Summary (TLDR)

The Hunterdon Central Board of Education has eliminated CarePlus and School-Based Youth Services (SBYS) without ensuring students will still have access to the critical mental health support these programs provided. These cuts endanger student well-being, place additional strain on school counselors, and could ultimately cost taxpayers more by forcing out-of-district placements and contracting piecemeal services. CarePlus and SBYS serve dozens of students each year with crisis intervention, psychiatric support, after-hours care, and confidential, specialized services that in-house staff cannot provide. In a time of rising youth mental health challenges, reducing resources is both reckless and harmful. We call on the Board to immediately reinstate and expand these programs for the 2025–26 school year to protect the health, safety, and future of our students.

Petition

We, the undersigned community members and stakeholders, are deeply alarmed by the Hunterdon Central Regional High School (HCRHS) Board of Education’s reckless decision to cut both CarePlus and School-Based Youth Services (SBYS) without hiring in-house staff or contracting with outside professionals to provide the services students require prior to removing these programs. 

CarePlus and SBYS offer students vital mental health and supplemental services that go beyond what in-house counselors at HCRHS are able to provide. With full caseloads, school counselors may not always be able to see a student who has an immediate need. In addition to this, they are unable to offer after-hours support, psychiatric care, or the medical clearances students may need to return to school. Programs like CarePlus and SBYS fill this gap by helping to identify students who are in need of services, stabilizing students in crisis, supporting those with ongoing mental health needs, and connecting students and their families with appropriate outside resources.

Although the Board stated that these cuts were made to save taxpayers money, the facts don’t support this claim. The budget passed in the Spring of 2025, which means that funds were already allocated for CarePlus when the Board voted down the contract. The students’ need for these services won’t vanish and the taxpayers won’t receive a refund now that CarePlus is no longer in place. As the superintendent stated during the August 2025 meeting, now that CarePlus is not covering all of these higher-level services, the school will need to find and contract with professionals who will be able to do so. Since the Board did not do any research to determine the cost of contracting directly with professionals for each service, it’s possible that this tactic will cost the taxpayers MORE money than what was budgeted for CarePlus. And that’s if the school is able to find professionals who are willing and available to provide these services at all. 

CarePlus and SBYS also help keep students with additional needs in-district. Without these programs, we risk sending more students to costly specialized schools — a decision that could cost taxpayers far more than the cost of maintaining these programs. According to board meeting documents, the LOWEST cost of sending a student out of the district is around $62K per year (some out-of-district schools cost around $100K). If we have to send FIVE* students out of the district because we can no longer show that we offer the support required to keep them in the district, taxpayers will be spending MORE money to serve FEWER students. By comparison, CarePlus serves a much larger number of students (approximately 50 per year with additional students from the student body receiving support on an as-needed basis). CarePlus also helps students stay connected with their peers and community while ensuring their needs are met discreetly, protecting both their confidentiality and their social privacy. By eliminating these programs, despite public outcry and recommendations from mental health professionals, teachers, and the superintendent, you are showing the students and the community that their needs are not a priority for this Board of Education. 

High school students today are facing unprecedented levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Many are also struggling with challenges such as substance use, refusal skills, family conflict, bullying, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts—on top of the academic and social pressures of adolescence. Local agencies that serve adolescents already have long waiting lists and limited capacity, and now face the threat of federal funding cuts. At Hunterdon Central, we cannot afford to reduce services that are often the only accessible support available to our students. Without qualified school-based mental health professionals, young people lose critical lifelines, putting them at greater risk for absenteeism, academic decline, social isolation, and long-term challenges that can follow them into adulthood. While teachers, administrators, and in-school counselors remain deeply committed to our students, they cannot replace the specialized care that these additional trained mental health professionals provide.

The Board of Education must make student well-being its top priority. Eliminating these critical programs endangers students—it is not a question of if an incident will occur, but when. We demand the immediate reinstatement of these services for the 2025–26 school year and urge you to expand, not reduce, mental health resources for our students. Anything less fails the students and families you are entrusted to serve.

*Calculations are based on the cost of sending five students to the lowest cost out-of-district placement ($62K x 5 = $310,000) versus the cost of CarePlus for one year, which is $278,512.