How Students Feel Amid the COVID Delta Variant Surge
Amina Castronovo is worried — about the rampant Delta variant of the coronavirus, of course, but also about the mental health of her fellow students as they head back to school this fall after 17 months of on-and-off quarantine and isolation. She’s the student government president at Beacon High School in New York City and is urging the administration to focus on more than just helping students catch up on what they missed during Zoom school. More important than forcing knowledge of the chemical elements or rhetorical devices, Amina said, is the mental health of students as they emerge from seclusion.
Some students may have lost family members or loved ones to COVID-19 as the death toll climbs to over 616,000 in America alone. Some may have spent their time away from the school building balancing Zoom classes and caring for younger siblings or parents. Still, others may have had to take on jobs outside the home, risking contracting the virus. As students across the country head back to school for the fall semester, Amina is worried that Beacon High School, a highly competitive school to get into, will be so focused on academics that they neglect the mental health of their students. And as the pandemic leaves teens grappling with staggering levels of loneliness, depression, and even suicide attempts, mental health cannot be ignored.
At Beacon, students had the option to go to in-person school during the 2020-2021 school year, but that meant sitting in a classroom while on Zoom classes. It was good for students who couldn’t work at home, Amina said or didn’t have access to consistent WiFi. But amid a generation-defining pandemic and a social justice movement reignited by the death of Black people at the hands of police, it largely felt like the school year was pressing on, with little acknowledgment of the shattering events taking place. “It felt really off that we still had finals at the end of the year,” Amina tells Teen Vogue.
Heading into the new semester, Amina is most worried about students who are entering high school for the first time after 15 months of pandemic learning. “There are students who are [going to be] freshmen and haven’t been in [in-person] school since 7th grade,” Amina said. “They’re going to be thrown into this difficult and competitive culture.” As student body president, Amina is working to emphasize mental health at Beacon and make the culture “less toxic.”
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/back-to-school-2021-covid-delta