How school-based mental health treatment became the norm in Minnesota

Editor’s note: This is the first of three stories on school-based mental health treatment in Minnesota.

This girl just can’t seem to settle. Like a bird in search of a worm, she flits from spot to spot in Yolonda Rogers’ office — a desk, a couple of chairs and a beanbag in the corner of a multipurpose room at Heritage STEM Academy, a Minneapolis public high school. Rogers, a mental health specialist tasked with providing mental health care to students in six of the district’s schools, is patient. She’s seen this kind of behavior before.

The girl keeps moving around the room, alighting briefly before taking out her cell phone and answering a call. When Rogers asks her a question, the girl’s answers are short and clipped, and her face is turned away. She doesn’t seem interested in talking,