Many Fort Worth students struggle in return to school. What’s worrying counselors?
When U’Nique Washington walked into Trimble Tech High School on the first day of school last month, she was excited to see friends she hadn’t seen in more than a year.
Washington, now a senior, spent all of last year in virtual learning. Between trying to balance a job with school and problems at home, it was a difficult year, Washington said. This year was supposed to offer a fresh start.
But as the first day of school day went on, Washington realized things weren’t as she expected. She felt nervous about being at school and less comfortable giving presentations in front of her class. Other students with whom she used to talk and joke now seemed distant. Her classmates seemed less like friends and more like coworkers, people she worked alongside but couldn’t open herself up to, she said. In some ways, she felt like a new student.
“It was like everyone changed,” she said. “No one really talked to anyone.”
There were other things that left her feeling disoriented. While she was away, her school had changed its classroom numbers. So even though she’d spent nearly two years at Trimble Tech before the pandemic, she had trouble finding her classes. Over the next few weeks, Washington noticed other students, as well as some teachers, seemed to feel as disoriented and anxious as she did.
With almost all students back at school in person, Fort Worth school counselors say they can see the signs of stress and anxiety, especially among students who never came back to school in person last year. Some counselors say they’ve seen an unusual number of students having panic attacks at school.
Last year, mental health professionals and school leaders in Fort Worth worried about the toll that school shutdowns and remote learning took on students’ mental health. Recent research suggests that’s part of a troubling global trend: depression and anxiety were about twice as prevalent among children and adolescents worldwide last year as they were before the pandemic, according to a study published last month.
Fort Worth counselors see increase in panic attacks
Crystal Mercer, an intervention specialist at Trimble Tech High School, said she’s seen more students with panic attacks than ever before. When that happens, Mercer’s job is to stay calm and talk with them about how to regulate their emotions and behaviors. She teaches them basic breathing techniques and other relaxation skills so they feel like they can manage their emotions, she said.
Most of the students who came to talk to Mercer during the first two weeks of school were in remote learning all of last year. That, in itself, is telling, Mercer said. Many have told Mercer that they felt trapped. But coming back out in the open can feel like a major change, she said, and it’s a difficult transition for some students to handle. There are about 1,700 students at Trimble Tech, so many students feel like they’re going from feeling trapped by themselves into a big crowd of people all at once.
When a student talks to Mercer about feeling anxious, depressed or overwhelmed, she explains that those feelings are entirely normal. Teenagers often feel like every challenge they encounter is something personal and unique to them, Mercer said. But the pandemic is a source of global trauma, Mercer said. It’s forced everyone to think constantly about their own safety and the safety of people around them. We’ve been doing it for a while, she said, but we aren’t finished with it yet. Some students seem relieved when they understand that they’re not the only ones struggling, she said.
At the end of the last school year, Mercer saw a lack of motivation among students at her school. Even students who had done well up to that point seemed to run out of energy by the end of the year, she said. Students who stayed in remote learning for the entire year were hit hardest by it, she said, but it was a problem for in-person students, as well. Students who came back to school in person had some advantages over those who stayed remote, she said, but most still got most of their instruction through a computer screen. So none felt as though life had returned to anything like normalcy, she said.
The same was true for teachers, Mercer said.
By the end of the year, some teachers were burned out to the point that they struggled to focus on their jobs, she said. And because this year’s summer break was shorter than usual, many didn’t get the chance to recharge fully before school started again. That meant that some of them brought their stress and burnout from last year into the new year, she said.
The beginning of this year has been a mix of good and bad, Mercer said.
There’s positive energy at school right now and most students and teachers feel excited to be back in a way many hadn’t expected, she said. And even though they may not know it, students benefit from the structure of a school day. But anytime a student has to quarantine after coming in close contact with someone else who tests positive for COVID-19, they lose that structure, she said. Students are used to disruptions at this point, since it’s all they’ve known for a year and a half, she said. Still, she said, it’s disruptive and stressful when a student has to go back into quarantine just days after coming back to school.
