“I’m just here for teachers’ rights,” she said.

Vasquez joined hundreds who marched as part of New York’s ongoing Freedom Rally, a constellation of organizations in opposition to the vaccine mandate, which requires the Department of Education’s roughly 3,000 remaining unvaccinated teachers to have received at least one dose of the vaccine to remain active employees of the city. 

“I love my job. This is so upsetting to me that I’ve dedicated so much of my life – you know, I’m a devoted teacher,” said Vasquez. “Now they’re saying I can’t work unless I get vaccinated.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio estimated that 8,000 of the DOE’s nearly 150,000 school-based employees are out of compliance as of this morning. Vasquez, who teaches at P.S. 372 and has over 20 years of classroom experience, believes she should be able to use her sick and personal days to remain on payroll, since she claims to only use either in extreme circumstances. As of Monday, she’s on unpaid leave. 

Early last month, an independent arbitrator ruled that New York City teachers with qualified medical or religious exemptions must either be offered non-classroom assignments, a severance package, or be placed on unpaid leave that continues to provide them healthcare coverage. 

“I feel like if we’re practicing all these safety protocols, then the teachers will be fine,” said Vasquez. “It’s the children that are getting Covid, so I feel like it should be up to me. I’d rather get it and develop my own antibodies than have what they call a vaccine.” 

Last Friday, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to hear an attempt to block New York City’s vaccine mandate, giving the city the green light to require employees to have received one Covid-19 vaccination dose by 5 p.m.

By the end of the day Monday, 95% of full time employees had received at least one shot, including 96% of teachers and 99% of principals. Since the mayor’s mandate was announced in August, 43,000 injections have been administered, including 18,000 in the past 10 days. The United Federation of Teachers (U.F.T.) announced on Monday that a 1,000 teachers had been vaccinated over the weekend to remain on the district’s payroll. 

While the city claims to have thousands of substitute teachers and paraprofessionals waiting in the wings to supplant employees, many, including the U.F.T., are highly skeptical that the plan in place will adequately address their absence. U.F.T. estimates that two-thirds of public schools could face disruptions resulting from staff shortages. 

Garrett Ramirez is a paraprofessional with Energy Tech High School in Queens and a member of the steering committee for Teachers for Choice, an organization in opposition to New York City’s vaccine mandate. With 15 years of experience, Ramirez can understand why some of his peers are capitulating to the city’s mandate, though he would only consider getting vaccinated after clinical trials conclude near the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023.  

“Unfortunately, some teachers are being coerced, some of them are caving in, in order to preserve their jobs and income for their families,” said Ramirez. 

With appearances from Founder Michael Kane on outlets such as Fox News and a petition with a running total of 52,000 signatories,Teachers for Choice is bolstering support and digging in their heels. A restraining order was filed yesterday morning in the ongoing Kane vs de Blasio in an effort to stop the vaccine mandate from being implemented. 

Kane vs de Blasio, originally filed in federal court on September 21, challenges the Department of Education’s mandate as ‘immoral and illegal.’ The lawsuit claims that the mandate violates fundamental constitutional rights by ‘discriminating on the basis of religion and medical status’ and ‘places unconstitutional conditions of employment.’ 

“They’ve (the D.O.E.) denied almost all the religious exemptions and all, almost all of the medical exemptions,” said Ramirez, who was denied a religious exemption himself. “Religious exemptions are supposed to be based upon personal religious convictions, not upon an established church. It actually violates the establishment clause in the first amendment to apply that criteria.”

Ramirez plans to apply for a medical exemption next, this time seekling to qualify as having natural immunity.  

“The science of natural immunity is kind of overwhelming,” said Ramirez, noting a peer-reviewed article from the British Medical Journal and research by Johns Hopkins surgical oncologist Dr. Marty Makary as evidence. “I have recovered from Covid-19, I’ve tested positive for antibodies twice. Antibodies are only the tip of the iceberg as far as natural immunity goes.”

While much is still unknown about the durability of either vaccine or natural immunity, a study released in August from CDC found that vaccination offers higher protection than previous Covid-19 infection, noting that the unvaccinated have 2.34 times the odds of reinfection as the vaccinated. Dr. Makary’s colleague, the infectious disease expert Dr. Anna Durbin, cited research from Johns Hopkins Center for Immunization Research that estimated those odds even higher, at 2.5 times as likely for reinfection. 

And while New York City remains an area at ‘high risk of transmission’ with an average of 1,662 cases per day over the last week, city data available for the year through the end of August shows remarkably strong protection for the vaccinated. Just 0.33% vaccinated individuals have contracted the virus and 96.9% of those hospitalized were unvaccinated at the time of their hospitalization.  

Ramirez is optimistic that Kane vs De Blasio will prove the vaccine mandates are unconstitutional. He is considering all his options, like transitioning to virtual teaching or moving out of the city. 

“At the end of the day, these mandates are really intimidation tactics,” said Ramirez. “It’s an act of psychological terrorism, frankly. I’m not going to succumb to it, and I don’t think that anyone should.”

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Studying remotely from Beijing was the best option for Weichen Du, academically problematic as it could be. The Australian border restriction did not allow Weichen to travel to the country, and Weichen could not find a job due to the pandemic.  Travel possibilities were also limited.

