Opinion
School & District Management Opinion

COVID-19 Ripped Through Our Emotional Safety Net. Here’s How My District Responded

Pandemic precautions need to account for student mental health
By Jonathan Cooper — July 22, 2021 2 min read
A young man stands under a street light on a lonely road.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Before COVID-19 ripped through the sense of physical and emotional safety of our community, we thought we were ready to meet mental-health challenges. Three years before the pandemic hit, a group of high school students had invited me and a few other local district leaders into a critical conversation to discuss the growing mental-health crisis in our district. Over several years, an unhealthy culture of competition had contributed to tragic student suicides.

I will never forget that meeting. It was a reality check for our whole community. And the school district responded. We decided that we could not let our students struggle alone and in silence. We not only heard their cry for help, we began to address each and every issue associated with the culture of competition. We examined everything—including what we celebrated, how we graded, when school started—as we launched systematic peer-to-peer suicide-prevention programming for grades 7-12.

Like our colleagues around the country, my staff members and I spent an enormous amount of time, energy, and resources addressing COVID-19 prevention this past year. We spent the entire summer in 2020 preparing the necessary accommodations for students to return to our schools safely. It seemed like every conversation and effort was 100 percent focused on COVID-19.

About This Series

Over the coming weeks, we will be rolling out 17 lessons from experienced district leaders who spent the last year leading from home. Learn more and see the full collection of lessons.

Then, the mental-health effects of the pandemic hit us. Despite our three-year effort to support children’s mental health, we found an alarming increase in suicidal ideation among our students this past year. Even though a majority of the young people in our district were able to return to in-person learning, the heavy weight of the pandemic, combined with the social isolation and uncertainty about the future, created an urgent crisis of student safety.

During fall 2020, we faced a frightening reality. In a three-week period, more than a dozen students were hospitalized for serious mental-health crises, marking a threefold increase in the rate of students experiencing suicidal thoughts.

Thanks to the students who rang the alarm three years ago, we already had a comprehensive support system in place to address mental health across our entire district. Yet even with all our experts, programs, relationships, and community partnerships, we found ourselves with an entirely new level of challenges around the well-being of our school community.

It wasn’t just the students suffering. I heard from a growing number of staff members who reached out asking for assistance around their own mental-health struggles. The pandemic essentially flipped the iceberg on its head, showing us the depth of our community’s silent struggles.

We will continue to fight the good fight. A key takeaway for me is that this is not simply a school issue. If we truly want to help our students and create a healthier future for our world, we will need to come together as a community to champion mental wellness. And we can’t let our students, teachers, and staff suffer without support, alone, and in silence.

Complete Collection

Superintendents discuss ideas at a roundtable.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week and Getty Images

Related Tags:
Mental Health Opinion

Coverage of leadership, summer learning, social and emotional learning, arts learning, and afterschool is supported in part by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Science Webinar
Making Science Stick: The Engaging Power of Hands-On Learning
How can you make science class the highlight of your students’ day while
achieving learning outcomes? Find out in this session.
Content provided by LEGO Education
Teaching Profession Webinar Key Insights to Elevate and Inspire Today’s Teachers
Join this free half day virtual event to energize your teaching and cultivate a positive learning experience for students.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Student Achievement Webinar
Student Success Strategies: Flexibility, Recovery & More
Join us for Student Success Strategies to explore flexibility, credit recovery & more. Learn how districts keep students on track.
Content provided by Pearson

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Do Students Suffer When a Superintendent Leaves? A New Study Has an Answer
A new study is the first in a while to explore how students fare academically when there's turnover in the district's top office.
5 min read
A man places his hand on top of his head as he looks up at an upwardly pointing arrow turning downward as it turns a corner.
iStock/Getty Images
School & District Management What Latino Superintendents Say It Will Take to Grow Their Ranks
Three Latino superintendents talked about the direct and indirect paths to building a pipeline of future district leaders of color.
4 min read
Vector image of many professionals, diversity, highlighting hispanic.
Liz Yap/Education Week and iStock/Getty
School & District Management Opinion Your School Needs a Teacher-Mentorship Program
We all know how critical the first few years of teaching are. Here's how to set teachers up for success.
Pamela Slifer
4 min read
Mentorship development of young teachers. School leaders make the teaching profession more sustainable by developing a robust mentoring program in their school.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
School & District Management School Leaders Rush to Manage Deportation Fears
School and district leaders describe a chaotic time amid changes to federal immigration policies.
9 min read
A line of school children with obscured faces board a school bus on their way to school.
E+/Getty