Majority of teens express anxiety/stress of returning to classroom full-time; Half want curriculum to deal with “social/emotional being” By John Zogby
As students head back to their classrooms full-time, a new poll shows that a majority (52%) of teens do not feel prepared to deal with their anxiety and stress of returning. About one in three disagree. The poll, commissioned by Navigate 360, a consultancy which offers emergency preventions and preparedness to schools, and conducted by John Zogby Strategies, reveals that those numbers have barely moved since an April 2021 poll which showed that 54% of 16–17-year-olds nationwide were “not prepared to deal with the anxiety of returning” to the classroom, while 31% say they disagree with that statement.
The new poll of 301 16–17-year-olds nationwide was conducted online on August 16, 2021 and has a margin-of-sampling error of +/-5.7 percentage points. Error margins are higher for subgroups. (For a complete statement on methodology, click here).
The new Navigate 360/Zogby Strategies Poll also shows that 50% would “want part of the curriculum to be spent learning about working on my social/emotional well-being.”
This latest poll—the fourth in a series — continues to reveal several sources of student apprehension. Among them:
Top-of-mind, 35% of the teens say they feel the “least sense of safety” in their school;
Almost three in five (58%) feel they or someone close to them will likely “encounter a violent critical incident, experience self-harm, or contact Covid-19 or another communicable disease;
Half (49%) say they personally know someone who has considered self-harm or suicide.
Students are less likely than adults to feel confident they have been provided adequate training in case of an emergency incident;
Only half (50%) are confident that their schoolmates know what to do in an emergency situation;
Only 36% believe their school leaders have the ability to identify and help fellow students thinking of self-harm;
A little over one in three (35%) believe that school leadership knows what to do in case of an emergency to ensure minimal casualties and loss of life;
Less than half (47%) believe that their schoolmates know to call and how to report an incident;
Half (50%) say that their school leadership believes that safety is and should be a high priority;
Just 37% say that their school has a comprehensive plan for safety.
Photo from DOJ
It is clear that school officials have more to deal with than Covid-19 issues. They will need to work on ensuring a sense of confidence in parents and students that school is a safe and healthy place to return. But the survey also addressed some Covid-19 related matters. It asked if the pandemic had generated any particular emotions or specific worries for them.
A sense of isolation 74%
Pent up anxiety 65%
Degradation of social skills 64%
Loss of learning 57%
Fear of social fabric coming apart 55%
Fear of being left behind 52%
Of 301 teens who responded to the question of “what keeps you up at night”, very few reported “nothing” or “none.” While many cited relationships, video/phone games or social media, and parents, 110 reported feeling anxiety, stress over school, fear of safety, family problems, or depression.
John Zogby (@TheJohnZogby) is the founder of the Zogby Poll and Zogby companies, including John Zogby Strategies, and author of We Are Many We Are One: Neo-Tribes and Tribal Analytics in the 21st Century America.
