Chicago Public Schools is reopening classrooms for kindergarten through fifth grade Monday. Giving students a sense of transparency and protection is essential to smoothing this transition, mental health experts say. Some Chicago Public Schools students are counting down the hours until Monday’s in-person reopening after nearly 12 months of remote learning. For others, returning to […]
Several times a week, Ericka Santiago-Diaz can be found driving around her low-income, underserved school community in New Jersey’s Asbury Park with bags of school supplies, replacement technology, food and donated clothing in the back seat to deliver to students. At some homes, she translates school emails into Spanish and answers technical questions. Then she […]
At the beginning of the school year, Paige Gagerman was highly motivated. The Deerfield High School junior got dressed each day and set herself up for a day of school at her desk, or the kitchen. But now in second semester, Paige sits in bed with her sweatshirt hood over her head. Remote learning has […]
The pages of Daniel Pearl Magnet High School junior Sylvana Prieto’s leather journal are covered with messy doodles, notes and illustrations. Journaling is one of the many coping skills that students, including Prieto, learn through the program Erika’s Lighthouse, which teaches students about depression. “I think [Erika’s Lighthouse] was helpful,” 16-year-old Prieto said. “I liked […]
In addition to physical health concerns related to the COVID-19 outbreak, the global pandemic is causing most people–especially children–mental health stress and concerns, too. With schools across the country closed indefinitely and with states in various stages of social distancing or more severe lockdowns, students have lost their daily connections to friends and teachers. These […]
While seemingly everyone retreated to their homes amid the global pandemic, Kaitlin wondered about the 15 people she saw every Thursday. They all lived with depression or bipolar disorder, and they would gather in a downtown Chicago church where they cried, divulged hidden thoughts, encouraged one another or silently listened. But as the coronavirus outbreak […]