Reply to Why are parents so fixated on reopening schools in-person?

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[quote=Anonymous](1) I think the mental health impacts on kids are far more widespread than you might think, which is causing a lot of the frustration/anger over schools. And it's not just depression or sadness because they miss their friends. A lot of kids (mine included) who have never had any behavioral issues at all are experiencing the effects of having their schedules upended numerous times, of social isolation, of being promised or assured of certain outcomes and then having them changed last minute (leading to a lot of distrust of parents, teachers, and schools). Plus the mental health effects of DL itself -- the hours of looking at a screen, the impersonal nature of virtual classes, the lack of different kinds of sensory input that usually facilitate learning. A lot of kids are really struggling and parents are worried about them.

(2) Parents are fixated because school districts are fixated. My school district has done nothing to try and make DL better. There are glaring problems with the schedule, the technology, etc. There are some obvious things that could be done to improve it, but school systems aren't focused on that at all. They are exclusively interested in discussing the horizon issues of how and when re-opening happens.

I think you would see a lot of parents calm down if the school system could address the failings of DL, which would offer parents some immediate relief from some of their stress. I also think they would calm down quite a bit if schools/municipalities/counties offered some services that would help with kids' mental health, like outdoor after school programs that would facilitate socializing, get kids' bodies moving, and maybe even offer working parents some relief in the childcare department.

The problem is not that parents are being unreasonable. It's a total failure of leadership. If they can't reopen schools, they need to fix DL. If they can't fix DL, they need to find a way to reopen schools. Instead, they are doing neither and then blaming parents for wanting... what? What's best for their children? Yeah, parents are always going to advocate for that.[/quote]

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