Truancy and COVID

[Faulkner]

I recently attended a briefing in a county quorum court meeting regarding a grant application from the American Rescue Plan funds that were distributed to our county from the U.S. Treasury. The grant applicant was a non-profit organization with the mission of assisting teenage juveniles who were in trouble with the law but didn't necessarily need to be locked up in the county juvenile detention.

I found the discussion very interesting that was led by a circuit judge who is assigned the juvenile court docket and was advocating for the non profit organization. With statistics in hand the judge said that truancy from school post COVID was up over 300% and he was adamant that one of the worst actions taken during COVID was to send kids home and close the schools. Again, with statistics that he presented, suicide rates among teens during the school closings along with increased drug and alcohol use FAR outweighed the potential hazards of COVID in youths. He advised that not only in our jurisdiction is there a silent epidemic of mental health issues resulting from the response to COVID and that additional jail and prison space was not the venue to address these issues.

There were a number of school teachers and administrators who also spoke of how damaging closing the schools during COVID was to the students and families, and how the negative impact is far outweighing the perceived risks, which turned out to be significantly less in school age children than the rhetoric during COVID.

I'm not advocating pulling the scab off of the many COVID debates, but I think there is enough post COVID evidence to indicate some things that we suspected did not work indeed did not work and in many cases have lasting unintended consequences. The judge indicated that the "we gotta do something" mentality in response to COVID in too many instances was counter productive.

Although COVID itself may be diminishing, the long term social, economic, and mental impact is with us for some time to come. I hope we can learn from it.

 

[Puller]

I agree that those in high risk categories should and should have taken necessary precautions and self isolate. Closing down businesses and restaurants was over reach.

I recently read a report that domestic violence was way up too when people where sent home.

I agree, though, I hope we learn from this event what worked and what didn't for future reference.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

My daughter has triplets that were 9 during the Covid shut down. So the boys had each other to socialize with. They have a stay-at-home mom and when "On-Line Classes" started, she supervised, and assisted with any real needs academically.

The total shut down of society in southern New Jersey affected at least one of the boys to the point of trauma! His concern for his friend's health along with concerns for his 6 local cousins.

My Son-In-Law was working 12 hour shift for 61 days, before any of his patients survived. That stress on the community was so taxing the mental health of the region almost imploded! I am concerned that these decisions were made by uninformed politicians and teacher union heads without reguard for the children's wellbeing!

The long term mental state of this grouping of children may haunt us for decades to come. I have D-I-L that is a PhD and is an expert in suicide trends. She tells me, the numbers for teens are and have been skewed by the shut down and trending to true catastrophic proportions. What ever our opinion of the current teen generation, all of us need them to survive and be productive in the not far off future!

Ivan

 

[Huskerguy]

The covid year was my last in education as a teacher and administrator. The harm done to these families is beyond debate. The sad part is everyone I talked knee this was going to happen. Sadly, many schools, academically, were hanging on my a thread and then people in authority or those who were scared decided to shut it down. The outcome was preordained and the damage alarming.

The one thing that kids need but don't want to admit is structure. A "good" school provides that.

You have to wonder why we have AI and all these "intelligent" people running our country, cities, schools and government agencies and yet they didn't know what the future consequences would be? Come on man!

I count this as another in the long line of crimes against humanity.

 

[Rustyt1953]

 

[LVSteve]

Follow the money. If just one teacher died from COVID brought into a school, the financial impact on most school districts would have been devastating. It's not like their insurance would payout out. "You didn't manage the risk by closing the schools to prevent transmission. Claim denied". Lawsuits from the deceased families would follow. Even with the possibility of qualified immunity the optic would be ugly.

Then there is how the kids would have behaved, especially in middle and high school. Knowing they were potentially carrying some bug that didn't really affect them but could make their teacher sick would be too good an opportunity for them to miss. Discipline in modern schools is poor enough without giving the little oiks that kind of leverage.