Weichen Du was attends a Zoom tutorial held by the University of Melbourne from his home in Beijing, China. Photo by Xinhui Ying

“I think the quality of teaching, and also the class, has significantly dropped down,” Du, a first-year master’s student in Marketing Communications at the University of Melbourne said.  “It is harder to understand what the professor wants on each assignment.”

At the same time, Weichen felt depressed and isolated from the rest of the class. He believed that everyone in his program felt the same way. The physical distance made him feel less close to professors and discouraged him from reaching out.

 “I tried everything to keep me busy… but my mental health still got worse because of the social distancing,” Weichen said. “I realized that interaction between people was so important for our being.You need to interact with people to keep everything moving.”

Siyi Xie, a sophomore studying Business Administration and Management at the University of Toronto, decided to do the entire academic year remotely from Vancouver. She revealed that the online learning experience was very inconvenient because of the time difference and the fact that students were not used to the instruction mode. However, she believed it would be better over time.

“My biggest fear is about how they would deliver the exams, ” Xie said. “Because people who do courses online have the opportunity to cheat. Therefore, the test they give these people will be harder than those who do the in-person exams. I am afraid of being graded unfairly because I don’t cheat although I take classes online.”

Siyi Xie takes handwriting notes at home in Vancouver, Canada for a University of Toronto course. Photo by Siyi Xie

Xie was also concerned about the safety of living on campus, and that was one of the major reasons she decided not to return to class in-person.

“Just live in close proximity to other people who you don’t know and cannot trust fully, I feel that’s a bit dangerous,” she said.

In terms of social life outside of academics, COVID-19 has made it harder for Xie to hang out with people. Most restaurants in Vancouver were closed for dine-in options. When she interacted with people online, she had to wait for responses.  Also, the tone and meaning behind the words were a bit hazier, as she could not hear or see her friends.

“If it’s just a normal school year, it will be so easy to go to class in person and actually make a few friends,” Siyi said. “So you can swap notes maybe and become study buddies. But right now, because of COVID-19 and because of online delivery, it’s hard to actually just text someone and become close with them.”

Tiankuo Jiang is a freshman in a middle school in Nanjing, China. He started his first day of class on Sept.1.

“I think except the dining, all things are just normal,” Jiang said.  “We just can’t eat together. Every student has one corner of the table, and then you put a cross-shaped plastic between students to make them separate.”

The teachers did not tell students to wear masks, but most students did. In addition, students were not required to keep a 2-meter distance.  But Jiang does not feel stressed about contracting the virus.

“I think it’s just okay, because we had very great protection before and now we don’t have many cases,” Jiang said.

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When Paterson Public Schools shut down on March 17th, students were expected to either pick up educational packets at distribution sites or print them at home. Parents who feel that the packets are insufficient have voiced their concerns about them.

“Many parents in the district are now unemployed wondering where the next meal is coming from… An added stressor then is when they have to sit and homeschool their child or children,” said Griselda Polanco Guzman, a Paterson parent.

Guzman is the mother of a child in the Paterson Schools District who is under the Individualized Education Program. Often called IEP, this is a legal document under United States law that is developed for public school children who need special education.

Since the packets are not individualized, they can be hard to follow for IEP students. After coming home from her job as a nurse, Guzman has to try and help her child understand the schoolwork.

“What about some of us who are in healthcare and go out there every day to be on the frontlines of this pandemic and have to come home and homeschool a child without the teachers’ guidance or support?” she said.

City officials plan to provide 7,000 Chromebooks to all district high school students starting the week of April 19th, so that teachers can begin to use resources like Google Classroom and Khan Academy. But middle school and elementary school students are still left without them.

The American Community Survey estimates that about 30 percent of the people in Paterson speak English “less than very well,” as Paterson is a city made up of many immigrants.

This becomes a problem for children whose parents cannot help them to understand the packets, because they do not understand the language. The packets online are only available in English and Spanish.

Guzman believes that the students should switch to virtual learning, like other school districts, so that students have the ability to interact with their teachers. However, about 22.4 percent of Paterson residents do not have a computer, and about 35.6 percent do not have a broadband internet subscription, according to the U.S. census.

“I am home doing whatever I can, but I haven’t heard from my students,” said Therese Hipkins, a teacher at Eastside High School in Paterson. “I keep reaching out, but I know that they have many things going on in their own lives.”

Paterson Public Schools have an average math proficiency score of 16 percent and a reading score of 25 percent, versus the New Jersey statewide average of 41 percent and 53 percent, as designated by state tests.

Hipkins fears that the coronavirus will increase the disparity in education that already exists between low-income and high-income communities.

The lack of virtual learning is only one of the hardships that low-income families face at this time. Students’ parents are getting let go from their jobs. And if they still have a job, they often lack healthcare and are not guaranteed paid sick leave.

Many students in Paterson rely on their schools to provide meals for them. The schools now have pick up sites for students to get food, but this is inconvenient for many and it also risks spreading the disease.

“It’s not easy for them to go out and get them,” said Hipkins. “This is a hardship for low-income families.”

Oasis, a social service organization for women and children in Paterson, was forced to close down their after school educational program, which aims to get students’ math and reading proficiencies up to the statewide averages.

Currently, Oasis is unable to keep their after school teachers because they are losing funding due to the pandemic. Their main focus right now is to provide food for those who are in need.

They serve over 500 meals every day. On a typical pre-COVID day, they would serve around 150.

