- The pandemic upended the lives of students all across the country.
- Emotional damage from the pandemic increased student misbehavior, The Washington Post reported.
- Misbehavior has especially been seen at student sporting events.
Officials across the US are reporting an uptick in student misbehavior, including at sporting events, with educators attributing the rise to stress from the pandemic, The Washington Post reported.
In Michigan, Saline High School recently announced that students would need to be accompanied by a legal guardian while attending sporting events until January 8, due to misbehavior at games.
In Zillah, Washington, Talani Oliver and her younger sister, Mia Hicks-Oliver, who are Black and play on their high school basketball team, had racist remarks hurled at them during a game, The Post reported.
The trend at sporting events comes as schools report general misconduct amongst students who are returning after months of remote learning, according to The Post. Educators told the outlet stress and emotional damage from the pandemic had led to unruly behavior, as students try to cope with the return to school.
"Sports is under the microscope … but where it's really happening is in our schools and in society. It's happening everywhere," Bob Baldwin, executive director of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, told The Post. "Number one, we haven't had structure. We haven't had routine. In some cases, a kid who was a junior in high school never really went through their full freshman year, so they don't even know the ropes on how to behave."
Schools have seen everything from a rise in minor misbehavior, like talking in class, to more serious incidents, like fights, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The National Association of School Resource Officers reported there were 97 reports of gun-related incidents across all schools between August 1 and October 1 this year, compared to just 29 in 2019, according to The Post.
Peter Faustino, a school psychologist in New York, told The Journal that in the first three months of this school year, school psychologists across the country saw around the same number of mental-health complaints and behavioral issues that they would normally see in an entire academic year.
"I think the pandemic was like an earthquake and I think we are seeing that tidal wave hit shore," Faustino, who also serves on the board of directors for the National Association of School Psychologists, told The Journal.
Frank Zenere, a school psychologist and crisis management specialist in Miami, told The Journal that the pandemic has had a bigger impact on student behavior than events like September 11.
"An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior," Zenere said. "And in that context, I think we're seeing a lot of normal reactions for what they've been through."
Schools have taken different approaches to address the issue. While some returned to remote learning following violent incidents, others, like elementary schools in Dallas, have started incorporating a 45-minute social-emotional learning session at the start of the school day, The Journal reported.