The Ottawa Community School Network (OCSN) is an entity operating within the public school system with a mission to “integrate various health and community supports” into a school district. The problem is that a given school district does not have oversight of OCSN, yet OCSN personnel are active within school buildings.
OCSN is not a registered business.
OCSN is not a non-profit organization.
OCSN employees do not work for the school district. Therefore, neither the superintendent nor the building principal nor the school board has oversight.
OCSN is an independent group and it is not transparent.
OCSN does have a governance board, but its board is not elected by the voters nor appointed by public officials. In the past, governance team members were listed on the OCSN website, but this information has been removed. (Please note that a significant amount of information originally available on the OCSN website was removed or altered before the publication of this article.)
OCSN coordinators regularly check-in with students and families. They screen students for mental health referrals, respond to behavior and mental health crises, and refer students and their families to both in-house and outpatient counseling services. What are they doing with this data? This direct access to children by personnel not overseen by the district is extremely concerning, because parents can be cut out of the loop.
As what seems to have become the norm, public education is once again placing social justice and equity above education results. The OCSN has advocated for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE), implicit bias, Social Emotional Learning (SEL), the Whole Child approach and other divisive philosophies. For example, the November 14, 2022 OCSN Newsletter gives tips on instructing others with Implicit Bias from the “How to be an Equity Advocate” resource provided by the Leading Equity Center. There are also links to the Trails to wellness Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Program as well as other SEL resources.
The OCSN is funded through the mental health millage which is dispersed by Community Mental Health Ottawa County, non-profit organizations, the OAISD, grants, and donations.
I find the expansion of these mental health programs into schools to be a very odd development in public education. It is like there is an assumption that every kid needs these services. My fear is that the Ottawa Community School Network serves as a backdoor method for individuals to gain unneeded access to children with little to no accountability. There seems to be little to no recourse for parents who have an issue with their services. Shouldn’t the OSCN and any other individuals active within a school district be accountable to the building principal, who is accountable to the superintendent, who is accountable to the school board?