Alyssah Yater was a straight-A student until the symptoms of depression set in and suddenly, in her junior year, she was at risk of failing some of her classes.

Yater’s therapist was almost an hour away, which meant she had to leave school early for her appointments. And she wasn’t the only one struggling. She remembers fellow classmates fighting and spending mornings texting friends to make sure they came to class.

“At our high school, if you meet someone who’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m perfectly happy with my life,’ you’re just like, ‘Oh that’s weird.’ It seems uncommon,” said Yater, now a senior.

She felt awkward emailing teachers to let them know why she’d been out of class so often and said having an on-campus clinic would have cut down missed class time.

In March, the Killingly Board of Education voted 6-3 to reject a proposal that would have provided just that: a grant-funded, school-based mental health center at the high school.

The vote led to a complaint against the board. The board chair resigned, and the state Department of Education launched an investigation.

The controversial decision has been mired in politics.

Those opposed to the mental health center have raised complaints and references commonly heard from the political right: cancel culture, Hillary Clinton, abortion, gender identity. Some wonder if schools are the best place for mental health care.

Norm Ferron, who was elected the new chairman during the board’s April 13 meeting, said he voted against the school mental health center because he was concerned that kids might get counseling about “controversial topics.”

“Basically, what is a stranger to the parents can be advising their child on any issue,” he said. “They might be giving them counseling directly opposed to the views of the parents.” 

The Killingly Board of Education is used to controversy. In recent months, it voted down a proposal to host a vaccine clinic at the school and rescinded the district’s mask policy with language that makes it harder to bring back the policy. Many members ran on the promise that they would reinstate the school’s controversial mascot, the Redmen, which they did in 2020.

The quiet corner, but not unique

A former mill town located on the border of Rhode Island, Killingly sits in Windham County — in Connecticut's northeastern “Quiet Corner” — and has a population of just over 17,700. Its 50 square miles are transected by rivers that used to power the cotton mills in the town’s heyday. Since the mills shuttered, the Frito-Lay manufacturing site is among the largest employers.

Although the state as a whole trends blue in national elections, Killingly went for Donald Trump in 2016 and again in 2020, when the former president got 56.6% of the vote. The Town Council is overwhelmingly Republican — only one of its nine elected members is a Democrat — and the population of the town is overwhelmingly white. Its poverty rate is nearly 5 percentage points higher than the state. The median household annual income is just above $66,000, well below the state median of nearly $80,000.

What is happening in Killingly is not unique. In communities across the country, conservative parents and board of education members have pushed back against school-based mental health supports such as social-emotional learning, saying they are a subversive way to sneak teachings on critical race theory and gender identity into public schools.

In Connecticut, these topics are sure to be at play in the upcoming gubernatorial election. A new independent-expenditures group, the Parents Against Stupid Stuff super PAC has pledged to spend more than $1 million arguing that Gov. Ned Lamont, a first-term Democrat, is at odds with parents over critical race theory, sexually explicit curriculums in public schools and the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

State lawmakers have shown a renewed focus on mental health care this legislative session and introduced three sweeping bills that aim to address mental health in schools and early childhood, as well as fund mental health services in medical centers, educational facilities and the community.

‘Putting politics over students’

In a mental health nonprofit’s survey late last year of Killingly students from the seventh to 12th grades, nearly 30% of the respondents reported that they’ve had thoughts about hurting themselves. And 14.7% have made suicide plans.

Wait lists for mental health care are long, and for those students who can access it, they’re often pulled out of class and fall behind. The school has had an open position for a staff psychologist for more than a year.

When the board denied the request for a school-based mental health center, parents filed a formal complaint saying the board wasn’t providing “the minimum services and supports necessary to deal with the social, emotional and mental health needs of the students of Killingly High School.”

“They’re putting politics over students,” said Seth Varin, another senior at Killingly. He’s struggled with depression and anxiety, particularly during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. He will graduate soon and plans to attend Norwich University in Vermont to study physical education — with the goal of coming back home to teach at Killingly. 

“I want this for the future grades,” he said. “Even if it saves one person, I feel like it would be beneficial.”

“You’re worrying about yourself, and you’re worrying about everyone else who’s also struggling and trying to get them to come to school and graduate and just get through the year,” Yater said.

Yater and Varin were among several students who have stood up, gripped the edges of the lectern and told the local board that they need mental health care in meetings spanning March and April. The students said they suffered trauma after trauma and then spent the last two years isolated from their friends and living through a global pandemic.

In interviews with the CT Mirror, school staff told stories about students having anxiety attacks and needing to call 211 for mental health services for children as young as 8. Parents talked about their kids’ needs for therapy, mental illnesses and suicide attempts.

Students said they are hurting and don’t feel heard.

