To the honorable Vice Chairwoman Jones and School Board Members Black, Connor, Hadden and Thomas,
Thank you for voting to approve the mental health support contract with Centerstone for our children. You did your job well last night.
To Chairman Smith and School Board Members Daugherty, Grohn, Kuehn, Schaffer and Slater,
You all are an absolute disgrace to the children and families you were elected to serve. Why are you even on this board if all you're going to do is cut funding, cut resources and cut needed services for our children, our school staff and our schools? I don't actually need any of you to respond to that -- it's rhetorical.
I know exactly why you're here and you're doing exactly what you ran to do. The shameful part is that many of you, if not all, claim to be "good Christians." I have yet to see any of you actually following and living like Christ. And I don't mean your made-up Christ who you seem to think would have approved of discriminating against children based on their race, socioeconomic status, religion, identity or beliefs. I mean the actual Jesus Christ who tended to the least of these.
And before you write me off, please hear me when I tell you that I am a licensed master social worker who works directly with children struggling with emergency mental health crises. Do you know how many children I work with who want to kill themselves? Who feel like they want to die because they have no support? Whose families are in upheaval at home and the only safe place they have is at school? How can "all children thrive and experience a future without limits" if they kill themselves because they didn't have access to mental health supports at school?
How dare any of you who voted against this contract pretend to be here "for the children." I'd ask you all to find your empathy and put yourselves in literally anyone's shoes beside your own, but you have nothing left to find. I'll pray for you.
Stefanie Dalton, LMSW, and proud parent of a Hamilton County public school student