The National Center for School Mental Health, a technical assistance and training center with a focus on advancing research, points out connections between pandemic-related impacts for students' mental health and increases in behavioral outbursts, aggression, and fights. 

The University of Iowa is turning its student union hotel into a mental health center. North Carolina’s state colleges are expanding mental health and crisis services with about $8 million from Gov. Ray Cooper. Florida State University created a new course to train faculty and staff to spot and help students battling trauma. Community colleges are stepping up, too.

When Raven Lee got a call from a staff member at Phillips Elementary School that her son was injured, she was told there was no need to rush to pick him up. On Oct. 20, 2021, Lee made the 30-minute drive from her job to the Des Moines school and took him to urgent care, she told the Des Moines Register. When picking up her son, school officials told her they were not sure what happened, but that her son, then in second grade, was sleepy.

School psychologists say they're seeing aggressive behavior in the classroom, from younger kids to those in high school.