By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer

The light was always too bright in Room B214. Heaven’Le James, a freshman at John F. Kennedy High School, sat in the second row, clutching a mechanical pencil with a snapped eraser and staring at a worksheet filled with numbers she couldn’t trust. Every three looked like an eight. Sixes flipped into nines. Math had always been a battle — one she began losing in elementary school — and now the battlefield felt like quicksand.

She raised her hand again, slowly. The teacher scanned the room, called on someone else. Heaven’le put her hand back down.

Home wasn’t a refuge from struggle either. In high school she lost her grandmother and great-grandfather in close succession. Her family moved in to care for her great-grandfather while he was on life support. Every day was a balancing act between mourning and survival.

By the time she asked for help with her academic struggles, her freshman year, it was already late. When Sacramento City Unified School District finally began evaluating her for an individualized education plan, nearly three years had passed.

“I continuously tried advocating for myself [to counselors] numerous times,” she says. “They really don’t care. They showed zero interest in me.”

According to James, the only time her cries for help were acknowledged was when her mother intervened. A guidance counselor told her that an online credit recovery program was full. Online credit recovery programs allow students to retake a missed or failed course to earn the credits needed to graduate.

Her mother made a call and found out that wasn’t true. James was let in — but by then, the damage had begun to calcify.

Meanwhile, she was being bullied — physically and emotionally. The harassment had followed her from elementary school. She remembers high school boys putting their hands on her, and no one stepping in to stop them.

“I never really had any friends in school,” Heaven’Le, now 19, says. “I’ve always been bullied, from elementary into high school. And it only got worse.”

Through all of this — her losses, her learning struggles, the weight of caregiving — no one from the school offered mental health support. At one point, a principal told her mother she would never graduate on time, insinuating that Williams didn’t care about her own future.

Racism at West Campus High

The message was loud, ugly, and spelled out in capital letters: the n-word spraypainted across the parking spot of Vice Principal Elysse Versher at West Campus High School, another Sac City Unified school.

Aziza Williams saw it during her junior year, just after third period. At first she thought it couldn’t be real — until it was all anyone could talk about. The Black students knew what it meant. Versher had just implemented a new dress code banning ripped jeans, short shorts, cleavage, and bare shoulders. Some students pushed back. But what started as frustration exploded into outright racism. And then it turned dangerous.

Soon after, an anonymous Instagram account surfaced. The posts mocked Black students with monkey imagery and racial slurs. Then things got even darker: someone posted Versher’s family with a monkey on it.

For Williams, who had already lost family members that year, it was another kind of grief. Not just because of the cruelty, but because of what didn’t happen next. The school said nothing. No assembly. No apology. No acknowledgment of harm.

“We were scared,” she says. “What if our addresses were leaked next? Nobody even asked how we were doing.”

For years, West Campus had celebrated its academic rigor and success stories of alumni who went on to Stanford and UCLA. But Williams and other Black students were invisible in those narratives. “It’s not a place that felt safe for Black students,” she says. “There were very few people who looked like me.”

Even discipline was uneven. “I had friends who were suspended for doing the same things white or Asian students got away with,” she says. “It was obvious.”

When Versher finally resigned — after revealing that the harassment had driven her to suicidal thoughts — there was still no real reckoning, Williams says. The culprit never was caught.

A lawsuit filed by Versher against the district was unsuccessful. Versher received no compensation other than attorneys’ fees. 

The Mental Health of Our Black Students James’ and Williams’ struggles with mental health at school echo the challenges young Black people face in schools throughout the region and nationally.

The OBSERVER surveyed roughly 35 Black Sacramento teenagers about their mental health. More than half of respondents said the pressure to succeed academically caused them the most stress. 

The surveys were conducted over two months with students ages 12-18 and from several Sacramento-area school districts. The students were allowed to take the survey anonymously.

Students were asked to rank their top three stressors from a list of 16 and roughly 57% indicated that academic pressure was among them.

Students were prompted to identify specific sources of their stress. While many expressed concerns about school, a few young men uniquely mentioned social interactions, such as fears of getting into a fight, as a stressor.

“School has been causing me the most stress. I feel like I am always thinking about school and it’s affecting my sleep and personality,” one youth responded. “I always feel nervous before and after school because I’m stressed out.”

Another wrote, “Having to keep up with my schoolwork and worrying about high expectations at school and home.”

The other leading stressors students indicated were violence, family issues and racism.

“The pressure of being one of the only Black students and keeping up academically,” one student wrote.

As student mental health concerns rise, Sacramento education leaders are working urgently to expand support systems, despite barriers.

According to the Sacramento County Office of Education, nearly 40% of students reported chronic sadness or hopelessness in 2022 — a number even higher among youth facing challenges related to race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and housing instability.

In response, Sac Unified and SCOE are prioritizing mental health services, but progress is slow. A nationwide shortage of mental health professionals has delayed SCOE’s goal of placing a clinician in every school until at least 2050. Funding limits also push schools to seek support through programs like the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative.

Disparities in access remain a concern, especially in underserved communities. Sac Unified runs student support centers staffed with social workers, family advocates, and community partners. The district also works to reduce stigma through campaigns such as #MindOutLoud and offers telehealth and digital tools like the GRACE app to connect students to care.

Recognizing early intervention as key, the district has introduced behavioral health screenings in select schools and aims to expand them despite limited resources. Central to all efforts is collaboration between schools, families, community groups, and county agencies to build a more connected support network.

Heaven’le James says what she needed most was simply “one person there to help me” — someone who would make her feel “seen and heard and welcome.” She says such support didn’t have to come from someone who looked like her, but from anyone willing to help.

“Man, you don’t even gotta look like me. Just be there to help me,” she says. Having someone reassure her that “it’s OK if you don’t go to college right away” could have made a difference. Ultimately, she says, “sometimes it just takes one person to kind of brighten somebody’s day.” James plans to attend Cosumnes River College.

She and Williams believe Sacramento schools can do better, not just academically but in ensuring equity, representation, and safety for Black youth. “We just want the same care and opportunity,” James says. “Not pity, not excuses, just a chance.”

Williams is enrolling at Sacramento State, continuing her education while advocating for change in her community.

Both say the systems meant to support them failed — and that school officials need to take their concerns seriously. Williams says schools should hire more Black and brown educators who are not just diverse in background but committed to equity and long-term student growth. She says schools should create programs that build community among Black students not only in crisis, but as part of school culture. Williams also says it’s important to invite role models from HBCUs and the broader Black professional community to help students see what’s possible.

Williams says training staff to engage meaningfully with Black students by checking in, validating their presence, and treating them with respect is critical. When racist incidents happen, schools must take safety concerns seriously. Williams noted that after public threats and online attacks targeting Black students and administrators, no formal safety measures were put in place.

“We didn’t feel safe. We didn’t feel seen,” she says. “They should’ve at least asked how we were doing. They didn’t.”

Support for this Sacramento OBSERVER article was provided to Word In Black (WIB) by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. WIB is a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media that includes print and digital partners.