Prolonged school closures due to COVID-19 lockdowns have resulted in a "notable number" of students "missing" from school systems, a study revealed.
A study from Bellwether Education, entitled "Missing In The Margins: Estimating The Scale Of the COVID-19 Attendance Crisis," was released last October 2020 and provides a thorough presentation of the extent of this "emergency" affecting students in America because of the pandemic.
It revealed that an estimated 3 million students are "missing" and "gone" from school because of the prolonged lockdowns. Accordingly, "missing" meant "children who are offline and hard to find but would reengage in school if given the opportunity" while "gone" pertains to "children and youth who have made a transition away from school engagement in ways that could be permanent."
"If even one in four students with disabilities, English learners, students in foster care, migrant students, and homeless students have been shut out of education for months, that adds up to over three million students, as if the entire school-aged population of the state of Florida dropped out of school," the report said.
"If only one in 20 of America's most educationally marginalized students did not access any education in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, the number of students out of school would create the second largest school district in America, almost 620,000 students," it said. "The millions of students who face the greatest barriers to an education span age ranges and geography, but are more likely to live in urban areas."
"The consequences for these students' education and well-being are not marginal concerns: They are an emergency," it stressed.
According to Bellwether Education Partners, students are primarily not attending school because many "lack the devices and WI-FI access to fully participate in virtual instruction." The other top four reasons include:
- "many English learners and students with disabilities have no good options to receive the educational accommodations and services to which they are legally entitled, making learning inaccessible";
- "children in foster care and children experiencing homelessness encountered barriers to education before the pandemic, and this year, instability, confusion, and poor communication are rampant for them";
- "Some young people have transitioned to work, both formal and informal, while others are providing full-time primary care and learning support for other children, like younger siblings, in their homes."; and
- "the pandemic has also isolated children and youth experiencing abuse, neglect, or acute mental health needs, cutting them off from teachers and other school staff trained to spot warning signs."
"The long-term consequences of this crisis are difficult to estimate without seeming hyperbolic. Once a student leaves school, it is difficult to reenter," the study said.
"One study of a large, urban district found that two-thirds of high school dropouts never reenrolled, and among those who do, about half drop out again. Circumstances that might push a student out of school today are very different, but even if all of the currently missing students return to school as soon as they are allowed to do so, months of missed opportunities for learning could mean permanent setbacks," the study said.
The Blaze reported that the study's findings "confirm" some of the concerns that many who have criticized prolonged school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic had: "that with schools closed indefinitely, students would ineviably be left behind."
In addition, ABC News revealed that the problem of "missing" students is a nationwide problem after getting in touch with 50 states' department of education.
The report indicated that while some states said they do not keep track of such information regarding students, they have seen a "significant" drop in the number of students enrolling for school. The report also indicated that some states report having "thousands of missing students."
