Teachers have been thrust onto the front lines of the mental health crisis.

Maybe you can remember a time as a kid or a teenager that you felt overwhelmed, or misunderstood by your peers or your parents. Maybe you lingered after class to talk to a teacher about it, and your teacher listened. Ever since they’ve been teaching reading and writing and math, teachers have also been advisers to the kids they teach. That is no different, but the extraordinary nature of the times we are living in is different – and like all of us, teachers are also learning to navigate this unprecedented pandemic era.

“It used to be predictable, common adolescent issues that we have all lived through,” says Kati Bassler, an English teacher and president of the Salinas Valley Federation of Teachers. But now students are asking for support with mass grief during a pandemic; the experience of extended isolation; parents losing their jobs; and disruption to life as it was before Covid. “These aren’t traumas and issues that we have ever experienced,” Bassler says. “We too struggled. And we are asking teachers to be mental health resources.”

Besides the personal struggles of the pandemic, teachers have lived through a dramatically shifting national narrative. “In the past three years, we’ve gone from being idolized as heroes to being attacked for prioritizing our health,” Bassler says. “And we are returning to in-person [instruction] in under-funded schools with not enough resources to address the needs of students. Everyone is raw right now, and we are having to rely on folks who also are depleted of energy. We’re just exhausted.”

Teachers like Bassler who work in Salinas Union High School District are feeling especially depleted right now because they are grieving. In 2022, two of their colleagues have died by suicide. Most recently, on April 25, Mario Avalos died at El Sausal Middle School. Memorial services will be held May 5-6.

Avalos’ family created a GoFundMe page to raise money for funeral expenses. “Mario was a dedicated teacher who always put his student’s education before his own life,” they wrote. On the GoFundMe page, one colleague described Avalos’ classroom during lunch as “always a party,” a place where students would gather. A former student recounted it similarly: “I remember those times when we would watch movies and just hang out at his class during lunch time, as well as conversations filled with laughter.”

In a video statement, Superintendent Dan Burns urged the SUHSD community to seek mental health care when they need it. “This tragedy reminds us of the need to continue to address the importance of mental health support for students and staff,” he said.

Nearby districts followed up with similar messages, reminding staff of available resources, and acknowledging the unique pressures of this moment in time. “Over the past two years, our collective public education community has experienced trauma and great loss due to a global pandemic,” Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh wrote. “Our students, their families and our staff have endured more in two years than many have experienced in a lifetime.”

At Salinas City Elementary School District, Superintendent Rebeca Andrade wrote: “We know you keep a sharp eye out for student mental health issues. We now ask that you intentionally also check in with each other.”

While there is increased attention on how institutions should cover and deliver mental health care, it’s hard to overstate the importance of simply checking in with each other. On May 11, nonprofit Interim Inc. is recognizing Mental Health Awareness Month with a free event featuring speaker Frank Warren, who created Post Secret (see p. 16 for event details). It’s a compendium of anonymous postcards – he’s received more than 1 million – revealing a range of secrets, from funny and embarrassing to darker. In a podcast hosted by Interim Executive Director Barbara Mitchell, Warren described how his experience as a suicide hotline volunteer mirrors some of what comes in on postcards – just a place for people to share something that they otherwise have “no place to let it out.”

If you need help, help is there. The national suicide prevention hotline is 1-800-273-8255.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/sarahayleyrubin