The ongoing mental health crisis is something that Fayetteville-Manlius fails to allocate its time to. Students come flooding into the counselor’s office day after day seeking help for their mental health issues, but what FM fails to realize and act on is that school counselors are NOT licensed mental health professionals. They do not have the qualifications to offer the proper guidance or aid to those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts or severe mental health concerns. They cannot diagnose nor treat our students. They are there to formulate school schedules and advise students through their future endeavors with college. Of course they can be used as a resource for support and if you need someone to talk to, but by no means are they qualified therapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists. FM needs to put in the effort, time, and money and use its bountiful resources into hiring licensed mental health professionals that are able to provide medical assistance to the students suffering in silence. We somehow have the money and time to renovate a massive part of the school, but we don’t have the resources to create a mental health sector in our school? 

We will never know the true reason why Jay took his own life, if FM’s academic pressure, stress it places on students, and lack of true resources was a primary cause, but what we do know is that with the proper resources, the school could have provided more aid to help him. We need to end the stigma surrounding mental health and ensure that students feel as though they are able to speak their mind without feeling ashamed or embarrassed of what they are feeling. We need to provide the outlets for students so they are not suffering in isolation. Performative acts of spreading awareness is not enough. We need to take action. Fayetteville-Manlius needs to do better. We all need to do better.