mean, are they seeing that at home? Are they seeing what you're seeing in the school? is there anything they can do? And then in terms of like, mental health, like anything that they should be specifically watching for, anything that they could be listening for, et cetera, any thoughts on that?

Dan

Yeah. So, I mean, there is no blanket statement, yes or no to this, to that, to the first part of your question. But I think that what parents should be doing is certainly, taking advantage of monitoring the progress of, of their kids. So a lot of schools now offer, things like what's called a parent portal where they can log in and they can see their child's attendance and they get grades and some respective classes, they can see whether or not they've turned in assignments if there's missing assignments, so on and so forth. So that's sort of, real time data for how, how they're doing. and I think that parents particularly at high school, need to be more engaged, with, with how they, with how their Children are doing specifically. I think they need to be more involved in, how much time kids are spending on social media, what platforms they're using, who they're connecting with the things that are being said. because there are times where we get screenshots from other kids about something somebody else posted and it's got horrific language and it's being, it, it's, they're being awful to each other and I'll send it to the parent. I will say this is what your daughter or your son wrote on whatever social media platform and they're horrified, they had no idea like you got, and it boggles my mind because it's like, well, you know, then, then there needs to be more of a watchful eye. And, and on, on, on the monitoring of how long what who when all the things.

So there definitely needs to be more structure. I think kids thrive with structure, they resist structure, but I think they thrive more with structure. So if you create a, a routine, kids like routines for the most part. So if you say from, you know, you come home from school, there's dinner, we have dinner together at six, at seven, you do your homework and then from, you know, 9 to 10, you can have screen time or from, you know, 8 to 10, you can have screen time, but then that's it. Then the phone, you give me the phone at night, phone goes off and you go to bed like there needs to be more of that because kids are staying up, they're texting each other and doing all the things throughout the night and they're coming in exhausted. so there needs to, they can't be left to, pardon the pun, they can't be left to their own devices. They need, they need to have structure in, in their worlds. And, and they do need to monitor, behavioral changes at home. They need to monitor and, and note whether or not they ST that their child is being, you know, defiance or being aggressive or argumentative or even non-compliant, breaking curfew. you know, are they, are they involved in, in, in drug use.

Like you have these kinds of questions, have these kinds of conversations with kids. I think as difficult as they are to have, I think if kids know that you're thinking about it and you're questioning them about it, they may be more open to the conversation or they may be more on alert about their own behavior if they might be questioned about it. But if they sort of just ok, where are you going, where and what time are you coming home? And that's it. I mean, you know, any teenager without that kind of structure is gonna potentially get into trouble and do things they're not supposed to do. And that sort of like leads, you know, bad decisions to get bad decisions. But the parents are involved and more questions they ask and the more, more support they ask for, particularly from school and, or from local resources within the scope of their community or, or outside the scope of the community. the better. So it's, it's, I think it's much more difficult now to raise a teenager than ever. And I think a lot of parents, are at a loss depending upon the situation that they're dealing with. you know, a lot of, a lot of trauma occurred during the pandemic too and you think about the family, family losses that occurred, deaths that occurred, They could have been financial issues with people losing jobs during the pandemic. The people may have lost their homes. You know, there's a lot of things that, you know, we, we learned about as it was happening, that affected kids and then we expected the kids to come back to school and act like everything was ok. And, you know, that's, that's, that's our fault for thinking that the kids are traumatized whether, whether we recognize it as that, or not.

It'll be something that they talk about for the rest of their lives. It's something they'll tell their kids, it'll be something to tell their grandkids. It'll be like, where were you when? That'll be one of those moments pinnacle moments in, in your life's history and in the world's history. and, and there's lots of lessons I think that we can learn from it and take away. And more most importantly, I think is the recognition that, that, that kind of dramatic change in, in routine and, and, and life the life alteration for a teenager that's still developing was, was dramatic, the impact it's an, it's an interruption of identity development, you know.

Jamie

So like you're saying, they return to school and you're expecting them to be at a certain, within a certain range, like within a certain, I guess, identity, and they were still maybe in the old one, right? Or in transition or something, and their brains are still developing, right? So, some interruption there probably and then getting back to social media, that's something that no one has figured out yet. It's just a brand new thing for all of us to be dealing with and what I always thought of with social media, which I think is interesting for adolescents and, you know, people younger than us, like, we grew up and we developed our identities, then we went into social media, right? I think young children, adolescents, they're developing their identities and they're also developing, I think their digital identities, like at the same time and how do those two things, you know, interact? Do they remain separate?

