On Wednesday, Mar. 19, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a shelter-in-place that closed schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The immediate consequences of that lockdown — Zoom classes, social distancing, masks — are often what come to mind when we think of the pandemic. But even years after quarantine has ended, the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic in schools are visible.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected students in two crucial ways: academically and emotionally, explained Arun Khanna, a fifth grade math teacher at Ruth Acty Elementary School.
In terms of academics, Khanna said that his students had spent most of their kindergarten and first grade years home, leading to a confusion between lowercase and uppercase letters. “I kind of realized that they were mixing up the two a lot. And I kept trying to correct them, until I realized a bunch of the kids just still didn’t really know what the difference is between those two things,” he said, “It was kind of a revelation.”
This showed up in other aspects of students’ studies as well, such as phonics and handwriting. “Handwriting is generally kind of a big issue (now), because these kids, when they're in kindergarten and first grade, they're spending so much time in the classroom using a pencil, and they're getting really used to handwriting,” Khanna said, “But these kids were largely doing things on the computer if they weren't being taught by their parents at home during COVID.”
At Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, sixth grade math and science teacher Laura Kretschmar also noticed that some core mathematical concepts seemed weaker across the board. “Learning some of those foundational skills (in school) is obviously so much easier than trying to learn some of these things at home,” Kretschmar said, “Recall with math facts doesn’t seem to have bounced back since the pandemic.”
This trend continued in high school, where some students seem to be behind in math. “Specifically in math, I feel like I know a lot of people who are way behind,” Madeline Owens, a sophomore at Berkeley High School, said. “So I feel like (the teachers) kind of have to speed through some things and make (up) for that information that we’ve lost.”
Beyond foundational skills, Diane Kung, AAPI Lit and eleventh grade Advanced English Public Service teacher, also noticed a lack of stamina in students. “There is the lack of stamina when it comes to reading, lack of stamina when it comes to writing, and just the lack of stamina of also being able to sit through a 50 plus minute class,” she said, “I think it’s really difficult for students to stay engaged.” Kung described that she’d seen more students since COVID-19 who needed to take breaks and couldn’t read more than a few pages at a time or write longer pieces.
There was also a clear difference in the emotional health of the students since before and after COVID-19, according to Kretschmar. “I think the biggest difference that I noticed is that I have more students that seem to have anxiety or depression, like a larger number of students that might be seeing therapists outside of school or need counseling services in school,” Kretschmar said.
However, it’s difficult to know if this is completely due to COVID-19, or because people have generally “been hurting,” Kretschmar explained. Tiffany Liew, BHS school counselor, agreed that she had seen and was surprised by how “socially awkward and anxious” many of the students were coming back to in-person learning. Generally, “a lot of students are more behind,” Lincoln Tucker, a BHS freshman, said, “I noticed a lot more sad people.”
Virtual learning made it clear that some students were hit harder by the pandemic than others. “Some people have access to therapists and counselors and parents who are aware of therapy,” Liew said. On the other hand, there are those who don’t know how to express what they’re feeling or don’t have a support system that they can talk to and process their emotions with. “I’m sure that a lot of those people suffered more,” she said.
Some students also struggled with connecting with others online, impacting their social life, according to Owens. “I feel like really social people often still could talk online ... But people who weren’t as social had a hard time (connecting) in a non-traditional way,” she said. Though Owens felt that she adapted socially, some of her peers didn’t. “It’s kind of like they missed their time to learn how to make friends and make those connections,” she said.
In terms of academics, Kretschmar described that she could tell when students had parents who could help them at home, and if they had a quiet learning environment. Some students had two-parent households, where one parent wasn’t working to begin with, so they could thoroughly help their child in school. “And then other families may just (have) children of a single-parent home and the parent is working and the (child) has to be on their own,” she said, “Or houses where maybe there are multiple siblings, and there was just a lot going on, (and) it was hard to find a quiet space to engage with your work,” she continued.
In summary, COVID-19 exposed deep social inequities, explained Liew. “Those who are privileged and those who aren’t privileged are going to experience things like the pandemic wildly (differently),” Liew said, “But what the pandemic did was that it really made very clear how big a lot of those gaps are.” For instance, the experience of a student living in one-bedroom apartments with five siblings would be extremely different from that of a student who has very supportive parents and a big house, explained Liew. Additionally, there were families who got tutors and formed pods, whereas there were “definitely families who did not have the ability to do that,” Kung said.
This divide has been articulated in research as well. In 2021, some 30 percent of K-12 students didn’t have adequate access to the Internet, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, showing how some communities were disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
Virtual learning also required instructional adaptations. This could mean instructional changes, but also a lowering of expectations, Kung described. “I think a lot of us (teachers) had to lower our standards so much, or we felt so bad for the students,” she said, “And I don’t feel great about it, but I also recognize that that was maybe the necessary thing to do at that time, because students couldn’t handle that much.”
Still, teachers tried everything they could do to make the distance-learning years good ones, Khanna described. “Despite all the problems, we would have sing-alongs after hours, we would do all kinds of fun things with the class. We would try to get the whole fifth grade together,” he said, “Even though it was on Zoom, we tried to create (a) community as best as we could, and I think that many of the kids appreciated that.” Still, the effectiveness of this depended on what students’ home situations were like, such as if they felt supported and had access to technology, he continued. “If kids were living in rough situations, then I imagine distance learning was really, really difficult,” he said.
When students returned to school, teachers found that they had to adjust, Liew described. COVID-19 put into perspective that many of the pre-pandemic systems and practices were no longer working, and teachers had to change, she continued. Because of the toll COVID-19 had taken on students’ mental health, “Realistically speaking, there were a lot of students who (were) taking mental health days or going to the doctor’s and not being at school ... and so teachers had to find ways to still be able to teach and serve students that may not always be able to be in their classroom,” Liew said. In addition to this, students were used to working online, so teachers switched to a more tech-based instructional approach; for instance, keeping Google Classroom updated and accessible for students.
In Khanna’s fifth-grade class, the previous group-oriented learning system had to be adapted, he explained. “In my class, we do a whole lot of small group and whole class activities, largely focused around history and social studies, (and) also a big, core part of how we teach math is using materials and partners, and so kind of all that had to get thrown out,” he said, “I felt like I was a teacher in the 1800s again, with kids at individual desks.”
Still, the unpredictability of teaching after the pandemic affected instructors palpably, explained Kung. “I think (there’s been) a lot of turnover at BHS since (the pandemic), and a lot of even veteran teachers, who I thought would be in the game for a really long time, threw up their hands and said, 'I just can’t do it,' because the circumstances were too hard to handle,” Kung said, “Or (maybe because) they felt disappointed in themselves ... or they felt like, ‘Wow, the students have changed so much.’” Kung described that everywhere, teachers felt that this was not what they’d signed up for. “(School) just became like a circus, especially after the first two years, which were so chaotic,” she said.
However, these hardships may have had a few bright sides. Khanna described that the pandemic solidified his community in a way, as they held hope through its difficulties. “I just had to hold onto hope that things were going to get better,” he said. During the first year of post-pandemic learning, he hoped that the next year would be a bit better. “And it turned out to be that way, so hope really got us through,” he said.