Coronavirus Increases Obstacles to Meeting Students' Needs

LEXINGTON, Ky.- Coronavirus is highlighting the many ways in which communities rely on schools beyond traditional instruction. The pandemic is not only creating academic obstacles, but now schools are also faced with the burden of meeting students’ basic needs before they can address academic needs.

“We know that kids that are tired, kids that are hungry and kids that are worried are not in their thinking brain, they’re in their survival brain,” said Jennifer Fish, the principal of Lansdowne Elementary School. “They cannot learn new information if they’re worried about ‘where am I going to sleep? Am I going to be fed? Am I safe?’”

With an influx of pandemic relief programs, it may seem that all needs for students are being met, however some needs remain unmet as they go unseen.

“It’s a sad fact that calls to Child Protective Services are way down during the pandemic because the very watchdogs who keep children safe from neglect and abuse are the people that see them every day in their school, and we’re not seeing them,” Fish said.

In previous years, schools have been better able to recognize the needs of their students simply through normal daily interactions and observations. With virtual learning, individual student-teacher interactions are limited, making it much harder for educators to recognize subtle signs of emotional need.

“Teachers are frontline workers,” Fish said. “When we can see and touch a child every single day we can not only evaluate their physical health, but their mental health. We can see if they’re hurt or injured, we can see if they have appropriate clothing, we can see if they’re losing weight. Individual conversations that you have with a kid will never happen in a group zoom meeting.”

To combat these growing needs, community and federal efforts such as Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfers (P-EBTs), the National School Lunch Program, and local food banks were made available to families when the pandemic first hit. Around the same time, many families were receiving their federal tax refunds, thus increasing immediate, yet temporary, financial stability for many households. Combined with relaxed deadlines for housing payments and debt relief payments, this has led some school workers to be concerned that the basic needs of students will substantially increase as the year progresses.

“I think many of my families have been able to survive because of all of the programs and charities and foundations that are giving out resources at this time,” Fish said. “My fear is that they won’t be able to go back to work when all of these resources dry up.”

Lansdowne Elementary School Family Resource Coordinator Nimbo Hammons regularly drives around neighborhoods to check up on families and help fill any needs he sees. However, recently he’s been seeing something a little different than in previous years.

“I saw an influx of TV boxes out, things that [parents] wanted to do for their families, they got a chance to really do them, but hopefully not at risk of their families’ wellbeing later on,” Hammons said.

Although the coronavirus is altering the role of schools and presenting new obstacles, Hammons says these concerns are not a deterrent.

“There’s always gonna be new struggles because it’s just new terrain,” Hammons said.

In Hammons’ job, he is used to connecting families with community resources in times of need. While the intensity of need has greatly increased this year, there will always be families struggling. The pandemic has shed new light on the number of families barely getting by, but for Hammons, this is an opportunity to help more families build resiliency.

“There’s always a way, I have always felt that way,” Hammons said. “To be honest, I grew up just like some of the families we work with, so resiliency is something I kind of hang my hat on. We have to find a way because if we don’t find a way, how are we gonna teach them to find a way.”

September 4, 2020 | By Katherine Fish