Dan

I think they blend. I think they either blend or they try to create an identity for themselves through social media that doesn't really exist. Right. You know, because they're not, they're not being their true selves. And I think it's easy, you know, it's easy for us to say now after, after our life experience, but think about it when we were in high school, you know, we tried to kind of carve our own way through, but we were always highly influenced by things on the outside. We were always influenced by what was popular or what everybody was, quote what everybody was doing or what everybody was wearing or, you know, with the music that people were listening to, like we were always very influenced by outside sources. So it was really difficult like the people that actually formed their own identities and we like happy with who they were.

We were sometimes outcasts because they weren't conformist, they were their own person and, and we didn't appreciate that then, but we can appreciate it now. But it's really difficult for a teenager to say this is who I am and those that do and stand by who they are and no matter what I love that, I mean, I support that always and the kids know that I do.

And the ones that are the conformist you always know and the ones that try to be tough behind the social media platforms and say the things and write things that they would never actually say to a person to their face and use this kind of horrific language and be mean to one another and tell each other to go kill themselves. And they have no idea the impact of words. They have no idea they're saying these things because the keyboard empowers them. And they feel like they're invincible, there's an invincibility, there's nothing that's gonna happen. I'm untouchable.

Carlos

Do you think, do you think then that there should be some type of curriculum adjustment based on some of these observations and changes that you're seeing? And I think that just the industry and education is seen that should be kind of cropping up or being at least considered.

Dan

Yeah, I mean, social emotional learning is a major component now of schools, particularly at the younger levels. You know, being kind and being, being gracious and all, you know, and being accepting and all. And, and that is part of that sort of things that are embedded within curriculum.

So, yes, I think that there should be even a greater focus on it. But to be honest with you, you know, it really depends on a person and a community's perspective on social emotional learning. Whether or not they believe it, it is a focus. Sometimes you're kind of fighting an uphill battle, even though the schools might believe that X is the right approach, the community might push back and say that no, what is the right approach?

I am a personal believer in the philosophy of social emotional learning. I think that they need to get it from multiple sources. I think parents are a huge influence. I think schools can be a huge influence, but there needs to be the recognition by the students when they're of age, I think 15, 16, 17, particularly as they're leaving high school, they really need to be able to decipher what the appropriate path to take, particularly in conflict

resolution. Having a strong sense of self knowing what the resources that are available to them, try to have some better understanding of who they are where they wanna go. And are the things that I'm doing putting me on that path? I present that question in my group meetings every year to my ninth graders, all through my 12th graders and just think about the things that you're doing I always tell them, I can't tell, I can't force you to do anything. All I can do is try to influence your behavior, the decision making is yours. So you have to ask yourself with every decision is this decision putting me on the path to success. And if it's not, if you say no or you're not sure, then it probably isn't the right one. But now add mental health to that equation and then that sort of clouds the thinking, clouds judgment, the underdeveloped brain, like Jamie pointed out, there's a whole host of things.

So we say, when parents just say, you know, I always tell my kid to do the right thing. You know, they're just words, do the right thing is just words. It's a slogan, you know, it's, it's a Nike slogan too. So it doesn't mean anything unless students understand what that looks like and they experience that and it becomes sort of this habit of mind to do the right thing.

What does that look like? And to be able to be strong and stand firm in your principles and your beliefs, not be swindled. That's asking a lot of a kid, and it's asking a lot of an adult. And then so all that societal pressure coupled with the fact of them not necessarily having a good, strong sense of self and add social isolation to that and behavior to that and poor academics to that and add tension that gets created in the house. It becomes a problem, it becomes an insurmountable problem for a teenager to handle on their own.

Jamie

And to your point, you know, if you're depressed or you have anxiety, you know, that's active and part of your brain, it sometimes prevents you from making good decisions, from allowing access to, you know, the sort of front part of your brain. So I read that the World Health Organization states that something like one in seven adolescents has anxiety or something like that.

Dan

It might even be greater than that.

