The suicide epidemic among city schoolchildren is even worse than officials suggested last week — and on an upward trajectory, The Post has learned.
Thirty-five public-school kids have killed themselves in the past three school years, the Department of Education revealed — an unpublicized trend that Chancellor Carmen Fariña only hinted at last week when she told principals in a private meeting that 10 children had taken their lives during her first seven weeks on the job.
The 2011-12 school year saw nine suicides, with 14 in 2012-13. So far this year, with a third of the term left, there have been a dozen, DOE confirmed.
Meanwhile, schools’ safety net for troubled youths is shrinking. The number of social workers, guidance counselors and psychologists assigned to public schools has fallen 7 percent since 2008, going from 5,676 to about 5,300, according to DOE data.
“It’s scary,” said Dr. Roy Lubit, a child psychiatrist. “A small decrease can be devastating.”
Social workers are the school employees most likely to provide help to a student with emotional problems, Lubit said. Yet social workers’ ranks have plummeted at a steeper rate than the other school mental-health professionals — by 12 percent since 2008, from 1,515 to 1,338.
Last week, Fariña implored principals to identify lonely and troubled kids in an effort to stem suicides.
“She is very concerned,” a DOE spokeswoman said. “The department is committed to providing resources and assistance for all 1.1 million students — academically, socially, emotionally.”
Yet the DOE refused to comment on the decline in school counselors and wouldn’t reveal the schools, grades, ages or circumstances of the lost students, citing student-privacy concerns.
But understanding those details is key to getting to the bottom of the tragic trend, according to Lubit.
“Without knowing the demographics, it’s hard to know how to fix it,” he said.
Councilman Dan Garodnick, a member of the Education Committee, said a “hard look” needs to be given to how city schools are utilizing counselors systemwide.
“The system today allows for an ad hoc school-by-school approach, and that may not be good enough,” he said.