California must prioritize the well-being of our children and pass Senate Bill 525

It’s been a year since the governor shut down the state. Businesses shuttered, jobs lost, schools closed. Californians have suffered immensely and among those hardest hit are our youth.

Californians are reporting depression and other mental health and behavioral disorders at alarming rates. In particular, increasing numbers of students say they feel overwhelmed. Their parents may be newly unemployed, they may be falling behind academically, they can’t see their friends or they may be trapped at home in an abusive family situation. The widespread and prolonged closure of schools is taking a toll on their mental health.

In a 2021 report, FAIR Health, a national not-forprofit organization, found mental health claims for teenagers approximately doubled in 2020.

A Gallup poll from May found that among parents with children in kindergarten through grade 12, 29 percent said their child was “already experiencing harm” to their emotional or mental health because of physical distancing and the closures of schools and businesses.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California conducted a statewide survey of students regarding their mental health during the pandemic. A few samples from the responses:

“I have to balance my classes, Zoom meetings, homework, AP exams to study for and work. Currently I’m the only one working in my family therefore I provide any necessities for my family. I work during the night so it’s difficult to wake up early.”

“…Because my parents barely understand technology I have to be like my siblings’ teacher and balancing both my education and my siblings is very difficult. I feel very stressed out because it’s too much to handle all at once.”

“Online work seems pointless. Everything is ‘busy work.’ I’m not learning anything. My senior year has been taken away from me and I have no motivation to finish it.”

“Hugging my friends, talking to teachers and sitting next to classmates are now luxuries. I have had dreams about hugging people and wake up crying.”

Too many families are struggling with job loss and emotional distress, putting millions of children at risk for hunger, homelessness, abuse and neglect. Negative childhood experiences like these have the potential to affect developing brains and body systems for a lifetime.

Last year, I asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide data on mental health statistics, the achievement gap, domestic violence and child abuse since the school shutdown order went into effect. What I received confirmed the sad realities and struggles our children are facing.

The unfortunate reality is that mandated reporters are not interacting with children so reporting is down. From June to November 2020, there were 168,834 referrals made to child abuse hotlines, nearly 40,000 less than the same timeframe in 2019. That doesn’t mean less abuse is occurring.

And even though the California Department of Public Health monitors suicide data and the Justice Department monitors domestic violence calls, I was told that, “obtaining data needed to demonstrate the specific relationship between these incidents and COVID-19 is not clear at this time.”

How will we understand how best to help students overcome the short- and long-term consequences of the school closures if the state isn’t keeping track of how many are being hurt and why?

It’s clear our kids are suffering and equally clear that California is not properly evaluating the dire effects of the school closures on them. Any response to this emergency must include a holistic approach that takes emotional, social and economic well-being into account as well as personal health.

We need to put our kids first. That’s why I have introduced Senate Bill 525 to require the state to keep track of how school closures affect youth so we are better prepared to help them if and when such crises happen in the future.

SB 525 would require CDPH to conduct a study on the mental health effects school closures have had on K-12 students during the lockdown. Specifically, it would require CDPH to work with education leaders to design the study and provide regular progress reports on the findings and recommendations. SB 525 includes an urgency clause so it would go into effect the day the governor signs it.

While pandemics may be a once-in-alifetime occurrence (hopefully), natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes and floods have resulted in similar longterm school closures, and they happen more frequently. Our children are suffering and the state has not done enough. If SB 525 passes, at least we can be prepared to help, not hinder, the future for California’s schoolchildren.