Credit: (AP Photo/Don Ryan, File)

Students at one of the largest high school districts in New Jersey are beginning the school year without long-standing mental health services amid deep concern and outrage from school staff, parents and former students.

Last month, the school board representing Hunterdon Central Regional High School voted 4-3 not to renew the school’s contract with CarePlus NJ, a Paramus-based nonprofit that has provided specialized behavioral health services to the school for the past five years.

The Aug. 18 vote by the board not to renew the contract with CarePlus has left the school needing to fill the void as a new school year starts. At that meeting, Jessica Cangelosi-Hade, the school’s superintendent, said she was disappointed by the board’s decision. She said the school will now consider contracting with service providers who offer mental health support to address the gaps in care.

The high school has also not renewed its contract with Hunterdon Behavioral Health, according to Cangelosi-Hade, because of contractual differences. The Flemington-based organization provided free school-based youth services to students at Hunterdon Central Regional High School for over 30 years, according to Maren Smagala, a spokeswoman for the school district.

Credit: (Courtesy of Hunterdon Central Regional High School)

A big issue

Student mental health remains a top concern for children, parents and faculty at schools across the state in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, 54 people between the ages of 15 and 24 died by suicide in New Jersey, according to provisional data from the state Department of Health. That was down from the year before, when 79 people in the same age range died by suicide in the state.

And even younger New Jersey residents are impacted. In 2023, five children between the ages of 10 and 14 died by suicide, according to provisional state data. Last year, 11 children in the same age range also died by suicide.

Several Hunterdon Central Regional High School students have died by suicide in recent years, including in 2017 and in 2019.

‘How can you leave a school in the lurch this early and close to when students are coming back in?’ — Scott Cohen, a resident of Hunterdon County who spoke during Aug. 18 school board meeting

The decisions by Cangelosi-Hade and Hunterdon Central school board members have left many parents, students and faculty frustrated and deeply concerned, including Scott Cohen, a resident of Hunterdon County who spoke during the Aug. 18 school board meeting.

“Actually, I’m still struggling with this decision because I cannot believe that that actually went down,” Cohen said in a recent interview with NJ Spotlight News. “The fact that there was discussion by certain board members indicating that they didn’t have sufficient information was a little bit ridiculous because some of those board members had already voted on CarePlus to approve it in prior years.”

“Parents and students, especially our most marginalized students, rely on these services,” Maristela Wallace said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “I, for the life of me, don’t understand why August 18th — ten days before school is starting — is when a discussion even began on this. That is bizarre to me,” Wallace said of the school’s decision not to renew the contract with CarePlus.

Wallace, a resident of Hunterdon County, is a candidate in the November election for the Hunterdon Central Regional High School Board of Education.

Hunterdon Central school board members declined to answer questions about the decision and instead pointed to a YouTube video of the Aug. 18 board meeting.

One school board member’s explanation

“I understand that this is an emotional topic because mental health is crucial for our students,” Rebecca Petersen, a school board member, said during that meeting. “And, I also understand that as a board member and taxpayer, I’m keenly aware that school budgeting has real-world impacts on families throughout the district, many of whom are struggling right now.”

Petersen voted against renewing the contract with CarePlus, citing the cost of the program and the mental health resources already available to students at the school, including those provided by student assistance counselors. The services provided by CarePlus would have cost Hunterdon Central $278,512 for the upcoming school year, according to a school board document from the Aug. 18 meeting.

Because Hunterdon Central will not have a school-based youth services program heading into the new school year, the high school is now eligible for the New Jersey Statewide Student Support Services (NJ4S) program, according to Cangelosi-Hade. But doubts about Hunterdon Central’s potential move to the NJ4S program were raised during the Aug. 18 meeting by county residents who noted that the state’s program is not intended to provide intensive mental health care support.

What other school districts are doing

School officials from other districts recently told NJ Spotlight News that some students need more care options than what can be provided by the state’s NJ4S program. To fill that need, some school districts are hiring their own mental health clinicians to provide intensive services, which superintendents say are desperately needed.

Effective School Solutions, a for-profit business that provides mental and behavioral health services to students within schools, offers these intensive mental health supports to 60 school districts statewide, according to Duncan Young, the CEO of the company.

“It’s challenging budgetary times for school districts for sure,” Young said in a recent interview with NJ Spotlight News. “We’ve been fortunate to have the vast majority of our districts continue services by really trying to help them move down a road of thinking of mental health really as an investment and not an expense,” said Young.

In addition to the NJ4S program, New Jersey has made continued efforts to address student mental health in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In August, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill into law that further outlines the roles and duties of school counselors, including requirements to complete suicide prevention and crisis-intervention training.

In Hunterdon County, the concern remains among residents as students are set to return to school on Tuesday.

“I think what needs to happen is the board needs to express to the community they heard the message, they understand the need, and they want to go back and revisit this and do another vote and get this approved,” Cohen said of calls to revisit the CarePlus contract.

“Then, as many of us stated at the meeting, it was ten days before school started. How can you leave a school in the lurch this early and close to when students are coming back in?” Cohen said.