Small wonder Golden Triangle Days participants gave Port Arthur Superintendent Mark Porterie a standing ovation in Austin. Let us add our own cheer.

More than 300 elected officials, business and community leaders traveled to Austin this week to talk issues before and around our elected lawmakers. The goal: Present a united front from Port Arthur, Orange and Beaumont — the Golden Triangle — about issues that may (or should) come before the state Legislature.

Porterie served on a panel on adolescent mental health, and although he offered no specific solutions for mental health, he urged that Texas refrain from traveling down the wrong road to resolve such issues. Smart.

State Rep. Joseph Deshotel, D-Beaumont, rightly has taken notice of a host of adolescent mental health issues after school shootings in recent years, including one at Santa Fe, Texas in Galveston County last May that killed 10 people and wounded 13. The family of suspected shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, claimed coaches and students bullied their son, an honor student and football player, a story the school system denies. At least one lawsuit has been filed against the shooter’s family for failing to obtain mental health counseling for their son.

At this week’s panel discussion, Deshotel suggested he may file legislation for school-based counseling, involving profit and not-for-profit counselors, to work with students. Other legislation might include allowing school service centers to serve as counseling headquarters.

“In dealing with these issues, bullying, the internet and how it affects children, some may have a difficult time. They may not have anybody involved, they may be homeless and their teacher may not know it,” Deshotel, a lawmaker for 20 years, said.

Deshotel said he’s also working on legislation that would require teachers to be trained to identify mental health illness as part of certification. That appeared to be a bridge too far for Porterie, who said teachers go to class to teach, not diagnose mental illness.

The “root cause” of children with mental health issues, he suggested, is bad home life. Teachers, he said, collect and distribute clothing, give shots, and, he added, “give love.” What’s next?

Parents concerned that their children aren’t learning enough, it seems, might ask why, in any given school system, teachers are asked to do more than simply teach subject matter — no simple task in itself. In some school systems, these days, schools are expected to teach children to drive, pray and socialize. Schools and teachers too often are called upon to fulfill the role of substitute parent, when there is no substitute for a responsible parent at home.

Should we be concerned about school safety? You bet. Especially insofar as it keeps order so students can accomplish what they are in school for — to learn.