“These people are in very dire straits because they often do not have a large reserve at savings, if they have anything,” said Laetitia Cairoli, the Director of Development at Oasis. “And so they need food.”

Right now, the focus is on making sure that students’ and families’ most basic needs are met.

“We want to think about what’s going to happen weeks from now,” Cairoli said. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Shaina Ahmed is an NYU undergraduate journalism student.

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On the other side of the city in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Elan Bolender, 22, is packing meals and loading trucks to deliver them to households nearby.

Peters and Bolender are two of the 250 young volunteers from Me’ver Movement. Their mission is to help out those who are the most vulnerable during the coronavirus crisis in New York City. 

“We’re not doctors,” Peters, a junior at Washington University in St. Louis, said. “But as students, what we’re trying to do is provide as much support to the people who need it as we can, for those who can’t leave the house.”

He decided to skip a spring break trip with the virus raging in his Manhattan home.

At first, Peters stayed inside playing video games all day. “Then I asked myself, I am young and healthy, so why not do something more valuable?” he said. 

Peters is part of a team of  ten young NYC residents who formed a Coronavirus Task Force and searched for other volunteers. 

Volunteers help shop for groceries, package meals and then deliver them to New Yorkers in need. The food is paid for by the folks who need it.

The Me’ver Movement is growing rapidly. Peters said that they are now planning to open new chapters in Los Angeles and Dallas to help people who need support during the pandemic.

Bolender started volunteering at Me’ver earlier this month. As a former member of the Israeli Defense Forces, he said that helping others is in his blood. 

“I knew that whether it’s within our army service or in school or anywhere, I just want to be able to lend the help we can to anyone that needs it,” Bolender said. “But it doesn’t necessarily have to be this specific volunteer group. Right now, there are so many negative things going on, so let’s take a step back and help one another to spread positivity.”

The World Health Organization said that older people and people with pre-existing medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease) appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus. Over 1.4 million New Yorkers are currently aged 60 and older. 

Me’ver has gotten a lot of personal messages from those who received their help. Bolender said one of the most memorable experiences for him was his conversation with an elderly lady he delivered meals to.

“She told us she was a volunteer when she was young. And now she is older, it’s like a full circle,” Bolender said. “She said she saw herself through what we do, and she is really grateful for everything we’ve done.”

Me’ver is not the only volunteer organization that Bolender participates in. He also helps out at Hillel At Baruch to pack groceries for those who can not leave their homes.

“If not me, then who else? That’s a question I’ve asked myself for many years growing up,” Bolender said. “If no one is going to go out there and do these things, then I have to be that person.”

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Today the streets of Manhattan were flooded with thousands of young people marching together in the fight against climate change. 

They shouted “Hey, hey, ho, ho climate change has got to go,” and “Save the Planet.” Teenagers climbed up street posts to display signs calling for environmental policy reform.  Bystanders watched from storefronts as demonstrators in seemingly organized chaos migrated from Foley Square to Battery Park. 

The march was a result of a movement orchestrated by 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, a prominent figure in the fight against climate change, to give her peers a chance to have their voices heard. It comes just days before the U.N. 2019 Climate Summit taking place in New York. 

 “I just think we need more awareness for people who don’t believe it or are unwilling to make a change,” said Anna Beckmann, a 16-year-old student at Columbia Secondary School in Harlem. “A lot of people say it is not going to make any change, but I think it is an important act of solidarity for our generation.”

Protestors gleamed with pride, holding up handmade signs, cheering and chanting as they made their way South on Broadway. Police lined the streets, forced to intervene only when a brave few climbed scaffolding for a better vantage point to view the sea of climate activists. 

 With the majority of the crowd in their teens, the calls to action that echoed through the streets were more so pleas to an older generation in hopes of creating a better future.

 “We want more eco-friendly and less consumption,” said 18-year-old Liz Sullivan.

 As marchers met at the end of Broadway which turned in the mouth of Battery Park, “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley played over the P.A. system. 

Activists of all ages flooded Battery Park in Manhattan to hear Greta Thunberg speak. Here, a young girl stands with her family just outside the entrance to the where protesters assembled. Photo by Thomas Hengge

“The climate summit is in two days, so we want to create enough of a spark to where we’re seen,” said Chole Giulini, 16, who traveled from Sandford, Connecticut to attend the march. “Our planet is dying. It is as simple as that. The results of the climate summit will determine what we do after this.”

 On the lawn of Battery Park, the marchers came to a halt, and people gathered in front of a stage where Thunberg was set to speak. It was there the volume of people that showed up could be grasped. Hundreds, if not thousands, already filled the park as more poured in. People danced to the music blaring from the stage speakers, took pictures and found real estate to display the signs they made.

Climate change activists gathered by the thousands today at Foley Square and marched to Battery Park to raise awareness on climate change. The March comes just days before the U.N. Climate Change Summit. Photo by Thomas Hengge

 Some seized the opportunity to get a little more creative in an environmentally conscious way with how they chose to raise awareness.

 “I am having people write what was on their signs or something that they want to share because I didn’t want to bring a paper sign, I didn’t want to waste,” said Erin McElhone, who was covered in black marker. “So, I am letting people write on my own body.”

 Whatever form of activism was chosen today, the collective voice of climate activists was heard not only in New York but around the world as well. Thunberg’s speech was broadcast across the nation as well as in other countries. It is a moment younger generations hope perpetuates the change they believe is needed for a sustainable future.

