A rise in student suicides pushed the 5th largest US school district to speed up a return to classrooms
The district did not give evidence of a direct link between the deaths and remote learning. However, six students died by suicide between March 16 and June 30, and 12 students died between July 1 and December 31. There was one more death earlier this month, a district official confirmed to CNN on Monday.
“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be very challenging for education,” said Superintendent Dr. Jesus Jara. “We will continue to make the health and safety of students and staff a top priority. As we continue to look at the academic and health crisis that the pandemic has caused, I believe that the plan proposed provides the first steps in returning our students and educators to the classroom.”
The district’s report also outlined the strain long-term remote learning is having on students academically, stating that 90.4% of schools have given more Fs this year than the previous year, and 77.2% of schools gave more Ds than last year. Among those who got an F during the Fall semester, 11.2% of them earned all As and Bs in the Fall of 2019.
As Covid-19 cases climb across the country, school districts are faced with an impossible dilemma of protecting student mental health by returning to the classroom or physical health by keeping them home.
In a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Tuesday, researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that the kind of spread seen in crowded offices and long-term care facilities has not been reported in schools.
