Before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools last year, David Rushing was an energetic 15-year-old who liked to play basketball and baseball. He was an avid swimmer and a member of the Jesse White Tumblers — performing high-energy stunts like backflips and somersaults, sometimes in front of large audiences.
Then COVID-19 swept across the country and forced Chicago schools to close, leaving David, who has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, unable to participate in sports and without the proper support to help him focus in online classes.
At the beginning of his freshman year at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy last fall, David’s Individualized Education Program, a legally binding document known as an IEP that outlines what special education services and interventions a student should receive, was set to expire on Nov. 5, 2020. He was to be re-evaluated for a new plan the month before. But that didn’t happen.
Within a matter of months, David’s life spiraled out of control.
Yvonne Bailey, David’s biological grandmother who adopted him at a young age, noticed David behaving differently.
David “got involved with the wrong people in the neighborhood,” Bailey said. “He was running away from home and staying out all night.”
David’s case is not isolated. The pandemic year has uprooted support for students with disabilities in Chicago and nationwide, creating a backlog of old IEPs that could lead to widening academic gaps for students in need of special education services. Students with disabilities make up 14.6% of Chicago’s enrollment, almost 50,000 students. Nearly half of those students are Latino, and about 40 percent are Black.
#studentswithdisabilities #students #covid #onlineschool
As for whether or not to allow some students to continue learning virtually or not, I don't think the school districts legally have a choice but to continue allowing it, especially private schools and colleges who are accepting tuition. They can't very well tell parents that their children aren't not welcome at their school unless they're willing to take the risks of having them attend in-person, which may pretain to a few classes or all of them for the year. While a large amount of both educators and students may loathe the idea of another partial/full vurtual year, that's just how it's going to have to be.
If their emotional/psychological wellbeing suffers, then their physical health oftentimes follows due to a lack of personal care. At the same time, if their physical wellbeing is compromised, then their emotional/psychological wellbeing is sure to follow. While the city of Chicago seems to have done less than they could have for solving the COVID-schools problem by now, I have to think that they, like the rest of the country, genuinly doesn't have all the answers right now. As long as COVID stays (which unfortunatly it seems it will due to these variants and anti-maskers/vaccine people), school districts, cities, and states will continue to have these dilemmas.
It appears to be a conflict of students' emotional/psychological wellbeing vs. their physical wellbeing, and between requiring most students to return vs. allowing some to continue learning virtually.
Here are some of the major considerations on both sides of the COVID-school reopening debate, as I currently understand them:
Open Schools
* Students need direct, student-teacher interation in the classroom.
* Students (particularly young ones), need to interact with one another as part of their social development, and emotional wellbeing. I can certainly vouch for this one for myself.
* Parents need to be able to work without having to look after their kids at the same time (referring to those with young children without someone else to look after them).
Keep Schools Limites/Closed
* Not every student is/is allowed to be vaccinated (referring to those less than 10 in some states).
* The new variants are still treatening students, and in some cases bypassing the vaccine.
** Some students may not be able to return this year, because they relocated back to their home countries last year and cannot afford to come back right now.