PULASKI — State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly laid out her vision on how the state can meet the growing mental health needs of students, announcing she will propose more than $304 million in new investments to support youth mental health in her 2025-27 Biennial Budget request, during a visit today to Pulaski High School.
During the visit, Dr. Underly participated in a question-and-answer session with students, hearing from them on their current needs and learning how the DPI’s budget request can help. Data from the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows 59 percent of Wisconsin high school students have experienced at least one mental health challenge over the past year.
“As I said during the State of Education Address last month: The status quo is not sustainable,” Dr. Underly said. “We know what we need to do to act and stop this alarming mental health crisis. My budget makes a significant investment in youth mental health and increases access to critical student mental health services by making sure schools have the right staff in schools to address the very real challenges our kids face. We know what works, so we are going to fund it.”
The DPI’s budget request, to be released in full in November, will propose significant investments in K-12 public education and includes a focus on youth mental health. In its budget, the DPI will:
● Expand the School-Based Mental Health Services Program and provide every local education agency in the state $100 per pupil ($100,000 minimum per school district) and broaden the purposes for which funding can be used ($168 million over the biennium).
● Expand mental health costs eligible for aid from just school social workers to all pupil services staff — school counselors, school psychologists, and school nurses — and increase funding to target reimbursement at 20 percent of all prior-year aidable costs ($130 million over the biennium).
● Increase funding to expand training to more schools and allow for more types of mental health training ($760,000 over the biennium).
● Allow middle-school students to participate in the Peer-to-Peer Suicide Prevention Grant Program, raise the maximum grant award to $6,000, and allow for at least 100 grants to be awarded ($700,000 over the biennium).
● Increase funding to schools for implementing or expanding existing Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) programs (about $5 million over the biennium).
The DPI will announce additional budget priorities over the next several weeks. Additional information on the DPI’s effort to curb the youth mental health crisis can be found on its Student Services/Prevention and Wellness webpage.
$42M proposal to support early literacy initiatives
Underly also recently announced a budget proposal that will provide sustainable funding to school districts as they work to support developing readers and implement mandated early literacy initiatives in the biennium, even as the legislature continues to hold back $50 million promised to school districts in the current year.
Under Dr. Underly’s proposal, the state would increase help implement early literacy coaching programs, fund intensive summer reading programs, and invest in community-based early literacy supports including high-dosage tutoring programs. Video of Wednesday’s news conference, where Dr. Underly announced the proposal, can be found on the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Facebook page.
2023 Wisconsin Act 20, implemented in public schools across the state this school year, aims to increase literacy rates among students by using science-based early literacy instruction. To date, the Joint Committee on Finance has refused to release the nearly $50 million the legislature passed, which was intended to support districts in implementing this requirement starting this year.
“As so many of our educators work day in and day out to implement this science-based, data-driven approach to teaching literacy, the Joint Committee on Finance is sitting on funding intended to help improve outcomes,” Dr. Underly said. “The early literacy priorities included in my budget proposal are needed to build on this year’s funding for Act 20 — which we still need. We go even further to support our districts in helping our kids learn to read, so they can read to learn. By providing our school districts resources like coaches and student tutoring programs, we make sure our next generation of leaders have access to the things they need to succeed. We need the legislature to step up now, and again during the development of next year’s budget.”
The proposal, part of Dr. Underly’s 2025-27 Biennial Budget Request, was highlighted during a visit to Highlands Elementary School in the Appleton Area School District. During the visit, Dr. Underly and DPI Office of Literacy Director Dr. Barb Novak joined school and district staff in observing early literacy instruction in kindergarten classrooms.
Dr. Underly’s early literacy budget proposal will:
● Increase the number of literacy coaches from the required 64 under Act 20 to 100. These coaches help schools build capacity to teach reading in kindergarten through third grade using science-based early reading instruction ($22 million over the biennium).
● Provide grant funding to community-based organizations (including tutoring programs) to help strengthen early literacy outcomes, boost confidence, and help build critical learning skills ($10 million over the biennium).
● Develop strong readers by funding additional staffing and resources for local school districts necessary for intensive reading programs, which are required under Act 20, for students who exit third grade and have not completed a personal reading plan and met expectations on the reading portion of the Wisconsin Forward Exam ($5 million over the biennium).
The DPI’s budget request, to be released in full this month, will propose additional significant investments in K-12 public education. Recently, Dr. Underly also announced a budget proposal investing nearly $60 million to help school districts resolve staffing challenges and retain teachers, as well as a $311 million proposal for school nutrition.