Dear, Governor Pritzker
My name is [Student_Name]. I am from a small town named Thawville in Illinois, and I am a student at the University of Illinois in Springfield. I am aware of your work with the education system, including your efforts to strengthen childhood education and make higher education more accessible. I appreciate your initiative to improve the quality of Illinois schools. A prevailing concern in education is the state of student mental health. Multiple high schools in Chicago and Springfield have begun to utilize social-emotional learning environments also called “Peace Rooms” in their schools where students can come for support working with a mental health professional. It would be beneficial to grant money to expand this service to more schools in the state.
I’m writing this letter to acquaint you briefly with some of the mental health issues faced by young people in Illinois, explain some of the things we can do to help them, and urge your support for any legislation or budget allocations that will support adolescent well-being.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic multiple studies conclude that students have been experiencing higher rates of depression and anxiety. The “My Resilience in Adolescence” (MYRIAD) study in the UK compared a group of children who were in the study before COVID with a group that was surveyed after COVID and found large and significant declines in mental health and increases in depression. The main protective factors that seemed to help children were better school climates (more supportive schools), and strong home connectedness (better relationships among persons in the home). Poor mental health in students leads to more absentees, lower grades, and a poor school climate. The Chicago Health Atlas tells us that as of 2021, 40% to 51% of Chicago students in public high schools reported feeling so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some usual activities (in the previous 12 months—this was a self-reported incidence of depression in the past year). That’s a terrible situation.
The Centers for Disease Control has a clearing house with information about evidence for things that schools can do that are most likely to help adolescents (What Works in Schools). Illinois teachers can consult the Classroom WISE to learn more about what they can do to encourage well-being among their students. The IDEAS Center in New York under Kimberly Hoagwood suggests ways to improve the quality of state-delivered mental health care services for youth. The Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network (MHTTC) also offers guidance and training on how to make schools healthier for students and staff. Here in Illinois, the Illinois Department of Human Services, under your leadership, provides links to mental health resources for students and their families, as well as many mental health grants.
Under your direction, school staff who engage in continuing education to keep their licenses must routinely receive mental health first aid training (Public Act 101-0350 from January 2020). Illinois students can take mental health days. The Screening, Assessment, and Support Services (SASS) given through the Crisis and Referral Entry Services (CARES) provides mental health services to youth in crisis. Two years ago, in May of 2022 our state released the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Plan, and last year (in February of 2023) our state published a Blueprint for Transformation, which offers us a dozen strategies for improving mental health services and behavioral healthcare for Illinois children.
Most schools have counselors that are there for student support including college planning, SAT help, and one-on-one chats. School counselors are an important part of our schools; however, student mental health is still struggling, and the state’s plan for system transformation has a goal of improving access to school-based preventive and mental health services. On way to do this would be to increase the number of school counselors and school social workers. The recommended counselor to student ratio is one to every 250 students, yet according to a report done in 2022 the ratio in Illinois was one counselor to every 408 students. This workload leads to more burnouts in counselors and leaves students without proper support. Furthermore, school counselors are not always trained to handle the wide array of issues students may be facing.
Teachers are also getting more involved in finding ways to support their students. Psychologists have been developing training to teach teachers how to react during times of student distress. One training that was developed by Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network and the NCSMH is a free online course called Classroom WISE. This is a step in the right direction. Similarly to school counselors, teachers have a lot on their plate and do not always have the time or knowledge to help a student working through things like depression and trauma.
I would especially like to draw your attention to Peace Rooms. These are described as a safe space where students can talk through difficult times and regulate their emotions with a mental health professional before returning to class. These rooms can be utilized for individual use or to work through things as a group. Peace rooms can serve multiple functions such as a space for students to talk through interpersonal issues, a safe space for before and after school, and an alternative to out of school suspensions. Students can not always rely on parents to support their mental health needs and school staff do not know what home looks like for each student. Peace rooms allow students to take initiative with their mental health and seek out support with ease.
Concerns regarding the peace rooms include miscommunication about when to refer students to the peace room, and some staff do not agree on using peace rooms as an alternative to suspensions. There are also concerns that students may not use the rooms appropriately and may take advantage of being out of class.
