Teachers, students face new stress during COVID-19. A Columbus partnership wants to help
A teacher cries every day on the way to her Columbus school.
That’s how Muscogee County School Board member Mike Edmondson of District 2 put in perspective the stress teachers feel while trying to educate children during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the teacher broke down in front of the principal, the principal told her she was doing a good job, Edmondson said during this week’s board meeting.
“That was scarce compensation for a person who’s having to deal with both virtual and in-person instruction,” said Edmondson, a retired science teacher.
A partnership in Columbus is offering a new way to help.
Thanks to a $9,838 grant from the Coronavirus Response Fund — a joint effort between the United Way and the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley — the Muscogee County School District’s employees and students are eligible for free mental health services from the Pastoral Institute during the 2020-21 school year.
The partnership provides virtual access to licensed professionals for counseling in areas such as resiliency, grief, depression, self-care and prevention of suicide and self-harm, according to MCSD’s news release.
For students, the content features videos to help them understand mental wellness and how to cope during the pandemic. For employees, it features live interaction with the session’s host via video conference.
“The District Wellness Committee is grateful for the amazing support we have received from this partnership,” Angela Vickers-Ward, MCSD’s chief student services officer and committee chairwoman, said in the news release. “Our goal is to create safe spaces and provide equitable access to resources that would help each student and employee address his/her mental health needs.”
What stressors do teachers, students face?
MCSD started the committee after surveys of students and parents this summer indicated the need for mental health resources as the district planned its reopening of schools, offering the choice of in-person or virtual instruction. As of Oct. 16, MCSD has 53% of its 31,333 students taking in-person classes, and 69% of its 5,175 employees are based at a school.
The number of MCSD employees and students the institute’s counselors have treated has increased 10-20% since before the pandemic, according to the Rev. Tom Waynick, CEO and executive director of the Pastoral Institute.
“COVID has accentuated all the normal issues, like anxiety, depression,” he told the Ledger-Enquirer. “The CDC is telling us this is particularly high in the young people. Part of their growth is related to their socialization. Of course, they were deprived of that at the end of the school year. Then during their summer activities and now this school year, nothing looks the same.”
For school employees, Waynick said, the anxiety went from adjusting to working at home in the spring to concerns about health risks when they returned to MCSD sites in August.
“Neuroscience tells us that our sense of safety and well-being is derived through familiarity and routine, and COVID disrupts all of that,” he said. “So irritability and stress and resulting depression and anxiety, with some time, can produce post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.”
MCSD started providing the monthly online sessions for employees in August and will send parents links to the Pastoral Institute’s monthly videos for students, MCSD communications director Mercedes Parham told the Ledger-Enquirer.
MCSD continues to offer the Employee Assistance Program, which allows employees to have five in-person or telehealth sessions for free from the Pastoral Institute each year.
District 4 representative Naomi Buckner, a special-education teacher in Chattahoochee County, said during the board meeting that it’s “extremely stressful” for teachers to instruct students in-person and online at the same time.
Superintendent David Lewis told the board he appreciates “the challenges that are out there. … Our teachers are nothing short of superheroes.”
