Editor’s note: This commentary is by Brooks Addington, of Dorset, who is a small business owner and the parent of three children.
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which its treats its children” – Nelson Mandela
On March 26 less than two weeks into the Covid-19 pandemic, Gov. Phil Scott directed all schools to close for the remainder of the academic year thereby making his first of many declarations that children in Vermont are expendable.
What prompted this early directive, much earlier than other states, and why he so quickly gave up on the school year is less important than the message and tone it sent. Scott spoke of the challenges of remote learning and showed his support for the ingenuity of our teachers and administrations to work the issue.
What he did not mention and has continued to ignore is the impact isolating children at a young age has on their social, emotional and physical health in the immediate and long term. Simply put, Scott either didn’t care or wasn’t capable of processing the impact of his decisions.
Leadership requires making tough decisions, in the case of Vermont, our leader chose to sacrifice its youth to protect its at-risk elderly without remorse; and while on the surface it may seem reasonable to simply “ask” children to stay at home for a few months or a year, what we have known from the beginning was the fallout would be catastrophic. The question remains why didn’t the governor know and if he did, why didn’t he care?
For those children most at risk this experience has been nothing short of a nightmare. Child abuse reports plummeted in late March; teachers accounted for 662 reports of child abuse concerns in 2019 in March and only 369 in 2020 because those adults weren’t there. In the third week of March 2019, 467 calls were received and 118 investigated versus 192 in the same week in 2020 with only 30 investigations.
To make matters worse there has been a 150% increase in reported child exploitation in Vermont since mid-March.
What we know is there has been a 1000% increase in the federal mental health hotline in April from 2019. We also know from a National Institute of Health study that 59% of young people with PTSD subsequently develop substance abuse problems.
Academically, we all know nationally that remote learning is a complete failure. A recent Wall Street Journal article outlined some of the disconcerting outcomes — students will return in the fall with 70% of learning gains and 50% or less of math gains than a typical school year and, again, our least fortunate will be even worse, falling even farther behind. We also know from long-term studies that falling behind in math at an early age makes it near impossible to ever catch up. In many schools children just fell off the radar completely without any contact with teachers at all.
Meanwhile schools across the globe are reopening. Japan has enlisted 4,000 new teachers and shortened its summer break while the education minister in France stated it was the government’s priority to avoid youngsters at home becoming “collateral damage” of the Covid-19 crisis.
This stark comparison to Scott and Education Secretary Dan French is beyond troubling. Neither have stepped up and fought for our children, neither have gone on record addressing real concerns about the health or welfare of Vermont’s children. No doubt French’s concern is political, with a record of putting teachers first we can expect his dialogue to shift to the safety of our teachers as opposed to defending the rights of our students.
Given this absolute void in leadership and concern, now is the time parents need to step up and demand schools to be open in the fall. The CDC as stated under 50 years old death rate of 0.05% and dropping. That is 99.95% survival rate. What are we waiting for?
New data coming from Europe shows children are less likely to be spreaders given the lack of outbreaks since reopening. We are learning what we always knew, this is a virus, and like all viruses it effects the weakest. In Vermont, with a median Covid death age of 80, and premorbidities in the high 90 percent why are we isolating and punishing our children instead of simply protecting those most “at risk”?
Make no mistake parents, your children will not be in school in the fall if our leaders continue to believe our children are expendable. That means no sports, no music, no after school activities and in its place – more depression, anxiety, self-isolation from community and a deterioration of their social and emotional well-being.
If we do not take control of the narrative we are not doing everything we can to protect our voiceless children.
The solutions are easy, Gov. Scott and Secretary French, commit to opening school in the fall. Any teacher that doesn’t feel safe can retire and new younger not “at risk” teachers can fill these roles. If you argue this is unfair then my question is to who? Our teacher unions or our children?
