Readers write

Georgia schools lack mental health funding

Georgia has done something most states haven’t: the General Assembly put real money into student mental health — $20,000 for every middle and high school, renewed this year, plus a $1.5 million increase for school social work. I’m a social work graduate student preparing to enter the workforce that funding depends on. I have reason to worry it stops short in two ways.

First, that money only serves grades 6-12. Georgia offers a possibility of expansion to elementary grades “if the data demonstrates a need.” The data has demonstrated it for years. Waiting for an adolescent crisis to begin at 13 is not early intervention.

Second, Georgia averages one counselor per 378 students, compared with a recommended 250, and some districts have only one psychologist or social worker per school. I’m entering a pipeline where funding is shrinking: the federal grant that trained master of social work (MSW) students for five high-need rural Georgia districts wasn’t renewed this year.

A solution is already available. Extend the existing state allocation down to elementary schools, and fund the social work and counselor positions that turn money into care. Georgia has built the framework. It shouldn’t leave half the school years out.

SAVANNAH COHEN, ATLANTA

Georgia/Florida at the Benz was miserable experience

I am a devoted UGA/University of Florida football game fan. I have attended the game in Jacksonville for the past 15 years. The three-day weekend at Jekyll Island and the hotel-sponsored bus rides to and from the game are the highlight of my sports-watching year.

This year, I got tickets to the game in Atlanta because I had never been to Mercedes-Benz Stadium. As a Vietnam veteran, I stopped going to the Falcons games since the NFL players started kneeling during the national anthem and the NFL did nothing about it.

The MARTA and Mercedes-Benz experience was atrocious. We waited two hours for the gates to open, and the restrooms outside the stadium were hard to find and definitely inadequate for such a large crowd. Why didn’t they have more portable toilets?

Once inside the stadium, we could not find a restaurant with tables. There were no places to sit down to eat and only one place on our level that had stand-up tables.

After the game, we spent 40 minutes waiting for a train at Five Points. We asked a MARTA attendant which train went to North Springs, and she directed us to a platform and told us to take the next train.

We ended up at Doraville and had to go back to Lindbergh station and wait another 15 minutes. We missed our dinner reservation with friends.