Superintendent of Lake Forest school districts Matthew Montgomery said they have changed district policies regarding students’ mental health issues to ensure full involvement with the parents.
“We should be providing immediate support for triage, and we should then work with outside agencies with the parents, if the parents choose to work with one, and it should be ongoing support,” Montgomery told host Pete Jansons on the Lake Forest podcast. “Clinical support should not be happening in our high school.”
“We changed the policy that after two visits, if a young person comes to a social worker, after two visits it is mandated that they reach out to the parent or guardian,” Montgomery said. “Because that made me really uncomfortable the deeper we got into this, that it seems as if through no fault of anyone, we could have amped up our parent and guardian communication. They have to be at the table with us. We can't do this by ourselves.”
Montgomery was a guest alongside Lake Forest High school district board president John Noble on a recent episode of the Lake Forest podcast. Montgomery serves as superintendent for district 67 and 115, covering both the Lake Forest elementary schools and Lake Forest high school.
This full episode is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The Nov. 18th edition of the podcast focused on a variety of challenges faced by administrators in the local Lake Forest School District, including financial decisions and student mental health
The Lake Forest podcast is hosted by Pete Jansons, an entrepreneur with a background in neuroscience, Rick Lesser, an attorney and former village trustee, and Joe Weiss, who has experience in multiple government and public service positions. The podcast covers topics and politics impacting the area around the city of Lake Forest, according to the Lake Forest podcast website.
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