By Bob Hennelly 

As hundreds of thousands of students returned to school in New York State and New York City this week, Governor Kathy Hochul told reporters the state’s teachers still face major challenges as a consequence of the COVID mass death event that killed 1.1 million people including over 77,000 in New York.

In the initial few months of the pandemic, in New York City alone, 30 teachers were among 74 Department of Education employees who died from COVID. 

It’s estimated that nationally there are close to 250,000 children who lost one or both parents to COVID, with NBC reporting this March that 15,000 of them live in the tri-state region. According to a national survey published in May by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s’ Hospital Association, over the three-year arc of the pandemic there were 419,000 pediatric COVID cases in New York City, roughly 15.4 percent of all of the cases recorded.

Hochul said the unprecedented extended disruption of public education had taken a mental health toll on both students and teachers as well as a “pandemic learning loss.”

“That’s one of the reasons we have a severe teachers’ shortage right now,” Hochul said after a bill signing at UFT headquarters in Lower Manhattan. “Many teachers were under enormous stress during the pandemic…they were responsible for these outcomes under these horrific circumstances. Many of their students didn’t have a digital device to be able to connect with the classroom to get that education.”

Hochul continued, “They went through incredible trauma themselves and we recognize that and that is one of the drivers of why we have seen the flight of teachers from the classroom, and we are also talking about pandemic learning loss. No matter what their age was, whether they were in kindergarten or they were in high school they [the students] are still feeling the effects.

The governor also talked about going on a “statewide tour and launching a mental health initiative to talk about youth mental health challenges.”

“And so much of it,” she said, “originates back during the pandemic supplemented by unregulated and uncontrolled social media. There is a direct correlation back to the pandemic, and so we are focused on it many different ways. Part of it is getting funding for more mental health professionals like we have never needed before.”

“As the COVID-19 pandemic came with bouts of uncertainty and isolation for all, new research in  a seemingly post-pandemic world has revealed evidence that the detrimental impact on adolescent mental health has persisted and points to multiple causes for concern,” according to a post on Columbia University’s Teachers College website.

The post continues, “These are some of the findings from a new study supported by the Icelandic Research Fund conducted by John Allegrante, Charles Irwin Lambert Professor of Health Behavior and Education at Teachers College and Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, along with a team of Icelandic and North American behavioral and social scientists with whom he has been collaborating for almost 20 years.”

“One of the key challenges right now that we are facing in the United States and worldwide is the decline of adolescent mental health,” says Allegrante. “If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we must support our youth.”

“Suicide is the second leading cause of death for individuals aged 5-24 years in the United States, and a significant public health concern,” according to the Nationwide Children’s Hospital.  “Data suggest depression, anxiety and social isolation increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have contributed to suicide risk in youth. “

“In a study published today in Pediatrics, researchers in the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital found that in the United States, youth suicides increased during COVID-19, with significantly more suicides than expected among males, non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaskan Native youth, and non-Hispanic Black youth,” reported Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Before the pandemic, Opportunity Nation, the Forum for Youth Investment, a non-profit advocacy group, estimated that 5.5 million young people ages 16 through 24 were not in school nor working.

“The personal and collective costs of youth disconnection are steep,” it found. “Young adults who are not in school or working cost taxpayers $93 billion annually and $1.6 trillion over their lifetimes in lost revenues and increased social services.” 

The re-opening of New York City’s public schools also coincides with an influx of 21,000 undocumented children into the system whose families are seeking asylum in the United States. 

UFT President Michael Mulgrew told reporters the confluence of challenges for his members was “unprecedented.”

“It’s a challenge because we are coming off of the pandemic,” he said. “There is clear evidence, nobody disputes it, that there are [issues] of what we call, ‘getting children ready to learn,’ that has to do with all sorts of different challenges dealing with mental health. And because of problems they faced during the pandemic, and on top of that we have the influx of children whose families that are seeking asylum insider of our schools.”

The UFT president said elected officials need to “listen to the people who are dealing with the actual work” and that they “get them the right supplies, support, and training to these places. That’s what the struggle is going to be.” 

Chronic absenteeism continues to be an issue in New York City schools.

“Thirty-six percent of New York City public school students were chronically absent last school year, missing at least 10 percent of the school year, according to figures released by Education Department officials on Wednesday,” reported Chalkbeat.  

The education news source said that was  “a modest improvement compared with the 2021-2022 school year, which saw chronic absenteeism exceed 40%, the highest rate in decades. 

“Despite a year-over-year reduction, the figures are a stark reminder that absenteeism remains a stubborn challenge that will continue to complicate efforts to catch students up from years of pandemic-fueled disruptions,” Chalkbeat reported.

Before COVID, the New York City system’s chronic absenteeism was an issue for 25 percent of the student population.

The start of the school year in New York City coincides with Mayor Adams’s launch of what he pledges will be the “most comprehensive approach to supporting public school students with dyslexia in the United States” through “specialized instruction through the development of special programs and academies,” according to a City Hall press release.

“As New York City public school students returned to school on Thursday, arguably the most far-reaching policy initiative of Mayor Adams’s administration also began in full,” the New York Times reported.  “The goal is to boost reading skills in a system where about half of third- to eighth-grade students are not proficient on state tests. Black and Latino children fare even worse.”