Area school districts had to scramble to continue their student’s education as the pandemic escalated. Distance-learning became the go-to option but there are concerns.  Tharaha Thavakumar is a school-based therapist at Genessee Mental Health Center in Rochester. It is part of Rochester Regional Health’s network.

“First, what we need to realize is, right now, it’s not really online learning it’s more crisis learning. Kids were not prepared for this. Teachers were not prepared for this. It was kind of everybody thrown into it,” said Thavakumar.

Thrown into a situation where Thavakumar says could lead to long term trauma. Especially for those students who need that hands on learning and classroom interaction with their teacher.

“So many of the kids are now being depressed they have high anxiety and they’re afraid of going out because of everything that’s going on. So long term effects are a lot more in mental health if we’re not careful right now,” said Thavakumar.

Some parents like Sareer Fazili are relying on their older kids to help the younger ones with certain school subjects.

“We can lean on her to help with any finer points that we may not be able to do now with some certain eight grade math as an example,” said Fazali.

Fazili echoes the concerns of mental health experts. He says schools are going to need to figure out a balance between virtual learning and in classroom interaction.

“We want to make sure that the kids are able to return to a time and a place where they can socialize normally without any fear or concerns the lack of being able to hug their teacher, for example,” said Fazili.

“So we just have to make sure that if we have to do this temporarily that we make it a little bit more engaging and interactive for the kids; otherwise, it’s more it’s gonna be a continued crisis learning and not retaining education,” said Thavakumar.

— ROCHESTER FIRST