“Even if the politicians don’t make a change for us right now, someday we will all care about this,” said Beckmann.

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Last month presidential candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, rolled out a comprehensive student loan forgiveness program that would allow most Americans to have up to $50,000 of debt forgiven by the government. At expensive private colleges like New York University, this debate has been at the forefront of students minds, and helped to make Warren, a progressive democrat more popular with younger voters.

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Cynthia Ryalls-Clephane, 69, has been a school counselor in Pasco since 1992. There are countless cases, she said, of parents too high to even discuss their child’s well-being. She has seen students unable and unwilling to focus on their exams because their mom overdosed the night before and they were placed into a stranger’s home in the middle of the night. The teachers she works with are just getting more stressed, overwhelmed and defeated. They want to help, but the district and parents expect them to be foster parents, behavioral specialists, social workers, school counselors, personal tutors, life coaches and babysitters — on top of simply trying to teach students a basic curriculum between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.      

 “I get kids that come to school who are homeless living in the woods. … Many times kids want to be at school because this is the safest place,” said Ryalls-Clephane. “I think about a variety of children that I’ve talked to teachers about. They feel helpless because the drugs are causing so many problems.”

Throughout the year, Child Protective Investigations receives approximately 7,500 allegations of child abuse and neglect. Most of those reports are submitted by teachers, school administrators and daycare facilities who can no longer handle the tolling effects of the opioid crisis. Multiple educators said they have countless students who have clearly not bathed, eaten or slept more than a few hours for days at a time. Others have seen students become violent, throwing desks, getting into fights and verbally abusing other students and teachers.

“They say some really horrific things to you. They call you every name in the book. They will physically aggress towards you,” said Sarah Merchant, a behavioral specialist and teacher at Schrader Elementary School. “If you don’t have a thick skin you can definitely become burnt out. We have had teachers who have had breakdowns.”

This above-average problem, teachers say, has taken over a seemingly average town. The county of roughly 525,000 people does not offer much entertainment aside from a couple of old movie theaters, Dairy Queen, Walmart parking lots and unkempt beaches littered with pollution. The median income is just over $48,000 and only about 53 percent of citizens are in the labor force, many of which work in education, retail or fast food.

The Sheriff’s Office said there were at least 140 reported overdoses in January and February alone, which is 59 more overdoses than that same time frame in 2018. Sixty percent of those were directly related to opioids. They find it hard to keep track of how many people are truly using because the demand for drugs — specifically opioids — is so high, but Capt. Mike Jenkins of the Pasco Sheriff’s Office believes 2019 will continue seeing a rise in overdoses.

U.S. 19, the main road through Pasco County, is a hub for overdoses and drug deals. This needle was found lying a few feet off the highway, surrounded by pieces of cotton gauze and shredded latex. Photo by Li Cohen.

“I liken it sometimes to whack-a-mole. There’ll be a source of supply, we whack that one down and inevitably … there’s someone who immediately fills that gap within a short period of time and then the cycle continues,” he said.  

Even though the state and county have done a lot to combat opioid pills, he said there is still much more to do in regards to the illegal forms of opioids. “

“That solved one problem, but then that contributed to another issue. … If you do not address the demand issue something else is going to fill the void and fill the gap,” Jenkins said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

The office is also trying to handle the large number of opioid addiction cases where children are in the home. Over the past four to five months, Child Protective Investigations has had to remove 250 children from their homes because their parents or guardians were addicted to opioids, a problem that makes up 60 percent of all child removal cases in the county.

While CPI Director Ken Kilian said the department does their best to place children with family members, hundreds of children end up in foster care or staying with teachers until their parents can take them back.

“It’s not easy for a child victim who is witnessing their parents, their aunt, their uncle, suffer from this horrific disease,” Kilian said. “Addiction is extremely traumatizing and that has generational effects that we will see for years to come.”

And that trauma is expected to continue. As Kilian explained, the disease of opioid addiction is an endless cycle. The parents will continuously use, recover and relapse while the child develops behavioral and mental disorders they don’t understand and can’t control when they are at school. Then one day the parents take a dose a little too high. The child is left alone, hopeless and drained. They just watched their parents die and will have to go back to a school system the next day where the staff can’t help but mirror that same feeling.

Teachers feel more unprepared than ever

The school district is trying to help teachers by implementing Trauma Informed Care and the Harmony Project – initiatives that teach educators how to work with students and parents experiencing trauma and how to take care of themselves in dealing with that. Pasco schools social worker Danica Cockrell said being in a community that has high needs and high social deficits establishes an environment with drug use, poor mental health and a lack of communication. With the Trauma Informed Care, she hopes the schools will help teachers be prepared for what is expected to only get worse.

“It is no longer just coming to school to read, write and do math.’ We have to address and answer those social and emotional needs in order for students to be successful,” said Cockrell. I don’t think any school district will ever say that they are over-resourced or over-funded. …  We are definitely a whole child and whole family perspective – we have to be.”

But teachers in the area believe this initiative is not enough. They say there are too many students per teacher given the extent of the issues. They want more resources and support. They are struggling mentally, emotionally and physically to keep up with what is asked of them.

Despite reaching out to nearly 50 current teachers in the county, only two would agree to speak and , only on the condition of anonymity in fear of losing their jobs or worsening their situation in the classroom.

