MORE SOCIAL WORKERS NEEDED ?
The school shooting in Ohio and the reports about the shooters background has once again spurred calls for more social workers in our schools. People are asking how kids like that are able to go unnoticed and why students and teachers weren’t able to spot a potentially troubled student and refer them to a social worker. There is no way to tell if any of the recent school tragedies might have been averted by having more social workers in our schools.
For many years the school that I worked in had one social worker for a population of about 300 students. I have heard from many teachers in other schools that tell of a huge shortage of social workers and how overburdened the social workers are. Like most staffing situations, the amount of social workers in a school is subject to the school budget.
It’s not just schools that have a shortage of social workers. My daughter is a social worker and her workload at