Dan, Jamie

Yeah, because actually I think that statistic may have been like 2019 but suicide was the leading cause of death in teenagers.

Dan

It might be number two now. But I think it's, it was either number one or number two and has been for a long time. Yeah, I, I saw that too.

Jamie

With the anxiety you, you wonder, oh, are we just better at diagnosing it or is there that much more anxiety now? What would you have to say about that? Are you seeing, you know, adolescents having more anxiety and if you're seeing that, what is it and what's different about today? Because you could say you know, any child, any teenagers is gonna have anxiety, they're gonna have social pressures, right? But I think we can acknowledge and you said it, it’s very difficult to raise a child today. You have social media and there just seems to be a lot more happening and of course you had Covid. So it does seem like there are more things to contend with. So what are you seeing, what are you hearing teenagers talk about, you know, when they're, when they're feeling like they're under pressure?

Dan

Academics for one. Academics is definitely a hot button topic in respect of homes and, and, and in students minds that, that the, the drive to be successful, particularly if they're a younger sibling of, of siblings who have demonstrated tremendous success and have graduated with high GPA, high SAT scores and have been going off to a top 10 school kind of situation.

There's a tremendous amount of pressure for them to live up to their siblings, even if they're the first, they're the oldest, there's the expectation that they set the bar for their other siblings. This parental pressure for sure to be successful other than the internal pressure from the students, I think, which is derived directly from parents.

I think that the requirements for students helps to create that. AP exams, sat scores, everything we always say students aren’t a number, but you know what, they, they invariably become a number. A lot of schools are going test optional with ACTs and SATs. But ultimately, what are they looking at? They're looking at your rank, which is a number you're looking at your GPA, which is a number, you're looking at your AP scores, which is a number looking at your SAT and ACT scores, which are numbers, you're a number, and then you get ranked based upon the applicant pool of the college that you, that you've applied to and they're gonna take X amount and that's also a number.

So yes, from a humanistic standpoint, students are not numbers, but the numbers matter ultimately. And that's the thing, that's the driver kids that get an 87 or 88 go into panic attacks in my school, like legitimate panic attacks, more anxiety. Yeah. And so I think that coupled with whatever else they might have come out of the pandemic with that now and exacerbates that mental health issue that they face, I think, but a lot of

it, I think comes from the pressure that they place on themselves and/or has been placed on them to be successful and they don't understand that they have their own definition of what successful is, the parents have different ideas about what's successful, I have different ideas about what successful is. And, and so when the three are at odds, you know, it becomes, it becomes troubling for students to try to, to navigate through.

So I think that a lot of times they're in their guidance counselor's office because, you know, they got a B on their report card or they’re getting a B or B plus as a grade. I mean, so it's like, how do you talk to, how do you talk to a student now? Crying and uncontrollably sobbing about having gotten a B plus.

Yeah. So I think that, that at least for, for what I'm seeing now is more, is definitely more of that is a lot of, particularly with seniors when they're applying for colleges. They have to get in, they have to get into this school. And meanwhile, it is one of the more popular schools that everybody applies to, particularly in my school district.

So you're kind of limiting your probability because there's so many of you applying for the school. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of that. The next two months, three months of college application submissions and acceptance and/or rejection letters is another way. So right now we're doing the application process which is causing stress and anxiety.

Now the waiting period that will cause stress and anxiety and then when the letters come in because they start coming out on certain dates, you know, these schools are releasing on this date, these schools are releasing on this date. So then there's another wave of that. Yeah, I mean that's, that's what it is and and God forbid I ever suggest, ok, look, if you don't get into your top school, you don't get into your top choice school, you go to your second choice school and then transfer. No, no, no, I have to go there as a freshman. I’m not quite understanding why that is the case that they don't see that as an option. They almost see it as, as sort of a second rate way of getting in the school. If I didn't get in the first time. There's no, that's it. I'm not getting it. I'm not going. Right.

Jamie

Wouldn't you say though that that pressure has always been there like, you know, getting into college and the grades and stuff or you’re feeling like maybe a student could have normally handled that pressure is having a harder time now because there, there are other things like interfering with the ability to handle something like that.

