Stella Pekarsky, a Virginia state senator and former Fairfax County school board member, has introduced a bill that would require students to undergo a mental health evaluation before they can participate in K-12 public school sports. It appears that one of Pekarsky’s first acts after her election to the chamber is to prevent some public school students from participating in athletics.
This is a terrible idea. Participation in school athletics is beneficial for physical and mental health and self-esteem. Teenagers who play sports are also less likely to vape and smoke marijuana. In Virginia, according to the latest National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics survey, 9.65% of children ages 12 to 17 report having used marijuana in the last year. Meanwhile, a national study in 2022 showed 19.9% of Virginia’s teenagers have vaped.
The benefits of school sports are abundantly clear. And with lower participation in K-12 sports, among other problems, drug use among teenagers is likely to increase.
We should all be working together to reduce barriers to increased participation in children’s sports. To that end, many high schools rightly offer physical days on school grounds, and sports fees are reduced or eliminated to alleviate financial barriers. Why would Pekarsky want to create more red tape for children’s participation in sports?
It is also unclear what a “mental health assessment” entails. The legislation would require that “a licensed physician, licensed advanced practice registered nurse, or licensed physician assistant acting under the supervision of a licensed physician attesting that such student has, within the preceding 365 days, received … a mental health assessment.” Are general practitioners and registered nurses qualified mental health experts now? Are parents expected to pay extra fees for their children’s bureaucratic mental health evaluations so that they can participate in school sports?
This legislation is likely just virtue signaling, given Pekarsky’s past grandstanding on the Fairfax County School Board. Pekarsky will claim credit for taking initiative for children’s mental health, though the bureaucratic nonsense she hopes to introduce would effectively do nothing. Again, this would be very on-brand, considering her actions on the school board.
In other words, the best-case scenario is that Pekarsky is advocating legislation that would create an extra worthless form for doctors, not psychologists, to complete during student-athletes’ annual physicals. It is potentially intrusive, annoying for doctors, and likely fruitless in the pursuit of diagnosing actual mental well-being.
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A bleaker scenario is that the mental health assessment is so cost-prohibitive or intrusive that students and their families choose to forgo it, thereby being forced out of sports.
Undoubtedly, children’s mental health and well-being after the prolonged pandemic school closures, which Pekarsky voted in favor of as a member of Fairfax County’s school board, are of grave concern. But addressing the resulting children’s mental health crisis shouldn’t be done in a way that threatens their participation in school sports — and the motivation to help our children should not be political gain.
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is a contributor for the Washington Examiner, a mother in Fairfax County, Virginia, an author, a member of the Coalition for TJ, and the Fairfax chapter leader of the Independent Women’s Network.
