When older Americans look back at their days in school, their thoughts inevitably focus on things like their first crush, playing games during recess, preparing for the prom and the anticipation of graduation. But times have changed – often enhancing youth’s ability to learn and access information much easier than in previous generations with gadgets that include calculators, laptops, tablets, social media and artificial intelligence.
However, there have been negative developments as well whose results we cannot ignore. Since the rise and rapid increase of new age phenomena including drive-by shootings, cyber bullying and the harassment of youth because of their nontraditional gender orientation, youth are experiencing a disturbing surge in poor mental health.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Data Summary & Trends Report, there are trends related to the mental health of U.S. high school students that demand our immediate attention. Some might even say what has taken us so long – and they would be correct in their assessment.
In 2021, more than 4 in 10 (42%) students felt persistently sad or hopeless while nearly one-third (29%) experienced poor mental health.
Meanwhile, gun violence and school shootings have become what some experts describe as a uniquely American epidemic whose causes have been linked to things like abuse or neglect; discrimination and stigma, including racism; social disadvantage and poverty; severe or long-term stress; social isolation; and homelessness or unstable housing.
Several of these factors were undoubtedly at play, based on comments from Montgomery County Police Department Chief Marcus Jones, who recently led a press conference to announce the arrest of an 18-year-old Rockville, Maryland resident, Alex Ye – charged with threatening mass violence.
After a witness came forward, an investigation conducted over several months by a team of law enforcement officials that included, but was not limited to, Jones’s staff, the Rockville Police Department, the FBI and mental health professionals from Montgomery County Public Schools, uncovered highly disturbing posts on Ye’s social media pages.
In addition, they discovered a 129-page manifesto, allegedly fictitious according to Ye, which described plans to shoot up two local schools – a high school and an elementary school both located in Rockville.
Ye, now in custody, faces charges that could land him in prison for at least 10 years. But local officials, from Chief Jones and Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) to the County’s State’s Attorney’s office and Councilmember Will Jawando (D-At-large), all say they are committed to securing the mental health assistance that Ye and his family so sorely require so that healing may occur.
In this instance, collaborative efforts, fortunately, prevented what could have resulted in a tragic outcome and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the witness who came forward to alert officials about Ye’s threats and other signs of mental instability that he had long exhibited.
But 25 years ago, on April 20, 1999, our nation was not so fortunate.
It has been a quarter-century since the massacre at Columbine High School when two teenage gunmen shot and killed 12 students and a teacher in Littleton, Colorado, before turning their guns on themselves. That heinous crime served as the start of a modern era of school shootings – one in which parents now fear that their children are in danger when they go to school.
In those 25 years, the number of people killed with guns on school property has climbed to at least 493, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, with more than 138 of those people killed in active shooter incidents on school grounds.
Further, on Friday, April 19, five teen males, ranging from ages 16 to 18, were injured in a shooting in Greenbelt, Maryland’s Schrom Hills Park, where 500-600 students were gathered for a senior skip day event.
Locally and nationally our young people are at risk.
Our children are crying out for help. Isn’t it time we respond?