October 2O21
Focus
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STUDENTS STRUGGLE WITH TRANSITION BACK TO SCHOOL Article by Aetant Prakash Graphic by Jaidyn Holt A student sits in their car, leg shaking nervously and heart beating out of their chest. Anxiously, they open the door, put on a mask, and walk out; they are back at school for the first time in 17 months. Whether a student attended school online or in person, the last 17 months have had a profound impact on every aspect of teenagers’ lives. The pandemic has taken a toll on the social and mental development of children, and caused many to fall behind in their studies. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in May 2020, after the pandemic began, 29% of parents said their child’s mental or emotional health was already harmed, and by October 2020, 31% of parents said their children’s mental or emotional health was worse than before the pandemic. The loss of a routine - a central symptom of the pandemic was particularly disruptive to children’s mental health. For many, the loss of a routine also resulted in an increase in loneliness and isolation. Junior Saad Saeed spent his 10th-grade year at home and felt these negative impacts. In the months spent in quarantine and going into school, he noticed a shift in his behavior. “As time went on and the summer turned into the start of the school year, I found myself staying up later and later, seeing the sun less and less, and losing motivation by the day,” Saeed said. As the days began to blend together, he was becoming, in his words, just so lazy. Without much of a routine, Saeed fell into an unhealthy lifestyle. But he wasn’t the only one with this experience - research shows that it was shared by many teens, both at home and in person in the last year.
Inside Higher Ed reported that lifestyle routines were taking a turn for the worse. Out of a group of 2,002 remote college students that were surveyed, 45% fell into less structured eating routines and 33% are getting less sleep. Saeed said that recovering from these disruptions was just as challenging as students started school in-person. The return presented students a new set of problems, more stressful than the ones faced while quarantined, in the form of shifts in student behavior and interaction.
People also had lots of uncertainty about social situations: worrying about whether or not they would have friends and how they would interact after so much time apart. Junior Paola Riestra, who attended school in-person last year, said her biggest struggles started after the first hiatus when school went completely online after spring break in 2020. “During quarantine it felt like [9th grade] didn’t matter, it felt like it didn’t even matter if you got to class on time or showed up at all,” Riestra said. Accustomed to this laid-back attitude coming into her sophomore year, she said she felt inadequately prepared Studen t REPOR Grade: to learn and adjust back into T CAR 11 Advise D r: none the school routine. These worAcadem ic Date: M Year: 2020-2 ries were later confirmed as ev021 ay 27, 2 021 erything from her learning to Course her sleep was aff ected. She also Mental Health saw her friends developing similar Happin ess Year G rade Calmne problems. ss F Relaxa “We had developed systems to tion D Confid ence keep going during the pandemic B Work B alance and when we returned to school, C Spiritu al Healt D h they just weren’t working,” Riestra Physica l Health B Self Est said. eem F Social It soon became obvious that the Life B habits developed during the pandemic F weren’t holding up at school. The daiC GRAD ING SC ALES ly routine just wasn’t the same. While POINT A S feeling the effects from the quarantine, 90-100 EVALU B ATION 80-89 a w students also had to juggle friends, a new e some C 70-79 better lu D c grade, and a new routine. The buildup k next tim 60-69 crying e F inside below 6 of these issues was too much for students d on’t co 0 me bac k failure to handle. Since Saeed and Riestra have been back at school, they’ve been experiencing the slightest effects frvom the quarantine and 2020-21 On top of this, guidance school year. But even with all the stress and counselor, Christine Hempstead, said there problems, they are looking towards the poswas added stress when coming to school itive. Saeed said multiple times that staying in-person due to the fear of being contact home helped him realize he needed a better traced or contracting COVID-19. lifestyle and how he has been working on it. “From a health perspective, [COVID-19] “It’s been nice to help us prioritize what’s really did make them anxious and afraid they really important in our lives and it’s highwere going to get it if they left their house,” lighted our stressors. If we acknowledge those Hempstead said. stressors, we have a better shot at dealing with them,” guidance counselor Rylan Smith said.
