Paradise, California (AP) – One of the deadliest wildfires in US history, Campfire in Paradise This is one of many natural disasters that have disrupted learning for American students over the past decade.
Damaged schools, lost homes and layers of trauma leave marks for thousands of children. Climate change makes these events more frequent and intense, so the scenario is sure to continue.
The challenges that continue in Paradise nearly seven years later are reminders of how long learning recovery can take and lessons on how schools can give traumatic children a better chance of prosperity.
The Associated Press is collaborating with Puerto Rico’s Calmalters, Honolulu Civil Beat, Blue Ridge Public Radio and Centro De Periodismo Investigativo Find out how school communities are recovering From the chaos of natural disasters. Here is an important point.
Schools need to balance mental health and academics
For most students, the camp fire and its aftermath made it almost impossible to concentrate on academics. The school pushed scholars aside in favor of mental health. The most agreed move was necessary, but students were brought back academically, if not months.
“People are natural disasters – mental health. They don’t think about the academic elements of that,” said Carrie Dawes, Health and Wellness Coordinator at Paradise Unified. “I put it aside when I had a little crying child because they didn’t have a home to live in.
Last year only 13% of graduates At Paradise, Unified met the admission requirements for public universities in California or completed a career training program compared to 45% of the statewide. Not a single Paradise Unified student was registered as freshmen at the University of California.
The test scores reflect academic mal laziness. Only 11% of eighth graders meet the state mathematics criteria. Only 18% of the sixth graders read at the grade level. The number of low-income students has worsened.
Officials who lived through camp fires say schools should prioritize academics some degree of prioritization, even if the impulse is to drop everything in favor of mental health. During the first few years after the fire, students were devoted almost entirely to social and emotional activities as therapists and counselors were sent to campus.
“In the beginning we sang a lot of art and songs. We had a daily walk. We had a baby goat and a therapy dog,” said Casey Taylor, director of Achieve Charter School. “That’s what we needed.”
But these activities should not come at the expense of algebra and reading, Taylor said.
School closures also contribute to a decline in academic work
The camp fire wiped out the town of paradise almost completely. 85 people have died. More than 18,000 buildings have been burned, including most of the town’s schools. At least 26,000 people have been evacuated.
When school began to settle, the school began a long process of recovery. They found student locations, found new facilities, assessed damage, and got academics back on track almost a month after a cancelled class.
During the 2018-19 school year, Paradise Unified School District reported 154 closure dates at dozens of schools as a result of the camp fire, affecting approximately 4,200 students. Data analysis By Calmatters.
It is not uncommon for students to miss school after a natural disaster. Because they suddenly became homeless, struggled with mental health, and both. However, disaster-related absenteeism can take a particularly sudden price to students’ learning. Research from the NWEAa non-profit education research company. Middle schoolers who lost a week of school due to extreme weather actually missed three weeks of progress in reading and almost four weeks of mathematics, and researchers probably struggled to concentrate.
Even if schools reopen, the community will never be the same
Taylor described the first few months after the fire as the “hero phase.” There, he explained that the community had vowed to work together to revive the town.
But then, a more difficult period continued, and disillusioned. Fire survivors were tired of living outside their suitcases, and many were unconscious about the hassle and the cost of rebuilding. According to Taylor, older friends and neighbors began to separate, bringing a layer of further losses.
Registration for Paradise Unification is on the rise, but is less than half before the fire, compared to 3,441 in 2017 and 1,657 last year. Student groups are a little different from before the fire. At least a quarter of students were unfamiliar with paradise and did not experience fire.
Taylor and other Paradise School staff are advised to other districts who have experienced natural disasters, and their number one suggestion is to ensure adults are also cared for.
In paradise, the community relied on teachers to serve as the backbone in the chaos. However, many teachers have also lost their homes. This means they bump into insurance companies, find new places to live, and sometimes commute over 100 miles of long distances.
For Taylor, a pivotal moment came when her school was able to return to her former campus after leaving Chico’s church for three years. The family sobbed as they saw the new playground and the newly painted school building.
The next milestone must be academic, she and others said. Teachers need to set higher expectations, and schools need to provide individualized guidance and other support to help students catch up. Emotional health and academic rigor should not be mutually exclusive, Taylor said.
Paradise Unified broke down in June with the rebuilding of the main elementary school. The 46,000-square-foot campus will include STEM labs, soccer fields and outdoor stages.
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