BY JENNIFER RAMO / EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW MEXICO APPLESEED
Sunday, September 27th, 2020
“In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
We are watching in slow motion possibly one of the most horrendous and preventable humanitarian disasters in our nation’s history. With schools closed, hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of children are being left to fend for themselves academically, emotionally and developmentally and they may never catch up. The cost in terms of trauma and lost potential is incalculable. We, as a state and as a country, will pay for this eventually, just as these children are paying now and may for generations to come. We have to do more and we have to do it immediately.
With our extreme rates of poverty, New Mexico public schools have long provided so much more than an education. They provide two to three meals a day, access to health care, daily child welfare checks – a fifth of all reports of possible child abuse or neglect come from teachers or school officials, safety and hope. The idea that these children will eventually be OK without all that schools offer is magical and dangerous thinking.
With unemployment at 12% in July 2020, and workers experiencing reduced hours and job insecurity, many families in New Mexico are unable to afford gas, food, rent, diapers, school supplies or medicine. The New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee’s June 10 report stated that just the three months of “distance learning” in the spring semester led to up to a year of learning loss and if reopening is delayed until January 2021, this could mean an additional 14 months of learning loss. At-risk students were viewed as having an even more severe learning loss from school closures. The American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledges that children of color from low-income families may bear the brunt of this heartbreaking situation.
We need a heroic and calculated state and local response to address this humanitarian disaster. We must create a detailed, long- range and comprehensive strategy to prevent the worst-case scenario of massive spikes in school dropouts, suicides, food insecurity and child abuse and neglect from coming to pass.
We must stop discussing what can’t be done and why and start focusing on what can be done and how. The answer to the legitimate concern of keeping children and educators safe from the virus must be more creative and strategic than shutting off access to all that schools offer children and calling it a day. The cost of doing that is far too high.
There are many questions that we are morally obligated to ask to get to a plan that keeps people safe from the virus while addressing the dark reality that many children will be permanently harmed unless we act now.
Who are the most at-risk children and what can be done for them today? While transmission rates are low, are districts and educators willing to revisit shutdowns and consider solutions such as outdoor learning? If schools must be shut down, how are we ensuring that at-risk children have everything they need to participate? What funding streams can the state and districts cobble together to fund the LFC’s $26.2 million projected cost of ensuring that every student has a device and internet access? Can the school-based health centers open and leverage existing technology to offer telehealth? Can the Department of Higher Education work with institutions to create a volunteer network of tutors to support students via phone or Zoom? Can we leverage bus contracts to deliver food and pick up homework? Can each district and the state develop school and community-specific reopening plans based on the needs of that student population and evidence-informed best practices? How will we know if we are succeeding and what will we do if we aren’t?
The state must lead, and the rest of us must be open to bringing our best ideas and a willingness to sacrifice. This is the moment to act if we do not want to be “too late.”