Mental health, testing mandates top concerns of PA educators as COVID continues
Marion CallahanOne year into the COVID-19 crisis, the challenges faced by school districts, educators and students in pandemic times are widespread.
But rising to the top of the wish list for educators is getting more help for mental health support and relief from testing requirements, according to school officials who testified during Wednesday’s Pennsylvania Senate Committee Plan Hearing on the state of education.
The hearing, led by Sen. Scott Martin, R-13 of Lancaster County, and Michele Brooks, R-50 of northwestern Pennsylvania, heard testimony from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Pennsylvania Department of Health, superintendents, teachers, students, parents and others detailing the barriers they are up against during the pandemic.
Big concerns include rising truancy rates, lack of consistent safety guidelines from the state, staff shortages, technology challenges and, most prominently, the toll the pandemic has had on mental health.
“I have witnessed many of my friends fall into the deepest, most painful depressions of their lives,” said student Lilly Heilshorn, a teen from Hempfield School District in Lancaster County who opted for online learning. “My own anxiety has reached unprecedented highs as everything around me seems to only increase my feelings of panic and uneasiness. And yet, the world is falling apart, but all I can care about is making sure my essay has been turned in on time.
"Students are hurting. Students are tired. Students are completely and totally overwhelmed.”
Parents and teachers are also feeling increased pressure. Rachel Schlosser, a mother of two students with disabilities, said the impact of this year has hurt the state’s most vulnerable students.
“Many students will have missed an entire year of educational programming and many others have had a loss of skills and significant mental health and behavioral regression,” said Schlosser, a parent from Pittsburgh Public Schools. “There are students who have now missed over 900 hours of instruction. That kind of loss can’t be caught up over a few weeks this summer or next."
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Complicating the challenges are state plans to resume standardized testing in the fall, educators said. While Acting Education Secretary Noe Ortega announced last week that Pennsylvania will allow public schools the option to postpone federally required academic tests until the fall, educators insisted that bringing testing back within the next year could be detrimental.
In February, the U.S. Department of Education released new guidance, which allows for the movement of assessments to the summer or fall, the option of remote assessments when possible, and a reduction of the state assessments to make testing more feasible given the current instructional models.
Martin said schools have more pressing priorities. Samuel Lee, superintendent of Bensalem Township School District in Bucks County, agreed.
"I am not at all thrilled about the requirement to administer standardized tests whether it be this spring or fall….not all of our students are coming to school every day,” he said.
The logistics in offering standardized testing, with social distancing rules to enforce and students attending school at home and in class, administering tests would require another layer of attention “on top of the significant challenges we're already experiencing.”
Rob Mitchell, a teacher from western Pennsylvania, agreed.
"Our kids do not need to be tested for us to know that their overall learning has suffered during online schooling,” Mitchell said. “Testing will interrupt the learning taking place; I submit that testing will wrongly shift our focus to trying to find out what kids lost rather than trying to provide what our kids need; a sense of stability, support, and continued instruction uninterrupted by arduous testing schedules.”
Matt Stem, deputy secretary of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, said tests are mandated federally.
Facing those requirements, he said the state education department will be allowing districts to test smaller numbers of students, creating more flexibility with testing schedules and environments and providing districts with extra time to prepare.
"We are extending the window all the way into September of next year to give them the time to bring students in and to do so safely at a local level,” he said.
Testing mandates can only add additional stress at a time when school districts are grappling with mental health concerns, said Janell Logue-Belden, superintendent of Deer Lakes School District in Allegheny County.
In previous years, she said testing has been very frustrating time for special education students, leaving them "discouraged and upset that they can't do the work."
"I think this year in particular is going to be extremely, extremely challenging for the special education population and the regular population just because they're going to be judged on things that were beyond their control," she said.
One student questioned her about having to take standardized tests, expressing that she was she would "make the school look bad."
With testing, Logue-Belden said, "My concern is not with logistics — because like everything else we've had to pivot throughout this entire pandemic. I'm very concerned with us using time for assessments instead of instructional time. It's time that could be used for mental health purposes."
Speaking to lawmakers via Zoom, student Lilly Heilshorn called on leaders to invest more money into mental health - not testing.
She also recognized the difficulty her teachers face.
"I watch as my teachers struggle to learn how to use Google classroom, screen share, or even unmute themselves," she said.
By helping teachers, she said, students can get a better education too.
"We are going to require help to recover from abnormality and readjust to normalcy, and there is funding needed to achieve that," Lilly said. "The idea of taking standardized tests is thoroughly ridiculous and unwise. Stress levels are at an all time high, mental health is rapidly declining. How can we expect students to function like normal when the world is anything but normal?"