Additional Bexar County school districts receive ARPA funding for mental health services

SAN ANTONIO — Some of San Antonio’s premier faculty districts are receiving federal bucks to help psychological health services.

Bexar County has $21 million from the American Rescue Prepare act for faculty primarily based behavioral wellbeing. $6.7 million was distributed to Edgewood ISD, Northside ISD, Somerset ISD and Southside ISD to fund expert services as a result of the end of 2026.

The first spherical of funding was authorised for San Antonio ISD, Harlandale ISD, South San ISD and East Central ISD back in Oct.

Southside ISD staff states the district has done a superior position at addressing the substantial university amount, but the funding will assistance extend products and services to reduced quality concentrations.

“I have been performing with Southside at just one issue accomplishing much more of the unique remedy in the college setting and it is a quite huge need to have,” Iveth Pacheco, social and psychological coordinator for Southside ISD explained to KENS 5.

She states there is restricted accessibility to holistic behavioral health and fitness centers exterior of the faculty district.

“We are rural, and a lot of the occasions that is been a person of the hinders in providing the quick reaction of solutions to students,” Pacheco mentioned.

“I am a former educator so its anything I’ve been doing work on for a long time,” stated Rebeca Clay-Flores, Bexar County Precinct 1 Commissioner. She claims she’s experimented with battling the college-to-jail pipeline given that jogging for workplace.

The county claims it fought for $21 million dollars from the American Rescue Prepare Act to be dispersed to faculty districts.

“The hope is we’ll associate with ISDs and neighborhood non-revenue to get more therapists and social staff in our colleges so we can deal with challenges for youthful people today at an previously age,” Commissioner Clay-Flores said.

Here’s how the $6.7 million breaks down for every of the districts who been given funding today:

• Edgewood ISD: $1.04 million
• Northside ISD: $4.5 million
• Somerset ISD: $476,750
• Southside ISD: $90,000

The county allocates funding based mostly on enrollment numbers, poverty knowledge from every single district, and location median profits.

Pacheco has her hopes for what the dollars could do on the southside.

“We’ll be able to department out all the way from the elementary faculty to the significant faculty compared to just getting selected persons in certain campuses, that for the reason that of often deficiency of manpower we’re not ready to distribute these providers,” Pacheco reported.

According to Commissioner Clay-Flores, she states county leaders have convened with all ISD superintendents in Bexar County to give them the choice of applying for the funding.

Just about every faculty district would have to approve its agreement with the county. Bexar County not long ago hired a coordinator to work on most effective tactics with each individual university district.