Dare I Say This
I am an advocate of opening schools. We have enough global research data to know that schools are not major vectors for spreading the virus. The kids and teachers who are getting it are most often getting it elsewhere and not spreading it at school.
The data is pretty overwhelming at this point that we should open the schools and there are extra data about mental health and the impact on kids in insolation from their friends. The dangers of opening schools is less than the dangers of keeping them closed.
Open the schools.
But I am hesitant to push this coverage from the New York Times because some alarm bells went off with me. The headline is “Surge of Student Suicides Pushes Las Vegas Schools to Reopen” and the subtitle is “Firmly linking teen suicides to school closings is difficult, but rising mental health emergencies and suicide rates point to the toll the pandemic lockdown is taking.”
But let me call you to a few data points that give me pause on advancing a story with conclusions I largely agree with.
In Clark County, 18 suicides over nine months of closure is double the nine the district had the entire previous year, Dr. Jara said. Six students died by suicide between March 16 and June 30; 12 students died by suicide between July 1 and Dec. 31, the district said. One student left a note saying he had nothing to look forward to. The youngest student Dr. Jara has lost to suicide was 9.
Then there is this.
A video that Brad Hunstable made in April, two days after he buried his 12-year-old son, Hayden, in their hometown Aledo, Texas, went viral after he proclaimed, “My son died from the coronavirus.” But, he added, “not in the way you think.”
…
This fall, when most school districts decided not to reopen, more parents began to speak out. The parents of a 14-year-old boy in Maryland who killed himself in October described how their son “gave up” after his district decided not to return in the fall. In December, an 11-year-old boy in Sacramento shot himself during his Zoom class. Weeks later, the father of a teenager in Maine attributed his son’s suicide to the isolation of the pandemic.
I want to be careful how I say this because I know I can be attacked for blaming parents, but I think we all need to be alarmed about 9 year olds, 11 year olds, 12 year olds, and 14 year olds committing suicide over missing school and friends.
The ages just raise alarm bells with me that perhaps there is something more than missing school.
A friend pointed out to me her suspicion that what is really happening in society right now is parents having outsourced their relationships with their children to teachers and the government are finding it difficult to reestablish relationships. I just think to my kids and my son, at twelve, would rather play with me than anyone else. I feel bad that I don’t have enough time for him.
I don’t know these parents or these kids and I am so sorry for their losses. I just really am bothered by kids that young committing suicide over missing school and friends and I really am wondering allowed if there must be more to it only if in part I wonder how a 9 year old even processes committing suicide.
As my friend notes, “The virus just brought to the forefront all the downfalls in families, marriages, etc. So now we’re forced to face it.”
I think we need to reopen schools. I think there is data showing the insolation has an impact on kids. But I also think parents matter in the equation here too and there’s something more than just “they missed their friends and gave up hope” going on here.
As a professor at UNLV, I teach those Clark County teachers. I can say with authority that a good part of the problem is the uncertainty of it all, not the remote learning. The district leaves decisions to the schools, the schools waver depending on what parents want, and the teachers are blamed for not providing enough support. If districts (around the country) would listen to the teacher and plan instead of react, I think the students would be much better off. I have one teacher (teaching in high school) who was told last semester that they were going back, then not, then remote for the rest of the semester, but students had to be online with cameras on for entire class periods, maintaining the same number of "seat time" minutes as in face-to-face classes. Then, this same teacher was told that if students logged in once on Monday, they had to be marked present for full class periods all week. Then she was informed that no student could have less than 50% (minimum F) on any assignment if they turned in anything--even a blank document. THEN, this same teacher was instructed to have only four graded assignments for the semester. Is it any wonder there are exacerbated mental health issues? Teachers (and students) are building the parachutes after they've been pushed out of the superintendent's airplane.
My daughter teaches elementary here in GA. She is half her students in the classroom and half on Zoom simultaneously. That means kids are on screen for 7 hours a day AND the teacher has to prepare double presentations because what works on Zoom doesn't work as well face-to-face, and what works face-to-face doesn't translate to Zoom. It's ridiculous.
I said back in April that quarantine was an opportunity to redefine school. There was an opportunity to build classrooms and hire teachers so that there were never more than 22 students in a classroom (physical distancing made possible). The options for remote learning should have been handled by teachers who were comfortable with the technology and who understand that screen time needs to be limited so that students can work off line. Zoom fatigue is real for both teachers and students.
Administrators and districts who ignore the studies about what remote education looks like have created this mess. And the mental health issues, in my opinion, are on their shoulders. It was possible to create a new paradigm of education/schooling. It didn't happen. As a result, parents are frustrated and helpless, teachers are frustrated and burnt out, and students don't know where to turn for help.
I am a psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. I earn a living from tragedy and human suffering. I don't have so many suicides in the children that I treat. The thing that worries me is that they are missing out on an education and I fear they will be lost in the future to what they have missed in terms of classroom instruction. Many of the parents are Covid phobic and are pushing the children to stay home when they want to return to the classroom. This occurs especially in certain ethnic and minority populations. I did talk a 10 year old out of committing suicide and he had a plan and ended up going to the hospital only to come to me with depression and thoughts of killing himself again. I used my magic and expertise to help him through his feelings and to become more rational. He is much improved with medication and therapy. He has a committed loving family and a stay at home mom. I am so grateful for the work that I do. It is holy and sacred. I am tired and many of us doing this work are tired and weary and on the edge of burn out. So keep us lifted up so that we can continue to do this work and hopefully be there to prevent someone from committing suicide.