“It’s more chaos at a time when we’re trying to get back to consistency,” Mercer said.
Cari Bounds, a counselor at Western Hills High School, said she’s seen more apathy and resignation from students than she’s ever seen before. Besides acting as mental health first responders, counselors also handle students’ schedules. At the beginning of this year, Western Hills had to cut an American Sign Language course because there wasn’t a teacher to teach it. So Bounds has had to call several students into her office to work on schedule changes. Most of them throw up their hands and talk about the change as just one more in a long series of disruptions, she said.
One morning last month, a 9th grader walked into Bounds’ office and sat down in a chair. The girl wore a mask and a hoodie with the hood pulled up, so Bounds could only see her eyes. After spending all of last year in remote learning, the girl was about two weeks into in-person classes, Bounds said. She was in a new school, at a different point in her school career than when she’d left, and she was around large groups of other students for the first time in more than a year. She was struggling with the transition, Bounds said.
“I don’t like this,” the girl told Bounds. “I want to be back at home.”
Bounds talked to the girl about what she was going through, and eventually the girl left her office feeling better. But the conversation was just one of many Bounds has had with students who are struggling this year.
Return to school is disorienting for some students
Jorge Gamez, a Trimble Tech senior, said he hasn’t felt anxious about being back at school.
But he’s noticed “an implicit cautiousness” when he’s around other people. Before he takes a drink from a water bottle, he might look around the room to gauge whether he’s comfortable pulling his mask off for a moment. He worries when he sees other students going without masks for long periods or ignoring the school’s COVID-19 protocols.
Gamez, who spent all of last year in virtual learning, said he’s also had to readjust to being in a rigidly scheduled environment again. Virtual learning involved periods of online class time followed by longer periods during which students were supposed to work independently. Going back to a regular school day with a bell schedule has been an adjustment, he said.
Adaeya Gentry, a junior at Trimble Tech, returned to school in person last month after spending all of last year in virtual learning. When she came back, Gentry noticed her friend group changed. She no longer felt like she could talk to many of her friends from before the pandemic, she said. At the same time, she found herself becoming friendly with other classmates she barely knew before her school shut down. Most of her new friends spent all of last year in virtual learning, she said, so they understand each other’s challenges.
It was disorienting for Gentry to come back to school as a junior when she hadn’t been there in person since her freshman year. Freshman year is supposed to be about figuring out how high school works, she said. But when she came back, counselors started talking to her about college applications and scholarship paperwork. She wasn’t ready for it, she said.
Gentry said she’s noticed that her own personality has changed since the beginning of the pandemic, as well. She was once bubbly and outgoing, she said, and now she feels more closed off.
This year has been a struggle so far, Gentry said. When she goes home feeling stressed after a bad day, she tells herself that the next day will be better. It isn’t always, she said. But some days, she comes to school in a bad mood and a friend says something funny, and it lifts her up. Other days, a conversation with a teacher will leave her feeling more confident.
Depression, anxiety doubled among children worldwide
Officials at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth have warned several times since the beginning of the pandemic of an uptick in children hospitalized after suicide attempts.
On Aug. 10, hospital officials reported the hospital admitted 261 patients after suicide attempts in the first seven months of the year — nearly twice as many as the hospital admitted during the first seven months of 2020. Those figures don’t include suicide attempts after which the patient goes straight from the emergency room into inpatient psychiatric care without being admitted into the hospital.
Recent research suggests that trend is widespread. Last month, researchers at the University of Calgary and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Calgary published a paper concluding that depression and anxiety among children are twice as prevalent worldwide as they were before the pandemic began. Researchers predict an “influx of mental health care utilization” and recommend that resources be made available to meet that need.
Nicole Racine, a postdoctoral fellow at the university and the study’s lead author, said the data on which the study was based come from early in the pandemic, when schools were beginning to close, cities were locking down and children and adults were experiencing anxiety related to not knowing what would come next. There’s evidence that anxiety and depression became even more prevalent among children as the pandemic progressed, she said.
