School counselors would like to see the one counselor in schools for every 250 students. Instead, in Arizona that ratio sits closer to 700 to 1.

The ratio has actually improved in recent years. However, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting’s Maria Polletta reports that our state’s students have long been among the worst off in the nation when it comes to unaddressed mental health problems — without enough resources to help them address them. 

Polletta and Shaena Montanari looked into attempts to improve Arizona’s ratio of students to counselors, social workers and psychologists and found that temporary fixes that have been put in place in recent years are facing a funding cliff that could leave students out of luck.

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