By: Dr. Jaime A. Mendoza, Aspiring Latino Leaders Alum

I’ve sat on the floor of school offices with students who couldn’t stop shaking and with others who were mute and refused to go to class. I’ve fielded calls about suicide risk before the first bell rang and stayed into the evening hours waiting on CPS to receive a child into care after a mandated child abuse report. I’ve watched teachers cry in their cars because they didn’t know how to help another child in crisis and did not know if they would return from winter break at all, reporting that the stress is insurmountable.  

Years later, from a countywide vantage point, I see the same distress only now multiplied across districts, communities, and systems. The post-pandemic mental health crisis in schools is real, urgent, and deeply human. But it is not, at its core, a clinical failure. It is a systems failure. And until we stop asking schools to therapy their way out of a national mental health emergency, we will continue to burn out the very people trying to hold students together. 

As Latino leaders in education, we must lead from our identity naming what we see clearly, even when it’s uncomfortable and work con ganas to build something better.   

What I Saw in the Classroom 

As a psychiatric social worker in Los Angeles schools and as a Vice Principal in the South Ward of Newark, New Jersey I worked at the point of impact when everything had already gone wrong. Students arrived carrying anxiety, depression, grief, housing instability, and trauma that did not begin on campus. My role was to assess risk, stabilize crises, and keep children safe. 

That work mattered. It still does. But crisis work is, by definition, downstream. By the time a student is sitting in front of you in tears, or with cuts up and down their arms, the system has already failed them, and often multiple times. 

Schools were never designed to be the primary mental health provider for children. Yet over time, we quietly accepted that responsibility without building the infrastructure to support it. We responded with heroics instead of systems, and compassion instead of coordination. 

What I See Across Systems Now 

Today, working at the county level, I no longer see individual cases; I see patterns. The same crises are repeated across districts. The same gaps in care. The same families navigate fragmented systems that don’t talk to one another. 

I see schools working incredibly hard, often in isolation, trying to compensate for what broader systems have not provided. The issue isn’t effort or commitment. It’s system fragmentation. 

We built programs instead of pathways. We funded services without aligning systems. And we left schools holding the emotional weight of entire communities. 

This is where rising as a collective becomes more than a value; it becomes a necessity. 

Why Crisis-Only Models Burn People Out 

Crisis response is not sustainable as a primary strategy. When schools operate in constant crisis mode, educators and clinicians experience moral distress: knowing what students need, but lacking the tools, time, or system support to provide it. 

Burnout becomes inevitable. Turnover increases. Relationships fracture. And the cycle continues. 

You cannot regulate a system that is structurally dysregulated. And no amount of individual resilience can compensate for systemic overload. 

Why This Crisis Hits Latino and Immigrant Students Harder 

For Latino students, and increasingly for immigrant children from Latin American countries, this crisis is compounded. Many are navigating family separation, immigration-related trauma, language barriers, economic instability, and fear tied to policy and enforcement. 

Mental health challenges are often misunderstood, stigmatized, or deprioritized in systems that fail to offer culturally responsive and linguistically affirming care. When families don’t see themselves reflected in school systems or when services are disconnected from community trust, students suffer quietly until they can’t anymore. 

Pain becomes visible only when it has nowhere else to go. 

If we are serious about equity, we must bridge across cultures not only in language, but in how care is designed, delivered, and sustained. 

How Community Schools Shift the Work 

Community Schools offer a fundamentally different approach, not by adding more crisis responders, but by building care infrastructure.  

In strong Community School models, schools partner intentionally with families, community-based organizations, and cross-sector systems. Mental health support becomes preventive, relational, and shared. The work shifts from emergency response to sustainability. 

I’ve worked in districts where integrated student supports and trusted community partnerships reduce emergency referrals over time. In a recent California Department of Education press release, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond celebrated research showing that Community Schools using integrated student supports and partnerships with families and community organizations have significantly improved outcomes including attendance and school climate demonstrating the promise of this whole-school approach in addressing student needs over time.  

This is what it looks like to rise as a collective. Community Schools don’t ask schools to do more alone. They ask systems to work better together. 

A Call to Action: Build Systems, Not Silos 

If we are serious about addressing the mental health crisis in schools especially for Latino and immigrant students we must stop treating crisis as the metric of success. The goal is not faster response times. The goal is fewer crises. 

That requires leaders to invest not just in programs, but in alignment, coordination, and long-term infrastructure. For district and county leaders, this means prioritizing sustained investment in Community School infrastructure rather than relying on short-term crisis contracts. For policymakers, it means aligning education, health, and child welfare systems, so schools are not left to coordinate care alone. And for community and philanthropic partners, it means funding prevention and coordination before crisis becomes the justification for action. 

Mental health cannot live in a single office or role. It must be embedded across systems and grounded in community where we are doing this work with families and communities, not to or for them. 

We cannot therapy our way out of this moment. But we can design systems that allow care to reach children before a crisis demands it. That responsibility belongs to all of us, and it’s time we meet it, con ganas.

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Dr. Jaime A. Mendoza is a Community Schools & Engagement Coach at the Santa Clara County Office of Education, where he partners with districts to build equity-centered systems that integrate mental health, family engagement, and community partnerships. A Clinical Social Worker and school leader, he brings a whole-child perspective to strengthening student well-being and belonging. With more than two decades of experience serving students and families in Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, and California, he has led wellness initiatives and community school strategies at multiple levels. A proud Mexican-American Latino leader, he remains committed to advancing community-rooted systems of care that support students and families.