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Test scores are down. There are rising mental health concerns, and absenteeism persists. Teachers are reporting increased behavioral issues and a lack of age-appropriate social skills.

As the American education system continues to work toward recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say it’s vital to properly frame what happened and understand the multifaceted reasons behind the continued struggles.

“We have to understand that the impact of the pandemic wasn’t the same for everybody,” says Melissa Brymer, director of the terrorism and disaster program for the UCLA-Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

While everyone experienced some level of stress and needed to adjust, within that was a varied experience, says Brymer. Remote learning was difficult for a lot of students, but some thrived in the virtual classroom. Location dictated loss of social interactions, leaving some children more isolated than others. Some experienced the death of a parent or caregiver, or family illness. There were job losses and financial concerns. Some families were forced to move, others lost the food and social services they depended on from school. And some children experienced abuse and trauma.

It was not a singular experience, therefore, it could not be successfully met with a universal response.

“When we have a framework where we’re saying everyone had the same experience, then we miss those who really do need extra support and treatments.”

A key to responding is understanding the reasons behind the issues. School closures are often blamed, but Linda Mayes, chair of child study at the Yale Child Study Center–Scholastic Collaborative for Child and Family Resilience, says that reasoning is “too simplistic.”

Imagine a balance scale, says Mayes. On one side are the positive social factors such as stable parent income, well-resourced schools, and community engagement. On the negative side are issues like community stress, family illness, poverty, and community violence.

“For all of us, regardless of how much on the positive side of the scale we have, you put a few weights on that negative side, and it will tip toward the negative,” says Mayes. “The question really is: Where’s the tipping point?”

For many, that was COVID-19.

[READ: Finding Our Way: How We Navigated the Chaos and Challenges of COVID-19 | 5 Years On]

“COVID was a major, major negative weight,” says Mayes, noting that school closures were just one negative force, along with “a tremendous amount of uncertainty, community stress, isolation, families isolated from their social supports, often from their extended family.

“Massive amounts of stress went on that side of the scale,” she says. “But if it was counterbalanced on the other side by some of the more protective measures, we often saw kids weather it better.”

The same is true of mental health issues. More children and adolescents were already seeking mental health support before COVID-19 struck.

“Every mental health resource for children across the country was reporting increased rates of referrals for anxiety and depression,” says Mayes. “What are the reasons? It’s multifactorial. We are a much more contentious, divided society. There is greater stress. I will not blame it all on social media, but social media is a factor where it gets kids into a kind of echo chamber.”

In this increasingly tense environment since the pandemic, some children have watched adults behave inappropriately or disrespect educators, also impacting their stress level and behavior.

The loss of in-person school days has contributed to a deterioration of social skills, says Brymer.

“We’re seeing a disproportionate impact on social skills that are typically taught in schools that did not take place for those years,” she says. “Schools have to intentionally assess where their students are and how we build up those skills.”

Educator well-being

More than ever, students need educators at the top of their game. But teachers cannot adequately bolster their students if they are not supported themselves.

“There’s a lot of data about educator well-being in regard to an educator’s capacity to teach,” says Mayes. “It’s not rocket science.”

Brymer and Mayes agree the lack of support for educators and early childhood workers has far-reaching consequences. They are underpaid and not given the resources for their well-being, even at schools that worked to help children emotionally when they reopened.

“[Some schools] immediately gravitated toward SEL curriculum, or an SEL [class], where they were giving space for kids’ emotional needs,” says Denver public librarian Julia Torres, who left teaching for the public library. “What they did not do was address teacher shortages, teacher pay, teachers who were not willing to risk their lives [in the in-person classroom].”

Kids entering school now may not recall those early pandemic days, but many adults still feel the effect.

“When we think that our current kindergarten students were less than two years old at the pandemic’s onset, we might believe that any changes will ‘age out’ as those students who remember the beginning of the pandemic move on to middle school,” says Tom Bober, librarian at Captain Elementary in Clayton, MO. “But we can’t ignore the impact on our parents, teachers, and administrators. I’m still coming to an understanding of how I’m directly impacted by that time.”

In addition to COVID-19 and the academic chaos that ensued, over the last five years, educators faced an escalation of censorship attempts, accusations of “indoctrination,” and politicians trying to insert themselves into curricular decisions. Burnout is real, and beyond that, some educators are battling pandemic-related health issues.

“There are educators that have Long COVID,” says Brymer. “What are we doing for them so that they can be their best, and also support kids?”

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2024 said that 18 million adults were suffering from ongoing and sometimes debilitating symptoms due to the condition.

Some children are also dealing with Long COVID, Brymer says.

More than 1 million children were estimated to have Long COVID in 2023, a CDC analysis of a national survey that was published in JAMA Pediatrics. Estimates of prevalence vary widely, but another study puts the number at more than 5 million children and adolescents. According to the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, symptoms of Long COVID in kids include unusual tiredness/fatigue, headaches, difficulty concentrating, and more. All of which impact the ability to learn and to behave appropriately.

Individual action

A systemic “reckoning” that truly puts children first in our society is needed, according to Mayes. But what individual efforts can be made by educators able to take on the challenge?

Books are a good start. Literacy is a tool for resilience, according to Mayes, who says stories can help children develop life skills and deal with difficult challenges.

School and public librarians can also create programs that address the specific needs of their students and patrons, says Torres. She recommends relying on data to focus programs and lessons on a community’s priorities. She uses Kids Count Data Center (datacenter.aecf.org), a website that offers data on education, economics, health, risky behaviors, and more, which has national and state-by-state numbers.

With intentional programming, librarians can provide information, resources, and programs that may help. For example, they can connect young people to job opportunities or offer food education.

Teacher intervention is one determinant that can tip the scale to the positive side, says Mayes, and every initiative can help. So can clearly assessing individual situations for students and educators instead of continuing full-speed ahead with the need to be “back to normal.”

“We did not go back to normal. There is no normal,” says Mayes. “We came back to a changed world. I think that’s what we don’t acknowledge.”