Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

When schools shut down in March 2020, I sounded the alarm in the mainstream press, on substack, on social media, and at my own school board meetings. I used anyplatform and joined forces with groups of like-minded people to call attention to the crisis at hand. I was in full panic mode for almost two years. 

I have lingering scars from being discounted when I was absolutely right. I still want an apology from both national and local leaders about what they did to American children, including my own. However, I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised that the damage is continuing. Honestly, I thought that everybody would have caught up with academics by now, and that the social-emotional issues would have been repaired. Sadly, the issues from the prolonged school closure are lingering longer than anybody expected. 

Research shows that academics and the social-emotional well-being of America’s young people has not bounced back from the pandemic lows. As students struggle in school, public schools are getting hit with new problems, including decreasing students and the evaporation of federal covid funds. Families that took their kids out of public schools during the pandemic have not returned. Buckle up, the new few years are going to be a bumpy ride.

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