 

[Rudi]

In the future, this episode will be even more of a head scratcher. They closed the churches!!!!!!!!!!They told us the virus couldn't get us when seated at dinner! But put that mask back on when you stand up? They told us the vaxx would stop transmission, whoops. More Qs than As.

 

[DWalt]

It was like something straight out of the Middle Ages.

Last week, the State of Texas announced that it was taking over operation of the Houston school system because student achievement levels have been abysmally poor over the last four years. It was partially blamed on the COVID school shutdowns among many other factors. I remember back when Houston was considered to be a good place to live.

 

[Rpg]

I'm of two minds on this: we had little information on the best way to manage a pandemic with a new virus. The primary concern was limiting contagion before we had high vaccination rates in school kids. If you remember, vaccine for kids was the last group to get approval from the CDC to use the vaccine.

Having kids at home was disruptive: it ended the free childcare the schools provided pre pandemic. Lots of disruption with parents having to find new childcare (that was difficult to find and expensive)

On the other hand, there were folks that were distracted by concerns over any government mandate for sending kids home for computer based instruction or for anything. Certainly the social skills deficit that impacted school kids was expected to some degree, but the option to save kids' from infection, serious illness or death was a higher priority than avoiding social deficits.

Most folks don't have any idea who "the government" was that decided to send kids home early in the pandemic. It WAS NOT the Federal government, it was local authorities such as the state or local school authorities that made the decision (school boards had the decision making authority: the federal government did not).

We now know much more about managing the risk of Covid and methods to prevent the spread of the virus than we did three years ago, when the pandemic began. Nevertheless, a lot of folks resist using the vaccine or simple precautions such as masks, perceiving those very effective measures as intrusive "mandates by 'the Government' " and therefore things that should be avoided or protested. I find this position very foolish. Certainly we're each entitled to have our own opinions, but opinions (like these) can be wrong!

There have been a number of fantasy opinions that grew up about Covid: such as that ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine cures Covid (they don't). Folks still imagine that there are simple treatments that the 'government' is trying to steer them away from for some reason closer to clinical paranoia than scientific reasoning. Folks promoting these cures have a financial interest in pushing these quack remedies, not a medical reason.

It's easy to be a knot head about this, primarily because there are a few people who hold these beliefs and they are easily to find, hook up with or just follow so the crazy believers don't realize how dumb these opinions are.

 

[twodog max]

It is impossible to discuss covid without getting into forum jail so I will let that go. All I know for certain that 2 young men in my very small rural community committed suicide during this period. There may have been other reasons but who knows what stress did to their mindset.
A lot of other societal effects can be seen by the observant person and IMO none are good.

 

[ladder13]

The promoters of the "science" need to apologize.

 

[Puller]

The promoters of the "science" need to apologize.

As well as the CDC for their promotion of masks which has been well documented to be mostly ineffective in stopping the spread of COVID.

 

[LCC]

I'm of two minds on this: we had little information on the best way to manage a pandemic with a new virus. The primary concern was limiting contagion before we had high vaccination rates in school kids. If you remember, vaccine for kids was the last group to get approval from the CDC to use the vaccine.

Having kids at home was disruptive: it ended the free childcare the schools provided pre pandemic. Lots of disruption with parents having to find new childcare (that was difficult to find and expensive)

On the other hand, there were folks that were distracted by concerns over any government mandate for sending kids home for computer based instruction or for anything. Certainly the social skills deficit that impacted school kids was expected to some degree, but the option to save kids' from infection, serious illness or death was a higher priority than avoiding social deficits.

Most folks don't have any idea who "the government" was that decided to send kids home early in the pandemic. It WAS NOT the Federal government, it was local authorities such as the state or local school authorities that made the decision (school boards had the decision making authority: the federal government did not).