Dan

Now it's interesting. I really, I truly believe that there is a, there is a sort of the standard level of stress and I think it varies based upon. I think it varies based on school district to school district. And you talk to 10 different principals in Suffolk and 10 different principles in Nassau. And they could tell you some very similar senses of what's happened and tell you some things that are just like, no, my kids are just happy if this happens or my kids are happy if this happens and my kids are only happy if this happens like, yeah, I think, I think it, I think there's a standard stressor that exists just with that whole process. But I think it really, what really drives it is the community, the school district, all the expectations that kind of surround that. You know, you're ranked as one of the best schools in the country or one of the best schools in the state. So therefore that must mean that my kid is now going to get into one of the best, you know, schools in the country, which isn't always true, which isn't always the case. There's tens of thousands of people applying to schools every year. And it's a crapshoot because you could have 1,000 applicants with the same GPA, same involvement, same SAT scores and then the two of you get in and I don't, and there's no rhyme or reason for it.

Carlos

Let's see how that would create just additional anxiety, the numbers gain because it definitely is, where you ranked, you know, everything from the essay that you have to write to the recommendations you have to get. I, I think Jamie to your point, I don't know if it was like that before. Right.

I think it was very, it, it wasn't as standards based and I think it was more a matter of fact, I think it was ok.

Dan

So we're in our senior year. Ok. We have to start applying to schools and sort of what happened and we had a couple of reach schools. We had a couple of schools we felt pretty sure about and then we had our safe schools like that sort of mentality still exists. But I think just the pressure of maybe those, those higher tiered schools is, is, is something, you know, I don't know, it's not an exciting time for them.

It's a time of extreme stress and anxiousness and nervousness and feelings of inferiority and failure and all those, all the things that come with that they don't, they don't roll with it necessarily. It becomes internalized and, you know, and we try to explain that, you know, there's no real rhyme and reason for why one gets in and one doesn't, but to, sometimes it's just not, it's some people just sometimes don't, don't hear that.

And this is why we don't rank, my school doesn't actually rank its students because we have so many students that are in the 92 even 100 plus average. That as an example, you could be in your 50% percentile with the 90 average. And how, how is that gonna serve you? So, our school is so academically successful that we actually don't rank.

Jamie

Right. Right. Yeah. You know, it just brings to mind, you know, like the devil's advocate argument, but everyone will get an A and everyone gets a participation trophy. Yeah, let's do away with all the testing and everything and, you know, and I guess, I think it is, you know, good to try to find a balance, you know, between unnecessarily stressing a kid out, you know, and I think you see this, you know, different ways of dealing with this in other countries, different ways of dealing with this in different states and stuff. But, you know, I don't know that anyone has really found the answer because not enough testing and maybe they won't learn or there's no way to really measure, and then like you're talking about, too much and the child is like, you know, stressed out, becomes part of the, it, like you said, it becomes part of the fabric of the culture.

Dan

Like, think about it. Like people hear about weddings on Long Island. Right. You know, the weddings on Long Island, it's a billion dollar industry. Right. But you go to other states and weddings are like in a park on picnic, on picnic benches. So it's embedded within the fiber of who you are, where you live ,and what we have sort of created as the expectation.

And so they asked me, like, what do I think? I'm like, my answer always is every student ends up where they belong. Wherever you got in is where you want. So if you didn't get into your top tier school, then you know what you end up, you will end up where you belong and you'll be great. Yeah, it's not, it's not the only option you're not locked in. I explain all the time.

I'm not ashamed to admit that, you know, I went to a community school, too, and transferred. It's fine to save some money. I encourage that all the time. Go to a community school for a year, figure out what you want, figure out what it is, the direction you wanna go and then transfer to, to the school of your choosing if you don't get in this first time around.

But you know, that's not, that's not in a lot of people's minds. That's not always an option. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's more important about the, the status being able to, you know, keep up with the Joneses and be able to compare. And that's not healthy either when you're being compared, even amongst your siblings, that's not fair.

That's not healthy because you have kids who are different, are gonna perform differently, think differently, want different things and that kind of has to be respected. Not, you're not raising the same person. I tell my teachers that all the time you have five classes, you wrote one lesson. You can't implement the same way in every single class. You have five different classes. All the kids in the, each of your respective classes are different, different strengths, different interests, different weaknesses, you know, some are energetic, some are not, you have to, you know, adjust accordingly. So you have to do that with kids, too. You have to do that with your own kids.

