At just 17 years old, I can’t count the number of times my friends and I have had no choice but to be one another’s support system through personal battles with our mental health.

New York City’s public schools are to blame.

I attend a high school with more than 400 students and there is only one dedicated therapist to counsel hundreds of young people. According to the New York City Department of Education’s “Report on Guidance Counselors,” in 2018, there were 2,881 guidance counselors (77 of whom were part-time) and 1,335 social workers serving the 1.1 million students in the city’s public schools.

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