Will US children return to classrooms after a year of zooming?

The corona plague has sown chaos in almost every area of ​​our lives, but perhaps one of its major long-term consequences will be in the area of ​​education. Authorities around the world are grappling with the question of how to continue guiding the next generation alongside restrictions designed to curb the virus, which continues to deceive them and is now developing new mutations. While in countries like Israel the children occasionally go back to school, in the US millions have been studying for almost a whole year from home, but now there is also increasing pressure to return them to classrooms.

American politicians, led by President Joe Biden, are calling for the reopening of schools in the shadow of alarming reports of a spike in complaints about anxiety and depression among children, and even attempts at self-harm. However, teachers’ unions are largely opposed to what they call an unsafe opening – and demand, among other things, the vaccination of teaching staff.

Since the outbreak in the US in March last year, many local authorities have adhered to the distance learning format. According to Burbio website, which tracks the opening of schools by study district in the US, 38% of counties currently operate in the distance learning area, compared to 62% in September. .

In a huge country like the US, even such a partial class of schools that operate fully through the zoom – means millions of students who spend whole hours in front of the computer in their room, can not play outside or talk face-to-face with their friends and also miss sports or art classes And music.

“There is a lot of loneliness for me and other boys,” said Sarah Frank, an 18-year-old from Florida who has not left her home since March last year because she lives with relatives who are at high risk from the virus. “I have days when I feel sad, sometimes a little hopeless. It feels like an unending nightmare,” she told AFP.

Frank helped set up a website called the State of Mind Project in July, which aims to provide advice to teens regarding mental and physical coping during the plague and house arrest. “I missed a lot of high school experiences that I will never be able to get back,” she said, recalling the graduation ball that many U.S. students missed last year.

Dina Caputo, a psychologist and mother of two, says she has noticed signs of depression among her 10-year-old son since his class in Arlingon, Virginia, went viral in March last year. “He woke up in the morning and went back to sleep by noon. He was upset. He started saying things like ‘I’m not smart,’ ‘I’m not good at anything,'” Caputo said.

Susan Duffy, a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Brown University in Rhode Island, says that while corona is a “medical crisis” for adults, it is a “mental-health crisis” for children. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between March and October last year there was a 31% jump in the number of visits by children aged 12 to 17 to emergency mental health centers, compared to the same period in 2019. For children aged 5 to 11, the recorded jump was 24%.

Duffy says she and her colleagues at other hospitals are noticing an increase in the number of suicide attempts among teens: “We are seeing more children whose intention is to harm themselves. It has more to do with trying to carry out suicide attempts, which is very, very worrying.” It should be noted that the suicide rate among teens in the U.S. has been on the rise for about a decade, and there are no official figures yet for 2020, but data from Clark County in Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, indicates an alarming trend: 19 students have ended their lives in this county since March Last year, twice the number in the corresponding period of the previous year.

There is of course no way to link this increase directly to the epidemic or classroom dropouts, but these figures only add to the growing pressure across the U.S. to reopen classrooms. “There is almost no motivation to continue in online schools,” says Brandon, a 13-year-old Marlington student. Virtually for 300 days.

President Biden has set the opening of schools as one of his key goals for the first 100 days of his term. Even before he was sworn in, he promised in December to open most schools during this period. “Bringing our children back to school and leaving them in schools should be a national priority,” he said at the time.

However, on the way to the opening of the schools, there are teachers’ unions, which, for the most part, oppose a quick opening and demand that the teaching staff be protected. Caputo, the psychologist from Marlington, is a member of the local parents’ association that is now working to open the schools there. She harshly criticized the teachers’ unions, claiming they were taking the schools hostage.

In recent days, there have been increasing clashes between local authorities and teachers’ unions. In Chicago, which is the third largest public school district in the United States, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot is urging teachers to return to face-to-face teaching, and presented a plan to return 67,000 students out of 355,000 students in the county. “Trust” in the mayor Despite this, they announced that they would today allow all members of the union, 28,000 teachers, to vote for the approval or rejection of the plan presented by Lightfoot.

In Philadelphia authorities initially ordered teachers to return to schools as early as this week, and even threatened disciplinary action against those who refused, but yesterday agreed to find a mediator who would decide when it would be safe to return students to classrooms.

Philadelphia teachers say it is necessary to improve school ventilation systems and vaccinate them as soon as possible. Thousands of them demonstrated yesterday near a row of closed public schools, and some even conducted virtual classes outside as a protest – in extreme cold and snow. “We want to work,” said Alenda Toliver, an educational assistant at an elementary school in the city. “But we want to come back safely. That’s all we ask for.” Mayor Jim Kenny announced yesterday a plan to vaccinate teaching staff – only from the end of February.

In Los Angeles, too, there is a great deal of tension between the city’s political leaders and education officials over the question of opening schools. Austin Buttner, who heads the U.S. Public Schools District, the second-largest in the U.S., says the teachers’ vaccine is a prerequisite for opening classrooms. He demands the vaccination of 25,000 teachers, principals, bus drivers and other staff, and has presented a “to-do list” Within 60 days.

The Los Angeles City Council is now calling for legal action to force teachers to return to teaching in schools. Joe Bascaino, a council member, argued that classrooms could only be opened at 25% occupancy, for students who have particular difficulty learning from home. “There are tens of thousands of families at risk who are desperate for help,” he said. “This is not a situation of everything or nothing. We must do everything we can for these students.” The councilor noted that some of the parents there have already started enrolling their children in schools in neighboring education districts, or in private schools.

In New York City, where the U.S. Public Schools District is the largest, Mayor Bill de Bellasio announced the opening of middle schools on Feb. 25, but did not present a plan to open the high schools. De Bellasio announced he was hoping for a “full” rehearsal only in September: “Everyone wants to come back,” he stressed.However, the head of the powerful New York Teachers’ Union, Michael Molgro, said it was too early to commit to such a goal.

If de Bellasio’s goal of a full rehearsal only in September sounds quite far-fetched, there are those in the US who believe that next year – and perhaps even much beyond – virtual learning will continue, at least in part. “We have no illusions that the corona will be destroyed before next year arrives.” , Says William Sudert III, spokesman for Durham’s North Carolina School District – where classrooms have also been closed since March last year.

In the shadow of the discovery of new mutations, many parents are afraid to send their children to school, demanding to be vaccinated beforehand – something that is now not possible as vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer and Moderna have not yet completed examining their effect on children. Dr Anthony Fouchi, President Biden’s chief health adviser and the administration’s expert on infectious diseases, said last month that the administration’s goal is to start vaccinating children in late spring or early summer. By then, schools will be deep in their preparations for next school year.

“As for the year 2022-2021, at least part of it will include an aspect of responding to the epidemic, in the assessment that children will not have access to vaccines, or at least many of them will not,” said Brian Woods, head of the Northside Independent Schools District, between counties The largest study in Texas. “Some of the genie can no longer be returned to the bottle,” he added. “I think there will now always be a group of families who prefer the virtual option … we know we can, but are we ready?”.