SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake City School District's board voted to raise the price of student meals and will eliminate six social worker positions next school year, reducing the district's social worker staff from 16 to 10.
Dozens of parents, teachers, counselors, and social workers packed the board chambers with signs and their personal stories to protest the staffing cuts.
"No one wants to talk about our mental health, and we need to," one attendee said during Tuesday night's meeting.
Anique Monfrooy, a parent of two students, spoke to the board about the positive impact a social worker made on her own child and warned that the cuts will hurt families.
"I think we need to not be cutting that. We need to be increasing the amount," Monfrooy said.
Monfrooy said the reduction in staff will have direct consequences for her family and others.
"Our school's social worker will have to pick up another school, and we may not be able to meet with her every week, and that may mean a big deal," she said.
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Other parents and school staff members also advocated against cutting mental health services.
Blair Hodges, a parent of two students, said the decision undermines the district's ability to function.
"To me, what they are doing is taking the wheels off the bus to afford gas. The bus isn't going to go anywhere if you don't have the wheels on there. That's the emotional behavioral health support that social workers offer," he said.
The district says funding cuts are partly to blame, driven in part by fewer families applying for and receiving free or reduced-price school meals.
"Because of that big drop in families who qualify for those meals this year, we have less money this year to fund social workers, and that is not a position we thought we'd find ourselves in," Salt Lake City School District spokesperson Yándary Chatwin said.
Starting next year, the price of a school lunch will increase between 45 and 50 cents, depending on the student's grade level. Breakfast prices will increase between 80 cents and $1.05.
The district said it will work to connect families struggling with food or mental health to available resources.
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