Back to School or Back to Learning. Are We READY?

The opening of schools this month — including the Los Angeles Unified School District— is unfolding under the shadow of the surging Delta variant, supplanting much of the joy and relief families anticipated with new worries about masks, positive coronavirus tests, illness, vaccines, quarantines, and outbreaks. Howard Blume, Karen Garcia, Amina Khan, Colleen Shalby – Los Angeles Times, August 2021

Without a doubt, this pandemic is wreaking havoc and causing a collective trauma…. This is a collective adverse childhood experience (ACE) that has directly or indirectly impacted everyone…. It’s important to understand these experiences because they can affect a student’s attention, decision-making ability, how they learn, and even how they respond to stress. Children who experience traumatic events may even have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships.

Margaret Foster, MAED

Children orphaned by COVID are going back to school.  There are estimates, as of August 2021, in the United States, approximately 145,800 children have lost their primary or secondary caregivers due to COVID-19.  They have endured quarantines, food and housing insecurities, fear, anxiety, and perhaps COVID infections themselves.  And superseding all these variables, their mental health will be a very real impediment to return to learning.

Americans are trying to desperately to return to some normalcy following 17 months (February 2020 – July 2021) of pandemic seclusion.  A part of that normality includes dropping our kids off at school.   However, during the pandemic period, adults tried to maintain employment and contribute to the economy from their kitchens and bedrooms.  Simultaneously, monitoring our children in the same shared space.  For millions of families, there was limited differences, separation, or comradery within the enclosed spaces.  So, September 2021, would be a welcome reprieve from 1-½ years of “confinement”. 

However, something is amiss.  For the most part, adults are somewhat prepared to handle the ups and downs of the everyday, but our kids were blindly caught off guard.  For the over 6 million children in California, students were involuntarily tethered to their smartphones and iPads with their teachers on the other end, poor internet notwithstanding.  For the most part, our children were confused, misinformed, and pressured to perform outside of their “routines”.  Most significantly, their environments and friends were, in their minds, taken away.

COVID-19 begat the Delta variant begat additional mutated variants.  According to Yale Medicine, the Delta variant surfaced in the United States. First identified in India in December 2020, Delta swept rapidly through that country and Great Britain before reaching the U.S., where it quickly surged. It is now the predominant SARS CoV-2 variant, accounting for more than 99% of COVID-19 cases and leading to an overwhelming increase in hospitalizations in some states.

September used to be a fun time for me.  It was the start of the Fall season, getting my sweaters out of storage and dusting off my boots.  But now, it seems I am weekly washing my face masks and wiping down everything I touch as well as negotiating with my employer when and where I will work Monday – Friday.  Teachers are doing the same thing.  Wiping down each chair, desk, and flat surface along with securing their own safety and those of the children in the classroom.  Additionally, our children are being asked to receive vaccinations if over 12years old as well as observe mask-on restrictions once inside the building. 

People who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus continue to have strong protection against COVID-19 compared to those who aren’t, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advise additional precautions, including mask guidelines regardless of vaccination status.

Johns Hopkins Medicine

As we prepare to return to learning in the classroom, there are a few elements we should take into consideration to help alleviate the stresses our youth are possibly overcoming:

• Assess and evaluate needs.  Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, outlines the basic needs all humans require to thrive, and especially for students to be available to learn and perform.  At the base level, students need food and housing security, good nutrition, and water and to turn their attentional systems to learning. Next, they need safety and good health – including mental health. The next level describes a sense of belonging, and finally esteem and self-esteem. When each of these are in place, and only then, is the student available to learn.
• Planned intervention.  Our youth are overcoming a trauma.  They need professionals and safe adults with whom to share their anxieties and fears.  Like adults, these young ones are vulnerable and need available interventions to help process through what they have experienced in the last 18 months.
• Tap into their social-emotional bandwidth.  Children, for the most part, are social, interactive, and for the most part, share when they are comfortable.  Keeping our fingers on the pulse of our children will keep us informed of how to best speak and work with them.  Allowing them to – express their socialness – talking on the phone, zooming with their circle of friends, or meeting up with their peer groups in parks – may help them to return to their safe connections.  Some of these activities will also stimulate emotion-full exchanges.  Allowing our young people to emote when needed will help them and parents to formulate a plan to heal.
• You are not alone.  For millions of Americans with children, there is a network with your name on it.  The first step is to find one.  Los Angeles County website offers a site dedicated to mental health services – https://dmh.lacounty.gov/for-providers/   Please check your community websites for mental health services or outreach programs for both adults and children interested in getting help in overcoming this COVID trauma and more.

A BIG shout out to all the parents I know who have in many miraculous ways found the silver lining and made the best out of traumatic situation. My prayers are with the parents and kids I know and do not know who are trying to adjust to the transitions this world is facing. We are in unprecedented times that call for unprecedented actions. With robust consideration of what works and some creative adjustments to address our local community needs, school psychologists and educators are able to optimize each student’s return to learn. As we strengthen our knowledge and understanding of multitiered support system benefits and as the COVID pandemic continues, we can better prepare ourselves for potential future crises that may affect our communities. We can and must re-envision our schools as systems that are woven into the fabric of each community, each classroom, each student.

Finally, I cannot end this piece without giving credit to the One who can help when things appear helpless or hope when circumstances appear hopeless. Do not forget the Change-Maker, Jesus Christ. Meditate on these scriptures and welcome the almost instantaneous peace that will comfort you and your child in this next new Post-COVID season.

Isaiah 40:29-31 (NLT)

²⁹ He gives power to the weak
    and strength to the powerless.
³⁰ Even youths will become weak and tired,
    and young men will fall in exhaustion.
³¹ But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
    They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
    They will walk and not faint.

…now what, Linda.