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Impact of “Long COVID” on Education [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-10-25  

Medically, Long COVID is a spectrum of conditions experienced by people infected with COVID 19 who recovered from the initial illness. Symptoms include chronic fatigue, shortness of breath, cough and chest pain, headaches and difficulty concentrating, changes in taste and smell, and depression or anxiety and they can last for months or even years.

One well documented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, another form of “Long COVID,” has been inadequate student rebound on standardized tests compared with student performance prior to the pandemic. The problem is both missed work, but also a loss of interest in school after the COVID interruptions. This has occurred despite federal funds being channeled to schools to help students catch-up. Studies show that the impact of learning loss was greatest on Black and Latino children and the performance gap on standardized tests has increased.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, there is another less discussed but potentially more dramatic negative long-term impact of the COVID pandemic on education in the United States –persistently high rates of chronic absenteeism in schools. During the 2021-22 school year, almost 15 million American students were chronically absent from school meaning they missed 10% or more school days, about twenty. This was a 45% increase of over pre-pandemic absenteeism. Initial reports from the 2022-2023 school year show chronic absenteeism rates remaining very high. This means that numbers of students have lost the habit of going to school every day and of learning when material is difficult.

High levels of chronic absenteeism don’t only affect the students who are missing school. Irregular attendance means that teachers are continually forced to repeat instruction, slowly the pace of everyone’s learning, and discouraging students who are regularly attending. During the 2021-22 school year, two-thirds of enrolled students attended a school with high levels of chronic absenteeism, an enormous increase over pre-pandemic levels when about a quarter of enrolled students attended schools plagued by chronic student absences.

New York City schools require that students who test positive for COVID to quarantine for five days. The students are not formally penalized for extended absences, but the absences interrupt learning and contribute to learning loss. According to city officials, 40% public school students were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 school year and 36% in 2022-2023, compared to about 25% before the pandemic. In response, some New York City educators are petitioning city education officials to allow students to attend classes remotely while they are on COVID quarantine and be marked present.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/10/25/2201519/-Impact-of-Long-COVID-on-Education

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