The philosophical part of me says you ask yourself what is the function of the public school. If it is to educate/prepare for workforce or for more education, then it makes sense that schools offer a range of academic options, including special ed, vo tech, and advanced academic options like AP. It meets this mission first. The problem, I think, is that we’ve lost sight of the primary function of a school and figure, hey, it’s got the kids 7 hrs every day, it should also… fill in the blank. Personally, I don’t think you ought to add mental health screening and treatment to the list of responsibilities. The cynical part of me thinks the public school wouldn’t do a great job of this. The practical part of me does think about the budget, and no I don’t think merely doing away with sports would free up enough taxpayer dollars to come close to covering the cost of comprehensive mental health treatment. Is there something more mission related we could do with the budget rather than cover sports and other ECs? Probably, but that’s a different debate. For the sake of the safety of all students, should we have someone on campus, like a school counselor, who can refer students to proper care or alert the admin to potential issues? Yeah. But as far as providing treatment? No.