'COVID generation' students are clamoring for more support

In the six years since the spread of COVID-19 shut down our schools, our educational system has experienced rapid changes. But the one stubborn constant has been that the "COVID generation" continues to run up against hurdles, even if those outside our schools believe we've returned to business as usual.

Spending formative years moving in and out of remote learning due to the pandemic resulted in learning losses felt most acutely in high-poverty and minority school districts, which are already at a disadvantage when it comes to educational outcomes. Catch-up is not simply a matter of holding extra test prep or providing tutors to help with homework. It's also about supportive services, counseling and even simpler, informal educator-to-student connections that non-educators often under-recognize as essential.

While providing these supports is critical in the K-12 environment I work in, the needs for this generation aren't disappearing as they cross the stage at graduation. Wraparound supports must continue into college if we expect young people to thrive in an environment that by design is far more self-structured and self-guided.

I know this well because I'm a product of those supports.

As a student at Stony Brook University in the late '90s and early 2000s, I came from a disadvantaged background compared with my peers. Despite my love of learning, my high school counselor in Jamaica, Queens, tried pointing me toward the trades rather than college because our environment simply wasn't one where higher education was the common path forward after graduation — for those who even graduated. Being able to afford tuition was a constant source of stress, but I was determined that I would become the first in my family to earn a college degree.

If not for Stony Brook's Educational Opportunity Program, and both the financial aid and support network I was able to access through it, becoming an educator would remain simply a dream of mine, not my lifelong career. It was through my work as a tutor to my fellow EOP students that I first fell in love with teaching — and, more than that, uplifting the people around me.

I cried when, with the ink barely dry on my degree, I landed my first job in the Brentwood Union Free School District, where I've been ever since. I've never forgotten the $36,086 I earned as a starting salary, which was more money than any member of my family ever made.

That is the power of a truly supportive education. And no student should have to go without it.

The challenge is that the need for programs like EOP is rapidly outpacing available support. Enrollment is up 21% in the past three years across the State University of New York system, data show. Yet the increase in state funding to support that explosion in need is just 3% in the same span.

The data could not be clearer: The students with the highest levels of need even years after a generation-defining crisis are clamoring for both financial and educational support — and we're at risk of quite literally shortchanging them.

I have seen throughout my career the clear outcomes that result when the right resources are there for students who need extra support to overcome educational barriers and develop into the people they know they can be. State lawmakers must step up to ensure this generation is prepared to access and complete an education that best positions them to contribute for their families and communities.

This guest essay reflects the views of Bergre Escorbores, the principal of East Middle School in Brentwood.