One of those teachers has been with Pasco for 13 years and works at a Title I school. She said the impact of this crisis is difficult to truly assess. Countless students do not receive their basic needs, such as stable housing, food and clothing because of their parents’ addiction, she said.

“How can you support them and tell them it will be alright when they lose their homes constantly? When there is no food, no electricity, no clothes, backpack, school supplies,” she said. “Many of us staff say constantly this feels like a mental health facility, full of emotional and behavioral needs in a place that lacks resources and personnel.”

This gap has led to a severe teacher shortage in the district. There have been 50 teaching positions posted on the district’s website since January alone. On the first day of school last August, there were 66 open positions.

Teachers say it is increasingly hard to stick around when they don’t receive cooperation from students, parents and administrators. Merchant explained that in the behavioral unit at Schrader Elementary School, only three out of seven teachers returned to their positions this year. Replacing them has not been easy, as the replacements tend to be first-year teachers or are cross-certification teachers who earned bachelor’s degrees in a different academic area and are working on getting their teaching certifications.

“I don’t know there’s a lot of teachers that see this day in, day out for years because not a lot of teachers stick around,” she said, adding that teachers tend to have emotional and mental breakdowns because of the behavioral issues they experience with students. “I would say the breakdowns are probably once every month or two. … Every day, every other day we have major incidents.”

The second anonymous teacher worked in Pasco for more than a decade and only recently moved to another district after suffering physical attacks and threats from her third-grade students. She claimed she never received adequate assistance from the school, the district or parents and the support staff was “often underqualified or spread too thin.” She, and many other teachers, she said, often left their classrooms shaking, crying, and headed to therapy or the doctor for elevated stress.

“Teachers are under severe duress and pressure due to the workload expectations that are completely and humanly impossible,” she said. “We are charged with finding differentiated lessons to meet the needs of kids who are usually two to three years below grade level.”

She went on to say that administrators won’t write referrals for bad student behavior because it impacts the school’s overall grade and can create bad press. She has personally complained of threats from her students and administrators would not document them.

“Children who are severely neglected by unfit parents do not self-regulate and reason like kids from healthy, functioning homes. … We are trying to teach kids grade level standards when they are unable to focus, disrespectful, don’t care and know an adult at home doesn’t care,” she said. “Teachers fight a battle every day and we never win.”

Students try to take control

Ashley Dew was 12 years old when she found her dad was using opioids. Despite living most of her life in Pasco County, she felt that most of the people she grew up with, including teachers and school administrators, did not know how to help her.

Her experience as a student dealing with the opioid crisis led to her becoming a teaching aide at World of Montessori School in Pasco. The 19-year-old is surrounded by despair seeing children fight the same struggles as she did. Many of her kindergarteners and first-graders suffer from behavioral and neurological disorders because of their parents’ drug abuse. Drug deals occur within feet of the school’s locked gates.

“In the classroom you have your bad students … Talking non-stop. Always having to be the center of attention,” she said. “It breaks my heart. I have two brothers in my class and I know that they go through a lot because of their father with substance misuse.”

As a teaching aide at World of Knowledge Montessori School, Ashley Dew, 19, works with students to complete assignments and learn material that works with their mental and emotional state on any given date. This document helps students organize what they can and cannot handle given their situation for the day. Photo by Li Cohen.

The school does what it can to help. When students are overwhelmed – academically or personally – Dew and other teachers allows them to play with class pets, walk through a vibrant garden or have one-on-one talks with staff members. During her talks with students, Dew tries to help students cope with their parents’ situations and realize that they are not their parents’ caretakers. She, however, struggles to take her own advice and regularly chokes up when she reflects on her situation.

Dew watched her father, who she was once very close with, become a disheveled shell. Her relationship with her father became a couple of comments on Facebook and missed birthdays. There were days when she found it difficult to focus in school and on the days she needed the most help understanding her father’s choices, the school counselor did not have a spare moment to help.

“My father was never a bad person, but this drug issue changed him and changed us. … It hit me at my sweet 16. I didn’t have him come because every time I’m around him it was like talking to a stranger,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I wanted that daddy-daughter sweet 16 dance but I didn’t get it. It’s sad waking up with anxiety like am I going to get that call – is he dead or alive.”

One of the worst parts of the situation for Dew was that she felt her multiple high schools never took her situation seriously. She often felt left in the dust and it took years for her to realize that there were others going through similar situation.

“I definitely don’t feel like [schools] take it serious. It’s like ‘Oh, your dad’s just a junkie,’ and that’s not true,” she said, adding that the first time she found help was at the PACE Center for Girls. “In public school you were lucky to even get in the counselor’s office. I think I saw my counselor once. … They just don’t really care.”

While Dew hopes that her school can set a new standard for how teachers and schools as a whole approach these issues, other students in the district are trying to help students better understand what opioids are, how they impact the body and how they can impact the future of the crisis in Pasco.

Jocelyn Meriwether is only 14 years old, but when the Bayonet Point Middle schooler opens her mouth to speak about the opioid crisis, her soft and high-pitched voice becomes a megaphone. After seeing a presentation on the effects of opioids by local youth-led organization Save Teens Against Drugs (STAND), she decided to get involved and has since worked her way up to vice president of the organization.

“Kids don’t understand the effects. They think, you did it for a day and if you don’t like it you never do it again,” she said. “But it’s not that simple; you can get addicted and then it follows you because you have that need for it and that want for it.”