But Racine said having students back at school in person could mitigate some of the effects they felt during school shutdowns. The return to school can be a source of stress for some students, she said, but it’s also a return to a routine that many students have lacked for months, she said. Routine is important for children and adults alike, Racine said, because it means they know what to expect on any given day. Along with routines come better and more regular sleeping and eating patterns, both of which play roles in students’ mental health, she said.
Being back at school also gives students opportunities for normal interactions with other students and adults — something many kids missed during remote learning, Racine said. For some students, schools also serve as the place where they get nutritious meals, mental health hubs and the only place where they get any physical activity, she said.
“Schools are much more than just a place where you go to learn,” Racine said.
Extended remote learning creates social anxiety
Cindy Bethany, the Fort Worth school district’s director of prevention and crisis response, said teachers and counselors got a look at the end of last year at how social isolation had affected students who stayed in remote learning for the entire year. Some of those students came back to campus in person for end-of-year activities, she said, and many of them had “significant anxiety” about coming back. Since then, many of those students have struggled to reintegrate themselves into school, she said.
“They feel awkward about it,” Bethany said. “They missed a whole year. They don’t know if they’ll fit in again.”
Bounds, the Western Hills counselor, said many students share that concern about how they’ll fit in. Students who never came back to school last year missed a lot, not only academically, but also developmentally, she said. Depending on how old they were when the pandemic began, students’ maturity level could change drastically in a year and a half, she said. Students who were out of school may struggle to figure out how to interact with other students now that they’re back, she said.
Those students’ social context can also change drastically in that amount of time, Bounds said. Students who are starting high school now were in 7th grade when the pandemic began. For students who spent the end of 7th grade and all of 8th grade at home, finding themselves dropped into 9th grade after more than a year away can be disorienting, she said.
“In middle school, you’ve still got ‘boys have germs,’” Bounds said. “And in high school, they’re dating, and you may have a pregnant girl on campus.”
There are students who are still dealing with trauma they’ve experienced during the pandemic, Bounds said.
“Our kids are dealing with some really heavy stuff,” Bounds said.
Children don’t have same coping skills as adults
Todd Treat, the youth behavioral health clinical director for MHMR of Tarrant County, said the mental health service provider has seen an uptick in referrals over the past few months. Treat suspects that trend is related to the fact that more people have returned to in-person activities like work or school. Friends, coworkers and family members are more likely to notice when someone is in distress and needs help when they see them in person, he said.
Pandemic-related stress has affected nearly everyone, Treat said. But he said parents need to remember that their children don’t have the same coping skills as adults. Children who are struggling with heightened stress or anxiety may seem withdrawn and not as interested in activities they once enjoyed, Treat said. They may also get agitated more easily or have a quicker trigger response, he said.
Parents and caregivers who notice that their children are struggling with stress and anxiety should remember that they’re probably experiencing heightened stress themselves, Treat said. Even as they focus on taking care of their children’s needs, adults need to make sure to take care of themselves, as well, he said. He encourages anyone who needs help to reach out to a mental health care provider like MHMR. School counselors are also a good resource for students who are having a hard time, he said.
“We’re all struggling,” Treat said. “Getting help is not a bad thing.”
Warning signs of mental health problems vary by age group
The warning signs of traumatic stress differ by age group, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Here are some signs experts say could indicate traumatic stress.
Preschool children
- Fear of separation from parents or caregivers
- Excessive screaming or crying
- Eating poorly and losing weight
- Nightmares
Elementary school children
- Becoming anxious or fearful
- Feeling guilt or shame
- Having a hard time concentrating
- Having difficulty sleeping
Middle and high school children
- Feeling depressed or alone
- Developing eating disorders or self-harming behaviors
- Beginning to abuse alcohol or drugs
- Becoming sexually active
This story was originally published September 5, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
