NANCY LUCAS, M.Ed. Apollo Beach, Florida | NancyLucas1234@gmail.com | 305-393-6413 January 2026
To Whom it May Concern:
As an educator in the classroom, a mother of four, and a youth advocate for more than twenty years, I ask that you receive this letter above all else, from a mother’s heart.
Of our four children, two have required extraordinary mental-health and behavioral support. Some of their challenges were identifiable early, thanks to attentive professionals. Other aspects were confusing, painful, and deeply misunderstood.
What appeared to be an intelligent child failing school, resisting authority, lacking motivation, or simply “being a teenager” was not a character issue, nor a parenting failure. It was his brain. For several years, we knew something was not right but we did not know why.
The first brain scan told the entire story. Our son was suffering from brain damage. What had been labeled as severe depression, moderate oppositional defiant disorder, and moderate anxiety finally made sense. Everything we were doing, both as parents and as educators, was failing not because we lacked effort or care, but because we were addressing symptoms not the underlying neurological cause.
That is why I am writing to ask you to advocate for the hundreds of beautiful children in your care. Had a mental fitness lab or early brain-health screening been available in school, this would have been discovered much sooner. My son’s self-esteem could have been preserved. Years of discipline, frustration, and shame might have been avoided. Instead of feeling helpless, spending nights on suicide watch, we could have had clarity, direction, and peace of mind.
In our case, the cause was brain swelling related to COVID. Although our son was hospitalized and treated, we had no way of knowing the long-term neurological effects. The scan shows his eyes literally shaking in their sockets. That movement resembles someone decades older who has suffered a stroke. With limited blood flow to the motivation centers of his brain and eyes that struggle to maintain focus,
traditional academic expectations were not just difficult, they were neurologically unrealistic.
Accommodations helped him participate in discussion, where he excelled. But accommodations do not treat depression. They do not heal brain injury. And they do not restore brain health.
I urge you to consider a school-wide screening using an approved, evidence-based questionnaire and to provide students access to a mental fitness lab or equivalent brain-health support. If we, educated, drug- and alcohol-free, engaged, and deeply caring parents, missed this with our own child, how many families are navigating the same struggle with fewer resources and nowhere to turn?
We believe education is a noble profession with the power to transform lives and unlock human potential. Schools are the single greatest point of access to our society’s future. Once children pass through your halls, the window to influence brain health during this most critical season of development closes.
Please help us catch what cannot be seen before another child believes they are broken, lazy, or beyond hope, when what they truly need is understanding, awareness, resources and support.
With deep respect and urgency,
Nancy Lucas