A school in Chicago partnered with UMOJA to implement a peace room for their students. A 12th grader named Alijah (“AJ”) shared his experience with the peace room. He shared that he has no one to talk to about what he was going through and he had recently experienced the death of his brother. AJ expressed appreciation for the support he got from Asher Miller, a specialist through UMOJA, who helped him recognize that he could grieve at his own pace. AJ said that it “was like someone finally understands that I want to succeed, but mentally I’m not as prepared as everyone else.” Staff note that before UMOJA was implemented, the suspensions were higher and there were more fights. The peace room has also been used for teachers to change the way they work with students. The peace room also fosters connection between students and teachers and creates a more positive climate at school.
Overall teachers have reported fewer absences from students, less suspensions and less fights after utilizing peace rooms. It would benefit teachers and students to expand the implementation of peace rooms across schools in Illinois and I hope you seriously consider this option.
A key problem in implementing the excellent plans you and your administration have put in place to improve mental health for adolescents is that the state does not raise sufficient revenue to find what needs to be funded. Recently the base operating expenditures by the state government were $48.3 billion (FY 2024 budget), but when you look at what we really need to do for K-12, higher education, DCFS, ending functional homelessness, and improving our mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment systems, we should probably be spending about $53 billion. The revenue we get from sales taxes, income taxes, and corporate incomes taxes (approximately $41.4 billion in fiscal year 2023) is too low by about $5 billion.
Further, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that Illinois has one of the most regressive ways of collecting revenue for local and state government, with the lowest quintile of Illinois residents paying about 14.8% of their income in various state and local taxes, while the top 1% typically pays only 7.3%. I hope you will pursue a serious overhaul of the state tax system. Personally, I would recommend abolishing the general sales tax (keeping excise taxes on things like gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, and so forth), as poor people pay too much on sales taxes, and states that have no sales taxes enjoy many advantages in their retail industries. I also wish the state would establish a property tax cap of 1%, and allow more local expenses to be covered through a distribution of state income taxes, to relieve the reliance on high property taxes.
To generate revenue while ending the general state sales tax and reducing property taxes, we would need to dramatically increase our flat rate income taxes, up to something like 14%, I should think. However, we can decrease the burden of these income taxes by significantly raising the general standard deductions, increasing the state child tax credit, increasing the state earned income tax credit, and generally allowing more tax deductions for charitable giving, medical expenses, and educational costs. The tax system overhaul ought to bring the total local and state tax burden for the bottom quintile down from 14.8% to something under 4%. The middle 60% should see only the slightest net tax burden decrease (from something like 12.1% now to something closer to 11.5%), and those in the top 1% and the top 20% should see their tax burden increase, but not above the the taxes paid in New York (13.5%), perhaps instead something like 12% to 12.5% (the top quintile now pays about 9.4%, and the top 1% now pays about 7.3%).
Thank you for all the fine work, [student_name].
Splett, J. W., & Conversation. (2023, October 10). Doubling counselors in schools won’t solve kids’ mental health crisis—here’s what else to do. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2023/10/10/doubling-counselors-in-schools-kids-mental-health-crisis-solutions/
Abrams, Z. (n.d.). Kids’ mental health is in crisis. Here’s what psychologists are doing to help. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/01/trends-improving-youth-mental-health
Tool: Create a high school peace room. (2020). https://schoolguide.casel.org/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/2020.11.10_High-School-Peace-Rooms_FINAL.pdf
Liang, C. T. H., Gutekunst, M. H. C., Liu, L., Rosenberger, T., & Kohler, B. A. (2023). Formative evaluation of Peace Spaces in a middle school: Teacher perceptions and student usage. Psychology in the Schools, 61(1), 155–172. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.23045
ND Film Group. (2019, March 18). UMOJA - One student’s restorative justice journey in an Umoja peace room [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6inVs4Op8I
Montero-Marin, J; Hinze, V; Mansfield, K; et al., (2023, Sept 21) Young People’s Mental Health Changes, Risk, and Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(9):e2335016. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.35016 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2809780
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