Do we really want to trust teachers to ‘teach’ mental health?

By SUZANNE DOWNING

May 16, 2026 – Alaska schools can barely teach reading and math at grade level, but now lawmakers want them teaching “mental health education” to every child in the state.

What could possibly go wrong?

Senate Bill 41, now sitting on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s desk, sounds harmless enough when wrapped in the language of compassion and awareness. Who could oppose helping kids with emotional struggles in a state that faces heartbreaking suicide rates and serious mental health challenges among young people?

That’s how these bills are always packaged: as unquestionable moral imperatives. If you raise concerns, you’re portrayed as uncaring or backward.

But parents are right to ask a more practical question: Who exactly is going to teach this curriculum, and what, precisely, will they be teaching?

Because this is Alaska public education we’re talking about … the same system that already struggles with basic academic outcomes, where many students cannot read proficiently by grade level, where math scores lag, and where schools increasingly drift into political and ideological activism instead of core academics.

Now the Legislature wants to hand schools another deeply subjective, emotionally loaded area of instruction and trust the bureaucracy to “develop guidelines.”

That should make parents nervous. SB 41 directs the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development to create “developmentally appropriate” mental health instruction for K-12 students, in consultation with various agencies, tribal health groups, and mental health organizations.

That’s sounds all fine and well. But phrases like “developmentally appropriate” and “medically and scientifically based” have become catch-all language that often masks ideological content. Parents have seen this movie before.

Over the past several years, schools across the country have increasingly blurred the line between education and social engineering. Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs became ideological sorting exercises. Gender identity instruction was introduced to children at younger and younger ages. Climate activism became embedded in classroom materials under the banner of “sustainability” and ESG concepts.

And now we are supposed to trust that “mental health education” will somehow remain narrowly focused and politically neutral?

Puh-lease.

Mental health today is not a politically neutral field. Not even close. Large segments of the professional mental health establishment openly embrace activist frameworks involving gender ideology, identity politics, racial grievance theories, and social-emotional learning models that encourage children to view nearly every discomfort through a therapeutic or political lens.

That may be fashionable in university departments and nonprofit conferences, but that does not mean parents want it taught to second graders in Wasilla, Kenai, or Fairbanks.

The House attempted to address these concerns by adding language saying the guidelines may not include “political, ideological, or advocacy-oriented content unrelated to student mental health.”

That sounds reassuring until you realize the people defining what is “related” to mental health are often the very activists parents are worried about.

Under modern activist frameworks, virtually everything becomes a mental health issue.

Preferred pronouns become mental health. Climate anxiety becomes mental health. Systemic oppression becomes mental health. Political activism becomes mental health. Resistance to activist ideology can even be framed as harmful to mental health.

Once that door opens, parents lose control over where the line is drawn.

And let’s be honest: Teachers are not trained psychologists. A teaching degree is the easiest degree out there. Many teachers are barely managing Alaska classrooms already burdened by behavioral problems, absenteeism, and academic decline. Scores in math and language are in the toilet. Yet lawmakers now want schools taking on another role traditionally handled by families, clergy, counselors, and medical professionals.

Why? Because woke government institutions increasingly believe every social problem must be solved through public schools.

If kids are anxious, schools must fix it. If families are fractured, schools must fix it. If children lack resilience, schools must fix it. Schools are no longer expected merely to educate; they are expected to parent, counsel, therapize, affirm, monitor, and emotionally manage children.

The mission creep just never ends.

Maybe Alaska schools should focus first on ensuring students can read, write, calculate percentages, understand civics, and graduate prepared for adulthood before turning classrooms into amateur therapy sessions.

None of this is to dismiss real mental health struggles among young people. Alaska families know these challenges are real. Suicide, addiction, depression, and trauma have touched nearly every community in the state.

But serious mental health care requires qualified professionals and engaged families — not politically filtered curriculum modules delivered by overworked school districts trying to comply with another state mandate.

Parents also understand something lawmakers often forget: emotional resilience is not built by institutionalizing every feeling. Children need stability, accountability, strong families, purpose, faith, community, physical activity, and confidence earned through achievement — not endless therapeutic framing.

There is also the larger trust issue.

Public schools and education bureaucracies spent years eroding parental trust by hiding curriculum changes, dismissing concerns about controversial material, and treating parents as obstacles rather than partners. Now those same institutions are asking for broad authority to shape how children understand their own emotions, identities, and psychological well-being.

Many parents simply do not trust them anymore, as evidenced by the number of students fleeing public schools.

And frankly, the public schools have earned that skepticism.

Gov. Dunleavy should veto SB 41, not because mental health does not matter, but because parents should remain the primary guides for their children’s emotional and psychological development. We cannot afford as a culture to have teachers raising our children.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.