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RUNNING FOR JERUSALEM
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TUKEE TAMALE TIME
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COMING SATURDAY
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
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DV students make impassioned mental health plea BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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igh school students, mostly from Desert Vista, implored the Tempe Union Governing Board last week to do more to address their classmates’ mental health or risk deepening their anguish to a point where some take to drug abuse and others turn to suicide. Harkening to the fact that they had been before the board a year ago asking for more counselors on campus who are devoted to mental health concerns and not college preparation, Armando Montero, an Arizona State University freshman who graduated from Desert Vista in May, said: “I’ve gotten plenty of promises that we were going to work on this and we’ve met with you several times, but it’s gotten nowhere. We have our pilot committee at Desert Vista that has continuously worked but has not had a voice and the problem goes beyond that. “It’s as if the conversation we started has
Snowgoing
not gone anywhere to the point where we have students that have attempted to commit suicide over the summer. Yet, it’s thrown under the rug and nothing is done about it.” School board members and Superintendent Kevin J. Mendivil expressed sympathy with, and support for, the students’ concerns, but made no specific promises. “While it doesn’t feel like a lot has been done in one year,” Mendivil told them, “there’s been positive movement in the right direction and you don’t feel that and you may think that they’re empty words, but they’re not. I worked with our SSAC (Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council) group. I think you know, where my heart is and where my passion is but I alone can’t do it. This board can’t do it. This is a collective effort.” “I hope that you have no doubt that there is commitment on this board for all the students,” Mendivil added, praising the students for speaking up and telling them “we have to work together and we have to look to the other sources where we need to make that difference.”
Concern for mental health services has swept across many school districts but especially so in the East Valley, where 41 students – some as young as 12 – have taken their lives since July 2017. Some of the student speakers who address the Tempe Union board Dec. 4 talked about counselors too busy to talk to them and portrayed some teachers as helpful and others seemingly too distracted to bother. “I’ve seen teachers with the same level of compassion for their students working to create nourishing relationships with said students clubs on campus had been formed on ours like Thunder Strong and our diversity committee,” senior Lance Watkins said. “And while these groups and individuals have worked to cultivate a culture and community that opens the door to wellness and mental health dialogue, therein lies the problem: Students have been forced to do the faculty’s job for them,” Lance continued, adding: “Clubs standing on this unofficial platform
see COUNSELORS page 8
Police, civilians ‘Ringing’ in crime BY JIM WALSH AFN Staff Writer
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NEW PRIDE COACH
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This wintry scene will be resurrected after a year hiatus this Saturday at Foothills Baptist Church in Ahwatukee, which is bringing back its popular gift to the community. For details, please see page 4. (Foothills Baptist Church)
doorbell never made as many friends and enemies, but then again, The Ring is far from the ordinary lighted button with chimes. Ring videotapes people walking up to your front door – some of whom might be up to no good. And at a time when Christmas online shoppers are expecting packages, Ring has become a new crime-fighting tool for Phoenix as well as many communities in the metro area. Neighbors by Ring and the Neighbors app has created digital neighborhood watches on Phoenix residents’ phones where you can get real-time crime and safety alerts from neighbors and law enforcement. Phoenix Police are using Neighbors to monitor crime in users’ neighborhoods and send
see RING page 12