Belen Rodas entered the public eye when she was elected as the Chancellor District representative on the Spotsylvania County School Board in 2023.
But when Rodas isn’t serving as vice chair of the board, she’s working as a social worker for Fredericksburg City Public Schools.
During the Region III legislative breakfast hosted by Spotsylvania County Public Schools earlier this month, Rodas pleaded with local members of the General Assembly for more funds for public schools to deal with the growing mental health crisis in the Fredericksburg area.
Rodas requested that Dels. Joshua Cole (D-Fredericksburg), Phillip Scott (R-Spotsylvania) and Del.-elect Nicole Cole (D-Spotsylvania), and others spend some time with school counselors and social workers to examine the day-to-day struggles they face when attempting to address mental-health issues in school buildings.
“The needs are extreme,” Rodas said … “In the building, in the moment, in the day, there are extreme behaviors that require skilled professionals to be able to help the kids in need, so that the other kids can learn.
“I need three of me in my school and six other counselors,” Rodas added. “We’re running around all day doing our best. I ask you guys to believe what people are saying is happening in our schools.”
Stafford County Public Schools Superintendent Daniel Smith said mental health is a “big concern” in the county among students and staff. He said that while the national recommendation for school social workers is one for every 250 students, the five high schools in Stafford have one for 2,200 students.
Kevin Stephens, district director for State Sen. Tara Durant (R-Stafford), noted that Durant introduced SB403 — a bill designed to add behavioral health specialists to the region — during the 2024 General Assembly session.
The bill allowed Germanna Community College to begin a pilot program to develop behavioral health specialists, and the first cohort of students from said program recently graduated. The group includes future behavioral health technicians and technician assistants. Stephens said the goal of the bill was to “get more bodies in the field.”
Stephens said school divisions may want to explore programs that allow behavioral health professionals do on-the-job training, which would add to the number of people in the building capable of handling crisis situations.
“We don’t want to saddle a behavioral health professional when they get out of college with $75,000 in debt and say, ‘You’re going to make $50,000 in a public school,’” Stephens said. “It just doesn’t work, and that’s why people don’t take that field.”
Durant hosts an annual mental health roundtable at Fredericksburg City Schools. The Fredericksburg school division also has a mental health task force and was recently awarded a $268,000 grant for telehealth services to assist with mental health needs.
Spotsylvania Superintendent Clint Mitchell noted that his division received a $250,000 grant for telehealth services. Scott spoke about the new building acquired by the Rappahannock Area Community Services Board at 4701 Market Street in Spotsylvania that will be a mental health crisis center. Scott acknowledged that the mental health crisis is a bipartisan issue but said he voted against a telehealth-related bill because of implementation concerns.
“You’ve got to have these closed spaces that nobody can hear,” Scott said. “You’ve got to have staff that are able to administer these things because you can’t just have kids coming in doing this in the cafeteria. You need to make sure you’re providing that element of confidentiality to meet the HIPAA requirement and all those things. I get attacked a lot because I vote no on things, but my goodness, when it comes down to funding, where is this money going to come from?”
The legislators also expressed concern about youth gun violence and safety during the breakfast. Joshua Cole said he was alarmed watching videos on social media of teenagers walking through the Olde Greenwich neighborhood in Spotsylvania carrying AR-15 semiautomatic rifles in a situation that turned into a triple homicide. Also, a third-grade student at Lee Hill Elementary School in Spotsylvania accidentally discharged a firearm in class in April.
Joshua Cole said he wants to bring back a bill that would require school officials to send out letters to parents twice a year, reminding them to ensure their guns and dangerous prescriptions are out of the reach of their children. The bill passed with bipartisan support last session but was never signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“Hopefully that legislation will pass [next session],” Joshua Cole said.
Last school year, Spotsylvania added weapon detection systems to its five high schools and the John J. Wright Educational and Cultural Center, and the Career and Technical Center. Mitchell expressed support for adding them to all schools, but Nicole Cole, a current Spotsylvania School Board member, said the funds should instead be spent on mental health personnel.
“I would much rather hire a person than buy a metal detector to put into a middle school,” Nicole Cole said.
Region III includes all the Fredericksburg area school divisions, as well as Colonial Beach, West Point and King & Queen, Mathews, Northumberland, Middlesex, Westmoreland, King William, Gloucester, and Richmond counties.
Caroline Superintendent Sarah Calveric asked the legislators whether they’d consider modernizing the state funding formula for public schools, and they said that conversation is ongoing. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) report found that the current model is outdated.
“We know what the JLARC study says,” Joshua Cole said … “I can assure you that we are actively working on it.”
The official Region III legislative priorities include changes to the Local Composite Index (LCI), which is the formula that determines a locality’s ability to fund schools, dedication of “real revenue sources” such as lottery and casino proceeds to school construction and modernization, supporting workforce development, and fully funding state mandates.
Nicole Cole, a Democrat who defeated longtime incumbent Bobby Orrock (R-Woodford) in the Nov. 4 election for House District 66, said unfunded mandates from the state aren’t always a bad thing.
“Having the experience that I’ve had on the school board, I am supportive of unfunded mandates that push our local board of supervisors to make sure they are giving a fair share to our school division,” she said.
