OPINION:
In the Buckeye State, our Midwestern mentality drives us to care for our community with kindness and compassion. For many of us during the global health crisis, that meant retaining the data we heard and making local decisions that best fit our communities of different sizes and makeups.
However, these efforts were continuously derailed by overreaching executive orders from Gov. Mike DeWine, and continuing these poor practices has now allowed further harm to individuals in our communities. Even worse, it has played a large role in harming the mental health and well-being of our children and students. The virus risk for children is over 20 times lower than adults, but school closures and shutdowns affect mental health negatively and is cause for concern. It is clear the governor does not know what Ohio families need.
While it is the parent or guardian’s responsibility to raise the child, it is also the school and caregiver’s responsibility to ensure that every child, no matter the background, has the structure and community support to learn well. At a time of immense pressure across the country like today, the role our education system plays in students’ lives is even more important to their well-being. Due to strict shutdowns, this responsibility cannot be fulfilled properly.
Out-of-classroom learning alone is enough to affect a student’s growth and social abilities, but the effect on their mental health could be much more dangerous. In a 2020 COVID-19 Parental Resource Toolkit, the CDC says that challenges to children and young adults relate to changes in routine, breaks in continuity of learning, breaks in continuity of health care, missed significant life events, and lost security and safety. At such an important time in a student’s development, when she is constantly absorbing her surroundings and what she hears, these challenges are not unheard of in many American households today.
Through efforts such as Project AWARE, Ohio teachers and caregivers in schools are given the opportunity to build awareness of behavioral health issues, receive training to detect and respond to mental health challenges and crises, and gain better access to behavioral health supports. These well-rounded efforts are unique to the position of our school teachers, and when students aren’t in the classroom, the immense responsibility lies solely with the parent. Our society doesn’t have to be this way.
Strict shutdowns affect children in all situations, such as those in foster care who are hurting as they lack interaction with mandated well-being reporters and caregivers, which makes for far less opportunity to pick up on signs of abuse, neglect, behavioral changes and other indicators that are cause for concern. Suicide rates and mental illness diagnoses are on the rise in young adults in Ohio — the “new normal” set by Mr. DeWine is simply not good enough.
There was surely a time to consider approaches to keeping children safe during the pandemic, but those precautions were taken back in March. Now, these overbearing precautions have done more harm than good, and it’s time Ohio reopens and removes harsh restrictions so that we may continue to live in freedom.
When efforts are enacted through excessive executive orders — Mr. DeWine has enacted nearly 40 in 2020 alone — it prevents the state’s elected officials from making legislative changes that best serve our constituents. No policy is perfect for every community, especially when our school districts range from a total of 50,000 students to barely more than 1,000 students.
Because we are being forced to bend to policies that don’t fit our school system, our communities and our students are hurting. It’s time for us to open Ohio, remove these harsh restrictions and get our students back in school.
• Jena Powell is a Republican member of the Ohio House of Representatives and represents District 80. Follow her on Twitter @JennnnaPowell.
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