Krista Gneiting blows a kiss to the crowd as she is recognized by Gov. Brad Little during the annual State of the State address at the Idaho State Capitol on Monday.
Gneiting, a middle school educator in Rigby, was hailed as a hero for disarming a student during a shooting at her school in May 2021.
Krista Gneiting blows a kiss to the crowd as she is recognized by Gov. Brad Little during the annual State of the State address at the Idaho State Capitol on Monday.
Gneiting, a middle school educator in Rigby, was hailed as a hero for disarming a student during a shooting at her school in May 2021.
During his State of the State address on Monday, Gov. Brad Little recognized the Krista Gneiting, the teacher who disarmed a student who brought a gun to an Eastern Idaho middle school in May, and announced a statewide push to improve behavioral health treatment for Idaho youth, writes Post Register reporter Jakob Thorington.
In 2020, Idaho created Behavioral Health Council, bringing together all three branches of state government to address behavioral health issues in the state. Little is now proposing investing $54 million into the council’s recommendations to improve behavioral health care across Idaho.
The $50 million investment would include creating new community behavioral health clinics, psychiatric residential treatment facilities and youth crisis centers, according to the governor’s fiscal year 2023 budget. The state’s suicide prevention line also would be converted to the national mental health crisis line.
On Tuesday, the governor’s budget director, Alex Adams, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee that the $54 million in one-time investments will come across several state agency budgets, including Health & Welfare, the Idaho Department of Correction, the Department of Juvenile Correction and the state Controller. “The major focus is on ramping up state treatment capacity,” Adams said. That includes $4.4 million to establish 12 new youth crisis centers across the state. Existing behavioral health crisis centers in Idaho serve adults; these would be short-term placement positions for youth under 18 who are experiencing immediate behavioral health crises.
Gneiting, an eighth-grade math teacher at Rigby Middle School, was at the address and received a standing ovation from those in attendance in the House of Representatives Chamber.
On May 6, the student brought a gun to the school and shot two students and a staff member. Gneiting disarmed the student until police took the student into custody. No one died in the incident, which is the worst school shooting in state history, Thorington reports.
You can read Thorington's full story here online (subscription required), or look for it in today's edition of the Idaho Press.
Betsy Z. Russell is the Boise bureau chief and state capitol reporter for the Idaho Press and Adams Publishing Group. Follow her on Twitter at @BetsyZRussell.