We now know much more about managing the risk of Covid and methods to prevent the spread of the virus than we did three years ago, when the pandemic began. Nevertheless, a lot of folks resist using the vaccine or simple precautions such as masks, perceiving those very effective measures as intrusive "mandates by 'the Government' " and therefore things that should be avoided or protested. I find this position very foolish. Certainly we're each entitled to have our own opinions, but opinions (like these) can be wrong!

There have been a number of fantasy opinions that grew up about Covid: such as that ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine cures Covid (they don't). Folks still imagine that there are simple treatments that the 'government' is trying to steer them away from for some reason closer to clinical paranoia than scientific reasoning. Folks promoting these cures have a financial interest in pushing these quack remedies, not a medical reason.

It's easy to be a knot head about this, primarily because there are a few people who hold these beliefs and they are easily to find, hook up with or just follow so the crazy believers don't realize how dumb these opinions are.

thank you for the literate post.
Yes there was over reach. There was also hundreds of thousands dying and millions being infected. My daughter in law is a grade school teacher in a large urban area, and when covid swept through her classroom before the county closure, she ended up in ICU for two weeks and exhibited long haul symptoms for the next six months. In her school district dozens of teachers ended up hospitalized, and several of the older, ready to retire teachers died from covid.
There are no perfect solutions during a global pandemic, and it is easy to find anecdotes and 'on-line facts' that support any and all positions regarding how covid was managed.
About the vaccine. How many of us lined up during boot camp and walked the gauntlet of air injectors, staggering to a finish, having been slammed with Yellow Fever, Diptheria, Rubella, Tetanus, etc. These days boot recruits get 17 different vaccines, all to protect them and their fellow squad members from infection, just as the covid vaccines are meant to do within society.
As to the increased suicide rate the past few years among the youth. Whereas there is little doubt that social isolation magnified it, the core issue is that the youth today are being hammered by peer social media, especially among girls who are increasingly committing suicide from being targeted for on line ridicule.
I discuss their lives frequently with my 6 grandchildren, now 10 through 22, and when they discuss the challenges they face in todays polarized society, covid restrictions are very low on their list of concerns.

 

[Faulkner]

I am not a soft on crime person but I think the key takeaway I have learned is that jail/prison is not the answer for many that have been impacted by COVID. We need to establish better ways of helping people in our communities.

 

[Rpg]

As well as the CDC for their promotion of masks which has been well documented to be mostly ineffective in stopping the spread of COVID.

I've heard some folks who are enamored of this view. Unfortunately, it's incorrect.

Please provide your references for this viewpoint. Let's evaluate the best evidence for your viewpoint.

 

[Puller]

I've heard some folks who are enamored of this view. Unfortunately, it's incorrect.

Please provide your references for this viewpoint. Let's evaluate the best evidence for your viewpoint.

Respectfully, numerous past threads have shown that propaganda for and against masks have been effective in strongly influencing both camps. There seems to be evidence showing masks saved untold millions of lives, and other just as creditable evidence that they didn't do diddly. I'm willing to look you in the eye and say I respect your view point on this one and move on.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Puller is correct. In the last few years I have seen many covid threads here. All were either locked or vaporized. People had their
character impugned and their intelligence questioned. Tempers flared and feelings were hurt.

Some members bid this forum adieu and never posted again.

Most interestingly is that when a mod locked the thread with an admonishment and issued points and suspensions the same six pack of members that wouldn't back off and were the primary reason for the threads being locked would give the mod's ending post a like.

No one has ever changed anyone's mind over this.

Let it go.

 

[LVSteve]

....There are no perfect solutions during a global pandemic,....

Quoted for truth.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

COVID wiped out my daughter's senior year, no prom, no senior play, no senior prank day, delayed ceremony in the middle of summer with masks, they fought the over loaded network and were graded on pass/fail in some cases by teachers that they never met face to face, and sent off to college.

 

[Onomea]

...I'm willing to look you in the eye and say I respect your view point on this one and move on.

Well said, Puller.