Parents, teachers, psychologists touch on back-to-school anxiety
Debby Miller has worked in the Broward County Public Schools system for 20 years.
As an Exceptional Student Education program specialist for the district, her job entails going to middle schools and developing plans for some of the most underrepresented students. But she doesn’t see this as safe or feasible with the way coronavirus case numbers are rising in South Florida.
“All kids benefit from face-to-face, hands-on learning — every single child; it doesn’t matter what grade they’re in,” she said. “And I have yet to meet an educator who doesn’t want to be back in school. … However, I don’t think that the risk is worth doing face-to-face.”
Miller’s story is one of many as schools in South Florida try to figure out how they will teach their students amid a surge in new COVID-19 cases, which have been growing in Miami-Dade and Broward County by thousands.
Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie recommended to the School Board that students should begin the new school year “100%” online if the COVID-19 pandemic does not improve. The district is expected to start school Aug. 19.
Miami-Dade asked parents to vote on the preferred plan for their children by July 15 for the Aug. 24 start date, but they won’t return to in-person school unless the county is in
Phase 2 and eight criteria are met.
Miller said she has talked to friends who are teachers writing living wills and afraid of what they could bring to their homes. Miller herself lives with someone who is in remission from leukemia.
“The results of me bringing it in are catastrophic,” she said.
Her granddaughter in Macon, Georgia, recently contracted COVID-19, and none of her family members are sure who she got it from or how. She said if school conducts in-person classes, that’s how it will be in hundreds of households.
Florida’s top teachers’ teacher’s union sued Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran on July 20 to stop the “reckless and unsafe reopening of schools” in the fall. Corcoran responded calling it frivolous and saying the suit, if successful, would eliminate funding.
Danette Beitra, a Nicklaus Children’s Hospital clinical psychologist, has patients with back-to-school anxiety every year. But this new school year brings more anxiety in students, parents and teachers because of the pandemic and uncertainty of the future.
She usually helps them feel more comfortable by guiding them to meet teachers, practice the drive to school and garner excitement through school supplies.
For kids who feel nervous on Zoom calls, Beitra recommends having practice sessions with family and friends whom they trust. And she said the same could work for teachers when introducing new activities or resources in the virtual environment.
“We know that exposing ourselves to situations that make us uncomfortable is the best way to treat anxiety,” she said.
Doing this in a positive way will help ease the transition for students and set the stage for the upcoming year.
Dr. Nicole Mavrides, a University of Miami Health psychiatrist, said the worries are different in different age groups. Young kids haven’t seen friends and may not fully grasp what’s going on.
“The younger kids haven’t been in school in a very long time,” she said. “They’re nervous because all they hear about is ‘germs, germs, germs,’ and now they’re like, ‘What happened to the germs?’ ”
How will kindergartners understand why they have to wear a mask all day when they can’t sit at a desk all day, she asked.
For older kids, she said a lot of anxiety comes in college applications and admissions. SAT and ACT exams have been canceled across the country, but rising seniors still need to apply in the fall. And many recent graduates have deferred their admissions a year because they are concerned about being alone in a new city.
Mavrides said the best way to deal with this is keeping open lines of communication.
“Parents just have to be very honest that we don’t know the answer about school, but we’re going to find out,” she said. “As soon as they know information, talking about it with their kids.”
Tiva Leser loves going to her kids’ school and helping the community. But she doesn’t know when the next time she’ll be back, or whether she will feel comfortable going back.
“Adults are not responsible when it comes to wearing masks, so how are kids going to be any better?” said Leser, the Miami Beach Senior High Parent Teacher Student Association president.
Two of her three kids are in high school at Miami Beach Senior High, and her oldest graduated from there in 2018. Before the pandemic, she’d visit frequently to coordinate fundraisers and interact with the school community.
But since schools converted to remote classes in March, at the start of the pandemic, she said fundraising and support efforts have been difficult.
As someone who is medically compromised, Leser opted for her children to do virtual school in the fall despite how much they’re wishing to see their friends and return to “normal.”
“They understand that their mom has an autoimmune disease,” she said. “They love me and they don’t want me to be sick and possibly die from this.”
Anna Fusco, Broward Teachers Union president, extends the worries of children and parents to teachers and support staff at school. People like custodians and nurses aren’t always included in these narratives, although their lives will be impacted by the decisions made.
Conversations about protective personal equipment, cleaning products, soap and hand sanitizer should include what is safest and available for support staff in addition to students and teachers.
“There’s a relief that most are going to feel it’s better and it’s safer virtually, but there’s still that anxiety about getting that instruction through,” she said.
Fusco is also worried for kids who are victims of domestic abuse.
School is more than just a place for learning; it’s a safe space for a lot of students with unsafe home lives, she said. And she’s not sure how teachers will be able to touch base with that from a distance.
Part of that will come in with treating the virtual classroom similar to a physical one, she said. It should be a place for socialization and support, not just education.
Lauren Grodin, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital pediatric psychologist, adds other groups that are especially concerned about the return to school, both remote and in-person.
Many parents need to work all day and can’t leave their children home alone, and there are households with limited resources to support distance learning, she said.
Grodin works in a pediatric transplant program with many immunocompromised patients. In addition to the loneliness of social isolation, she said many families have been worried about what going back to school could mean for their households in terms of safety.
“We need to recognize that there are families that are being directly impacted by COVID, and they are grieving losses, which is very significant,” she said. “We want to make sure that they are finding ways to support one another.”
Karla Hernández-Mats, president of United Teachers of Dade, echoes these thoughts. Her union was one of the plaintiffs in the July 20 suit against the governor.
“Because of the mixed messages that we’ve been receiving from leaders like the governor who says, ‘All schools got to reopen’ and the president who tweets out, ‘All schools must reopen in August,’ it’s really created a lot of anxiety and unnecessary anxiety and uncertainty for all the stakeholders,” she said.
Before the surge in cases, she and her teams talked about how they could reopen, but they no longer see that as a feasible option.
“At the end of the day, what we want to do is do right by the entire community, which is taking care of our children, making sure that they’re safe and taking care of the workforce, those professionals that care for our kids on a day-to-day basis,” Hernández-Mats said.
Hernández-Mats said five of her family members tested positive for COVID-19, so she knows the detrimental effects it can have on teachers and students.
“Benchmarks do not consider the pandemic …” she said. “We cannot mitigate loss of life.”