Mental-Health Aid for Immigrant Children Lags

As educators and experts assess the quality of student mental-health services in light of the deadly shootings last month at Virginia Tech, the gunman’s immigrant background is focusing attention on what those who work with immigrants say is a lack of services tailored to such groups.

There was no information as of last week about whether Seung Hui Cho, the university senior who killed 32 others and himself on April 16, had received school-based or other mental-health care as a child after his family immigrated to the United States from South Korea.

But mental-health professionals say that, in general, even school districts with programs that specialize in helping students from immigrant families are hard-pressed to keep up with the demand from the...