As part of the youth-led organization, Meriwether goes to various events and speaks at conferences in Pasco. She wants students and parents to know the signs of substance abuse so they can help those who are struggling and spread awareness about the direct and indirect effects.

“Kids will get disruptive in classes and a big thing in our school right now is fights,” she said. “Disruptions is hard because the teacher gets involved and tries and stops it. It takes away from our learning time and our education.”

Meriwether n and the other STAND members are working with state legislators to get their organization involved with more schools and change prescription opioid legislation.

A community searches for a solution

Since 2016, Pasco County schools have gained more than 3,300 new pre-k to 12th-grade students among their 96 schools, according to the school district, but only one more instructional employee. There were 601 new support employees, including secretaries, bus drivers and custodians, as well as administrators.

Along with caring for students who are dealing with opioid abuse at home, World of Knowledge Montessori School in Holiday, Florida, is surrounded by drug deals and people under the influence coming within feet of the school’s property. Photo by Li Cohen.

While the district has an overall “B” rating by the state, the majority of the schools within the district are rated a “C,” meaning they are just meeting the standard requirements for student performance, learning gains, student attendance, and standardized test results. When schools and districts have higher grades, they receive more funding from the state and more control over what they can do with that money.

“Without the funding to put people in place to do threat assessments, to respond to students’ needs, we’re not going to be able to meet our goals or meet our responsibilities under the law,” said Public Information Officer Linda Cobbe. “People don’t know what the district does as a whole but they also don’t understand what teachers do in a day. … People say you get off for the summer, you only work 8 to 3. Why should you make even what you’re making. But it’s not just standing in front of a classroom and teaching.”

Cobbe and other school administrators are continuing to implement Trauma Informed Care, as well as more programs and trainings for teachers. Police have created a system that looks at opioid addiction as an illness, rather than a crime, and now focus on helping people recover from addiction. When they execute a search warrant at a home where they know there are addicts, for example, they bring health coordinators to talk and help addicts mentally process the situation.

Even still, overdose cases are increasing, as is the burden on educators and students.

Ryalls-Clephane said smaller class sizes may help. Per state legislation, pre-k through third-grade classes should have no more than 18 students; grades four through eight should have no more than 22; and grades nine through 12 should have no more than 25.

“I work in a school with 700 students and I’m the only school counselor there,” she said. “In my fifth-grade classes I’ve got 26 kids … One or two more make a huge difference. One with behavior problems makes a huge difference.”

Dew wants schools to realize how the behavioral and mental effects of dealing with the opioid crisis truly impacts her and the hundreds of other students and teachers. There should be more counselors and staff available that are thoroughly trained to speak with and help all members of the school.

“Every teenager feels like they’re alone if they’re going through a personal issue with substance misuse,” said Dew. “It takes a big part of their self-esteem out and they may think this is how my life is so this is how I’m going to grow up.”

The post As parents overdose, Pasco County schools becomes overburdened appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Pasco County, Florida, is a primarily white middle-class community perfectly nestled between the Gulf of Mexico’s sunny beaches and Disney World. But despite being in the sunniest state and close to the happiest place on earth, it is clouded by addiction. Parents are getting high, children are being neglected and teachers are desperately seeking help as the opioid crisis unleashes its plague on the state of education.

Cynthia Ryalls-Clephane, 69, has been a school counselor in Pasco since 1992. There are countless cases, she said, of parents too high to even discuss their child’s well-being. She has seen students unable and unwilling to focus on their exams because their mom overdosed the night before and they were placed into a stranger’s home in the middle of the night. The teachers she works with are just getting more stressed, overwhelmed and defeated. They want to help, but the district and parents expect them to be foster parents, behavioral specialists, social workers, school counselors, personal tutors, life coaches and babysitters — on top of simply trying to teach students a basic curriculum between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.      

 “I get kids that come to school who are homeless living in the woods. … Many times kids want to be at school because this is the safest place,” said Ryalls-Clephane. “I think about a variety of children that I’ve talked to teachers about. They feel helpless because the drugs are causing so many problems.”

Throughout the year, Child Protective Investigations receives approximately 7,500 allegations of child abuse and neglect. Most of those reports are submitted by teachers, school administrators and daycare facilities who can no longer handle the tolling effects of the opioid crisis. Multiple educators said they have countless students who have clearly not bathed, eaten or slept more than a few hours for days at a time. Others have seen students become violent, throwing desks, getting into fights and verbally abusing other students and teachers.

“They say some really horrific things to you. They call you every name in the book. They will physically aggress towards you,” said Sarah Merchant, a behavioral specialist and teacher at Schrader Elementary School. “If you don’t have a thick skin you can definitely become burnt out. We have had teachers who have had breakdowns.”

This above-average problem, teachers say, has taken over a seemingly average town. The county of roughly 525,000 people does not offer much entertainment aside from a couple of old movie theaters, Dairy Queen, Walmart parking lots and unkempt beaches littered with pollution. The median income is just over $48,000 and only about 53 percent of citizens are in the labor force, many of which work in education, retail or fast food.

The Sheriff’s Office said there were at least 140 reported overdoses in January and February alone, which is 59 more overdoses than that same time frame in 2018. Sixty percent of those were directly related to opioids. They find it hard to keep track of how many people are truly using because the demand for drugs — specifically opioids — is so high, but Capt. Mike Jenkins of the Pasco Sheriff’s Office believes 2019 will continue seeing a rise in overdoses.

