It’s been tough to keep up with the ever-changing COVID-19 guidelines, metrics, and goalposts from local, state, and federal governments — especially for our students. Across the country, children have been pulled out of their classrooms and placed online. Children who already struggled to speak up or keep up struggled further, rates of depression and anxiety skyrocketed in a group that should otherwise be healthy and resilient, and tragic suicides occurred. These are unacceptable consequences of a reaction to a virus that, by and large, poses little risk to them.

We cannot continue to allow our response to the pandemic cause more harm to our children than COVID-19 itself.