LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Jefferson County Board of Education agreed in February 2025 to pay $291,690 for an online therapy program meant to address student mental health and chronic absences. By the time the agreement ended in June 2026, the provider had treated just six students, according to records obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and published by LPM.
The vendor, Hazel Health, agreed to offer virtual behavioral assessments and therapy at no cost to families for more than 19,000 students in schools serving many low-income households. District staff expected the service to reduce truancy-related illness and improve academic performance, according to the contract.
School-based mental health practitioners who had access to the program said the low uptake did not surprise them. They cited difficulty finding staff to supervise students during sessions, and parents who struggled with the sign-up process. One practitioner described the contract as a financial waste.
The approval came while the district was moving toward a projected $188 million deficit, a shortfall disclosed months later under new leadership. Superintendent Brian Yearwood has cut school budgets to close the gap. In January, he proposed eliminating all but 70 of the district’s mental health practitioners, then reversed course after public backlash.
Tracey Roberts, president of the Mental Health Practitioner Caucus for the Jefferson County Teachers Association, said practitioners were being blamed unfairly. “How many MHPs could we have hired and put in those schools for the amount of that contract?” Roberts said. The base pay for a practitioner with a bachelor’s degree is about $50,000 a year.
District spokesperson Barnard Baker said JCPS did not renew the contract because of “a number of technical and customer-service challenges.” He said former superintendent Marty Pollio championed bringing Hazel Health to the district despite concerns raised during implementation. Pollio retired at the end of June 2025 and did not respond to a request for comment.
Records show staff referred 17 students, mostly for anxiety, and six completed therapy. The company delivered 43 sessions, most of them in students’ homes and two at school. A practitioner at McFerran Preparatory Academy said two referrals from her and a colleague never produced services because parents could not finish the paperwork.
The board approved a no-cost extension through June 2026, but did not renew for the following school year. Records also show the district had lined up an unnamed third party to expand the service to 46,500 students, a move that would have brought a donation of nearly $700,000. Baker said that donation never materialized.
Privacy advocates have also raised concerns. The parental consent form allowed Hazel Health to use children’s identifiable health information for software development and other purposes. Cassie Creswell, cochair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, called those provisions troubling. Hazel Health has said it has never had a business relationship with Palantir and does not use patient data to train AI models. Chicago’s board ended its no-cost contract with the company earlier this year after similar criticism.
Hazel Health is one of 663 education technology products approved for use in JCPS, according to a separate KyCIR report. Other districts have also moved away from the company; Duval County Public Schools in Florida ended its partnership with Hazel Health at the end of June.
Sources
- KY Center for Investigative Reporting
- LPM/KyCIR: JCPS to propose cutting hundreds of positions, funding for high-needs schools
- The 74: K-12 telehealth provider faces uncertain future as funding dries up
- LPM/KyCIR: JCPS uses hundreds of ed tech products; how safe is student data
- Action News Jax: Duval County Public Schools ends student mental, physical telehealth contract with Hazel Health
This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-5-5) based on source material from KY Center for Investigative Reporting, enriched with 1 web search. The original source is available at https://www.lpm.org/investigate/2026-10-20/jcps-paid-292k-for-an-online-mental-health-service-six-kids-used-it.