The interviews with dozens of people involved in the school district show a pattern: The kids are shouting for help, and they say the adults in charge haven’t given it to them.

‘Parental rights’

At an informational session for the clinic and on social media afterward, students and parents said, community members brought up concerns that students would be counseled on issues such as abortion, gender and birth control.

A survey circulated by state Rep. Anne Dauphinais, R-Killingly, titled “Public school services for minors without parental consent,” asked questions about whether parents would agree with their kids receiving counseling on contraceptives, premarital sex, abortion, gender identity or religion without consent. 

The survey also asked if parents supported schools “offering or administering” medications or vaccines to minors “without parental knowledge or consent.”

Generations Family Health Center, a nonprofit based in Willimantic that would have provided therapy at the school, has said it won’t offer medications or vaccinations to minors at the clinic.

The survey also questioned whether parents would approve of their children receiving mental health services without parental consent.

The survey results have been cited repeatedly to push back against the health center. Dauphinais’ husband, Dale, referenced them in public comment at a March 9 school board meeting. Dale Dauphinais is the chair of the Quiet Corner Tea Party Patriots.

“I believe this is an unwarranted government intervention,” Dale Dauphinais said. “This is where they divide the parents and the students.”

Dale Dauphinais declined to be interviewed about the health center. Anne Dauphinais didn’t respond to requests for an interview. In a written statement, she said she supported parental rights. “I have always stood for and believed in parental rights,” the statement read. “l sent this particular survey out to get the pulse of where those who participated in the survey stood. This survey was conducted to explore the thoughts and beliefs of all who chose to complete it.”

Ferron, the board chair, wasn’t aware of the specifics of the survey's questions, “but I know it contradicted some of the other surveys that were done,” he said. “It was more inclusive of more parents.”

The complaint to the state says he and former chair Janice Joly pushed against the mental health nonprofit's survey results. “How do you know they were honest responses?” Joly said, according to the complaint. “We’re dealing with kids. They could have written anything. That’s what kids do.”

Ferron said he thought 14.7% of respondents having a suicide plan was "not that big" of a number. That comment, at the March 16 meeting, was met with audible gasps. One student, who had just told the board that he was a part of the 14.7% who had a suicide plan, began to cry, according to the complaint. 

The rhetoric surrounding the health center at Killingly is evocative of past “culture wars” that have been used by politicians to stir up anger, said Chris Haynes, a political science professor at the University of New Haven. In the past it’s been issues often related to race, such as critical race theory, that sparked vitriol largely not based in fact, he said.

It can be politically advantageous for politicians to advance ideas that evoke strong feelings, he said, but these political strategies have caused parents to grow increasingly concerned about what their kids are being taught in school.

“Parents have decided, ‘We’re going to open up the cover of what gets taught in high school education,’” Haynes said. “I think it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what high school education is about and what teachers are doing and what they should be doing.”

What’s happened since

Since the board’s decision, Joly has resigned. In an interview with WINY radio, she said she left her position because there was “so much hate” and she felt people — primarily Democrats — were spreading lies and harassing her.

“I just felt like I wasn’t safe, and so I asked the town manager and the superintendent to provide police protection, because some of the people in the group had already professed that they had mental health issues, and I was afraid someone might attack me,” Joly said in the WINY interview.

Joly did not respond to interview requests from the CT Mirror.

The board was set to discuss alternative proposals and a one-year contract for the health center at its April 27 meeting, Ferron said.

The state investigation

Dozens of Killingly residents submitted a formal complaint on April 5 to the state Department of Education, alleging that the board had “failed to fulfill the education interest of the State of Connecticut by failing to provide the minimum services and supports necessary to deal with the social, emotional and mental health needs of the students of Killingly High School.”

On April 11, the state agreed to investigate the issue, which is unusual.

“You don’t see many of these happen,” said Eric Scoville, a Department of Education spokesman. “They only happen ... when there’s a lot of evidence that is provided.” 

On Monday, the board was granted a five-day extension to submit a response to the complaint, meaning it will have to respond by early May. After that, Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker will review evidence.

The state Board of Education will make the final determination on what should be done.

Several Killingly residents, including Yater and Killingly senior Julianna Morrissette, went to speak to the state board at its April meeting and ask members to investigate.

They both feel more hopeful about the center now that Joly has resigned.

www.ctmirror.org

Resources

Mental Health Crisis Hotline

Free, confidential, 24/7 crisis support

Text "HOME" to 741741

National Suicide Prevention Hotlinesuicidepreventionlifeline.org

1 (800) 273-8255

Español: 1 (888) 628-9454

Deaf/hard of hearing: 1 (800) 799-4889

State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Servicesct.gov/dmhas

(860) 418-7000