For more than 10 years, Florence City Schools has had on site professional mental health counselors from Riverbend Center for Mental Health.

With schools bracing for extended closures due to novel coronavirus, students, like many adults, face canceled trips, postponed routines, and more time confined at home.

A shooting in the stairwell of a Memphis school Thursday morning left a 13-year-old boy hospitalized in critical condition, a fellow student in custody, and a community grasping to process a violent outburst in a school year already beset by challenges.

Like community colleges nationally, more than half (56%) of Nashville State Community College’s student body enroll part-time. Part-time students face different financial, social and academic challenges than traditional students. Colleges face unique challenges engaging part-time students to help them persist and succeed to degree completion.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced last month a proposal to create a trust fund for mental health support for K-12 students.