Jamie

I guess you're fortunate to be in a district where that is, you know, a key concern versus environmental concerns, like crime or food insecurity and things like that because my district has a considerable amount of that.

Dan

My district, my district has about 20% of my population on free and reduced lunch.

Jamie

Yeah, I think everyone is always surprised and how high the number is like, no matter where you are, no matter where you are.

Dan

Yeah. And it doesn't matter. People think people think certain towns or certain communities are more, are generally, some are more affluent than others. I mean, Long Island is the most economically, one of the most economically segregated places in the entire country. And that, and that's represented even within the scope of school districts because funding comes from property taxes, the value of your home determines the property value, thereby directing funds to the school. So the more affluent the area, the more money that comes your way and less money from the state. Whereas the opposite is true where less money comes from the community, more money comes from the state and so on and so forth. And then there's, there's some stereotypes that are associated with that that are, that are not always the case. but some people believe that some people think, oh you work here. So therefore you must not have any problems, you must, the money must be flowing, the kids must be great. There must not be any issues blah blah and the school is a school. Kids are kids, there's gonna be problems no matter where you are, every school is gonna deal with this on some level to varying degrees and for very different reasons. But ultimately, in the end, kids, kids across the state across the country deal with mental health issues.

Carlos

It's the common theme that I keep hearing from you then is like the involvement of parents like it's so vital that component when it comes to mental health, I think, you know, the involvement guiding your child, making sure that there's a sense of security growing up. that, you know, you're, you're involved with the child's grades at the school, their decisions, the fact that, you know, competition is everywhere and how do you deal with a competitive environment. You know, parents, it's, it's incredible to know how influential parents are.

Dan

And another key component for this is the acceptance that some, that your child needs help. That's a tough place to get parents to sometimes when you call them and tell them that your child is struggling. No, we've been dealing with this for a while. They're fine, it’s ups and downs, blah, blah. It's, it's always more than that. It's always more than that.

And so getting parents to that, to that point where they finally say most parents are good. I will say that most parents are, most parents are like, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We're gonna take care of this, blah, blah and others, it takes a little longer to get there. So the sooner you get there the better.

Jamie

Yeah, that's a great point. When you think about the system, I was reading this paper about creating more flexibility in the system for mental health for teenagers, that the system doesn't seem to pivot fast enough and, you know, so can you talk a little bit about, about that and about funding and about the school's ability to, to deal with the problem, react to it. You know, maybe the, the whole county, the state, you know, could talk a little bit about that.

Dan

That would be, I think New York has actually been doing a really good job of, of making mental health education and mental health resources a priority. And I think it's certainly something that has shifted over time and I think it was even shifting before the pandemic. But I think since the pandemic, it certainly has become much more of a, of a prioritized focus.

My district has been very receptive to our needs and to our requests. So as an example, I had, when I first started, I two psychologists, full time psychologist and a shared social worker with the middle school. So my social worker was with me two or three days a week and there with middle school the other couple days. So that was when I started.

Now, I have three full time psychologists and a full time social worker. And I have seven counselors, seven guidance counselors. Now I have a, so my district has been very receptive on top of which we have a growing in population and we have outside counseling service that focuses solely on working with my ESL students and their families because those students have come with significant trauma from countries that they've come from, the way they, the way they look, how they live, the experiences that they had, where they live, they’re getting, getting to the United States. and the adjusting and all the things we have, we have a specific outside counseling service that focuses, comes in and deals only with my ESL students and their families. So, and I think that has been part of, I'm not gonna toot my own horn, but I think that having come from a district where it was so mental health focused and brought that with me that over the period of time that I've been here, we've been able to have these conversations about what the needs are and where some of the some funding additional funding needs to go to, to support the kids. And that's sort of been a district wide initiative, other schools have received additional supports as well. Because a lot of the schools, if not all the schools are seeing the same kinds of things.

So I'm very happy with, with how things have been progressing, at least in my district. And I think that, you know, we, we certainly continue to monitor and document and show the data of the amount of time to spend and, and how many referrals we've made and, and you know, programming that we do. So I brought in, like when I was doing in my previous district, I was doing like a suicide prevention. And we now, we've taken that program and developed it into a mental health week. So every day in a week over the course of the school year, in a month, usually we do it in May. We do a week where we have speakers come in, we have programs come in. And it cuts across the entire school because we usually do it during like through Phys Ed classes where every student takes Phys Ed.

