How and Why the Pandemic Affected Washington’s Students

As Washington’s students began returning to school buildings full-time after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, school counselors noticed a range of behaviors they hadn’t seen before.

Some students struggled to socialize with their peers. Some students had a higher need for mental health supports. Some students avoided attending school. And some students were, in general, more impacted by the pandemic than others.

In the Issaquah School District, school counselor Rashi Abajian also noticed that students now have a shared experience that they can relate upon with each other.

“What we ended up with is students who now are completely calibrated a little bit differently,” she said. “We need to calibrate to where they’re at because they’re not behind. They gained a lot during that time — it just wasn’t what we traditionally would have taught.”

School counselors across Washington agree that the pandemic impacted both student learning and social-emotional well-being. While it will take time for students to fully recover, school counselors also agree that it’s already happening.

Before the pandemic

To understand the impacts of the pandemic on Washington’s students, it’s necessary to examine how students were faring before school buildings closed in March 2020.

Typical cognitive, social, and emotional development looks different for students depending on their age. Regina Brown, an elementary school counselor in the Centralia School District, said students in kindergarten through fifth grade are learning to identify their feelings, use basic self-regulation and coping strategies, advocate for themselves, and identify trusted adults.

“We want them to go to middle school with the ability to self-regulate, to get along with others in a way that is beyond just tolerating, but ideally [with] a kindness woven in there,” Brown said.

Abajian, who serves as a counselor for one of her school district’s middle schools, said students in grades 6 through 8 typically start trying on different identities, seeking independence from their caregivers, prioritizing their role in their social group, and experiencing feelings associated with anxiety and depression.

“This is a major developmental stage for students, where they’re really starting to expand their executive function skills,” Abajian said. “But for many, they’re not there yet.”

Middle school students may be experiencing new conflicts with their friends, she added.

“It’s really understandable and natural that conflict occurs, but it’s also really uncomfortable because it’s often the first social conflict,” Abajian said. “It can be really hard for students to focus on the school day if there’s conflict within their friend group.”

By high school, students are learning how to better manage conflict, function as independent learners, and plan for their future after graduation.

How the pandemic affected social and emotional development

Washington’s public schools serve students in ways beyond providing a high-quality education. They are a safe place filled with caring adults. They facilitate socialization with peers and even lifelong friendships. They offer meals, individualized supports for a variety of learners, and opportunities to get a head start on college and career goals.

While public schools continued providing all their services during the pandemic, it was not safe or feasible in every community for students to be in school buildings with teachers, staff, and friends.

Having less socializing with peers and adults has meant that more early learners are qualifying for speech support, Brown said.

“That face-to-face interaction with peers — small group, individual — was gone,” Brown said, adding that it may take longer for students to recover in their social and emotional wellbeing than in their academics.

Abajian said that middle school students who were more isolated during the pandemic are still struggling to adapt back to regular life.

“I’ve noticed that our eighth-grade class — they never had a transition to middle school, and it almost feels like they [have] a really unique culture to their own graduating class, of having jumped into their seventh-grade year having missed all that middle school onboarding and being highly impacted by externalizing behaviors,” Abajian said.

Those “externalizing behaviors” include actions like yelling or walking out of class, which Abajian said increased substantially as students returned to school buildings full-time.

Elizabeth Benitez, a high school counselor at Federal Way Public Schools, also observed externalizing behaviors amongst the students she serves — namely, an overuse of technology which often leads to disciplinary actions.

She also saw some students attach a stigma to seeking out counseling, despite the anxiety that was present for many students.

“I noticed a huge need for mental health access,” Benitez said.

These impacts on student behaviors and mental health have an impact on student academic performance.

How the pandemic affected academics

As Brown explained, the body’s systems need to be in a state of relaxation to learn and retain information. That relaxed state was more challenging for students to achieve during the stresses of the pandemic.

“Learning happens when we have access to our prefrontal cortex,” she said. “Then we have a brain that’s ready to go and learn, and also a brain that’s curious, and also a brain that can show empathy.”

Because it will take time for students to return to the levels of wellbeing they had before the pandemic, Brown said it will also take time to rebuild in academics.

She makes it clear, though, that “learning loss” doesn’t accurately describe the pandemic’s effects on student academic achievement.

“They have the learning they already had,” Brown said.

Online teaching and learning presented challenges for both teachers and students. While it was harder for teachers to gauge student comprehension, it was also more challenging for students to engage.

Benitez said engaging was especially challenging if students encountered any problems with their technology. Abajian noted, though, that online learning was a good fit for some students.

“Everybody did their best and it was really hard,” Abajian said. “I’ve heard that some students really enjoyed that format and liked learning independently.”

She also emphasized that social and emotional wellbeing are not necessarily predictors of any student’s academic abilities.

“Our students who are experiencing high levels of anxiety, or who are significantly depressed, or who are experiencing other mental health impacts, are struggling with being able to access their learning,” Abajian said. “With that said, there are some students who do have disabilities or impacts on mental health who are highly dedicated to school, who are thriving. … To say that if a student has a diagnosis, that they are flailing — that’s not necessarily the case.”

Coming up next

The pandemic affected all areas of students’ lives. After lacking access to opportunities to socialize, some students are struggling with in-person instruction, resulting in behaviors that may lead to disciplinary actions. And though some students thrived in an online learning environment, others had a hard time engaging.

Recovering fully from the stresses of living and learning during a pandemic will take time. In the second part of this story, learn what schools are doing to support students’ recovery and what families can do to support their students.

Stay tuned to OSPI’s social media channels for the next part of this story.

This story was written by Chelsea Embree, Director of Publications and Engagement Strategy at OSPI. You can contact the Communications Team at commteam@k12.wa.us.