As pandemic funds for student mental health expire, county schools find success with wellness centers

A new countywide initiative to open wellness centers staffed by licensed mental health clinicians at local high schools is moving forward even as some Santa Cruz County school districts are cutting back on mental health programs as pandemic relief money runs out.

On Tuesday, dozens of Scotts Valley High School students, education leaders and elected officials celebrated the opening of the high school’s on-campus wellness center – the first of the initiative’s eight centers to open. 

As part of the countywide initiative, funded largely by state and federal grants, wellness centers and spaces at Soquel and Aptos high schools will likely open in the spring, and centers at San Lorenzo Valley and Harbor high schools will open in the summer and fall, according to Michael Paynter, executive director of student support services at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education.

Speaking to the crowd and standing outside of the center, Scotts Valley High sophomore Owen Bunny said he loves the center for several reasons and he’s grateful to have it on campus. 

“It’s a great place to talk,” he said. “The staff is amazing and really easy to talk to, but you never feel pressured into saying anything if you’re not in the mood. Another reason I love the wellness center is the activities they create for students to have fun and find new hobbies.” 

The opening of the Scotts Valley wellness center comes weeks after the county’s largest school district, Pajaro Valley Unified School District, cut more than $5 million from its budget for the next fiscal year, including a large portion of the mental health budget funded by one-time pandemic-era federal aid that has ended. Earlier this month, PVUSD trustees voted to cut social-emotional counseling services and mental health clinicians by $500,000 each and reduce a contract with Pajaro Valley Prevention & Student Assistance by $1 million. PVPSA is a nonprofit that offers mental health services and health education. 

“We recognize, well before the pandemic, that our students were experiencing a wellness and behavioral health crisis,” said Santa Cruz County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah.

He said studies show rising feelings of anxiety and suicidal ideation, for example, and that about 27% of Santa Cruz County public school students said they felt sad every day in the past 12 months. He added that LGBTQ youth show higher rates of challenges, with 61% of saying they feel sad or depressed every day. “This is a call to action, and this call we heard early and we started working,” Sabbah said. 

The Scotts Valley High School Wellness Center, previously a concrete-floor space with a few filing cabinets and furniture, is now a student support center with three rooms, a welcoming area with couches and twinkle lights and plants. Open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., students can visit the center before school starts, during breaks or an open period. 

The center is staffed by two people: licensed clinical social worker Jodi Mulder and wellness navigator Anne Marie Spencer. Students can access one-on-one mental health support from Mulder, participate in support groups or to just relax in the comfortable, quiet space at no cost. 

Ava Thompson, junior class president, was on the student committee that provided input on the design of the center. During a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, she told the crowd that student input was essential to ensuring that it was a welcoming space. 

“Thank you for bringing a supportive place to our school where our students can feel safe and supported,” she said. “I can already feel the positive impact throughout the campus as a student.”

Pajaro Valley Unified School District has been operating a Family Engagement and Wellness Center since 2022 for the entire district community to access. Located adjacent to E.A. Hall Middle School in Watsonville, the district’s students can visit the center after school to participate in small groups or meet individually with the mental health clinician. During the day, the clinician meets with students at different school sites. 

The space also has food from Second Harvest Food Bank and provides three workshops per month for families on topics like positive discipline practices for guardians. 

Benjamin Slyder, PVUSD’s student services coordinator, said several of the district’s schools have wellness spaces that similarly offer students a place to go when experiencing stress. He said depending on the school, the wellness space has a social-emotional counselor, a clinician or a member of a community partner present to support students. 

Funding and sustainability of the centers

The Scotts Valley center cost more than $400,000 to launch and fund for its first two years, according to the county’s Paynter. About $100,000 went into renovating and transforming the furniture storage space, and about $300,000 goes toward funding the first two years of the licensed clinical worker’s salary. The district also employs a wellness navigator who welcomes students at the center’s front desk. 

While startup funding and the first two years of operations are secured, county and district officials are working on how the centers will be funded in the future. 

Rep. Jimmy Panetta secured $1 million in federal funding for the countywide initiative after submitting the project through the annual appropriations bill. The remaining funding from Panetta’s federal grant, as well as other grants including through the California Department of Education, are being used to support launching the next centers. 

On Tuesday, following a Trump administration order to freeze trillions of dollars of federal funding, local government officials and nonprofits scrambled to understand the impacts of the broad directive before the order was swiftly rescinded. 

The Scotts Valley wellness center is an example of “why we don’t get distracted with what’s going on in Washington, D.C.,” Panetta told the gathering Tuesday. 

“I can tell you that despite some of the headlines we are seeing coming out of Washington, D.C.,” he said, “I am very proud that the federal government actually played its part when it comes to the power of the purse to affect people’s lives by helping students that need it the most with the Scotts Valley High School Wellness Center.” 

Paynter told Lookout that the County Office of Education is working on how the centers will be funded sustainably in the future. He said a crucial funding source will be through the multi-payer fee schedule for school-linked behavioral health services, created by the California Department of Health Care Services. The program was created to help educational institutions get reimbursement for services provided at school sites from Medi-Cal managed care plans, Medi-Cal Fee-for-Service, health care service plans and disability insurers.

He said in about six months, the county and the districts will start trying to get reimbursed for the services provided to students. “Then they can start to build a budget to know, how do we sustain [this]?”

For more information about the Scotts Valley High wellness center, visit the website. 

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