So we break them up into groups and they go to different the different either, it's physical health, it's social, it's social, well-being emotional, well-being, we do night events for parents. So it's something that we have been developing over the last several years. So trying sort of bring that level of, of focus for the community as well. So I think that, I don't think it's, it's the system necessarily.

I think it's, I think part of it, at least from my vantage point is what's available outside the scope of, of the school. And, and the ability for parents to get access, even though, even if they've got the means, if they've got the resources and if they don't have the means. I think there's still, I think there's still some work to be done in that area.

Jamie

Yeah. So it, it sounds like, I feel like maybe there was a little advice in there as well. So maybe for a principal or a teacher in a district where they're in a state where they don't seem to get it. You said you felt, felt fortunate to be in New York. For a parent in a district and they don't have as many counselors, and they don't have as many social workers and stuff. It sounds like you try to shine a light on it by creating programs as much as possible within budget you had and everything. So the more attention you can put on it, you know, positive attention, you know, and negative attention in the sense of like pointing out the problem, that sort of draws more attention to it and, and hopefully, hopefully then budget.

Dan

Yeah, like we had a speaker come in the other day who, who focused on mental health of kids. And he, it's a, it's another story that I don't need to get into. But there were some key takeaways from, from his presentation that I shared back out with faculty to get them to think. And one of the things that he wrote and it kind of sparked my, my question to faculty was, you know, sometimes, you know, it's OK to live in quiet, right?

With things that just, there's no background noise, you’re kind of by yourself, kind of with your own thoughts. It's ok. It's ok to visit quiet but not live there. Right. So, I thought that was pretty poignant and I began to think what kind of, what I presented to my faculty was. What kind of steps and approaches have you taken to make the kids who live in quiet visit belonging? Is it a quiet in class? You don't say anything you're engaged? What are the things that you're doing to have them visit belonging? Yeah, that kind of is the kind of little seeds to plant to get teachers to think that, yeah, you know what, I've got 25, 26 kids in the room and maybe 17, each of them are, are, are speaking but there's seven or eight of them that aren't, what am I doing to get those students to be, be a part of the class and, and, and make, make a concerted effort to bring them out of the quiet into, into the belonging.

Jamie

So, one of the things that I sort of jokingly say is like, ok, well, the pandemic's over and the sweatpants have won. So, so all the kids wear sweatpants now, right?

Dan

Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Joggers. Joggers. Sweatpants when we were a high school. We never wore them. But now joggers are fashion, right? Joggers and, they wear slippers.

Jamie

Oh, my God. I mean, yeah. But, but I think when we were younger, if you wore sweatpants, it was like a sign that you kind of, you gave up.

Dan

Dress it up in like a golf shirt that didn't work, right?

Jamie

All right. So, Dan, tell us, what was the last song you listened to?

Dan

Last song I listened to? Yeah. What's the last song on your phone? Actually weirdly enough, I was, I was listening to, the new Rolling Stone song for like the 100th time. Angry I really like, and, and, yeah, it's, it's, it's the 1st, 1st new song from The Stones in 18 years. And it's, it's, it's great. It's great. Rolling Stones. It's just like they're in great form and they're 80 years old. It's amazing.

Jamie

Yeah. So everyone should know Dan is a drummer and a guitarist.

Dan

I'm a drummer who, I'm a drummer. I tinker with guitar. I wouldn't say I'm a guitarist. Remember who plays guitar? Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie

All right. Well, Dan, thank you very much. Is there anything else to add? Is there something that we didn't ask? Is there anything else you wanna throw in there?

Dan

No, I just think that it's just important to remember that. we're dealing with, we're dealing with young adults who need support. They're not as, they're not as experienced and as mature as we may think they are at the end of the day, they are 14, 15, 16, 17 year old kids and, and we need to be mindful of that and be open to hearing,

listening and, and just being aware of, who they are and what their needs are, being sensitive to that.

Jamie

Yeah, well said, yeah. All right. Thank you. Thanks everyone for joining Until next time.

Dan

You're welcome.

Carlos

All right, thanks again. Bye.