Back to School – Back to Health & Safety

by Joe Calabrese, Director of Communications and Development, TCA

The challenge of just getting to school, both nationally and locally, has dominated headlines as children returned to the classroom this month.  But busing is not the only challenge students face in returning to a normal school day experience.

An issue brief published by the Kaiser Family Foundation outlines the myriad of health issues children have been dealing with in absence of a full school day experience.  The brief found:

• “Some children experienced disruptions in routine vaccinations or preventive care appointments and difficulty accessing care, particularly dental and specialized care. Use of telemedicine has increased but not enough to offset declines in service utilization overall.”
• With service utilization in decline, feelings of depression, anxiety, and psychological stress have been increasing.
• “Black, Hispanic, and other people of color have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic’s economic effects.”
• An estimated 43,000 children nationwide have lost a parent due to COVID-19, with Black children being disproportionately impacted by a parent’s death.

These physical and mental health challenges are just part of what a growing body of evidence shows students have missed without the daily interactions of a normal school day.

Locally, ROC the Future has published an overview entitled “Emotional and Educational Recovery” which quantifies the education losses of RCSD students during the pandemic.  Some of their key findings were:

• Pre-K enrollment in 2020-2021 was down by about 1,000 children. Additionally, 500 – 700 5-year olds who would have normally been enrolled in and attending kindergarten went unaccounted for.
• For grades 3-8:
• Learning loss varies across grade levels;
• Gaps in math are more severe than reading; and
• Economically disadvantaged students have been hit the hardest.
• The estimated losses are staggering.  Losses in reading may equal 2-7 months of school and losses in math may equal between 4 and 22 months of school.
• There is troubling data that indicates far fewer students may be enrolling in college or training programs this fall.

Clearly, the stunning education losses children have felt and the losses in health and mental health supports are palpable consequences of the lingering pandemic.  We’re even starting to see studies showing the pandemic’s deleterious impact on the cognitive abilities of infants and toddlers.

ROC the Future’s overview responds to all of this by stating, “Simply ‘going back to normal’ will not be sufficient.”

The Children’s Agenda wholeheartedly agrees.  Without acknowledging the staggering losses children have felt during their time away from the classroom, their teachers, their providers, and their friends…. Without identifying the individual needs of students through comprehensive assessments in each class and each school…. And without developing clear, culturally relevant and sensitive plans to address these needs…. We risk a broken future ahead, not just a difficult time behind us.