U.S. 19, the main road through Pasco County, is a hub for overdoses and drug deals. This needle was found lying a few feet off the highway, surrounded by pieces of cotton gauze and shredded latex. Photo by Li Cohen.

“I liken it sometimes to whack-a-mole. There’ll be a source of supply, we whack that one down and inevitably … there’s someone who immediately fills that gap within a short period of time and then the cycle continues,” he said.  

Even though the state and county have done a lot to combat opioid pills, he said there is still much more to do in regards to the illegal forms of opioids. “

“That solved one problem, but then that contributed to another issue. … If you do not address the demand issue something else is going to fill the void and fill the gap,” Jenkins said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

The office is also trying to handle the large number of opioid addiction cases where children are in the home. Over the past four to five months, Child Protective Investigations has had to remove 250 children from their homes because their parents or guardians were addicted to opioids, a problem that makes up 60 percent of all child removal cases in the county.

While CPI Director Ken Kilian said the department does their best to place children with family members, hundreds of children end up in foster care or staying with teachers until their parents can take them back.

“It’s not easy for a child victim who is witnessing their parents, their aunt, their uncle, suffer from this horrific disease,” Kilian said. “Addiction is extremely traumatizing and that has generational effects that we will see for years to come.”

And that trauma is expected to continue. As Kilian explained, the disease of opioid addiction is an endless cycle. The parents will continuously use, recover and relapse while the child develops behavioral and mental disorders they don’t understand and can’t control when they are at school. Then one day the parents take a dose a little too high. The child is left alone, hopeless and drained. They just watched their parents die and will have to go back to a school system the next day where the staff can’t help but mirror that same feeling.

Teachers feel more unprepared than ever

The school district is trying to help teachers by implementing Trauma Informed Care and the Harmony Project – initiatives that teach educators how to work with students and parents experiencing trauma and how to take care of themselves in dealing with that. Pasco schools social worker Danica Cockrell said being in a community that has high needs and high social deficits establishes an environment with drug use, poor mental health and a lack of communication. With the Trauma Informed Care, she hopes the schools will help teachers be prepared for what is expected to only get worse.

“It is no longer just coming to school to read, write and do math.’ We have to address and answer those social and emotional needs in order for students to be successful,” said Cockrell. I don’t think any school district will ever say that they are over-resourced or over-funded. …  We are definitely a whole child and whole family perspective – we have to be.”

But teachers in the area believe this initiative is not enough. They say there are too many students per teacher given the extent of the issues. They want more resources and support. They are struggling mentally, emotionally and physically to keep up with what is asked of them.

Despite reaching out to nearly 50 current teachers in the county, only two would agree to speak and , only on the condition of anonymity in fear of losing their jobs or worsening their situation in the classroom.

One of those teachers has been with Pasco for 13 years and works at a Title I school. She said the impact of this crisis is difficult to truly assess. Countless students do not receive their basic needs, such as stable housing, food and clothing because of their parents’ addiction, she said.

“How can you support them and tell them it will be alright when they lose their homes constantly? When there is no food, no electricity, no clothes, backpack, school supplies,” she said. “Many of us staff say constantly this feels like a mental health facility, full of emotional and behavioral needs in a place that lacks resources and personnel.”

This gap has led to a severe teacher shortage in the district. There have been 50 teaching positions posted on the district’s website since January alone. On the first day of school last August, there were 66 open positions.

Teachers say it is increasingly hard to stick around when they don’t receive cooperation from students, parents and administrators. Merchant explained that in the behavioral unit at Schrader Elementary School, only three out of seven teachers returned to their positions this year. Replacing them has not been easy, as the replacements tend to be first-year teachers or are cross-certification teachers who earned bachelor’s degrees in a different academic area and are working on getting their teaching certifications.

“I don’t know there’s a lot of teachers that see this day in, day out for years because not a lot of teachers stick around,” she said, adding that teachers tend to have emotional and mental breakdowns because of the behavioral issues they experience with students. “I would say the breakdowns are probably once every month or two. … Every day, every other day we have major incidents.”

The second anonymous teacher worked in Pasco for more than a decade and only recently moved to another district after suffering physical attacks and threats from her third-grade students. She claimed she never received adequate assistance from the school, the district or parents and the support staff was “often underqualified or spread too thin.” She, and many other teachers, she said, often left their classrooms shaking, crying, and headed to therapy or the doctor for elevated stress.

“Teachers are under severe duress and pressure due to the workload expectations that are completely and humanly impossible,” she said. “We are charged with finding differentiated lessons to meet the needs of kids who are usually two to three years below grade level.”

She went on to say that administrators won’t write referrals for bad student behavior because it impacts the school’s overall grade and can create bad press. She has personally complained of threats from her students and administrators would not document them.

“Children who are severely neglected by unfit parents do not self-regulate and reason like kids from healthy, functioning homes. … We are trying to teach kids grade level standards when they are unable to focus, disrespectful, don’t care and know an adult at home doesn’t care,” she said. “Teachers fight a battle every day and we never win.”

Students try to take control

Ashley Dew was 12 years old when she found her dad was using opioids. Despite living most of her life in Pasco County, she felt that most of the people she grew up with, including teachers and school administrators, did not know how to help her.

