Pennsylvania students’ mental health concerns educators

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

 Matt Rourke / AP Photo

Students wearing mask as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus line up to receive KN95 protective masks at Camden High School in Camden, N.J., Feb. 9, 2022.

Airdate: Friday, July 29, 2022

The U.S. Surgeon General reported that from 2009 to 2019, the share of high school students who reported persistent feelings of hopelessness increased by 40 percent to more than one in three students.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and in-person classes were canceled or conducted by a combination of in-person and virtual or what became known as hybrid. Worse yet, the pandemic disrupted many young people’s lives and educators took notice. Teachers and counselors pointed to mental health as a major concern for students.

In the recently adopted state budget, $200 million was provided for student mental health and school safety.

David Hein is the school board president at Parkland School District in Lehigh County; the 2022 president of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, and a member of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and. Delinquency’s School Safety and Security Committee, who appeared on Friday’s Smart Talk to discuss how the money would be used by schools. He told us,”When they came back to school this year, these youngest kids, kindergarten that didn’t have the chance to be in a daycare setting or things like that. They didn’t have the socialization skills. And some of the up through the older students, exhibiting the the stress and the pressures of trying to manage a different type of schedule than they had to manage before you online, full time, or, managing their own schedule and having to get their assignments in within a certain amount of. Maybe with less hands on from the teacher. Not having the social interactions with their friends and with their teachers as well. It put a lot of stress on them.”