As Hamilton County officials continue to debate in-person learning, I read today where Clark County officials in Nevada are reopening schools for a very disturbing reason. The district alone has seen 18 student suicides in nine months since in-person learning was ended. It was so alarming after the sixth suicide that the district installed GoGuardian alert systems on school issued iPads and received over 3,000 suicide alerts in the following months.
In the same article it was reported that the CDC found that across the country between April and October of 2020 the percentage of emergency room visits that were for mental health reasons increased by 24 percent for those between the ages of 5-11 and 31 percent for those between the ages of 12-17.
While these statistics are reason enough to aggressively revisit in-person learning, what concerns me most is how many cases are going unreported throughout the country and the permanent mental, physical and emotional damage that is being done to the children throughout the country.
Chris Morgan