Her experience as a student dealing with the opioid crisis led to her becoming a teaching aide at World of Montessori School in Pasco. The 19-year-old is surrounded by despair seeing children fight the same struggles as she did. Many of her kindergarteners and first-graders suffer from behavioral and neurological disorders because of their parents’ drug abuse. Drug deals occur within feet of the school’s locked gates.

“In the classroom you have your bad students … Talking non-stop. Always having to be the center of attention,” she said. “It breaks my heart. I have two brothers in my class and I know that they go through a lot because of their father with substance misuse.”

The school does what it can to help. When students are overwhelmed – academically or personally – Dew and other teachers allows them to play with class pets, walk through a vibrant garden or have one-on-one talks with staff members. During her talks with students, Dew tries to help students cope with their parents’ situations and realize that they are not their parents’ caretakers. She, however, struggles to take her own advice and regularly chokes up when she reflects on her situation.

Dew watched her father, who she was once very close with, become a disheveled shell. Her relationship with her father became a couple of comments on Facebook and missed birthdays. There were days when she found it difficult to focus in school and on the days she needed the most help understanding her father’s choices, the school counselor did not have a spare moment to help.

“My father was never a bad person, but this drug issue changed him and changed us. … It hit me at my sweet 16. I didn’t have him come because every time I’m around him it was like talking to a stranger,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I wanted that daddy-daughter sweet 16 dance but I didn’t get it. It’s sad waking up with anxiety like am I going to get that call – is he dead or alive.”

One of the worst parts of the situation for Dew was that she felt her multiple high schools never took her situation seriously. She often felt left in the dust and it took years for her to realize that there were others going through similar situation.

“I definitely don’t feel like [schools] take it serious. It’s like ‘Oh, your dad’s just a junkie,’ and that’s not true,” she said, adding that the first time she found help was at the PACE Center for Girls. “In public school you were lucky to even get in the counselor’s office. I think I saw my counselor once. … They just don’t really care.”

While Dew hopes that her school can set a new standard for how teachers and schools as a whole approach these issues, other students in the district are trying to help students better understand what opioids are, how they impact the body and how they can impact the future of the crisis in Pasco.

Jocelyn Meriwether is only 14 years old, but when the Bayonet Point Middle schooler opens her mouth to speak about the opioid crisis, her soft and high-pitched voice becomes a megaphone. After seeing a presentation on the effects of opioids by local youth-led organization Save Teens Against Drugs (STAND), she decided to get involved and has since worked her way up to vice president of the organization.

“Kids don’t understand the effects. They think, you did it for a day and if you don’t like it you never do it again,” she said. “But it’s not that simple; you can get addicted and then it follows you because you have that need for it and that want for it.”

As part of the youth-led organization, Meriwether goes to various events and speaks at conferences in Pasco. She wants students and parents to know the signs of substance abuse so they can help those who are struggling and spread awareness about the direct and indirect effects.

“Kids will get disruptive in classes and a big thing in our school right now is fights,” she said. “Disruptions is hard because the teacher gets involved and tries and stops it. It takes away from our learning time and our education.”

Meriwether n and the other STAND members are working with state legislators to get their organization involved with more schools and change prescription opioid legislation.

A community searches for a solution

Since 2016, Pasco County schools have gained more than 3,300 new pre-k to 12th-grade students among their 96 schools, according to the school district, but only one more instructional employee. There were 601 new support employees, including secretaries, bus drivers and custodians, as well as administrators.

While the district has an overall “B” rating by the state, the majority of the schools within the district are rated a “C,” meaning they are just meeting the standard requirements for student performance, learning gains, student attendance, and standardized test results. When schools and districts have higher grades, they receive more funding from the state and more control over what they can do with that money.

“Without the funding to put people in place to do threat assessments, to respond to students’ needs, we’re not going to be able to meet our goals or meet our responsibilities under the law,” said Public Information Officer Linda Cobbe. “People don’t know what the district does as a whole but they also don’t understand what teachers do in a day. … People say you get off for the summer, you only work 8 to 3. Why should you make even what you’re making. But it’s not just standing in front of a classroom and teaching.”

Cobbe and other school administrators are continuing to implement Trauma Informed Care, as well as more programs and trainings for teachers. Police have created a system that looks at opioid addiction as an illness, rather than a crime, and now focus on helping people recover from addiction. When they execute a search warrant at a home where they know there are addicts, for example, they bring health coordinators to talk and help addicts mentally process the situation.

Even still, overdose cases are increasing, as is the burden on educators and students.

Ryalls-Clephane said smaller class sizes may help. Per state legislation, pre-k through third-grade classes should have no more than 18 students; grades four through eight should have no more than 22; and grades nine through 12 should have no more than 25.

“I work in a school with 700 students and I’m the only school counselor there,” she said. “In my fifth-grade classes I’ve got 26 kids … One or two more make a huge difference. One with behavior problems makes a huge difference.”

Dew wants schools to realize how the behavioral and mental effects of dealing with the opioid crisis truly impacts her and the hundreds of other students and teachers. There should be more counselors and staff available that are thoroughly trained to speak with and help all members of the school.

“Every teenager feels like they’re alone if they’re going through a personal issue with substance misuse,” said Dew. “It takes a big part of their self-esteem out and they may think this is how my life is so this is how I’m going to grow up.”

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