The Social Service Agency of the 21st Century

Is the world changing faster than I thought? Or, am I older than I thought? Today’s topic is the role of the schools in our society at the start of the 21^st century.

I was talking with the principal of one of the local grammar schools trying to find out the reasons for the significant growth in school staff over the past ten years. For example, one school has just about doubled its staff in that time period while the student population has declined somewhat. She attributed it to the rise of the schools as a social service agency.

Since I haven’t had kids in grammar school since 1992 (way back in the 20^th century), I was intrigued by her response and asked her to explain it further. First of all, there is the rise of mandated special education (SPED in the world of education). Our school system spends about 25% of its budget on SPED. SPED education can range from sending someone to a residential school (at $100,000 a year) to a kid spending a half-hour a week meeting with a counselor. Some students get one-on-one training each and every day; a classroom might have a teacher, a teacher’s assistant and one or more people helping SPED students. SPED students usually have an individualized education program (IEP). And some parents take along their lawyer when they meet with the school staff to discuss their child’s IEP. Clearly, all of this SPED activity clearly falls under the social service agency banner.

But, there is more to it than special education. Many households have two working parents who have decided that they need to work two jobs more than they need to fully parent their kids. So, they depend on the schools to provide a lot of the informal stuff – particularly socialization skills - our parents did in raising us.

A glance at a magazine on the principal’s desk convinced me that she was right; schools are expected to be more of a social service agency than when I or my kids went to school. Then, we and our parents were expected to solve our problems; the school was there to educate children. The magazine was published by an outfit called the Bureau of At-Risk Youth. The fact that someone saw an economic opportunity in “at risk youth” was the clincher; there had to be some truth in what the principal said.

Naturally, when I got home, I looked up this organization on the web and found out that it is part of something called Guidance Channel which offers 5000!! items for people dealing with at risk youth. And, they are not alone. Google returns 970 answers in a search for “at risk resources”. Entering “at risk children” I got 297,000 answers.

Here are some of the topics on web sites concerned with “at risk students’:
Assessment, Child Abuse & Neglect, Delinquency & Violence, Depression, Disorders, Eating Disorders, Family Issues, Grief & Loss, Poverty / Homelessness, STDs & AIDS, School Drop-outs, School Dropout, Substance Abuse, Suicide, Teen Parents, Positive Parenting, Alcohol/Drug/Violence, Mental Health And Wellness, Preteen Guidance For Ages 8 - 13, Self - Expression Journals Ages 5 - 10, Coping, Parenting Special Children, Parental Guidance, Parenting Difficult Adolescents.

Sure sounds like social services to me.

Then there was one site, http://www.youthchg.com/, that offered “live on-line help”. You could solve the following now: apathy, bad behavior, violence, school failure and more. Or, you could learn all about interventions (elementary and secondary interventions, all-time favorite interventions). Or, subscribe to newsletters on ADD, apathy “& more”. Or, get the best answers for the worst problems.

We’ve certainly come a long way from the days of Sr. Agatha, who could straighten out most of us by a simple glance and an implied threat to tell our parents.

But, the real question is: are we better off? Is this generation going to be less troubled than previous generations? Contribute more to the world? Be a peaceful generation?