1-Oct-Nov 2020 BACK TO SCHOOL pp 1-11 Advisor

HEALING

6 CEA ADVISOR OCTOBER – NOVEMBER 2020

CEA FOCUSES ON ADDRESSING PANDEMIC’S SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL TOLL School counselors discuss children’s concerns, experiences, new norms

As Connecticut schools work to make up for lost learning and navigate safe reopening, the toll that COVID-19 has taken on students’ social and emotional well-being has not gone unrecognized. Research published this summer, The State of Young People During COVID-19 , reveals that young people are more worried than usual about their basic needs, including food, housing, medicine, and safety. The study, which looked at a nationally representative survey of 3,300 high school students in June, found that 30 percent are significantly more concerned about their health and the health and financial stability of their family during the pandemic, and more than a quarter report losing more sleep, feeling more unhappy or depressed, experiencing constant strain, or losing confidence in themselves. “Many students and teachers returning to school are starting from a very different place, profoundly changed by events over the last six or seven months,” says CEA President Jeff Leake. “The collective trauma and ongoing uncertainty they’re experiencing point to the need for prioritizing their social and emotional well-being and mental health. It’s critical that teachers are equipped with the tools to not only understand and manage their own emotional response to the pandemic but help their students navigate those complex feelings as well.” That’s exactly the approach school counselors, social workers, psychologists, and classroom teachers have taken since schools reopened, knowing that having the supports necessary to cope with their stress will help students learn effectively and better handle the uncertainty ahead. “It’s a tall order with schools remotely, alternate online and in- person instruction, and often close unexpectedly due to outbreaks,” says Leake. “But our committed educators have spent a lot of time and energy preparing.” Eileen Melody and Kristina Lee, school counselors in Mansfield, can attest to that—and to the fact that returning to school this fall comes with new challenges. “Our school reopened with a cohorted hybrid model,” says Lee, describing a model where students are divided into smaller groups that having to enforce safe social distancing measures, operate

are in fifth and sixth grade. “Not every school has that. Some have to share personnel between buildings. I feel for students and teachers in districts where there have been staffing cuts, where there is no counselor or social worker, or not enough of them. We are the people in the building who are resources when a teacher identifies a student with challenges at home. We have the knowledge and experience to work with those students and their families, and without that kind of support, it falls to teachers who are already overworked in their own classrooms and are now being asked to manage students’ social and emotional needs. Teachers do everything they possibly can for their students, but when they are working without adequate support services, their own time, resources, and health are being compromised by an unreasonable workload.” COVID slide and the new normal Now in her 14th year as a school counselor, Lee says while students are generally happy to be back to school, their stamina for classroom engagement is low after not having been in a classroom for six months. “Things are taking time,” she says, “and the last period at the end of the day is tough. They get an outdoor activity period and mask breaks, which help. Most impacted are special education students, who benefit so much from talking to teachers in person. They get a lot done when it’s face to face, whereas 45 minutes on Zoom is often not as effective.” Lee has also been working on how she’ll help fifth- and sixth-graders transition. “We do a lot of transition work typically in the spring with our fifth-graders, so we put together a video Padlet for families to meet staff, and we do Zoom lunch groups from home.” Padlet is an online bulletin board. “While it isn’t ideal, because we’re adding to students’ screen time, at least it allows kids to see each other when they’re not in the same cohort.” “We’re both tracking students who aren’t showing up for remote learning—often the same kids who didn’t participate in the spring,” she says. “We’re vigilant about it, because we need to counter the lack of engagement and understand why some students are not participating. Often it’s the challenges of technology, like spotty Internet with everyone working from home. For some, it’s the lack of a morning routine, maybe with parents having to tend to their own work needs, and children not quite independent enough to manage school schedules on their own. In the spring, we had to teach all these new virtual learning norms, such as the need to get up and dressed, eat, and turn screens on, and now that we know what the pitfalls are, we’ve set new protocols this year.” “These kids are amazing,” Melody adds, “and we know what they can achieve.” A Yale course in SEL is available free to CEA members. See facing page.

Eileen Melody (left) and Kristina Lee are school counselors in Mansfield.

meet in person and remotely on alternating school days. “The kids are really happy to be back,” Melody says, “and some wish they could be here in person every day. We’ve done a lot of coaching and prepwork on new norms and protocols for how things are going to be different because of the pandemic, and our students are impressively resilient and flexible. At first, the uncertainty of things preyed on them, but our routines and schedules have helped give them a sense of structure and purpose. They know, ‘I have these responsibilities,’ and they want to learn.” Not business as usual Under the cohorted hybrid model, Melody explains, “Our building is really quiet now. We’re usually a school of 550 that’s bustling, with noisy hallway transitions, buzzing with energy and excitement as students bring their stuff to locker rooms or drop their instruments off in the band room, but all of that is different now.” Still, Lee says, “Everything is kind of shiny and new, and students are rolling with it. I’ve had kids pop into my office for quick checks on things, but as the dust settles and we adapt to a new normal, I expect to see bigger situations crop up.” Melody and Lee acknowledge that some students have returned with deep apprehension about their families and their health and security. Job loss and financial hardship are a key concern for students whose parents are out of work or facing that threat. “Students take on the worry of that,” says Melody, a 25-year veteran school counselor who sits on the state’s legislatively appointed Social and Emotional Learning and School Climate Advisory

Collaborative and on her district’s SEL task force for the past two years. The threat of food or housing insecurity, loss of a family member, months of social isolation, and cases of neglect or abuse at home during quarantine have had a very real impact on students across the state. “Educators have worked all summer long preparing for this,” says Melody. “I don’t think I took a day off this summer without doing something related to reopening plans. This summer, our district’s SEL task force put it all together in a framework identifying social and emotional skills we want our students to hone, and each grade experiences an SEL period while they’re here in the building. Our mission is to rebuild a community these first weeks of school by facilitating relationships and helping students understand that all these new protocols are in place because we’re a community, and we want to be safe and protect each other. Teachers are now trained in conducting SEL, focusing on prosocial skills and helping students understand their emotions. We will eventually dive into conflict resolution, perspective- taking, and more.” SEL triage Melody recently worked with a student who lost a parent just as school reopened. Because of competing needs for social distancing, interpersonal connection, and privacy, she often talks with students outdoors, away from classroom windows, or in quiet hallways so that they are assured of privacy. Before COVID, she says, “We used to meet regularly in lunch groups with around 20 students, and we would see individual students in our offices. Our current proactive strategy is to walk into all of our classrooms, which are now about eight students per class, and remind our kids that we are just an email away. I tell them, ‘I’ll come get you if you need to talk.’ We’re fortunate that we have a nice physical facility, both indoors and out.” Mansfield is also lucky, she says, in that the district has support services in every building. “There is such benefit in that. We’re fortunate that we have a school psychologist and the two of us as school counselors for different grades within the same building.” Melody works with seventh- and eighth-graders, while Lee’s students

Teachers throughout the state are doing their best to mitigate against trauma, ensuring students are safe and feel welcome.