Schools need trained mental health professionals: Haluska

Decorah School Superintendent Mike Haluska says a good way to reduce violence in our schools would be for the Iowa legislature to give school districts money to hire professional mental health counselors.

Haluska told an audience at the NE Iowa Peace & Justice Center in Decorah on Thursday, "When you hear of school violence, there's a mental health issue that set it all in motion."  He added, "Someone just doesn't wake up in the morning and say, 'I think I'm going to shoot someone.'"

The school superintendent says the answer to reducing violence is NOT to arm teachers.  He says studies have shown we can't predict how people will react in stressful situations--and even trained law enforcement officers aren't always accurate when they're shooting a gun in a stressful situation.

Haluska says school districts do have counselors, but they are mainly trained in school counseling.  Adding paid mental health professionals to the staffs of school districts would be a big help to the districts, he says (Decorah schools do have contracts with outside providers for some mental health counseling)