Emojis are an important part of morning check-ins for students at some Marion County schools.
After they pick a smiling, neutral, or sad face, they also write a few words to explain their choice. If they skipped breakfast or didn’t get a good night’s sleep, that signals to school staff that they may need a snack or a talk with a trusted adult.
Students in a southern Indiana district learn that not getting basic needs met can cause someone to “flip their lid,” and lose control of their behavior. But they also learn how to reset from that state, and come back fresh the next day.
These are examples of social-emotional learning programs in Indiana schools. Educators say they provide a common language for students, teachers, administrators, and parents to understand a student’s well-being, and in turn improve academic performance, attendance, and school culture.
“You can’t teach a child anything if they don’t feel safe and cared for,” said Tricia Hudson, director of K-8 curriculum at North Lawrence Community Schools.
But putting these programs in place and maintaining them in the current political climate is increasingly challenging for Indiana schools despite persistent needs: Indiana schools saw a 41% increase in bullying incidents from 2023 to 2024, according to the Indiana Youth Institute. And feelings of hopelessness remain higher among Hoosier girls than boys despite an overall decline in self-reported rates of depression.
Indiana legislators this year left several bills on the table that sought to address student mental health, bullying, and counselor shortages, and dropped some requirements related to social emotional learning in teacher training. In April, the Trump administration announced an end to federal grants that supported mental health professionals. And conservative state and national politicians and groups have criticized social-emotional learning as inappropriate in a school environment.
Uncertainty about state and local funding is also an ongoing concern, said Brandie Oliver, a professor in the graduate counseling program at Butler University, because it affects schools’ ability to offer proactive rather than reactive resources.
While most schools offer some mental health support, a much smaller portion effectively address the needs of all students, she said. Without that kind of help, growing anxiety and school refusal can affect students’ attendance and academics.
“The capacity to be able to adequately resource the needs of our students is just not there,” Oliver said. “We’re trying to triage what we see rather than get to the root causes.”
Lawmakers don’t pass bills on bullying, school counselors
The legislative session was “devastating” for student mental health initiatives, said Rachel Van Alstine, a parent and advocate for anti-bullying legislation.
Three bills about the issue championed by her group, the Parent Coalition for Child Safety and Wellness, failed to advance this year. One of them would have changed the definition of bullying to include isolated incidents, and also would have required more tracking and reporting of bullying.
Another bill would have compelled parents and the state Department of Child Services to address bullying behavior by seeking resources for the perpetrator, and the the final bill would have specified that officials must assume students’ mental health is endangered if they learn that their parent or guardian uses illegal substances.
Van Alstine said her group was told by legislators that these initiatives were scrapped due to a tight state budget. But addressing bullying early could save the state money it spends on mental health issues, she said.
“We have the money — but where are we choosing to put it?” Van Alstine said.
Other bills that failed this year would have created ways for victims or perpetrators of bullying to transfer schools.
Proposals that sought to increase the time that counselors can spend with students, or relieve them of other non-counseling duties, also failed to pass despite years of advocacy from counseling groups. Indiana already has much higher ratios of students to counselors than recommended.
When those counselors spend their time overseeing testing or making attendance calls, they’re not able to “help a student change their behavior, or find a reason to wake up and be there,” said Jan Desmarais-Morse, executive director of the Indiana School Counselor Association.
“They may struggle emotionally, have discipline issues, or not meet their full potential because of all the other things getting in their way,” Desmarais-Morse said. “That’s our job, to help remove barriers.”
