Frederica Freyberg:

In lieu of an invitation to speak to the budget writers of the Joint Finance Committee, state superintendent of public instruction Jill Underly presented her education budget priorities to a panel of students at Mount Horeb High School who then presented her with questions from the student perspective.

Ayden Green:

On the topic of mental health, I can say from our school that there’s very few resources available. Essentially what it consists of here is call this phone number if you’re having suicidal thoughts or talk to one of two people in the office. And actually, in fact, one of the people on this — sitting here with me was telling me a little story about how they were having a mental health crisis and they went to one of the counselors and they were told to come back when they had an appointment. So pretty dysfunctional, and so I’m very curious to see how this $235 million, I guess, mental health grant is going to help to build those services.

Jill Underly:

We’re not only short staffed in mental health, it’s just problems are also more difficult, and take more time and so the budget ask is requesting a base amount for every school district of $100,000, plus an additional $100 per student. So you’d have $200,000 to hire additional staff, possibly bring in contractors in mental health. I know that there are a number of them particularly in this area.

Natalie Broderick:

During the summer, I work with the summer school programs here at Mount Horeb and I help students in both math and reading and other subjects that are struggling and I would say there’s a good portion of students that are special education in those classes that need the help during the summer and there’s maybe one paraprofessional per two to three students. So I’ve ended up helping out a lot of these students trying to help them learn during the summer, while I do my best, I’m not a trained professional and these students need more access and support in order to unlock their potential. So I’d like to ask how do you plan on allocating the budget so that special education programs are prioritized and paraprofessional pathways are made easier?

Jill Underly:

So right now, Wisconsin reimburses, as I shared earlier, on special education costs at 30%, roughly. The budget that we’re proposing at the department would increase that amount to 45% and then 60%. So I believe the size of your school district, it would be closer to $2 million in additional reimbursement. So that funding could go towards hiring additional staff, it could go towards training, it could go towards raising salaries. Not just in special education, but in all programs, because as I said, that funding is being transferred from other programs in order to meet that. So, really, what you’ve illustrated is that schools need that spendable revenue.