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The pandemic missing: The kids who didn't go back to school
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Seattle Times/Associated Press
Posted: February 19th, 2023
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/the-pandemi...
Kailani Taylor-Cribb hasn't taken a single class in what used to be her high school since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She vanished from Cambridge, Massachusetts' public school roll in 2021 and has been, from an administrative standpoint, unaccounted for since then. She is among hundreds of thousands of students around the country who disappeared from public schools during the pandemic and didn't resume their studies elsewhere. An analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University's Big Local News project and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee found an estimated 230,000 students in 21 states whose absences could not be accounted for. These students didn't move out of state, and they didn't sign up for private school or home-school. In short, they're missing. The analysis highlights thousands of students who may have dropped out of school or missed out on the basics of reading and school routines in kindergarten and first grade. Over months of reporting, the AP learned of students and families avoiding school for a range of reasons. Some are still afraid of COVID-19, are homeless or have left the country. Some students couldn't study online and found jobs instead. Some slid into depression. During the prolonged online learning, some students fell so far behind developmentally and academically that they no longer knew how to behave or learn at school. Many of these students, while largely absent from class, are still officially on school rosters.
Note: Along with the previously mentioned essay on the lockdown's tragic effects on youth and society, read a thought-provoking article on the educational crisis fueled by COVID policies, raising questions about whether school closures had an effect on COVID morbidity and mortality rates.
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