Why America’s Schools Aren’t Failing: Why the American Public School Enrollment Has Stopped, and Why the Government Ignored School Reform

Things have not reverted back to normal as Covid has gradually lost its grip on American life. Today’s teachers and students are living with a set of altered realities, and they may be for the rest of their lives:

Shrinking enrollments. The public school population decreased by over one million students for the first full academic year of the epidemic, and another 130,000 students the following fall. The decline was caused by students moving to home-school and students leaving for private schools. Some students were going to miss school, home-schooling, or opting out of kindergarten, and that’s one of the reasons for the 34 percent decline. A declining school-age population explains the rest. In the years ahead, enrollments, and the funding streams that go with them, will most likely decline further as birthrates fall.

Surging inequality. The authors of the article write that the gap between the highest and lowest scoring students is widening because America’s students are experiencing a K-shaped recovery.

Parents are aware of the new realities and are adjusting their thinking. Democrats were trusted more by voters on education. According to Nat Malkus, by the year 2022, Republicans were as trusted as Democrats by voters.

This isn’t happening. Biden did not offer plans for fixing America’s ailing schools in his State of the Union address. The Republican Party can’t utter a complete sentence on the subject of school reform that doesn’t contain the initials C.R.T. What we’re seeing here is a complete absence of leadership — even in the midst of a crisis that will literally bend the arc of American history.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/america-schools-revolution.html

When will the pandemic end? Experts’ views on timing, vaccines, and other aspects of coronavirus science and medicine

When will the pandemic end? We asked experts to weigh in on many questions we have gotten from readers recently such as, how to make sense of booster and test timing, whether getting covid is necessary, and more.

How will the virus continue to change? As a group of scientists who study viruses explains, “There’s no reason, at least biologically, that the virus won’t continue to evolve.” From a different angle, the science writer David Quammen surveys some of the highly effective tools and techniques that are now available for studying Covid and other viruses, but notes that such knowledge alone won’t blunt the danger.

What would Covid look like? 100,000 Americans could die each year from the coronaviruses according to David Wallace Wells. Stopping that will require a creative effort to increase and sustain high levels of vaccination. Akiko Iwasaki writes that the new vaccines may be part of the answer.

School counselor Meredith Draughn starts every day by greeting the students who fill her campus hallways, cup of coffee in hand. She knows all the names of 350 of them.

Kids want to feel appreciated. One way we can do that is by greeting them by name. Research shows that positive culture and welcoming culture can be built by that method.

Creating a Better Environment for Students: A School Counselor’s Perspective on the COVID-19 Epidemic in Graham, North Carolina

Draughn works at B. Everett Jordan Elementary School in the rural town of Graham, N.C., and she was recently named 2023’s School Counselor of the Year by the American School Counselor Association (ASCA). The committee praised Draughn for her passion and data-driven approach.

The award comes at a pivotal time for Draughn: in the middle of the most “normal” school year since the pandemic began. Masking is optional in most schools; quarantine regulations have been loosened; and in May, the Biden administration plans to declare an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

But children are still reeling from what they experienced during the pandemic. Mental health, academics and a general lack of connection to their classroom have been some of the difficulties that many students have faced. All things Draughn has seen in her school, too. She says there is a silver lining to all those challenges.

Setting big or small goals is one way she likes to make sure students are following directions. She begins the day with a “check-in,” where students share what they’d like to accomplish, and ends it with a “check-out” to see if they met their goals.

And habits can help give students a sense of control. Lack of control is something that young people often struggle with, and can lead to big feelings, said Draughn.

It teaches us how to regain control and regulate our feelings when we can’t do it ourselves.

She uses exercises like the circles of control, which asks students to distinguish between things that are outside their control, and things they have the power to change. If the source of frustration is outside a child’s control, she redirects their focus to something else that is in their control to help them feel empowered.

Draughn thinks that reestablishing structure and giving students a sense of control will lead to better self-regulation and more motivation to show up to school.

Like a number of districts across the country, Draughn says hers is continuing to combat elevated levels of chronic absenteeism, which is when students miss 10% or more of the school year. It can help students feel more connected to the classroom if they return school as a part of their daily routine. That gives children a sense of belonging that improves attendance and makes them more successful in later grades.

The behavior of children is nothing new. But Draughn says if educators or parents are dealing with particularly challenging behaviors, it’s essential to pay attention to the story those actions might be telling.

A child caught stealing food from another student is described by Draughn. Rather than place blame, Draughn looks to what that behavior might tell her about the child’s life outside of school.

What is that behavior telling? Sometimes that is an indication that basic needs are not being met. That is our first question. Not, “Why did you steal?”

The behavior of children is often related to attention-seeking, and it is also related to acting out. One way to encourage positive behaviors is to consistently celebrate things like following directions or standing patiently in line.

It’s good to recognize and meet a child’s unique sensory needs. Maybe they can’t focus when a classmate taps a pencil against a desk, or when they’re wearing an uncomfortable piece of clothing. The seam at the toe-line of his socks was an uncomfortable sensory experience that Draughn once had a student who acted out in P.E.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/20/1155399753/school-counselor-child-anxiety-mental-health

Children’s Mental Health is an Epidemic, but Draughn Explains It Using “4 x 4 Breathing”

The American Academy of pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association were part of a coalition that called on the president to declare a national emergency in children’s mental health. Their letter states that there has been a growth in the number of diagnoses of anxiety and other disorders.

Draughn says she’s also seen a higher number of anxiety-related referrals since the pandemic began. But she thinks that’s in part due to a heightened sense of awareness around mental health in her community. “Students have always been anxious, now they just have a word to name it.”

She says helping children understand how their body responds to anxiety is a good first step in addressing it. She tells them about physical symptoms like sweating, fidgeting and nervousness. Another tell-tale sign is a stomach-ache.

When she’s intervening with an anxious child, Draughn uses kid-friendly words to describe what they’re experiencing, like “extra energy.” She finds ways for her students to use that energy like by exercising or by being active.

If a child is too anxious or uneasy to get up, she suggests slowing things down with breathing exercises. You can ask a child to breathe in as though they’re smelling a flower, and breathe out as though they’re blowing out a candle. “4 x 4 breathing” is a method Draughn likes to use. She tells students to breathe through their mouth and hold onto it for four seconds while they envision a square. You do that four times.

Another way to make life feel smaller is to make it a lot bigger for children. “When we look at it as a whole day, or hour or a whole class, it can get really daunting,” Draughn says. She asks students to choose an activity or task they can complete in a few minutes.